Creating live TV for non-broadcast

Not for broadcast is an FMV game about creating a TV show. As the national evening news airs live on your screen, you’ll edit, censor profanity (and later, politically controversial phrases if you want), and even choose what plays in the commercial breaks.

As tensions rise, a burgeoning resistance movement requires you to broadcast their anti-government propaganda in place of regular news in order to dramatically change the message being delivered to the masses of die-hard viewers.

The feeling of creating a television show, controlling what the audience at home sees, and influencing the stories of the characters and the world is the experience we want from you, our player.

In a world dominated by visual media consumption, it’s time to take a closer look at the power they have over us. And what better way to raise the stakes and give you a heightened sense of urgency and power than to make it all happen? After all, news is reported as it happens. There are no pauses in real life, no rewinding the interview to ask another question, and of course there is no avoiding the barrage of commercials. That experience, the stress, the fun, and the creativity of making decisions along the way to tell your story, to see how the narrative evolves from the consequences of those decisions; it’s fun Not for broadcast.

Of course, this presented a completely different problem.

Our biggest challenge was shooting the footage in one continuous shot. Calling this “The Live TV Experience” meant no cuts… That’s right: none. You are the editor here, not us. So, while the film consists of only the best footage cut from all the footage you got for the day, we don’t have that luxury. We had to shoot every scene in one take – some of them were close to 20 minutes!

Our incredibly talented cast had to learn relatively long scripts and execute them in one take without a single mistake in front of moving cameras whose operators had their own world of challenges. We were lucky that most of our scenes were shot in ten takes or less, but it was not uncommon for teenagers to do longer or more difficult scenes.

We did this through a powerful combination of planning, exceptional cast and crew members, and a very deliberate decision to make the shoot more like a theater show than a set. Rehearsals by an ensemble cast that were ready to work with the beats of the live performance and respond accordingly until we got a scene that worked.

This meant serious pressure for everyone. Loosen the line in 12 minutes? Defocus the camera? We all go back to the top. Although the upside is that once you do that take, you’re done and can go to the pub.

This format also had additional wrinkles in the form of long complex tracks for our friends who did the Russian and Chinese dubbing Not for broadcast, but if you’ve heard our fully produced rap single “Paint It Red” in Russian, I think you’ll agree that time and money were well spent. As it turned out, this resulted in a record amount of frames in our end game, over a whopping 41 hours.

So next time you play Not for broadcast, and you’ll get to a story that’s over 15 minutes long. Think of the cast, crew, dubbing crews, and NotGames team that took this flawless action in one step from script to game. We will definitely do that when we plan the next one!