譯者按：本文譯自《命令與征服》官網(wǎng)，原文寫(xiě)于2009年4月17日。頭圖作者為@黑邊疆工業(yè)集團(tuán) 所繪的突襲驅(qū)逐艦，特此感謝！

As a long time fan of the Command and Conquer games, I was always perplexed as to how the guys at Westwood Studios came up with their stories and how they made their live-action cut scenes. At the time, I had no idea how they did it, and I was sure glad that I wasn't the guy who had the pressure of having to come up with all that crazy stuff! Now of course, 13 years later, here I am writing/producing the story and cut scenes for C&C: Red Alert 3. It's my first time in this role, but creating characters in a C&C game isn't actually new to me. I've been writing the in-game characters' unit responses for EA's RTS games since the last Red Alert in 2000. So now I had to take that and my familiarity with RTS story telling and create something that was going to hopefully blow away everything that we've ever done before.

作為《命令與征服》系列游戲的老粉絲，我一直對(duì)西木工作室的員工是如何構(gòu)思他們的故事，以及如何制作真人過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)感到困惑。當(dāng)年我根本不知道他們是如何做到的，我很慶幸自己不是那個(gè)背負(fù)著必須想象出這么多瘋狂創(chuàng)意的巨大壓力的人。然而，13年后的今天，我正在為《命令與征服：紅色警戒3》編寫(xiě)故事劇情并負(fù)責(zé)制作過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)。這是我第一次擔(dān)負(fù)這種使命，但在《命令與征服》系列游戲中創(chuàng)建角色對(duì)我來(lái)講已經(jīng)不是什么新鮮事了。自2000年上一作《紅警》以來(lái)，我就一直在給EA的即時(shí)戰(zhàn)略游戲編寫(xiě)游戲內(nèi)角色的單位反應(yīng)。所以如今我靠著這些經(jīng)驗(yàn)，以及對(duì)講RTS故事的熟悉程度，創(chuàng)造著一些有可能顛覆我們以前成就的東西。

The creative leaders for Red Alert 3 were hugely excited about working on a RA game from the start. The immediate concern looming over our heads though was defining the basic premise and setting of the story. Unlike the Tiberium universe, we didn't have a reoccurring villain and conflict that we can immediately go back to. Having the Soviets going back in time and getting rid of Einstein seems like an obvious choice now. But when we started this process with all of our options open, it wasn't as clear. Anything can happen in the alternative history of the Red Alert universe, which creates many questions for us to answer. Should we continue from where the last Red Alert left off? Should we start over and reset the universe? How will the Empire of the Rising Sun fit into the equation?

《紅色警戒3》的創(chuàng)意團(tuán)隊(duì)領(lǐng)袖們從開(kāi)工起就對(duì)開(kāi)發(fā)紅警游戲感到非常興奮。我們當(dāng)時(shí)最緊要的問(wèn)題是定義故事的基本前提與背景概念，這可不像《泰伯利亞》宇宙那樣，有隨時(shí)能打復(fù)活賽的反派和沖突。于是，讓蘇聯(lián)人回到過(guò)去并擺脫愛(ài)因斯坦的影響似乎就成了一個(gè)顯而易見(jiàn)的選擇。但當(dāng)我們?cè)谒羞x項(xiàng)都開(kāi)放的情況下選擇走這條路的時(shí)候，它還并不是那么明晰。在《紅色警戒》宇宙的另類歷史中，任何事情都是有可能發(fā)生的，這也給我們制造了很多需要回答的問(wèn)題——我們需要從上一作《紅色警戒》中斷的地方開(kāi)始嗎？我們需要重啟世界觀嗎？升陽(yáng)帝國(guó)又該如何融入進(jìn)來(lái)呢？

We met regularly with countless pitches from all sorts of directions. This part of the process might appear to be the most fun, but it was actually the most grueling, considering the task at hand. All in all, I was really happy with what we ended up with. The "getting rid of Einstein" story was very much in line with the RA universe, and was also easy to explain to people who weren't familiar with Red Alert. I remember mentioning the idea to my girlfriend at the time (who had no idea what Red Alert was), and her immediate reaction was, "Oh no! They can't get rid of Einstein!" I knew at that point, that we were probably safe in terms of accessibility.

