list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Second Skin on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Second_Skin/365073/default.aspx Title: Second Skin
Year: 2008
Director: Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza
Plot: Since video games arrived on the home entertainment market in the Seventies, they've grown in sophistication by leaps and bounds, and with the rise of the internet came games that allowed competitors in different parts of the world to challenge one another. The latest wrinkle in video game technology is the new genre of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games, in which literally millions of people can assume characters and interact in a digital environment though their personal computers and a high-speed internet connection. While games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest have become hugely popular, they've also raised concerns among parents, psychologists and sociologists who wonder about the long-term effects of spending prolonged periods of time in an artificial world, cut off from reality and conventional human interaction. Filmmaker Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza examines the pros and cons of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games in the documentary Second Skin, which includes interviews with game enthusiasts, designers, psychologists and social critics who discuss why the games have become so popular, what dangers they pose, what benefits they present, and what can happen to those who become addicted to the online experience. Second Skin received its world premiere at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 10
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 6
SpoutRating: 5
]]>Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:10:24 GMTSecond Skin2008Juan Carlos Pineiro EscoriazaSince video games arrived on the home entertainment market in the Seventies, they've grown in sophistication by leaps and bounds, and with the rise of the internet came games that allowed competitors in different parts of the world to challenge one another. The latest wrinkle in video game technology is the new genre of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games, in which literally millions of people can assume characters and interact in a digital environment though their personal computers and a high-speed internet connection. While games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest have become hugely popular, they've also raised concerns among parents, psychologists and sociologists who wonder about the long-term effects of spending prolonged periods of time in an artificial world, cut off from reality and conventional human interaction. Filmmaker Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza examines the pros and cons of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games in the documentary Second Skin, which includes interviews with game enthusiasts, designers, psychologists and social critics who discuss why the games have become so popular, what dangers they pose, what benefits they present, and what can happen to those who become addicted to the online experience. Second Skin received its world premiere at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide10Taggedy Taggged (6-10)265http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s365073.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Second_Skin/365073/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/11/13/37285.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 11/13/2008 4:01:26 PM
Body: Like a video game screen that says “Continue?”, video game documentaries keep popping up with extra lives. Just last week I wrote about the documentary Chasing Ghosts and how it’s a better movie than The King of Kong, and the good news is that Chasing Ghosts is now coming out next month on a cable channel near you. The even better news is that there are a lot more in the pipeline, and a few others worth seeking out and watching. Besides these two retro gaming documentaries, here’s a roundup of new and recent video game films that’ll keep you pushing buttons. Check out the list after the break. Second Skin Juan Carlos and Victor Pineiro-Escoriaza put together a movie about the people who inhabit this side of the screen in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing game phenomenon of games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. It’s a fairly intimate look inside the lives of many of these gamers, for better or for worse, and doesn’t take the easy route of just poking fun of these people. The film aims to make you understand what draws these people into the games, and what ends up keeping them there. It also shows you several people who left the game for various reasons, including addiction. Victor, who produced the film, recently told us to keep your eyes open, because you’ll be able to catch this movie outside of film festivals very soon. Get Lamp When I was a kid, one of my first gaming memories was playing the classic text-based adventure Zork on a friend’s Commodore 64. Even