BISSFF2025 | Non-player Character 非玩家角色

Non-player Character｜非玩家角色

Dan Gatzmaga 丹·加茨马加

2025｜0:13:37｜Germany｜English｜World Premiere

Director: Dan Gatzmaga

Interviewer & Translator: Liu Sanyang

Coordinator & Editor: Suliko

导演：丹·加茨马加

采访、翻译：刘三扬

统筹、编辑：苏丽珂

Q1:For me, the experience of watching your film was quite uncanny. During the screening, I kept thinking of Walter Benjamin’s famous line: “This is an estranged world, different from everyday life, and it reveals itself only to the camera.”Eighty years ago, this referred to the world constituted by celluloid. Today, it seems to gesture toward an entirely different dimension—the very dimension your film opens up, by presenting an “estranged” world of its own.What was the original impulse behind making this film?

A1: It's a beautiful quote that I think applies to machinima in a different way than it does to real-life cinema. Video games, in their intended mode of consumption, are a designed experience that offer the player certain systems and mechanics to interact with. The graphical realism or stylization that some game designers opt for is perhaps just a side effect of the players' desire to freely interact with a world that mirrors our own. Since it is impossible to fully recreate the physics and look of our real world in a real-time digital space, certain adjustments have to be made. Textures might be lower resolution and animations might be limited in their fidelity. In my understanding, this is similar to what film looked like a hundred years ago - looking at the earliest films made, they certainly don't accurately represent what the real world looks like. The image is black-and-white, noisy and grainy. We are however still able to recognize a human face, a house, a tree, etc., for what it is supposed to represent, regardless of its graphical quality. My impulse behind making the film was to create an artistic research project as a part of my Bachelor's thesis on our perception within simulated spaces (specifically from the perspective of a filmmaker/film editor), as I wanted to explore the phenomenon of simulated humans being able to infer real emotions in the person watching, and to explore the similarities and differences between the two mediums - film and video games. There was one thought experiment that had fascinated me when I first started writing my thesis: in a real film, when a dialogue scene between two people ends, we cut away and never get to see what happens after. The decision is already made for us. In a video game however, I am able to stay in the room for as long as I like, even if the NPC's script has already ended. We can stay and watch while they struggle to keep up the facade of realness, as their part of the story has already ended. We are urged to move on. 

Q2:Your film also reminded me of Total Refusal’s Hardly Working (2022). Both works focus on non-player characters. The difference, perhaps, is that Total Refusal foreground their own narration, making their film resemble a video-essay, whereas you withdraw your own authorial voice and instead devote yourself to observing, recording, and interpreting the absurd cracks within the simulation.Were you influenced by Total Refusal or by Hardly Working during the making of your film?

A2: When I originally thought about making a machinima film with Half-Life 2, I wanted to have the NPCs narrate their own dreams to the viewer. When thinking about what these dreams could be about, I found that a lot of the themes were already covered in Hardly Working, even though the film doesn't empathize with or take the perspective of the NPCs themselves in that way. Total Refusal uses the game world and the NPCs inhabiting it to make a statement about something that exists outside of the game, using narrative tools such as a voice-over to convey their message. I decided very early on that I didn't want to use anything that existed outside of the game's world, instead letting the viewer fill in the gaps about what the NPCs might be thinking or feeling. Nevertheless, I enjoy their films and was motivated to make a machinima film once I saw that Total Refusal was able to make something with a mainstream appeal. I had been aware of machinima from a very early age and always saw it as a form of fan art, or art contained within the community of the game. I didn't truly realize that I would be able to use the games as a tool for "serious" storytelling until people who had never played video games before were suddenly telling me about this great film shot in "some cowboy game".   

Q3:The film opens with a train arriving in City 17 and closes with the exact same scene, forming a loop that seems impossible to escape.Why did you choose this loop as the structural framework of the film? What kind of emotion or perception do you hope the audience experiences through this repetition?

