Interview: How #WarGames Is Challenging Conventions of Interactive Media
The popular 80's film WarGames is being adapted into an interesting modern interactive experience [...]
Jess Nurse: Exploring Kelly Grant and the interactive entertainment medium:
Jess Nurse, who plays Kelly Grant in #WarGames, has had an incredible career thus far but it looks like she's definitely looking to get in on the video game beat as well! We spoke with her about what it meant to play Kelly, how this interactive project compares to the original film, and what might be on the horizon for Miss Nurse.
You have a diverse background with your acting career so far. What inspired you when playing Kelly Grant? Did you use any previous characters as a foundation, or was Kelly a totally new voice and persona?
Nurse: "Kelly felt very different than any other character I've played. She's just so gutsy and leads with so much passion. I did a lot of research on military families and women in the military. I did a deep dive into the world of hacking and found so much in the activists who live in that world. The script has such a rich backstory for Kelly and fleshing that out really helped me find who she was. So much so that the night before filming I was rapid-fire emailing with the Hair/Makeup/Costume team and Sam, saying "I think she needs edgier hair than me. I think we need to shave the side of her head." And everyone was one board. And we just did it! On set, twenty minutes before filming started. I think that was the last thing that really locked her into place for me. She's bold and impulsive and straddles a really lovely line between her feminine and masculine sides. "
What was it like working in this grey medium, where it's not quite a television series and not quite a game? What was the most challenging part about this project? Could you tell us what you found most rewarding?
Nurse: "I needed maps upon maps for this role! With some scenes in #wargames there are as many as six different versions of how that scene can play out. So I think one of the biggest challenges was making sure that there was a through line for Kelly. That even if, through the interactivity, her behavior changes, I had to make sure it always made sense and that it tracked with what happened before and what would come after and who she is at her core.
What is kind of cool about this medium for an actor, is that with a regular television show the writers have to limit and craft which scenes they give to which relationships and edit what parts of the character we see. With this medium, we were able to film all of the scenes that a writer could come up with for the story. Nothing had to be left out. I think a great example is a moment in Episode Three (Room Service). Kelly is feeling a lot of things and she chooses to call someone. Who she calls is entirely dependent on how the viewer has been watching the show so far. And what emotional state she's in is a combination of who she's talking to and what she's done in the previous episodes. So as an actor, I get to really follow-through with an array of choices that Kelly could make. And all of them inform who she is to me. And on any given day, if you take out your phone to talk to someone, you could call anyone and that interaction can change everything. I really love that aspect of the show."
Jess Nurse discusses video game roles and just how this compares to the original film:
Were you a fan of the original film? How did the source material inspire you when adapting that narrative into a more modern setting?
Nurse: "I actually hadn't seen the movie until I got cast! When I was auditioning, I wasn't even told this was a reboot. When I found out, I rented it that night. I loved the movie and this idea that the way things are "done", the "status quo" can be interrupted by a young person with abilities. That's such a compelling narrative and a really strong similarity between the core motivations of Kelly and David (Broderick.) I think there's a reason the original War Games is such a cult classic. It was a rallying call in some ways to a generation that was learning the language of the internet and how much power there is in that tool."
Would you be interested in working in interactive media in the future?
Nurse: "I 100% want to work in this medium again. It's such a challenge, but theres so much freedom in it to explore. I also think we're embarking on such new territory and it was an incredible learning process. I just want to bring everything I learned to set again!"
Would you ever consider a role in a full-fledged video game? If so, what series are you most partial to?
"Yes! Get me on a video game! It's funny because when I was preparing for the role, I actually spoke with a few of my friends who had worked in the video game world. In some ways it's a similar process of mapping your character's journey. I wish I was more versed in that world, but certainly playing Kelly opened my eyes to the HUGE universe that is gaming. Fans in the gaming world are some of the coolest fans out there."
Sam Barlow, #WarGames creator:
Sam Barlow is the mind behind the #WarGames project but this definitely wasn't his first interactive experience. Best known for his incredible work with Her Story, the interactive medium is definitely an incredibly underutilized avenue that is most assuredly in Barlow's wheelhouse. Being a huge fan of the crime-driven drama that was Her Story, I couldn't wait to see what he had to offer with #WarGames and it definitely didn't disappoint.
We spoke with him about his work with Silent Hill, more about the creation of the interactive experience, and what he has planned for the future! He even clued us in on what his next big project is: Telling Lies!
