#like i have a new version of a camcorder that films old school and so i’d love to use it instead
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I first saw Slipknot at age 14.
No one knows how I managed it. I'm not sure I even remember. These days, you have to be 16 or 18 to get into Standing areas. I do know I had to buy tickets on the phone, back in the old days (2005, that is). A singular ticket, too - none of my friends, not even the classmate who had gone with me to see Linkin Park the year before, was that into Slipknot.
But I HAD to see them. This was the Subliminal Verses tour cycle, and Vol. 3 was my first and favourite Slipknot album, even to this day. It's the reliable old warm blanket for my soul whenever I need it. It's on right now, as I write this.
My memory isn't that good, but luckily I unearthed a livejournal (livejournal!) diary entry about the event I made the next day.
August 16, 2005. I went right after school. I went to a very conservative Anglican secondary school, too. I tried not to get caught in the bathroom, as I coloured my nails black with permanent marker (I know, don't laugh) and changed into my standard metalhead baby outfit - Slipknot band shirt, black cargo shorts, and my pride and joy: steel-toe boots I somehow managed to cajole my parents into letting me own.
I caught the bus to the open-air war memorial park where the gig was going to be. I got there at 4pm, 4 hours early. A couple other maggots were already hanging around. I found myself surrounded by tombstones, and I read them all. It was the middle of the Hungry Ghost Festival, too - a very fitting time for Slipknot to pay a visit to this godforsaken hellhole of a small town I lived in. (Especially given the paranormal circumstances surrounding the making of Vol. 3.)
While I wandered around the venue (no security or sound guys were around at all), I spotted two white vans pull up to the stage, in the middle of a clearing. It was them! I spotted Joey and missed him by a hair's breadth. I was quickly ushered behind the stone archway entrance by security then.
(Funnily enough, while walking around, I got mistaken for Joey more than once. I am the same height as him, had the same long black hair, same pale skin, and was wearing almost exactly what he had been. One person claimed from behind, I was a dead ringer, apart from when I turned around, and they realised I was Chinese.)
It was soundcheck time. A sound guy testing the mics would say random things, like "testing one two three two one.... fudge fudge, I like fudge...." The band even did Purity, so us earlybirds were given a rare treat, and we screamed along from the entrance, and drummed our fists on the sides of nearby porta-potties. I hope no one was in there at the time. Whenever we got a glance of any of them, we'd scream and cheer. Finally they left again, but were soon to return.
This was the first time I'd been a part of the metal community. I was barely allowed internet in those days. But here, random strangers were friendly, striking up conversations like they'd been friends for years. Two big guys, called Trevor and Ted, looked out for me the entire gig after, keeping other big dudes from crushing me too much (I'm 5'3, remember). Other people commented on me being so baby, because I was only 14, and said they would take care of me.
When we were finally let in, right after the usher cut the rope, I ran in, screamed "WOOOHOOO!" along with a few friends I'd made. I only briefly stopped to receive this RoadRunner Records compilation CD from a roadie, then resumed running like a madman screaming and dashing into the VIP cage.
I was right up against the barricade - the first time I would ever be at a gig. People from assorted magazines and press took photos of us, and I think I got my photo taken about 10 times at least.
(This is how I got in trouble with my parents the next day. My photo had ended up in a local paper - you can see examples of that here. They had no idea what I'd been to see the night before, and were horrified when they saw what Slipknot looked like.)
We saw Sid filming us from the stage with a camcorder and screamed at him. We saw Jim and screamed at him too, and he flashed the victory sign back at us. I remember Metallica playing at the time, another one of my favourite bands.
The concert was a brutal religious experience I will never forget. People with their arms outstretched, crying and screaming out loud, moving like the devil possessed them.
The new friends around me made sure I was alright after every song! There were huge guys fainting behind us who had to get carried out, but I endured, a tiny 14 year old child. We got a family speech as per tradition, of course. "Are you guys out there all looking out for each other? We're all one big family, and we gotta look out for each other." What Corey said held true - strangers hugged, shook hands, talked, and made friends. I was heartened by how close-knit the maggot community was. It really did feel like a family, and it's felt like that ever since.
Of course, I did my first Jump The Fuck Up. It is possibly the most euphoria I've ever experienced all at one go. (Later, in 2020, I was extremely disappointed that I didn't get to do it again in London.)
They did the death masks for Vermilion, and I remember Chris helping Sid fix his mask and shirt when they'd changed back. Sid hung out near Clown's drums for most of the time too, and hugged him from behind and just latched on at one point. It was pretty adorable.
Fun fact: The version of Eyeless you hear on the 9.0 Live album is from Singapore, as is Eeyore. There are very few photos and videos from the crowd of this gig, because in 2005, very few people had camera phones. The crowd at the Slipknot gig in 2020 was a sea of arms with phones, filming the gig rather than experiencing it. Yes, I'm going to be that cranky old geezer who complains about the good old days.
Joey as usual, was fucking amazing and never failed. However, due to the fact that I was right up front, only his tiny head was visible behind his vast drum set, I couldn't see him the entire gig.
Amazingly, the government told Slipknot they were not allowed to do obscene gestures, curse, vomit (possibly due to the decomposing crow pre-show ritual), simulate humping on objects, throw faeces, or jump off stage (looking at you, Sid). I don't think our totalitarian government knew who they were dealing with, because watch what happens next.
Near the end of the gig, Corey tells the crowd “your government has given us a laundry list of things we aren’t allowed to do, your government has told us we are not allowed to swear”. Crowd goes “BOOOOOOOOO” and Corey goes “BUT WE DON’T GIVE A FUCK!!” And they launch into Surfacing, the last song. Everyone riots. Best night of my life.
You can find the setlist from that gig here. It had everything I wanted and more.
This story later got immortalised when Kerrang asked maggots for gig stories, for an article which came out in 2020. I had forgotten entirely, until people began messaging me to tell me, and one friend sent me a scan of it!
On the way out, I managed to get a shirt. I remember calling my best friend at the time, and got everyone at the merch booth to go "IF YOU'RE 555 THEN I'M 666" for her. This shirt has since been lost to the landfill, because my Christian mother took it upon herself to dispose of it the first opportunity she got. Needless to say, our relationship is not very good.
After that, I even managed to get that Roadrunner compilation album they were giving out signed. The band was staying at the Carlton. Unfortunately, Joey wasn't there, neither was Clown, and Mick was swarmed by guitar nerds so, 6/9 it is. It is a great regret of mine that I'll never have anything signed by him, nor will I ever get to see him perform ever again.
The next day, I went to school, my head swimming. Yes, I went to see Slipknot ON A SCHOOL NIGHT. I was a giant bruise, from my ribs and my chest, to my hips and knees, from being slammed into the barricade like a screen door in a hurricane. Most of all, my sore, headbanged-out neck could barely hold my head up. Classmates thought I had been in a fight. I was torn between battle-scarred exhaustion and hyperactive ranting about the most amazing gig of my short life (it still is, to this day). When teachers spoke to me, I wanted to reply, "Fuck trigonometry! I've just seen SLIPKNOT. Do you not understand that my world is different? Do you not understand that *I* am now different?"
My country was a small, conservative town that Slipknot had graced with their unholy presence. Corey Taylor once said that where he grew up in Iowa had a way of making a 16 year old boy feel like a 36 year old man (or something to that effect). I felt that in my weary bones as a teenager, being from a place just like that. Years later, Watain would run into worse trouble, and wouldn't even be allowed to perform. The Christian stranglehold is stronger than ever. It was a good thing that back then Slipknot had the element of surprise, striking serpent-fast and choking this society by the neck for a too-brief time, before they departed.
After that, my desire to play the drums only grew like a weed. Joey Jordison had, has, and will always inspire me as a drummer, and seeing the beast live (or what little I could spy behind the massive riser) had only spurred me on. I had always been a noisemaker, be it driving my parents mad with chopsticks on pots and pans, or driving my teachers mad with pencils on my desk. But of course, my parents wouldn't have any of it. I'd have to wait a good 14 more years before I'd be able to afford lessons and later, a kit of my own. Better late than never, right?
There will never be enough words to describe the impact Joey has had on my life. And it isn't just Slipknot, either. I could write another essay on his time with the Murderdolls and its influence on my own gender-non-conforming ways. Suffice to say, my wardrobe doesn't look too dissimilar to his during the early Dead in Hollywood days.
I told my boss I could not come into work today. I was grieving. I said that my music teacher died, as I didn't think she'd understand the magnitude of my loss. In a way, it's true. And I am not the only one Joey has nudged on the path to being a musician, that much is certain. To the rest of us, I wish strength and love for you in this difficult time. The best way to honour Joey, who truly loved music, both the creation and appreciation of it, is to pass that gift on. Teach it to someone. He is the reason I picked up the sticks in the first place, and one day, they'll be handed on, the heavy metal baton for the next generation.
