Side Saddle 2: Side Harder!

My adventures in game design are largely experimental in nature; I like to take weird ideas and ask weird questions and see if the end result is playable or interesting. The only one of my explicitly experimental games that I'm not embarrassed by is Side Saddle.

Side Saddle
Added: 08 January 2009
By: tomrussell

(You can play it at Yo Yo Games using their instant play plug-in or you can download it right to your desktop.)

Action games are about controlling space, but in non-arena shmups, both vertical and horizontal, I find the control of space to be too easy. Yes, in bullet hell games, it's difficult to dodge-and-shoot, but in many games you can basically just strafe back-and-forth along one axis-- the horizontal axis in a vertical game and the vertical one in a horizontal-- and rapidly press or hold the fire button to destroy whatever legions of enemies are coming at you.

The player can hang back at either the bottom or left of the screen and fire from there; their shots stretch out over wider axis of the game's orientation.

There are some shmups, of course, that don't allow the player to fall into this trap. Enemies with heat-seeking missiles and arcing bullets prevent the player from getting too comfy. Cactus's great game Clean Asia requires you to ram through an enemy in order to gather the shots used to defeat them. And you don't want to move along one axis in a bullet hell game.

But I was wondering to myself, is there another way to do this? The big problem for me was, again, the way the bullets dominate the longer axis. I considered using "funny" bullets that spin around and I thought about using bullets that peter out after so many seconds. But I couldn't really get either to implement particularly well.

That's when the thought occured to me of flipping the axis; of having the bullets control the short axis rather than the long one.

In such a game, the player would have to get right next to an enemy in order to shoot them, putting a renewed focus on how the player moves through and controls space. And that's when I started working on Side Saddle, a side-shooting vertical shmup. But there was still a problem; I found that my playtesters were moving along the vertical axis, up-and-down, shooting willy-nilly. Shorter axis or not, it was still the same trap.

And that's where the ammo idea came from; players would now have to conserve their ammo and aim carefully. Accuracy became important. And the reloading motif-- the ammo only reloads when the player isn't moving-- would require the player to think more deeply about the way they moved through space, to consider if they should stop here and for how long.

It also introduced a dynamic tension into the way the player dealt with enemies. If you kill an enemy quickly, you'll have more time to recharge ammo for the next wave; if you wait longer, the enemy will be worth more points but you'll have less time to recharge. And since every 10,000 points gave the player a turret power-up, thus increasing their ability to control space and avoid dying, scoring more points is ideal.

So that, in a nutshell, is the decision-making process that resulted in this game. It's a difficult game, but it's perfectly winnable if the player (1) conserves ammo, (2) fires accurately, (3) stops moving to recharge his ammo, (4) strikes a balance between his ammo-needs and his power-up wants, and (5) uses the entire playfield.

The problem with all that is, it's pretty much hard-wired to support one style of play (the style enumerated above) and to dismiss all others (such as the move-along-one-axis and firing-willy-nilly-at-everything school of shmupping). I stand by the decisions I've made and I think there's a lot of good, challenging, and strategic play in it, that it has a fair amount of replay value.

At the same time, I'm dubious about any game that doesn't allow the player to use their own play style and strategies. While I still think, at least at this stage when it is admittedly still very fresh in my heart and my mind, Side Saddle is a good game, it should have supported more varied styles of play.

Part of the problem is, admittedly, by design-- the whole point of the game, from the start, was to "correct" "lazy" play habits in shmup game play by removing the strategy of moving along one axis while controlling the other with your bullets. But, y'know-- some people like that style of play. (Heck, sometimes I do.) So maybe the whole time I was operating from a false premise.

I'm certainly not trying to dissuade anyone from playing my game--please dear God play my game-- and in fact I hope that the preceding prods some people into giving it a look.

Video Games | Side Saddle, Boss # 1 & Beyond

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

(Please forgive the poor image quality in this clip; it was either shoot off the screen as I did or use Cam Studio to slow the game down to an unplayable crawl.)

I'm currently at work on another shmup, a sequel that takes three of Side Saddle's defining features-- side-shooting on a vertical screen, placing turret power-ups, and an ammo feature-- and pushes them into a new direction, one that hopefully supports more diverse styles of play. If anyone who has played the original wants to give me some feedback that can be implemented in its sequel-- or if anyone wants to play the original now and give me more of the same-- now would be the time to do so.

