The Movies
- Platform: PC
- Published by: Activision
- Developed by: Lionhead Studios
- Release Date: Nov 8, 2005
- Genre: Simulation
- Multiplayer: No
- Online: No
The Movies Preview
-- October 18, 2005 by: Chris Remo
I received this handy piece of information during a loading screen of Lionhead's The Movies (PC). As the game's title suggests, it is centered around the world of Hollywood, and in that context one might expect the above quote to be simply a nice little fact to help players of such a game pass the time while assets are queued up. Well, it turns out that this is the type of game in which that kind of knowledge is actually useful on a fairly regular basis.
When The Movies begins, it is 1920 and the player is given a bit of money and a vacant Hollywood lot in which to construct a film studio. It plays out very much like a "tycoon" type of game, with various buildings available to you and employees that will go about their own business until you pluck them off the ground and throw them wherever you want them to go. You'll start building your studio with necessities such as a stage school to change the beautiful 
hopeful unemployeed into onscreen cogs in the Hollywood machine, a crew facility to turn the not-so-beautiful hopeful unemployed into offscreen cogs in the Hollywood machine, a simple stage set for shooting your films, and a casting facility for telling everyone what film they should be trying not to botch.
All of those various employees are hired in a simple fashion: simply grab any of the jobless people conspicuously hanging out around your buildings and drag them into the building corresponding with the job you want to assign them. Each person has a set of attributes, including age, personality type, and descriptions such as "Likes to have fun" or "Procrastinates often." Even at this stage in the game, you can start using these terms to figure out who should be put into what role. For example, you may not want your star director to be labeled "Does not work well with others." If you figure you'll be wanting to shoot lots of sci-fi, make sure your main actor is good looking, physically 
fit, and just under the age of 30. You know, that sort of thing. In addition to those built-in elements, actors will gain experience with specific genres, with other actors they become used to working with, and with films overall. The same goes for directors. This means you'll probably find yourself nurturing a star actor and a star director moreso than most of your cast and crew.
Of course, at that early stage in the game I didn't really bother with any of that, so I just grabbed some guys and threw them around until I had a starting cast and crew. Actually, my director, I ended up noticing a little while later, was Mark Healey. It took me a minute to figure out why I knew that name, then I realized he was the Lionhead artist who crafted Ragdoll Kung Fu, the independent point-and-click kung fu game distributed over Steam. Looks like most or all of the characters in the game are Lionhead employees. So, to any crazy Lionhead obsessers out there: this is the game for you.
By the time you're done with all this you'll want to be getting on with your first film. To do that, however, you'll need a script. Fortunately, the great video game deity Deus Ex Machina sees fit to bestow upon you a short script, which he delivers to your studio's front gate. Once a script is acquired, just drop it into the casting office. The game will let you know how many of each type of crew you'll need for the film, and you drop them in the office along with the script. If 
you ever find yourself lacking in people, just hire up some more. When this is all set, drag the script into the production office and your employees will take over from there. They'll walk over to the set being used and film the whole movie while you busy yourself with studio management.
This is a good example of the tailored gameplay The Movies features. You basically have two options when it comes to the shooting of your film: you can check in frequently and adjust each scene to fit your wishes--that is, change the emotions an actor is displaying, the backdrop for the set, or any other number of options--or you can simply let the crew take over and focus on being a studio tycoon. This seems to hold true for most of the game. Each film you make gives you more options than the one before, in terms of direction choices, but you can still always take a fairly hands-off role once you've gotten it casted.
Continue on to the next page to learn more about making films.
