Films and Games: Interactions

As a comparatively young medium, video games are in a formative phase of development. Similar to film in its beginnings, games are currently establishing themselves as cultural objects to be taken seriously. This is being appreciated by an ever wider audience. The inclusion of important games in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2012 marked the acknowledgement that was long overdue. This catalog can be considered as a descriptive dialogue between theory and practice. With international contributions from multidisciplinary perspectives, it is dedicated to the interactive aesthetic influences between films and games. Expert contributions include those from the fields of film studies, game studies, art and cultural studies, media studies, and pedagogy. Texts by journalists such as Boris Schneider-Johne and Petra Fröhlich provide background information and essayistic reflections. Interviews with game developers like Jordan Mechner and Ron Gilbert as well as film directors such as Paul W. S. Anderson shed light on the interactions between films and games from a practical perspective and offer far-reaching insights. Some of the subjects explored include the historical development of both media, adaptation processes, perspectives of transmedia storytelling, camera aesthetics, architecture and set design as well as music and sound design, gender stereotypes, creative gaming, game art, and the archival processing of video games.

Deutsches Filmmuseum is the German film museum in Frankfurt. Eva Lenhardt is an art historian. Andreas Rauscher is a film scholar.