Side Saddle
Added: 08 January 2009
By: tomrussell

Damnation!

Honorary Russell Jake Hildebrandt-- he who is The Man Who Loved, as well as Daniel Taintview in the There Will Be Poon segment of Son of a Seahorse-- is perhaps better known as one of the Two Jakes of Steampunk. (And while it wasn't exactly steampunk, his technological prowess was responsible for the fearsome Robot Lady in Son of a Seahorse.)

Lately, much of his time has been spent creating a computer as a give-away for the upcoming steampunk video game Damnation. And the following videos provide an in-depth look at that process:




Visit Jake at his official website.

Anatomy of a Comments Thread: The Saga of "mrmike", and How to Make a Movie For $300

I just want to make films and act...but I can't get anyone to work with me because, they don't like this or they don't like that. jesus, do you have to be a perfect person? how do i know you're not delusional. I bet you don't want to work with me either...

So ran the twenty-sixth and latest comment in what has been the longest comments thread in this site's history. Roughly twenty of those comments, including that one, are the work of "mrmike" (no spaces). I guess he has a lot to say.

Much of it is combative; he's not much of a fan of Ray Carney, the subject of the post in question. And, since Carney is a controversial figure, and since I disagree with a lot of his token dismissals of great filmmakers, and since he sometimes gets on my nerves as well-- well, then, sure, I don't have a problem with that. There is in fact a staunchly anti-Carney filmmaker I've been trying to goad into just such a discussion.

And mrmike also has a problem with the filmmakers that have been cramped together rather uncomfortably under the mumblecore bumbleshoot. And though I count some of those filmmakers among my friends, and though I enjoy their films greatly and have been known to defend their works online, I have my own issues with certain trends in their films and welcome intelligent discussion and spirited debate along those lines.

It's not so much the fact that we have some differences of opinion that leads me to call him "combative"-- there is in fact a sizable amount of overlap between mrmike and myself-- but rather it's a matter of tone. He throws around words like "snobs" and "hipsterism" (perhaps he is Armond White in disguise?), pulls out the old mumblecore-is-a-incestuous-"club" chestnut, tells me to pull my head "out of my ass". He also went as far as to disparage the use of Joe Swanberg's "mailed-in performance" in Son of a Seahorse, a film he's never seen, in his eighth consecutive comment.

also i'd like to say i don't have any friends...i know...i know... that's suprising right? i'll tell you what though...i would never in a million years accept some ones mailed in performance for something i loved if i asked them to do it out of my heart. i either find someone else that actually can be there or i don't do it, no matter who they are. that stuffs no good. it's not only demeaning to the film your trying to make...it's demeaning to themselves and acting and our humanity in general. i appreciate the concept of working with what you have but surely you can understand the deeper implications of that...it's no good

And though that irked me, I deemed not to respond. Though some of the points contra-Carney and contra-mumblecore were worthy of discussion, the way he chose to present those points left me feeling mighty cold.

All was quiet for roughly a month. And then, just a few days ago, mrmike returned. The first of his next four (once again consecutive) comments made another "observation" about Son of a Seahorse, which, again, he's never seen.

you'd think that a smart guy would realize for instance that if you're making a film about anger and you want to understand it and go deep and explore that and move people you probably shouldn't make your main character into a charactture [sic] and mock smething [sic] that's actually quite a relevant and difficult problem.

And that comment left me feeling rather raw indeed, as his description of SOASH has pretty much nothing at all to do with the film my wife and I spent over a year of our lives making. A film that we invested a lot of ourselves into emotionally and, dare I say, physically-- a film that we're currently preparing to push out into the world and that we love dearly. This was something I could not and would not brook. And so I leaped to the film's defense against what I termed to be a "half-assed swipe" and an "unwarranted attack".

mrmike responded:

it wasn't an attack, it was an observation admittedly based on what little i viewed. i will gladly watch your film when it's available and with an open mind and if i'm wrong or i think i am i'll let you know that too. for what it's worth . in fact if you want i can come over to your house and work on something.i'm serious. i'm actually getting pretty good with a camera and i'm a fairly decent actor and not a bad guy overall....i'm actually a pretty good listener in person too...let me know

I presume by "what little I viewed" he's referring to one of a trailers, none of which, to my mind, present Nick as a caricature or a subject of mockery.

