Making Rapture Real

Making Rapture Real is the first of the collectible Golden Film Reels, featuring director's commentary with Ken Levine and Shawn Robertson, hosted by Geoff Keighley. The Golden Film Reels are exclusive to the remastered version of BioShock, part of BioShock: The Collection.
==Location==
On the stage in the Footlight Theater in Welcome to Rapture. The player cannot backtrack to this location.
==Transcript==
Finding the film reel in-game gives the following warning: SPOILER WARNING: The commentary contains in-depth discussion of plot details, including the ending. First-time players may wish to complete the game before viewing.
The host is Geoff Keighley.
Ken Levine's given credits are: Creative Director: System Shock 2, BioShock, BioShock, BioShock Infinite.
Shawn Robertson's given credits are: Animation Lead / Director: BioShock, BioShock Infinite.
KEIGHLEY: Hey, I'm Geoff Keighley here in Boston to go behind the scenes to hear some untold stories about the making of BioShock with Ken Levine and Shawn Robertson.
[TITLE SCREEN: IMAGINING BIOSHOCK - MAKING RAPTURE REAL - HOSTED BY GEOFF KEIGHLEY]
KEIGHLEY: Let's talk a bit about the theme and setting of BioShock, Rapture. Uh and I think a lot of people when they play the game for the first time, Ken, they wonder, "How did you even dream up this place?" And I know you said publicly before that part of the reason you, what led to Rapture was this idea of fully simulating a place. Uh, tell us about that sort of idea and the frustrations you had with other games where you sort of hit abound.
LEVINE: Uh, I think our philosophy was always, was always to do what we were doing a 100% rather than try to do something bigger and do it 50% or 40%. So one of the ideas of, you know, and this sort of came from System Shock 2 as well, where you focus on an area that you can really bring to life and you kind of eliminate the questions of "Well why can't I go over the bridge to New Jersey?"
[SCENE OVERLAY: Opening the door to the Lower Wharf in Neptune's Bounty; Bathysphere descent into Rapture in the opening level]
LEVINE: So we were able to really make a place I think that felt believable and real even though in actuality it was really quite limited, but we just sorta dressed it with all these buildings outside that were all, you know, that were all basically glorified fakes. It let the story drive what we needed to show rather than some kind of like predetermined map which we sat down, which is a little different than like System Shock 2 where we actually mapped a spaceship out, deck by deck.
KEIGHLEY: Yeah.
LEVINE: Because, I don't, I don't know why the foc-, the philosophy felt a little different there because you wanted to feel like a real spaceship that was, that was sorta stacked on top of each other. Rapture was free to sprawl across the ocean floor.
KEIGHLEY: Although you guys originally, Shawn, were talking about doing this game on a sorta spaceship again, right?
ROBERTSON: Yeah, when we first starting talking about what the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 was going to be, spaceship came up, but again you know we, we wanted a limited environment. We didn't necessarily want to do spaceship again and our first actual exploration of this space was underwater, but ultimately it ended up looking like a spaceship. It just happened to have a couple of...
[SCENE OVERLAY: The following pieces of concept art by Mauricio Tejerina are shown]
EarlyRaptureRoomInteriorConcept.jpg
BioShock Laboratory Concept Art.jpg
Laboratory hallway concept art.jpeg
KEIGHLEY: Windows.
ROBERTSON: ...seaweed fronds outside. And that started to push us towards, um, what artistic statement that we wanted to make, to make this look different and what rules we were going to set for the world. How at every turn we were going to try to remind the player that they were in fact underwater and that this wasn't a spaceship.
[SCENE OVERLAY: "BioShock Visual Concept Test" showing early level design of a crowded laboratory with modern computer monitors; Player approaches flooded Vita-Chamber area in Smuggler's Hideout; Player sees the shadow of Rose in the opening hallway of Neptune's Bounty]
KEIGHLEY: And how like underwater where sort of you know you did underwater, then sort of the sky, like what, where did you come up with the idea of like doing this underwater?
LEVINE: I think there was probably a conversation, like, what kind of places could be cut off from other places?
KEIGHLEY: Yeah.
LEVINE: Well, you know, a spaceship, a summer camp, yeah, any island notion, right. Something that's cut off from the rest of the world. You never felt like you should be able to go over that bridge to New Jersey.
ROBERTSON: I don't want to apply some deep and meaningful conversation. I think it was one of those ideas that you just kinda say and then everybody's "Uh, that sounds cool. Let's try that, let's go for it."
LEVINE: Alright, yeah, and I, and I, and I think it lended itself to having very nice views out the window without having to build an insane amount of unique assets.
[SCENE OVERLAY: Player is looking through the glass ceiling and walls in the tunnel connecting Jet-Postal Substation II and The Fighting McDonagh's Tavern in Neptune's Bounty]
KEIGHLEY: Right.
