Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1575
W hen it comes to the global $50 billion video game industry, there's no game engine technol- ogy more ubiquitous than Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 (UE3). e same technol- ogy that powers Epic's own Gears of War 2 and Unreal Tournament 3 is being used for a vast array of games, including Electronic Arts Digital Illusions Creative Entertain- ment's (EA DICE) fi rst-person adventure Mirror's Edge, Ubisoft's voice-controlled Tom Clancy's EndWar, and Midway Games' TNA Impact! wrestling title. Leave it to a "former game developer, turned Hollywood executive, turned fi lm- maker" to utilize UE3 in a whole new way. Jason (Jace) Hall, founder of Hollywood entertainment company HDFilms, has spent the past year or so creating a pipe- line that he hopes will change the way CG entertainment is developed for the Web and television. A short time back, Hall had overseen the creation of the Lithtech engine at Mono- lith Productions, developed in conjunction with Microsoft, and was the primary per- son responsible for licensing the technol- ogy to other developers. "Because of my background in developing games, I have a lot of experience un- derstanding how in-game cinematics come together, what the limitations can be, and once you set the limitations, how rapidly you can make changes or get someone up to speed who has limited experience in con- structing cinematics," explains Hall. "I thought, in theory, you could take game technology and create a one-hour story." Today, Hall is putting that theory to the test—two times over. First, he is working on "Chadam," an original 10-part Web series featuring characters by Alex Pardee that he created for the band e Used. More than a year ago, Warner Bros. Television Group (WBTVG) announced plans to off er the series through its Studio 2.0 production di- vision. According to Hall, that should occur sometime this year. Hall's second project is still undecided, though he says he would A filmmaker experiments with a new CG pipeline based on the Unreal Engine 3 while creating Chadam By John Gaudiosi April 2009 24