But, anyway, his offer to "come over to your house and work on something", while surely magnanimous, did not look particularly enticing. Still, the offer was touching, if a bit out of left-field, and he certainly seemed a little less combative. I figured that I owed him an answer, and a explanation of that answer.

let me be brutally honest: while I share some of your doubts about Carney/mumblecore/independent film/Cassavetes, the way in which you express them-- by which I refer not to your writing style or the above-mentioned need to use paragraphs as opposed to huge chunks of text, but rather to the *tone*-- leaves something to be desired. The name-calling, the combativeness, the "pissed and bitter"ness, the negativity aimed at people I count among my friends, the accusations of pandering-- well, it doesn't exactly stoke up a great desire to work with you, frankly.

And maybe that's more "me" than "you". We might appreciate his films, but we're no Cassavetes; I'm very square and while we explore difficult and taxing emotions and ideas in our films, we like to do so in an environment that's amiable and relaxed, as we feel that allows people to do their best possible work. We do not thrive on set chaos or interpersonal tensions but rather we strive to eliminate them.

Just as you made a judgment about our work based on, I guess one of the trailers or a poster or something, I've made a judgment of you based on the comments you've left here and on alejandroadams.com; just as I think you're wrong about us, you likely think we're wrong about you. But, at the moment, you strike me as someone who would bring unwanted drama to our set, someone who is perhaps too immoderate in his passions, who does not "play well with others". For some directors, this is an asset, this is essential to doing good work. But not for us.

I felt my answer was necessarily firm but reasonable. Most of the exchange that followed centered on our divergent views of the necessity for punctuation, grammar, and paragraphing. That's really another story for another time. But folded within that exchange was the following:

I have no desire to prove anything neccesarily but i'll tell you this, aside from my abrasiveness which is not constant even in the posts, if I came over to your home to work on something I'd give it my absolute undivided attention and my 100 percent all. That's a lot. It's an offer as much of a request. Who knows you might be really suprised...you might not. Think about it either. Maybe sometime in the future.

I chose to ignore that at the time, returning to the issue of grammar; he then posted three more responses. This prompted a commentator named Jason to toss out the following observation:

Mr. Mike, you should stop leaving posts. You sound like a delusional asshole.

Which leads us right back to where we started:

I just want to make films and act...but I can't get anyone to work with me because, they don't like this or they don't like that. jesus, do you have to be a perfect person? how do i know you're not delusional. I bet you don't want to work with me either...

And this latest (though likely not last) comment from mrmike has stuck with me for a few hours now. It's not so much that I don't have an answer for it, or that what he said or the way in which he said it was particularly thought-provoking. It's that I detect a great deal of sadness in it along with the anger. A palpable loneliness is as present as the abrasiveness.

And I've felt that sadness, that dejection, that bitterness and anger. While I disagree with him strongly when he rails against well-structured paragraphs and sentences that begin with capital letters, I detect a resentment for credentialed bullshit and social strictures that I share. I never went to college, which has greatly limited my opportunities in Michigan's already perilous job market. I have to make extra money on the side writing term papers for college students who are too lazy or stupid to do it themselves. And they end up with a little piece of paper that says they're better than me, and so they get jobs while I don't even get the courtesy of an interview. (And my stutter pretty much guarantees that if I am interviewed, I'm denied the job.)

I feel left out, I feel excluded and shit-upon, and, yes, boy-howdy, am I angry and bitter about it! I can identify with mrmike, I can feel his pain like Jerry Lewis in The Disorderly Orderly. I know what it's like to be ignored and to be laughed at. I understand all too well that anger/bitterness is not a choice but something that grows in you like a cancer, something that you cannot control.

I feel a great deal of empathy towards mrmike, and that's why I can't just write him off as a "delusional asshole". (Though I honestly can't say that mrmike has not given Jason more than ample grounds to make that determination.) I feel for him and I want to help him, to reach out to him. But at the same time, that doesn't really make me want to cast him in a film, to become friends with him, or to invite him into my home for any reason.

