I Don't Know James Rolfe

0:08 I feel a certain amount of kinship with James role we're

0:13 basically the same age we both went to film school we

0:16 both ultimately found ourselves making videos about media for YouTube better

0:22 known as The Angry Video Game Nerd James has this behind

0:26 the scenes video that I can't stop thinking about AVGN behind

0:32 the scenes and nerd room tour 2021 there's just so much

0:38 going on with it there's a light stand suspended from the ceiling

0:42 with craft wire a cable hole made in a desk

0:46 by attacking it with a drill like a slasher villain

0:49 the whole thing begins with an awkward disclaimer that the audio

0:53 is being recorded from a different microphone just off screen than

0:58 the one that's immediately apparent I I record this entire video

1:02 and realized this mic is not plugged in the shotgun mic

1:07 is plugged in then there's the tripod James expresses a desire

1:12 to keep things out of his way tripods light stands

1:16 and such to maximize floor space in his Studio A worthy

1:20 goal I can empathize with as I sit here

1:24 in a veritable Forest of aluminum and steel but then he shows

1:29 his solution a tripod head secured to a strip of lumber

1:33 by two mismatched scraps of wood it is a wrong thing

1:40 a cludge together precarious mess whose wrongness is intuitively apparent even

1:46 to those who have little familiarity with the equipment of film

1:51 making this thing ruined my life in the way that only

1:56 the inexplicable decisions of strangers can why was this made why

2:03 was this made this way what was happening that created

2:07 the circumstances that led to this being made the way that it

2:11 was made many of the solutions being shown off in the video

2:15 seemed counterproductive solutions to inefficiency

2:19 more inefficient than the original

2:21 problem this Glimpse behind the scenes paints a blurry yet still

2:27 identifiable picture of a process of endless maintenance a Forever War

2:32 James Rolf is engaged in against the twin belligerent of entropy

2:38 and James Rolf he includes a captivating outtake from the recording

2:43 of his 2021 video Shrek Fairytail freak down where he's

2:47 tied to a chair and trying to hold an onion

2:50 in his mouth like a ball gag he loses his grip

2:53 on the vegetable and lashes out in frustration cursing the onion cursing

2:58 the ropes cursing Co cursing the lack of hands to help

3:03 boy I wish I had a crew wish we didn't

3:06 have Co and all this[ __][ __] it is a sincere

3:11 frustration honestly more compelling than the video it's from but it

3:17 betrays a lack of foresight a lack of planning

3:21 and its inclusion feels rhetorically

3:25 misplaced this rhetorical confusion marbles throughout

3:29 the Studio Tour repeated shoutouts given to his multi-channel Network screen

