Mass Effect Cinematics Interview

Gamedev.sessions.edu has published a short interview with BioWare lead cinematic designer Ken Thain about Mass Effect’s interactive cinematics.

Q: How did these cinematics affect the overall art choices in Mass Effect (style and otherwise)?

A: The interactive dialog had a lot of impact on our cinematographic style. We had some strong technical limitations that we had to abide by since the player had choice. Not to mention we had around 20,000 lines of dialog to put into the interactive narrative context. So we focused on simple cinematic styles and techniques. Personally, I went back into earlier years of film production where these ‘˜traditional’ styles were well established, such as with films by Hitchcock and John Ford. We wanted to make it about the story, not about the use of the camera.

Also, because Mass Effect was such a cinematically driven game there was a lot of focus on creating great looking characters and environments. A lot of what cinematic design did looked so great because of the quality of work art put into the project. We just had to frame it nicely and put it into context.