AN OPEN LETTER TO DAVIS AURINI AND JORDAN OWEN UPON THE RELEASE OF THEIR FIRST SARKEESIAN EFFECT TEASER
Hey guys, big fan here.
Just watched your Sarkeesian Effect teaser video. An outstanding job! Even though this is, I know, a rough and unfinished trailer using raw footage from the first couple of days of shooting, it’s clear that this film – this epic journey into journalism, if I might coin a phrase here (you can totally use it!) – will more than live up to your earlier work.
And that’s saying something, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ten-minute libertarian suit-wearing-ninja parkour dance fight film better than Davis’ “Lust in a Time of Heartburn.” And obviously – obviously – I’ve never seen such a gritty depiction of YouTube jackass despair as Jordan’s minimalist masterpiece “Dude Lying On Couch in Messy Apartment Complaining That People Aren’t Giving Him Enough Money.”
I just wanted to give you guys some “notes” on it, as I know it is still early in your process.
First off, the production values are a-maz-ing. I realize that after spending money on airfare, hotel rooms, rent, samurai swords, white turtleneck shirts, and whatnot that you probably only had about $25 left to make the actual film. Well let me tell you this: every Canadian penny of that $25 is there on the screen. It’s RIGHT THERE.
Second, SOUND. I will admit you’ve made a bit of an unorthodox choice here. Most documentary filmmakers obviously go for “clean” and “crisp” sound in which you “can actually make out what people are saying.”
But you guys! You zag when everyone else is zigging!
Not since Birdemic: Shock and Terror and, of course, Davis’ own “Lust in the Time of Carpark,” have I seen such an innovative use of sonic muddiness. You guys know that in real life you can’t always tell what other people are saying. Especially if you have a lot of wax in your ears. And fellas, listening to the interviews in your film I felt like I had a whole beehive’s worth of wax in my ears. And possibly a bee or two, though I think that might be a problem on my end.
Ok, I’ll be honest, that’s definitely a problem on my end. I might as well admit it: My apartment is full of bees.
Third, the CINEMATOGRAPHY. Again, the zigging and the zagging. In a time of cheap digital cameras, it is easier than ever for even the most incompetent filmmaker, or, say, any 14-year-old filming a friend lighting his farts, to achieve pristine image quality.
But, like David Lynch, who turned his back on the latest digital technology to make his confusing surrealistic masterpiece Inland Empire with a cheap, consumer grade standard definition digital camera, you have eschewed pristine picture quality in favor of well, let’s just say that it doesn’t look like trained professionals had anything to do with it.
I don’t know if that was what you were going for but if so, NAILED IT!
Oh, and I wouldn’t worry about the blurry white smudgy stuff in the edges of the shot in that Justine Tunney interview. NO ONE WILL NOTICE IT. Seriously, it’s like a five-minute static shot, why would anyone notice anything in the edges of the frames. Was that vaseline? I think Bob Guccione at Penthouse was known for his vaseline on the lens technique. You guys weren’t using the camera to film porn earlier in the day, were you? I kid! What a question! Of course you were.
Speaking of static shots, your choice to film most of the interviews as static two shots – another brave choice. Most people filming interviews would have given us closeups of each of the people in the interview, and cut back and forth, and thrown in some of what the snooty cinephiles call “reaction shots.” You guys boldly went for static shots of two people sitting in chairs.
And that time when you cut from one static shot of two people sitting in chairs to another static shot of the same two people sitting in the same chairs from a slightly different angle? YOU GUYS BLEW MY MIND WITH THAT ONE.
It was also super cool when you did one interview in one particular room with two chairs and followed that up with another interview in the same room with the same two chairs, almost as if you had booked the room for the day and were just running people through it without bothering to change anything up or even move the camera or anything.
That’s the kind of PURE FILMING EFFICIENCY that’s going to enable you to bring this masterpiece on budget. Like Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash used to say: REAL ARTISTS SHIP!
Some thoughts on the performances.
