Video Game Writers Sound Off

The billion-dollar industry is providing new opportunities for writers, but don’t expect your traditional writing skills to translate: video gaming is a brand new medium.

By Robert Gustafson and Alec McNayr

As teenagers of the 1980’s, we spent hours every day poised in front of our televisions, but we weren’t watching cartoons or catching the latest after-school special. We were playing Nintendo. Our cultural experience featured Super Mario Bros., Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, and The Legend of Zelda.

Twenty years later, the average age of video game consumers is creeping into the mid-thirties, and the “just for kids” world of video games has matured into a strong entertainment industry segment that, on any given week, can out-gross the movie box office.

With increased technological capacity and more sophisticated tastes, video game consumers are demanding better gameplay experiences, and are committing hundreds of hours to complete an individual game. Game producers are taking notice, and employing better and better resources to keep and maintain the gamers’ engagement: including storytelling.

Today’s pioneering video game writers are navigating a nebulous and ever-changing job market. Unlike traditional media, there are no standard titles or roles for video game writers. A writing credit can represent a spectrum of duties: the writer as the driving story force for the game, brought in at the beginning of a project, or the writer filling a last-minute need for scripting cinematics (film-like scenes that appear in-between levels) or barks (automated in-game dialogue between characters) just before the game goes to press.

The lack of standards caught the attention of the Writer’s Guild Foundation, the non-profit arm of the professional writers union. Though video games are not officially governed by the Writer’s Guild, the WGF provides resources for the emerging game writing community, including an advisory panel, a script library, and networking events. In fact, we met most of the video game writers we interviewed for this article through a one-day seminar last October called “Getting into the Game” at the WGA Library in Los Angeles.

DEFINING THE SCRIPT

One major difference between writing video games and traditional formats is the script itself. Unlike linear stories developed for film or television, video games scripts often contain the over-arching story, descriptions and dialogue for individual game levels, cinematics (also called cut-scenes), in-game dialogue, and even multiple paths for the player to take (called branching). Because of the many facets to a game’s experience, scripts can run a daunting 300-500 pages.

Script format can vary dramatically as well. “There’s no real standards, many developers like the dialogue to be written into Microsoft Excel, but I try to stay within Final Draft,” admits Marianne Krawczyk, writer of the epic video game God of War. Excel is the software of choice because it allows for quick reordering of script elements and sorting based on character name, event triggers, emotional cues, etc. The industry’s use of Excel reveals the importance of logic and structure when creating a non-linear experience.

Anne Toole, writer of games like Wizard 101 and Stargate SG-1, explains her writing process further, “I used to think in terms of act breaks and scenes, but in games, the level structure may not support those things. You may work in quests or missions; it’s not necessary linear.”

But there’s a creativity and craft that writers bring to the structure. Micah Wright, writer of games like Looney Toons: Back in Action, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Destroy All Humans 4, explains, “Games are a series of interesting choices. The job of the game writer is to create a world where a gamer is incentivized to make interesting choices.”

This inherent “player agency” acknowledges that the video game player takes control of the main character, and controls them according to their own set of self-aware characteristics. In a movie, the writer determines the character’s steps, but video games require less subtle orchestration. “The player wants to play; the player wants to tear it up and beat the game, not forward the story,” explains Susan O’Connor, best known for her work on Bioshock and Gears of War, “so it’s a struggle to not be overt about throwing the character into the game, and letting their actions determine what role they are playing.”

MOVING FROM TV TO VG

While video games represent a new medium, a background in writing linear stories for television can help.

Krawczyk began her career writing for the Sweet Valley High television series and developing animation projects. While in between gigs, she heard of an opportunity to write for a game called God of War, an epic already two years into development. Her transition to the game world was a strange one: she had to audition for it. “I actually sat in with other writers and we had to compete against each other for the job,” she said, “We listened to the story pitch from the game director, and I went home and write out my thoughts.”

Her background in animation prepared her well: the director liked her notes on the characters, motivations, and storyline for the game. Even though she got the job, she felt like her work on the story was being bolted on at the end of the process. “Writers are often brought in to either fix the story or write some dialogue,” she explains, “You can’t really start a TV show or a movie without a script, but you can start a video game, and that often happens. But that’s changing.”

