Machinima Interactive Film Festival: Not the best nor the brightest

One of the most ear-opening things I heard at the opening event of the Machinima Interactive Film Festival in Los Angeles recently was a little conversation with one of the muckity-mucks waiting in line ahead of me for refreshment. He casually stated:

“John Hughes is to movie making what The Beatles are to music.”

Now I don’t know about you, but a statement like that is packed with at least one of the following things: ignorance, blind love or bullshit. In this particular case, I believe it was a little bit of all three.

“Really?” I asked.

“Have you seen any John Hughes movies?” I was queried. Subconsciously, my eyes began rolling to the point I thought I might need eye drops for fear they might catch fire from all the friction.

I put on the most natural looking face I could muster and responded “Yes … I’ve seen a few of them.” (After all, one of my biggest crushes in filmdom was lent to Molly Ringwald, who was featured in more than a few Hughes classics.)

And so began one of the loudest, most gastronomically-challenged, chuckle-stifling, on-the-verge-of-sweating-to-death opening events I’ve been privy to be a part of in some time.

The festival was supposed to be a showcase of some of the biggest and brightest video talents out there who have manipulated content to the point of going viral time and again. But all I witnessed was bad parody (featuring look-alikes of Peg Bundy from Married With Children and Carol Brady from The Brady Bunch), pixilated hoo-ha that was doing its best to spurn viewers rather than attract them, and semi-pornographic content that wasn’t worth the time and effort to be recorded let alone shown at an opening event. Screens were set up at kiosks along with private listening capabilities and, if you watched closely, you witnessed viewers’ eyes glaze over more often than not. Wasn’t this supposed to be a huge collaboration between Machinima (who provides programming to their core 18- to 34-year-old male demographic, “the dominant video entertainment network for gamers”), iam8bit (a creative marketing firm catering to film, music, fashion, games & more) and some of the brightest filmmakers on YouTube? Because the work displayed was not indicative of what one would think to be the best there was to offer.

It was mentioned I would get the opportunity to do a little probing of the Battlestar Galactica: Blood And Chrome creators, but I was informed that was “a different division of the company” and there was no one there who could answer any of my questions. So I was left meandering about looking for anything of interest at the gala. We were encouraged to “watch, enjoy and vote” on a dozen or so videos on display, but I didn’t find one to my liking in the least. The watching became tedious, there was no joy in it and there definitely wasn’t any inkling of a desire to vote.

Wandering around the show, the over-crowded rooms became increasingly sweaty and I found it rather comical 30-somethings would dare to bring there toddlers to such an event that featured bass-heavy music able to be felt right down to your bowels. The food offered was for the gamer contingent at a 3:00 a.m. nosh-fest (for the carnivore: chili fries with onions, the vegetarian: gravy fries with cheese curds) and the liquid refreshment came in the form of barely cooled wine, Phucket beer or water. Seating was practically non-existent (not that you generally sit at an event such as this), shouting was the normal manner in which you spoke with the person 8″ in front of you and, as the night moved along and more people were allowed in, it only got worse.

The saving grace for the show was some of the artwork displayed on the gallery walls: Profiles of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley from Alien (*swoon*) and The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges. Also of interest were a few of iam8bit’s marketing strategies such as that for Sega’s Aliens: Colonial Marines video game.

Visit either of the sites for Machinima or iam8bit and you’ll be treated to some pretty impressive content and marketing promotions. But why this collaborative decided to exhibit stuff as featured below was beyond my comprehension …