A3: When making the film, I tried to view the world through the eyes of one of the NPCs, as a sort of mental role play exercise. One of the things I noticed was that when playing a video game, it is quite normal to just restart a level or play the game from the beginning. In the eyes of someone stuck within the game, the same thing happens over and over, while you have no real control over what happens to you or the world around you. I find this to be quite scary. As a player, this might be a liberating feeling - nothing matters, so you can do whatever you want without consequence. For the NPCs, it is like reliving the worst day of your life for eternity. In the film, I hope to showcase this by having the audience connect with the NPCs emotionally, only to rip it all away when the game is reset. It's a way of saying: all of what you just watched, felt, and thought, doesn't really matter anymore. There is a greater force preventing you from finding true meaning, because it will all start anew anyways.

Q4:In the first half, we see the everyday loops of NPCs—until an important turning point occurs: a female NPC suddenly begins to cry, and a male NPC moves toward her to console her. This moment feels emotionally powerful and seems to exceed the scripted behavior usually assigned to NPCs.

What led you to include this scene? What do you think this moment of “emotional overflow” signifies?

A4: It is the first moment the viewer is forced to interact with undeniable emotion. In the previous scenes, I try to establish the logic of the world, showing NPCs carrying out their routines. When the first NPC is shown to suddenly disappear behind the door, people in the audience are usually shocked or amused by the "video game-ness" of the moment, which stands in stark contrast to the crying scene. There is nothing funny about it, even if it is graphically surreal. My hope was for people to be taken aback by their previous perception of the world and their emotional investment when they are suddenly confronted with a couple that appears to show genuine emotion and affection for each other, even though they are clearly not real. This, to me, is the main thesis of my film. During the process of filming I even felt at times that I was intruding on an intimate moment, even though I obviously knew that none of it was real. There is something unshakeable about this display of human interaction, even though the scene itself is shown in a stereotypical, overly sentimental way.

Non-player Character, Dan Gatzmaga, 2025

Q5:The first half of the film is accompanied by Dr. Breen’s broadcast. The language carries a strong sense of authoritarian propaganda. In your film, it does not explicate the narrative but functions more like ideological noise.Why did you choose to insert this broadcast? Do you view it as a kind of “systemic voice” that NPCs cannot hear yet cannot escape?

A5: Ideological noise is a great term for it! In Half-Life 2, it is an indispensable part of the story and thus heavily informs the NPCs emotional state. They are forced to live under an authoritarian regime, but unlike many other media that take place in such dystopian settings, they seem to have come to terms with it - they have already given up when the story begins and the player enters the world for the first time. It is just as essential as the clothes they wear, the way the buildings look, and the way they talk to each other. It is a way of paying homage to the design of the game and the writers that created the world it takes place in. A different film might have used the broadcast as an element of discourse, using it to shape the messaging of the film, but I chose to - as you aptly described - withdraw my own authorial voice and let the atmosphere leave its impression on the viewers. In my own interpretation, I don't need to create another work to convey the messaging the broadcast and the setting carries, since Half-Life 2 as a game already exists and does the very same thing a lot better. It is my way of respecting the world the developers had already built, as I don't feel a need to comment on it beyond using it to shape the context my film takes place in.  

Q6:The city in your film is clearly designed as a functional game environment, yet it appears desolate—almost ruinous.Were you influenced by any real urban spaces, personal experiences, or cinematic references when constructing this atmosphere of loneliness?

A6: Similarly to the 5th question above, I merely used the environment that was already designed by the developers at Valve. From my personal research I'm aware that City 17 was loosely based on Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria. The game's art director, Viktor Antonov, grew up there and so many buildings and spaces are influenced by Sofia. I actually went to visit the city in real life after making the film because I was interested in the effect it would have when seeing the buildings that inspired City 17 - which I know very well at this point - with my own eyes. It was very surreal finding the direct inspirations for the architecture of the game! I've attached a photo below, maybe you'll recognize the style of building from Half-Life 2.

Q7:Do you consider your work a machinima? And for you personally, what does machinima mean—as a method, an aesthetic, or a way of looking at virtual worlds?

A7:Absolutely! As described in an answer above, I grew up with machinima as a sort of fan art and in recent years it has seen a resurgence in experimental and independent film. I think it is a great tool for low-budget film production that can touch on topics that are otherwise difficult to capture or film due to physical or financial restraints. Unlike traditional 3D animation, the usage of video games allows for a certain amount of creative restraint, as some things are already pre-programmed and designed. This makes the process especially interesting as one has to consider which game to use for the specific project one wants to make.