And finally: remember that the ones we have lost are never truly gone.
Vinnie
P.S. See if you can spot me in the crowd photos in this post!
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pokémon black and white
this post might be a little bit different from my usual fare. this is, by my count, my seventh playthrough of this game. it's a yearly tradition for me. and this game means so much to me that i almost can't do that much design analysis; my brain doesn't let me think about it that hard, i just play it and get serotonin dumped directly into my brain. so this time, i think i'll be sharing my history with this game and talking about why it means so much to me. more of a sentimental sienna this time.
i bought pokémon white version on launch in 2011. i actually recently found pictures on my old dsi of me waiting outside gamestop in the morning to pick it up. i had recently gotten back into pokémon after a brief "pokémon is for babies" phase, which ended with me getting heartgold/soulsilver. after that, when i first heard about black and white, my excitement was through the roof. while like many, my first time keeping up with news for a game was super smash bros. brawl, my first time going into unofficial territory and consuming everything i could possibly find was black and white. bulbanews, serebii, gcpm11 videos every single day, absorbing everything so i could excitedly talk about it with friends.
it's important to note that my life situation was pretty fraught at the time. i won't get too deep into my personal trauma, but i never really had stable or consistent schooling. i had trouble functioning and was prone to outbursts, so the district would try to send me to special ed programs that i could also never really function in, and i'd often end up in a limbo of just not being in school for months upon months at a time. this was one of those periods, and it was especially rough for me, as the year before was pretty much the first time in my life i'd had a stable healthy school situation and social life. i think that caused me to be even more absorbed into the whole hype cycle, as i desperately needed some kind of out for how bad i was doing mentally.
in february, i was able to convince my parents to take me to the pokémon black and white mall tour, an event with a special early demo of the game, activities to do, prizes to win, special merch on sale, etc. it was in indianapolis, which is about a 3 hour drive from here, which makes it all the more amazing i actually convinced them to do that. i used my camcorder and filmed everything, then edited it together into a video - i think that might be lost media now. i can tell you it had this starship amazing song in the background, though. the trip was ended somewhat prematurely unfortunately, as my mom suffered an injury while we were there. despite the trip ending on a sour note, i was satisfied - i got to play the game - if briefly - before it released, after all. on the car ride home i found a shiny slowpoke on my heartgold.
now back to launch day. i picked white largely for its exclusive pokémon - i had no strong preference between reshiram and zekrom, but i really wanted reuniclus. as i still wasn't in school, i marathoned the game. it was all i did, all day. i recall playing it while i was out getting my blood drawn for something. i beat it in about 3 days. this started a trend for me, and i'm now always the first person i know to complete a new pokémon game. i enjoyed it a lot. it was probably the first game i'd ever played where i felt truly engaged in the story. things felt like they had real weight and depth. i loved all the new pokémon, all the human characters, all the music... the fire for pokémon i had that had once diminished came back stronger than ever. i started playing on pokémon online, and then, pokémon showdown. i wasn't very good at building teams, but i was pretty decent at the game for an 11 year old who didn't even bother to read anything on smogon. i started getting deeply into the TCG - again, not great at deckbuilding (though not really like i had a choice - my parents were still araid of buying things on the internet, so i couldn't get singles) but still did decently at my weekly league and at prerelease tournaments. i can confidently say that pokémon black and white, and the things surrounding it, changed my life, and got me through some really rough times.
i can't confidently say when i first replayed the game, but it must've been whenever i first got a copy of black. my love deepened on that playthrough, as it did again on my third. every time, there'd be something new for me to appreciate about the story or the world. i continued to replay the game fairly regularly, even after the release of its sequel. speaking of said sequel, about a month after its release, i stumbled onto a certain crack roleplay group that changed my life in numerous ways, and deepened my pokémon fandom. but that's a story for another day.
around 2014 i started feeling a certain way about the female protagonist, hilda, and also started heavily questioning my gender. this certain feeling would later be diagnosed as "kinning." i used it as a weird coping mechanism for constant dysphoria in my middle teen years, and hilda continues to be a character i heavily associate myself with and project onto, as you can plainly see by looking at literally any of my social media profiles.
it was... 2016 i wanna say? when i formally decided i'd play through the game every year. that number, seven playthroughs, is really inexact. i recall playing through each of my three cartridges once, and then i started formally playing through it once a year in 2016, so i just added that up. there's a good chance it's more, and that i've been playing it yearly for longer than i realize. regardless, each time i've appreciated the game more and more. i still cry at all the big moments, and i feel a general sense of comfort just playing it now. my connection to all of the characters, the region, everything strengthens every time.
i thought i had more analysis for you than i do, but i really don't. my sentimental attachment to this game is too strong. i had some stray thoughts, like how the boss battles are better than i remember, and how i desperately wish it had L=A, but ultimately, i don't have much interesting to say about the game itself. i've played it so many times and thought about it so hard that everything about it is just so obvious to me, i don't even know how to pick out what i think is so great. even just talking about the characters and themes is a bit difficult for me.
i can't say that you'll love pokémon black and white if you play it. i can't say you'll feel as strongly as i do about it. it has a lot of notable flaws, and they continue to be apparent or become more apparent as time goes on. but, at least for me, it's a truly special adventure, and one of my favorite games of all time.
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(Watch the video interview on Youtube here)
Filmmaker Burnout and Deciding To Go To Film School by Julian Shaw via FilmCourage.com.
Film Courage: You began making movies at three years old?
Julian Shaw, Filmmaker/Actor: I would say three years old is when I first started making films. I had a VHS camcorder and I was so inspired by New Zealand’s Funniest Home Videos which was obviously the version of the Bob Saget’s America’s Funniest Home Videos.
I would actually write and perform sketches that we would submit to New Zealand’s Funniest Home Videos. It might be like it’s my birthday and I would end up falling into the birthday cake.
And I was operating the camera and my dad would be like Make sure you get this angle.And my sister and my mom would act in these things. So that was technically my first directing and acting.
Film Courage: What has been the longest time you’ve ever taken a break from filmmaking?
Julian: You know once I got going with it I just haven’t really stopped, it’s been pretty relentless. I got into it in my mid-teens pretty hardcore and I’ve been going ever since. I’ve had to re-evaluate where I am in my career and change parts, but I’ve never really stopped.
Film Courage: I read in your bio that you suffered from burnout at one point?
Julian: Yes…for sure. What happened was I made the two documentaries. They were one-hour documentaries and each one of them took four years. And I kind of did that on my own. I hadn’t gone to film school. I had an amazing producer named Jonathon Green who supported me and they got funding and we did really well. But I just got to a point where I thought Man, I’ve gone as far as I can without some help. And that was when I decided to go to film school which was in my mid-twenties because I just felt it was time to get that kind of feedback. It was time to study and hone my craft. I already started to find my voice but I just needed to work on the technique a bit. That was how I got out of the funk that I was in because I was kind of depressed coming off of my second documentary.
Film Courage: I have heard that from other people too. Because there is this let down, it’s finished, it’s out there and then you don’t know how it’s going to be received and the excitement of it is over as well.
Julian: And just money…let’s be honest. It all comes down to money and financing these films. Often it is tough financially along the way where you can make a lot of money in the film industry but we know it’s often not at the front end when you are starting out, so that’s tough.
My second film was really challenging. I had some legal issues with it and I also documentary family members in my film. It was a film about New Zealander’s obsession with rugby. So you might think Well why is your family in it? Well the reason is I was documenting my relationship with…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
See Film Courage’s collection of Writing and Filmmaking and Acting videos on Youtube.
New videos 5:00 p.m. daily! Subscribe to the main Film Courage Youtube channeland our second Film Courage Youtube channel here…
#film#filmmaking#filmmaker#indie film#new zealand#aftrs#austrailia#julian shaw#movies#documentary#filmmaking 101#filmmakers on tumblr#documentary film#burnout
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One Stroll Of Many During COVID-19 (03/22/20)
I went out for a walk this weekend. Because of the virus, the roadways weren’t crowded with its usual hustle & bustle. You could cross every corner with ease, and the whooshing noise of tires against asphalt was strangely minimal and sporadic. The occasional passerby came near, and quickly diverted to their mandated six-feet-away distance. Don’t really know how affective the six-foot rule is when applied to a passerby, but the elderly and middle aged are terrified and I feel for them. No one really smiled in my direction, or acknowledged me, with the exception of two people: a some-odd 80 year old with a walker and a middle aged man who was singing a rock tune aloud for the residents on Summit Avenue to hear.
