The Cosmonauts

Mark Coleran just commented on our recent post about designing interfaces for sci-fi movies giving very interesting insight:

In the movie business, screens and interactive elements have a very low priority in the grand scheme of things (with a few notable exceptions).To really sum it up, there are just three considerations.

The first is to do somethign that sits with the look and feel of the environment and set. The nature of the film always dictates. If it is in the future, then the desire is generally to have a different way of interacting or displaying things, than is currently the norm. It is a small way of differentiating the interfaces. The reality is that these systems might already exists, but are not widely used or known about outside of labs or specialist groups.

The second is the worst part. Prior art. Some of the people involved, directors, production designers, producers, bring with them their own biases, pre-conceptions and pragmatism that can result in less than satisfactory interfaces in the films and content on those interfaces. It is not uncommon to hear people day “I want it like it was in that movie” whether a good example or not. People try to play safe at times and it is not always easy to overcome.

The third and most important part is that the interfaces are there for only two things. Set dressing and story. Irrespective of design and plausability, if they tell the story they are deemed a success by those commisioning. CSI might seem implausable in action and stylistically but they do one thing and one thing well. Tell you what happened or what they have found. This can lead overall to interfaces and systems seemingly doing some very unrealistic things, but in the end the story is all that matters.

Mark Coleran