ROBERTSON: By today's standards we still were a small team back then. And there's an expectation that because you're underwater the view distances are going to be short. So you can really kinda fade out to the fog at a short distance and not have the expectation that 'why can't I see forever.' So there's a lot of limitations in a good way that we put on ourselves by, by being underwater as opposed to like if you were on a cruise ship then you would expect to see across the water and we'd have to deal with that. Same thing with an island.
LEVINE: Or on a city in the sky where you...
ROBERTSON: Yeah, exactly.
LEVINE: Which was a lot more complicated.
KEIGHLEY: Yeah. So you came up with the idea of 'Let's do this underwater. Let's do this sort of isolated place.' Then you had to answer the question of, you know, why would someone build this? Is that sort of how it works sort of order of operations? You then had to come up with a story to explain?
LEVINE: Yeah, uh it, I think the, we wanted a very believable reason why they'd be there and sort of the, the necessary isolation of, of the place sort of led to, what kind of person would want to do this? And, uh I wasn't even particularly aware of the sort of political implications of what I was reading, I've been reading um, I had read The Fountainhead...
KEIGHLEY: Right.
LEVINE: ...um, by Ayn Rand and I mostly thought it was an interesting story. Like I didn't realize that people were sort of basing their sort of political lives around it. Um because I wasn't that tuned into that stuff at that point. And so, but I loved the, the dialogue and the kind of speechifying in it 'cause uh you can see a video game character speaking with that kind of certainty and that kind of confident, um, philosophy. It just seemed like a, a natural, a natural kind of thing to apply t-to this place and so it just so it all came together as a very, as a sort of a-a 'Who is the guy who would do this?' Well, you know, that character. Um, he was sort of this amalgamation of characters from Ayn Rand's books and Ayn Rand herself. This sort of idealistic person who says, "Well the only way to do this is to separate from the rest of the world." And that led to Andrew Ryan.
[SCENE OVERLAY: Player is in the Bathysphere during the descent to Rapture from The Lighthouse. Slideshow presentation begins: "I am Andrew Ryan and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone."]
ROBERTSON: We knew, from a technical standpoint, that we wanted isolation. We also need to sell it, we needed a compelling story line. A backstory that why would this place exist, otherwise, how are we going to make Rapture feel like it's lived in if we don’t have the reason for it to be there? So once, once we decided on the underwater location and then the closed off spaces, that Objectivist story kind of s-came in and came in and made, and made the art stronger and made the level design stronger because we could feed back into that loop.
LEVINE: And I think that's why we had to have sort of Andrew Ryan's pitch right at the beginning of the game. We wanted people to understand why somebody would go there and so he makes this very personal one-to-one pitch to the gamer, but also that was a pitch he'd make to people.
ROBERTSON: Yeah.
LEVINE: Which was you know there was a place that you can be free of all these things, where you can not be sort of put upon by the government and not be afraid of nuclear war and not be afraid of all these other things that um will plague you on the surface. Um, we wanted that pitch to sort of resonate and make sense because that's otherwise by the time you got there you'd be like, "Well this place is just fantasy. Nobody would ever come here."
[SCENE OVERLAY: Player is in the upper floor of the Atrium in Welcome to Rapture looking towards the Kashmir Restaurant; player is on the lower floor of the Atrium heading towards the elevator; player is looking towards the entrance of the Tea Garden in Arcadia]
LEVINE: And then the beauty of the place also, was also tied into that. It had to be a very attractive proposition. Or people, who would believe that people would go leave their lives and go to the bottom of the ocean?
KEIGHLEY: And I'm sure in some ways you had to convince the team and enroll them in your sort of vision of, you know, who this character was going to be and what the setting was going to be. How, how did that work Shawn? I mean, Ken come in and say, "Hey, I've been reading these books and I think we could sort of..."
ROBERTSON: I believe he just came in one day on a, on a horse and said "Ayn Rand. Everybody read The Fountainhead."
KEIGHLEY: [laughs] Exactly. I bought thirty copies of... [laughs]
ROBERTSON: I think, you know...
KEIGHLEY: Homework for the...
LEVINE: Here's a two thousand page book or something. Go, go read it.
ROBERTSON: It really is more organic. Uh you know, like I say we knew that we had this location and you struggle to fill it with stories and you struggle to find meaning of why. Why does this place exist? You know. What's my motivation?
[SCENE OVERLAY: The following pieces of concept art by Eric Lawson and Mauricio Tejerina are shown; player rounds the corner in Funeral Servies in the Medical Pavilion towards Eternal Flame Crematorium]
Andrew Ryan's Apartment Concept Art.jpg|Image shown in video has more detail.