The season is transitioning into spring, and the smell in the air washed over a feeling of nostalgia. As it does with every change, as the last days of a season slowly dissipate, you can feel the impending linger of the one to follow approaching; the familiar smells of emerging plants, a light breeze floating throughout the air, the sight of new blooming and budding florals and the warmth from sunlight. These things, they tend to cause me to recollect the times I’ve experienced this environment before. It’s been quite a few springtimes since I thought about my previous years during this season as a child. I think it was the emptiness of the roads that led me to remember. And as soon as my memory began its regaling, just as abruptly, I could feel a trace of sadness etching itself throughout my body, magically slaloming its way. I felt like I was remembering something I loved, and deeply realizing that I would never be able to relive that love again. And yeah--no shit. I never will, in the sense that I’m no longer a child and can't time travel back a couple decades. But I wasn’t exactly wishing I could be a child again, or have my youth suddenly reappear.
In the 90′s, and early 2000′s, quality of life was different. My parents moved to the suburbs of New Jersey as it was what they could afford that was in relatively close distance to New York. They were musicians; my dad, a pianist and composer, and my mom, an opera singer. They wanted to do the family thing too, so they also acquired full-time jobs that granted them a steady earning. At the time, New Jersey made sense. It was a reprieve from city life. Life was of a slower pace in this region. We lived in a two-family on one of our town’s main roads that had a large backyard with a small gathering of woods. Stray cats were always making their way through the holes in our fence. We had a patio, complete with a barbecue grill and yellow metal furniture, which sounds heinous, but was surprisingly adorable. There was ample room all along the sides of the yard for my mom to pursue one of her hobbies--gardening--and still, there was leftover space for a swing-set and for my neighbors and I to run around and play a game of kickball.
As a kid, I did things. I rode my scooter to the park to play basketball, and we’d wait for the ice cream truck to sound it’s irritating yet welcoming melody. We’d go to the concession stand near the baseball diamond and get slushies and cheese fries. I would try to learn how to skateboard. The park was always crowded. Everyone from athletic kids to swarms of third and fourth grade girls obsessing over nail polishes and Lip Smackers chapsticks would rally around this place. I could see everyone from babies learning the concept of sand castles, to kids my age from school that I undoubtedly had no desire to run into. I loved walking into the neighboring town and going to the comic book store, or the game zone, where I’d collect pogs and crazy bones and pokemon cards and beanie babies--whatever I happened to be into hoarding at the moment. I’d go to book stores and pick up random young adult novels. I’d go to the movies. I’d go rent movies. There was a roller rink ten minutes away, and every weekend it was the cool place to go and whiz around (or in my instance, hold onto the railing and wall while everyone sped by me) while the edited version of Mase’s current single blasted from the DJ’s speakers. I’d go bowling. I’d visit arcades that weren’t Dave & Buster’s. I loved just being outside, meeting up with friends, walking to go get pizza. Flipping through magazines at the local convenient store. Having slumber parties and shutting the lights off while everyone took a turn at singing karaoke. Everything was an adventure and an all-senses-engaged experience. Even if it was just standing in a store parking lot and talking. Even if it was stealing someone’s aunt’s cigarettes and sneakily trying them behind a building in a schoolyard. Not just because I was young and new to the world, but because everyone was presently living, truly experiencing and sharing one another’s company. Communicating. Discovering commonalities. Making jokes about ideas or things happening in that very moment. Even when I was alone as a kid, I MADE things. I wrote stories, I would film movies on our camcorder and write scripts. I would try to do arts and crafts like things, like make tye-dye shirts or fiddle around with play-dough. I would be immersed in one thing at a time. If my friends and I were stuck hanging out indoors, we would prank call people. We would make up dumb card games or come up with something creative to unpack and figure out together as a team.
Everything has just always felt more loose in the past. Even during high school and college years. House parties were incredible. Yes, nowadays, I do get invited to a house for a “party” but its not the same. It feels more like we’re elitists corresponding over dinner and bottles of wine. There’s no more house parties where you’re meeting a bunch of strangers. There’s no more hosting house parties where you’re wondering, “who the fuck is that in my house playing beer pong?” (I held a couple of those in the mid 2000′s.) The best parties are ones that were an extended invite where you barely know anyone that’s there. I remember how my parents held parties in their 40′s and 50′s and it was so much more lively and energetic. The need to take a photo to put on Facebook has altered that.
Block parties were a thing. Not only throughout my town for children, but in other towns for teenagers and adults. I remember going to one in Mahwah where an entire town house community threw a block party and everyone was running in and out of everyone’s houses. People were dancing in the streets. Liquor and pot were flowing and stinking up everything. And everyone was friendly and receiving--you didn’t have to live in that community to be invited to that event. Where are block parties like that now? We would go play billiards--there was such a thing as a pool hall then. We would go on walks just to get away from our homes and have in-depth conversations about life. We’d find dead-ended roads to smoke pot on. I used to love driving around when the weather would start to make its way towards a warmer climate, and play an upbeat song from my stereo, with the windows rolled down. I didn’t need a place to go. I could just enjoy being, and driving, with the wind knotting my stringy hair and the sun smoldering my legs.
It trickles down to this inescapable feeling that over the last few years, we were not, and are not, really living. Everything is all about social media posting, taking selfies, being a celebrity and voice of the generation in some capacity, or any capacity that any individual can grab ahold of. Physical appearance and beauty has taken things to an insane measure with eyelash extensions, wigs, botox, heavy makeup and more things I’m probably unaware of becoming the norm. None of these statements are new streams of consciousness. I don’t deserve a high five for stating the obvious. I just can’t shake this feeling that as the human race, we are failing to enjoy being alive, in a tremendous amount of aspects. Besides lacking basic communication and abilities to live and experience each other wholly, we also do not experience anything else singularly and in entirety.
There was a time you had to work for things. You made mixed CDs or mixed tapes for people you cared about. Discovering new music and performers was an art form. You’d have to catch a song on the radio, or a music video on television, or scope out and take a chance on an artist by purchasing an album at a record store. The thrill of the hunt is gone with resources like Spotify and Apple music, and with so much accessibility to so many artists, it in someways makes it more daunting to find the diamonds in the rough or those with innovative sounds. People watched movies or television shows without simultaneously being on their phone. (Most people couldn’t wait for their favorite show to air!) People went on vacation and stared at a sunset without feeling the need to snap a photo for an immediate publication. People went out on actual dates instead of meeting their date with all their friends at a club or only getting coffee for 45 minutes. People used to walk around a mall instead of ordering everything online. Shopping was an actual activity that involved your whole body as oppose to just your finger clicking a mouse, or your thumb hitting your phone. People would physically hold books, and turn pages, and smell that “book smell” instead of staring at a screen. People used to go over a friend’s house and not be on their phone. People used to go anywhere and not be on their phone. What the fuck is going to happen to our retinas in the coming years?
Now, in the town I was raised in, the roadways are crowded.
I remember as a kid, staring out the window and watching local residents hop off the bus and walk down our road. Men carrying briefcases and sauntering off as if they were on a mission. There was a guy we called “army man” as he always was fully suited in a camouflage uniform, and marched back and forth daily on our block. Cars would drive by, but it wouldn’t be an endless supply of them. Now, it’s endless. There can be bumper-to bumper traffic on the road in that one-square mile town during certain hours. It’s rare to see people gallivanting the sidewalk today, unless it’s 3 am and they’re a townie staggering home annihilated from the local bar. Or they’re walking their dog, I suppose.
What I’m trying to say is this: I miss the simplicity of being in the moment. I don’t think we all need to mediate and take on yoga to understand how to do that. We just need to hold respect for all the incredible activities, people, experiences and memories we are gifted in this lifetime, and when you respect something, you pay attention to it. We need to pay attention to each other, and ourselves. The need to be alone and completely still became so abundantly clear on this stroll. I walked for an hour and a half. I looked at the houses. I noticed the trees that now had flowers sprouting with undeniable joy. I didn’t let anything cloud my mind except what wanted to swim to the surface. It was the best moment of my day, and given the absurd craziness we’re engulfed with now, quite possibly the best time of my week.
This virus outbreak--it’s terrifying. It’s plaguing not just our country, but the entire world. I cannot speak for how other countries live their day to day, but I can speak from my perspective, and it seems to me that we have run this world tired. It’s depleted, and can no longer rise from it’s crippling plunge. We take our offerings from Earth for granted. We take our gifts from God for granted. We take each other for granted. We now deem everything as urgent, and need everything to be so nonsensically fast. The deaths of those we love come across as a consequence of our actions. It is a wakeup call, and a call to action at that. And by action, I don’t mean make a post to create awareness--take action by literally changing and reverting ourselves back to a more minimalistic and simple way of life. Happiness shouldn’t stem from items, the ego or entrepreneurship--happiness derives from that indescribable satisfaction of doing nothing. Of being. Of taking risks and reveling in the company of those whom you wish to keep.