today, I’ll sometimes boot up a text game like A Mind Forever Voyaging or Trinity, which come much closer to the world of prose novels than they do of video games. They are beautifully created works of art, and one company was behind 99% of the successful text-based games in the 1980s / 1990s: Infocom. Get Lamp is a look at the people who created these games, and the rise and fall of the company. It’s a labor of love by director Jason Scott, who has spent as much time as possible on the other end of a blinking cursor. He completed principal photography earlier this year, leaving him with over 80 hours with of interviews the whittle down into a feature documentary, and we’re hoping there will be an update soon about the progress on his website. For now, you can catch the trailer for it here. /afk In the gaming world, /afk is how you’d signify that you’re “away from keyboard,” leaving your in-game character in a sort of limbo until you return. Like Second Skin, /afk seeks to show you the people behind the games, and what their lives are like both inside and outside, and it also asks if gaming should even be considered an addiction. The film had a clever marketing campaign that featured postcards that looked somewhat like baseball cards, with gamer’s stats listed on them. I haven’t heard much else about this film, other than briefly meeting director Greg Stuetze at the E3 gaming expo one year. Hopefully this film will see the light of day soon, because I’d like to see if it explores different ground than Second Skin does. I was at the launch event last night for World of Warcraft’s newest expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King, and I spoke with a lot of different people in line. They really are a fascinating bunch. Gold Farmers In the World of Warcraft and other online games, a lot of your time is spent killing low-level monsters, going on random quests, and trying to make a buck so you can buy new gear. This tedious and repetitive task is called “grinding” by players. Almost overnight, people and then companies sprang up that offered to do this for you for a price in real-world money. Now complete organizations (normally in China or other parts of Asia) hire groups of gamers, pay them extremely minimum wages and have them grind in-game so that they can sell gold, gear, and even complete characters to players. It’s not legal in the game (you’ll get banned for life if you’re caught on either side of the fence), but it’s also sometimes impossible to detect. UCSD doctoral student Ge Jin’s film Gold Farmers explores this real-world job for a virtual-world economy. Like /afk, the future of this doc is uncertain, but you can catch a trailer here. TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball Pinball machines have unfortunately been on the downward slide ever since coin-op video games overtook the flippers-and-balls gameplay. Then as in-home video games started becoming popular, and people stopped going into arcades for their gaming fixes, things got worse. In 1998, Williams Electronics, one of the pinball bigs, decided to try something new by meshing a video game and a pinball machine together in one unit called “Pinball 2000.” Although things seemed to be going very well and initial units were successful, Williams suddenly pulled the plug on the whole project. This documentary explores that entire project, and asks what happened. I still love pinball machines, but they are getting harder and harder to find. Check out the trailer and a scene from TILT right here. Playing Columbine Super Columbine Massacre RPG! was a video game created by Danny Ledonne after the school shootings in Colorado, and according to the movie he created it on a whim thinking no one would play it. It ended up setting off a huge controversy about video games, which reached a fever pitch when the game was submitted to the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition in 2007, and then later yanked from consideration for vague reasons. This documentary, by game author Danny Ledonne, explores the controversy around his game, and around violence in video games in general. While it’s not a fair and balanced look, since it comes from the creator of the game, it does ask a lot of interesting questions, and has some really good insight into the cultural phenomenon of gaming and how it may or may not relate to real-world violence. