This is a project I worked on last year for a digital cinema course. It also played as an honorable mention in the ADAPT festival, but I’m at the point where I’d like to rework it and also to work more on integration of “virtual” and “real” footage. I think this will be a larger project for me this quarter. In general, I’m looking to examine games critically, and in this case stealth videogames as they relate to the depersonalization of war. I captured all the game footage within and found the military footage on archive.org. This was some of my first work in video, so I think the intro text should be redone, but I am also concerned that the soundtrack is sensational. Some of this fits into machinima, but I don’t know if there’s a term to describe the positioning of machinima-like footage with real footage to form a narrative. I’m also aware that Real and Virtual are problematic; the particular footage I use is all simulacrum. I welcome (in fact am looking for) feedback on this.
I’ll be posting more video work soon.
The “problematic” nature of Reall vs. Virtual footage is not a problem at all; rather, it lies at the core of the piece. Why is this? It demonstrates the homogeneity of the electronic mediated control of weaponry and, by extension, lethal force and death. The same techniques are used to terminate virtual beings as real humans in this film. Either way, there is a depersonalization/desensitization effect on killing things. What is the difference between the virtual and the real? The virtual lies entirely in software, and the real interfaces with hardware. At a fundemental level, merely a change in programming.
For historical precedent of software controlled war, there is a clip from the classic movie Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learend to Love the Bomb)
Comment by chromiumsix — October 13, 2007 @ 1:50 pm
Wow Josh,
I really like where you are going with all of this. Your video piece is powerful. You mentioned that you were concerned that the music was too sensational but I think that it works. Sensational music has the ability to move us emotionally and I do not see it as a problem but merely as a matter of choice. It is dependent on what kind of reaction you may want to invoke. Another powerful combination may be to try to incorporate “real” audio, or some sort of raw recording of people involved in some event. I don’t know what that would be, just throwing it out there.
Comment by tbalogh — October 15, 2007 @ 11:54 am