The Muffin Zoetrope

THE FALL OF FILM TRAILERS

Film Trailers. Lovely as they can be, I have a bone to pick with them. To start off, I'll have to pay homage to my first experiences at the cinema seeing Trailers at the start of films in the mid-90s: these were amazing times. Often, although you didn't know whether or not the film you were seeing was going to be good, there was the additional pre-show excitement of seeing a bunch of 5 or so Trailers for other upcoming films. Speedily editing, fast cutting with climactic action music and slicing, crunching sound effects, Trailers took the Best Bits out of a film and smooshed them together in a Zoetrope of thrill.

As time went on, Trailers successfully followed this same formula, but it became clearer what the flaws of this flashy promotion were. These trailers often out-shone the films they were promoting, indeed, it was true that ripping all the best scenes out of a movie and showing them off within a couple of minutes essentially meant that when you saw the actual film, you were watching the boring bits in-between the blink-and-you'll-miss-it profound amazement moments. In the 2000s, this flaw reached critical mass when films like 'Open Water' were essentially just a long version of their own trailer.

Not only this, but enigmatic horror films that went by the mantra "the less you show, the more scary it is" hypocritically showed most of their film in 1 teaser trailer, 2 main trailers, a pre-release making-of featurette and 5 TV spots.

 Then there is imagination. There was a furore surrounding the overhyping of the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies before they were released. The Matrix (the original film) shocked audiences by providing them with a slice of its gritty sci-fi world. A world which, we only saw a fraction of, and yet our imaginations were racing... in our minds, those of us that were fans, saw the plot going to a different place (and you could apply this to many other things, the Star Wars prequels for instance). It's amazing what the creativity of our own varied and unique consciousnesses can make up, and when the Trailers for The Matrix 2&3 (Reloaded, and Revolutions) came out, we had basically written the plot in our own heads. ALL the things that SHOULD happen, and that COULD happen, right there, filling the gaps between every shot in the Trailer. We had invented it. But it was not to be, and as majestic in scale as these 2 films were, they could not compete with the much larger visions that a multitude of us, commenting on their Trailers had had.

I will mention music also, for I am a big fan of 'Nine Inch Nails', the punchy Industrial band, which some smart Hollywood exec has heard, and seen fit that it should be 'cathartic Trailer music'. So they pick these, undoubtably cool, and darkly atmospheric tracks, and they put them over movie teasers like '300' and 'Terminator Salvation' - it has the desired affect of making us go "fucking wow, I'm definitely seeing this" (and, don't get me wrong, 300 was a good flick), but after watching the images in the Trail' being scored by NIN, my mind was making the movie out to be 10 times better than it actually was. And also - there's no NIN in the actual movie, which is anticlimactic. (In fact the only place you're likely to find NIN in an actual movie is a sinisterly-edited Tony Scott film.)

On Youtube today (which has stupidly allowed itself to be consumed by advertising, much alike the burden carried by TV programmes), you may start watching the Trailer for a film you want to see, only to find yourself greeted by a pre-Trailer ad-break that selects random advertising to throw in your face before you get to see the Trailer, which is itself, ironically, advertising. Also, I have noticed that sometimes the randomisation that selects an advert to force you to watch before seeing your Trailer of choice, is often, the Trailer for the same film.

Similarly, when sitting in a cinema, the pre-film Trailers (which, unlike in the 90s, now lag behind a 15-minute block of product-placement advertising) turn out to be for the film you are about to see. Isn't it questionable logic to see a Trailer for a Film followed immediately by the Film itself? Are we treating films like food, perhaps, like the supermarket Free-Sample Muffin taster tray, in front of all the rows of on-sale Muffins on the shelf? Is that how we're meant to think of them? If so, what if I'd seen the Muffins on the shelf and said "hey I like the look of those, I'm definitely going to buy some later", only to have the Free-sample Lady trying to force-feed me Muffins while I make my way through the vegetable aisle, shoving muffins down my throat everywhere I go? Don't you think that when I finally get back to the cake aisle, I might not only have lost my appetite for Muffins, and also have felt pretty violated?

DVDs used to be lovely and free from advertising and Trailers when they first came out - you could watch features to do with the film in the menu, and occasionally SELECT trailers of other films to watch if you wanted to. But then DVDs somehow fell prey to the VHS disease, with pre-menu Trailers bunged onto the disc, up in your face, usually unskippable.

