The Skin Comes Right Off (Second Skin)

In our quest to become better film makers, critics, and fandom experts; Lauren Rae Orsini and I watched “Second Skin” a documentary about relationships and online gaming. There are many things that can be taking away from this film, but to start the content of the film was more expertly displayed. I feel after watching this documentary that even If I had no experience with MMORPG’s and had never heard of them before I would have walked away more informed on the subject both for good and for bad, which is a lot better then how I felt after the last documentary.

The Message

Second Skin feels much more balanced then “Manga Mad”, but at the same time seems to paint a bleak picture of MMORPG players lives. The team of documentary film makers lead by Writer/Producer Victor Pineiro and Director & Editor Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza followed a group of World of War Craft playing friends, a couple that met though EverQuest II, and man who became addicted to World of War Craft, over the course of a couple of years which include the record breaking release of World of War Craft: The Burning Crusade. They also interviewed the leader of an online group for supporting addicted gamers, gold farmers, Edward Castronova author of Synthetic Worlds, Leaders of a large World or War Craft Guild, and various other players and people involved in the MMORPG scene.

The image that Second Skin plants into my mind is that of a bleak meager existence for MMORPG players.  Many of the people they follow seem to have few worldly possession and it is suggested that they gave up the pursuit of real world goods for virtual goods in there synthetic world.  At one point both Lauren and I agreed that parts of the documentary which take place in Philadelphia were rather reminiscent of a Rocky Movie. This does make sense as Rocky takes place in Philadelpha, but the choice of such a down and out person only drives home the presumed point that virtual worlds can be devastating to your real life.  Though that’s not all, Second Skin also goes as far as to interview a woman who’s son commited suicide (presumably) over EverQuest II. I say presumably because I’m sure there were other factors, so it’s hard to know for sure what he was thinking at the time.

In contrast to this bleak out look there are segments which show happy successful couples that met their soul mates though online gaming, and the Syndicate a guild who’s members extend there virtual friend ship to the real world. The most striking positive section of Second Skin is a brief (Too brief IMO) segment about a disabled person who does not have the ability to speak. He uses the game (not specified Second Life?) to make friends and learn about relationships because people pre-judge him in real life. He suggest that the game allows him to participate in society in a way that he can’t normally.

There are some really insightful moments in this documentary. When talking about gold farmers it’s made apparent that racism still exists in these virtual worlds. “In a world where people go around as ogres and elves, these people are suddenly made Chinese.” I also thought there was great insight into the gold farming and value of virtual goods in the real world.  However these segments were brief and while the issues of judgment and equalizing of the playing field are important they only gave a brief insight into the motivations of the players involved in this documentary.

The Film

The quality of this film was excellent. While the cinematography wasn’t earth shattering it was fresh enough to keep me from noticing many flaws or poor shots.  Some of the canned shots of air planes (probably not actually canned) had me questioning why they needed to include so many shots. However they did show the process and progress of some of the characters lives in a much more realistic and fluid way because of the use of these travel setting shots, so I can’t fault them too much. The clean cinematography was complimented by a great use of special effects. Numerous times in the movie they transitioned from in game visuals to real life scenes in a very effective manner. It would be really easy to mess this up yet they accomplished it and made it seem very fluid. Over all I was impressed by the editing and direction of his movie.

Recomendation

I recommend this documentary for anyone interested in the subject of MMORPGS and social issues that influence and result from them.

Katsu Warmup

Katsucon is fast approaching. So fast that It’ll be here before you know it.

So here is the info you need to know.

The Gaylord is a really swank place. Parking is 20 dollars a day, and all of the food choices are up scale. I highly recommend brining some of your own food to lesson your food costs.  The place is big. I noticed today that you can see it from the Yellow Line metro when your crossing the Potomac river. The Maid Cafe is going to be awesome so be prepared to be waited on by your own maid. For those who remember the maid cafe from last year was in a fairly terrible location, this year the location is much larger and a lot better furnished. (It would be cool if they got anime running on the TV’s while the con is going.)

The secdule of events looks fairly awesome too. Somethings that I really want to hit up are…

Friday

8 PM – Axis Powers Hetalia: World Peace Summit

10 PM – Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (1-4)

Saturday

1 PM – Nihon Maid Association Workshop

3 PM – Attack Girls Swim: Team vs the Undead

7 PM – Modern Mythology: Mythic Elements in Anime and Video Games

8:30PM – Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket

9 PM – History of Anime

Sunday

7 AM – Akihabara Geeks

9 AM – Reading Too Much Into Gurren Lagann

Here is hoping I make it to as many of these as I can.

Mad about Manga

So I’ve not posted in about two weeks. Their was a reason for that. I’ve been really busy playing an awesome game called Borderlands. I’ve also been busy fending for myself and hanging out with a good friend who just got back from vacation. Long story short I’ve been busy enjoying myself in DC.

Anyway back to the subject of this post. The other day, Thursday night I believe, Lauren was visiting to prepare for her first day at work in awhile, she missed two days in a row because of illness and MLK Jr. Day, and found a documentary about Manga (Japanese Comic books) called “Manga Mad.” We proceeded to watch this documentary because both Lauren and I are very interested in the concept of fandom, however in less then 5 min it was clear that even though it was on Hulu it wasn’t any good. Everything about this film was terrible from the quality of the interviews to the voice overs which needed subtitled because of the accents of the translators, to the cinematography if you could call anything about it cinematography. It was poorly filmed and worse of all poorly cut. About half way through the movie they start to recycle footage, and numerous times they jump from subject to subject only to come back to it later. Did I mention that they focused on the Hentai and Erotic part of manga way to much… even to the point of having interviews about pedophilia and why lolicon isn’t pedophilia… (The interview will leave you dumbfounded and def doesn’t send the right message).

After watching this abomination of Otaku culture… which basically makes Manga seem weird and doesn’t really explain any of the fundamentals (really missing when, and why) Lauren and I have taken it upon our selves to rectify this problem… (I think.) Neither one of us is an expert at making documentaries, but at the same time It would be hard to do much worse then what was shown in Manga Mad. We are already planning to Film at Katsucon next month and are hoping to put together a solid documentary about american Otaku.

@Lauren if I spoke out of line let me know. =P