The team behind the award-winning Aussie comedy Kenny is using a video game to make their latest project.
Writer and director Clayton Jacobson is working with his actor brother Shane as well as producer Jim Shomos on Mordy Koots, a hybrid they have dubbed a "MOGIE" - Movie Over Game Integrated Entertainment.
Mordy Koots is a character-driven comedy series for digital broadcast that use the visual backgrounds and scenarios from Ubisoft's World War II flight combat game Blazing Angels with live action performances shot using "green screen" technology.
Gamesmaster visited the set of Mordy Koots during shooting last week, and got the chance to speak to Shane "Kenny" Jacobson as well as producer Jim Shomos.
Jacobson says he is really enjoying the outlandish role, which was evident during a lively shooting session with Underbelly star Damien Walshe Howling, who plays an outrageously camp gay pilot.
"It's fantastic," says Jacobson. "It's hilarious. We're getting to play in a plane and pretend we are fighter pilots. Didn't you have that dream as a kid? C'mon, all of us did. Police, fireman, fighter pilots, we all did.
"He's not quite as tempered or as calm as anyone else I have played. That's good fun being able to play someone that is completely hyper. I'm sure Damian would agree that we've had a really great chance to cut loose.
"You don't want to do it all the time, you want the chance to play dark and light, and all the different shades, but it's a lot of fun to play someone who is completely over-the-top. For those three minutes it is so energy-packed."
Jacobson says he wouldn't have called himself a gamer before the project started, "but now I've had a go. I've been playing Blazing Angels at home. I'm not good at it, but I enjoy it."
He says he expects the public to really embrace the character and the unusual concept, which will initially be released in 10 three minute episodes.
"The people that have seen the trailer so far have loved it," Jacobson says. "It has seemed to have sparked a lot of interest. I think there will be a fair few eyeballs heading our way once we're finished."
Producer Jim Shomos says the idea come to Clayton Jacobson while sitting on the couch playing a game.
"He plays games with his son, is quite a gamer," says Shomos, and was getting frustrated with the process of computer-generated graphics when working on an advertisement a few years ago.
"At the same time as playing games and watching these amazing graphics and seeing the kinds of things you can do within a game, record what you play, show different camera angles, move around in a 3D space, at the same time he was doing an ad that was totally frustrating him because the CGI component was taking so long. Every time he wanted something new done it was another few days wait, even just a tiny little manoeuvre with the camera.
"So he came home one day and said 'why can't I have that?' and it clicked for him. In typical Clay style he tested it with his wife and his son in the kitchen with a green blanket and it worked. He proved it to himself that it worked and after that we caught up and started the process."
French game publisher Ubisoft says the process is a world-first, and Shomos says it is obviously a boon for gaming companies.
"The way we see it is that Clayton and I want to make a number of these series, and there's no reason why we can't make longer form series or even set a film in one of these games. We've got a couple of ideas where we want to set a feature film within game graphics because they are so good.
"So the way the games companies can look at it now is that their games are kind of like studio lots that they can hire out to ad companies, production companies, Hollywood, etc. It gives them a whole new revenue stream which they hadn't considered before. We've opened their eyes to that."
The first episode will be distributed before Christmas.
"It's a quick turnaround, that's one of the great things about it," says Shomos. "Being producers, directors, writers, we get the chance to get content out there fairly quickly with this process compared to say, making a film once every four years, which is the average in this country. This way we get to tell more stories more often and it's still testing our creative muscles."