Q8:When filming the NPCs, you are simultaneously a “player,” a “director,” and a “camera.”How do you navigate these shifting roles? In your view, what fundamentally distinguishes machinima’s way of seeing from that of conventional cinematography?

A8: I view the process as being a mixture between documentary and fictional filmmaking. By replaying the same levels over and over, I learned the routine of the NPCs, the map, and how the world would react depending on my actions. In that sense, the events happening are scripted, as they were determined by the game developers. I am able to predict each situation and can change the camera angle for multiple takes of the same event. In a different sense, I am documenting the world and the NPCs as they were designed, and I am finding new meaning in interactions unintended by the developers. In order to make a machinima film, one has to understand the game to a degree that is normally not required when simply playing it. Through that immersion, one begins to see the virtual world as somewhat real. I had described above how filming the scene with the couple on the sofa felt like watching an intimate moment - similarly, watching the NPCs' facial expressions close-up evoked an emotional response in me, too. Even though I was sitting at my desk alone, I felt watched while behind the camera.

Q9:Of the three films I am writing about for my BISFF article, yours is the only one that never leaves the game’s visual world. How do you understand the significance of machinima today? Do you see it as merely an extension of games, or as an independent cinematic language?

A9: I believe it is a bit of both. It inherits a lot of aspects from traditional filmmaking, but what sets it apart are its constraints. It has come to find its own stylistic markers. Many machinima films rely on the incompleteness of the game world as a sort of punchline (e.g. the graphics or imperfect animations), but I believe the medium will soon develop past that aspect being the main focus of those works. The ability to create independent machinima films on a low budget lends itself to machinima being a medium of counter-culture and systematic critique, and I hope to see it develop past the concept of a regular film that happens to be shot in a video game.

Q10:Finally, do you intend to continue making works like this in the future?Where do you think machinima—and your own practice within it—might go next?

A10: I am currently working on an artistic research project (link to the teaser: https://vimeo.com/1130770883/edc7c63d80?fl=ip&fe=ec) in which I want to explore the absence of humans in digital simulations as well as the politics of the simulated image by means of using Google Earth to explore unfinished three-dimensional spaces such as important cities and untouched nature. I hope to continue to explore different methods of research within the genre, trying out different games as the basis for films or other projects. I can imagine that I'll be working with machinima for my personal projects for a while. I usually take the role of a film editor for both fictional and documentary projects, so machinima allows me to create things on my own on the side. In a way, creating machinima films is like editing, since I am using existing material - recontextualising it to find meaning not inherently found in the video game itself.

Non-player Character, Dan Gatzmaga, 2025

Q1:对我而言，观看你这部影片的体验相当“诡异”（uncanny）。在放映过程中，我一直在想沃尔特·本雅明的那句名言：“这是一个陌生的世界，不同于日常生活，它只向摄影机展示自己。” 八十年前，这句话指的是由胶片构成的世界。而今天，它似乎指向了一个完全不同的维度——正是你的电影所开启的维度，通过呈现一个其自身独有的“陌异”世界。 制作这部电影最初的冲动是什么？

A1：这是一句很美的引语，我认为它适用于游戏引擎电影（machinima）的方式与适用于实拍电影的方式截然不同。电子游戏，在其预设的消费模式下，是一种被设计出来为玩家提供特定的系统和机制以供互动的体验。一些游戏设计师所追求的图形写实主义或风格化，或许只是为了满足玩家想要自由地与一个“镜像于我们自身”的世界进行互动的渴望带来的副作用。由于不可能在实时数字空间中完全复刻现实世界的物理和外观，必须做出某些调整。纹理的分辨率可能会降低，动画的保真度（fidelity）可能会受限。

依我之见，这与一百年前电影的样子很相似——看看那些最早期的电影，它们当然也没有精准地再现现实世界的模样。影像不仅是黑白的，还充满了噪点和颗粒。然而，不管画质如何，我们仍然能认出一张人脸、一所房子、一棵树等，并理解它们所代表的事物。