I'm waiting for people to get wise about Advertising (and remove it...from life) and one of the branches of that much longed-for ideal consists of getting wise about Trailers.

I want Filmmakers to think a little more like this: look, if you're gonna have a Trailer for your film, make it small, like a one-off Teaser, maximum of 20 seconds, and DON'T give away your plot in the Teaser, in fact, don't put ANY of your best scenes in. Bullet-point your 20 best scenes in your film, and avoid putting any of them in the trailer. 

The next wise advancement beyond that I would petition for, of course, will be to have NO trailers. Can you imagine the joy of going into a Cinema to see a Film? That's not actually what happens right now. You go to a cinema to pay more for sweet things than you would anywhere else, and see adverts of many kinds asking you to spend, including an advert for the Film you're about to see, and then of course, the Film. (Which technically because of Trailers, you already have seen.)  The thing is, the requirement to constantly create new films in general is dying out at the moment, so a lot of this is too little too late. There's simply too much to fix for such an ageing medium, largely replaced by the more flexible storytelling tool of computer games.

Unfortunately, advertising is flourishing, in the same way a swarm of crop-destroying insects flourishes. More on that story later.

-Des

Irrationality and Omniscience.

Social Networking's effect on Crowd Thought and Irrational views.

It seems so easy to fall into arguments with 'the arrogants' online. You can try it now. Many people you meet or have access to every day can, by misunderstanding or need for superiority, convert your nice words into provocation worthy of their combatitive hatred. You can see it online through messageboards, comments at the end of pictures, Youtube videos, or newspaper articles, in the more un-private areas of the web. The internet enables nothing new, and without it humans would still do exactly the same, it's just that through the internet things are revealed to us. People who were un-enlightened about mass verbal wars before (in the physical world), are suddenly now in a position to be privy to it, able to see all of human behaviour as a whole, even though it was this way long before the web, a just as massive but invisible occurrence. But an occurrence nonetheless.

The world without the internet is analogous to the world without newspapers, TV, or telephones. As you step back to the past in your lovely time-machine, and reverse the advancement of communication tech, you see people look more isolated in the past. They heard less, saw less, were ignorant of more, and were arguably unconcerned about what their neighbours were doing. Ignorance is bliss?

If there's one thing Mass Communication is taking to a climax, it's the ability to SEE and KNOW what EVERYONE is doing, where they are, what they think, what they look like, instantaneously. If the trend continues, we will be omniscient within our own human race. I don't think that will unite us as one mind though, just make us more concerned that we can hear a thousand voices, (like Superman?) instead of raising our own. An individual's words will be more meaningless. The intelligent people will become quieter, and more intent to be offline and disconnected.

We never thought about our ability to regulate our own mass global connection, and as a result we see a million people's private lives and what they contain/how they are different from ours, instead of remembering we have our own life to live. It's distracting.

From trends to advertising to status anxiety (envying the power and wealth of others), the majority of people are plugging their brains into the mass surge, a stormy sea of thoughts. If only it could be displayed in such a pictorial form, then maybe the web-developers would better understand how to channel the flow.


-Des

Blackcats & Orangepads

WHY I LOVE BATTLEFIELD:2142

I'm running up the plain through the snow, running, because I just saw on my Minimap that Silo Number 4 just changed from that friendly blue icon to a sinister red. Those pesky europeans are at it again. On the hill overhead pulls up the square lumbering shape of an EU tank, facing me. As a lone pedestrian of a soldier, I have a few options, the quickest and simplest lined up before my fingers. "Spotted Tank." I yell down the radio. The Tank fires off a shell that I luckily miss by virtue of strafing. Luckily, our team Commander, a godlike eye-in-the-sky is on the ball, as the ground reverberates in a blue shimmer around the tank, it electrically surges - telltale sign of an EMP blast from the level's weapons sattellite. The Tank is temporarily immobilised, giving me a moment of reprieve with which I run around the back of it toward Silo #4. The Tank isn't the only one guarding it. I spot the activity of 3 silhouetted soldiers, glints of orange catching the light as they move between shade. An EU squad. As I lob a deftly-flung grenade in their direction, the Tank beside me wakes up, its swivelling gun springs to life, rotating my way once again. Helpfully, cover is never far from a Silo, and I relocate around the base of a staircased-tower before the turret can face me. From a peep-hole I watch the Tank try to reverse but the Commander is still watching him on sattellite, and calls for an Orbital Artillery Strike. The whistlings through the air of bombs momentarily terrifies all soldiers in the vicinity, indescriminate of team, and everyone bolts for cover - anywhere that can put a roof over their head. The thuds are loud and jarring, relentless for 10 seconds. When silence finally falls, the area where the Tank once stood is a scorched, flaming hulk, but now soldiers begin swarming out from shelter, and the battle for Silo #4 really begins...