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:01:26 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com11/13/2008 4:01:26 PM Like a video game screen that says “Continue?”, video game documentaries keep popping up with extra lives. Just last week I wrote about the documentary Chasing Ghosts and how it’s a better movie than The King of Kong, and the good news is that Chasing Ghosts is now coming out next month on a cable channel near you. The even better news is that there are a lot more in the pipeline, and a few others worth seeking out and watching. Besides these two retro gaming documentaries, here’s a roundup of new and recent video game films that’ll keep you pushing buttons. Check out the list after the break. Second Skin Juan Carlos and Victor Pineiro-Escoriaza put together a movie about the people who inhabit this side of the screen in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing game phenomenon of games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. It’s a fairly intimate look inside the lives of many of these gamers, for better or for worse, and doesn’t take the easy route of just poking fun of these people. The film aims to make you understand what draws these people into the games, and what ends up keeping them there. It also shows you several people who left the game for various reasons, including addiction. Victor, who produced the film, recently told us to keep your eyes open, because you’ll be able to catch this movie outside of film festivals very soon. Get Lamp When I was a kid, one of my first gaming memories was playing the classic text-based adventure Zork on a friend’s Commodore 64. Even today, I’ll sometimes boot up a text game like A Mind Forever Voyaging or Trinity, which come much closer to the world of prose novels than they do of video games. They are beautifully created works of art, and one company was behind 99% of the successful text-based games in the 1980s / 1990s: Infocom. Get Lamp is a look at the people who created these games, and the rise and fall of the company. It’s a labor of love by director Jason Scott, who has spent as much time as possible on the other end of a blinking cursor. He completed principal photography earlier this year, leaving him with over 80 hours with of interviews the whittle down into a feature documentary, and we’re hoping there will be an update soon about the progress on his website. For now, you can catch the trailer for it here. /afk In the gaming world, /afk is how you’d signify that you’re “away from keyboard,” leaving your in-game character in a sort of limbo until you return. Like Second Skin, /afk seeks to show you the people behind the games, and what their lives are like both inside and outside, and it also asks if gaming should even be considered an addiction. The film had a clever marketing campaign that featured postcards that looked somewhat like baseball cards, with gamer’s stats listed on them. I haven’t heard much else about this film, other than briefly meeting director Greg Stuetze at the E3 gaming expo one year. Hopefully this film will see the light of day soon, because I’d like to see if it explores different ground than Second Skin does. I was at the launch event last night for World of Warcraft’s newest expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King, and I spoke with a lot of different people in line. They really are a fascinating bunch. Gold Farmers In the World of Warcraft and other online games, a lot of your time is spent killing low-level monsters, going on random quests, and trying to make a buck so you can buy new gear. This tedious and repetitive task is called “grinding” by players. Almost overnight, people and then companies sprang up that offered to do this for you for a price in real-world money. Now complete organizations (normally in China or other parts of Asia) hire groups of gamers, pay them extremely minimum wages and have them grind in-game so that they can sell gold, gear, and even complete characters to players. It’s not legal in the game (you’ll get banned for life if you’re caught on either side of the fence), but it’s also sometimes impossible to detect. UCSD doctoral student Ge Jin’s film Gold Farmers explores this real-world job for a virtual-world economy. Like /afk, the future of this doc is uncertain, but you can catch a trailer here. TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball Pinball machines have unfortunately been on the downward slide ever since coin-op video games overtook the flippers-and-balls gameplay. Then as in-home video games started becoming popular, and people stopped going into arcades for their gaming fixes, things got worse. In 1998, Williams Electronics, one of the pinball bigs, decided to try something new by meshing a video game and a pinball machine together in one unit called “Pinball 2000.” Although things seemed to be going very well and initial units were successful, Williams suddenly pulled the plug on the whole project. This documentary explores that entire project, and asks what happened. I still love pinball machines, but they are getting harder and harder to find. Check out the trailer and a scene from TILT right here. Playing Columbine Super Columbine Massacre RPG! was a video game created by Danny Ledonne after the school shootings in Colorado, and according to the movie he created it on a whim thinking no one would play it. It ended up setting off a huge controversy about video games, which reached a fever pitch when the game was submitted to the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition in 2007, and then later yanked from consideration for vague reasons. This documentary, by game author Danny Ledonne, explores the controversy around his game, and around violence in video games in general. While it’s not a fair and balanced look, since it comes from the creator of the game, it does ask a lot of interesting questions, and has some really good insight into the cultural phenomenon of gaming and how it may or may not relate to real-world violence. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/15/35145.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/15/2008 11:00:43 AM