我們當(dāng)時(shí)經(jīng)常在看來(lái)自四面八方的不少投稿，從手頭的任務(wù)上說(shuō)，這部分過(guò)程可能看起來(lái)是最有趣的，但實(shí)際上也是最累的?？偠灾?，我對(duì)咱們最終的結(jié)果還是非常滿意的?！父傻魫?ài)因斯坦」的故事非常適合紅警宇宙，向不熟悉紅警的人科普起來(lái)也非常容易。我記得當(dāng)時(shí)跟我的女朋友（她不知道什么是紅警）提了這個(gè)想法，她的第一反應(yīng)是：「我超，他們?cè)趺茨芨傻魫?ài)因斯坦呢！」那個(gè)時(shí)候我就知道，就劇情可讀性而言，我們大概穩(wěn)了。

Another early challenge for us was defining the exact tone of the RA universe. We all loved the tongue-in-cheek direction of the movies and characters of RA2. But where do we draw the line between lighthearted fun and poorly delivered comedy? Getting this balance was important enough for us that we actually produced a proof-of-concept movie with script and characters which had nothing to do with the final story. This exercise was a success on many levels and was one of the best early decisions we made. From a tone perspective, one thing was clear: the RA universe is about personalities- exaggerated to the point that it's obvious that this isn't a serious world. One reference that often came up was Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and how most of its humor came from these extreme characters all coming together around a serious situation.

我們面臨的另一個(gè)初期挑戰(zhàn)便是定義紅警宇宙的確切基調(diào)。我們都喜歡紅警2過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)和角色摻雜了喜劇色彩的方向。但我們要在哪里劃清輕松愉快與糟糕的喜劇風(fēng)格之間的界限呢？保持這種平衡對(duì)于我們來(lái)說(shuō)非常重要，所以我們?yōu)榇酥谱髁艘徊扛拍铗?yàn)證電影，其中的劇本和角色與最終的故事沒(méi)有任何關(guān)系。這個(gè)練習(xí)在很多方面都獲得了成功，它是我們前期做過(guò)的最棒決定之一。從故事筆調(diào)的角度來(lái)講，有一件事情是非常明確的，紅警宇宙是很有個(gè)性的、夸張到很明顯不是一個(gè)嚴(yán)肅的世界。我們經(jīng)常會(huì)參考庫(kù)布里克的《奇愛(ài)博士》（譯者注：非常有意思的是，這部電影改編自Peter George的一部小說(shuō)，而這部小說(shuō)的名字正是《紅色警戒》/Red Alert），尤其是它將極端角色在一個(gè)嚴(yán)肅的情況下安排到一起的那種幽默感。

As anybody who's played our games knows, watching a Command and Conquer movie is a very different experience than watching a traditional movie. The main contrast of course, being that the viewer is actually part of the story. This means that the actors in the movies look straight into a camera and address the player as if they're really interacting with him. This can easily come off a little awkward, since this "4th wall" is almost never torn down in regular theatrical movies or television. The question is how do we do this and minimize the awkwardness of the first person experience?

任何玩過(guò)我們游戲的玩家都知道，觀看命令與征服過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)和看傳統(tǒng)電影的體驗(yàn)是不一樣的。這其中最主要的區(qū)別就在于，觀眾實(shí)際上也是故事的一部分。也就是說(shuō)，電影中的演員會(huì)直視著鏡頭并稱呼玩家，就好像他們真的在與他互動(dòng)一樣。這很容易讓人感覺(jué)有點(diǎn)尬，因?yàn)檫@「第四面墻」在一般的戲劇、電影或是電視劇中基本上沒(méi)人會(huì)拆除它。所以問(wèn)題就來(lái)了，我們?cè)趺慈?shí)現(xiàn)并最大程度的減少第一人稱體驗(yàn)帶來(lái)的尷尬呢？

One of the reasons why it can be awkward is that there is a blending of moments where the player isn't part of the scene and moments where the player is part of the scene. Taking some inspiration from the RA2 movies, I pitched to the team a specific "vidcon" model, whereby whenever the player was part of the story; all characters would be speaking to each other through a video conference type of environment And when the player wasn't part of the story, the scenes were shot like a regular movie with multiple camera angles, etc.