I can’t visit my parents or my family dog, and I miss them. We are waiting to hear if a family friend has passed away from this virus. It is scary and sad to think it hit him so rapidly, and that he arrived at the hospital alone, and potentially died alone with no visitors and no one surrounding him. This is a horrible catastrophe and I can’t understand the reasoning behind it. But I so want to believe that something beautiful will be built from this gloomy and discouraging time. I so want to believe that as people we have the power to take these ruins and make life more graceful and resplendent than it was before.
Despite my wanting, it’s evident that we all need to.
Please stay safe. Prayers up. xo
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“Light” reading
Since there aren’t as many movies to watch, I’ve found myself reading more about films and filmmakers in 2020.
As I’ve written here, understanding the personalities of these creative forces helps audiences understand what they are watching and the intention behind the art. Autobiographies from directors are pretty uncommon — they work in a visual medium, after all — but a strikingly personal example is found in Oliver Stone’s summer release “Chasing the Light.”
There was a time when Stone was considered as close to a household name as a filmmaker gets. The movies he made were not simply cultural events but newsworthy.
Perhaps no modern American film has portrayed history as controversially or as vividly as 1991’s “JFK.” While some of the theories espoused about politics and power veered into heresy, the film left an artistic impression that is hard to shake almost 30 years later.
He then prophesied the modern obsession with reality television and criminal behavior with the experimental “Natural Born Killers.” Anti-social in message, Stone developed a canvas that uses every style, from animation to camcorder footage. That method became common to filmmakers his junior for years to come.
Of course, “Chasing the Light” doesn’t even get to this period in his career. It ends with Stone winning the Best Director Oscar for “Platoon” in 1987. He was 40 years old. It was the third movie he directed.
He banked his entire career on this film, which showed a Vietnam War with conflicted men performing acts that would haunt them through their lives. That is, if they were to ever emerge from the jungle at all. Stone’s war movie was like no other. Veterans who never spoke of their service openly wept in theaters. Conservative groups used the film to attack Hollywood for disparaging the military. No matter — it made a boatload of money; the only value the film industry truly cherishes.
The book's treatment of this Oscar night represents a culmination of Stone’s need to control his obsessions and personal demons; a clear theme in any story about many filmmakers. Stone presents them in his own poignant terms.
He was a child of privilege — his father Louis was an investment broker on Wall Street. Stone went to prep school, then to Yale. He dropped out and enlisted. What he experienced in Vietnam ended up coloring his view of his country, his family and of himself.
Returning to the States, Stone struggled to find his place. He drove a cab and attended NYU Film School, where he was taught by Martin Scorsese. (Perhaps one of the funniest parts of Stone’s story is his conviction that he was the inspiration for “Taxi Driver” despite nothing else remotely verifying this belief.)
It is interesting that Stone’s fellow classmates were largely untested by the world. He had lived the stories they only had in their imagination. That reality gave Stone a leg up in expressing emotional urgency through his work.
Stone wrote a manuscript that was good enough to get an agent and some work. This led to winning an Oscar for writing “Midnight Express” and landing the coveted gig of updating “Scarface.”
The screenwriting success led to “Salvador,” and its controversial subject of U.S. involvement with the civil wars in Central America. But the money men were fleeting. Pages of the screenplay had to be cut to fit the shrinking budget. James Woods was a nightmare of a lead. (Stone would continue to cast him multiple times again anyway.) The book catches the rhythm of this madness; fighting to see an idea come to life despite everything working against it.
He immediately went into the same pattern with “Platoon.” During this process, he and his wife had a son. Also, his father became sick and never got to see Stone reach this pinnacle of success. The old man thought being a filmmaker was a fool’s errand. Even as he writes “Chasing the Light” in his seventies, you can feel Stone's regret that he couldn’t share this success with his father.
Let’s get real for a second. The book takes on deeper resonance for me because I lost my father unexpectedly last week. Any parental relationship presents a bounty of conflict and contradictions. Here is the person most like you; but, in order to prove your worth as a “man,” you spend so much time trying to re-imagine and reshape yourself. In the end, whether you like it or not, all this effort leads to being just like the very thing you tried not to be.
The modern man — in trying to make sense of himself — treats the paternal relationship as a mirror of sorts. An image that helps him figure out what needs adjustment, what needs to be fixed. When that person is gone, that outward examination goes away with it. Which then leads to inward examination and, hopefully as a result, great self-realization.
When I read the book this summer, I was a little irked Stone ended “Chasing the Light” so early in his career. I wanted to know about the struggles to make those later films. About how he became such a lightning rod in our modern conversation. But I realize he ended the book right when he needed to.
His father passed away and Stone became a success. Money was no longer an issue. He had a family. Despite 40 years of life to the contrary, Stone became a new version of his father at that awards show. It certainly is no coincidence Stone’s first movie after winning the Oscar was “Wall Street” — not only a film about the corrosive financial industry in which his dad worked, but about a young man torn between two fatherly figures.
The title refers to a film crew’s desperate, daily quest to film as much as possible while the light remains consistent before the sun sets. But there’s a metaphorical reading to the title as well. This is a story of Stone searching for purpose and meaning in his life and work. About reconciling the differences with his family. We all are chasing this light in our own ways. We realize it is something that can never be caught. Rather, it is the pursuit that we should value.
This is imminently relatable and makes for a compelling story. As far as what I'm going through right now, it gives me some comfort to know I share these feelings with others who have gone through the same thing. Good storytelling connects us to others. We must have this connection to keep our spirits going.
-James Owen, "'Light' reading: Oliver Stone memoir chases understanding," Columbia Daily Tribune, Nov 5 2020 [x]
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Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net
Once when I was small I went to the shops to buy an explosive - a tiny microdet designed for stage pyrotechnics. I've been fortunate that I've never really had blood on my hands when playing with fire, but that day I did get a lot of raspberry jam on them.
A school friend held a balloon open while I crammed in as much jam as possible before knotting it sealed. Then we pierced a small hole in a puppet's head and inserted the microdet followed by the balloon of clotted blood-like substance. I hooked the wires up to a 9-volt battery behind the camcorder, which was masking-taped to a makeshift dolly (a pram on rails). In exquisite anticipation I barked "Action!" But things didn't quite go to plan.
At that age, life only made sense when you were having fun. The freedom to play was why blood pumped through your veins. It was necessary to experiment and push boundaries, to test and meddle with the laws of physics. Teasing spiders, climbing trees, disturbing bee's nests, throwing snowballs at passing cars and building follies to set fire to. There was always a thrill to be had on the edge of mischief. That was instinctive, that... was boyhood.
But a back garden wasn't the only playground on offer in the mid to late 80s. Computer games were fast becoming portals into entire worlds with their own laws and abstracted physics. I was 11 years old and I was attempting to dock a rotating space station. Not Starbuck or Skywalker... me! I could barrel-roll a Spitfire, pilot fragile pods through planetary caves or hack into and fly remote-controlled robots. Exploring those digital playgrounds was my generation's undiscovered country and the thrills were intoxicating. Then at some point in those life-shaping years I found myself spellbound by an unusual game titled Exile, for the BBC Micro. And to this day part of me still hasn't been able to leave.
In 1988 games had to run in only 32k of memory. My phone now has 60,000 times that amount. And yet... there I was 30 years ago exploring a vast underground world simulating realistic physics with its own ecosystem, all running inside 32k of RAM. The wildlife and machines all had their own abilities and behaviours and even emitted digitised speech if you had the sideways RAM. This was absolute heaven to me, but it wasn't until I started making my own games that I came to fully appreciate how unlikely it was that all this ever came together in the first place.
Somehow the developers created a responsive 2D scrolling platformer with pixel-perfect collision, that worked in an engine where objects had properties and a mass effected by gravity, inertia, shock-waves and the elements earth, wind, fire and water. These days it's hard to appreciate now that physics engines are commonplace, but this was relatively new back then and Exile went all in to unprecedented lengths.
This was a new blend of platform game with true physical principles giving birth to a peculiar quality that sparked the imagination like nothing before - physical emergent narrative. It offered the player the ability to experiment and discover things outside the remit of whatever challenges the developer laid out for them. This alchemy for real tangible depth to interactive worlds can still prove painfully elusive for developers today. How can one offer the flexibility to experiment while maintaining a balanced ecosystem in which delicate puzzles have been woven? Maybe this is why it took so long for games like Minecraft and Disney Infinity to happen.
But even these days, how often do players find themselves trying to disarm a primed grenade that has escaped their grasp in a circular wind tunnel? How do you keep a flask from spilling water as you're caked by jetpack-clogging mushrooms thrown by cheeky imps? What do you do with a killer bee you've caught from its nest but stings while you flip through your inventory? What happens if you hold a frightened pink ball of fluff under red drops of acid jam? These just weren't the questions gamers were used to pondering. Equally important, it turned out nor were they questions a developer needed to contrive.
