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Lessons from the Screenplay
The Last of Us (feat. Writer & Creative Director Neil Druckmann) | @Story Mode
The Last of Us (feat. Writer & Creative Director Neil Druckmann) | @Story Mode
Lessons from the Screenplay
·
22:51 · Dec 4, 2019
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hi
my
name
is
Neil
druckmann
and
I
was
the
writer
and
creative
director
Translating…
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hi my name is Neil druckmann and I was the writer and creative director
0:04
of the Last of Us and this is lessons from the
0:08
many people don't equate video games with
0:12
storytelling they might think they're simply about button mashing or blowing things up but
0:18
video games can tell deeply emotional
0:20
stories with rich character arcs that
0:22
you don't simply watch unfold
0:23
you participated the 2013
0:27
game The Last of Us from developer
0:29
Naughty Dog is one of the very best examples of
0:32
how to tell a story through the medium of a video game in
0:35
The Last of Us you play primarily as
0:38
a character named Joel a smuggler
0:40
who has to escort a teenage girl Ellie across
0:43
a post-apocalyptic United States and although
0:46
the experience of playing a game is different than watching a film the writers
0:50
crafting the story face many of the same challenges
0:53
writing dialogue on the page is one of the last things and one of
0:56
the easiest things you do a lot of the hard writing is structure
0:59
what are the beats that need to happen how is each beat unique house
1:03
it's all working towards
1:04
this ultimate message you're trying to say once
1:08
you have that then you kind of dive in deeper and say okay what
1:10
are the tools we have how
1:12
do we make these
1:13
interactive moments tell the story more
1:16
so than the dialogue as
1:18
a longtime gamer I've always been fascinated by the unique experiences
1:22
created by video games and I wanted to know how to create a compelling
1:25
narrative in this different medium so
1:28
I sat down with writer and creative director Neil
1:30
druckmann who was nice enough to answer all
1:33
of my questions so
1:34
today we're going to look at the differences and similarities between
1:37
storytelling and film and storytelling
1:40
and games to explore the techniques used to convey exposition
1:44
establish character arts and teach
1:47
gameplay in an emotional
1:48
way and to examine the way a game can make the player truly
1:52
experience a storm let's
1:55
take a look at the Last of Us
2:01
cult so why don't we just start with what are some
2:04
of the differences in
2:05
telling a story and a movie versus telling a story in a video game
2:08
and the movie it's so much about shots
2:11
and how do you tell the story visually on the screen the
2:15
games are interesting is that you could have that right you have cinematics
2:18
which operate like film and it's so you need
2:20
to be very familiar with the cinematic language then
2:23
there is another layer of it which is of course the thing that makes
2:26
games unique is the interactive space the
2:29
fundamental difference between how
2:30
the audience experiences a story in a videogame versus
2:33
a film is that a film goer is passive
2:36
or as the player has
2:38
agency in film you watch characters
2:41
and empathize by observing their situation
2:43
their desires their obstacles
2:45
their choices this is true for video games as well but
2:49
there's also a more direct connection you
2:52
develop empathy through control when
2:55
you're playing a character you
2:57
connect with them in this very
3:00
subconscious level I don't even know how to articulate it but you hear people
3:04
say I am Joel or that part when they're finally playing is Ellie this
3:08
is totally unique to gaming and we watch this over and over again as
3:10
focus testers gets it a partner like oh my
3:13
god I'm Ellie and you see they change how
3:16
they play because now they're seeing themselves as this child
3:19
this like teenager doesn't have the stature of this large man and they
3:23
play differently and they look at the world differently and
3:26
it's how you can use control of a character to
3:29
create such strong empathy this
3:31
connection can be used to give the player the most compelling
3:34
perspective for different moments of the story one
3:38
of the clearest examples of
3:39
this is in the very beginning
3:41
of the game we
3:42
had a very different open we
3:43
had an opening where you
3:45