This is a segment of what life is like in Battlefield:2142, an online futuristic shooter in which up to 64 human players can join together (via the delights of the internet) and wage war over vast snowy terrains.

The key to developing multiplayer war sims like this is to have a system of balanced character 'Classes' that each have a rock-paper-scissors effect upon coming into contact with an opposing class. Every team of 30 or so soldiers can pick 1 of 4 character loadouts, Assault, Support, Engineer, and Recon, with the further option of 'applying' in each game to become Commander (until the game ends, or democratic mutiny occurs). The 4 classes all have different situational traits that help them exploit the flow of the battle, and a lack of too many of one kind is a weakness in the whole team.
For instance, you need en Engineer to repair vehicles and mechanical machines, as well as do damage to enemy vehicles. You need a Sniper(recon) to allow striking soldiers to advance, and whereas the Supportist can replenish ammo, the Assault class of soldier carries healthpacks and has the ability to effectively resurrect friendlies in the field, using the claw-like defibrillator.

The whole of Battlefield's gameplay revolves around not only your skill with witty strategy, but also this Balance of situational classes, and your adaptation to gizmos that can only outdo each other in certain ways.

It is this that makes BF2142's gameplay frantic, intelligent and exciting. Over time, you learn that when you pull a gadget out of your pocket, you have a certain role to play to benefit your allies pushing forward through hellish, hostile valleys of death. The only way to win is to be cunning, and apply everything you've got to the unusual ambushes that are thrown at you.

But BF2142 is so dense, and manages to boil down a lot of complexity into simple systems that it would be an injustice to say I could describe everything.

The Art & Sound design is breathtakingly well-done, with a world apparently turned to permanent Winter, with hard-hitting technological soundscapes lending it a rather 'Battle Of Hoth' feeling, which sells the the game as somewhere you exist in to do your harrowing military job. But in all honesty, you are often far too busy or having too much fun to pay attention to these wonderful aesthetics, in danger (as you are) from imminent death at every turn. Although surrounded by this solidly conceived world it is hard not to feel immersed.

Replayability in BF2142 is mostly offered to you in an RPG-style 'levelling-up' system, as you gain ever higher Ranks in answer to your increasing experience and cleverness in battle. These Ranks are not just a pretty label - as each one allows you to purchase a weapon or tool from a hidden technology tree. The more prestigious you get from your mad antics - the more varied are the contents of your backpack.

Some of the highlights of things you'll want to play with in the game include the 'Pilum', an enormous rifle that spits out vehicle-killing pellets but is slow to reload per shot, a deployable Sentry-turret (á la Aliens) that you leave behind to mow down anyone walking in front of its rabid muzzle, Grenades that vacuum up all nearby mines, and toys like the hugely useful infantry-spotting radar - a sticky transmitter you can slap on a wall that will beam local life-signs to your map for easy location of hidden troops.

And no mass war sim would be complete without vehicles! The stand-out feature of the game are the 'Walkers', bipedal stomping machines much alike ones we're used to seeing in Return Of The Jedi, but chunkier. The air is guarded by Gunships (think helicopters combined with fighterjets) and slower weaker Dropships (the fat APCs of the sky) as well as Titans (enormous flying mobile bases, like the S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Helicarrier' of Marvel comics).
Back on the ground, the Walkers pale into insignificance compared to the standard Tanks, of which one, on the PAC side, is a very manouvreable strafing Hovertank.

In the end, Battlefield:2142 is such a vast and beautiful game that relies on Balance and nuances of play to lend it its feel, and that is something that really has to be experienced first-hand, but, for the fast-paced tactical gamer, it's fantastic long-lived fun.

Go forth and advance through the ranks! Wreak havoc!

-Des