Exile.
The intelligence required for path-finding and strategy alone must have been a challenge in itself, but the indignance of that Darlek-esque sentinel as I landed politely on its head, the audacity of the villain Triax teleporting in and out to shoot me in the back, that endearing desperation whenever Fluffy clung to me for dear life... Was any of that real or did I imagine it? Advanced AI has often proved a poor investment in games. It can be so very clever but the bottom line is: if it's not noticed, it's completely wasted. The AI in Exile probably doesn't compare to what exists in today's games, but again... this isn't what's important. The secret is frequently staring right at us, through the eyes of a great movie star or even a wooden actor who knows when to exploit that unfortunate quality. Explicit emotional performances or Shakespearean monologues aren't necessary to immerse the audience in the mind of the character. Many actors have made the point that the power of ambiguity can be far more powerful. If there's drama in the situation, the audience can do all that leg work for the actor, who only has to project the illusion of thought. Artificial intelligence in entertainment is as much about anthropomorphism as it is about explicit communication or action. If it's done well it can be concocted in the eye of the beholder, emerging from situation, emerging from conflict, as an emergent... narrative.
Exile demonstrated a strong sense for crafting these natural unpredictable behaviour patterns, giving the illusion of a deeper intelligence and appearing to show changes in mood or temperament. Even if that sometimes just meant knowing when to hold still for a few seconds and do absolutely nothing, like when you give a spider a little poke to watch it play dead. How can something so motionless be so captivating? The AI was superb, but so was this pseudo AI.
For many reasons Exile was the game that made the biggest impression on me, and it wasn't long before I hooked up with school friend Chris Mullender to make our own game for the Amiga 500. What started out as a simple platformer inspired by Giana Sisters soon ballooned into our own sprawling world of bizarre creatures that followed their own laws and physical abilities. We realised then that we had both been heavily inspired by the land of Exile, even down to logistics such as memory management. It was literally impossible to store a map of that size into 32k. Chris' research uncovered how the map was constructed from selected procedural tile sets. This blew my mind, it felt like the big bang in reverse. Also, I remembered seeing the game played on an even less powerful machine, an Acorn Electron and noticed a large portion of the screen filled with corrupt graphics. It turned out this was no bug, but a technique that harnessed the screen buffer to store data. Genius! So we stored our game's hidden cave map data in the island's negative space - the sky. This instantly halved the size of our map data.
We learnt a lot regarding how so much could be put into so little space. It felt only natural to write a fan letter to the developers of Exile, and I was thrilled to receive a handwritten reply from Peter Irvin. However, it was in that letter I learned the tragic news of the death of his co-developer Jeremy Smith (who had previously created the much loved gravity game Thrust). Also sad was the speculation of what magic such a partnership would have gone on to create next.
In a strange mirroring of fate, a sequence of events followed that saw us releasing our game Odyssey under the same publisher as the Amiga version of Exile. My partner was hired to code for Peter's following projects and by the end of the next decade I had lost Chris, my co-creator and closest friend to a sudden illness. I was most touched when Peter reached out to console me, having been through the very same thing with Jeremy.
Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.
When I look back on the development of Odyssey, before it entered that tough phase to bring it to completion, I remember the joyful fleshing out on whim and self indulgence. We drew on what excited us and made us laugh. I ate lots of biscuits and Chris drank lots of tea. We were making it because we enjoyed the process. Who knew that making a game could be as much fun as playing one?
When the red light blinked on the camcorder, I dollied towards the puppet and triggered the microdet. But the jam didn't explode. There was a loud pop and sparks flew from its head but the balloon was so tightly packed that it launched intact, remaining lodged and bulging out of its forehead. We were mucking about... and we mucked it up, but it was hilarious fun. Much like the time we filmed a firework backfiring a cardboard bazooka, singeing the armpit of my brother's favourite teddy bear. Or when a friend painted his face silver and climbed into his mum's washing machine, snapping the door off its hinges. We weren't playing to win, we were playing to play.
Now I find myself in the role of a responsible parent, supplying the back garden and fencing in the boundaries for my own kids to push. But like a lot of games developers still under the spell, I'm really just trying to recreate the playgrounds of my own childhood. If I'm still mucking around at middle age where things make only less sense, then it looks like I'll remain forever in exile, playing happily with grenades, pink balls of fluff and raspberry preserves.
0 notes
Text
In the words of a rather famous band “Welcome, I bid you welcome…..” This spectacle, HRH XII in beautiful Pwllheli, North Wales, though is no electric circus, it’s the real deal but with a real undertone of the weird and macabre cabaret part of the circus as the opening ceremony has everyone mesmerized. The troupe of incredibly talented women set the tone beautifully – enjoy all that rock has to offer, dip into a weird wild fantasy world that Freddy Mercury would tip his hat to, and don’t be a dick.
HRHXII is already kicking ass!!
EDEN’S CURSE
The Opening Night of the HRH XII , if somewhat wet, is greeted with the arrival of opening act Eden’s Curse, who might have been forgiven for being overwhelmed due to the huge crowd in attendance. But after a short circus themed intro tape they hit the ground running with “Masquerades Ball” – these guys knew the score! – then without drawing breath “Break The Silence” rattles out the speakers. As the sound now balances itself out “The Great Pretender” maintains the momentum with the keyboards and backing vocals adding more layers to the traditional “Edens Curse” sound.
“Unbreakable” with full audience participation with the encouragement of vocalist Nikola Migic got the place rockin’ and is hands down the set highlight, with full use of the large single screen at the back of the stage projecting the group with wonderful coloured computer imagery enhances the performance even more. “Evil and Divine “ followed closely by “Angels and Demons” rounded off a very strong 7 song 40 minute set highlighting the best of what this amazing 5 piece can offer.
MYKE GRAY
With the intro music of Queens “We Will Rock You” blasting out the speakers we get a shredding short instrumental from Myke Gray that kickstarts the set as “Stand Up For Rock n Roll” hits you between the eyes and BOOM this tiny little woman who I’ve never seen or heard before enters the stage going bat-shit crazy and working the crowd with ease. The woman in question is Kymberley Anne Jennett and what a voice and what a star in the making before the opening number has finished she is in the photo pit but climbs out and back on stage for “House of Love” which I have to admit at first is a bit strange to not hear Neville McDonald singing this classic track, But weird as it sounds it just does not matter as the female human dynamo just nails it!! If you plugged her into the national grid she would easily light up the whole of North Wales. Skin classics are peeled off one after another with “Love Like Suicide” and “Take Me Down To The River” with the dual guitars working to good affect.
Myke Gray smiling his usual happy self must have been amazed with the reaction especially on “Look But Don’t Touch” which saw the contented crowd peeling back the years to their youth with much singing and clapping and a little bit of dad dancing for good measure. The set was rounded off with a frantic version of “Shine your Light” with Kymberley losing the plot again and exiting the stage lost in the photo pit and I think she may have ended pretty much in the crowd such was her enthusiasm. I hope from a personal point that Myke can involve her in some future project either in the studio or live, with the musical chops that Myke Gray has in his arsenal and with his talented band that back him so well the only way is up.
ROCK GODDESS
Rock Goddess – the name that strikes fear into many a band!! This ferocious 3 piece pack a punch that Tyson would have been proud of in his heyday. Fronted by the simply amazing Jody Turner, who has steered the ship through thick and thin. With a guitar sound sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel we are treated to both old and, very impressive, new material “Gonna Let Your Hair Down” showcases Jody’s lung power and, wow!!, what a voice. “To Be Betrayed” with its doom laden slow riffage and thunderous drums hasn’t aged in its 30 years existence and is still such a relevant track in 2018.
“Why Do We Never Learn”, a new track from the as yet unreleased new album, is huge and what I just witnessed was enough to make your fillings rattle and your arse shake. “Start Running” takes everyone back to the 80s and is still such a creepy song and new girl “Jenny Lane” delivers a solid bass line that underpins the track. If you ever need to understand the importance of a bass guitar then look no further because “Start running” needs that groove for Jodie Turner to weave her magic.
New single “Are You Ready” steam hammers along at breakneck speed with a crystal clear sound stunning light show, old songs, new songs “Rock Goddess” have me and hundreds more transfixed, the new material is just so strong and slots in perfectly with the classic songs we all grew up with. Versions of “Back To You” and “Heavy Metal Rock n Roll” could strip the paint of your walls without you having to leave the comfort of your sofa with your paint thinner and scraper!!
Now here’s the thing – I’m very fortunate to attend many hundreds of gigs and see many amazing acts but the performance the band offered is one of the best shows I’ve ever witnessed and I’m talking about 35 years!!