Body: One of my favorite things about film festivals is the chance you’ll have at seeing something that you’d probably never come across otherwise when you visit the multiplex or browse your rental queue. When the Toronto International Film Festival schedule was released last month and I saw Keven McMcAlester’s documentary about Dungeons & Dragons gamemasters, The Dungeon Masters, listed, I knew I had to see it. It wasn’t that I’d seen Keven’s earlier documentary about Roky Erickson, You’re Gonna Miss Me, and wanted to see this, nor did I want to see what fine cinematography Lee Daniel had crafted for the movie. No, I wanted to see this one for the geek in me. Heck, it even made Karina’s list of Films We’re Betting On for TIFF, and she doesn’t dole out the nerd love lightly. Although Dungeons & Dragons came out in 1974, the game is still played across the world, and has directly contributed to the creation and success of online sword and sorcery games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Almost everyone you as about the game knows that there’s a certain nerdy/geeky vibe associated with it, although most people probably couldn’t tell you anything else about it. The Dungeons Masters attempts to show you the personalities behind the dice-rolling by taking intimate looks inside the lives of three different dungeon masters who, in effect, become the game themselves. Dungeons & Dragons isn’t like Monopoly or Scrabble in the way that you play until you win. The game relies on a clever dungeon master to create roles, make up stories, plan encounters, and basically run the game as long as people want to keep playing. At face value, you’re role-playing in this game, telling the dungeon master what your character is doing at each step along the way. I’ll never forget when I was in junior high school and my best friend handed me a set of poorly photocopied instruction manuals for the game. I was instantly hooked in the lore of the game, but never became much of a player. Keven McAlester was lucky enough to find people who make running these games a big part of their lives. The three subjects of the film are Richard, Scott, and Elizabeth and at face value, they all seem to be cut from the stereotypical images of D&D players. Richard and Scott seem like clones of the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, while Elizabeth is bit closer to Thora Birch in Ghost World with a few extra doses of geek thrown into the mix. Although they are spread out in California, Lousiana and Florida, they share similar experiences. If you break them down to the simplest levels, Elizabeth is the heroine of the story, going from an abusive relationship to one that doesn’t work, to yet another one by the end of the film. By her own admission, “I don’t want to date children anymore, I just want to be happy.” She uses gaming as an outlet by playing (and dressing up as) a female Drow elf, because in their society women have all the power and can have men executed if they desire. Besides dungeon mastering, she also LARPs (live action role plays) as her elf character Richard portrays the antagonist’s role, and even has a villainous mustache to match. He relishes destroying and killing his players, and you can see the naked glee on his face as he begins picking them apart. He’s also serving in the U.S. Army reserves, has a family he served as a father figure for that he’s now somewhat alienated from, and is married to a woman who doesn’t have a problem with his gaming, as long as she doesn’t know anything about it. “That’s just one of the things we do… separately.” Scott serves as the tragic figure: an unemployed self-described writer who can’t find work as a hypnotherapist, and who realized you had to have money to make money as a financial advisor. He suffered a blow when he was a geeky kid at a new school and realized he could reinvent himself, and told the teacher he wanted to be called Sherlock. “My social life didn’t recover for a very long time.” Although he seemingly lays around the house all day, sometimes tinkering with his novel and playing video games rather than looking for work or helping his wife with their apartment manager position, you still pull for him to succeed. Each time Scott meets with his literary agent, you hope she’ll tell him the book has sold, and when Scott starts writing and starring in a public cable access show called “Uncle Drac’s Magical Clubhouse,” you actually want something to happen with it. Despite everything else, Scott’s a gifted storyteller in search of an outlet, which is why he says “If I could do anything, I’d want to be a paid game master.” The film could have easily taken these characters and just made fun of them, but once you get past the geek factor, it remains a portrait of three very different individuals, and you get an intimate look into their lives. The gaming almost becomes peripheral as you find out who these people are and what drives they are like at home, at work, and in their own worlds. The cinematography by Lee Daniel is, as expected, extremely beautiful. Blonde Redhead provides a musical score that is at times sad and melancholy, and other times is grand and cinematic, which is often juxtaposed by what you see on screen. Coming on the heels of a year of geek films behind Second Skin, Nerdcore Rising, Reformat the Planet, and We Are Wizards, The Dungeon Masters is a well-crafted film that peeks behind the curtain of role-playing games and gives you an unflinching look at three people who have made gaming one of their creative outlets. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:00:43 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/15/2008 11:00:43 AM One of my favorite things about film festivals is the chance you’ll have at seeing something that you’d probably never come across otherwise when you visit the multiplex or browse your rental queue. When the Toronto International Film Festival schedule was released last month and I saw Keven McMcAlester’s documentary about Dungeons & Dragons gamemasters, The Dungeon Masters, listed, I knew I had to see it. It wasn’t that I’d seen Keven’s earlier documentary about Roky Erickson, You’re Gonna Miss Me, and wanted to see this, nor did I want to see what fine cinematography Lee Daniel had crafted for the movie. No, I wanted to see this one for the geek in me. Heck, it even made Karina’s list of Films We’re Betting On for TIFF, and she doesn’t dole out the nerd love lightly. Although Dungeons & Dragons came out in 1974, the game is still played across the world, and has directly contributed to the creation and success of online sword and sorcery games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Almost everyone you as about the game knows that there’s a certain nerdy/geeky vibe associated with it, although most people probably couldn’t tell you anything else about it. The Dungeons Masters attempts to show you the personalities behind the dice-rolling by taking intimate looks inside the lives of three different dungeon masters who, in effect, become the game themselves. Dungeons & Dragons isn’t like Monopoly or Scrabble in the way that you play until you win. The game relies on a clever dungeon master to create roles, make up stories, plan encounters, and basically run the game as long as people want to keep playing. At face value, you’re role-playing in this game, telling the dungeon master what your character is doing at each step along the way. I’ll never forget when I was in junior high school and my best friend handed me a set of poorly photocopied instruction manuals for the game. I was instantly hooked in the lore of the game, but never became much of a player. Keven McAlester was lucky enough to find people who make running these games a big part of their lives. The three subjects of the film are Richard, Scott, and Elizabeth and at face value, they all seem to be cut from the stereotypical images of D&D players. Richard and Scott seem like clones of the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, while Elizabeth is bit closer to Thora Birch in Ghost World with a few extra doses of geek thrown into the mix. Although they are spread out in California, Lousiana and Florida, they share similar experiences. If you break them down to the simplest levels, Elizabeth is the heroine of the story, going from an abusive relationship to one that doesn’t work, to yet another one by the end of the film. By her own admission, “I don’t want to date children anymore, I just want to be happy.” She uses gaming as an outlet by playing (and dressing up as) a female Drow elf, because in their society women have all the power and can have men executed if they desire. Besides dungeon mastering, she also LARPs (live action role plays) as her elf character Richard portrays the antagonist’s role, and even has a villainous mustache to match. He relishes destroying and killing his players, and you can see the naked glee on his face as he begins picking them apart. He’s also serving in the U.S. Army reserves, has a family he served as a father figure for that he’s now somewhat alienated from, and is married to a woman who doesn’t have a problem with his gaming, as long as she doesn’t know anything about it. “That’s just one of the things we do… separately.” Scott serves as the tragic figure: an unemployed self-described writer who can’t find work as a hypnotherapist, and who realized you had to have money to make money as a financial advisor. He suffered a blow when he was a geeky kid at a new school and realized he could reinvent himself, and told the teacher he wanted to be called Sherlock. “My social life didn’t recover for a very long time.” Although he seemingly lays around the house all day, sometimes tinkering with his novel and playing video games rather than looking for work or helping his wife with their apartment manager position, you still pull for him to succeed. Each