00:09I believe video games are the future of storytelling and I think this is just a prehistory of video games.
00:16We're just pioneers. This industry is just learning to walk on its feet right now and that's what inspires me.
00:23It's being part of that incredible movement.
00:30This was my real father's camera. I want you to have it.
00:34That's so cool you remembered my birthday, but I can't take this.
00:39Of course you can. My dad would be pissed if I never used it and now I know it'll be
00:43used awesomely.
00:44And I'll snag this picture as a symbol of our union. Cool?
00:47Since the beginning, we knew that we wanted to have some licensed titles.
00:52This is really something important for us because of the mood of the game and the nostalgic feeling we wanted
00:59to have.
00:59As we were a French company, we wanted to work with a French artist.
01:03A song, I think sometimes more than a score, gives really something unique to a scene.
01:10We managed to have a blend between licensing tracks that we bought and original scoring made by Jonathan Morali.
01:19We knew that he had made some tracks for movies, but he has never done any video games before.
01:26We used also two tracks from Cinemater's band.
01:29And of course, we wanted to have also other tracks from other artists because following the same idea that for
01:36each episode, you will have new songs.
01:38But for episode one, we will have a song from Gonzales.
01:41We are very proud to have a song from Gonzales.
01:44You play Gonzales in the EFI and when you go back playing your guitar, Max will play the same thing
01:53as Gonzales with her own guitar.
02:06We have a song from Angus et Juliaston.
02:08We are great artists also and since the beginning of the game, we have some Angus et Juliaston music on
02:15a lot of scenes in the game.
02:16And this is, yeah, their songs work very well with our game and with our mood.
02:23And also when Chloe is putting some music in her room, she will put a Sparkle Horse title.
02:30The great title with PGRV singing on this one.
02:35We can use also the music to describe something more about the characters by their choices.
02:42For example, the music that Chloe will listen to is not the same as the one of Max.
02:49For this game, we knew that we wanted to deal with more intimate feelings, some nostalgic aspects.
02:54For us, Life is Strange is more like an indie movie, sort of vibe.
02:59Compared to a blockbuster, it's more like a Sundance movie.
03:03So we saw that going for a realistic rendering wouldn't work this well for this project
03:08because we really wanted to have this slow-paced and intimate feeling with the game.
03:14And we saw that having this hand-painting feeling would really allow the players, the viewer,
03:20to put some of their own imagination and their own feelings to what they were looking for.
03:27At the very beginning, the scene is completely blank.
03:30And piece after piece, we create the environment.
03:35Usually, we start with walls and details.
03:41I like to put some small stuff like that.
03:45To put a small detail, just like it was your room, to add some story in it.
03:51We started to brainstorm a bit to what kind of story, what kind of setting would be the best for
03:56this kind of experience.
03:57So we thought that to play a teenager could be really interesting because this is a period of your life
04:03when your choices will matter the most and define who you will be as an adult.
04:09We knew that we wanted to have this nostalgic feeling and that's why we decided to go for this story,
04:15this coming-of-edge tale of an American teenager in a small city in the Pacific Northwest.
04:21For everything in the game, we did a ton of photographs or getting references.
04:26We are looking on Google Street View and a lot of pictures to be really sure that we are right
04:31with the details.
04:32It was very interesting to have this artistic style.
04:36The fact we use a realistic setting, it takes place nowadays in the US.
04:41So at first, the team wanted to create something that looks exactly like the real world.
04:46For the characters, it's exactly the same. There are a lot of research,
04:50so our concept artists are doing a lot of sketch about some characters.
04:55We have all imagined those characters when we read the script.
04:59We imagine them all in our own way, so it's not always the same,
05:03but we try to be sure that the player will feel them the way we want them to feel those
05:09characters.
05:09When you're looking at an overly realistic picture, there is no room for imagination at all.
05:15You just see everything in a crude light.
05:18But when we have those soft colors and this hand-drawn feeling,
05:25you can put some of your own memories in what you're looking at.
05:30And that's really something we wanted to push and to develop for this game.
05:33We have those realistic lighting on top of this hand-drawn picture.
05:38I think light is almost an actor itself in the game.
05:43In Sundance movies, there is this will to frame against the light or to have those lights coming in the
05:51picture.
05:52And that's something we really wanted to portray in the game, to use the light to be part of the
05:56picture
05:57and just not be something that just would be lighting the characters.
06:02That's also some new technology we developed for Life is Strange,
06:05to have those light leaks bleeding over the picture.
06:09Some of the parts of the game are taking place in the Magic Hour.
06:13Because this is really this kind of lighting and feeling that really brings this warmth and soft feeling.
06:21And I think it was great for telling our story of Max and Chloe.
06:26This effect is composed of about seven or eight different layers of elements.
06:35And it was a very, very big challenge to make it work.
06:42The effect is one of my largest effects, not most complex, but largest effects I've ever done.
07:01The writer is based in the US. The script he creates, we're very proud of it.
07:08Yesterday, the audio director for the video session said once again that he loved the script.
07:14She looks like a model.
07:16That was her plan. Our plan. Get the hell out of Bigfootville and into Los Angeles.
07:23What about your mom? What did Joyce think about all this?
07:27In a game with such a heavy narrative, narratively driven game, voiceover, voice acting is really, really important.
07:35And we really wanted the voice actors to be American.
07:39And so we decided, we looked for different studios and we decided to went for a studio located in Los
07:45Angeles working with American actors.
07:47We attend remotely the sessions in Hollywood and Los Angeles.
07:51So we have a day that starts at 10 and around 6 p.m. we have to start the second
07:57day of the day and attend the recording session until 3 a.m.
08:02I say we have some really, really talented voice actors with the game. We're really happy with them.
08:07The actress playing Chloe, her name is Ashley Birch. And she's quite famous in the video game industry because she's
08:15making a lot of videos calling WhatsApp playing A-Hash.
08:20We're really happy with what she brings and all the actors brings to the characters. When we record the session,
08:27they give something more to the characters.
08:30Each session is really something unique to having this quality for the game.
08:34We are really, really happy with the voice actress we have for Max. Her name is Hannah Tell. We're really,
08:39really happy with the way she's portraying Max.
08:42What's great is that everyone's enjoying this game right now. It's very different from what you're used to see.
08:50I myself, I smile when I play the game, when I discover some hidden stuff I hadn't seen. We have
08:57a lot of easter eggs hidden here and there and it's really an enjoyable experience.
09:03We have now basically gathered an extremely talented pool of producers, animators, game designers, level designers, concept artists, sound designers.
09:16Everywhere in this building you'll see extremely talented people.
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