3:34 wave a seemingly outof left field defense of his wife April

3:38 and a laundry list of oneoff projects consuming his time James

3:44 says he'll be addressing some complaints in his words of the assholish

3:48 variety which suggests that there's something more going on but why

3:55 say these things why make these admissions I thought I knew

4:02 the Angry Video Game Nerd I distinctly remember huddling

4:05 with my film school peers around a computer in 2006 laughing over

4:10 chronologically confused and mentally noting that the inevitable had begun

4:16 serving video over the internet was on the cusp of viability

4:21 and the web was already developing its own vernacular internet videos

4:26 weren't just the happen stance of virality anymore or outof context

4:31 Clips forwarded via email or repurpose clips of shows and movies

4:35 they were things being made for the internet and everything was about

4:41 to change I may not have been the most Ardent fan

4:46 but it was impossible to not know about the Angry Video

4:49 Game Nerd and by extension James Rolf The Man Behind

4:54 the pocket protector as The Story Goes James Rolf was a pioneer

4:59 of New Media while he arguably spawned the entire genre

5:03 of angry reviews and undeniably set the tempo for thousands of creators

5:09 he set himself apart from the crowd by being a trained

5:14 filmmaker having a leg up on the skill sets of lighting

5:18 sound and camera work even as YouTuber became a real

5:23 career he never really seemed to embrace the identity always seemed

5:28 apart from it as his peers would often detail he wasn't

5:34 a YouTuber he was a filmmaker but how could I square

5:39 that reputation with this admission of his process with the light

5:44 stands arduously suspended with craft wire in lie of a $15

5:50 scissor clamp James says his camera work has grown stagnant claims

5:56 that it frustrates him most of all before detailing an insistence

6:01 on disassembling an entire rig to move from the prompter

6:05 to the tripod rather than using a quick release plate or investing

6:09 in a second camera body only to then minutes later

6:15 admit to having a second camera body this made me keenly

6:19 aware of one thing above all I do not know James

6:23 Rolf [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] having glimpsed something of a Oddities

7:24 the distant Spectre of the man gripped me with a hunger

7:27 for comprehension a compulsion to know more fortunately he had already

7:33 offered me more in 2022 James self-published his Memoirs an autobiography

7:39 A movie making nerd circumstances being what they are I

7:43 feel a reintroduction is necessary between 2004 and 2006 fresh Film

7:48 School grad James Rolf created a Trilogy of short skits where

7:52 he played a stereotypical nerd complaining about old Nintendo games

7:58 the character lambon something that James saw as inherently funny his friends

8:03 getting intensely angry about video games his university buddy Mike

8:08 mati thought they were hilarious and in 2006 uploaded the videos

8:12 to the fledgling YouTube where they would see enormous success compelling

8:17 James to make more of them and creating what we now

8:20 know as the Angry Video Game Nerd the Brandon format coales

8:25 quickly and has remained largely unchanged for 20 years for the seventh

8:30 video mck kids their friend Kyle Justin wrote an absolute earworm

8:34 of theme song that is honestly somewhere between 40 and 80%

8:38 of the reason that we're having this conversation in the first

8:41 [Music] place for the first many years the show was

8:47 a collaboration between Mike and James Mike an avid retro

8:52 gamer with an extensive collection would feed James material and manage

8:56 Logistics like web hosting maintaining the YouTube Channel securing Partnerships

9:01 with Outlets like screw attack and James would handle the video production

9:05 the show's comedy hinged and really still hinges on a combination

9:09 of acidic vulgarity casual violence and an excess of juvenile machismo

9:18 this game is worse than a Mischief Night prank Mischief Night

9:20 is throwing toilet paper all over someone's yard this game is

9:23 the equivalent of throwing toilet paper after you wiped your ass

9:26 it's as refreshing as a horse's anus[ __] the craw

9:29 up it's bird ass and[ __] you you[ __] clown face

9:31 Joker kiss makeup wearing King Diamond Beetlejuice Alice Cooper Marilyn Manser[

9:37 __] but it wasn't James's first creation James did not

9:42 apparate EX nilo in 2006 and a movie making nerd is

9:47 an opportunity to delve into that prehistory now with as good

9:59 a time as any to mention the oddd conflict that swirls around

10:03 James he is attracted a not insubstantial audience of cankerous hate

10:08 Watchers self-styled truthers who have made a hobby of disseminating what

10:12 they see to be the truth of James rol that he

10:15 is a man of hubris ungrateful for his success on YouTube

10:19 and dismissive of the very fans who gave him

10:22 a career in the first place alternately a no nothing failure

10:26 of a filmmaker or a cockled Visionary who could have had

10:31 it all if he hadn't been laid Low by his[ __] wife

10:34 I am far from the first person to ask the question

10:38 who is James Rolf James is by reputation personally extremely

10:44 offline he values his privacy and sees social media as a distraction

10:49 from his craft tries to keep his personal life personal

10:53 that is an admirable quality but it's also obviously not

10:57 a hard line obviously I'm holding a copy of his self-published autobiography

11:03 whatever secrecy James enjoys by not dropping selfies on the gam

11:07 every day he makes up for with infrequent but overwhelming trips

11:12 into his personal affairs he may not go often but when

11:16 he goes he goes big and maybe that is why

11:19 it has wormed its way into my brain not all

11:23 of the fascination with the historical Arc of the AVGN is odious

11:28 there is something profoundly compelling about James people who become aware

