max s. gerber(the latest shot)

jenova is a different kind of video game designer. he’s not interested in shoot ‘em ups, or dragons and treasure. jenova chen designs games that are intended to invoke emotional responses in players. the cofounder of that game company, contracted with sony (he makes games for the playstation 3) his games are more atmospheric. as an example, this was shot for the wall street journal and focused on jenova’s new game called flower. in this game (inspired by a poem), essentially you control flower petals, which are in turn existing in the dream of a houseplant living in the city. it’s almost gaming as therapy, as a meditative experiment, designed not to get you pumped up and aggressive, but to make you feel better.

for this shot we wanted a sort of atmospheric, lush, dreamlike sort of picture to go along with the text of the article. the problem was, like most things, that the shoot was arranged at the very last minute (friday afternoon for the following monday morning) and the only place we could secure any permission to use was the street in front of a building four blocks away from jenova’s office in santa monica. the only thing lush there was a small row of plants and bushes between the building and the sidewalk. not a whole lot to work with. however, a little ingenuity and some selective focus and i think it worked pretty well, given the circumstances.

my thanks to jenova for being agreeable about laying down on the grass, and my thanks to corporal bennett for braving the spider filled bushes to set up a light or two. hey, paul, at least it wasn’t camel spiders this time. thanks to shira at WSJ for the gig.

see the original WSJ article here.

play jenova’s game, flow, here.

here’s a trailer for flower.