我制作这部电影的初衷是将其作为一个艺术研究项目，作为我学士学位论文的一部分。我的论文探讨的是我们在模拟空间中的感知（特别是从电影制作人/剪辑师的视角出发）。我想探索模拟人类（simulated humans）能够唤起观看者真实情感这一现象，并探索电影与电子游戏这两种媒介之间的异同。

在我刚开始写论文时，有一个思想实验让我着迷：在一部真实的电影中，当两个人的对话场景结束时，镜头切走，我们永远看不到之后发生了什么。这个决定已经替我们做好了。然而在电子游戏中，我可以想在房间里待多久就待多久，即使 NPC（非玩家角色）的脚本已经结束了。我们可以留下来，看着他们在这个故事部分已经完结的情况下，还要挣扎着维持“真实”的表象。我们（通常）是被催促着继续前行的。

Q2：你的电影也让我想起了艺术小组 Total Refusal 的《Hardly Working》（2022）。因为这两部作品都聚焦于非玩家角色（NPC）。或许区别在于，Total Refusal 突出了他们自己的叙述，使电影看起来像是一篇视频论文（video-essay），而你则隐去了作者的声音，转而致力于观察、记录并诠释模拟中那些荒诞的裂隙。 在制作这部电影时，你是否受到了 Total Refusal 或《Hardly Working》的影响？

A2: 当初构思用《半条命2》（Half-Life 2）制作一部游戏引擎电影时，我原本想让 NPC 向观众讲述他们自己的梦境。当思考这些梦境可能关于什么时，我发现很多主题在《Hardly Working》中已经被涵盖了，尽管那部电影并没有以那种方式去共情或采纳 NPC 自身的视角。Total Refusal 利用游戏世界和其中的 NPC 来表达某种存在于游戏之外的观点，他们使用了画外音等叙事工具来传达信息。

我很早就决定，不想使用任何存在于游戏世界之外的东西，而是让观众自己去填补关于 NPC 可能在想什么或感觉什么的空白。不过，我很喜欢他们的电影，而且看到 Total Refusal 能够制作出具有主流吸引力的作品，这也给了我制作游戏引擎电影的动力。我很早就知道 游戏引擎电影这种形式，但一直将其视为一种同人艺术（fan art），或者是局限于游戏社区内的艺术。直到那些从未玩过电子游戏的人突然跟我谈论起这部用“某个牛仔游戏”拍出来的伟大电影（《Hardly Working》）时，我才真正意识到，原来我也可以利用游戏作为工具来进行“严肃”的叙事。

Half-Life 2

Q3：电影以列车抵达 17 号城市（City 17）开场，并以完全相同的场景结束，形成了一个似乎无法逃脱的循环。 你为什么选择这种循环作为电影的结构框架？你希望观众通过这种重复体验到什么样的情绪或感知？

A3：在制作这部电影时，我试图通过其中一个 NPC 的眼睛来看待这个世界，这就像是一种心理上的角色扮演练习。我注意到的一点是，在玩电子游戏时，重启关卡或从头开始玩是非常正常的。但在一个被困在游戏里的人眼中，同样的事情一遍又一遍地发生，而你对发生在自己身上或周围世界的事情却没有任何真正的控制权。我觉得这相当可怕。

作为一个玩家，这种感觉可能是自由的——什么都不重要，所以你可以为所欲为而不必承担后果。但对于 NPC 来说，这就像是永恒地重温生命中最糟糕的一天。在电影中，我希望通过让观众与 NPC 建立情感连接来展示这一点，但在游戏重置时又将这一切猛然撕碎。这就好比在说：你刚才看到、感觉到和想到的一切，都不重要了。有一种更巨大的力量在阻止你寻找真正的意义，因为无论如何，一切都会重新开始。

Q4：在前半部分，我们看到 NPC 的日常循环——直到一个重要的转折点出现：一位女性 NPC 突然开始哭泣，一位男性 NPC 走向她并安慰她。这一刻在情感上非常有力，似乎超越了通常分配给 NPC 的脚本行为。 是什么让你加入了这个场景？你认为这个“情感溢出”的时刻意味着什么？

