As games productions become larger, so too do the names they’re able to feature on their cast lists. But how does a game developer get hold of a filmstar to provide voice-work for it? The answer is a company like Blindlight, which acquires Hollywood talent for games, including voice acting, scriptwriting and music for such games as Halo 3, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Lev Chapelsky, general manager of the Hollywood-based firm, explains how the movie world’s relationship with the videogame world is being affected by recession, what a big celebrity really brings to the quality of a game and how he couldn't get Bill Clinton to appear in Fallout 3. But he won’t quite reveal how he managed to convince Mickey Rourke to work on some videogame directly after narrowly missing an Oscar for The Wrestler...

As recession hits the entertainment industries, do you think it is causing Hollywood to look at videogames in a new light?
Yeah, absolutely. There’s this perception that entertainment in general is pretty recession-proof, but in Hollywood there are a lot of advertising-supported sectors that get just walloped. Film is surviving a little bit better, but everyone here really does think that the videogame industry is the 800-pound gorilla for the recession, even within the entertainment sector, which overall does well. So there’s a lot of talk about how the demand keeps up and how videogames are maybe a substitute for what other people might do with their time and how they’re good value per hour.

None of those reports in the media is lost on the talent community or the production community here. They eye videogames and say, ‘Hmm, this is an area where we should be able to continue to get work in tough times’. And I’ll tell you, I have an MBA, so a lot of my classmates that went to work on Wall Street or in marketing or finance are in disastrous circumstances now, and, relatively, my business is booming. Videogames are capturing a lot of attention now as a good stronghold in a recession.

Is this just a continuation of a general trend that videogames are becoming treated more seriously, or has the recession marked any kind of sea change in Hollywood?
The economics of the recession are looked at as a temporary condition, but talent, and producers are also looking at how content is evolving and becoming more sophisticated and mature. As it gets more in-depth they’re looking more to property exchanges, co-productions and joint efforts and things of that nature. And they have some interest in the technology – you can see in CG that there is a line in terms of production assets between film and games. So it’s more the evolution of the medium over the long term that is slowly chipping away at this idea from Hollywood that videogames are the bastard stepchild of entertainment. And that’s a steady trajectory I think, that started at the launch of the Atari 2600 or maybe even prior. I don’t think that’s gonna spike up or dip down in a recession.

Do you think there’s been influence in this trend from the economic problems film is currently facing?
Certainly you could say the television and film industries are a bit scared about their loss of market share to games. The perception is that particularly young males are cutting back on their consumption of film and television and substituting it with games. So it’s definitely affecting their creative vision and output, and you hear that amongst writers in Hollywood, directors and studio executives. You can definitely see signs that they’re trying to recapture that audience share in stylistic choices in the direction and the editing of films – shorter sequencing, faster pace and camera angles that feels like what you’re used to from games. And even in things like graphic styles of credits, they’re all recognising that videogames are a serious threat and they’re all concerned about the erosion to their market base and their revenue stream.