And that is totally my choice to make. In what was likely a bout of delusion of my own, I recently asked John Hodgman to be in one of our films. "We have no money," said I, "but you get to be eaten by a T-Rex, who will then defecate you outwards." And Mr. Hodgman said, sorry, but I'm too busy, no thanks (though he said it in a far pithier and more Hodgmanesque manner).
Photograph by Mai Le, used via CC-BY 2.0

And I said, "Okay, I understand." Because that was his choice to make. He has the right to decide what to do with his time and his person. Just as when mrmike asks, "will you cast me in your film?", it is my choice to make, my right. And just as I have to respect Mr. Hodgman's decision, and just as I have to be aware that he owes me nothing and is under no obligation to agree, mrmike will have to respect and accept my refusal.

And I'm not trying to imply, per se, that he doesn't accept it. But by his remark-- "I can't get anyone to work with me because, they don't like this or they don't like that. jesus, do you have to be a perfect person?"-- he seems to think that people who don't want to work with him are trying to slight him in some way or that they're being unreasonable. Well, they're not.

So that's first of all, and it really should be everything; there's no need to go further than that. But I have to wonder, why would mrmike want to work with us in the first place? He hasn't seen any of our films, but feels compelled to question our working methods and end results. If he thinks we're all mumbly-bumbly, with all the like y'know twenty-somethings doing their passive-aggressive mating dance thing, he'd be in for quite a rude shock. Even The Man Who Loved, which is closest to mumblecore of all our films and is currently available on DVD for the low, low price of $15-- whoa, got off course with the self-promotion there. But even that film is only "close to mumblecore" the way in which Faygo Rock 'N Rye is close to Cherry Coke.

As you can see if you buy the DVD, we use scripts, tripods, in-focus shots, and lights, and we do so proudly. But let's assume that we were all mumbly-bumbly after all; why would mrmike, whose disdain for those films is a matter of record (pandering hipsters!), want to work on a film like that in the first place?

Let's take it at face-value: he just wants to make movies and act, but no one will work with him. Doesn't matter what movies, doesn't matter who he's working with-- he just wants to do it. Presumably, he's asked other filmmakers, perhaps even some of the mumbly-bumblies for which he expresses such a strong dislike, and presumably, they've turned him down as I have. What's to be done?

As it happens, there's a quote for just such an occasion.

After years of acting in small parts here and there... I had an epiphany: Why fall all over myself trying to get people to put me in their projects when I actually had something to say?

The speaker in this case is Mary Bronstein, director of the highly divisive film Yeast. Some love it, some hate it, some found it a monumental waste of time; for the record, I'm in the "love it" camp. (Your mileage may vary.)

Whatever one thinks of the finished film, I think most of us can agree with her sentiment: if no one's casting you in their films, why not make your own? Well?

With digital video technology within reach, and 500-watt halogen bulbs running less than a couple bucks a piece, there is nothing preventing anyone from making a feature film. Nothing physical, at any rate.

Now, I'm going to lay the usual "can't find actors, do a monologue film!" or "can't find more than one location, make it claustrophobic!" bullshit on you. I can count the only good monologue films in the world on one hand, three of which star Spalding Gray and another directed by Robert Altman. But at the same time, one thing I’ve found in talking to other filmmakers is that human beings embarking on a creative project have a tendency to set up unnecessary obstacles for themselves– to create ways to ensure their own failure.

“I need to get a steadicam,” one will say; “I’ll start my film when I can afford a steadicam.” And, if they manage to get one, by that time another obstacle will have cropped up. “I need a big scene with extras. I need to find some extras.” “I need to get a crane shot.”

They pile on things that are just out of reach. Eight times out of ten, they don’t make the film; they’ve given themselves an excuse. They couldn’t get what they needed to make the film, it’s not their fault, poor baby!

One time out of ten, they make the film, and as they make it, they constantly complain about how they lack the things they need. And those things are like holes in the film; you can see how they try to fudge their way through a steadicam-like shot or a crowd scene.

But one time out of ten, they realize they’re setting up ways for themselves to fail. And so they re-write it and re-think and, sometimes, re-shoot it; they make it so they don’t need those things in the first place. They eliminate the need for a crowd scene instead of trying to fudge one. They make due with what they’ve got but they do so in such a way that the finished product is seamless.

And while I can't in good conscience judge our own efforts, I'd like to think that they are seamless, that they are full films in their own right instead of precocious calling cards that call attention to their limitations all cutesy-like. And, the cost of equipment, which we bought years ago, aside, The Man Who Loved cost us about $300: a few props, some gas money, some mini-DV tapes and some pizza. Son of a Seahorse cost a little bit more than that, but not much.