造成這種尷尬感的可能原因之一，便是玩家不參與場(chǎng)景的鏡頭與玩家參與了場(chǎng)景的鏡頭混淆在一塊了。我在看紅警2過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)的時(shí)候找到了一些靈感，于是我向團(tuán)隊(duì)提出了一種特別的「視頻通訊」機(jī)制：也就是當(dāng)玩家參與劇情的時(shí)候，所有的角色會(huì)以「視頻會(huì)議」的環(huán)境相互交流；當(dāng)玩家不參與這部分劇情的時(shí)候，場(chǎng)景就按照一般電影的形式拍攝，比如安排更多的攝像機(jī)位角度等等。

Part of my pitch was pushing the idea that we can get a lot more personality from the characters by allowing each of them to speak from their own exaggerated set (as opposed to characters sharing sets like they did on C&C3). The Soviet premier (Tim Curry) speaks from his office with a giant Lenin painting with giant red curtains, while Emperor Yoshiro (George Takei) speaks from his "zen" throne room with its bamboo walls and geisha girls. When everything came together, this style really ended up being very successful, and very much played into the Red Alert tone.

我的部分任務(wù)就是推動(dòng)這樣的想法，讓每個(gè)角色可以在他們自己夸張風(fēng)格的場(chǎng)景中發(fā)聲（而不是像他們?cè)凇睹钆c征服3》中那樣共用場(chǎng)景）——蘇聯(lián)總理（蒂姆·克里）在他的辦公室里講話，辦公室里布置著巨大的列寧畫(huà)像和紅色窗簾；而天皇芳朗（喬治·竹井）在他禪意風(fēng)格的御座房間內(nèi)發(fā)表講話，還有竹制的幕墻和藝伎女仆。當(dāng)這一切都安排到一塊的時(shí)候，這種風(fēng)格最終獲得了極大成功，而且它也相當(dāng)融入了紅色警戒的基調(diào)。

Being able to play the game from any of the three factions creates a common philosophical question about story telling in these games. Do we tell one long story whereby we skip through the different factions one at a time? Or do we have 3 different stories which begin and end for each faction? We ended up going with the latter because we really felt it was important to give a strong statement at the end of each faction play through. Many of the original C&C games did this, and there was a great sense of gratification after finish playing through a faction's story and "conquering the world". So the plan was for our opening movie to set the stage for which all three stories would be based on. Then from there, the three stories don't intertwine or intersect, even though they share all the same characters and themes. The one main drawback to this was that it meant that each story had to be a lot shorter than they really would have liked, and hence suffered as a result.

既然能夠從三個(gè)陣營(yíng)中的任何一個(gè)派系開(kāi)始戰(zhàn)役，那么必定會(huì)涉及到一個(gè)跟講這些游戲故事相關(guān)的哲學(xué)問(wèn)題，我們是要講一個(gè)很長(zhǎng)的故事，把這些陣營(yíng)一次次的串聯(lián)起來(lái)呢？還是讓這些陣營(yíng)有三個(gè)不一樣的開(kāi)始和結(jié)尾呢？我們最終選擇了后者，因?yàn)槲覀冋嫘挠X(jué)得在每個(gè)陣營(yíng)戰(zhàn)役結(jié)束時(shí)給一個(gè)燃點(diǎn)是非常重要的。很多《命令與征服》游戲都是這樣做的，在玩完一個(gè)陣營(yíng)的戰(zhàn)役，「征服世界」之后，有一種極大的滿足感。所以我們的計(jì)劃就是讓咱們的開(kāi)場(chǎng)電影給所有的三個(gè)戰(zhàn)役奠定基礎(chǔ)，在那之后這三個(gè)戰(zhàn)役即使有相同的角色和主題，它們的故事也再無(wú)任何交集。當(dāng)然這種做法帶來(lái)的一個(gè)主要缺點(diǎn)，就是每個(gè)戰(zhàn)役比預(yù)想得要短得多，所以這也會(huì)帶來(lái)一些負(fù)面影響。