BioShockMallConcept.jpg
ROBERTSON: And as Ken started to explore Ayn Rand, um, a little more and started talking to us about it and we had, we were having that conversation. And it's like, oh this could totally work. Like this is exciting. Like this is something that really hasn't been done in a video game before and if we had flipped it and come up with the idea first before the location, I don't think we would have really been that excited about it, but we had a location and now we're trying to fill it with, with that story and, and because of the order of operation there, you start to get excited. Like, oh I could totally make this work. This, this, this is going to, uh, really make it feel like a lived-in space.
KEIGHLEY: You know, as you think of sort of the, you know, setting and you think of maybe a character or something, was there a moment that you, you think that as, oh, right then and there, like I, I got excited when you attached the Ayn Rand stuff?
LEVINE: For me it was going, it was going to Rockefeller Center um and seeing the visual.
KEIGHLEY: Uh huh.
LEVINE: Oh sorry yeah, I've told this story before, but I, my wife and I were in New York and when we went to Rockefeller Center which was if you go to Rockefeller Center, basically looks exactly like Rapture. It's because every building you're sort of encircled. It's this block in New York, or a couple blocks in New York where Radio City Music Hall is and, um, 30 Rockefeller Plaza is if you've seen that show 30 Rock. And the ice skating rink and where they put the Christmas tree. And it's this very iconic location, but what's cool about it, it's all one, unlike the rest of the city, everywhere you look, it's one, um, architectural style; it's Art Deco. And it's very iconic Art Deco. And my wife and I were there and we were sort of working on the game, and we didn't have a visual style and then all of a sudden I started looking around and I said, "Ohhhhh, this could be s-a visual for the game."
[SCENE OVERLAY: Player looks at the bust of Andrew Ryan in the Lighthouse; player is in the Bathysphere as it sinks below the water in the Lighthouse as signs for fathom soundings and various pieces of Art Deco metalwork appear; player looks at the hanging ceiling globe in the Main Hall of Point Prometheus]
LEVINE: Also, the geometry of it was actually quite conducive to making a video game because it wasn't overly complicated geometry. Art Deco is actually quite...
KEIGHLEY: Bold and simple.
LEVINE: ...bold and geometric. Yeah. And simple. And so my wife and I bought a couple of tourist cameras before this was before iPhone cameras, you know.
KEIGHLEY: Right, exactly. Throwaway cameras, huh...
LEVINE: Yeah, throwaway cameras, those little Kodak things and we just started photographing doorknobs and light fixtures and sort of brought, we, you know, developed the photos, remember that?
KEIGHLEY: Yeah.
LEVINE: And brought them in and said...
KEIGHLEY: Come into the office, here's a stack of stuff.
LEVINE: Here's a stack of photos. I'll see you guys in a couple years. Go make this.
[SCENE OVERLAY: Bathysphere descent into Rapture in the opening level. Slideshow narration: "A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well"]
KEIGHLEY: So you had kind of a, a theme and came up with an art style, some of the iconic characters and then you know you really had to build the narrative around it, um, and you talked about, you know, a lot of the, the themes in the game and, you know, greed, jealousy, sex, violence. All the things that sort of, you know, drive us or what destroy us. And that was something I think that, you know, as you thought about the, the story of the game that you wanted to, I'm sure, reflect some of those right? 'Cause like people love the characters, they’re sort of flawed in a way and this is a, a, a world which is its own little microcosm, but had a lot of tension inside of it.
LEVINE: Yeah I mean the character of Ryan was sort of, um, he basically, he's basically invisible through most of the game, right? You know, except for a very small portion. But he's very present because he's exist, the city is him, right? You know, it’s such a representation of him.
[SCENE OVERLAY: Player is locked in the bulkhead room between Welcome to Rapture and Medical Pavilion. Andrew Ryan's televised photo of his face is seen through the window]
LEVINE: We never want to cut away to a cut scene where you saw Andrew Ryan, you know, planning and scheming, we-we wanted him to be very present without actually being present. But once you had Ryan and once you had his desire to protect this vision of his, you had a, you just had then to come up with the characters who would be arrayed in opposition to him. So we had this character the Big Daddy and then eventually the character the Little Sister and so characters like Tenenbaum came along. You know, here's a person who's an opposition to him for this reason and then you have, you know, for more noble reasons. And then you have a character like Atlas who's much more cynical opposition.
KEIGHLEY: Yeah.
LEVINE: Once we had all those characters arrayed well wh-, 'who are you?' And, you know, you ended up being a sort of, you know, a pawn in the middle of this, of all this opposition to Ryan. We just kept heh- homing in on that theme, making you. Making sure that you weren't, you know, eventually figuring out that you couldn't just be here by an accident. That you, that you were an integral part of what the story even though you don't know you're an integral part of this story. Y-you think you're just there by happenstance.
[SCENE OVERLAY: Player regains consciousness after taking Electro Bolt in Welcome to Rapture. Little Sister speaks: "Look Mr. Bubbles, it's an angel! I can see light coming from his belly. Wait a minute, he's still breathing. It's alright, I know he'll be an angel soon.]
Category:Golden Film Reels