Similarly, Wright and writing partner Jay Lender spent years writing for Nickelodeon shows including SpongeBob SquarePants, but were attracted to video games in 2001 by the opportunity of defining new rules for a new medium. Their first project, Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, was a bittersweet experience. They landed the job, wrote the story and script, and after a successful preview at the E3 video game conference, were replaced by “Hollywood writers” with film-writing credits. Wright recalls, “We were gamers trying to write a story without all the played-out conventions. We thought the female Russian scientist should be a brunette with A-cup breasts, but then they put all those tired conventions back in the game. The scientist turned out to be—drum roll—a buxom blonde.”

SHAPING THE STORY

Regardless of where the writer is brought into the game creation process, they play a unique role as a collaborator across development teams. If television is a writer-driven medium, and films are director-driven, video games are equal parts technology development, art direction, and story. Writers must work with executives, digital artists, computer coders, and 3-D modelers to ensure that their story matches the original vision for the game.

Bioshock writer O’Connor has the lucky position of being choosy about her work. After years writing simple stories for children’s video games, she now prefers to take writing gigs where she is a contributor from the ground floor. “The first thing I do is figure out what kind of experience the studio is looking to create,” she explains, “Game developers think in architectural terms, but as a writer, I think in terms of motivation and emotion, and the place to meet in the middle is player experience.”

Anne Toole agrees that collaboration is the key to successful video game writing, “Hollywood writers coming into games are surprised at how it really is a team effort, and of course the down side is that, unlike Hollywood, the corporate office culture is very integrated with the creative side.” O’Connor follows, “TV and film people are comfortable talking about feelings, motivations, and characters, but game development is a programming-heavy industry. It’s just a different language, so the writer needs to be able to translate their work into that.”

While story and dialogue were once secondary to design, the tide is turning. “More and more, I’m seeing story driving the design, instead of the other way around, “ Krawczyk says, “Design alone can make the game fun—and fun trumps any type of storyline—but it has to come from a place of meaning.”

GETTING TO THE NEXT LEVEL

So, the opportunities are great, and the standards are being changed daily. How can an aspiring video game writer break into the industry? The differences between video games and Hollywood end here: it’s all about who you know. Most of the many writers we interviewed knew each other and have long careers based on those relationships.

Writers Guild Foundation Video Games Panel

So aspiring writers should be building their relationships too. Writers should attend conferences and seminars like the annual Austin Game Developers’ Conference or events hosted by the WGF. Industry conferences like Comic-Con and E3 are also great ways to network. They might also look into jobs as game testers, which have proven to be a good way to make inroads into game development studios.

There are, of course, books and learning materials available as well. Consider reading Digital Storytelling by Carolyn Handler Miller or The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille and John Zuur Platten.

But perhaps nothing is as effective as being familiar with games themselves. “You have to play games. I can’t count how many people want to write for games, but don’t play them,” says Wright, “If I was looking for a plumber, I wouldn’t hire someone who doesn’t like pipes.” Toole follows, “Figure out what is fun about a game. You should pair that information with research about game theory.”

Video games offer players a multi-path, free-form experience, and it seems the gaming industry is offering its writers the same thing. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this exciting new medium.

• The Internet’s Cool, But TV Remains Ad King
• The Internet is now the most popular source of news after TV (just passed newspapers)

Now that the internet has surpassed paper for importance, the big bad TV has got to be going down soon… and this year will be an important swing year. More people this year will:

• Cancel their cable/DirecTV
• Watch video content on their phones/PDAs
• Buy a set-top box (or video game system as video player)
• Find a reliable way to move video from their laptop screen to their TV screen (cables, AppleTV, etc.)
• Just watch less mindless TV

All this, and a crazy bad economy to boot! It’s going to be a wild year, so buckle up and try to change the world!!

We went to support Watoto, a non-profit based in Kampala, Uganda that pairs a household of 8 orphans with a mother that cares for them — as family — through University. Some of the children there were literally found in dumpsters and in the street. These same children will be given the resources and challenge to grow to be leaders in their community, country, and continent.

It was a powerful and meaningful time for me and my wife, to see a third-world country. We saw daily reminders for us to appreciate the opportunities and resources we have in America. Things like drinking water (93% of Ugandans have no access to reliable drinking water), electricity (many Ugandans have mobile phones, but have to charge them at charging booths – they don’t have power in their homes), and relative financial security (Uganda has out of control inflation and a 45% jobless rate).

