Screen share and remote control and Zoom has been a life-saver for me to just jump in and change things around.
It’s almost like a Crystal Maze kind of quiz where it’s so frustrating because you’re trying to direct people and tell people how to do this but you’re talking to someone who’s never used this kind of software before. So it’s sort of like someone just cutting a cord. Then, from a tech perspective, I then have to run a tech test and make sure their mics are working, their lighting is all set up, the cameras are working, because they have to run everything for me, because I’m not in that room. So I work with the actors beforehand because myself and Zara (Coombes, producer at NotGames) to make sure they’ve got all of their kit arrived and their costumes arrived and stuff, set up the shot. But for the filming, I mean, it’s just a whole new system. JF: And it’s horribly early now because we’re in shoot.ĭS: So the morning meeting happens before the shoot, which are happening at 9, 9: 30, so we’re having the 8, 8:30 meeting where we just kind of try to touch base with what everyone’s done for the day, what’s happening tomorrow, so we still try and keep that structure in terms of the meetings. So how has it changed overall, is there less routine, less structure?ĭS: What we do now is–because we’re in the shooting phase now remotely, what we tend to do is we’ll just have the morning meeting but now over Skype or Zoom– Those that wanted to work later start at 11 and work through the evening and other people started working at 8 and finishing at 4, so-ĭS: Yeah, but we’ve always got that crossover so that everyone is communicating and that worked very well, but, of course, shifting into quarantine, that completely disappeared.
I just wondered if you could talk me through your regular routine before “The Event”.ĭenis Sewell: The normal routine obviously we had an office–ĭenis Sewell: We used to have morning meetings in the office in person, so we’d all kind of gather, and we’d basically set like a rule for the working day, so you could work any time throughout the working day, but everyone has to be in the office between the hours of sort of 11 and 4, so that we had that sort of crossover.
Check out the abridged transcript below and then the full interview at the video above. Read on as we discuss remote shooting, what’s to come, and how they are making it all work. I had the opportunity to chat to Denis Sewell and Jay Farley of NotGames, who are currently developing Not For Broadcast, a satirical FMV game set at a news station that is oddly prevalent right now.
There have been some delays for the biggest games, but the effects of lockdown haven’t been that pronounced just yet.īut what if you are an indie developer with an FMV game currently in Early Access? How do you get actors to work together in isolation? How do you keep a whole production going? A lot of developers are working from home, AAA titles having the budget and huge structures to make it feasible. Game development, meanwhile, is faring a little better. With so many countries in lockdown, shops aren’t opening, McDonald’s isn’t selling its greasy air, and movies aren’t getting made.