Ok, I admit that the title might be a bit extreme, but to be fair, I think I am allowed to feel strongly about this. If you didn’t know, I am on the board at Doc Films, and we show a lot of experimental film (we have at least 1 experimental film series a quarter, which is usually on Sundays at 7 pm). Anyway, throughout my time at Doc, I have had lots of opportunities to push myself out of my comfort zone and watch things that I normally wouldn’t. Most times I enjoy myself… but when it comes to experimental film, I hate it. My last foray into experimental film was a screening of Ernie Gehr’s Carroll Gardens, which gave me such a bad migraine during the 5 minute TESTING period that I couldn’t even stay for the actual screening. Nevertheless, when I realized that I had a commitment during the Night Trap event, I knew that I had to suck it up and go to the Machinima screening.
As introduced in the pre-screening introduction, machinima is the art of making movies from videogames. This can be via the images/ software (screen recordings of game play) or even the hacking of the hardware itself. Nonetheless, it uses the videogame as a source of content to explore broader themes and narratives through the manipulation of an in-game “camera”, voiceover, and editing. Many of these films, consequently, are experimental, pushing the boundaries between game and movie through their form.
To be totally honest, I had a hard time watching most of the films. Some of them hurt my head from all of the strobing, others made no sense to me (not that you need to understand a film to enjoy it), and all of them were a bit… weird. However, if I had to pick one that I hated the least, it would definitely be The Edge of The World. The premise is simple (a character ends up at the end of the game map, resulting in some funky visuals that make it appear like the world doesn’t exist), but I thought it was very cool and introspective, allowing us to think about the tangible and our limitations as a society. The visuals are beautiful (shoutout Cyberpunk 2077 for the source material) and it actually made sense to me, which was wonderful. I would also say that the concept of Super Mario Movie was cool (editing the literal hardware of the game to make something new), but it was really an eyesore. Sorry Cory Arcangel… if it makes you feel better, I thought Super Mario Clouds was cool and not headache inducing.
Overall, it was cool to experience this genre of film that I would have not pursued otherwise, but I will probably not return back to it… except to watch Parkour Civilization, which looked incredible.
I felt so similar while watching the screened films, I like when things make some kind of sense that I can grasp [and don’t burn my eyes with flashing]. I thought The Edge of The World was quite good, but my favorite was definitely It’s in the Game ’17. I like how the focus of the film isn’t too obvious at first. I could tell it had to do with the effects of colonization and museums that hold stolen artifacts from cultures across the world based on what was happening with the museum footage, but when they started rotating the frozen screen of the basketball video game, I was quite lost. It wasn’t until Perry’s brother started identifying the basketball players on the team that everything snapped together, which ended up connecting the museums and the video game together very well. The event was cool overall, and I really agree about the Parkour Civilization part, definitely check it out if you have time.