For more personal perspectives, check out my personal blog at AlecandKatie.com, but here are some thoughts on media while I was there:

• I just read that there are 147 million people in America that regularly consume online video, but I’d be surprised if 147 total people watch video online. Most middle-class early-twenties people I talked to had heard of YouTube, but had rarely used it.
• Bandwidth is slow, slow, slow. Our guest house had a 56k modem that only occasionally worked. That, and I only saw old clunker PCs. A Gateway here, an Acer there. As far as the wired internet goes, Uganda is 1994 America.
• The middle-class youth do, however, use Facebook. I’ve already connected with some of them.
• Everyone is connected to a cell phone constantly. As America shifts from landlines to mobiles (no one my age has a home line anymore…), Ugandans never really had a phone system, so their pay-as-you-go model really works. There are billboards advertising 3G phones, but how fast can they be?
• There were ads all over Uganda — many houses and businesses are fully wrapped [painted] in colors and logos. They building owners don’t get paid — the painting is a service that looks nicer than the worn down brick. Therefore, there are Zain/Warid/MTN (mobile carriers) and Juicy Fruit buildings everywhere.
• Coca-Cola has posters, billboards, and ads all over Kampala — and each ad features the exact same photo and tagline: “Deep Down Refreshment.” It’s a lesson in consistent branding.
• There was only one movie poster up around Kampala (the largest city in the country, mind you), for Quantam of Solace, which had opened a month earlier.
• When asked about television, few people watch it regularly (who can afford a TV, much less getting your home custom-wired for electricity?). When pressed to name popular shows, our Ugandan hosts mentioned Lost, Prison Break, and Desperate Housewives.

Living and working in New Media in the USA, you can get the sense that everyone lives and breathes online, but the truth is that millions of people around the world have different experiences, methods of media consumption, and levels of access. It’s important to get out of your world for a few minutes (even if it’s a trip to your parents’ house) to see how your work translates.

Who cares about your gorgeous HD video if they don’t have the mobile bandwidth to view it?

Modern Day Jesus: Santa vs. Jesus

Just got an email from THR and all three articles in it were about TV networks hemorrhaging audiences:

• ABC had three season premiere stinkers (all good shows, btw): Pushing Daisies dropped 55% over last year, Private Practice 38%, and Dirty Sexy Money 31%.
• Despite being the first basic cable show to earn a ‘Best Drama’ Emmy, Mad Men lost audience in the week after its big win, from 1.9 million the week before the Emmys to 1.6 the week after.
• And despite Dexter’s big gain in audience (likely due to its temporary move to CBS during the writer’s strike), Californication lost audience as well.

Broadcast networks, cable networks, and premium cable networks all getting the same story. They’re losing audience.

Add on this article from the New York Observer: Only Two-and-a-Half Sitcom Writers Left in Hollywood.

“At one point in the 1990s, NBC had 16 half-hour sitcoms on the air. This fall, it has four. And two of those four—The Office and 30 Rock—though critically beloved (both are up for Best Comedy Emmys on Sunday, Sept. 21), are struggling to be embraced by mainstream audiences.”

Yikes. Makes it a difficult sell to work up the courage, nerve, and gusto necessary to write a TV spec script, doesn’t it? With all the money in the world for advertising, production value, and star power, what the heck is going on?

We’re in the midst of a painful shift of media, and everyone is feeling the pinch. Writers, directors, actors, executives, agents, everyone. Especially up-and-comers that are working dangerously hard to ‘break into’ the business. Will there be any ‘business’ left when they get there?

Well, the only answer is: adapt or die. The only thing failing faster than traditional network’s’ TV shows are traditional networks’ online shows. They’re suffering from the same symptoms. These fledgling show concepts are expected to bolster the weight of a lot of overhead (only with less money). They’re hoping the independent producers will sell out their ideas so that the future revenue will remain in the corporation. You can’t build a lasting model that way, when self-distribution costs are so low. Everyone has to work fast, cheap, and good. The trifecta of creativity.

The audience (their attention to ads being the primary source of revenue these days) is not staying with any studio, network, or medium. They’re fragmenting like crazy, and it’s up to the individual creator to harness, compel, and motivate an audience to stick around.