time Scott meets with his literary agent, you hope she’ll tell him the book has sold, and when Scott starts writing and starring in a public cable access show called “Uncle Drac’s Magical Clubhouse,” you actually want something to happen with it. Despite everything else, Scott’s a gifted storyteller in search of an outlet, which is why he says “If I could do anything, I’d want to be a paid game master.” The film could have easily taken these characters and just made fun of them, but once you get past the geek factor, it remains a portrait of three very different individuals, and you get an intimate look into their lives. The gaming almost becomes peripheral as you find out who these people are and what drives they are like at home, at work, and in their own worlds. The cinematography by Lee Daniel is, as expected, extremely beautiful. Blonde Redhead provides a musical score that is at times sad and melancholy, and other times is grand and cinematic, which is often juxtaposed by what you see on screen. Coming on the heels of a year of geek films behind Second Skin, Nerdcore Rising, Reformat the Planet, and We Are Wizards, The Dungeon Masters is a well-crafted film that peeks behind the curtain of role-playing games and gives you an unflinching look at three people who have made gaming one of their creative outlets. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/5/29/30152.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 5/29/2008 5:01:40 PM
Body: Earlier this week, Jonathan Marlow published a rant on GreenCine Daily, titled They didn’t build their sales model for you. Much of the piece is given over to a description of the dire state of distribution affairs for truly independent filmmakers. Marlow, who acquires films for GreenCine’s DVD-by-mail main site, essentially argues that filmmakers should put less weight on dreams of theatrical distribution and concentrate on the many new media options. I didn’t comment on this story earlier because, well, my reaction was pretty much the same as Agnes Varnum’s: “It reads to me as a good summary of where things have been for last couple of years in film sales, so my question is what’s the news? Do people really not know this information?” Tom Hall also weighs in on the Marlow piece, from a festival programmer’s perspective: “Let me begin by taking exception to Marlow’s straw man, one that I have seen being built over and over again on panels and in discussions among filmmakers and programmers over the past few years; Film festivals are not, in fact, an ersatz distribution system for films.” If you live in New York and/or read the blogs of people who do, chances are you’re aware of The Emily Gould Fiasco. Funnily enough, Juan and Victor Piñeiro, brothers as well as director and producer of Second Skin, have bared witness to several smaller-scale Emily Gould fiascos over the past decade and a half. Finally, Paul Scheer explains why, although no one will admit to wanting it, Beverly Hills Cop 4 will make back twice its budget in its first weekend: “I’m like an abused sequel wife, I keep going back to theaters time and time again to get mercilessly kicked in the cinematic balls for having faith that a sequel can actually be good as it’s predecessors.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 29 May 2008 21:01:40 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog5/29/2008 5:01:40 PM Earlier this week, Jonathan Marlow published a rant on GreenCine Daily, titled They didn’t build their sales model for you. Much of the piece is given over to a description of the dire state of distribution affairs for truly independent filmmakers. Marlow, who acquires films for GreenCine’s DVD-by-mail main site, essentially argues that filmmakers should put less weight on dreams of theatrical distribution and concentrate on the many new media options. I didn’t comment on this story earlier because, well, my reaction was pretty much the same as Agnes Varnum’s: “It reads to me as a good summary of where things have been for last couple of years in film sales, so my question is what’s the news? Do people really not know this information?” Tom Hall also weighs in on the Marlow piece, from a festival programmer’s perspective: “Let me begin by taking exception to Marlow’s straw man, one that I have seen being built over and over again on panels and in discussions among filmmakers and programmers over the past few years; Film festivals are not, in fact, an ersatz distribution system for films.” If you live in New York and/or read the blogs of people who do, chances are you’re aware of The Emily Gould Fiasco. Funnily enough, Juan and Victor Piñeiro, brothers as well as director and producer of Second Skin, have bared witness to several smaller-scale Emily Gould fiascos over the past decade and a half. Finally, Paul Scheer explains why, although no one will admit to wanting it, Beverly Hills Cop 4 will make back twice its budget in its first weekend: “I’m like an abused sequel wife, I keep going back to theaters time and time again to get mercilessly kicked in the cinematic balls for having faith that a sequel can actually be good as it’s predecessors.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/5/29/30151.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 5/29/2008 5:01:31 PM
