Blindlight interview

HomeLAN chats with Blindlight's Lev Chapelsky as he talks about his company that is bringing Hollywood talent and content to video and PC games:

HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the overall goal of the company?

Lev Chapelsky - There is no reason why the "dramatic assets" in games -- i.e. the writing, the acting, the music, and the sound design -- can't be every bit as good as they are in Academy Award winning films. The way to get there is simple: tap the talent that exists in Hollywood. Hollywood attracts hundreds of thousands of production experts who are the best people in the world for producing entertainment assets. It took 100 years for this capability to develop to the point where it is today, and it would be foolish to try to replicate it anywhere else (e.g. inside a game studio). The beautiful thing about the Hollywood production system is that just about EVERYONE who works here is a contract freelancer -- that means they are willing, and available, and often times eager, to work on videogames. All game producers need is someone inside the Hollywood system who understands their needs and can help them navigate the system, find the right people for each particular project, contract them the right way, manage and oversee their work properly, and deliver the assets in ways that make sense for the videogame environment. This is what Blindlight does. Our goal is to get game producers around the world to realize their entertainment assets can be that good, to understand that they really do need to go to Hollywood to get that, to acknowledge that that requires help from an inside resource, and to not settle for anything less than Academy Award quality in their dramatic assets.