There's a New, Interactive Documentary about Fort McMurray

Watch the trailer so you have a better idea of what this interview is about.

Fort McMoney is an ambitious video game and documentary hybrid about Alberta’s crude oil sands and the community that lives next to them. Created by award-winning French documentarian David Dufresne, the game recreates Alberta’s Fort McMurray as a virtual world, allowing you to explore the city and talk with many of its real inhabitants—ranging from vocal opponents of the oil sands, like the Chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, to proponents and representatives of industry. As you explore, you’re able to debate with other players worldwide, voting in weekly referendums that alter the fate of the virtual city. The game is the product of two years of research and includes more than fifty interviews and eight hours of footage. Fort McMoney launches today and is free to play online, thanks in part to the NFB.

We sat down with the game’s creator, David Dufresne, and game master Philip Lewis, to talk about the project. David described the game as the SimCity of the oil sands.

VICE: Why did you decide to tell the story of Fort McMurray in the form of a video game?
David: Because the video game is a tool to get people interested in this subject. I mean, nobody cares about what’s going on over there. Nobody cares about what the choice of civilization is. And maybe through a game, some people could become interested in this subject.

Do you think the interactive format will attract people who aren’t already interested in hearing about the oil sands?
David: We hope. I love documentary, classical documentary. But I think right now, thanks to the web, we can change the way we tell stories. And that’s very exciting—a new kind of narrative. And maybe some people who don’t care about documentaries or books would be interested in the multi-linear format. It’s a new way to do journalism. To me it’s as important as gonzo journalism was in the sixties—I say that to VICE, you know. Because to me that’s the same. It’s a new way to see topics and to tell stories.

As someone with a film background, what was it like to collaborate with a videogame designer?
David: It was a very long process and a very exciting process, with three game designers. During the shooting and during the research I worked with these designers, and we talked all the time about the project. It was difficult to find the right way to balance the documentary and game logic. And the documentary is the most important. The most important thing is to be real. The game has to be at the service of the story… A big influence was SimCity… to me it’s a magic video game. When I saw Fort McMurray, I said to myself “this could be SimCity for real.”

Emissions rising over Fort McMurray. Photo courtesy of the NFB.

What were your first impressions when you arrived to Fort McMurray? Does it have a distinct feeling or smell?
David: Smell? For sure! Have you been there?

No.
David: There is the smell of money. And the smell of money is the smell of ammonia and chemical products from factories, from the mine. In the game, as a player, you could ask this question to almost everybody you meet: “What is this smell?” The first time the mayor herself was driving into town, she said: “Does anyone actually live here? Is this the end of the road, the end of civilization?” But this is our road. Everybody takes this road. Everybody needs oil. Everybody is addicted to oil, so we are not here to judge the people who live in Fort McMurray. We are here to think about what’s going on and what is our responsibility.

Did your perception of Fort McMurray change during the duration of this project?
David: A lot. When you go to VICE’s website, you see some very good characters and very bad things. And when you go to Fort McMurray, you see very good characters and very bad things, but also a lot of generosity and a lot of prosperity. The city seems to be simple, but in fact it’s very difficult to understand. There is a lot of huge money and a lot of homeless people at the same corner in a very small town. People over there are very nice, but they are cautious about what we are doing—you and I and all journalists or documentary makers or singers—so it took a long time to understand this city. But beyond that, there is a mine site. And that’s another story.

You seem to focus a lot on the social aspects of life in the town and in particular the nightlife—the strip clubs, the casino, the head shop, and bars. Why is this an important aspect of the game?
David: The social impacts are very important in Fort McMurray. It’s a reason why this city is very interesting. This is a small town with all the problems that they have in big towns. For example, homeless people, drugs. There are a lot of liquor stores. It’s very remarkable to see how many liquor stores there are for the workers. So for the first week of the game you see the social impacts. And the nightlife in Fort McMurray is very important. There is a normal night life and there is an El Dorado way-of-life nightlife. . . It’s really a gold rush mentality.

The guy from Sugars, a very famous club in town, you can ask him questions in the game. This is his first interview in his life, and all TV from all over the world have asked him to do interviews. He said no, expect for us. And it’s very interesting because he said there are a lot of business contracts for millions of dollars that were signed in the strip club. Deals were closed by oil executives right there in that club. It’s important to me to be focused on people—from the homeless, to the top CEO of Total Canada—human nature is the key. If you’re only talking to experts… [makes a fart sound]. You know that at VICE.