played as Joel and you went at a neighbor's house you have to put
3:49
one of these infected down and then run back and
3:51
go get your daughter and
3:52
then you're playing as Joel every step of the way and there's something about
3:55
that opening it just felt very familiar and
3:57
then in brainstorming with
3:58
some of the designers other people we had this aha moment of like well
4:02
what if you didn't play as
4:06
dad what if you saw the hole opening through his daughter's eyes
4:15
are you people are just more scared playing a kid than they are a
4:19
capable adult and as
4:21
you're going around the house looking for your dad and you're seeing this thing
4:23
on the news it
4:32
just get creepier and creepier
4:34
here you are sir
4:36
you've got to get out of here do you understand
4:39
me yeah as Joel his daughter and his brother tried to escape the erupting
4:44
chaos the player experiences
4:46
everything from the point of view of Sarah
4:48
untill Sarah's leg is hurt in the crash so
4:54
now you play as Joel
4:56
suddenly responsible for trying to carry your injured daughter to safety
5:00
amidst the outbreak of an apocalypse
5:08
during the sequence you can't fight or hide all
5:12
you can do is keep running and hope
5:15
you don't die the
5:17
player feels the stress and fear because
5:20
they are the characters in this situation
5:27
but the sequence does more than simply provide
5:30
engaging gameplay it establishes
5:33
critical character backstory our
5:35
characters have their own wants
5:37
needs obsessions loves and we're saying when
5:41
you're playing our game we want you to tap into who they are and
5:44
play the game as them not as you as them The
5:47
Last of Us like most films
5:49
is a story about a protagonist on a journey of change
5:52
it's about Dominic her legs broken and
5:55
like many protagonists Joel
5:58
has a ghost a traumatic
6:00
event that makes him afraid of change
6:05
in this opening we are living through Joel's ghost Oh No
6:18
Sarah baby after the title sequence the
6:28
game picks up 20 years later after
6:31
briefly meeting Joel's smuggling
6:32
companion tests the player takes control of Joel as they make their way to
6:36
recover some stolen weapons here
6:39
the game uses environmental
6:40
storytelling to provide exposition
6:47
what the player sees in here is while moving through a space provides
6:51
critical details about the world and how it operates
6:54
there's a good summary of the section and the script for The Last of
6:57
Us which allows me to quickly answer
6:59
one of the questions I had going into this video what
7:02
does the script for a video game look
7:04
like the answer is it
7:06
depends depending on the purpose of the script and the personal preference of the
7:11
studio developing the game the
7:13
script format can range from proprietary story
7:15
software to massive Excel spreadsheets
7:18
for The Last of Us once
7:20
the game was completed all the various story documents
7:23
were conflated into a single script in this
7:26
final script the cinematics
7:28
and key story moments are written in traditional
7:30
screenplay format while the gameplay
7:33
is summarized in prose here's
7:35
the prose for this section of the game the
7:39
city is under constant
7:40
martial law with soldiers posted at street corners in
7:43
another section of the city suspects
7:45
are lined up on their knees with their hands on their head a medical
7:49
soldier with a handheld scanner goes down the line scanning
7:52
people for the fungal infection
7:54
a woman tests positive
7:56
and argues that she's not infected
7:58
soldiers hold the woman down while the medical soldier
8:01
injects her with a syringe
8:02
the woman convulses before
8:04
dying another man on his knees stands
8:07
up and runs away without
8:08
hesitation a soldier raises his rifle and
8:11
shoots it's clear that this world is a dangerous place
8:18
so how is the player supposed to navigate all of this The
8:22
Last of Us uses
8:23
the narrative to teach gameplay
8:25
mechanics in an emotional
8:27
way so usually when we start production on the game the beginning is one
8:30
of the last things you work on because
8:32
that's when you have locked down your mechanics ok now we need to train
8:36
that when it's like expose
8:37
the players to each thing their character can do but
8:40
you don't to just throw a big
8:42
text box on the screen like that's your last resorts
8:44
like are there ways through the narrative that you could teach them in the
8:47