Adapt or die. It’s no longer good enough to just write. You have to write and edit and web design. Or know about online video distribution, direct, and act. Or all six.

Creativity is the only thing that’s still pure about this business, and a new wave of audience is seeking it out. Online originals, TV-on-the-Web (Hulu, ABC.com, etc.), and Tivo are all killing traditional numbers because they give choice and satisfaction back to the consumer.

What are you doing to increase your skills? Editing better, writing better, marketing better? We’re learning that big, slow overhead won’t get the job done. Nimble, quick responses to audience will build an audience.

Update: Fresh Hell reports on shows that gained audience this fall — most of them on CBS and CW. My rant still applies…

LonelyGirl15 Creators Not So Lonely Anymore

Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried Have Built Their DIY Web Series into a Million-Dollar Online Production Company
By Robert Gustafson and Alec McNayr

On an otherwise average Tuesday morning in September 2006, Greg Goodfried made an ominous move. An associate lawyer at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, he walked into his boss’ office and shut the door behind him. He informed his boss that the following day he would be featured in both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times as one of the masterminds behind the popular YouTube video blogger known simply as “LonelyGirl15.” The articles, he explained, would confirm suspicions that the confessional-style videos were actually part of a fictional series created by he and co-creator Miles Beckett.

Lucky for Goodfried, his boss had actually heard of the Internet sensation and offered him a six-month sabbatical to finish the series, after which he could return to the firm. He never went back. Instead, he and Beckett turned their experience creating LonelyGirl15, now viewed over 100 million times, into an online production company called EQAL. In May 2008—just two years after uploading their first video—EQAL announced a $5 million round of venture capital financing.

We sat down with Goodfried and Beckett less than two weeks after moving into EQAL’s new offices in Sherman Oaks, California.

Doing It Themselves

Similar to Goodfried, writer-director Miles Beckett stepped away from a promising career to venture into online entertainment. Through fresh out of medical school, it was Beckett who originally conceived the idea of a girl on YouTube communicating via a video blog.

“He pitched me the idea,” recalls Goodfried about LonelyGirl15, “She would be an active part of the [online] community, and over a few months we’d start trickling in information: that she’s home-schooled, that her parents are in a cult, and that she’s being prepared for a ceremony. Then, after three months, she‘ll run away and you won’t be sure if she made it or not and we’ll be on the covers of magazines. And I was like, ‘that’s the best f-ing idea I’ve ever heard, let’s go do this thing.’”

They didn’t, however, intend the Web series to take center stage. “Originally, LonelyGirl15 was going to be a prequel,” adds Beckett, “We planned to shoot an independent feature film simultaneous to filming the online series and sell it to a DVD distributor or something.”

Unfortunately, they underestimated just how much effort launching LonelyGirl15 would take. “Just producing an online show is the most overwhelming experience anyone could go through,” says Beckett.

The duo spent a month prior to launching the first episode setting up YouTube and MySpace profiles for Bree, the namesake character of LonelyGirl15. In that time, “Bree” established a real relationship with the online community, so when “she” uploaded her first video, it had a built-in audience.

To build the mystique of the show, Beckett and Goodfried also created a fan Web site run by a fictional and nameless “superfan.” The site stirred conversation and offered a look into the mania the duo hoped to incite. “The idea was that a group of [real-life] fans— along with the [fictional] characters—were going to search for the missing girl,” Beckett says.

By the sixth video—just two and a half weeks into their venture—a LonelyGirl15 video received 500,000 views. Goodfried and Beckett decided to give up their feature film ambitions and focus their efforts on the online series.

The Show is Everywhere

EQAL’s tagline is ”The show is everywhere,” which represents Beckett and Goodfried’s view on the difference between online media and television. “It’s about breaking the fourth wall,” says Beckett, “All good writing is suspension of disbelief, and in TV, you suspend it within the walls of that television screen. It doesn’t extend into your living room. For an Internet show, it’s everywhere. The reality extends into your bedroom, into the real world, and onto other Web sites.” Adds Goodfried, “If you want to take Sex and the City and adapt it from a TV show into a movie, you wouldn’t string four episodes together and put it on a big screen: you would write a three-act structure and shoot it differently.”