It is possible for you to make a feature film for three digits. You don't need funding and you don't need to wait for somebody else. Actors are not really that hard to find. Old friends, long forgotten, will fall back into your lives. Chance encounters will lead to something more, and if nothing else, there's always family. (My grandmother is still my favourite actress.)

Unless you're so abrasive that you've alienated everyone, that you really and truly have no friends or family or coworkers, you will find collaborators. And they won't be looking for Christ-like perfection; they will, however, be looking for a reason to work with you. You're asking them to devote hours, days, seasons of their life to you and your project; you're asking them to say the same lines over and over again under hot sticky lights instead of going to a museum or getting laid.

You have to give them a good reason to do that, a damn good reason, a reason that's better than sex. And, no, pizza, while enticing, generally doesn't do the trick. It's nice to have a project that they can believe in, that they can feel passionate about. But even that's not the most important thing; if it was, I wouldn't have spent so much time extra-ing on the set of shitty horror movies.

Ultimately, it comes down to wanting to spend time with the people you're asking them to spend time with, which includes, most of all, yourself. That doesn't mean you have to be charismatic or witty or confident. Lord knows I'm none of those things myself.

But you need to have something-- something that makes someone say, I'd rather be here spending this time with mrmike than getting that blow-job my girlfriend promised me. That's not the secret just to making films; it's the secret to making friends. And failing that "special something", you at the very least cannot give that other person a good reason to prefer that blow-job. Posting multiple comments in a row, throwing around epitaphs, sniping at your host (this being my site and all) and insulting his friends, being generally bitter and pissed-off-- well, let's just say I'd prefer the blow-job.

I said that I felt for mrmike, and that I wanted to help him and reach out to him. And all the above is meant to do just that. It is as far as I will go to help this particular fellow human being; I would not have gone this far if not for some qualities of myself I thought I spied within him. I chose to bring this whole thing out of the comments thread and onto the front page in the belief that these things are not particular to the two of us but are rather universal; hopefully others will derive some use from what is said here.

I wish all of us luck and growth.

Game Review: Riddick (Butcher's Bay & Dark Athena) Over at Monitor Duty

Tom here. I've begun doing game reviews of new commercial titles over at Monitor Duty, the geek news website. My style hasn't changed much since I opened my appreciation of Super Mario Bros. with a quote from Proust-- if you like in-depth analysis from a game design perspective that's unafraid to take the art form seriously, then it's for you. If you're more partial to, OMG!, this game was awesome!, look elsewhere.

First review: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, which contains both that game and the original, Escape From Butcher's Bay.

turtlebit: Video game commercials

I found an interesting item at GamePlayer. Here you will find 19 classic video game commercials, a virtual smorgasbord for the mind, waiting for you. Here are three to get you started.

First up is an ancient Sega Saturn commercial



Next up is Super Smash Brothers.



Last up is Sony Playstation 2.

Run Jump is Finished!

Run Jump
Added: 18 May 2009
By: tomrussell

Busy, Busy, Busy...

My To-Do List For This Weekend:

- a review of The Chronicles of Riddick: Butcher Bay & Dark Athena for Monitor Duty;

- my long-delayed second column in the Stripping With Tom Russell series for Comics Should Be Good!;

- finalizing the mini-commentary and menus for the self-distributed DVD edition of Son of a Seahorse, with Mary;

- getting back to work on the screenplay for our next film, Olivia Forever!, with Mary;

- digging up parts of our backyard in an attempt to transform it into a scrumptious vegetable garden;

- completing the design of the fourth and final level for Run Jump;

- and coming to terms with the fact that Saturday is almost over and that I won't get half of this done this weekend.

New Finalish DVD Slip Cover for SON OF A SEAHORSE

As we finalize the details/contents for our self-distributed DVD of Son of a Seahorse, we gave the cover another once-over and spiffed it up a bit.

Son of a Seahorse Trailer # 3

The third and probably final trailer for our film Son of a Seahorse. Might have to fiddle with your speaker's volume nob a little bit; YouTube has an alarming tendency to take audio we've spent a good chunk of time mixing just so and making it either too loud or too quiet for no discernable reason.