game as Joel and tests are on their way to recover their stolen weapons
8:51
there's an explosion in the quarantine zone
8:56
so they have to run and heal their injuries patch
9:00
yourself up all right
9:04
following Joel and tests along their usual smuggling path gives a sense of their
9:08
routine and provides an opportunity to
9:11
learn how to reload
9:15
all right Texas boost
9:18
me up and one of my favorite
9:19
ones that we did was
9:21
you know all shooters
9:23
have you press l2 to
9:25
aim r2 to shoot I'm like ok how do you what's an interesting way
9:29
to teach that and in
9:31
the opening of the game it's like Joel and Tess are trying
9:34
to get to this guy Robert they're using a smuggling routes one of them
9:37
has infected in it hold
9:38
up spores and as
9:41
they crawl through they see a guy on the ground
9:43
another smuggler some of the environment
9:46
has collapsed on him and he begs you to kill him because his mask
9:49
broke and he breathed in some
9:54
don't make me turn
9:57
and then this box comes in like press
10:00
LT to aim press R to Deschutes
10:02
and like oh that's
10:03
how you gonna teach me to shoot what do you want to do
10:10
so again it's a way to expose you to mechanic teach you it and
10:14
put some emotional weight behind it and show you this is the world that
10:18
you live in poor
10:20
after some unexpected complications
10:22
Joel and Tess learned that the only way to get their weapons back is
10:26
to smuggle some very unusual cargo
10:28
Joe give me a hand with this
10:31
Ellie a fierce 14 year old girl charges
10:34
out from a nearby room switchblade
10:36
in hand test catches Ellie's arm Ellie
10:41
struggles to get free let
10:43
her go the relationship
10:46
between Joel and Ellie is established
10:48
quickly in their very first cinematic
10:50
I want Joel to watch over
10:56
cinematics are the part of video games that are most similar to film and
11:00
I was curious when
11:01
and why they choose to use them when
11:04
to use cutscenes when do you not is there any kind of like logic
11:08
or decision-making that goes into that yes
11:11
so usually cinematics is for
11:15
specific emotional turns where
11:18
we want to slow things down or
11:20
we want to look at someone's face
11:21
get a nuance of like a close-up
11:24
performance that you can't during gameplay so
11:27
for example you know Joel coming home and talking to Sarah and her giving
11:30
him a watch there's
11:31
not gonna be a lot of interesting gameplay
11:32
in that but we still need to establish a relationship with these characters
11:36
will use a cutscene they're
11:39
setting up the contentious
11:40
relationship between Joel and Ellie is an important
11:43
plot point in fact
11:45
it's the inciting incident of
11:46
the game and being
11:48
able to see the performance of the characters faces allows
11:51
for nuance and subtext
11:53
what are you doing killing
11:55
time well what am I supposed to do I am
11:59
sure you will figure that out
12:03
your watch is broken
12:07
as soon as the characters get outside the quarantine zone it's revealed that Ellie
12:12
is immune to the disease that
12:14
within her might be the cure it's
12:17
now up to Joel to protect Ellie and get her to safety and we
12:20
know from having played the opening sequence
12:22
where he was unable to save his own daughter why
12:25
this is such an emotional task
12:27
so much of the game is the relationship between Ellie and Joel if we
12:31
don't succeed and make you care about this relationship make
12:34
you feel these characters love each other away a father and a daughter can
12:36
love each other and this unconditional
12:38
love we will have failed everything
12:40
is depending on that though
12:41
is that everything you hope for
12:43
jury's still out Jan
12:48
tonight of you but
12:50
if the game is simply used cinematics
12:52
to display the relationship
12:54
between two characters it
12:55
would just be a movie so
12:57
the question is how
12:59
do you make the player feel a
13:00
relationship when you're playing the game again with
13:03
the statement of like we need you to care about this relationship we need
13:06
these characters to rely on one another and so much of our game is
13:09
action and combat and if L is just hiding and not participating
13:12
then you don't care as much about her she starts feeling more like a
13:15
burden in the Last of Us the player is constantly
13:18
trying to overcome obstacles
13:20
everything from solving puzzles to
13:22
fighting off infective as
13:24
you you're accompanied by Ellie an NPC