Goodfried lists interactivity as the most important characteristic of any Web series: “An online show has three core pieces; the top layer is some type of daily or weekly consistent online content. Then there must be a community-based Web site where the hardcore fans can gather [and participate in] chat rooms, forums, and social networking. The third layer is then some sort of interaction between that community and content. It could be as minimal as American Idol fans texting in their votes, or as extreme as LonelyGirl15, where we might give out ‘secret coordinates,’ and, using them, the viewer can actually go to Central Park, dig up a flash drive, make a video of themselves, and upload it. Then the fan is in the storyline itself.”

To leverage Web interactivity into a story-based experience, the team had to think about all levels of online communication. “We think about [MySpace] profile pages, chats, messaging, and live video streaming like a feature film director would think about camera angles and set design,” says Beckett.

The LonelyGirl15 experience extends past the confessional-style episodic videos. “Each character has their own profile page and can submit their own videos,” says Goodfried. “It’s as if these are two [real] kids. This could actually happen,” adds Beckett, “And there were repercussions of each one uploading a video.”

The series, therefore, is subject to the rules inherent in someone broadcasting their life and thoughts online. LonelyGirl15 is, by its nature, interactive in a way that could never be done on TV. Says Beckett, ”The hardest thing is to be able to think in a linear narrative, but then take that linear narrative and explode it outside the walls of everything.”

Restructuring The Definition of a Series

“Since our initial concept was a feature film, it had a three act structure. It was two or three pages with major beats, inciting incidents, and so forth,” says Beckett.

But as LonelyGirl15 became an online-only experience, the team had to rethink their definition of a series. “The pace online is much faster than TV,” says Beckett, “Every week on the show, something dramatic happens, and then the next week again, and then again and again. You literally burn through plot.”

Goodfried continues the questioning of the status quo: “What is ‘an episode?’ Well, we make videos five days a week: on Monday, we introduce the conflict. By the middle of the week there is heightened dramatic tension, and then by Friday, there is resolution and a cliffhanger. So there are beats each week that fans can get excited about and talk about.”

Just because the show is interactive doesn’t mean that there’s no writing involved. “It’s all scripted. One hundred percent,” admits Beckett, ”As we’ve expanded the team to include a director who isn’t writing and an editor who isn’t directing, we’ve found we have to be even tighter on the script.”

The experience of writing LG15 for almost two years sharpened their skills. “I had written a few screenplays for fun, and also wrote a few articles for my college’s humor magazine, but doing an online show where I literally I had to break story every week made me a much better writer. It’s like writing boot camp!” says Beckett with a chuckle.

You Don’t Have To Do It Alone

“Over the past couple of years, there really haven’t been that many shows online that have achieved really, really big viewership. I don’t thinks it’s due to a lack of creativity or talent; I think it’s a lack of a company like ours,” says Beckett.

“Sure, you can do it by yourself,” explains Goodfried, “Put something together, get something out there, and maybe it gets popular, but to make an online show into an actual business where you can quit your day job, you need something else.” Beckett inserts, ”The bottom line is you’re not going to get anywhere unless you collaborate.”

“We wanted to do more interactive shows, and we knew we would need financing, ad sales, legal, accounting, and someone to build our website and run it,” says Beckett, “But there was nobody who could offer that. Some people offered pieces, but nobody offered the whole solution.”

With the formation of EQAL, Beckett and Goodfried now have the resources to build large-scale interactive Web series. They recently signed with CBS to help the network expand the online experience of their flagship TV shows. But as they reflect on starting a simple Web series, they admit that the basics of storytelling are what really matter.

“Honestly, we were lucky that we did [LonelyGirl15] when we did it. We hit at the same time as YouTube, and that’s a hard thing to replicate, but we’re a perfect example of not needing the ‘right’ equipment to do the job. I didn’t have a Mac or Final Draft, because we didn’t have enough money to pay for it,” admits Beckett. “We shot with a Logitech Webcam plugged into a laptop,” follows Goodfried, “We had no lights, just a desk lamp and a window.”

Beckett summarizes, “the truth is you don’t need it. You just need a good story, and in this case, something that will work in the medium.”

If two guys with a Webcam can turn a story into a multi-million dollar, industry-changing production company, what can you do with the tools you have at your disposal?

It was billed to feature live commentary from director Jon Favreau (over the movie, a la DVD commentary), but before he started, he told us about his fight to get Robert Downey Jr. into the lead role… and low and behold, Downey himself had snuck in the back. So they did the commentary together.

