The less game-experienced actors tended to be quite surprised when they saw the sheer size and quality of the script, and then more than surprised, in fact, I’d go so far as to say shocked, when we showed them the game, especially how good the cut-scenes are. The game graphics themselves are excellent, of course, but because we can play with the camera more, the cut-scenes are – we hope – virtually indistinguishable from watching the show.

In some ways directing the 24 actors has been easier than with a game that’s an original property, in that they already know their characters, they know how they behave; they know how the show turns out. Having 24’s scriptwriter Duppy Demetrius as our story coordinator and writer has ensured absolute continuity from a character development point of view.

Given that we had one of the show’s scriptwriters on board to write the cutscene script it’s probably not surprising that the actors were very happy with it and recorded it pretty much word for word. Unfortunately we can’t say the same for the in-game action dialogue (consisting of isolated utterances) which had to go through several revisions before it was good enough. It really is very tricky to write believable, easy to deliver lines that are solely designed to provide quick snippets of information to the player! In fact we did have one instance when Kiefer looked at an in-game line, then looked at us and said “There’s no way those words are coming out of my mouth!” – needless to say we soon rewrote that particular line.

We have some dedicated motion capture days set aside but I’m not sure if we’ll use them, as the character animation is progressing very well at present. We do have motion capture actors that we’re very happy with so we’ve not yet used specific actors like Kiefer or Elisha Cuthbert. Perhaps having the show’s actors motion capture their own moves will be the next big thing, but the skills required are subtly different from the acting they’re used to, and so time consuming, that perhaps this will remain a separate issue for some while yet.

Mark Green biography
Mark Green is the Communications Manager for Sony's Cambridge Studio. Nobody really knows what that means, and he often gets away with just doing the interesting bits - hence his involvement with the actors on 24. Mark has now been at Sony for 8 years. In his time there he has worked in several guises other than his current role; most notably as a lead game designer. He is currently enjoying pretending to be important and saying things like, “Let me speak with Kiefer’s people, darling. He’s ever so busy you know. I’m not sure he’ll be available for your soirée.”

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