The basic backbones of the stories were drawn up by Mike Verdu and me. Mike was the executive producer on C&C3 and played a similar role as mine on that project (since then, he's moved on to become the General Manager for EALA). He has great instincts for what basically works and I have to say, I learned a lot from his participation at this early stage. But after the basic stones were in place, Mike backed off and now it was time for everybody else to get involved. One thing unique about writing for a game is that I can't just make up a story and run with it. Every step of the way I need to get buy-in from other people who are going to have to support it in their areas. The lead designer, Jasen Torres who was directing how the missions were to be played, was the one person I collaborated with most. Luckily for me, his input didn't stop with the gameplay coverage; he provided tons of great ideas which made the whole story much better. As I collected these notes, I would then feed them all to our contracted writer, Haris Orkin who flushed out the conversations and scenes into something we can shoot. Haris was a great fit because he was already a huge fan of the Red Alert games and had a personal attachment to making sure we were making something that wouldn't disappoint. Haris and I sent each script back and forth to each other, editing and tweaking each other's work...until the cinematics production team finally yanked the script from us so they can actually prepare for the shoot.

故事的基本大綱是由Mike Verdu和我擬定的，Mike是命令與征服3的執(zhí)行制片人，他在那個(gè)項(xiàng)目扮演的角色跟我差不多（那個(gè)時(shí)候他已經(jīng)是EA洛杉磯分部的經(jīng)理了）。他對(duì)基本有效的方法總是有著良好的直覺(jué)，說(shuō)真的，我從他早期的參與中學(xué)到了很多東西。但在基礎(chǔ)的準(zhǔn)備完成之后，邁克就抽身了，讓其他人都參與了進(jìn)來(lái)。為游戲?qū)懽鞯囊粋€(gè)獨(dú)特之處在于，我不能只是編一個(gè)故事然后就讓它這樣展開(kāi)，這其中的每一步我都要獲得其他伙伴的支持，他們會(huì)在自己的專業(yè)領(lǐng)域中提供支援。首席設(shè)計(jì)師Jasen Torres負(fù)責(zé)指導(dǎo)戰(zhàn)役制作的執(zhí)行，他是跟我合作最多的人。幸運(yùn)的是，他不僅只是關(guān)注于游戲的玩法上面，他提供了很多好主意，讓整個(gè)故事變得更棒。當(dāng)我用筆記整理完成之后，就會(huì)把它們統(tǒng)統(tǒng)發(fā)給我們的簽約作家Harris Orkin，他會(huì)將對(duì)話和場(chǎng)景塑造成我們可以用于拍攝的劇本。哈里斯非常擅長(zhǎng)做這些工作，因?yàn)樗缇褪羌t警系列的忠實(shí)粉絲了，他會(huì)確保我們制作的東西不會(huì)令人失望。哈里斯和我會(huì)把每份劇本來(lái)回傳閱，再彼此進(jìn)行編輯和調(diào)整，直到電影制作團(tuán)隊(duì)最終從我們那拿到劇本，這樣他們才能為真正開(kāi)拍做準(zhǔn)備。

I've had a lot of experience casting voice-over talent over the years, but casting for actors who actually show their faces was a much different experience. The main thing being, it meant that a lot more people were going to be involved in this decision making. Friends often ask me how we went about choosing the cast for RA3. All I can say is that there were a lot of factors which led us to the cast that we ended up with (budget, personality, public familiarity, etc). Many of them weren't necessarily our first choices, even though they ended up working out great for us. I'm just really thankful that EA allowed us to spend the money to get such great talent. It really made a huge difference having people like Jonathan Pryce, JK Simmons, etc. adding credibility to our final product.

這些年來(lái)，我在選擇配音演員方面積累了不少的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，但選擇真人出鏡的演員是一種截然不同的體驗(yàn)。最主要的是，這也讓更多的人能夠參與決策。很多朋友經(jīng)常問(wèn)我是怎么給紅警3選擇演員的，我只能說(shuō)，有很多因素影響了我們最終選擇的演員陣容（預(yù)算、個(gè)性還有公眾熟悉程度之類的），他們中的很多人并不是我們的第一選擇，盡管他們最終給我們提供了很大的幫助。我真的很感謝EA允許我們動(dòng)用資金來(lái)招攬如此優(yōu)秀的人才，讓喬納森·普雷斯和J·K·西蒙斯等人令我們的產(chǎn)品蓬蓽生輝。