PHIL CAMPBELL AND THE BASTARD SONS
Guitar legend and HRH award winner 2018, Phil Campbell, has the punters filling the venues nooks and crannies and the place is rammed to the gills, “Big Mouth” sets the stall out in aggressive fashion followed by “Freakshow” which is one of the highlights from the debut album and thankfully comes over even better live, even going as far as to creating a very small but, never the less, impressive mosh pit.
Serious twiddling from Mr Campbell is met with gratitude from the onlookers and, backed by his talented sons, the band is like a runaway train gathering momentum all the time. First of the “Motorhead” covers duly arrives with “Born To Raise Hell” reminding us all of the great sadly missed Lemmy, then up steps Phil who peels off a solo that merits his well-deserved award the previous evening. “Get On Your Knees” with its nod and a wink to old school metal is bolstered big time with the dual guitars and on command everyone obliges the request to raise their middle fingers in the air!!
A quick blast through R.A.M.O.N.E.S gets the mosh pit stirring just a little bit more then its straight into album opener “Ring Leader” and once again takes over a life of its own in the live arena. Wrapping the set-up is the triple whammy of “Silver Machine”, “Ace Of Spades” and a spine snapping version of “Bomber”. Talk about spoilt rotten and slightly emotional in a rock n roll way. Cracking stuff from a true down n dirty, rock n roll band.
MICHAEL SCHENKER
Closing the first night proper is the unbelievably gifted Michael Schenker and his festival of former lead singers, this has to be one of the most chaotic and arse about face shows I’ve seen in a long while! It goes against the grain of what most bands try and achieve in a live setting. But fear not because it works!!
First example the intro music is AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” so the crowd are pumped. Schenker walks onstage and what do we get? “Blackout”? or possibly “Another Piece Of Meat”? Oh no. No. No No. We get an acoustic soothing version of The Scorpions “Holiday” then he addresses the crowd regarding his long and impressive career then its straight into what everyone presumed would be the encore song “Doctor, Doctor” where various singers all appear on stage these include Graham Bonnet, Dougie White, McCauley, by which time they were only 2 songs in.
“Vigilante Man” gets Dougie White up on his own singing the track with his usual enthusiasm. New track “The Church” is another chance for the stage to be filled with no less than 4 singers. In-between many of the songs Schenker chats away to the crowd all about his time in various groups and how old he was when certain tracks were written and personally I found this set up really refreshing. The songs on the other hand need no introduction, with the following just an example “Natural Thing”, “Shoot Shoot”, “Armed and Ready”, and “Only You Can Rock Me” with instrumentals from his “Scorpions” days thrown in the mix for good measure.
The great man can’t go wrong.
Then the moment everyone was waiting for “Rock Bottom”. Were we going to get a 10 minute version or a 15 minute version? I never timed it but take my word for it, the man isn’t human!! With solid bass and drums keeping everything in time, Schenker just cast his magic over his fretboard he explored it like a kid would explore a sweetshop, then just to take the piss he picks up a camcorder starts filming the crowd whilst still creating a mind blowing solo. “Lights out” finished the set and basically everyone went home gob-smacked, inebriated and happy after a brilliant first night of booze great company and 5 great bands.
Review by Steve Bruty
Photos by Edyta Krzesak
GIG REVIEW: HRH XII Kicks of the Weekend With An Incredible Start with @edenscurse @MykeGrayMusic @RockGoddessOff1 @PCATBS @MW_Schenker @MetalPlanet72 @bruty_steve @EdytkaK @CentralpressPR In the words of a rather famous band “Welcome, I bid you welcome…..” This spectacle, HRH XII in beautiful Pwllheli, North Wales, though is no electric circus, it’s the real deal but with a real undertone of the weird and macabre cabaret part of the circus as the opening ceremony has everyone mesmerized.
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Text
Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net
Once when I was small I went to the shops to buy an explosive - a tiny microdet designed for stage pyrotechnics. I've been fortunate that I've never really had blood on my hands when playing with fire, but that day I did get a lot of raspberry jam on them.
A school friend held a balloon open while I crammed in as much jam as possible before knotting it sealed. Then we pierced a small hole in a puppet's head and inserted the microdet followed by the balloon of clotted blood-like substance. I hooked the wires up to a 9-volt battery behind the camcorder, which was masking-taped to a makeshift dolly (a pram on rails). In exquisite anticipation I barked "Action!" But things didn't quite go to plan.
At that age, life only made sense when you were having fun. The freedom to play was why blood pumped through your veins. It was necessary to experiment and push boundaries, to test and meddle with the laws of physics. Teasing spiders, climbing trees, disturbing bee's nests, throwing snowballs at passing cars and building follies to set fire to. There was always a thrill to be had on the edge of mischief. That was instinctive, that... was boyhood.
But a back garden wasn't the only playground on offer in the mid to late 80s. Computer games were fast becoming portals into entire worlds with their own laws and abstracted physics. I was 11 years old and I was attempting to dock a rotating space station. Not Starbuck or Skywalker... me! I could barrel-roll a Spitfire, pilot fragile pods through planetary caves or hack into and fly remote-controlled robots. Exploring those digital playgrounds was my generation's undiscovered country and the thrills were intoxicating. Then at some point in those life-shaping years I found myself spellbound by an unusual game titled Exile, for the BBC Micro. And to this day part of me still hasn't been able to leave.
In 1988 games had to run in only 32k of memory. My phone now has 60,000 times that amount. And yet... there I was 30 years ago exploring a vast underground world simulating realistic physics with its own ecosystem, all running inside 32k of RAM. The wildlife and machines all had their own abilities and behaviours and even emitted digitised speech if you had the sideways RAM. This was absolute heaven to me, but it wasn't until I started making my own games that I came to fully appreciate how unlikely it was that all this ever came together in the first place.
Somehow the developers created a responsive 2D scrolling platformer with pixel-perfect collision, that worked in an engine where objects had properties and a mass effected by gravity, inertia, shock-waves and the elements earth, wind, fire and water. These days it's hard to appreciate now that physics engines are commonplace, but this was relatively new back then and Exile went all in to unprecedented lengths.
This was a new blend of platform game with true physical principles giving birth to a peculiar quality that sparked the imagination like nothing before - physical emergent narrative. It offered the player the ability to experiment and discover things outside the remit of whatever challenges the developer laid out for them. This alchemy for real tangible depth to interactive worlds can still prove painfully elusive for developers today. How can one offer the flexibility to experiment while maintaining a balanced ecosystem in which delicate puzzles have been woven? Maybe this is why it took so long for games like Minecraft and Disney Infinity to happen.
But even these days, how often do players find themselves trying to disarm a primed grenade that has escaped their grasp in a circular wind tunnel? How do you keep a flask from spilling water as you're caked by jetpack-clogging mushrooms thrown by cheeky imps? What do you do with a killer bee you've caught from its nest but stings while you flip through your inventory? What happens if you hold a frightened pink ball of fluff under red drops of acid jam? These just weren't the questions gamers were used to pondering. Equally important, it turned out nor were they questions a developer needed to contrive.
Exile.
The intelligence required for path-finding and strategy alone must have been a challenge in itself, but the indignance of that Darlek-esque sentinel as I landed politely on its head, the audacity of the villain Triax teleporting in and out to shoot me in the back, that endearing desperation whenever Fluffy clung to me for dear life... Was any of that real or did I imagine it? Advanced AI has often proved a poor investment in games. It can be so very clever but the bottom line is: if it's not noticed, it's completely wasted. The AI in Exile probably doesn't compare to what exists in today's games, but again... this isn't what's important. The secret is frequently staring right at us, through the eyes of a great movie star or even a wooden actor who knows when to exploit that unfortunate quality. Explicit emotional performances or Shakespearean monologues aren't necessary to immerse the audience in the mind of the character. Many actors have made the point that the power of ambiguity can be far more powerful. If there's drama in the situation, the audience can do all that leg work for the actor, who only has to project the illusion of thought. Artificial intelligence in entertainment is as much about anthropomorphism as it is about explicit communication or action. If it's done well it can be concocted in the eye of the beholder, emerging from situation, emerging from conflict, as an emergent... narrative.
Exile demonstrated a strong sense for crafting these natural unpredictable behaviour patterns, giving the illusion of a deeper intelligence and appearing to show changes in mood or temperament. Even if that sometimes just meant knowing when to hold still for a few seconds and do absolutely nothing, like when you give a spider a little poke to watch it play dead. How can something so motionless be so captivating? The AI was superb, but so was this pseudo AI.
