MONTREAL, Quebec - Ubisoft held a small international press event at its acclaimed Montreal Studio to showcase Assassin’s Creed II and James Cameron’s Avatar. I hadn’t been up to that studio in years and it was amazing to see how the publisher has now taken over the entire building (as well as part of a nearby building) with over 2,000 employees.  These days, the bulk of Ubisoft’s biggest brands from Shaun White Snowboarding to Splinter Cell: Conviction to Assassin’s Creed and Avatar are all made in this studio. The two-day event focused on the convergence between games and Hollywood that Ubisoft has become a leader in over the past few years. With its acquisition of Hybride Technologies, the special effects and 3D house that has created innovative films like 300, Sin City and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is now working hand-in-hand with a team within Ubisoft Montreal called Ubisoft Digital Arts. The fruits of their labor can be seen with the first of three short films called Assassin’s Creed: Lineage. Assassin's Creed II While Lineage tells a prequel story to the upcoming Assassin’s Creed II game by introducing viewers to Giovanni Auditore, the father of the game’s protagonist, Ezio, what I found most interesting about this nine-month long film production process was the convergence that occurred between the game creators and the filmmakers. Nothing like this has ever been done before in Hollywood (and technically, it still hasn’t, as the film was made in Quebec). The process began with Corey May, who wrote both Assassin’s Creed games. He worked with director Yves Simoneau (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) on a story that would incorporate a cast of 24 actors portraying key characters from the new game. Thanks to today’s digital world, the same actors who performed these roles in the live action, green screen production were also scanned into the game world and performed voice recording for the new interactive adventure. This creates a cool new synergy that may one day happen with well-known Hollywood actors. But for now, you won’t recognize the actors, but you will see the same faces and hear the same voices in the short films and in the upcoming game. Lineage set Since Ubisoft had to build the green screen set for the movie, which began production in January, it no longer exists. Instead, we watched video of the production, which showed a large team of technicians on set with the director, crew and actors to ensure that the game worlds that would be added in post-production were accurately aligned with the live action. Diagrams of the game levels were actually created to scale and projected onto the floor of the studio for actors to work around. We got an in-depth tour of Hybride, which is located about 50 minutes outside of Montreal in Piedmont. The studio is set in a beautiful country valley and resides within a building that looks like a vacation chateau. But inside, there’s a large team of technicians, artists and programmers who work movie magic in both 2D and 3D. (They most recently worked on The Final Destination.) Lineage is the first time that actual game environments have been used as a foundation for a live action film. The buildings and background characters from the game were used by Hybride as a starting point. A lot of work went into taking what Ubisoft had done for the game and turning it into photorealistic environments for the film. Giovanni in action Pierre Raymond, president and head of production at Hybride, told me that Lineage was a far more ambitious project than even 300. One thing he noted was that 300 had no floors to deal with. For Lineage, his team had to build walls, windows, ceilings and floors out of game environments. While shooting on green screens and green floors, there was literally nothing to start with. Anyone who watched the first short film will be amazed at this. In fact, if we hadn’t been shown the whole process, many people might not even realize that the movies were shot in green screen at all? 300 had that look and feel, but Lineage takes place in Florence and Venice during the Italian Renaissance. With the pipeline now built, Raymond also told me that any future movies Ubisoft and Hybride make could be done in 3D. It’s just an added cost to production, which at this point is quite high, but it’s something that will come down as technology advances. The other thing worth noting is that choosing short films as a starting point made sense for this groundbreaking project, but moving forward, they could just as easily make a full-length feature film. Avatar On the other end of the convergence spectrum, there’s Avatar, which is being developed in a locked area of the Montreal Studio referred to as “the bunker.” I got a look inside the bunker (it looks like any other floor) and saw the latest 3D gameplay in action. The Avatar games are also a unique convergence, in that the PCs in Montreal are directly connected to those at Lightstorm in Los Angeles. Cameron’s team and Ubisoft’s team are sharing assets, as well as technology. Hybride also was involved in the 3D technology, since they’ve been a leader in 3D in Hollywood for a long time. While most people won’t be able to play Avatar in 3D this December, those who do have 3D-Ready TVs are in for an amazing experience. I got hands-on time with the game and this 3D is no gimmick. It’s an effect – much like the 25 minutes of the movie I saw at Comic-Con – that immerses you in the world of Pandora. The fact that the games each take place in a time before the film’s events, yet have key characters from both the RDA and the Na’Vi involved, paves the way for convergence across mediums. Convergence is a term that’s been tossed around since the Atari 2600 days, but with Assassin’s Creed: Lineage and Avatar, Ubisoft has bridged the worlds of interactive entertainment and Hollywood in new ways. And they’ve done this all in Montreal, which is quite far from Tinseltown.

From the early goings, it looks like the second wave of Beatles-mania hasn't yet caught on with today's youth. And the older folks who experienced the first wave of the invasion are either buying the new DVDs (also released on September 9th) or are too far in the financial hole to invest in the $250 bundle. Even the $60 stand-alone game, which works just fine with any old Rock Band or Guitar Hero instruments, is getting clobbered by Activision's Guitar Hero 5. Although Harmonix created Guitar Hero, the brand that Activision has built has become a monster in the music gaming genre. Rock Band, while first with the full band experience, has been playing catch-up in the sales department ever since. Guitar Hero 5 features a slew of new songs and artists, but it's essentially the same experience. And gamers are just fine with that. As we've seen with Wii and the continued success of Wii Sports, older gamers aren't as enthusiastic when it comes to upgrading to new games, let alone new bundles. That's why the pack-in Wii Sports game continues to be a mainstay at many homes -- and why other Wii games have found difficulty in trying to captivate that same audience. Activision is also giving away Guitar Hero Van Halen to anyone who buys Guitar Hero 5 in September, which is a nice incentive that seems to be working. As Christmas approaches, The Beatles should entice more older gamers to make the plunge (if they haven't already) at least for the $60 game. It makes more sense as a Christmas gift than as a diehard gamer's must-have purchase on launch day. One thing MTV Games did do successfully at launch was permeate the airwaves, web and print magazines with The Beatles. But not even that overkill marketing has made much of a dent against the Guitar Hero phenomenon. Sales for Guitar Hero 5 are 5 to 1 verses The Beatles: Rock Band.