The realm forums are far from exciting most of the time. Their main reason for existence is for recruitment or for organizing of the more ambitious sort of PUG raids. But sometimes you can pick up miscellaneous pieces of news, little gems that you want to help to keep spreading to wider circles. And this happened today, when someone posted a link to a new documentary movie.
It's called Avatar Days and it isn't long - just a few minutes in fact. However, the quality is absolutely superb. This isn't any ordinary amateur home video, this is at least on a semi-professional level. Even if you normally don't follow random links that bloggers provide from time to time, I urge you to make an exception and look at this one.
The plot is simple. You will listen to four players who talk about their game play and their characters. It's only one thing that is different to normal documentaries: most of the time you will see them as their avatars, in very ordinary situations in Dublin city. Waiting for the buss, standing in a queue, driving a truck, being at their job.
The movie is great for two reasons. One is from a technical point of view; the 3d models melt into the background very nicely and it looks just so cool to see them walking the streets among normal people.
The other reason is the low and serious tone in it. It was about time that someone made an effort to picture gaming like this, without pointing fingers or exaggerating in any direction.
The movie makers aren't trying to sell in some sort of political message for or against gaming, they're not trying to market anything. They're just quietly documenting a phenomena, a little piece of modern culture, saving a testimony about one example of modern urban culture in 2010 for the future.
I know that it isn't likely that anyone of the creators ever will see this blog post. But if it will happen for some reason - maybe as you google the movie name - and accidently stumble into my inn, I just want to grab the opportunity to tell you how much I loved your work.
Now please head over to the bar and we'll offer you any drink of your choice on the house, as a little sign of our appreciation.
Cheers!
It's called Avatar Days and it isn't long - just a few minutes in fact. However, the quality is absolutely superb. This isn't any ordinary amateur home video, this is at least on a semi-professional level. Even if you normally don't follow random links that bloggers provide from time to time, I urge you to make an exception and look at this one.
The plot is simple. You will listen to four players who talk about their game play and their characters. It's only one thing that is different to normal documentaries: most of the time you will see them as their avatars, in very ordinary situations in Dublin city. Waiting for the buss, standing in a queue, driving a truck, being at their job.
The movie is great for two reasons. One is from a technical point of view; the 3d models melt into the background very nicely and it looks just so cool to see them walking the streets among normal people.
The other reason is the low and serious tone in it. It was about time that someone made an effort to picture gaming like this, without pointing fingers or exaggerating in any direction.
The movie makers aren't trying to sell in some sort of political message for or against gaming, they're not trying to market anything. They're just quietly documenting a phenomena, a little piece of modern culture, saving a testimony about one example of modern urban culture in 2010 for the future.
I know that it isn't likely that anyone of the creators ever will see this blog post. But if it will happen for some reason - maybe as you google the movie name - and accidently stumble into my inn, I just want to grab the opportunity to tell you how much I loved your work.
Now please head over to the bar and we'll offer you any drink of your choice on the house, as a little sign of our appreciation.
Cheers!
20 comments:
Great find, really enjoyed it!
They're not all Horde though. I'm pretty sure there was a Human female in there. :)
one of the characters is a human female mage.
Yer, the human mage isn't Horde, but I can understand how seeing an Undead and a Tauren roaming around Dublin might blind you to the humans.
Or maybe not seeing the human illustrates another aspect of that age old question: Who'd play an escapist role playing game as a human?
;)
Thanks! Fixed now. Midnight writing makes you a bit tried and careless. Cheers for observant readers!
That was interesting to watch and hear.
@Flex: Ya play a big-breasted woman who can summon a succubus and make it seduce other women, that's why!
Amazing video work which opens up a huge amount of possibilities for the WoW movie. Imagine if they did something like this.
That did make for a happy morning, thank you for this find Lar!
Thanks for the post Larisa, glad you enjoyed.
Great film indeed, how do you find all these little gems?
I remember being disappointed by "Second Skin" which I thought was too negative. This was really cool, I took it as a trailer though.. I guess thats all we get. Very nice.
: hm... I'd rather agree with Flex. I've never understood the idea of playing a human tbh. Breasts or not.
: yes! You can't get enough of it! Imagine this in a longer format...
@Dwism: You're welcome!
@Cormac: Hi there! You found me! Cheers and applauses!
@Tessy: I spend way too much time on the webs I suppose... And finding pieces of interesting information is a part of my professional training. I guess it helps.
@Derkhan: Yeah, no indication on anything longer. But who knows, if this gets some publicity maybe some sponsor will turn up? I've done what I can to spread the word.
Actually, I do recall people in my raid alliance saying that they were involved with this. I'll pass the link on :)
Excellent find :) this was very cool to watch. I am not sure what toon I would use to represent me... weird but they are all so different.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has walked the sidewalk / halls at work / mall and thought "that person plays WoW".
This film really puts that into a clean perspective. Since I'm at work, I watched it with the sound really, really, low - so I couldn't hear everthing said... but the imagery does a great job of telling the story.
Looking forward to seeing the movie :) Just wanted to add to the human or something more exotic-discussion: Imagining yourself in another world (being slightly delusional and thinking my avatar is me) is sometimes cool too ;)
(Although, if gnomes could be paladins, my main would not be a human any more. By the power of the light(bulb)!)
Too long, didn't watch. :(
@Spinks: oh, you know celebrities!
@Logtar: yeah, it was really cool. Hm... I wonder what my gnome would look like in the office where I work...
@Dorgol: I hope you rewatched it with your sound turned up.
@Syrien: I would so like to see a longer format as well. Just a few minutes isn't enough.
@Tomasz: you're kidding me.
I really wouldn't consider that a documentary, so much as a whimsical artistic video depicting life and WoW players.
That was pretty cool. I've worked on short films (albeit wholly digital), and they can be a LOT of work. That these guys whipped this together in *four days* is nothing short of impressive.
That it manages to be a nice little look at real people playing in a fantasy world is icing on the cake.
...yes, I'm a tech geek, appreciating the craftsmanship more than the subject matter. Can't help it. ;)
I saw this a few days ago. Awesome stuff, shows that I'm not alone in anthromorphising my character. In fact, I haven't closed the window with the vid in days.
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