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Game of Life

People are asking me these days: What is the "Game of Life" we are dealing with this whole summer? The only honest answer I can give is that I don't really know. I guess I lost myself in the entire story of our pioneer filmmaking project. It started like any other father-son benign tech play—it was sometime back in the middle of April when I was categorizing our pile of ordinary family video files and our 'cooking series'. So in a moment of 'light bulb floating above my head' I asked myself why we don't move one step further and create a little longer short film of some sort. So I asked Viktor, and he seemed thrilled about it, especially when I told him that he would play the major role, and from there our "Game of Life" project became reality and started growing and morphing into a real short movie, and after a little while began being more and more enjoyable and serious.


In short, after four months of all of our 'Hollywood' efforts, Viktor and I proudly present a science fiction short film based on "Game of Life", a cellular automaton game invented by John Horton Conway in 1970. Actually, this is the first episode in the potential series we called "Flares and Fireflies". We hope you will enjoy watching it at least as much as we enjoyed making it, and—this is important—please keep in mind that we are not really educated filmmakers or talented actors and that this is pretty much the maximum what we could do with all of our knowledge and modest technology we used, to say the least. If you like it, after the movie, later in the post, is the story of how and where we made it, the entire script, some blooper stories, and behind-the-scenes photos.


First of all, I hope you like our film, and for further understanding, what I would say about the core of its script is that it tells a story about a young boy who's following a glitch in the system, presented in real life as a firefly, through numerous portals to the place where he meets a man with the final orb, the artifact that seems to be a way in for full understanding of the life itself, its origin, and the rules it is built on. Just like in Conway's simple two-dimensional game, life itself could be the same—just a set of rules in some artificial zero-player game that, on a quantum or molecular level, provides results of interactions of main ingredients.

That was about the "Sci" part of the "Sci-Fi" genre. The fiction that follows the story is in the fact that life might be fully artificial in origin. In other words, the film explores the rules of evolution that are not intended to be seen or understood by everyone. Even those chosen to dive into the game by random case or by complex rule outcome are not able to understand the principles at once. If you are asking now how the game of life really looks from the inside and behind white-green wireframes, well, you will have to wait for another episode. But is there going to be another episode? The honest answer is that I don't know. I really don't. So far we only have ideas, and from there to the final file is a long way. We'll see.


This long way with the first episode started with the script. Believe it or not, the first draft and the final scenario were not too different. It slightly changed, but only because of technological restrictions and improvisations. Ever wonder what a script looks like for short films like this one? Here it is in full:

01. Wakeup 1 - Strange sound? Nothing. Going back to sleep.
02. Wakeup 2 - Light appears. Goes through the door.
03. Getting out of bed, following light.
04. Following light upstairs.
05. At the balcony. Light and mild explosion. Artifact on the table.
06. Examining the artifact. First portal appears.
07. Light goes into abandoned house.
08. Appearing in abandoned country house.
09. Following light.
10. Second artifact. Goes through second portal.
11. Ending in the sea. Getting out on the beach. Stealing dry clothes.
12. Wandering dirt road.
13. Entering lighthouse site. Following light.
14. No artifacts here. Watching the lighthouse.
15. Seeing multiple flashes on the horizon over the site.
16. Site reappears in white wireframe only. People too.
17. Standing up in wireframe.
18. Checking a man who's reading Kindle.
19. Looking wireframe hands.
20. Kindle man: 'Everything is white. Isn't it?'
21. Looking at the Kindle man again. Everything back to normal.
22. 'Did you see it too?'
23. 'No. But I saw it once before. Different lighthouse though.'
24. 'Where? When?'
25. 'Long ago... When I was about your age...'
26. 'But... What does it mean?'
27. 'I beleive it is a game. Not everyone can see it.'
28. 'What kind of game?'
29. 'I never found out really.'
30. Reaching for the backpack. Taking out the final artifact.
31. 'But maybe you will. I think this belongs to you now.'
32. Taking the artifact. It starts glowing.
33. Going back to beach.
34. Going back to abandoned house.
35. Going back to balcony.
36. Wakeup 3 - Realizing it was a dream. Going back to sleep.
37. Sleeping. Zooming hand. Hand is going wireframe.
38. Back to normal. Light on the hand.
39. Light goes to the clock table.
40. Artifact appears.

