Tracing Media: Adaptation Between Vine and S.T.A.L.K.E.R:Shadows of Chernobyl

By Phil Horlacher , Team Into the Zone: A Study of Adaptations

     During Fall of 2013, the UC Santa Barbara student group, Into the Zone: A Study of Adaptations, attempted to cultivate an understanding of which elements of a work remain or are transformed during the process of adaptation by comparing a series of objects that had been adapted from one source, and then by attempting to creatively form their own adaptation based on a mixture of the impressions the group derived from each medium via Vine.  In order to carry out this experiment, the group studied and adapted the “Stalker” series, which has expanded from the original 1971 Strugatsky brothers’ novel, Roadside Picnic, into the Strugatskys’ film Stalker, and finally, into the first person shooter survival horror video game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl. By comparing the adventurous tone and the artistic portrayal of violence as they appear in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl as a result of the nature of games to be interactive experiences that are often played over many hours, and the manner in which tone and violence are expressed as a result of the time limits of the individual Vines that have been produced by the group Into the Zone, it is evident that an object’s medium largely dictates its composition during the process of adaptation.

     Before discussing the ramifications of form on a given object, it is necessary to understand what S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl consists of. The Stalker game was developed by GSC Game World and released in 2007 as an adaptation of the previous works of the Strugatsky brothers. The game is set in the fallout of a fictional second Chernobyl nuclear disaster, during which, the player embarks on a quest through “the zone” - a militarized, radiation packed, ruin of Chernobyl - as an amnesiac “Stalker” in search of his identity. The main Stalker plotline largely functions like a standard FPS as the user traverses a fairly linear story and fires various weapons at militant foes. The game was released to positive reviews, receiving much of its acclaim for its distinct and original post apocalyptic atmosphere. As an adaptation, the game departs from the book and the film significantly by dropping the extraterrestrial elements, removing the major characters, inserting violent action sequences, departing from the plotlines of either text, and by shifting the setting. By understanding the game as an object, it becomes easier to convey the extent to which formal media resonates within the game adaptation of the Strugatskys’ prequels, as well as within Into the Zone’s Vines.

     Another key contextual element that is needed in order to adequately understand how an object’s media form shapes its content, is a brief background on the Vine application, which is the formal basis for Into the Zone’s adaptation of the Stalker series. Vine is a phone and tablet application that allows users to film looping videos with full audio spanning an average of six seconds in length. As a media form, Vine was chosen by the group because of its uniqueness, but also because it has yet to be fully explored by academia. The limits and opportunities presented by Vine are crucial in determining how media impacts the artistic portrayal of objects during adaptation, and can easily be related to the adaptation of the Stalker game.

     Perhaps the element that most exemplifies the extent to which a given medium shapes the content of a creative object is the uniquely adventurous tone of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl. The most basic way in which games differ from books and film is that games are meant to be played through. As a result, GSC was tasked with adapting the largely mysterious and dark zone of the Strugatsky brothers into a playable field capable of keeping gamers immersed and entertained for over ten hours. After each cell of Into the Zone experienced their media form (being either the book, film, or game), the individuals in these cells took emotional surveys describing how the object made them feel, since tone is often meant to link to specific emotional reactions. The results show that those who experienced the novel report feeling high levels of “anxiety” and “worry”, those who experienced the film rank more “negative and passive” emotions, and those who played the game tend to rank “satisfied” and “amusement” most highly. These results are significant because they point to the aims of each medium. Print and film media are able to consistently evoke negative emotions because the user is removed from the object. In contrast, games are more intimate in that the user’s actions have a direct influence on the occurrences that take place in the game world, and the user often expects days (if not weeks) of gameplay. The result of a game’s longevity and the intimacy involved in experiencing the game is that developers must produce an overall tone that elicits satisfaction and pleasure. If the game designers would have pursued a more mysterious tone, like the book, or if they would haveattempted to elicit boredom and frustration, which was an artistic film choice for the Strugatskys, the game would be too emotionally taxing for players. In this sense, the game’s departure from previous Stalker instalments is justified by its attempts to provide gamers with a sense of satisfaction derived from completing challenges and surviving combat, all while preserving an adventurous tone that wavers between exciting, scary, and humorous.

     When Into the Zone created their Vine adaptation of the Stalker series, they found that just as how the Stalker game’s adventurous tone is predominantly shaped by its medium, the creepy and humorous tones of the project are largely the products of Vine’s capabilities and limitations. Though the group attempted to enact as much creative control as possible on the object they were producing, the six second time frame consistently failed to allow for significant plot development or interactions between characters to occur. Because of this, the group focused most of its efforts on creating Vines that emphasize locations and brief human moments, since such Vines do not need much context. In shooting locations, often times the group looked to areas that seemed decrepit, dangerous, or eerily silent in order to capture moments similar in nature to the mysterious zone of the Strugatsky works, but that were also evocative of the adventurous game world. In scripting human interactions, the group attempted to focus on either minor situations that might reflect larger meanings, such as the Stalker placing bolts on the eyes of his fallen comrade, or situations that were meant to capture inadvertently humorous elements posed in the game, such as glitches. The result of filming run-down locations, minor interactions, and humorous sequences was that the overall tone of the series could be described as simultaneously creepy and funny. Because Vines are snapshots of moments, many of the serious videos that were produced were either so strange that without context they elicited a sort of knee-jerk reaction to the eerie tone, or were too brief to be understood as anything other than humorous (regardless of whether that was the intention of certain individual Vines). Ultimately, the fact that Vines are good at delivering quick impressions, such as those found in iconic photographs or quick jokes, meant that the Vines that were made to be serious “zone” shots, such as the merry-go-round scene, were able to convey an eerie feel, while the shots that were intentionally comical, such as the scene of the Stalker whose arm glitched into a wall, were humorous. In contrast, the shots that rejected the Vine model of establishing a quick impression, such as the sequence of the Stalker placing bolts on the eyes of his fallen comrade, were confusing and farcical because Vine is incapable of providing adequate context for such a sequence to occur. By understanding Vine as an object that notably limits the flexibility by which artists can successfully produce slides evoking various tones, the tonal limits that were imposed on Into the Zone are more explicit; moreover, these barriers and the resulting tones can help explain why S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl, which also experienced creative restrictions due its medium, evoked such a distinct tone in comparison to the other Strugatsky works.  