Body: Earlier this week, Jonathan Marlow published a rant on GreenCine Daily, titled They didn’t build their sales model for you. Much of the piece is given over to a description of the dire state of distribution affairs for truly independent filmmakers. Marlow, who acquires films for GreenCine’s DVD-by-mail main site, essentially argues that filmmakers should put less weight on dreams of theatrical distribution and concentrate on the many new media options. I didn’t comment on this story earlier because, well, my reaction was pretty much the same as Agnes Varnum’s: “It reads to me as a good summary of where things have been for last couple of years in film sales, so my question is what’s the news? Do people really not know this information?” Tom Hall also weighs in on the Marlow piece, from a festival programmer’s perspective: “Let me begin by taking exception to Marlow’s straw man, one that I have seen being built over and over again on panels and in discussions among filmmakers and programmers over the past few years; Film festivals are not, in fact, an ersatz distribution system for films.” If you live in New York and/or read the blogs of people who do, chances are you’re aware of The Emily Gould Fiasco. Funnily enough, Juan and Victor Piñeiro, brothers as well as director and producer of Second Skin, have bared witness to several smaller-scale Emily Gould fiascos over the past decade and a half. Finally, Paul Scheer explains why, although no one will admit to wanting it, Beverly Hills Cop 4 will make back twice its budget in its first weekend: “I’m like an abused sequel wife, I keep going back to theaters time and time again to get mercilessly kicked in the cinematic balls for having faith that a sequel can actually be good as it’s predecessors.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 29 May 2008 21:01:31 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com5/29/2008 5:01:31 PM Earlier this week, Jonathan Marlow published a rant on GreenCine Daily, titled They didn’t build their sales model for you. Much of the piece is given over to a description of the dire state of distribution affairs for truly independent filmmakers. Marlow, who acquires films for GreenCine’s DVD-by-mail main site, essentially argues that filmmakers should put less weight on dreams of theatrical distribution and concentrate on the many new media options. I didn’t comment on this story earlier because, well, my reaction was pretty much the same as Agnes Varnum’s: “It reads to me as a good summary of where things have been for last couple of years in film sales, so my question is what’s the news? Do people really not know this information?” Tom Hall also weighs in on the Marlow piece, from a festival programmer’s perspective: “Let me begin by taking exception to Marlow’s straw man, one that I have seen being built over and over again on panels and in discussions among filmmakers and programmers over the past few years; Film festivals are not, in fact, an ersatz distribution system for films.” If you live in New York and/or read the blogs of people who do, chances are you’re aware of The Emily Gould Fiasco. Funnily enough, Juan and Victor Piñeiro, brothers as well as director and producer of Second Skin, have bared witness to several smaller-scale Emily Gould fiascos over the past decade and a half. Finally, Paul Scheer explains why, although no one will admit to wanting it, Beverly Hills Cop 4 will make back twice its budget in its first weekend: “I’m like an abused sequel wife, I keep going back to theaters time and time again to get mercilessly kicked in the cinematic balls for having faith that a sequel can actually be good as it’s predecessors.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/9/26005.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/9/2008 3:01:02 PM
Body: The phenomenon of massively multiplayer online role-playing games seems like the perfect documentary subject. Collectively, MMORPGs have upwards of 50 million worldwide users and counting. The dilemma in selling a movie like Second Skin is not in finding an audience, the challenge is finding compelling images to put on screen. People don’t normally line up around to block to watch people sit in front of a computer for 12 hours a day. Based on the audience reaction at Friday night’s premiere, the solution to the visual problem provided by director Juan Carlos Pineiro worked swimmingly. A rock concert atmosphere complete with a standing ovation followed the screening. A deft combination of dramatically animated statistical graphics combined with artfully incorporated machinima give the film a visual punch to match its compelling subject matter. The film follows the lives of a handful of people immersed in online role-playing games. The recovering addict and his conflicted support councilor, the couple that falls in love in-game, and four best friends whose real lives begin to encroach on their hours of virtual