Why there is no sequel yet…

I recently went through a lot of comments on /afk again and since so many people asked for it, I felt obliged to write something about sequel plans.

What is holding back “/afk 2” is not the lack of ideas or an argument about what Piet will reroll as (not a Paladin, take that for granted). The real matter is that I want to take it up a notch. “/afk” was made without any budget, thus being constrained in length (short film) and scale (2 actors in 2 rooms) and consuming a lot of time (>1 year) since we couldn’t pay anyone which created a lot of delay. All of this was perfectly fine and we are proud of how much we achieved with so little money.

Yet if we are going to expand the story of Aventhor and Nippi, we need to push some of these constraints and that will cost more money than I can afford on my own. “Why don’t you sell a DVD then?” you might say. That is simple: We are not allowed to. As long as we show WoW footage, Blizzard holds copyrights on our finished projects. So they’d have to agree to any commercial actions on our behalf. I’ve been trying to get in touch with people at Blizzard but so far it didn’t work out. I have reason to believe that folks over there know that /afk exists but that’s it.

Let me state that I’m very happy about Blizzards approach to fan projects overall. They’re doing a much better job than EA for example and /afk deals with addiction, a topic that gave them a lot of bad press. Even though I think that /afk is very pro-WoW I’d totally understand if they just don’t want to get associated with this topic as a company. I’m totally happy that they didn’t shut /afk down as they could’ve done very easily.

I still have my hopes up that we will find a way to make any kind of Blizzard-approved sequel with a tiny budget that will allow us to keep the quality up and not do any rushed bullsh*t that fans will be disappointed of.

If things change, you’ll be the first to know!

Ben /afk

As large as life

Since /afk was released, one of the most frequent comments was “Did you really delete your lvl 80 warrior?” which made me think quite a bit. This implied that a lot of people thought of /afk as if not everything about it was fictional. Despite obvious filmmaking devices like film music or montages part of the audience obviously felt that especially the main character Piet and his virtual alter ego Aventhor were real. Why was that?

Let’s try a question to get our answers on the way: What does Piet have in common with Felicia Day from The Guild? Well, it’s not the popularity. Felicia still a slight edge there. If you look at her Twitter followers, she even has an edge over Leonardo Di Caprio – what? Actually, her lead is more than a million followers strong. How is that possible?

The most obvious thing about Felicia is her mastery of social media. Via Twitter, Facebook, her blog and YouTube, she offers different layers of herself ranging from her appearance on the Guild to some of her more private thoughts on Twitter. I don’t know Leonardo Di Caprio thoughts right now but if I catch Felicias recent Tweets, I kinda feel as if I knew hers. And remember: The star system has always worked this way: The more an audience knows about an actor, the more likely they are to watch his films. Brangelina, anyone?

Let’s get back to Felicia and Piet. Both /afk and The Guild are examples of an emerging trend: Films and shows distributed via platforms like YouTube. Virtual places that got huge by creating buzz about real people. This has gone to an extent where you can’t distinguish between reality and fiction anymore, LonelyGirl15 being one of the first well known examples. Felicia made great use of this trend in becoming the face of The Guild franchise and obviously Piet in /afk was successful enough for some people to believe in him as well.

Now, I see some pretty awesome chances that could come out of this, do you? If that trend lives on, bigger productions could very well get under pressure to get more believable characters. In times of Web 2.0 film stars don’t only have to compete against the believability of other film stars, they have to become as real as the people we can watch on YouTube every day – only with guns and swords and dream theft and stuff.

So the Web 2.0 might impact TV- and filmmaking not only by shortening the attention spans of the audience but also by putting new emphasis on solid and complex character work and performances. You might call this theory a bit far-fetched but I’m feeling pretty confident about this. After all, no one complained that I equated real actress Felicia Day with the fictional character Piet for this whole article. See?

Ben /afk

Cutting Video Game Footage with Live Action Scenes

When asked what the most challenging part of /afk was, I instantly think of a quote we got in an early test screening for some of our parents and other people who were not familar with World of Warcraft: “Oh, I thought he was skyping with that dragon.”

That showed me very clearly (shockingly to be honest) how big an issue the merging of ingame scenes and real footage would be. It was clear that it largely depended on the viewers experience with things like skyping, playing games, mmorpgs or even WoW. The more specific the knowledge of the viewer, the more he would understand. While many films or shows work that way (just think of the many layers of humour of THE SIMPSONS) our situation was more critical. The script of /afk treats scenes from WoW alike with real footage. It had some of the most crucial scenes be in the game. So if people wouldn’t understand a certain minimum of the ingame stuff, they wouldn’t get the film at all.