Sam Barlow: Silent Hill, #WarGames, and what's next!
Her Story was phenomenally realistic and immersive. Feeling a genuine connection with the setting and the time period was incredible. Many, including myself, hailed it as revolutionary. Aside from the interactive perspective tied to Her Story, what other parallels did you draw from when creating #WarGames?
Barlow: "I think one of the things that I loved about the reaction to Her Story was that people found it created a kind of intimacy -- the combination of the interactivity, the live action performance and the format gave a sense of Viva's character being real and being in a dialogue with the player. And with #WarGames we wanted to try and evoke the idea of friends hanging out online, make it feel like you were a silent participant in their chats -- which is another kind of intimacy. You can probably draw a connection between how Her Story in some ways 'hacked' the idea of the Google Search as its mechanic and here we're making use of the metaphor of the video chat to give us our interface."
What drew you to the story of the original WarGames film? What inspired you to bring it into this generation, and choose to make it an interactive experience?
Barlow: "As a kid, the movie was a huge piece of wish fulfillment to me, but going back what I really latched onto were the themes. The sense of generational conflict between the naive teens and their parent's generation who had created the Cold War and felt they could somehow calculate their way to a perfect solution -- when in actuality it was a silly game they were playing, like Tic Tac Toe. And I loved that Broderick, as the original hacker protagonist, was such a likable, outgoing and amusing character -- that matched my sense of the modern hackers much more than some of the more tortured and introverted hackers we often see depicted. That scene is social and full of humor. I feel like Broderick represented that, and we wanted to try and put that on screen again. And the interactivity really for me was a way to tell this story -- how do you tell the story of a group of people who are all in different countries, have never met and spend most of their time sat in front of a computer? The format allowed us to explore that and do things you couldn't in a conventionally shot TV show."
As a huge fan of your work on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Origins, what aspects of your previous works did you bring into this current project?
Barlow: "Shattered Memories was a big influence. In that game we explored the idea of invisible branches that the game chooses to take based on its analysis of the player through their behavior. That was something we wanted to explore further here -- the idea of a personalized and dynamic narrative where it's not these explicit choices that determine how things change but everything you've been doing unconsciously. It was also an example of where I was working on an existing franchise but I didn't want to bolt onto someone else's story (as we'd been kinda of forced to do on 'origins) so instead we created our own story that was a reaction to, and our riff on the original. That feels much more honest!"
Would you like to continue exploring this form of interactive entertainment in the future? What would be your dream project?
Barlow: "Yeah, I'm fascinated by the idea of using technology to create these more subjective and personal experiences -- and there's a lot more to be explored with how we can incorporate filmed performance into interactive experiences. I've been pretty lucky -- a lot of the projects I've worked on have been dream projects and so the real dream is that I get to keep doing this stuff!"
Are there any video game franchises out there that you would love to work with? What else are you currently working on that we can look forward to?
Barlow: "That's a hard question -- Silent Hill was pretty much top of my list and as much as there's definitely other ideas I have there, I kinda of got my shot! I do have a very cool idea sketched out for Metroid, but I'm happy to leave that one in the hands of Nintendo -- they're pretty good at these things!"
Next from me is Telling Lies. This is a big project that takes some of the concepts of Her Story and goes further, much further in several directions. In many ways it's the most ambitious thing I've worked on and so it's going to be exciting to see if I can pull it off! Watch this space!
New to interactive media? Here are some tips!
The "series that watches you" may be a little daunting for some. It's a new experience and there are a lot of elements that go into projects like this. Because of this, here are a few helpful tips on how to dive right into the world of #WarGames:
So what exactly does an interactive experience entail? At first glance, it's all very simple. Point a mouse, click the mouse, but with this - it goes so much deeper than that. There are numerous amount of screens and monitors for participants to choose from. This offers several perspectives to the narrative, and not all of them are eye to eye. Click on the feed you want to watch and enjoy the ride. A word of caution, however. Your choices will have consequences. Each feed has a lesson, each feed has a choice.
The way #WarGames progresses is it builds a sort of "grid" to learn what the viewer sees the Hacktivist, and protagonist, Kelly as. Effectively, your choices determines who exactly she is in the grand scheme of things. Though it may not be an obnoxious show of "your choices matter," every focus point throughout the episodes builds upon the tactile choices made. Your preferences will matter and will tailor the story specifically to you.
#WarGames is live now for Steam, iOS, and Vudu.
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