ass-kicking as a top World of WarCraft guild. In between check-ups on the various story lines, interviews with experts in the field, statistical break-downs of the industry, and a visit to a Chinese virtual gold farm round out the film. (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:01:02 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/9/2008 3:01:02 PM The phenomenon of massively multiplayer online role-playing games seems like the perfect documentary subject. Collectively, MMORPGs have upwards of 50 million worldwide users and counting. The dilemma in selling a movie like Second Skin is not in finding an audience, the challenge is finding compelling images to put on screen. People don’t normally line up around to block to watch people sit in front of a computer for 12 hours a day. Based on the audience reaction at Friday night’s premiere, the solution to the visual problem provided by director Juan Carlos Pineiro worked swimmingly. A rock concert atmosphere complete with a standing ovation followed the screening. A deft combination of dramatically animated statistical graphics combined with artfully incorporated machinima give the film a visual punch to match its compelling subject matter. The film follows the lives of a handful of people immersed in online role-playing games. The recovering addict and his conflicted support councilor, the couple that falls in love in-game, and four best friends whose real lives begin to encroach on their hours of virtual ass-kicking as a top World of WarCraft guild. In between check-ups on the various story lines, interviews with experts in the field, statistical break-downs of the industry, and a visit to a Chinese virtual gold farm round out the film. (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/9/26001.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/9/2008 1:00:58 PM
Body: Second Skin is one of those documentaries that will have immense appeal all those who share a common bond with its subjects, in this case obsessive players of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. But the film also succeeds in illuminating the phenomenon of virtual worlds for the uninitiated. I talked with director Juan Carlos Pieiro Escoriaza and producers Peter Schieffelin Brauer and Victor M. Pieiro III after Friday’s premiere about the film’s balance, the precision of machinima, and binging on World of WarCraft as “research.” Read a full review of the film here. Second Skin Interview Kevin Buist: Obviously, there is a built in audience, but what was the original idea, what was the seed of the idea to first want to make it? Juan Carlos Pieiro Escoriaza: Well, I guess we started with one of Victor’s teacher friends. He was playing Star Wars Galaxies. He got really deep and into it. And he got Victor the game and then we started playing together. And two months in, we were like, all right, well, cool, that’s it. And he just went, whoosh like a jet into it. Then after that, he was going on lunch breaks back to his house to play a little, this and that. He was about to get married, and we just saw this really crazy dynamic of being this mayor in a [virtual] town of 300 people, and then trying to live this life, where he is trying to get married in the real world. And that balancing act, how difficult it really became for him. And so from there, it then went on… (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:00:58 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/9/2008 1:00:58 PM Second Skin is one of those documentaries that will have immense appeal all those who share a common bond with its subjects, in this case obsessive players of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. But the film also succeeds in illuminating the phenomenon of virtual worlds for the uninitiated. I talked with director Juan Carlos Pieiro Escoriaza and producers Peter Schieffelin Brauer and Victor M. Pieiro III after Friday’s premiere about the film’s balance, the precision of machinima, and binging on World of WarCraft as “research.” Read a full review of the film here. Second Skin Interview Kevin Buist: Obviously, there is a built in audience, but what was the original idea, what was the seed of the idea to first want to make it? Juan Carlos Pieiro Escoriaza: Well, I guess we started with one of Victor’s teacher friends. He was playing Star Wars Galaxies. He got really deep and into it. And he got Victor the game and then we started playing together. And two months in, we were like, all right, well, cool, that’s it. And he just went, whoosh like a jet into it. Then after that, he was going on lunch breaks back to his house to play a little, this and that. He was about to get married, and we just saw this really crazy dynamic of being this mayor in a [virtual] town of 300 people, and then trying to live this life, where he is trying to get married in the real world. And that balancing act, how difficult it really became for him. And so from there, it then went on… (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/SXSW/MemberTagFilms.aspxSXSW
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