For many reasons Exile was the game that made the biggest impression on me, and it wasn't long before I hooked up with school friend Chris Mullender to make our own game for the Amiga 500. What started out as a simple platformer inspired by Giana Sisters soon ballooned into our own sprawling world of bizarre creatures that followed their own laws and physical abilities. We realised then that we had both been heavily inspired by the land of Exile, even down to logistics such as memory management. It was literally impossible to store a map of that size into 32k. Chris' research uncovered how the map was constructed from selected procedural tile sets. This blew my mind, it felt like the big bang in reverse. Also, I remembered seeing the game played on an even less powerful machine, an Acorn Electron and noticed a large portion of the screen filled with corrupt graphics. It turned out this was no bug, but a technique that harnessed the screen buffer to store data. Genius! So we stored our game's hidden cave map data in the island's negative space - the sky. This instantly halved the size of our map data.
We learnt a lot regarding how so much could be put into so little space. It felt only natural to write a fan letter to the developers of Exile, and I was thrilled to receive a handwritten reply from Peter Irvin. However, it was in that letter I learned the tragic news of the death of his co-developer Jeremy Smith (who had previously created the much loved gravity game Thrust). Also sad was the speculation of what magic such a partnership would have gone on to create next.
In a strange mirroring of fate, a sequence of events followed that saw us releasing our game Odyssey under the same publisher as the Amiga version of Exile. My partner was hired to code for Peter's following projects and by the end of the next decade I had lost Chris, my co-creator and closest friend to a sudden illness. I was most touched when Peter reached out to console me, having been through the very same thing with Jeremy.
Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.
When I look back on the development of Odyssey, before it entered that tough phase to bring it to completion, I remember the joyful fleshing out on whim and self indulgence. We drew on what excited us and made us laugh. I ate lots of biscuits and Chris drank lots of tea. We were making it because we enjoyed the process. Who knew that making a game could be as much fun as playing one?
When the red light blinked on the camcorder, I dollied towards the puppet and triggered the microdet. But the jam didn't explode. There was a loud pop and sparks flew from its head but the balloon was so tightly packed that it launched intact, remaining lodged and bulging out of its forehead. We were mucking about... and we mucked it up, but it was hilarious fun. Much like the time we filmed a firework backfiring a cardboard bazooka, singeing the armpit of my brother's favourite teddy bear. Or when a friend painted his face silver and climbed into his mum's washing machine, snapping the door off its hinges. We weren't playing to win, we were playing to play.
Now I find myself in the role of a responsible parent, supplying the back garden and fencing in the boundaries for my own kids to push. But like a lot of games developers still under the spell, I'm really just trying to recreate the playgrounds of my own childhood. If I'm still mucking around at middle age where things make only less sense, then it looks like I'll remain forever in exile, playing happily with grenades, pink balls of fluff and raspberry preserves.
0 notes
Text
Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net
Once when I was small I went to the shops to buy an explosive - a tiny microdet designed for stage pyrotechnics. I've been fortunate that I've never really had blood on my hands when playing with fire, but that day I did get a lot of raspberry jam on them.
A school friend held a balloon open while I crammed in as much jam as possible before knotting it sealed. Then we pierced a small hole in a puppet's head and inserted the microdet followed by the balloon of clotted blood-like substance. I hooked the wires up to a 9-volt battery behind the camcorder, which was masking-taped to a makeshift dolly (a pram on rails). In exquisite anticipation I barked "Action!" But things didn't quite go to plan.
At that age, life only made sense when you were having fun. The freedom to play was why blood pumped through your veins. It was necessary to experiment and push boundaries, to test and meddle with the laws of physics. Teasing spiders, climbing trees, disturbing bee's nests, throwing snowballs at passing cars and building follies to set fire to. There was always a thrill to be had on the edge of mischief. That was instinctive, that... was boyhood.
But a back garden wasn't the only playground on offer in the mid to late 80s. Computer games were fast becoming portals into entire worlds with their own laws and abstracted physics. I was 11 years old and I was attempting to dock a rotating space station. Not Starbuck or Skywalker... me! I could barrel-roll a Spitfire, pilot fragile pods through planetary caves or hack into and fly remote-controlled robots. Exploring those digital playgrounds was my generation's undiscovered country and the thrills were intoxicating. Then at some point in those life-shaping years I found myself spellbound by an unusual game titled Exile, for the BBC Micro. And to this day part of me still hasn't been able to leave.
In 1988 games had to run in only 32k of memory. My phone now has 60,000 times that amount. And yet... there I was 30 years ago exploring a vast underground world simulating realistic physics with its own ecosystem, all running inside 32k of RAM. The wildlife and machines all had their own abilities and behaviours and even emitted digitised speech if you had the sideways RAM. This was absolute heaven to me, but it wasn't until I started making my own games that I came to fully appreciate how unlikely it was that all this ever came together in the first place.
Somehow the developers created a responsive 2D scrolling platformer with pixel-perfect collision, that worked in an engine where objects had properties and a mass effected by gravity, inertia, shock-waves and the elements earth, wind, fire and water. These days it's hard to appreciate now that physics engines are commonplace, but this was relatively new back then and Exile went all in to unprecedented lengths.
This was a new blend of platform game with true physical principles giving birth to a peculiar quality that sparked the imagination like nothing before - physical emergent narrative. It offered the player the ability to experiment and discover things outside the remit of whatever challenges the developer laid out for them. This alchemy for real tangible depth to interactive worlds can still prove painfully elusive for developers today. How can one offer the flexibility to experiment while maintaining a balanced ecosystem in which delicate puzzles have been woven? Maybe this is why it took so long for games like Minecraft and Disney Infinity to happen.
But even these days, how often do players find themselves trying to disarm a primed grenade that has escaped their grasp in a circular wind tunnel? How do you keep a flask from spilling water as you're caked by jetpack-clogging mushrooms thrown by cheeky imps? What do you do with a killer bee you've caught from its nest but stings while you flip through your inventory? What happens if you hold a frightened pink ball of fluff under red drops of acid jam? These just weren't the questions gamers were used to pondering. Equally important, it turned out nor were they questions a developer needed to contrive.
Exile.
The intelligence required for path-finding and strategy alone must have been a challenge in itself, but the indignance of that Darlek-esque sentinel as I landed politely on its head, the audacity of the villain Triax teleporting in and out to shoot me in the back, that endearing desperation whenever Fluffy clung to me for dear life... Was any of that real or did I imagine it? Advanced AI has often proved a poor investment in games. It can be so very clever but the bottom line is: if it's not noticed, it's completely wasted. The AI in Exile probably doesn't compare to what exists in today's games, but again... this isn't what's important. The secret is frequently staring right at us, through the eyes of a great movie star or even a wooden actor who knows when to exploit that unfortunate quality. Explicit emotional performances or Shakespearean monologues aren't necessary to immerse the audience in the mind of the character. Many actors have made the point that the power of ambiguity can be far more powerful. If there's drama in the situation, the audience can do all that leg work for the actor, who only has to project the illusion of thought. Artificial intelligence in entertainment is as much about anthropomorphism as it is about explicit communication or action. If it's done well it can be concocted in the eye of the beholder, emerging from situation, emerging from conflict, as an emergent... narrative.
Exile demonstrated a strong sense for crafting these natural unpredictable behaviour patterns, giving the illusion of a deeper intelligence and appearing to show changes in mood or temperament. Even if that sometimes just meant knowing when to hold still for a few seconds and do absolutely nothing, like when you give a spider a little poke to watch it play dead. How can something so motionless be so captivating? The AI was superb, but so was this pseudo AI.
For many reasons Exile was the game that made the biggest impression on me, and it wasn't long before I hooked up with school friend Chris Mullender to make our own game for the Amiga 500. What started out as a simple platformer inspired by Giana Sisters soon ballooned into our own sprawling world of bizarre creatures that followed their own laws and physical abilities. We realised then that we had both been heavily inspired by the land of Exile, even down to logistics such as memory management. It was literally impossible to store a map of that size into 32k. Chris' research uncovered how the map was constructed from selected procedural tile sets. This blew my mind, it felt like the big bang in reverse. Also, I remembered seeing the game played on an even less powerful machine, an Acorn Electron and noticed a large portion of the screen filled with corrupt graphics. It turned out this was no bug, but a technique that harnessed the screen buffer to store data. Genius! So we stored our game's hidden cave map data in the island's negative space - the sky. This instantly halved the size of our map data.
We learnt a lot regarding how so much could be put into so little space. It felt only natural to write a fan letter to the developers of Exile, and I was thrilled to receive a handwritten reply from Peter Irvin. However, it was in that letter I learned the tragic news of the death of his co-developer Jeremy Smith (who had previously created the much loved gravity game Thrust). Also sad was the speculation of what magic such a partnership would have gone on to create next.
In a strange mirroring of fate, a sequence of events followed that saw us releasing our game Odyssey under the same publisher as the Amiga version of Exile. My partner was hired to code for Peter's following projects and by the end of the next decade I had lost Chris, my co-creator and closest friend to a sudden illness. I was most touched when Peter reached out to console me, having been through the very same thing with Jeremy.
Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.