Yes we sure do. Were there any places you wanted to include but couldn’t get access to?
David: I can’t answer that in this discussion, because one of the goals of the players is to find the key to go up north and to go into a mine site. What I can tell you is we saw things that we weren’t supposed to see.

The bong of choice in Fort McMurray. Photo courtesy of the NFB.

Are some characters more prominent than others? Do you have protagonists?
David: There are some protagonists you can interview each week. Like a guy called Andrew Nikiforuk, he’s a writer from Calgary. He’s against the oil industry. You can meet the mayor during two of the weeks. And Ken Chapman, the guy from the Oil Sands Developers Group, you can meet him every week too. There are some characters who are very strong, but it’s always balanced.

Philip: The game has been built so that there are many possible itineraries. You can return to some of these characters, but the game has been conceived and built to allow hundreds of different possible itineraries through the experience.

The player is given a lot of control over what happens to the town in Fort McMoney—the press release calls it a “collective experience.” Is this a strategy to make the game ideologically neutral, or would you say there’s still some sort of bias—either your own bias or the bias of reality?
David: The game is neutral. The reality is not neutral. And what the players are going to do won’t be neutral. But we’ve prepared everything so that if you want to shut down the industry you can do that, or if you want to produce more and more oil you can do that. Everything is possible, it’s your turn to decide. To play.

Where do you stand personally on this issue? What should happen to Alberta’s bitumen sands?
David: Look at this table [gestures towards plastic table]. Everything is plastic. The answer is here, not there. I think if the game called out people to understand that, that could be great. It’s too easy to say “ah, we have to shut down the industry because there’s too much pollution.” For sure, it’s very strong in pollution—but it’s not enough just to say that. We have to think about our daily life and our dependence on oil.

Philip: I think one of the things David was interested in was the idea of being a virtual citizen. So it’s like having a game that is fun and engaging and a chance to see reality in new ways, but also exercising citizenship, because you are engaging in debate. You’re voting, you’re trying to put forward your own arguments, you’re trying to counter other people’s arguments. You’re interviewing people in the community—in the virtual community. I think what’s interesting about it, in terms of a game, is that it’s a game that’s really an exercise in citizenship and democracy and collective discussion and collective action.

David Dufrense, in the flesh. Photo courtesy of the NFB.

Is this the golden age of Fort McMurray? What do you think the city will look like in the future?
David: We don’t know exactly, because it depends on the pipelines. They can produce a lot of barrels of petrol but they don’t know where to send it. They need to get access to the Asian market or the European market or the United States market. They are very confident about their future, they think they are going to stay. But it won’t be so easy because, for example, the United States found a new way to produce energy. It will be a big struggle for Fort McMurray and Canada. That’s the reason why there are so many travels by government of Canada people who go to Asia or Europe to lobby, to say “please, buy our oil.” There is a lot of political discussion about this. And these discussions are in Fort McMoney.

Well it seems like you covered everything in this game.
David: Yes, we are crazy. The situation is crazy. And to me the best person who said the best things about Fort McMurray is Stephen Harper.

Philip: He compared it to the Great Wall of China.

David: And the pyramids. And he said it’s bigger. Yes, no limit. So our game is no limit.

What a guy. Were there any limits placed on who you were able to film? Did you and your crew encounter any hostility from people in town or from members of industry?
David: No. A lot of people didn’t want to answer us, but they weren’t hostile to us. They were nice when they said no. And the industry was very imaginative when they said no. They’d say, “next week? Oh no, it’s not possible,” “oh you can’t come now because, safety reasons,” “oh we are very sorry but the spokesperson is sick today.” During one year we got a lot of emails and phone calls from the oil industry, very polite, to say “no.” And as a player you have to find the solution to talk to people from the industry. Except for one person, the guy from CAPP [the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers], he was very nice… his speech is very tough, he’s very proud of what they do.

CAPP advertises a lot about how industry can reclaim and restore the land used by the oil sands. They’ve had ads on television, on billboards, and playing before films in theatres. Do you think Fort McMurray will ever be remediated, restored to how it once was?
David: In the game?

In reality.
David: Play the game. Play the game and you’ll see the reality. WATCH:

Toxic: Alberta