13:28
or non-player character who
13:30
literally helps you overcome these
13:32
obstacles you have two characters and you
13:35
can't see have to think about how
13:37
do how do I have to rely on one another so I
13:39
might have a gaped that
13:41
I can't get past
13:43
Jane from the other side if I'm with Ellie I could boost her over
13:47
the gauge you can open it from the other side so I'm learning to
13:49
rely on Ellen if I came on the skating I didn't have Ellie I'd
13:51
have to find different solution
13:55
since the player is constantly
13:57
in life or death situations
13:58
Ellie literally helps you survive Ellie
14:02
can save you Ellie you can pick up a brick and throw it at
14:04
a dude and give you just enough opening to fur dent for you to
14:08
put him down and survive
14:09
likewise if someone grabs you and pinned you against the wall Ellie
14:13
might if she's around jump on the guys back and stab him to give
14:16
you that opening so again it's just feeling very uniquely two
14:19
games of like oh I've learned to rely on this person that when they're
14:21
not around I want
14:22
them around but Ellie isn't there simply to enhance game
14:26
mechanics there is performance
14:28
happening even when you're just walking around the city the
14:31
way she's talking and the way she's experiencing
14:34
the scene and her demeanor is
14:36
gonna change how you feel about her there so for example after
14:40
Ellie and Joel get in a fight in the hotel in Pittsburgh
14:43
and you just hang back like I told you to you
14:46
could see her she's crossing your arms more she's more standoffish she's talking
14:49
less than she's used to we're again in a film you can control the
14:53
pacing and exact shots here
14:54
it's just like oh this
14:56
person that's walking with me is behaving
14:57
differently this is what it feels like to be in a fight the
15:01
behavior of the NPC
15:02
changes how you feel about them
15:04
so now that we've covered all the various ways the game makes the player
15:08
experience Joel and Ellie's relationship
15:11
I want to look at one last sequence it's
15:14
one of my favorites
15:15
in the game and
15:16
I think it demonstrates
15:17
how all these pieces come
15:20
together toward the end of the game Ellie has a traumatic
15:24
experience where she's taken by a group of cannibals and narrowly
15:28
finds a way to escape
15:29
she grabs his machete and she kills David in the most brutal way he
15:33
just packs him and even
15:35
past the point where he's dead and you're seeing this effect now this this
15:39
her being on her own fighting
15:41
all these people killing
15:42
murdering it's having a toll and
15:44
we leave them just as Joel comes in and pulls
15:48
her off the David and holds
15:49
her and embraces her like his own daughter even
15:51
calls her baby girl the same phrase he used for his daughter
16:01
the game cuts to a few months later but
16:04
the weight of Ellie's experience
16:06
remains where le the whole game has been optimistic
16:10
wand that Pepe was she does
16:12
she's the one that calls droolin his
16:14
she just got all this energy and
16:16
you're coming in and she's quiet and she's distant
16:20
yeah once we're done with this whole thing and
16:22
it takes you how to play guitar
16:23
yeah I reckon you'd really like that
16:26
what do you say huh she
16:29
doesn't respond and you
16:30
get this interactive proverb out of her head that you've had the whole game
16:33
where you could talk to her like and you hit it again like Elliot
16:35
and you gonna get Elliot hey I'm talking to you huh
16:38
oh yeah sure that sounds great
16:41
but you could elf something is really off with her and
16:44
that was important for us to
16:47
show that Elly has an arc that Elly starts is this very innocent
16:50
naive person and you can't survive in this world without it corrupting
16:54
you in somewhere without it having some toll
16:56
on your personality here
16:58
the behavior of the NPC
17:00
you're paired with is once
17:02
again revealing character moments
17:04
later you're in a bus station and need to boost Elly up to grab
17:07
a ladder something you've done time
17:10
and time again in the game well
17:12
we could use that ladder you've
17:13
done it so much that now the game can subvert your expectations
17:17
so you there's a ladder on top
17:20
of a ledge and you call Elly and you click it and Ellie's
17:23
not there here we go
17:29
early and you turn around and see she's just there sitting despondent
17:34
le what the ladder