So the solution seems simple, doesn’t it? Just make everything ingame very clear and obvious and pace the editing slow enough for everyone to follow. Right? But what about the WoW players again? Would those who spent hundreds of hours in the game be happy about a super slow paced film that explained the most basic steps that every player knows from day 1?

So we have two extreme opposites: The average viewer who needs a lot of explanation to understand WoW mechanics. And the player who doesn’t want to be bored because he can take in very much information from a WoW shot in very short time.

An interesting construct in that regard is what psychology calls schemata. If you have a lot of well developed schemata for any given subject, your processing gets a lot faster. For example if you’re in a supermarket, without schemata for ketchup you’d just stand there reading all the bottles before being able to make a decision. If you got a lot of schemata you might go Ketchup->Heinz Ketchup->Hot Heinz Ketchup->Done. At least that is what I use as an excuse when my girlfriend accuses me of acting like a deaf infant turtle when shopping.

So this explains why people without gaming experience need more time to understand what is going on. So every time there is a fast edited ingame shot, average viewers have to look at it, figuree what information is crucial, extract it, understand it. “Okay, there is that protagonist guy, he is standing next to a small guy on a robotic chicken and ….”

If you go back in film history, you understand why adding video game scenes could become a little revolution in filmmaking. Schemata for watching movies developed in the audiences over the last century. If you’d shown Transformers in 1930, noone would’ve known what hit them. People didn’t even cut from a far shot to a close up because audience couldn’t follow that. They weren’t used to it. So it took a long time to get to modern film where all kinds of audiences can get an orientation even in a film by Michael Bay. But adding a video game to that means that you totally break that and throw people in a place they don’t know yet.

So what we ended up doing was that we looked for ways to keep the main action very very simple and give clear cues to the audience. For example in the first scene with Piet (Aventhor) and Nippi, we have a very complex situation: We have a real situation with Piet in his room, talking with another person that can’t be seen. And we have the virtual situation with Aventhor, Nippi, Nippis pet-demon, a monster Nippi is fighting AND Oyxia all in the dragons cave.
Now lets look at what that scene has to do: 1) We already know Aventhor but we should emphasize that he is controlled by Piet. 2) We have to understand that that voice in the real situation is the player who controls Nippi. 3) We should understand that Nippi kills that monster (helps understanding a scene shortly before the climax). 4) We should understand that the real Piet wants to kill the virtual dragon Onyxia.
What problems are there? A) We can’t have the characters use talk animations since that wouldn’t be accurate to how skyping in WoW would work in the real game. B) We gotta prevent that people get confused by Nippis pet-demon who looks like just another player to the untrained eye.

To achieve 1) and 2) we tried to match acting and editing of the virtual characters with the voices. When Nippi starts his first sentence, we see him in front. When he starts his second sentence, he turns to Aventhor.
Part 3) was not as important so we tried to not focus too much attention on that. You see Nippi look at the monster, and in the end cast something with fire and the monster dies. We tried to keep the confusion as small as possible through showing the succubus not as much and have it stand in the background inactive after the kill. Just leaving the Succubus out wouldn’t have been an option for when do you really see a Warlock without his pet?
4) was probably the easiest: Just show Onyxia when they talk about her and bring her and the real Piet in some connection visually. Once we had that basic structure, we were free to add little moments that not everyone would understand but those who do might appreciate a lot. Like that moment when Piet shoots at Onyxia with his cursor. On a basic level it confronts the faces of Piet and Onyxia. So average viewers get that for good. But experienced gamers who already understood get that little comic moment as a bonus.

If you look at how fast the scene is going and that there are other factors that constrain the editing and pull attention (like the dialogue) you get an idea of how complex that kind of editing was. And let me add that we didn’t get there as easily as in this text 🙂

I’ll elaborate this stuff some more in the future since I think that it was not only the most challenging part on /afk but also the most innovative part. I sure hope to see some experiments like that in upcoming films and I definitely plan on further exploring that technique!

