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In between takes on the Nurse sequence, IGN FilmForce and other journalists had the chance for a very extensive interview with director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf). Video game faithful will be happy to learn that the director is a big-time gamer and a huge fan of the Silent Hill franchise. Will Gans be the savior to finally get the video game to movie translation right?
"I played the first one five years ago," says Gans. "So we spent five years talking about this film. What [took] so long was to reach the people at Konami [and convince them] that we'd make something very true to the game. The team of Silent Hill is a team of three or four guys and they are very, very conscious of what they've achieved and they didn't want anybody to screw up their work…"
"Sometimes a movie which is not adapted from a game gives me the feeling of a game. Like, for example, Starship Troopers. [That] gave me the feeling of a game, to be inside a game… But most of the time, the movies adapting the games are just taking the title…"
The trick of making a great video game film is to arrive at an end result that is appealing to non-gamers as well. "That's a great challenge and it's why, when we started to write the film, we are basically three directors - Roger Avery, who is a great screenwriter and also a director, Nicholas Boukhrief, he's a great director in France and also a big video game player, and myself… We were three guys, three directors, three games trying to figure out how to make a movie which can satisfy the game fan, because we belong to them and we won't want to F**k up Silent Hill… And at the same time, how to make a movie that somebody who's not familiar with the game can actually watch. As a great game, Silent Hill has a story inside it. Of course that story is much of the time in the background of the game because you have to play, but if you are careful and if you play again and again through the first one… The second one, especially the third one… Suddenly you realize that there is a huge story behind the game and that's what we try to enstore into the film."
Fans will be happy to hear that the music of the Silent Hill movie is composed by Akira Yamaoka, who also composed the music for the games. "It's a masterpiece. It's a beautiful soundtrack… We are editing the film at the same time as we are shooting and I love to use as temp music the original Silent Hill 2 and 3 soundtrack. Immediately, we can see if we've really achieved something close to the game. The music is one of the essences of the game."
"In the film, there is 108 locations or set pieces… So basically, it is a movie of 110 minutes I think… Basically, you will have a [around] one set per minute simply because, normally, a horror film is confined to a room or a house, but we have never seen a horror film with a complete town like that. So it was a new challenge in terms of production design especially… [The look is] very close [to the game]. My word on the film was follow the game… We follow very closely… I'm a gamer and I'm a very, very strong fan and I really want to see the game on screen. I would be so sad if it was not the game…"
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