17:40
it's hard to convey how surprising
17:43
this is without actually playing
17:44
the game but it's one of my favorite moments in any game I've ever
17:48
played a perfect example of
17:50
how to use gameplay mechanics
17:52
to convey emotion you
17:55
feel what a toll this
17:56
journey has had on
17:58
and then you boost her and she starts lowering this ladder and something
18:03
catches her off-guard like
18:04
oh my god and she just drops the ladder and runs off oh my
18:07
god now your panic started saying what did you see so you call to
18:13
yell out there she doesn't respond so you have to like pick up the
18:15
ladder how do I climb up and then go find it Ellie here
18:19
empathy through control kicks in the
18:21
girl you have to protect may be in danger and it's up to you
18:24
to see if she's okay and that's
18:27
when this happens the
18:42
giraffe moment is very much result
18:44
of really tight structure we
18:47
just came from a sequence where we want to show the toll of all
18:49
the violence the trauma it has on Elly bringing just feel so bad for
18:53
her this this kid
18:54
is gone maybe she'll never recover and
18:56
Elly is just over the moon seeing these giraffes and you can go up
19:01
to them and you can pet
19:08
and the reason that that is there is to bring the child back is
19:12
to show she still has that innocence
19:14
she still has that hopefulness
19:16
she can still smile despite all
19:18
the horrible things these character have experienced
19:20
she still have life within her we
19:23
get the briefest of cinematics
19:24
where we see their faces during
19:26
this emotional turning point is
19:28
everything you were hoping for
19:34
it's got its ups and downs
19:37
but I can't an out of view though and
19:42
we are one step closer to the completion
19:45
of Joel's arc the
19:47
kind of life that joel has like suppressed
19:49
and shut down comes
19:52
through with Ellie and then
19:54
it's like that's probably the the happiest
19:56
moment like coming from such the dark
19:57
of winter to this really
19:59
happy moment that really sets us up for the darkness of all we needs
20:03
to head into to
20:04
me like great story structure is constantly
20:06
doing this and that's
20:09
you know that was what we were after for
20:12
the sequence this quiet happy
20:14
moment sets the player up for
20:16
the game's darkest sequence
20:18
yet what is your goal
20:24
when creating a story
20:26
when creating a game what experience
20:28
do you want people to walk away with what
20:30
we wanted was to have the player be
20:33
entertained I think if it's not entertaining and it's boring you're not going to
20:36
stick with it love
20:37
these characters the way we love them understand
20:40
them and just making you reflect
20:41
on these choices and question
20:43
like what would I have done and
20:44
I think you only feel
20:46
the weight of that question if you experience a whole journey with these characters
20:50
Joel and Ellie's journey is not just fun to play it's
20:54
a powerful story experience
20:55
that cleverly uses the tools of its medium to
20:58
deeply affect the player
21:00
making sure we won't forget our experience
21:03
playing The Last of Us
21:07
if you're interested in doing your own storytelling
21:10
in games but obviously
21:11
be good to know as much as you can about both how to tell
21:15
stories and how to make games and one
21:17
of the greatest resources
21:18
for learning new skills is
21:20
Skillshare Skillshare is an online learning community for
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creators with thousands of classes and game design writing
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to skill share for sponsoring
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this video hey guys hope
22:16
you enjoy the video I want to say thank you to Neil druckmann and
22:20
everyone at Naughty Dog and Sony who helped to make this interview possible
22:23
we actually talked for about 40
22:26
minutes so there were parts of the interview that had to be cut but
22:29
I'll be releasing these extra
22:31
clips to our patrons
22:32
so if you want to help support the channel and
22:34
get access to exclusive clips
22:36
from my interview with Neil head
22:38
to the patreon for lessons from a screenplay thank
22:41
you as always to the patrons on patreon and supporters
22:44
here on YouTube for making this channel possible
22:47
thanks for watching and I'll
22:49
see you next time
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