Jordan Owen was completely Jordan Owenish. I totally bought his character. Jordan, you are a MASTER of whatever it is that you do. Keep it up!
But Davis, you sly dog, I should have figured that someone who looks like a budget version of Anton LaVey would have some tricks up his sleeve! Or should I say “his white turtleneck?” Yes, that’s my way of saying that the costuming was PER-FEC-TION. Not every Anton LaVey impersonator can pull off a shiny suit and white turtleneck but, wow! That’s all I can say: Wow!
As for the performance itself, again some counterintuitive choices here. Most interviewers try to react to their interview subjects a little in an attempt to show “empathy.” Your decision to instead sit stock still and stare relentlessly at your interview subjects was a little jarring – but a good kind of jarring. That’s how you get the good stuff out of your interview subjects! And murder suspects. Stare them into submission!
One of my cats has a similar technique when she wants food, or attention, or, well, let’s just say she’s gotten me to confess to a couple of murders, if you know what I mean, and what I mean is NO I DIDN’T MURDER ANYONE WHY DID I EVEN SAY THAT, CRAP, HOW QUICK CAN I PACK, IS THERE GAS IN THE CAR?
Also I think it was a good idea to mix up the sitting and staring stuff with that whole “erupting into unnatural and exaggerated laughter” schtick. Totally sold your character as some sort of primitive cyborg trying to pass as a human.
Also, amazing prop work with that disposable coffee cup. You gripped it so hard I really BELIEVED that if you let go of it you would have flown off into space — you know, like George Clooney in Gravity. Oh, whoops, SPOILER ALERT.
This is how good your film is: I’m comparing it to freaking GRAVITY. I’m comparing it to freaking Davis Aurini’s “Lust in the Timer of Clambake.”
Oh, and the foley work was spot on as well. That … sound that happens at about 6:10 in? You know, the thing where it sounded like someone was dragging a large rock over cement just out of shot, or maybe like you had swallowed your microphone and your stomach was having troubl edigesting it? That sound is going to haunt me for weeks. I don’t even want to know how you did that. Sometimes mysteries are best left unsolved.
Anyway, outstanding job. I really can’t say anything about any of what your interview subjects were saying, or even remember any of their names except for Justine Timberlake the Slavery Lady. I think it was a combination of that wax-in-ears sound quality and their complete inability to say anything interesting in response to your stupid questions.
But with everything else going on in this film – the static shots, the white turtlenecks, that white stuff at the edge of the shot in that one interview that NO ONE WILL NOTICE, I PROMISE THEY WON’T EVEN SEE IT … well, anyway, with all that going on in the film no one is even going to care what any of your incredibly boring interview subjects said or who they are or why on earth you decided this was a good subject for a documentary or why you even thought you were remotely capable of making an actual professional quality film.
Anyway, I’m sure all of the people who gave you literally thousands of dollars of their own money because they assumed you might actually come up with something that looked vaguely professional will be very proud of you.
I’m assuming, of course, that your final film will be about 4 minutes long, and that half of it will be libertarian suit-wearing-ninja parkour dance fighting to the sounds of Yakety Sax. If not, yeah, no one is going to be able to sit through this crap.
In other words LOVE IT!
Sincerely,
Your Biggest Fan
the bewilderness:
I lol’d at that too.
Just because I’m still up and wired, I decided to go and rewatch the first Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games, mainly to just boggle at the difference in production quality.
But then I actually ended up watching the whole thing again (first time since #GamerGate exploded into our lives) and I was once again struck by how calm, measured and thoughtful Sarkeesian is throughout. Like, I’ve always factually known this, but reading enough GG stuff has a gaslighting effect – for a while I was like “Maybe Sarkeesian actually is really strident and awful and inconsistent and I just didn’t notice? MAYBE I AM A BIAS!?”
But in the first video of the series:
1) She states – both at the start and the end – that it’s possible and even necessary to be critical of the media we love, that she’s aware that all these games are dear to many people (herself included), and that critiquing the more pernicious aspects of a game isn’t the same as saying it has no value. Like, she literally bookends her video with this message, and this is the message that launches the entire series.