     Another element that exemplifies the impact of a given medium on creative aspects of a work is the artistic portrayal of violence, which is a crucial component of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl, despite being largely absent or merely implicit in the previous Strugatsky texts. The ubiquitous presentation of violence in the game is largely due to the fact that as a form, games do not allow for the extensive back to back dialogue that predominantly composes the novel and the film. The dialogue in the book and film are valuable; however, dialogue of this sort is inadequate in the game because such dialogue removes user agency from the application, which diametrically opposes the function of a strategy game.This limitation mirrors the limits which confined the game’s tone. Because consumers expect a game of this sort to be experienced for at least ten hours, and because the player is meant to be emotionally connected to the main character, it is necessary to positively stimulate the user. This stimulus is most easily enacted by employing violence as a primary aspect of gameplay, since the hour long culminations of violent action sequences that string together miniature plot points demand consistent personal innovation and strategizing on the part of the user in order to move forward. These advantages of employing violence in a game help to resolve the apparent distinction that this adaptation draws via the continual portrayal of violence in comparison to film and the novel, which do not rely on constant action to express content. What is interesting about the game from a creative standpoint is that based on the lofty blocks of dialogue that appeared during transitions, the extensive lore, and the immersive atmosphere, it is evident that the creators truly wish to reflect the historical contexts and the loric potential that is inspired by the Strugatskys’ prequels; however, the first person shooter element is so prominent that one is often too distracted by the hour long sessions of violence to pay much attention to the more serious artistic aspirations that may be embedded in the plot. This may perhaps explain why those who played the game ranked highly in “pleasure” and “satisfaction” on the emotional survey, but did not rank highly on emotions such as “disgust” or “empathy”, emotions that are more likely to be evoked by placing greater scrutiny on plot. By placing the portrayal of violence within the context of the game medium, it is clear that many of the structural and artistic components that are prominent in the novel and the film are impossible to successfully implement within the game; whereas, the benefits of employing violence for the purpose of consumer stimulation make the game more palatable to users.

     While in the game, violence is necessary in order to prolong the user experience, in creating Vines, Into the Zone found that, due to the time limitations of Vine, it is difficult to credibly portray acts of violence in such a manner that reflects the intricate action sequences of the game. Just as how Vine’s limited time format prevents the exploration of numerous tones, the explicit portrayal of violence is impossible to execute due to the shortness of each Vine. This is largely because six second videos do not provide enough time to build the context that would be sufficient in order to seriously portray violence, since violence without any sort of explanation is likely to be perceived as humorous, as demonstrated by the millions of slapstick gifs which have circulated on websites such as Reddit, or grotesque, since the viewer is left to focus solely on the image itself. One example of this inadequacy is exemplified by the failed efforts of Into the Zone to film a Vine that was inspired by the game, but is not present in the final project. In the sequence, as two Stalkers walk through an abandoned facility, the camera operator lifts a gun into the frame. A shot is fired by the camera operator and the first Stalker falls dead as the second Stalker flees the scene. This scene was ultimately cut from the final product because Vine’s time designations and picture quality did not allow for a convincing enough execution of this sequence to take place. After roughly fifteen takes, the group found that filming the sequence was impractical, as it was difficult to time the shot, the presentation of the gun was too prominent, and the plot was too obscure to comprehend. In retrospect, even if the Vine would have been technically feasible (which is highly unlikely),  the Vine would still fail to sufficiently identify the camera operator, the stalkers, or the the reason behind the violence. This is an extreme flaw from a storytelling standpoint because the violence does not mean anything if the audience is unaware what stakes are involved. Where in the game, the violence relates to the gamer’s journey through the zone and connects plot points, in the Vine, complex violence loses its meaning without context.  Just as the game medium regulates the use of violence in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl, the culmination of these complications signifies the extent to which adapting the world of Stalker is based largely on the temporal limits of Vine, since the application is only really capable of supporting the tension derived from background corpses and an occasional handheld weapon.

     Into the Zone’s exploration, though initially launched under the hypothesis that tone is stable across media, is significant because the project demonstrates the extreme impact that an object’s medium has on its composition. By examining how game length and user interaction are direct factors in both the expression of an adventurous tone and the active portrayal of violence in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl, as well as the ramifications of Vine’s short time span on the minimalistic expressions of tone and violence, it is clear that the gravity with which a given medium influences content is substantial. Though this finding may seem obvious in retrospect, the knowledge that media shifts necessitate specific creative changes enables a more complete understanding of adaptation as a whole, especially within a multimedia context.