Saturday 22 March 2008

Movie Review: Hitman


My Rating: 9/10

I was sceptical about this film. Movie tie-ins and licenses have a rare chance of success. Should I ruin my memories of an excellent game by watching a substandard film that aspires to be faithful to the game and even dared to be entertaining in the process?

After the disaster that was Rambo 4, I was getting hard to impress. It was with this cynical mood that I watched Hitman, hardly a week had passed since I allowed my eyes to be exposed to a distasteful movie like Rambo 4.

The Hitman DVD slid into the player...

Number 47 was raised an orphan by a secret organisation, he was taught unarmed combat, was subjected to strict disciplinary action.

What was that? 47 wasn't 'raised' by nobody. Agent 47 was genetically manufactured. Anybody who played the game knows that. Even the last installment, Hitman: Blood Money, gave us a flashback level into the lab where 46 was made. Scratch one for Hitman the movie.

47 sneaks into Interpol inspector Mike Whittier's home for a confrontation and the movie begins in earnest, through a series of flashback sequences. When he ends up in a hotel and Russia's FSB sets up an ambush, my memory is jogged back to the last level of Hitman: Blood Money- 47 is trapped in a hotel room in France as gendarmes swarm the building.

Number 47 makes use of pistols he stored in an icebox precluding the attack, he makes use of a bungee rope he lashed onto the balcony much earlier. I get my own set of flashbacks, to the time when I was playing the game.

47 cases a restaurant with Nika, on the pretense that he wants to take her out to dinner and I think to myself, 'Hey, that's what I would've done'. 47 makes his move to intercept arms dealer Price in the gents and I get more flashbacks. Avid gamers of Hitman know too well what takes place in the gents: Sooner or later, they all have to go.

Right about this time I was really starting to dig the movie. The scene in Udre Bellikov's mansion totally had me. As faithful as a movie can get to a game, this one has my vote. My wife even commented that Oliver Olyphant walked like Agent 47 (she single-handedly completed Hitman 2.

If you loved the wallpapers taken from the game, you'll love how the director tried to emulate them. When 47 had Nika meet with his CIA contact in a cafe, the beautiful portrait of 47 perched high up on a roof looking down on the proceedings through a WA-2000 sniper rifle is a poignant scene and truly nostalgic.

There are plenty of firefights if that's what you're looking for. Honestly, I wasn't really following the story. I was distracted by how parallel the movie and the game was and if they were somehow interconnected like the Matrix series. You'll be impressed by the knife-fight in the train station, by the method 47 used to get at an African terrorist leader, by the host of other agents after his behind, by his black suit and red tie... by the barcode on the back of his neck.

You won't be disappointed by this movie. It's blessed with of visual effects that doesn't stand out glaringly- they serve to make the film look good. Directing is incredibly fluid and professional. This from a director, Xavier Gens, who doesn't have much to his credit. Timothy Olyphant has played Agent 47 to the T. Film editing is beautiful giving 47 and the film in general a stylish and sophisticated feel. Fall in love with the haunting melancholic melody of the 'Ave Maria' soundtrack. Enjoy the hit!

Virtual Combat Journal: Conflict Global Storm




"Aside from the firearms, what works for the military works for us"

For the last week, the last hour that draws an end to our work day is awash with anticipation. As the sun prepared to dip into the horizon, our team (my dear wife included) gets ready for another LAN adventure with a new game, Conflict: Global Storm.

It's a fun and fresh departure from our previous game, SWAT 4. This time, there's no restraint to the amount of firepower we let loose, no shouting challenges at suspects and no caution taken for where our bullets land. No suspects to arrest, hardly any hostages to rescue, no weapons to report in as evidence. Being military is so fun, the rules of engagement becomes less restrictive.

In C:GS, all of us play a specific role that more often than not, overlap. My role as a sniper sometimes gets switched to CQB mode and out comes the silenced MAC-10. The others slid right into their role: Rifleman and Demolitions. My wife however, had to spend more than a few sessions of LAN sessions with me before finding the SAW soldier, Connors, her character of choice.

Playing C:GS with more relaxed parameters by no means make this a game for heroes. No one goes wandering off on their own, the sniper still has to provide accurate fire, the SAW gunner must lay down suppressive cover, the rifleman becomes an effective point man and the demolitions expert saves valuable time attaching C4 charges speedily.

It's always fire and maneuver, setting up overlapping fields of fire and looking out for each other because if one of us goes down, one of us has to be right there under a hail of enemy bullets to apply first aid. Wait too long and the soldier dies, we ALL fail the mission.

Achieving complete success in each mission requires coherent tactical gameplay. Working as a team is key, rather similar to real-world video production where teamwork and a complete understanding of each individual's role and his contribution to the team can make a significance difference in a project.

This game reflects the way WolFang Digital works, as a cohesive tactical unit where our areas of expertise and responsibilities overlap and benefit each other and the company in particular. Each one of us are trained in a selected field and cross trained to achieve a smooth workflow at any one time for any situation.

Using a cross training concept, our videographers become good video editors who create top-notch motion graphics. Aside from firearms, what works for the military and games like Conflict, works for us.

Saturday 8 March 2008

Martell Rise Above Dance Tour



Martell VSOP
Rise Above Dance Tour

Services Provided:
Videography, Video Editing, Motion Graphics, DVD Authoring, Launch Video

As interesting as it was challenging, this project took us all over the nation, to more than 50 entertainment outlets. Save Sunday, our team was out almost every night and back in the office the following morning to begin editing last night's videography.

The Martell VSOP Rise Above Dance Tour of 2006 comprised of 5 talented dancers from various dance styles including: Hip-hop, Jazz, Krumping, Capoeira, Street-funk, Freestyle, Salsa and Breakdance. This was an international dance team. The charismatic leader, Eric Devellerez, being a Burmese who grew up in Australia, bubbly Laura New, also an Australian, Andrew Sears is from the UK, hard training Manuela Oliveira from Spain and Capoeira exponent Paul Agyapong from Brazil.

Weaving around crowds of cheering onlookers with a video camera that weighs in at 5 Kgs is a physical feat in itself. Having to pull off elegant camera moves in a tight space becomes an ambitious undertaking. To confound the videography situation, most pubs, bars and clubs are dark. We had to have an assistant standing off-camera light up the scene with a mobile video light.

Each dance performance lasted up to 10 minutes. Audience participation was paramount to the client so the dance team always asked for volunteers to join them in a short dance sequence. We noticed audience in the outskirts were usually more spontaneous and less self-conscious than those in the big cities, go figure... In total, we spent about 20 minutes at a location, excluding the wait.

Oftentimes, we had to wait for a crowd build-up when we arrived at the first outlet for the night. Considering we had up to 3 outlets to visit every night, our team would only head home come stroke of midnight, sometimes later.

As usual, the WolFang Digital style is to place a fair amount of priority on audience reaction. We are satisfied with our extent of video coverage: audience cheering, excited, participating, laughing, etc.

All the video footage were transfered into our editing systems and compiled into a dynamic, attention grabbing 5 minutes video. We presented this video to our client who used this played this video during the launch of the Martell VSOP Rise Above Dance Competition. Gnarles Barkley's soundtrack, 'Crazy' drove the video to a frenzied pitch.

Our enthusiastic client, Pernod Ricard's Marketing Director, Terence Ong, personally expressed his compliments to us for producing such a rewarding experience through the video which truly brought out the essence of the event and launched the dance competition with a bang.

Finally, The dance team were each presented with a DVD of this video. They were overjoyed to have their adventures in Malaysia compiled into a disc. They loved the video we made for them, citing the stylish and elegant editing style accentuated with raw energy.