Dragon Age Cinematics Interview

There’s a new in-house Q&A with BioWare’s Jonathan Perry over on the company’s blog, during which the cinematic lead for the Dragon Age franchise talks about his day-to-day responsibilities, his proudest moment from Dragon Age II’s development, how to break into the industry, and more.

What is the best part about your job?

I always tell people my job is like being a film director, but inside a video game. The great thing about cinematics is that we get to take all the amazing assets created by the other departments and combine them to create the final cutscenes and conversations you see in the game. Our work is extremely dependant on writing, animation, level art, character art, visual effects, sound effects, and music, so we’re always collaborating with the other departments to make sure all the pieces fit together.

What does an average day look like for you?

As a lead I spend a lot of the day attending planning meetings and coordinating with the other departments to make sure we get the assets we need from them and vice versa. The rest of an average day might include building stages for conversations, creating cutscenes (which could be anything from an emotional romance scene to a high-action combat scene), tweaking our various digital acting systems, and sometimes attending VO recording or motion capture sessions.