Son of a Seahorse Poster & DVD Cover Design

For many low-budget filmmakers, marketing is a word that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Marketing is about selling, not about art; about targeting an audience, not engaging them. And then there's those filmmakers and studios that are all about the marketing, all about selling the tickets and not about, you know, making a good film, making something that lasts.

In fact, so much was Tom's dislike of marketing that the first film the two of us made together, Milos, did not have a website, as was the trend. It was Mary, perhaps the more realistically minded of the two of us, who insisted on having a page for The Man Who Loved and Son of a Seahorse.

But now that we're self-distributing our films via Amazon (starting with The Man Who Loved), we can no longer ignore that marketing aspect. DVDs require DVD slip-case covers, and self-distribution requires some degree of self-promotion.

And actually and honestly? Mr. "I Hate Marketing" finds that he kind of enjoys the process of finding & creating images that might (1) communicate what the film is about and (2) persuade someone to purchase it, of deciding on and then arranging different elements, of creating "logo families" and tag-lines. It has absolutely almost nothing to do with filmmaking, but it is a sort of bastard art in its own right. (And even Mr. "I Hate Marketing" can admit that he has some serious love for some of the old posters, especially those that came out of Eastern Europe: so striking, so lovely, so kinetic.)

Anyway, with that preamble out of the way, we thought we'd take you through some of the various forms the marketing (such as it is) for Son of a Seahorse.

To begin with, there was this poster:


Three things here that you'll note: the blue font (Aardvark Bold, which was actually used in the film), this particular shot of David screaming, and the salmon-coloured suit that he's wearing. These three things remain pretty constant through-out the various itinerations that follow, mostly because they're distinctive and, we hope, memorable.

Our second poster is really just the first with the full cast; a miniature version of this was sent to festivals along with the screener. Were we doing this to try and capitalize on the presence of Joe Swanberg in our cast? You bet your ass we were. Did it work? Not in the slightest.



Our next poster concept was a little more daring:



Notice that the three motifs we mentioned before are present: the blue Aardvark, the screaming David (in the form of the line drawing), the salmon-suit. In this case, the suit is suggested by negative space, the colour filling up the poster. The shot of David walking also had a nice "lonely man" motif-- something that we felt reflected well on the film.

I think it's a really neat concept for a poster. Unfortunately, we couldn't quite execute it to our satisfaction. The major problem was the drawing: if you look back at the first two posters, David's facing left. We drew it that way, and then flipped it; flipped, it just doesn't feel "right". At the same time, the head facing inwards (towards the walking David) didn't feel right either. We tried it without the drawing--



-- but it's not striking enough, doesn't communicate enough about the film. When we started working on the DVD cover, we abandoned this concept and went back to our original for the front. We tried the drawn version of that same image, now facing left once more, for the back.



We added as text one of the best lines from the film:



Unfortunately, that line is Adrienne's. Putting it next to the David head makes it look like it's his line. And then it doesn't make any sense: is the angry guy yelling at himself to stop yelling? We decided we had better go for a more traditional back-of-the-box text, in all its ego-stoking glory. Gone went the head.



Also note that instead of a solid orangey-pink-salmon back we added a blue box and separated them with a bar of black/stills. This put a greater deal of stress on the use of blue for the text, making blue and salmon our film's two marketing colours. But that "Jam-Packed With Extras!" blue is a little lost in the bottom box, and so we made one more change:



And, by the way, it is going to be jam-packed with extras. In addition to a mini-commentary like the one we provided on The Man Who Loved, you'll find the complete short film Bernard the Lonely Snail, and three episodes of Ned and Sunshine, the zombie sitcom, including one no longer available online. And, heck, we might even throw in a trailer or two:


(Really, seriously, click on that HQ button; the "standard" edition lags and chops all to hell.)

Unless we get a sudden offer from a distribution company (which, being poor, we'd be more than happy to accept), you can expect Son of a Seahorse to be available this June for fifteen measly dollars. Heck, buy it with The Man Who Loved to qualify for that free super-saver shipping. Or wait until later in the summer, when our long unseen original cut of Milos will be made available for the very first time, also with various fine and sundry supplements.

The marketing of that one, of course, will be a whole 'nother discussion...

Thoughts Towards a Nose-Hair Free Cinema

The Close-Up is a beautiful thing. Striking, powerful, unrelenting, searching. The cornerstone of cinema, of continuity editing.

