In the end, "Game of Life" is composed out of 50 scenes filmed on four major locations. Two of them are Viktor's room and our living room, decorated with green screens for the occasion. The adventure starts and ends in the main character's room, and the only dialog is filmed in front of a green background and merged with the coastal background we took in Greece. Unfortunately, technologically speaking, this is the weakest chain in the movie, and not only because of our lack of efforts. "Chroma key" software within Adobe's "After Effects" didn't cope too well with the modest laptop I have used to run it through. It failed and crashed too often during rendering, and it got the last nerves out of me. If you add to all the struggles that the consumer dSLR (Nikon D5200) we used to film is not perfect for audio capture without an external microphone and the fact that we had to record audio separately, I have to say that I am not really satisfied with the dialog scene, but in the end I'd like to think that this is the best I could do with editing that part of the film.


However, this film would not be possible without a lighthouse, as it plays a major role in the story, and we found it just 20 kilometers from our hotel during our summer's vacation. It was located some 30 kilometers away from the famous Greek city of Corinth, built on a rock at the end of a small headland with tremendous views to the entire Corinthian gulf. We spent three days on the site and nearby beach and finished all the 'Greek' scenes and enjoyed amazing time on local beaches and restaurants. In the above photo, Viktor, with our 'nerf' portal stone preps, is posing in front of 'Faros Melagavi', not far away from the 'Vouliagmenis' lake where we filmed the last portal scene, and also just next to the ancient archaeological site of 'Heraion of Perachora' - a sanctuary occupied by a real oracle, just like the one in Delphi, dedicated to the goddess Hera and built in the 9th century BC by some Corinthian ancient cult. Here, just next to the old ruins of the temple of Hera, I found a stone perfect for the background of the green screen dialog scene. Before we went to Greece, I 'scouted' the entire site with Google Maps and photos people took and posted in Google's gallery, and all I have to say is that it looked perfect for filming, just like I hoped for. Very little improvisation was needed for 'running' and 'firefly' scenes. The same was with filming the 'portal' scene on the beautiful sandy beach of Vouliagmenis Lake, which is actually a lagoon connected to the Corinthian gulf and Ionian Sea with a narrow strait.

Finally, the fourth location we used to film intermediate portal scenes belongs to our special place—a village in eastern Serbia where we spent many vacations and weekends in the past. The name of the village is Guševac, and I mentioned it before on the blog on numerous occasions. With its intact mountain spirit, it was our first choice. The very first scene was actually filmed here in the abandoned barn. I intended to use nearby forests for additional scenes for the second portal, but due to the complexity, I gave up on that idea. It would be visually great, but it is not really that connected to the main story.


If you ask me what I liked the most behind and before the scenes of "Game of Life", without a doubt I say it was the entire adventure of making it. It started as a father-son summer play and in the end, this is what it really is: endless fun of filming scenes, creating scripts, directing the plot, improvising the story and scenes, and enjoying all the bloopers and laughter on all 'sets', especially in Greece. I really can't say what was funnier to do. Even the editing was a special time with learning all new stuff and knowledge, and in a way I am now looking at movies and TV shows with different eyes and capturing all the perfect and imperfect flow of scenes with my new 'director' habit. A small regret and disappointment was the equipment. I know I am not a perfect director and cameraman, but I am more than positive that with at least a little better technology, including software and rendering computers, the final movie would be much better. At least it would mask or hide most of our imperfections and flaws.

One thing is for sure though: if you are thinking of filming your own short movie with a modest consumer camera and not so obeying a tripod, don't think twice; go for it, and however the result is non-ideal in the end, I guarantee you that the feeling will be just perfect.

Revelation of Life (Game of Life sequel):
https://www.mpj.one/2020/10/revelation-of-life-part-one.html

Game of Life graphic novel:
https://www.mpj.one/2017/03/gol-graphic-novel.html

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway_Game_of_Life
http://www.mpj.one/2015/12/is-life-zero-player-game.html
http://www.mpj.one/2016/08/cyclops-of-peloponnese.html

Revelation of Life (1) - The Orb

I don't know how to explain... I mean people have vivid dreams for sure. My best friend told me about his dream just the other day and boy... It was real horror story and it had everything, amazing heroes, real twisted villain and so much details with action to the level that even Stephen King would not be ashamed of. But me.. I don't know. It's so strange... 

My dreams have left me. Five years ago I had my last dream. Ever since then it's blank. The nights are just restful and uneventful. There's no remembering in the morning. And I am not sure that last dream was even a dream.
Game of Life - prequel
Game of Life - short film
Revelation of Life - part two


Revelation of Life
part one

five years later

I don't know how to explain... 

I mean, people have vivid dreams for sure. My best friend told me about his dream just the other day, and boy... It was a real horror story, and it had everything—amazing heroes, a real twisted villain, and so many details with action to the level that even Stephen King would not be ashamed of.

But me... I don't know. It's so strange... 

