You're in the Movies

Previous video can be stored on the console and sent to friends via e-mail. The game was met with mixed reviews, receiving criticism for the bundled camera.

• Title — You're in the Movies • Developer — Zoë Mode • Publisher — Codemasters • Composer — Richard Jacques • Genre — Party • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Platforms — Xbox 360

You're in the Movies uses the bundled Xbox Live Vision camera. Players must complete mini-games by mimicking actions that will appear in a movie trailer, in the context of various science fiction, thriller, and adventure stories. Scores are awarded based on how closely each player manages to mimic the action required. Afterwards, players have to do a series of pick-up shots by assuming various facial expressions for the camera, such as an evil grin or a look of intense concentration. Videos can be shared to people in different households via links sent by Xbox through email.

Zoë Mode, who had previous experience with camera games, conceived the idea of You're in the Movies from the virtual green screen technology they had used in their previous games. They thought a movie game would be a "perfect fit" for this technology. Andy Trowers, the lead designer of the game, stated the following: Initially, the developers filmed one movie and designed games that would fit the characters' actions as a proof-of-concept. The movie themes and mini-games were conceived by the creative design team, who wanted to evoke a B-movie atmosphere. Trowers noted that designing mini-games was "quite an organic process": "Sometimes we'd have a movie and we'd say OK, we want the player to do this in the scene, which is the action we want, so try to think of a game idea for this. But other times we'd be thinking, "Oh, you know what, we got this great idea for a game and these are the essential actions we can get out of it, how are we going to use it in movies?" So it was really a three-way process, trying to figure out what we could get people to do, what would be fun, how it would fit in the movie—it wasn't just one process of doing it, it had to go both ways". Some movie ideas were left out of the final game.

The developers originally thought the game's target audience would be adults. Towers noted: "We started out with an idea that the users are going to be fairly old, but then as we sort of made the game we focused it. We realized that lots of different people get fun out of the game in lots of different ways. We tested on young kids, we tested on adults, we tested on a mix of the two, and we came to the conclusion that anyone can play this game. We very much wanted the game to be accessible from the start so that you can play alongside your granny or with your kids. We saw people enjoying it from all ages". At Microsoft's Press Conference at the E3 2008 conference in July, Shane Kim announced the game, along with Scene it: Box Office Smash. The game feature that allows players to star in trailers for fake movies was showcased in the conference. The movie shown was titled "Cold Blooded" and was about a giant, radioactive salamander. Other gameplay footage was shown during the conference as well. It was shown at the Games Convention one month later. • Illustration — Hollywood star Burt Reynolds fronted a series of TV and magazine advertising spots for the game. Hollywood star Burt Reynolds fronted a series of TV and magazine advertising spots for the game in 2008. The ads first premiered in North America on VH1 on November 18, and aired in major European markets from November 28.