The wait is over! The Sarkeesian Effect Trailer is out at last! So, without further ado, here it is:
Sorry for any confusion. “The Sarkeesian Effect Trailer” is the name of my new 43 second long film, starring the top of my head, and a very special guest I was lucky to be able to have the opportunity to film: my cat Sweetie Pie Jonus. (My other cat, Pantz, was in the other room.)
I handled the audio and the cinematography. My cats helped with the set dressing.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Oh, and by the way, The Sarkeesian Effect: Official Trailer #1 is also out as well. You know, the one put together by those other guys. You’ll be pleased to see that The Empty Pizza Box made the final cut!
I have to say, those guys don’t really seem to know what they’re doing.
What was that music??? Lol
^What tinyorc said. If 80% of your interview footage is two-shots, you’re doing it wrong.
Not to mention that…well, there isn’t much point in addressing the content, is there?
I had to watch this again and almost died laughing.
Wow, that looks…remarkably boring. You know, a lot of social issues documentaries break down to “Let’s find a bunch of people who know about X and talk to them,” which is why it’s important to use tight editing and planning to create a sense of dynamism. The recent HBO hit Going Clear is a good example of how you do this. These guys…well, I suppose the end result could be better than the trailer, but if you can’t make a subject look interesting for three minutes, then ninety is going to be a challenge.
Actually, I was kind of wondering if these idiots actually watched any documentaries before putting this together, or if they figured that they could just wing it as so many people do. I’d bet that they screened This Film is Not Yet Rated, if only because they stole from it. That bit with Owen at the end going to see where Feminist Frequency is a less impressive and far creepier version of Kirby Dick hiring a PI to suss out the identities of the ratings board members. Sterling job, lads, I’m sure you’ll go far.
@tinyorc: Isn’t that awful? I’ve never seen a documentary where the producers were so eager to steal the spotlight from their own subjects, who are small and in some cases half out of frame. Except for Elam, did you notice that?
The “trailer” is three minutes long, and feels like ten.
Clearly Oscar material, this.
I know that comparing this hack job with Jiro Dreams of Sushi is unfair, but they probably should have watched it and taken notes. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is not a series of people sitting in rooms with the interviewer right there on camera with them. Footage of someone sitting there talking on camera is an incredibly boring, uninteresting, and uncreative method of conveying information.
Actually, that’s a good point:
WHAT THE FUCK IS THE SARKEESIAN EFFECT SUPPOSED TO BE?
Not the film, it’s pretty clear what that’s supposed to be.* I mean the actual effect. You’d think that would be front and center if they’re trying to make an argument.
*that is, a massive ego-stroking masturbatory propaganda piece meant to bilk rubes out of their money.
They’re really shooting themselves in the foot if they want to bring up troubles in Africa to dismiss feminist issues. Because seriously; Anita is one person. ONE PERSON. Out of 300 million in the US. One person who closes the comments on her youtube videos while criticizing games in a way they don’t like. Do they really think micro-agressions are laughable, but think that not being allowed to inhabit one single comment section on youtube is serious business?
If they forgot to make the documentary about more than Anita, or if the non-Anita stuff is just a side-discussion, then their entire body of criticism, no matter how legitimate, can be dismissed with one sentence. “Just ignore her, guys.”
Of course they didn’t do real research on other successful documentaries: that would be admitting that learning things like “art” is a legitimate subject to study, and not a fluffy thing that feminists have foisted onto academia.
Their whole worldview requires them to be able to logic their way through things like “graphic design” or “visual theory”, and the cognitive dissonance there is why they can’t admit that their memes are incomprehensible.
I wish he had been half out of frame too. He just gives off such an air of creepiness. I actually cringed when he came on screen. I think I’d even rather see Jordan Owen in the bathtub again than see Elam in full frame.
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gross_no_thank_you_supernatural.gif
I was really struck by the number of people in that trailer who said, “I think [statement about Anita Sarkeesian and/or feminists].”
Just because you think that, doesn’t make it true. If you can’t back it up with facts, all you are giving me is an opinion. A documentary is based on facts, not opinions.
So they just interviewed people who have been bitching about this on line. Boy, that’s going to be boring.
I’m definitely not an expert on documentary film making, but don’t the filmakers really need to talk to people directly involved in said topic as to gain insights of said topic?
All I saw in the trailer was an opinion piece on why they don’t like Anita Sakeesian.