My dreams have left me. Five years ago, I had my last dream. Ever since then, it's blank. The nights are just restful and uneventful. There's no remembering in the morning. And I am not sure that last dream was even a dream. Hell... I know it was not a dream. I know because it is still here. In my room. 

The orb.

The strangest thing is that it's still glowing. But even more peculiar about it is that I am the only one who sees it. The glowing, I mean. The orb is not noticeable otherwise by anybody who visited my room. Except for my father, I saw him once taking it in his hands and inspecting it like it had some special meaning to him. Maybe because he was in my dream too. After all, he was the one who told me in the dream that life is just a game of some sort. He was the one who gave me the orb.

"Where did you get this orb from? It looks a little familiar. Old too." He asked me while rotating it and examining its perfect grey curve, seemingly not noticing the glaringness from one of the blue bulges carved on top of it.

"Ahem... you don't see it?"

"See what?"

"The blue node... Do you... Do you find anything unusual about it?"

He turned the orb and had a closer look at all three nodes, but I could tell he's not seeing anything unusual or extraordinary.

"The curvature is perfect, and it does look too heavy." He put it back on the small dresser next to the clock, where it was. "What is it anyway?"

"Just a decoration... Somebody gave it to me for my birthday on Sunday." I answered and turned, hoping he didn't see my disappointed expression. I never told him about the dream and the glowing orb. I never told anybody about it. I was afraid back then.

After five years, the fear was different. Instead, I was afraid for my sanity. After all the dreamless years I was starting to believe I was going crazy. But from the bottom of my soul... I don't know. All my rationality was telling me that there was more to the story. It's just a feeling telling me to wait. Telling me that the fear is irrational. Telling me that a new dream is coming.

I couldn't be more wrong.

Continues in Revelation of Life - Phil

Game of Life - The Graphic Novel

Game of Life is old news, yes, but last Friday I stumbled upon something special that forced me to relive the film once more. It was an extraordinary comic book creator called "Comic Life", made by plasq Development Company, which gave me genuine pleasure the entire last weekend. I was looking for a comic book-related application before and even tried a couple of them, but they were all way below Comic Life and all the features it offers. I was immediately hooked by its nativity and simplicity and instantly thought about our short film. After very little hesitation, I decided to give it a try, and the result is sort of "Game of Life" made by "Comic (of) Life".

After all, I had everything—the script, the video file, and the free time—last weekend, and to create a comic book out of it was pretty straightforward. What I did was open Game of Life in the VLC player and take a couple of screenshots in order to import them into "Comic Life", and the rest is in this post. Well, soon after, a couple of screenshots turned into dozens and dozens into exactly 195 images, but it all was worth the effort. Actually, it wasn't without a little postprocessing, but I enjoyed it all the way. Last night we went to laser print the first copy, and here it is below in Viktor's hands and in the following preview (it needs some time to load).


If you have seen the film and liked it, and if you are a comic book fan like me, I am sure you will find it entertaining, and visually, well, I wouldn't say perfect, or even good, but for a first-timer effort, pretty well. You can click on the preview to open a Game of Life PDF file in another tab and see it full screen, or if you are a perfectionist, below is a full-resolution file with images in 300 dpi you can download.

I am surely still thrilled with how well it went, especially for all the entertainment I had while making it, so for a moment I thought it was even better than the video itself. But today, like they say, the breakfast is always smarter than the last-day dinner; I am not so sure. They are two different media and not comparable per se. While the motion pictures contain that magical aspect of living the story, and especially in this case hearing the glitches and effects, they lack the narrative, which is the main feature of a graphic novel. Nevertheless, the following is the embedded film as well, so if you have some comments, feedback, or anything to say, I would love to hear it. Or better to read it.


The film script and now graphic novel(la) tell a story about a young boy who's following a glitch in the system, presented in real life as a firefly, through numerous portals to the place where he meets a man with the final orb, the artifact that seems to be a way in for full understanding of life itself, its origin, and the rules it is built on.

Game of Life is only the first episode in the series, and I called it "Flares and Fireflies", and perhaps it's just an introduction to the larger plot, which we hope we will continue making in the future. Finally, if you missed the story of how we made the script and all the funny moments, they are all in post Game of Life and Cyclops of Peloponnese and of course, what inspired me to make the story is the simple question: Is Life a Zero-Player Game? and John Conway's original zero-player game.


Original post: March, 2017, Update: July 2018

Game of Life 300 dpi:
http://www.dmvprocessing.com/blog/GolComic/Game of Life - 300dpi.pdf

Refs:
https://plasq.com/apps/comiclife/macwin/