Cyan collection

Collection

Identifier: CYAN

Staff Only

Cyan collection

Scope and Contents

This collection includes over 200 videotapes and audio recordings from the history of Cyan and the Myst series. The videos are primarily from the production of Riven: The Sequel to Myst, including raw camera footage and composite tests from the filming of the live-action portions of the game, developer interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage used in "The Making of Riven" documentary. The tapes also include footage from other Myst-related projects, along with footage from general Cyan history, such as news appearances and industry presentations.

Several tapes also include footage of other video games released during the time Riven was development, presumably from Cyan's market research. Some videos that were irrelevant to the history of Cyan were digitized but omitted from this collection.

Dates

Publication: 1989–2008

Creator

Stanford Documentary Group (Production company, Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Select materials (currently, related to work by Cyan's quality-assurance subsidiary CYANtest) were restricted after reviewing the footage with Cyan legal. Closed access to these materials may be provided to individual researchers at the discretion of the Video Game History Foundation library staff.

Conditions Governing Use

The Video Game History Foundation has been given permission by the donor to reproduce material in this collection and to allow others to reproduce non-restricted videos for research and publication. Restricted materials may not be reproduced outside of VGHF's collections. Cyan retains the intellectual property of the materials they own.

Extent

3.60 Terabytes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Cyan is the developer of the Myst adventure game series. Based in the Spokane, WA area, the company has been continuously producing games since 1987. Cyan are active custodians of their own history: A significant amount of production materials from the making of their games has been retained at Cyan's headquarters in a storage room known internally as the "Cyan Vault," including hundreds of videotapes from the production and promotion of their games, particularly Riven: The Sequel to Myst from 1997.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Many of the Digital Betacam filming tapes in this collection have multiple audio tracks, which were mapped to the left and right audio channels in the videos in library's browsable collection. The audio on some of these videos may sound unusual or improperly balanced as a result.

Appraisal

Some videos containing duplicate footage (ie., a VHS copy of a Betacam tape with no additional content) were not preserved. Other videos that were irrelevant to the history of Cyan were digitized but omitted from this collection. One video (footage from the Japanese release of Final Fantasy VII) was not preserved due to the lack of unique material and its irrelevance to Cyan. An promotional video for a construction company that was under consideration to contract on the construction of Cyan's headquarters was also excluded due to its lack of relevance.

Existence and Location of Originals

Cyan retained the original tapes from their collection and received a copy of the digital files. The raw video are also preserved by the Video Game History Foundation.

Physical Description

Generally, Betacam and Digital Betacam tapes were in good condition; some tape damage was repaired by our video preservation vendor but is not noticeable in the digital copies.

VHS tapes were in fairer condition. Due to the nature of the VHS tape format, some tapes have noticeable, noise, audio, or decay, but are mostly acceptable for viewing. Some VHS tapes also contain errors such as missing audio, which accurately reflects their condition. A number of tapes that were unreadable or contained no significant material were not digitizated by our vendor.

Some miniDV tapes had degraded, and the digitial transfers have unrepairable audiovisual damage (noted in individual records).

Processing Information

VHS tapes in this collection were digitized by Spokane-based vendor Masterpiece Memories. Betacam, Betacam SP, and Digital Betacam tapes were digitized by Seattle-based vendor Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound. Masterpiece Memories did not provide a list of tape labels; catalog names for these tapes are based on their content or copied from corresponding Betacam tapes.