When I look back on the development of Odyssey, before it entered that tough phase to bring it to completion, I remember the joyful fleshing out on whim and self indulgence. We drew on what excited us and made us laugh. I ate lots of biscuits and Chris drank lots of tea. We were making it because we enjoyed the process. Who knew that making a game could be as much fun as playing one?
When the red light blinked on the camcorder, I dollied towards the puppet and triggered the microdet. But the jam didn't explode. There was a loud pop and sparks flew from its head but the balloon was so tightly packed that it launched intact, remaining lodged and bulging out of its forehead. We were mucking about... and we mucked it up, but it was hilarious fun. Much like the time we filmed a firework backfiring a cardboard bazooka, singeing the armpit of my brother's favourite teddy bear. Or when a friend painted his face silver and climbed into his mum's washing machine, snapping the door off its hinges. We weren't playing to win, we were playing to play.
Now I find myself in the role of a responsible parent, supplying the back garden and fencing in the boundaries for my own kids to push. But like a lot of games developers still under the spell, I'm really just trying to recreate the playgrounds of my own childhood. If I'm still mucking around at middle age where things make only less sense, then it looks like I'll remain forever in exile, playing happily with grenades, pink balls of fluff and raspberry preserves.
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Text
Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net
Once when I was small I went to the shops to buy an explosive - a tiny microdet designed for stage pyrotechnics. I've been fortunate that I've never really had blood on my hands when playing with fire, but that day I did get a lot of raspberry jam on them.
A school friend held a balloon open while I crammed in as much jam as possible before knotting it sealed. Then we pierced a small hole in a puppet's head and inserted the microdet followed by the balloon of clotted blood-like substance. I hooked the wires up to a 9-volt battery behind the camcorder, which was masking-taped to a makeshift dolly (a pram on rails). In exquisite anticipation I barked "Action!" But things didn't quite go to plan.
At that age, life only made sense when you were having fun. The freedom to play was why blood pumped through your veins. It was necessary to experiment and push boundaries, to test and meddle with the laws of physics. Teasing spiders, climbing trees, disturbing bee's nests, throwing snowballs at passing cars and building follies to set fire to. There was always a thrill to be had on the edge of mischief. That was instinctive, that... was boyhood.
But a back garden wasn't the only playground on offer in the mid to late 80s. Computer games were fast becoming portals into entire worlds with their own laws and abstracted physics. I was 11 years old and I was attempting to dock a rotating space station. Not Starbuck or Skywalker... me! I could barrel-roll a Spitfire, pilot fragile pods through planetary caves or hack into and fly remote-controlled robots. Exploring those digital playgrounds was my generation's undiscovered country and the thrills were intoxicating. Then at some point in those life-shaping years I found myself spellbound by an unusual game titled Exile, for the BBC Micro. And to this day part of me still hasn't been able to leave.
In 1988 games had to run in only 32k of memory. My phone now has 60,000 times that amount. And yet... there I was 30 years ago exploring a vast underground world simulating realistic physics with its own ecosystem, all running inside 32k of RAM. The wildlife and machines all had their own abilities and behaviours and even emitted digitised speech if you had the sideways RAM. This was absolute heaven to me, but it wasn't until I started making my own games that I came to fully appreciate how unlikely it was that all this ever came together in the first place.
Somehow the developers created a responsive 2D scrolling platformer with pixel-perfect collision, that worked in an engine where objects had properties and a mass effected by gravity, inertia, shock-waves and the elements earth, wind, fire and water. These days it's hard to appreciate now that physics engines are commonplace, but this was relatively new back then and Exile went all in to unprecedented lengths.
This was a new blend of platform game with true physical principles giving birth to a peculiar quality that sparked the imagination like nothing before - physical emergent narrative. It offered the player the ability to experiment and discover things outside the remit of whatever challenges the developer laid out for them. This alchemy for real tangible depth to interactive worlds can still prove painfully elusive for developers today. How can one offer the flexibility to experiment while maintaining a balanced ecosystem in which delicate puzzles have been woven? Maybe this is why it took so long for games like Minecraft and Disney Infinity to happen.
But even these days, how often do players find themselves trying to disarm a primed grenade that has escaped their grasp in a circular wind tunnel? How do you keep a flask from spilling water as you're caked by jetpack-clogging mushrooms thrown by cheeky imps? What do you do with a killer bee you've caught from its nest but stings while you flip through your inventory? What happens if you hold a frightened pink ball of fluff under red drops of acid jam? These just weren't the questions gamers were used to pondering. Equally important, it turned out nor were they questions a developer needed to contrive.
Exile.
The intelligence required for path-finding and strategy alone must have been a challenge in itself, but the indignance of that Darlek-esque sentinel as I landed politely on its head, the audacity of the villain Triax teleporting in and out to shoot me in the back, that endearing desperation whenever Fluffy clung to me for dear life... Was any of that real or did I imagine it? Advanced AI has often proved a poor investment in games. It can be so very clever but the bottom line is: if it's not noticed, it's completely wasted. The AI in Exile probably doesn't compare to what exists in today's games, but again... this isn't what's important. The secret is frequently staring right at us, through the eyes of a great movie star or even a wooden actor who knows when to exploit that unfortunate quality. Explicit emotional performances or Shakespearean monologues aren't necessary to immerse the audience in the mind of the character. Many actors have made the point that the power of ambiguity can be far more powerful. If there's drama in the situation, the audience can do all that leg work for the actor, who only has to project the illusion of thought. Artificial intelligence in entertainment is as much about anthropomorphism as it is about explicit communication or action. If it's done well it can be concocted in the eye of the beholder, emerging from situation, emerging from conflict, as an emergent... narrative.
Exile demonstrated a strong sense for crafting these natural unpredictable behaviour patterns, giving the illusion of a deeper intelligence and appearing to show changes in mood or temperament. Even if that sometimes just meant knowing when to hold still for a few seconds and do absolutely nothing, like when you give a spider a little poke to watch it play dead. How can something so motionless be so captivating? The AI was superb, but so was this pseudo AI.
For many reasons Exile was the game that made the biggest impression on me, and it wasn't long before I hooked up with school friend Chris Mullender to make our own game for the Amiga 500. What started out as a simple platformer inspired by Giana Sisters soon ballooned into our own sprawling world of bizarre creatures that followed their own laws and physical abilities. We realised then that we had both been heavily inspired by the land of Exile, even down to logistics such as memory management. It was literally impossible to store a map of that size into 32k. Chris' research uncovered how the map was constructed from selected procedural tile sets. This blew my mind, it felt like the big bang in reverse. Also, I remembered seeing the game played on an even less powerful machine, an Acorn Electron and noticed a large portion of the screen filled with corrupt graphics. It turned out this was no bug, but a technique that harnessed the screen buffer to store data. Genius! So we stored our game's hidden cave map data in the island's negative space - the sky. This instantly halved the size of our map data.
We learnt a lot regarding how so much could be put into so little space. It felt only natural to write a fan letter to the developers of Exile, and I was thrilled to receive a handwritten reply from Peter Irvin. However, it was in that letter I learned the tragic news of the death of his co-developer Jeremy Smith (who had previously created the much loved gravity game Thrust). Also sad was the speculation of what magic such a partnership would have gone on to create next.
In a strange mirroring of fate, a sequence of events followed that saw us releasing our game Odyssey under the same publisher as the Amiga version of Exile. My partner was hired to code for Peter's following projects and by the end of the next decade I had lost Chris, my co-creator and closest friend to a sudden illness. I was most touched when Peter reached out to console me, having been through the very same thing with Jeremy.
Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.
When I look back on the development of Odyssey, before it entered that tough phase to bring it to completion, I remember the joyful fleshing out on whim and self indulgence. We drew on what excited us and made us laugh. I ate lots of biscuits and Chris drank lots of tea. We were making it because we enjoyed the process. Who knew that making a game could be as much fun as playing one?
When the red light blinked on the camcorder, I dollied towards the puppet and triggered the microdet. But the jam didn't explode. There was a loud pop and sparks flew from its head but the balloon was so tightly packed that it launched intact, remaining lodged and bulging out of its forehead. We were mucking about... and we mucked it up, but it was hilarious fun. Much like the time we filmed a firework backfiring a cardboard bazooka, singeing the armpit of my brother's favourite teddy bear. Or when a friend painted his face silver and climbed into his mum's washing machine, snapping the door off its hinges. We weren't playing to win, we were playing to play.
Now I find myself in the role of a responsible parent, supplying the back garden and fencing in the boundaries for my own kids to push. But like a lot of games developers still under the spell, I'm really just trying to recreate the playgrounds of my own childhood. If I'm still mucking around at middle age where things make only less sense, then it looks like I'll remain forever in exile, playing happily with grenades, pink balls of fluff and raspberry preserves.
0 notes
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