Written by Anthony Watkins

In their films, directors and cinematographers have numerous types of shots to use to fuel their creative vision, from stationary close-ups to long shots to dolly shots to even more complex shots like the dolly zoom. One of the more popular types of shot that is typically only used in higher budget films is the aerial shot. As the name suggests, this type of shot is taken from the sky, usually focused on an object or person on the ground. The aerial shot can function in a number of ways. It can follow action such as a duel or a car chase or function as a method of showcasing the environment of characters, such as the surface of Mars in The Martian (Scott, 2015). It can even be used simply as a way of communicating the futility of certain action such as two isolated characters fighting, as in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014).

In this shot from Interstellar (2014), two characters are fighting, but the futility of their quarrel and corresponding isolation is revealed through the aerial shot. 

Long aerial shots, such as this shot from The Martian (Scott, 2015) serves to provide viewers with a breathtaking, but desolate view of Matt Damon's environment on Mars.

Whatever the motivation for its use, the aerial shot is a powerful tool that, unfortunately, is usually limited to use in Hollywood productions due to the expense of using a helicopter or plane and the subsequent complex rigging of the camera. However, in recent years the development of drones have allowed filmmakers to reach new, less expensive heights in their quest for aerial shots. Drones are unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft that are significantly cheaper and more agile than full-size flying machines like helicopters. A drone and camera crew can be as cheap as $5,000 a day, compared to at least $25,000 per day for the use of helicopters (Verrier, par. 4). 

Film experts say that the continued use and future use of drones has the potential to open up new possibilities in filmmaking in much the same fashion as lightweight cameras did in the 1960s and the Steadicam in the 1970s. “Drones are like a Steadicam that can operate 200 feet up in the air…it’s an entirely new vernacular in the language of filmmaking,” according to Michael Chambliss of the International Cinematographers Guild (Verrier, par. 10). Indeed, a key feature of drones is not only their ability to fly and maneuver in tight spaces, but also that they provide stability in the air. 

An example of a recent drone is the Omcopter, which is the first drone able to anchor the highly-regarded Red Epic camera (The same camera used in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy as well as in recent Messiah productions including Thornbird  and Oak Bones). The Red Epic, a digital cinema camera possessing a dynamic range of 18 f-stops and able to record resolutions up to 5K and a frame rate of 300 frames per second, is unsurprisingly a highly-sought after hot-piece in the filmmaking world. The development of the Omcopter drone has allowed filmmakers to expand the Red’s cinematic capabilities by shooting elegantly from hundreds of feet in the air, providing highly stable shots for filmmakers and audiences. Peter Jackson himself even used the drone in the filming of The Hobbit (2012). 

Check out the video above to see the Omcopter in action.

The video above demonstrates the true potential of the Omcopter's capabilities, as a scene involving ninjas is filmed from the Omcopter.

Despite the many benefits that drones provide, there are inevitable limitations. Some of these include winds and speed of the drone. High winds will make the omcopter less stable and more difficult to control. Also, helicopters are able to achieve much higher speeds than the omcopter or other drones, so some action sequences such as car chases are impossible with a remote-controlled drone. Also, as you may have noticed in the Ninja video, the drone gives itself away when shooting close to the ground---either by blowing dust from the ground or moving blades of grass (see 1:22 or 1:32), so the operator needs to be careful to avoid these possible giveaways. Nevertheless, the omcopter and drones in general help bypass the limitations of cranes or steadicams by providing stable aerial shots. It will be very interesting to see the increasing development of drones in the coming years, and how filmmakers will implement the use of drones and what types of shots they create for their films.
 
 
WORKS CITED
 
Verrier, Richard. “Drones are providing film and TV viewers a new perspective on the
action.” LA Times. 8 Oct. 2015. 25 Apr. 2016. Web. <http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-drones-hollywood-20151008-story.html>.