A4：这是观众第一次被迫与不可否认的情感进行互动。在之前的场景中，我试图建立这个世界的逻辑，展示 NPC 执行他们的常规程序。当第一个 NPC 突然消失在门后时，观众通常会对这一刻的“电子游戏感”感到震惊或觉得好笑，这与哭泣的场景形成了鲜明的对比。那个场景虽然在视觉上也是超现实的，但毫无滑稽可言。

我的希望是，当观众突然面对一对似乎表现出真挚情感和爱意的伴侣时——尽管他们显然不是真的——观众对自己之前的世界认知和情感投入会感到措手不及。对我来说，这就是我电影的主要主题。在拍摄过程中，我甚至有时会觉得自己在侵犯一个亲密的时刻，即使我明明知道这都不是真的。这种人类互动的展示有一种不可动摇的力量，即便这个场景本身是以一种刻板的、过度煽情的方式呈现的。

Q5：电影前半部分伴随着布林博士（Dr. Breen）的广播。这种语言带有强烈的威权主义宣传色彩。在你的电影中，它并没有对叙事进行解释，而是更像一种意识形态噪音。 你为什么选择插入这段广播？你是否将其视为一种 NPC 听不到却又无法逃避的“系统之声”？

A5：“意识形态噪音”这个词太贴切了！在《半条命2》中，它是故事不可或缺的一部分，因此在很大程度上影响了 NPC 的情绪状态。他们被迫生活在一个威权政体之下，但与许多其他设定在此类反乌托邦背景下的媒体不同，他们似乎已经接受了这一切——当故事开始、玩家第一次进入这个世界时，他们已经放弃了抵抗。这与他们穿的衣服、建筑的外观以及他们彼此交谈的方式一样，都是必不可少的要素。

这是向游戏设计以及创造了这个世界的编剧致敬的一种方式。另一部电影可能会将广播作为一种论述元素，利用它来塑造电影的信息，但我选择了——正如你恰如其分地描述的那样——隐去我作为作者的声音，让这种氛围给观众留下印象。在我个人的理解中，我不需要再创作一部作品来传达广播和设定所承载的信息，因为《半条命2》作为一个游戏已经存在，并且做得比我好得多。这是我尊重开发者所构建的世界的方式，除了利用它来塑造我的电影发生的语境之外，我觉得没有必要对其进行额外的评论。

Q6：你电影中的城市显然是被设计为一个功能性的游戏环境，但它看起来却十分荒凉——近乎废墟。 在构建这种孤独的氛围时，你是否受到了任何真实城市空间、个人经历或电影参考的影响？

A6：这与上面第 5 个问题的回答类似，我仅仅使用了 Valve 开发者已经设计好的环境。根据我个人的研究，我知道 17 号城市的设计大致基于保加利亚的首都索非亚（Sofia）。游戏的艺术总监维克多·安东诺夫（Viktor Antonov）在那里长大，所以许多建筑和空间都受到了索非亚的影响。

实际上，我在制作完这部电影后去实地造访了这座城市，因为我想知道，当我亲眼看到那些激发了 17 号城市灵感的建筑时——此时我对它们已经非常熟悉了——会有什么样的效果。找到游戏中建筑的直接灵感来源是非常超现实的体验！我在下面附了一张照片，也许你能从中认出《半条命2》的建筑风格。

Q7：你认为你的作品属于游戏引擎电影（machinima）吗？对你个人而言，machinima 意味着什么——是一种方法、一种美学，还是看待虚拟世界的一种方式？

A7：当然！正如我在上面的回答中所描述的，我是看着游戏引擎电影作为一种同人艺术长大的，而近年来，它在实验电影和独立电影领域出现了复兴。我认为它是低成本电影制作的一个极佳工具，可以触及那些由于物理或资金限制而难以捕捉或拍摄的主题。

与传统的 3D 动画不同，使用电子游戏允许一定程度的“创造性束缚”（creative restraint），因为有些东西是预先编程和设计好的。这使得制作过程特别有趣，因为创作者必须考虑在这个特定项目中使用哪款游戏。

Q8：在拍摄 NPC 时，你同时身兼“玩家”、“导演”和“摄影机”这三重身份。 你是如何在这些转换的角色中进行导航的？在你看来，machinima 的观看方式与传统电影摄影有什么本质区别？