Ben /afk

Press testimonials

Not that many articles out there yet, but here is what they had to say:

“/afk has upped the ante with their fluid combination of in-game events and real-life events.”
“The movie is one of a kind in how it was created, promoted and released.”
Candace  McCarty – MMO Reporter

„Absolutely worth watching, a mix of machinima and live action footage that makes the WoW-players heart happy.“
Imke Pattberg, Ninjalooter.de

“The film really feeds the inner gamer, offering lots of scenes that can be described as nothing short of epic. The in-game scenes are extremely compelling and cinematic, with interesting camera angles, smooth “crane” shots, and subtle but effective machinima to enhance the existing puppeteering.”
“I would love to see more films like this.”
“The production as a whole is amazingly well executed, and the story is very fun while still being topical.”
Dawn Moore, WoW Insider

„A very funny movie that looks like ‘real cinema’, filmed in HD and with a score that
sounds ‘big’ all the time.“
Dennis Horn, EinsLive (major radio station in Germany)

“The plot is excellent and unique. In this movie the focus is not on the heroes inside the game – this story is about problems that all players can have.”
Frey, Frostmilk.com

“/AFK – a great short movie, that you can see with your family (even non WoW players will understand the movie). The team makes an excellent job: scenario, actors play, music, camera, machinima, effects – all together they blend in one whole thing. The movie races from start to finish without a pause and then leaves the viewer with many impressions. 10/10”
Faranor, frostmilk.com

“A masterful mix of machinima styles and live-action performance.”
Michael Gray, WoW Insider

Ukrainian Fan Mail

Today Faranor from frostmilk.com sent me some notes from people at the Cataclysm Launch Event in Kiev, Ukraine. People wrote it down on paper and he translated and sent it over. I want to publish them here because they show something that I didn’t really dare to hope for when making this movie: Films CAN actually change things around you. Sure, movies are mainly for entertainment, but they can also convey perspectives that people weren’t aware of before. And if you’re surrounded by people who don’t understand you, maybe a film about your situation will help. So it seems like /afk is really doing that for some guys out there, make other people understand better about their passion of online gaming.

A huge thanks to all those who sent in these letters. We appreciate this so much! And thanks to Faranor for translating!

Ben /afk

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Hello. My name is Stanislav. I from Donetsk. Very nice movie! Thanks!

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Hello. Thanks for the great film! I saw it with all my family (like Faranor says – you can see /AFK with your family. And I risked it). My parents now respect my passion. Thanks for that!

Mikola. Lviv

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Hey. Benjamin, you did a great job! The movie is awesome! I and my friends salute to you!

Marina. Kiev

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Hello, Benjamin. My name is Vlad. I am a student of Kharkov Medicine Unuversity. This theme is very interesting for me (I study in psychology faculty). I always dispute with my teachers about online addiction. I showed /afk to all my group and teachers with a projector. Now my position is respected! And my teacher says – your diploma work will be on online addiction theme. ^^. Thanks for that!

Vlad. Kharkov

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Hello. Thanks for this great movie. My friends now play with me!

Nagibator

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Hello, Benjamin. My name Natasha. My mother kicked me out from my computer (and WOW) all the time. After seeing /AFK together she says – “When I grew up, my parents didn’t allow me to see TV. Times changes, and progress doesn’t stop. I won’t say anything about your notebook now.”
Thanks to you for my new life. Now my mother and I are friends!

Alina. Kiev.

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After viewing your film my friends respect me. And play with me now. Thanks

Nauru

 

FAQ

There are over 1.800 comments on the message boards of all our YouTube sites. And though we try to answer as many questions there as possible, we thought that putting together a FAQ from the most asked questions would be a good idea. So if you want to know who Aventhor really is, where you can get “that T-Shirt” or if there will be a sequel, go ahead:

Q: Was Blizzard Entertainment (Developer of WoW) involved in this movie?

A: No! This was made by independent filmmakers but Blizzard holds all rights to the World of Warcraft materials.

Q: Will there be a sequel?

A: There is no decision on that yet. It depends on a lot of factors but the overwhelming support really pushes us that way. But I can say that the story of one character will continue before any sequel will be made.

Q: What accents are the actors speaking?

A: The accents from the therapist and Piet are german. With the therapist we deliberately went for a very strong german accent since Germany is both known for it’s history in psychotherapy as well as it’s recognizable movie villains. If you’re having trouble with the accents, go get one of the various subtitles!

Q: Where can I get that T-Shirt?

A: The “Achievement Unlocked” Shirt is an official merchandise product by Blizzard. You can get it in the Blizzard shop.

Q: Who did the music/song and where can I get it?

A: The score was composed by Robert Schnuerch (www.robert-schnuerch.com) and the singer of “Sorry Ways” is Charlotte Pensel.