2) The most heated she ever gets – like literally the worst thing she says about any game in the entire twenty minutes – is when she calls the first scene of Double Dragon “regressive crap”. Considering that game starts off with a woman getting punched in the stomach and then carried off with her underwear on display, I’m inclined to agree.
3) She references 64 games from between 1979 and 2012. Like, I know she could reference 478 games from an even wider time period and she’d still be accused of cherrypicking, but C’MON.
3) She locates her critiques in context of wider cultural sexism outside games, but makes it very clear that is something that we are all implicated in. She says that “a large percentage of the world’s population” still clings to backwards stereotypes about women. She does not single out gamers, the gaming industry, or even gaming culture. She’s basically just saying “this is part of a wider problem”.
It’s just so endlessly bizarre to me that anyone could interpret this as an attack on anyone at all. Miyamato is the only individual referenced, but hey, when you’re that influential, you’re going to be the subject of critique.
So they’re demanding $10,000 a month to make a home movie of their friends complaining about liberals. This is like reverse “Rent.”
I think when Red Bull Racist Lady calls herself a “street intellectual,” she’s actually trying to possess cake after having eaten said cake. What she’s trying to say to intellectuals is, “I am one of you, but I gots street smartz too so listen to meeeeee.” What she’s trying to say to anti-intellectuals (the type who think of themselves with the word ‘street’ as an applicable adjective) is, “I have teh street smartz just lyke you but I also ams smrter then you so listen to meeeee.”
Isn’t it ironic that the main motivation that #GGers claim for Sarkeesian and Quinn and Wu is “attention-seeking,” when the most vocal of the #GGers all seem to act like toddlers who take off their diapers to get a reaction from the congregation?
Although here’s a nifty way of breaking up the earnestness:
@friday jones:
Completely off topic, but you literally just made me understand that expression. Thanks!
So, I watched about half of the apology video and dude makes reference to the Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy as though people critiquing the video are like a nit-picky nerd. How does he not realize that he is Comic Book Guy?
You know David, you should really be careful with your sarcasm, otherwise I might believe that you’re actually serious. But yes, this “Sarkeesian Effect” film is real crap.
Yet another desperate cry for help or grifters hustling the marks?
Alternatively, Jono, you could read the title and description of the blog.
OK, first off, If I didn’t already know what the whole kerfuffle was about, I would have had *no* clue from the teaser reel.
both the “hosts” are being Mister Creepy Fool when they are continually dropping their gaze to mid-blouse or crotch of their respective female interview subjects.
I made the mistake of letting the playlist roll on automatically. B I G mistake. //shudder//
I really found it idiotic to compare Harlan Ellison’s self-described encounter in the auditorium, being Harlan The Raconteur, to the described threat of a mass murder scenario as being somehow equivalent.
Even if Ellison’s description was the unvarnished, unembroidered truth, the possible victim of a shooting would have been one person, that being the one who said “bring it on,” not the multiples of women who would have been considered as simply targets of convenience for the threatening shooter.
That false equivalence, either knowingly or not, is enough to cause me to consider this person as beyond supporting — in the first case from the callopusness shown, and in the second for the stupidity.
*Rimshot*
Well, insofar as the audio is concerned it really doesn’t matter what they’re saying, does it? The GaterGoobers are going to hear what they want to anyway.
Holy comfy chairs, Batman. WTF were they thinking with that Dr. Phil chairs-on-stage setup?
I did a search for “barbara walters interview” and literally the first hit was an interview with Oprah. It really struck me how much that interview would have been improved if someone had tucked a pizza box next to Oprah’s head and given Barbara Walters a big paper coffee cup.
Baahahaha
There is not enough Phlebotinum in this universe to make these Gamergators fantasy come true.
Dude, putting your camera at floor level during your clarification vid does not make your ability to shoot films look any more promising.
I only do still photography, but even I can tell that floor level looking up is a terrible way to frame almost every person on the planet. Sometimes it’s useful to do for effect, but in general it is a terrible, terrible idea.