We shot most of the mission intro movies in April 2008 in a West Hollywood stage called "The Lot". This was probably the most exciting time in the whole project, as everything that we've been working on for the past 9 months was now going to finally come together over the span of a couple weeks. Unlike in the CG cut scenes of other video games, we can't go back and tweak animations to make these characters perform better after we shoot them. If we don't get the performance that we're looking for on a few takes, then we're going to be stuck with them. Our director, Richard Taylor has tons of experience behind the camera (including C&C3) so I had some confidence that things were going to be run smoothly. But for Red Alert 3, I was the person on the set who was most intimate with what the player's experience ultimately needed to be. Thankfully, Richard understood this, and didn't have any problem with me jumping in and directing the actors if I had something very specific in mind. And lucky for the both of us, all of the actors were a true pleasure to work with. They were all professionals and understood our goals of a colorful and fun vibe of the Red Alert world.

我們于2008年4月在西好萊塢的一個(gè)名為「The Lot」的攝影棚里完成了大部分戰(zhàn)役動(dòng)畫(huà)，這可能是整個(gè)項(xiàng)目中最激動(dòng)人心的時(shí)刻，因?yàn)槲覀冊(cè)谶^(guò)去9個(gè)月中所做的一切工作，現(xiàn)在終于要在這幾周內(nèi)殺青了。與其他游戲的CG過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)不同的是，我們沒(méi)法回頭調(diào)整動(dòng)畫(huà)以使這些角色在拍攝后表現(xiàn)得更好。如果我們?cè)趲状闻臄z過(guò)程中都沒(méi)有得到想要的效果，那就會(huì)陷入困境。不過(guò)我們的導(dǎo)演，Richard Taylor擁有豐富的幕后經(jīng)驗(yàn)（包括命令與征服3），所以我對(duì)拍攝順利進(jìn)行是很有信心的。對(duì)于紅警3來(lái)說(shuō)，我是拍攝現(xiàn)場(chǎng)最了解玩家體驗(yàn)和需求的人。值得慶幸的是，理查德也理解這一點(diǎn)，如果我有一些非常具體的想法，他不會(huì)介意讓我加入進(jìn)來(lái)并指導(dǎo)演員。對(duì)我們來(lái)說(shuō)更幸運(yùn)的是，和這些演員一起工作真的很開(kāi)心。他們都是專業(yè)的人士，理解我們的目標(biāo)——為紅色警戒世界營(yíng)造豐富多彩、生動(dòng)有趣的氛圍。

Not everybody is going to be a fan of the tongue in cheek style of the RA3 movies. And not everybody is going to be a fan of watching live action cut scenes in a video game at all. But the one thing that was always in the forefront of my decisions was to make sure that the player is being entertained. I'm very aware of the compulsion for players to skip the movies altogether (from firsthand experience). I feel like we did a good job fending off this compulsion by keeping the conversations snappy and fun. Of course, there are plenty of things I'd do differently if I had to do it all over again. But considering the realities of the schedule and budget, I'm very happy with what we created.

然而，不是所有人都會(huì)喜歡紅警3過(guò)場(chǎng)中的搞怪風(fēng)格，也不是所有人都會(huì)喜歡看電子游戲中的真人過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)，但在我的所有決定中，從始至終最重要的一點(diǎn)就是讓玩家開(kāi)心。我非常清楚玩家也會(huì)有直接跳過(guò)電影過(guò)場(chǎng)的沖動(dòng)（我自己也是這樣的），但我覺(jué)得我們可以通過(guò)讓對(duì)話風(fēng)格更活潑一點(diǎn)來(lái)很好地消解這種情況。當(dāng)然了，如果讓我能重新來(lái)過(guò)，我也許會(huì)做很多不同的事情，但考慮到日程和預(yù)算的實(shí)際情況，我對(duì)我們創(chuàng)造的東西還是非常滿意的。

Mical Pedriana

Writer/Producer Red Alert 3 Cinematics

米卡爾·佩德里安娜

紅色警戒3過(guò)場(chǎng)動(dòng)畫(huà)編劇/制片人