Q: Will there be a screening of the movie?

A: There will be occasional screenings at different locations. Stick to facebook.com/afkmovie for any screenings in your area.

Q: Are there subtitles?

A: There are subtitles for different languages that can be activated by clicking on the “cc” down right in the YouTube player. If your language is missing and you’re interested in translating, mail to aventhorisafk@gmail.com

Q: What gear is Aventhor using?

A: We put tons of thought into his gear since we wanted to have it kinda realistic but also needed to fulfill certain cinematic requirements. The epic gear he gets needed to look better than what he had before, otherwise people without WoW experience wouldn’t have understood that this makes him able to fight Onyxia. On the other hand it needed to be equipment that wasn’t bind-on-pickup so we came out with some crude mix which I wouldn’t recommend wearing in the actual game 🙂

Q: Is this supposed to be for or against WoW?

A: We didn’t want to just say “WoW is better than real life” or “WoW is addiction”. Because it can be both. I think we overall agree with the little loading note by Blizzard: “Bring your friends to Azeroth, but remember to go out of Azeroth with them as well.”

Q: What camera was used?

A: That was the RED ONE, a revolutionary camera that takes HD footage up to 4k resolution.

Q: Is Benjamin Dressler Piet/Aventhor?

A: No! Piet is a completely fictional character that was written by Benjamin Dressler and portrayed in the film by actor Martin Schnuerch.

Q: Who in the team is from Germany/USA?

A: The crew that did the live film scenes and the post production was mostly from Germany while the machinimation and the virtual shoot was conducted mostly by people from USA and Australia.

Q: Will Aventhor be a Pally next time?

A: Hell, no!

Q: Will there be a making of?

A: For sure! And we will show some if not most of it on YouTube!

Q: Can you quit WoW?

A: I heard that it requires two years of psychic training, full moon, a male ravens tail feather and the beating heart of Cthulhu.

Q: Where can I buy the film on DVD?

A: You can’t, sorry! Since Blizzard Entertainment holds all rights for World of Warcraft, we are at that point not allowed to use the movie for any commercial purpose. If you need a copy for a film fest or a screening, contact the filmmakers at aventhorisafk@gmail.com

Q: How long took it to make the film?

A: One year from the very first ideas to the release. We had two months of scriptwriting, five days of shooting and a lot of time in post production since most of us had to do other jobs or university at the same time.

Q: Where are the pictures for “sexual activity”?

A: In a hidden box under Piets bed. Seriously, we wanted to kinda give the idea that he just had no sex life at all, thus no pictures to show.

Ben /afk

/afk: 400.000 views worldwide!

Hey there!

Since “welcome to this blog” posts are boring, I thought I’d touch on how awesome the first week since the release has been. It kinda started with some people from the crew, jammed in front of a monitor staring at YouTube. For those of you who didn’t know: With a new video, YouTube shows the actual numbers until about 300. Then it won’t update for a while and from then only update once in every few hours.

So we had released /afk at about 2am at our time and about 12 hours later we started like “You know, it could reach 10.000 within the first day.” which was amazing. And a couple of hours later we thought “It won’t make 20.000, will it?”. So we were pretty struck when we had a constant 20.000 views per day for almost the whole first week of /afk being online. We also hit #1 AND #2 of the most watched videos in Russia on the first days. Crazy, right?

And just when numbers started to increase slower, someone from China wrote me, saying something like “Your movie is a sensation over here, watched very much…”. I was wondering because I didn’t see China in the videos statistics and then learned that YouTube was forbidden over there. But appearantly, someone had translated /afk, downloaded it from YouTube and put it up on a video platform inside China. And within only 4 days /afk was watched about 200.000 times there.

So, until now, we have about 400.000 views worldwide. Not all of those have seen the whole movie obviously. But it’s awesome how much attention /afk got. We really hadn’t hoped for that many viewers in such a short time!

What was even more satisfying was the quality of the general feedback. We have recepted more than 1.500 comments by now, most of them being positive to enthusiastic. We are really grateful for all the interesting discussions and personal messages that started on the comments of the two videos and for every eMail and private message we got on YouTube or Facebook.

We are currently discussing about how to follow this huge success and we already have started working on some updates that we hope you guys will like. All I’ll say is that one of those projects will be the making of. We will need some time for that but as soon as you guys reach lvl cap in cataclysm, it should be out there 🙂

So let me give you a big thank you from the whole /afk team!

Ben

/afk