And it was amazing.

Some thoughts from the experience:

• There won’t be a director’s commentary on the DVD. Favreau hinted at taping the event and posting it online. I hope he does.
• Robert Downey Jr. looks different in person than he does on film. He’s softer-looking, and smaller than you’d expect. I attribute this to great acting talent.
• It seems like 90% of the dialog in the movie was either improvised or written the night before (or hours before) shooting. Downey in particular seemed to relish messing with people (his sit-down press conference moment was improvised). Even the comedic moments with Stark’s robots came from improvisations on set, that were able to be heightened and called back as they shot scenes in order.
• Downey showed up on set even on days he wasn’t shooting. He was genuinely passionate about the project and the work.
• Gwyneth Paltrow took the role and said that, now that she has a family, she works best before 9 PM. Her first shot, at Disney Hall, wasn’t until 3 AM. Oops, says Favreau.
• Most scenes were shot with two cameras, allowing the actors to overlap each other’s lines, and to give Favreau many options for editing. (that’s how we’ve shot all our projects, too, btw)
• The heavily-CGI-ed suit-up scene was only added when Marvel saw how well Transformers did, and they ponied up an additional $2 million.
• The Iron Man sequel is not 100% official, but is being penned by Tropic Thunder scribe Justin Theroux. (Though, Downey said that he’d throw that script aside as much as he did on this one.)

All in all, Iron Man is a great movie that really does teeter between comic book action and indie-film reality. The tone and creativity of it works great, and being a part of the screening only beholdens me to Favreau and Downey’s work even more.

I’ve lauded Stephen King’s N. as the best web series I’d seen in a long time, but it ended with an awkward “okay, that’s done now.”

Now what?

As a fan, what am I supposed to do? Buy the book? In November? I might, but reading the book won’t match my interest in the video-based series. There’s not really any further online interaction to speak of.

As a producer, I question the close-out strategy for the series. I was a big fan (bigger than most, I bet), and they never captured my name, email address, or anything about me. They can’t send me a coupon to save $2-3 bucks off the book, they can’t hit me up for further King-related series, and they can’t claim my demographics to future potential advertisers.

There were a lot of players on the team that made N., including Simon & Schuster, Marvel, and CBS. Why no thought on marketing?

Summer of Tears in TeenWolf

Half advertisement, half action series, TNT’s new short-form series Lucky Chance is a high-speed romp through a what feels like a student film inspired by the fast editing style, one-liner quipping actors, and outlandish mobsters in Guy Richie’s Snatch.

The series, which consists of twenty 2-minute episodes, airs on TNT (and almost as an afterthought, online) during the commercial breaks of episodes of Bones and Law & Order, and is essentially a commercial in itself.

The story follows DEA undercover agent Lucky Chance (yes, that’s his name, and he carries around a pair of lucky dice to prove it) who murders some dishonest cops, and must race to clear his name. Along the way, we find out that his red lingerie-sporting girlfriend is one of the agents asked to bring him in.

The style of each episode is certainly frenetic, with fast, chaotic camera moves and jump cuts, which unfortunately don’t match the slow, story-driven movement of the shows they support. And in a strange editing tactic, lines of dialogue are shown on screen, as if to engage the half-watching viewer.

The series is heavy with product placement, primarily from the 2009 Dodge Challenger. The show itself feels like a series of scenes connected by shots of a Challenger racing over the desert sand at sunset: the same gorgeous shots you’d expect of a car commercial. Other consumer products are introduced just as obviously: the cold and brooding Lucky oddly orders a “Fiji Water” at a bar and the barkeep drops it right in the middle of them. Each character’s mobile phone also gets a fair amount of screen time.

The strategy behind the series (and likely the similar-sounding upcoming series Blank Slate, sponsored by Acura) is to serve as a “Tivo-killer” to keep viewers from fast-forwarding through the commercials. It’s a tactic we’ll see more of as overall TV ad spending decreases, and, done well, it will provide an opportunity to add value to viewers’ experiences.

However, in Lucky Chance, the characters are thinly developed and the dialogue is a series of colloquial sayings and semi-puns about gambling. And unfortunately, neither of these things can be covered up with any amount of fast cars and fast editing.