Playing with Film: Discovering and Shaping Gameplay in a Storyworld - Matt tackles the complex issue of how to carefully meld storytelling and game play. Starting with the philosophy that "Puzzles are the foundation of Story' he talks about how when writing a book, game or film how they are filled with puzzles for characters, filled with questions. He looks at some of the 70 key puzzle types and how they may be applied to certain genre or types of situations to help make story extensions engaging. Matt talks about the difference of gamification vs puzzlefication around the film story, how to connect with what users are doing, expanding horizons and how they can feed into a film universe. (An edit of a seminar talk and a clinic talk, with some gaps where live participations originally took place)

Playing with Film Story - A presentation by Matt Costello, given at the StoryLabs & Screen Australia labs and digital ignition seminar held in Sydney in late Nov 2012. StoryLab's Podcasts: Recorded and Produced by Gary P Hayes

Matt Costello (US) – Matt Costello’s best-selling and award-winning work across all media has meshed gameplay, technology and story. He is the writer and creator of groundbreaking games, novels, nonfiction and TV in both U.S. and Europe. Much of his work has involved working with and creating IP for major films. He wrote and co-designed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, working closely with the series screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. The game, Disney’s first world-wide #1 best-seller, had to capture the world of the first three films, and yet present a new twist on the characters and the story. For Universal Pictures and Simon & Schuster, Matt wrote the original prequel novel to Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Island of the Skull, creating an original story working closely with the film’s screenwriter, Phillipa Boyens. Other film properties that Matt has worked with across both game and other media platforms include Bad Boys, The Italian Job, and -- for Disney – Aladdin, Hercules, and G-Force. He wrote and co-created the bible for the hit game Doom 3, which became the basis for the recent film. He has written and co-created original IP, including the games Just Cause 1 & 2, currently being developed as films by Eric Eisner’s L + E Pictures. His horror novel, Beneath Still Waters, was filmed by Lionsgate in 2004, and released worldwide. Other recent novels and games are also currently being developed as films.