By Emmanuel Gundran

Filmmakers have been making video game-based films like Super Mario Bros. (Morton & Jenkel 1993) and Warcraft (Jones 2016) that try to condense the story of the game into an hour and a half to two hour film. However, to turn things around, game designers have been making movie-based video games out of movies like Spider-Man 2 (Activision 2004) that expand the world and story of the movie out into a multiple level experience. It's a challenge to adapt films into video games as much as it is to adapt video games into films, as one is taking a form of non-interactive media and allowing players to interact with its story and characters. There also is the fact that in order to give the player a more substantial experience the game needs to last more than two hours. Therefore, game designers will extend a scene from the film with more level content or add a new scene entirely that still contributes to the story. These attempts to bring films into gaming have had varying amounts of success over the years.

One of the most respected movie-based games these days is the video game adaptation of Spider-Man 2 (Activision 2004). The game, according to players, perfected the superhero's trademark web-slinging action more than any other Spider-Man game before or after it. The game sticks mostly to the plot of Spider-Man 2 (Raimi 2004): Peter Parker, after the events of Spider-Man (Raimi 2001), continues his ongoing struggle with his powers while Dr. Otto Octavius is builds four mechanical arms that can harness high concentrations of solar energy. However, when an experiment goes haywire, causes damage to the mechanical arms, and kills his wife Rosy, Dr. Octavius goes on a crime spree to steal money to repair his machine and it's up to Spider-Man to stop him before his invention destroys all of New York. The plot of the film is concise and straight-forward, so the video game adaptation needs to expand the film's story and add extra events to give the player a more substantial experience. Spider-Man villains present in the comics but not in the original film such as Mysterio, a former magician turned bad guy, and Black Cat, a Catwoman-like thief, fill in as end-level bosses for original levels in the game. 

A more modern example of movie-based games that have proven quite successful are the Lego series of games headed by Traveller's Tales. The Lego games have covered many different themes including but not limited to Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Avengers. Because of the audience of Lego toys being for children, these adaptations of these famous movie franchises, some of them including more mature themes, were toned down to suit children's interests. More comedy, like visual gags and slapstick humor, is included to lighten the mood of the films from which the games are based on. For example, the climactic confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner 1980) where Vader reveals he is Luke's father is made a little more kid-friendly, with Darth Vader pulling out a photograph of himself (as Anakin Skywalker) and his wife Padme posing as if they were in a family photo. Of course, like the case with Spider-Man 2 (Activision 2004), the Lego games utilize creative methods of expanding the stories of the original films with more levels and/or more villains to fight. Lego Marvel's The Avengers (Traveller's Tales 2015) puts together scenes from not only the two Avengers films by Joss Whedon but also compiles some sequences from Iron Man 3 (Black 2013), Thor: The Dark World (Taylor 2013), and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Russo 2014).

While there are designers that take the time and patience to craft video games that are not only overall similar to the movies that they are trying to evoke but also unique experiences with their own content, there are also those who rush games into production to cash in on the success of the films. Though there are plenty of video games based on movies ranging from Charlie's Angels (MCG 2000) to Iron Man (Favreau 2007), perhaps the most infamous example of a bad movie-based game is E.T. for the Atari 2600. From the stiff controls, to the confusing and repetitive gameplay, and to the game's thin resemblance to the film, this game is so infamous that it's widely considered to be a main factor in the Video Game Crash of 1983. According to IGN, "about four million copies of the E.T. video game were shipped, and according to Atari's then-CEO Ray Kassar, about 3.5 million of those copies were returned to Atari." The game was a huge loss for Atari, as they spent so many millions of dollars on the property rights alone and rushed the game out without any quality testing to sell it during the holiday season of 1982. 

Even with the failures that come with movie-based video games, there are still a number of successes that demonstrate the unique experiences that these games are from their respective movies. These kinds of games follow the main story of their films while also adding their own twists to not only make the gaming experience more substantial but also to allow game designers to write their own subplots to make the pre-established world seem just a little bigger to the player.

Sources Cited:

Oxford, Nadia. "Ten Facts About The Great Video Game Crash of '83." IGN. 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. ​http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/09/21/ten-facts-about-the-great-video-game-crash-of-83