Eye level is generally best, with the subject off center. Please do look up the rule of thirds and apply it to all future videos, unless you have a good reason not to. Also, I only do dorky multitracks, but I can tell you that external mics (even the $10 condenser/karaoke mics off Amazon) are a great investment.
With your budget, there is no good reason not to invest in a decent boom mic system, even. And some better editing software so you can overdub the terrible sound recording with the good one, then mute the terrible sound.
Also, background, even in your apology to the world of film videos, like the one now residing at the top of the post where your trailer once lived, matters.
With proper lighting, a sheet hung from the ceiling can make a significant difference. Note that the key there is lighting. Sheets will prevent unnecessary mergers with your subject’s head, like “WHY DOES THAT DUDE HAVE A PIZZA BOX HALO” or “WHY IS YOUR HEAD IN A BOX”, while lighting allows you to make the subject more easily visible.
If you do not have access to good lighting (which, hint, you can buy really nice clipable lights at Home Depot or any home store for dirt cheap if you look in the shop lighting area), then for the love of Pete look into your camera’s white balance settings and switch it over to a proper setting.
Having your subjects all either look like they’ve run a mile (with really really red complexions) or have severe jaundice (because everything is YELLOW) is not cool.
If you don’t want the professional blank, non-distracting background, you could consider moving your shots to a less busy outdoor location so that the behaviors of folks in the background don’t distract your audience (for example: that dude in the interview at the coffee shop with the windows was totally falling asleep back there, and it was the only redeeming feature of that bit, so maybe I should revise and say go to a busier outdoor area so that I can people watch with your interview on mute…).
Also, just because you’re outdoors doesn’t mean you can neglect lighting! For animals, sunlight can be fine. For people, sunlight can sometimes be fine. However, it can also be far, far to harsh and a good light at a 45 can make a world of difference.
Or, if you really, really must have the big fancy chairs and feel like you’re in an office, at least choose an area of the room that has nice furniture and remove distracting cords, electronics, and ridiculousness like turned off TV’s, remotes, and pizza-boxes.
I’d also recommend moving the chairs further out from the wall, so that you can put the interviewers and interviewees in better focus and let the background blur a bit. When everything is equally out of focus, equally in focus, (or worse) only the background is in focus, it makes the overall shot look far less polished and far more distracting.
While wall art can be tasteful, and nice in opening scene shots, you don’t want it competing with your talking heads in the interview.
Simplicity is your friend.
I’m just a still photographer who likes sound recording, but a lot of the principles of compostion and lighting still remain important.
Also, you might want to coach some of your interviewees about body language and posture.
Especially if you still have theatrical ambitions.
Another hint:
Always have two – three camera spots, roll film throughout the interview. Doing more cuts between camera angles (so long as you don’t do too many) can make an interview a lot more visually appealing.
Good locations: One looking just past the shoulder of the interviewer focused on the interviewee’s face. One doing the opposite. Place these so that neither is in the other’s shot. 30 degree angles
The last positioned so you can get both interviewee and interviewer on frame.
This is pretty standard fare in television interviews and in every single movie scene of a conversation ever.
I suspect they have fame ambitions, rather than theatrical ambitions, based on their work so far.
They could have just googled “how to film an interview” and they would have gotten plenty of tips. Maybe they bought into the idea that men are just awesome and everything they touch turns to gold.
http://images.digitalmedianet.com/2004/Week_33/hjt2u7fj/story/3cam_basic_setup.gif
(Just because no one is asking me any math questions at work right now… have an image of good camera placement! I didn’t make this one, but I like it!)
I kind of love how people here are trying to give Tom & Jerry advice on how to make their labor of hate suck less.
Kind people are just charming like that.
Best film review ever,
Dave.David, sorry!Hey, they are ACTUALLY doing it.
OMG, I never believed they will actually doing it.
Ok, it’s crap, but at least Mr. Futrelle here gave us a brilliant text.