A8： 我将这个过程视为介于纪录片和虚构电影制作之间的混合体。通过一遍又一遍地重玩相同的关卡，我了解了 NPC 的路线、地图以及世界会如何根据我的行动做出反应。从这个意义上说，发生的事件是脚本化的，因为它们是由游戏开发者决定的。我能够预测每种情况，并且可以为了同一个事件从多个角度改变机位。

从另一个意义上说，我是在记录这个世界和被设计出来的 NPC，并且在开发者未曾设想的互动中发现新的意义。为了制作一部游戏引擎电影，你必须对游戏的理解达到一种普通游玩时不被要求的程度。通过这种沉浸，人开始将虚拟世界视为某种程度上的真实。我之前描述过，拍摄沙发上那对情侣的场景感觉就像是在观看一个亲密的时刻——同样地，近距离观察 NPC 的面部表情也引起了我的情感反应。即使我独自坐在书桌前，但在摄影机后面时，我也会感到被注视着。

Q9：在我为 BISFF撰写文章的这三部影片中，你的作品是唯一一部从未离开游戏视觉世界的。 你如何理解今天游戏引擎电影的意义？你认为它仅仅是游戏的延伸，还是一种独立的电影语言？

A9：我认为两者兼而有之。它继承了传统电影制作的许多方面，但使其与众不同的是它的限制条件。它已经开始找到自己的风格标记。许多游戏引擎电影依赖游戏世界的不完整性作为某种笑点或梗（punchline）（例如图形故障或不完美的动画），但我相信这种媒介很快就会发展到不再将这些方面作为作品的主要焦点。

使用低成本就能制作独立游戏引擎电影的特质，使其天生适合成为一种反主流文化和体制批判的媒介，我希望看到它发展到超越“恰好在电子游戏中拍摄的常规电影”这一概念。

Q10：最后，你打算在未来继续创作这类的作品吗？ 你认为 machinima——以及你自己在其中的实践——下一步会走向何方？

A10：我目前正在进行一个艺术研究项目（预告片链接：https://vimeo.com/1130770883/edc7c63d80?fl=ip&fe=ec），在这个项目中，我想通过使用谷歌地球（Google Earth）探索未完成的三维空间，如重要的城市和未受触及的自然，来探讨数字模拟中人类的缺席以及模拟影像的政治性。

我希望继续探索这一类型中不同的研究方法，尝试将不同的游戏作为电影或其他项目的基础。我可以想象，在未来一段时间里，我会继续将游戏引擎电影用于我的个人项目。我通常在虚构和纪录片项目中担任电影剪辑师，所以游戏引擎电影让我可以在工作之余独立创作。在某种程度上，创作游戏引擎电影跟剪辑工作非常类似，因为我同样是在使用现有的素材——对其进行重新语境化（recontextualising）的过程中，寻找原本并不存在于电子游戏本身的意义。

About the Artist 艺术家简介

Dan Gatzmaga is a Berlin-based filmmaker and editor with a focus on documentary and experimental formats. They are currently studying Film Editing at the Film University of Babelsberg. Their recent work explores the emotional and philosophical dimensions of virtual environments, blurring the line between simulation and reality.

丹·加茨马加是一位常驻柏林的电影人与剪辑师，专注于纪录片及实验影像。目前正于巴伯尔斯贝格（Babelsberg）电影大学攻读电影剪辑专业。其近期创作探索虚拟环境中的情感与哲学维度，模糊了模拟与现实的边界。

About the Author 作者简介

Liu Sanyang is a researcher and writer. He studies at the Department of Film Studies, Beijing Film Academy. His research interests include literature and cinema of the Manchukuo period, Hong Kong Mandarin cinema, and Machinima. His papers have been presented at academic conferences hosted by Nanyang Technological University, the University of Hong Kong, and Renmin University of China.

刘三扬是一位研究者与写作者，就读于北京电影学院电影学系。他的研究兴趣涵盖伪满洲国时期的文学与电影、香港国语片以及引擎电影。他的学术论文曾发表于南洋理工大学、香港大学及中国人民大学举办的学术会议。

▌more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/non-player-character