From top to bottom: Dreyer, Chaplin, Capra, Leone, Cassavetes, Bronstein, Motlagh, and us. By grouping these stills together, we don't mean to imply any equivalency; the only thing they have in common is a human face that fills up the frame. Hopefully, you'll find those human faces as interesting and the images as visually arresting as we do. The close-up can have an enormous amount of impact.

Heck, Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc is pretty much all close-ups, all the time, edited together with hypnotic, almost feverish force. So you're not going to hear me saying something like, "Close-ups should be used sparingly to maintain their impact."

All that being said, it has come to our attention that an awful lot of contemporary American independent films, particularly those shot on digital video with a 1.37 aspect ratio, use an awful lot of close-ups. Our own film, The Man Who Loved, as you might intuit from that last still, certainly falls into that camp, for good or for ill.

Some might say that an over-use of close-ups results in a claustrophobic film, but I don't think that's true; to give a sense of claustrophobia, one must be made intensely aware of his or her physical surroundings. A claustrophobic film, like an agoraphobic one, must give the audience some meaningful sense of space. A film comprised solely of close-ups doesn't do that. Instead, it does quite the opposite: it makes things more abstract. Characters in close-up are disembodied and quite cut off from their surroundings, so much so that those surroundings cease to matter. The characters are no longer people in places but ideas untethered and adrift.

Dreyer understood this in making his Passion of Joan of Arc: by keeping us close to Falconetti, he keeps us inside her pain, pushes us into the spiritual glories of her beatific suffering. A process that is assisted ably by his purely visual rhythm (do not watch it with music; that is a heresy.)

The thing is, I'm not sure if we and our contemporaries are going for what Dreyer is going for. The way we hear it (and tell it) we're all about representing life as we live it, keeping it real, insert another cliche here, et cetera, et cetera. And by over-relying on close-ups and thus removing our films from the physical world and the concerns of physical bodies moving through physical space, we run the risk of utilizing a style that runs completely counter to our aims and intentions.

We realized this ourselves just before we began shooting Son of a Seahorse. There were three things that were more-or-less responsible for this realization.

First, there was some dissatisfaction with the use of space in The Man Who Loved. Both Man and Seahorse were shot in our home, with most of the action taking place in the living room-dining room-kitchen area, three rooms which overlap like so:



In one pivotal scene in The Man Who Loved, Sarah (Adrienne Patterson) exits the kitchen towards the dining room and into the living room. Before George (Jacob Hildebrandt, the angry looking fellow from the screenie) can follow, she whips around the living room and back into the kitchen via the hallway. It's a cool little shot.

Unfortunately, because we didn't give the audience any real sense of the physical space the characters were living in, it didn't really work: it was like she was popping up out of nowhere. We didn't realize this, of course, until we actually sat down with viewers who didn't live in our house.

The second thing that led to this realization was the fact that longtime friend and collaborator David Schonscheck was taking the lead role. David absolutely defies any attempt to contain him in a close-up. He's such a big sprawling gangly personality, filled with a nervous energy, always on the move, using his entire body to relate even the most mundane of anecdotes. Filming with David meant we had to frame wide for David, and it occurred to us that this was a more respectful way to work with actors.

Instead of chopping their performances into tiny close-up slices, crafting personalities and creating new life-rhythms in the editing room like tin gods, our actors simply raw materials to use at our will-- instead of that, going wider and holding longer meant we had to trust the actors to set the pace for a given scene, to interact with each other, to hold the audience's attention, to inhabit their characters through movement, gesture, and mass rather than just their voices and faces.

Thirdly, we started playing video games-- Tom coming back to them after a long dry spell and Mary coming to them for the first time. Even more-so than in film, the clear statement of spatial relationships and the ability to impart a sense of geography is paramount in the video game art form. If you can't see how wide a pit is or you can't judge the speed of an enemy (a common problem in the earliest of 3-D platformers and action games), you're screwed; and how many of us have spent needless time wandering around a level after finding the red key trying to remember where the hell the red door was? Spending more time playing, writing about, and creating video games really got us thinking more critically about the spatial element in our films.

The end result, I think, is a much stronger-- and much more realistic-- film. Something to think about the next time you're zooming in for that close-up.

A final note: this is not directed at or inspired by any particular film by any particular contemporary filmmaker. We're just commenting on a trend and trying to inspire some thought and some debate.