NEW YORK — Film productions often grapple with changes in weather conditions, the threat of crews having to work overtime, or diminishing daylight. Less common are concerns about the cast slipping off the top of the balloon.

But that was one of the quirks of making “Grand Theft Hamlet,” a documentary about two British actors, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who, idled by the pandemic, decided to stage Hamlet in a violent virtual world. “Grand Theft Auto.” When Shakespeare wrote about the “slings and arrows of incredible fortune,” he may not have imagined the threat of a python running loose in a bar or Hamlet wrestling on the helipad over whether to “be or not to be.” Still, “Grand Theft Auto” may be an oddly appropriate setting for a game where nearly everyone dies.

Pinny Grylls says: “The first time Sam did a bit of Shakespeare in that space he said: ‘I think back in the day when Shakespeare was at the Globe, if you were rubbish people would throw apples at you. who wrote and directed the film with her husband Crane. “No one is actually watching you, but they look around and listen to poetry from time to time.”

“Grand Theft Hamlet,” which Mubi will release in theaters in January, opens with the avatars of Crane and Oosterveen running from the police and drifting towards an outdoor amphitheater. Someone says loudly: “I wonder if you could stage something here?”

They’re not the only ones swept up in virtual spaces and wondering if this isn’t a rich landscape for a movie. In “The Extraordinary Life of Ibelin,” which premiered on Netflix on Friday, director Benjamin Ree enters “World of Warcraft” to tell both the life and the virtual life story of Norwegian actor Mats Steen, who died of Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of 15. 25.

Published on Metrograph at Home, “Knit’s Island” takes place almost entirely in the survival role-playing game DayZ. The filmmakers wore “PRESS” badges on their avatars’ chests and asked to interview players with high numbers of kills. During the approach someone shouted “Don’t shoot!” he shouts. “I’m a documentarian!”

All three documentaries enter the video game world with the curiosity of what can be discovered within it. For them, the surreal life within these virtual spaces and the possibilities for real human connection there are as valuable as anywhere else.

“Filmmakers want to make movies about the world we live in. And more and more people are living in these online virtual playgrounds,” says Grylls. “As filmmakers, we hold up a mirror to the world and say, ‘Look what’s going on here.’”

As the gaming industry has emerged as the dominant entertainment medium (eclipsing film, television, and music combined by some estimates), the lines between movies and video games have become increasingly blurred. This is true not only in big box office hits like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” but also in smaller films known as machinima (a portmanteau of “machine” and “cinema”) that use game engines to create their own narratives.

However, “The Extraordinary Life of Ibelin”, “Grand Theft Hamlet” and “Knit’s Island” are the first feature-length productions of their kind to bridge the gap between the virtual and the cinema.

“This is just the beginning,” says Grylls. “We are right on the outskirts. “It’s nice to think that we’re part of this evolution of cinema.”

Reconstructing the life of Mats Steen

When Ree first read Steen’s story, she was deeply moved. When Steen died in 2014, his parents, Robert and Trude, were under the impression that their son had missed most of his life. As Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare disease for which there is no cure, progressed, Steen’s life was increasingly limited to playing video games in his wheelchair in his basement.

But Steen’s parents were stunned by the response after they posted the news of their son’s death on Steen’s blog. Messages of praise poured in for Steen, known to many as the “World of Warcraft” hunk Ibelin Redmoore. Ree rewinds her film to start over, retelling Steen’s story, using thousands of pages of archived text to bring Ibelin/Steen’s vivid life in the play to life. In the play, Steen had her first kiss as Ibelin.

“I thought: Is it possible to translate this enormous archive and reconstruct real events with real dialogue and real characters, while also inviting everyone in?” says Ree. “He actually came of age in a game. And I was very curious: What was this like? She experienced friendships, love, everything I could recognize in my own life growing up.

To make a movie about Steen’s life, Ree knew he had to show it through “World of Warcraft.” Although not a gamer herself, Ree sought out gamers who posted fan videos on YouTube. Rasmus Tukia, a 28-year-old self-taught 3D animator, led two other animators in creating the game environment with the same models used for the gameplay videos.

“They were all YouTubers and this was their first job,” says Ree. “We’re doing something completely new here. If this works, it’ll be a huge credit to YouTubers.”

Ree’s goal wasn’t to mimic the game exactly; this may seem cumbersome or too janky. So for three years, they reenacted Steen/Ibelin’s experiences in “World of Warcraft” with a slightly more cinematic touch, without the permission of the game’s producer, Blizzard Entertainment. They showed drafts to Steen’s online friends to get feedback along the way.

“When I showed them the film after working on it for three and a half years, the reaction after the screening was: ‘This is exactly how we remember Ibelin,’” says Ree. “Then they said, ‘But you made a mistake. Ibelin liked women with leatherier clothes.’”

It was only when the film was nearing completion that Ree contacted Blizzard, which was a small, independent Norwegian production before Netflix acquired it. He went to their offices in California to show it to managers.

“I was very nervous. I haven’t slept for days. We didn’t have a plan B. “I had to take an extra dose of asthma medication just to be able to breathe before the meeting,” says Ree. “We showed them the movie and saw them crying right after. The boss turned around and said: ‘This movie is amazing. You will get the rights.’”

Shakespeare on a cargo plane in ‘Grand Theft Hamlet’

Crane, a veteran stage and screen actor, initially started “Grand Theft Hamlet” more as a joke, a way to keep busy while theaters were closed during the pandemic. But when he released the videos, people like Rockstar Games, the game’s maker, responded with enthusiasm.

“They talked to us about how they designed the game to be used this way, as a sandbox, as a creative space,” Crane says.

But little was known about how to make “Grand Theft Hamlet,” which won the best documentary award at SXSW in March. For starters, nearly every audition or rehearsal in the play ended in bloodshed. Usually someone with a gun showed up and chaos ensued.

The filmmakers had a few cornerstones; these included Joe Hunting’s 2022 documentary “We Met in Virtual Reality” and the work of artist Jacky Connolly, who used “Grand Theft Auto” to make the nightmarish, existential short film “Descent into Hell.” But little has been suggested on how to make a movie set entirely within the game world.

“We were working on every aspect of this; putting on a play within this world, learning how to capture the images in this world, then how to edit all of that footage,” Crane says. “We were learning as we went.”

This also meant freedom. At one point they realized they could portray Shakespeare “with a billion-dollar budget.” Theirs is the first “Hamlet” to feature the car from “Back to the Future” or a cargo plane. Meanwhile, Grylls, an experienced filmmaker, experimented with how to position the camera.

“I realized: OK, let’s try to make things a little calmer and more cinematic,” he says. “Once I discovered that there was a phone in the game with a camera on it, I was able to do close-ups and wide shots and a kind of cinematic language.”

The game is not over

As “Grand Theft Hamlet” debuts at various film festivals, Crane and Grylls find themselves in the surprising position of being praised for a movie they made mostly in their bedroom on a PlayStation. Like virtual world raids, something done in physical isolation has found a growing community.

Ree, speaking at a festival stop in San Francisco, is traveling in “Ibelin” with Streen’s parents. A life that once seemed quiet and lonely has spread across the world.

“They watched the movie at every screening,” he says. “For them, the movie is part of their healing, in a way, but also part of their grieving process. “They’ve seen it over 150 times now.”