Privateer 2 Script Writer Making Convention Appearances (August 25, 2006)

[ChrisReid]

Diane Duane, the famous science fiction novelist, has a noteworthy game to her credit that's been in the news quite a bit recently. Erin Roberts and company wrote the basic premise for Privateer 2, but Ms. Duane filled in the actual script. Although we haven't heard from her in a little while, she visited the alt.games.wing-commander newsgroup and interacted with P2 players when the game launched. Wing Commander fans have another chance to meet her at a variety of upcoming science fiction conventions. We just missed her at the Discworld Convention in Leicestershire, England, but she is now moving to the US. Here are her next appearances.

• LACon IV, the 64th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), Anaheim, CA, USA: 23-27 August 2006.
• CopperCon 26, Tempe, Arizona, USA: September 1-5, 2006: as co-Writer Guest of Honor (with Peter Morwood).
• Fargo Fantasy Festival, Fargo, ND, USA: October 13-15, 2006: as co-Writer Guest of Honor (with Peter Morwood).
• Nippon 2007, the 65th World Science Fiction Convention / 46th Japan Science Fiction Convention, Yokohama, Japan, August 30 - September 3, 2007.

AD dug up this article that also detail's Diane's involvement in the project. The article is also a good piece on Clive Owen's thoughts on the script.

"Emotion" is the key to reaching a wider audience, Roberts believes, and the only way to have people emotionally and interactively involved is to give them characters they care about and some kind of say in what happens to them. That means bringing in experienced writers, directors and actors.

With The Darkening, the basic story and setting were devised by Roberts and his team, and then a script was commissioned from Diane (Duane), a US television writer for such shows as Star Trek: The Next Generation. Roberts then approached Steve Hilliker, a young British director with experience in pop videos and television, to direct the live action sequences. Hilliker was sceptical. "I told them that I didn't know anything about computer games but they loved that because they thought I could bring them something they wouldn't get from within the games world." They sent him (Duane's) monster 500-page script (a normal film script runs to about 120 pages). "When I read it I was totally confused I had never seen a script that had choices before."

He had to read it twice more before he understood that the concept was a variation on the standard alternative endings approach that most interactive narrative projects seem to follow (see Narrative Futures, right). With The Darkening, the viewer decides what Lev Arris does, but there is only one ending to the story. The aim of the game is to reach that conclusion. It takes a long time to reach it because there are dozens of subplots like branches off the main trunk of a tree. These subplots are to do with the strategy element of the game Arris has to earn money to afford to travel and follow up the clues to his identity. Along the way, he has to fight the people out to kill him. In effect, The Darkening is a weird cross-breed between a film, a strategy game and what the games industry calls a "shoot 'em up".

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Original update published on August 25, 2006

 

[AD]

The choices you make dictate the shape of the film. Once Hilliker had seen the light, he knew what to do with the story. "It is about one man's search for his identity, which is a classic film-noir plot, a 1940s kind of thing and not really science fiction so I decided to give it that look even though it takes place in the future."

I thought that that statement from the article was quite interesting. I always wondered why they chose the look they did for the film shoot.

 

[Don]

The article was quite interesting. Explaining the why and how over the style of P2 and such, the casting decisions made to bring in "emerging faces" for the live-action scenes and Clive Owen's own thoughts about being in a game. Really good.

...and also the "500 page script" for P2. Makes me wonder why the CIC hasn't got round to nabbing a copy of that script.

 

[AD]

...and also the "500 page script" for P2. Makes me wonder why the CIC hasn't got round to nabbing a copy of that script.

They've asked... It just hasn't happened yet. I did some quick checking and 500 pages makes it slightly ahead of wc4 which was somewhere around 470. However that 470 include inflight dialogue such as responsed to wingman commands. So what exactly is included in the 500 page P2 script is a little unclear. It may include all the plot related emails and stuff, or it might be (the ideal) that the 500 pages was just for the film shoot... which would be amazing.