American Cinematographer - April 1995 - 40

An Interview with Gloriana
AC: How

drawn to
Movies of the Fu¬

were

your work on
ture?

you

Davenport: I'm a former
artist. I used video in my art
work. I got a Portapak in 1969
and then realized that anybody
could be Walter Cronkite. I met

(documentary filmmaker) Rich¬

Davenport

And the final filter

for inter¬
to de¬

termine the

problems with most conventional
interactive experiences is they are
one-on-one. You can
go into an

that have

arcade with lots of video games
and lots of people are running
around screaming, but every¬

was

action. It allowed the

user

rating - PG or R.
We've gone beyond fil¬
ters because we've built systems
more

knowledge of

content. But where we are mov¬

ing is to a system that has actual
knowledge of the characters. For

ard Leacock several years later
when I was doing documenta¬
ries. It

was

verite and I

the

body is playing their own game.
When we go to movie theaters we
can sit next to
somebody and re¬
ally laugh. We
laugh in part

of cinema

era

because the
film is funny
but we also

totally excited
Ricky was creating sto¬

because

was

ries from life that

were

stories in the movies. I

like the
came

laugh in part

to

because

people sitting

Section and stayed until he re¬
tired in 1988. At that point I was

around

put on the faculty here.

that's trans¬
lated
into

Machine

Group under the direc¬

today's media
through net¬

tion of Nicholas Negroponte began

is

working with videodisc players.
We at the Film Section helped
them work

on

an

interactive

photorealistic map of Aspen.
Ricky shot some mini movies for
the project: people in stores, the
police chief, that sort of thing.
And we helped edit these into 30second mini-movies.
The first notion of

a

story

engine came in 1990.1 had worked
before with databases, and I
wanted to drive a database from
a

story engine. The first project

was

called "An Endless Conver¬

sation." It was made by Ryan
Evans and Mark Halliday. It
came about because one of our

sponsors wanted to build a game
that would teach people about
insurance. So we had to have an

engine to drive little bits and
pieces of the story. Back then the
engine was comprised of filters.
The

clips

were

Quicktime

mov¬

ies.
Four filters

were

used.

One, called the template filter,
insured that the story's structure
was

maintained. The second filter

Gloriana
case

Davenport,
example, in the
of a documentary we are

doing on urban planning, we
have politicians as characters and
have workers as characters.
We know that politicians and
workers - while they may think
we

in

opposition or they may think
similarly - don't tend to get at it
right away. There is a social sepa¬
ration that happens which re¬
flects organizational structure
and the language game. We will
use

software to orchestrate when

to use

political speak as narration

and when to

use

it

as

character

position, for instance.

work connec¬
tions. If I can
talk with my
friend while I'm immersed in an
interactive experience and my
friend is also immersed in the same

experience, then we start to get a
social connectivity which is very
important.
Your concepts of new
movies are radically different
from anything done to date. Do
you see traditional filmmakers
using this technology or is this
going to be the domain of a new
generation?
Davenport: On the tool
side, we've had writers
here and look at
ware

Is it fair to say

some

and get pretty

come

of the soft¬

excited. Same

that most
of your new movie forms en¬
courage audience members to
participate in the experience?
Davenport: Yes. Partici¬
patory. A really good word. In all

with directors. And

these kinds of movies the issue is
how participatory the audience is.

generation grew up on video
games. One of the reasons you

What about the issue of

isolation: in most of these

new

insured

continuity. The third was
stylistic filter. It insured that
cinematic style, in this case pac¬
ing, was maintained shot to shot.

story forms, aren't people sitting

a

alone in front of

American

April 1995

Cinematographer

us are

laughing. How

In 1979 the Architecture

38

the

MIT to work for him at the Film

a

computer

we encour¬

age film professionals to visit us
and explore ways for collabora¬
tion. But,

absolutely, this will be

used mainly by a new generation,
for lots of reasons. The younger

see

the

careers

of brilliant 30-

year-olds take off is that they not
only have the skill set but the sen¬
sibility of their generation. Their
generation.

audience is their

screen?

Davenport: One of the

-

FB
American Cinematographer - April 1995

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 1995
