Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2008 - 21

creates different kinds of opportunities and challenges for designers.
Another aspect of intent is the degree of realism or stylization required to tell the story. "The more effectively rendered
the illusion, the more passive the role of the viewer," explains
author and comics artist Tony Caputo. "Does the viewer lean
forward, or lean backwards?" (Caputo p 31). "People tend to
believe what they see with a camera more than what they see
on the stage," says Bob Vukasovich, summing up television design parameters. "We've been programmed to believe anything
on camera must be real, no matter how fantastic the story or
environment, so the design choices are more speciﬁc. You are
bogged down by the need for realism."
Joel Goodsell interprets stylization for video games this
way: "Technology now allows us to determine what art style we
want to wrap the interaction in. Most times, games shy away
from being realistic looking to some degree. Even games that
could be realistic intentionally choose not to, as it helps with
the suspension of disbelief when your character is already
performing outrageous acts. The game visually matches the
exaggeration of action." One example of this stylization can
be seen in the concept drawings for Lionhead Studios' Fable
2, the sequel to its award-winning action adventure game (see
ﬁgs. 2 and 3). The stylized Hero character mixes contemporary
items of dress, such as motocross shin guards, with mythical
Renaissance intent and physical exaggeration of the human
form. (As a player, I look forward to the opportunity to kick
something with those lethal looking feet.) The concept sketch
of "The Dark Entrance" illustrates the physical environment,
with looming dark clouds foreshadowing that the player is in
for a bumpy journey down the path. This overall picture is very
different from the Camelot world that also combined contemporary with period elements, exaggeration of the human form,
and a non-realistic environment. Fable 2 lures the gamer into
a detailed, menacing world where even inanimate objects may
spring to life. Camelot invites the audience to relax and enjoy
some singing-it would never occur to anyone that the cathedral window might explode with evil gremlins during the second act.
One notable exception to the video game preference for
exaggeration and stylization is America's Army, a near-realistic
simulation game developed as a military recruiting tool. This
game, which bills itself as "the only game based on the real
experiences of real U.S. army soldiers," has, interestingly, been
accused of being thinly-veiled propaganda. (To view a very
short clip of this game, visit www.americasarmy.com.)
Stylization in video games also sets them apart from the
popular action ﬁlm genre that does combine outrageous events
with a masterful illusion of reality. This combination consciously
creates a passive audience. Movie theater managements would
be horriﬁed if patrons were motivated to act out the violence
depicted on the screen on the people sitting around them. Action ﬁlms, however, increasingly incorporate familiar video
game tropes. An excellent example is a sequence in the recent

THEATRE

DESIGN

TECHNOLOGY

W I N T E R

release Live Free or Die Hard culminating in Bruce Willis maneuvering a car into a mid-air to crash with a helicopter. When
I saw this ﬁlm in my local theater, the orgy of action caused a
fellow audience member to shout out loud "Wow, that's just
like a video game!" No accident. Producers plan to sell the Die
Hard brand in multiple formats-theatrical-release feature
ﬁlm, DVD, sound track CD, cell phone ring tones, and, yes, a
video game. Increasingly, entertainment design has to be aware
of how its content-costumes, sets, lighting, sound-will be
re-purposed across multiple platforms.
The second "designer's eye," the story-telling technique of
IMMERSION, encompasses the audience's ability to lose itself in
the story. In live performance, ﬁlm, and television stories happen to people with whom we identify in second or third person narratives. Video games and themed entertainment create
direct, ﬁrst person experiences for their audience. No matter
the medium, the audience must be so engaged in the story they
choose to ignore evidence of reality surrounding them such as
fellow opera patrons coughing loudly or the family dog jumping
on the sofa during complex game play.
Designers create audience immersion through clarity and
emotional response. Clarity is the sum of many design choices-supporting the facts of a scene, deﬁning character, aiding
audience recognition, obeying story logic, and continuity. "Clarity is your JOB" one designer after another stated emphatically,
agreeing that in many cases this is the largest contribution they
make. Even if the scene is ambiguous, design decisions must
decisively communicate that ambiguity. Poor choices compromise the story world, pulling the audience back to reality at
unintended times.
The designers interviewed for this article weighted emotional response a very close second to clarity in creating immersion. "As viewers, we tend to respond to design imagery at
an emotional rather than an intellectual level...It is no coincidence that ﬁlms and television programs from the genres of
period drama and fantasy tend to receive most of the awards
for costume and production design" (Britton 2003, 11). The
degree of emotion appropriate for each story is governed by
intent, but failure to evoke emotions is a failure to appeal to
human psychology. Emotional appeal is a broad category-
rousing story emotion in the viewer such as anger or anxiety,
persuading the viewer to admire a particular character or
actor, or even making audience members feel good about
themselves.
Marilyn Vance, Oscar-nominated costume designer for
many ﬁlms, including The Untouchables and Pretty Woman,
explains: "For the costume designer, everything in life is psychological presentation. We all express ourselves through what
we wear." But this personal expression is tempered with a hefty
amount of illusion, she explains: "You have to know how to
make somebody look great. Many actors have real ﬁgure problems. Some actors, like Bruce Willis, are short in the leg and
longer in the body. What I do with him is make a higher rise on
his pants to reduce the amount of his trunk, giving him a feeling

2008

http://www.americasarmy.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2008