@RC:
I put the video at the highest resolution, capped and rotated, and it’s barely readable. The only thing you can clearly see is “Alex Hinkley” and a bunch of bullet points (eight or ten, I’d say), so it’s probably his interview questions. Another good reason not to put yourself in frame – the audience never sees you taking notes.
(Eight or ten questions with, what, ten subjects…how much footage did these goobers even shoot? You know, real documentarians shoot dozens, in some cases hundreds of hours of video. They keep detailed log sheets with time codes so that they can find the most significant bits. Why do I suspect that Owen and Aurini put every single thing they shot into this thing?)
@Binjabreel
I think the opening of the trailer was supposed to show it: media talking about violence against women in video games *gasp*
I too noticed they failed to explain what is the effect.
I think it’s such an ego-stroking masturbatory propaganda that they don’t even think they need to explain.
Actually watching the trailer, it’s more clear than ever that these morons have given up and are just preaching to the choir.
Also, holy shit where did all the money go?! This looks as professional as our goddamned school video projects. Though to be fair, we usually had at least one person who knew what they were doing in our group.
Like tears in the rain.
http://www.movievine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/blade-runner1.jpg
If the “Sarkeesian effect” is a real effect then according to what they’ve said up to now, and according to the title of the film, it ought to be about that (whatever it is – I’m still drawing a blank). Sarkeesian herself ought to be essentially background: this is who she is, this is what she has done/is doing, and this is how she brought to the forefront the effect we’ve named after her. The vast majority of the film ought to be about the effect itself.
Instead, the only thing I get from the trailer is that they don’t like Anita Sarkeesian. The first 50 seconds are mainly about the stuff she talks about in her videos with a little bit about Sarkeesian herself. The first words on screen – “A Critic Who Cannot Be Criticized” – are about Sarkeesian, not the “effect.”
The next 30~ seconds, up until Paul Elam, is just people talking about Sarkeesian or what they imagine she has to say. Paul Elam … we know what he said. 😀 He mentions money, though, and my vague idea about what the “effect” is supposed to be is that it relates to Sarkeesian’s fundraising? Maybe Elam discusses the “effect” somehow? It’s unclear, and if I didn’t already have this impression that “effect” relates to money, I would have no idea that there is any connection.
The next 20 second are unexplained non-sequiturs. Then we get back into talking about Sarkeesian herself, and how unfaaaaaaaaaair it is that we don’t get to write out explicit rape fantasies about her on her own youtube comment board. About 40 seconds later, we finally get to see someone doing something other than sitting on their butt in a room, and unfortunately it’s Owen with his shirt unbuttoned. His chest hair does not tell me anything about what the “Sarkeesian effect” is supposed to be, and it’s unclear what going to find out what Feminist Frequency’s tax address is like has to do with it, either.
So, now that I’ve given this trailer a close examination, I’m no closer to knowing what the “Sarkeesian effect” is supposed to be. The bulk of it seems to be “we don’t like Anita Sarkeesian.” If that’s the film they wanted to make, they should have called it that.
http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i476/Nzeffer/DavidTennantCryingintheRain.gif
Aww. That gif was supposed to directly follow Lea’s post.
Thanks, Obama!
I find myself wondering if they got permission from NBC et. al. to use their footage. They are walking the fine edge of “fair use” there, and NBC/Comcast has a bigger lawyer brigade than Tub Boy and Professor Skull.
Owen’s unbuttoned shirt would have been a good counterpoint against Mark the Moron yesterday.
Re:luzbetix
So the sarkeesian effect is… Uh… People in the news talk about… Stuff?
I mean, I remember the moral panic over the Deathrace 2000 game. That was properly ludicrous; exactly the kind of thing that GamerGate got all hepped up about. Yet here they are, happily embracing the poster boy for ludicrous moral panic.
If they found anything at the address other than a mail box, I will be shocked. Feminist Frequency is not a person, and they shouldn’t expect that to be someone’s address, but I bet they did.
Of COURSE Jim Goad is in this. If you want to find yourself deep in the rabbit hole of shittiness, follow that man. That dude spent years in jail for domestic assault (but maintains it was the bitch’s fault, so), and has a long track record of racism, sexism, and violence.
@Policy of Madness:
Oh, there’s no way. Guys like this get so used to stealing that they don’t even think about it. That being said, I doubt they get any legal threats unless their low-rent documentary about a controversy most people have already forgotten ends up being a huge hit somehow.