11:34 of his quirks find themselves enthralled anyway that's all I have

11:39 to say for now there's 10 more videos to make

11:41 on this subject but that's James Rolf and the dvx100 people talk

11:46 about James in a very specific way my friends talk

11:49 about James in a very specific way and I have developed

11:53 a very strange almost adversarial relationship with that the cultural impact

11:59 of AVGN is undeniably far-reaching he is without question the direct

12:05 inspiration for many many imitators and derivatives AVGN set the tone

12:10 that all YouTube reviews would in some form or another respond

12:15 to two decades on the cultural impact of AVGN is deep

12:20 in the DNA of YouTube but it is also likewise easy

12:24 to overstate the uniqueness of the Angry Video Game Nerd

12:28 as though James captured something that would have never otherwise existed

12:34 the concept of media critique as entertainment did not begin

12:39 with James Rolf the bottom line is this Swamp Buggy racing is

12:43 one of the most inexplicably bad pieces of software ever mass—

12:47 produced for the consumer Market do not buy it do not

12:51 rent it do not even pick up the box I'm going

12:54 to go launch the game one last time to get screenshots

12:57 for this review and after after that I'll be giving

13:00 the game disc to the four-year-old who lives downstairs so he

13:03 can turn it into a colorful frisbee 6% PC Gamer

13:08 May 2000 classic basically as long as the review has existed

13:14 as a literary form writers have sought to make them entertaining

13:18 for their own sake even disregarding that long Legacy the DNA

13:24 of the Angry Video Game Nerd follows in a lineage with cisc

13:28 and Ebert at the movies Mystery Science Theater 3000 stomp Tokyo

13:32 and sha.com culturally AVGN was right in line with Penny

13:37 Arcade in 2006 Jerry and Mike were entering their eighth year

13:42 of success with a web comic whose comedy hinged on acidic

13:46 vulgarity casual violence and an excess of juvenile machismo a formula

13:52 that had proven so successful they were able to spin it

13:56 off into its own Expo in 2004 four there were many

14:01 people putting out the same kind of material as James

14:05 but his filmmaking background gave him a critical advantage in the early

14:09 days of YouTube Simply owning a digital camera and having

14:14 a basic grasp of audio separated him from his competitors filming

14:18 on webcams James Rolf was perfectly positioned and by coincidence struck

14:24 an iron he didn't even know was hot like all YouTubers he

14:30 got lucky he got insanely lucky while the early YouTube subscriber

14:36 numbers look modest by modern standards James Nintendo nerd was briefly

14:41 the eighth largest channel on YouTube in 2008 with 125,000 subscribers

14:48 and the Channel's three almost 4 million modern subscribers are respectable

14:54 but somewhat mundane the subscriber numbers don't betray just how

15:00 popular the nerd really was by the time the AVGN movie

15:04 was announced in 2011 the channel had nearly 300 million lifetime

15:11 views he didn't just have viewers he had fans passionate fans

15:18 who made fan art not just fan art fan video games

15:23 it is no overstatement to say that the Angry Video Game

15:27 Nerd was a phenomenon the book is structured around James's career

15:34 as a filmmaker taking it as a given that James is

15:38 in fact not a YouTuber even AVGN is conceptualized

15:44 as a Cinemassacre production just one of the many things that James

15:49 has made James has been making movies since he was 8

15:52 years old and in the telling of the story James Chronicles

15:56 his career from that point through Film School to the first

16:00 performance of his band Rex Viper in October 2021 the shocking

16:06 thing really is how absent the nerd is in the book

16:10 to the point it's hard to articulate how little weight is given

16:14 to the subject you learn more about what James thinks

16:18 of the film wavelength than you do the web show that is

16:23 holistically his 20year career wavelength is a 1967 experimental short film

16:43 created by Canadian multidisplinary artist Michael snow wavelength as a film

16:47 is relatively easy to describe but difficult to explain it

16:51 functions as something of an ink blot test for critics

16:54 as the way in which you go about explaining it will

16:57 inevitably betray something about the way in which you approach film some

17:02 critics praise the film as The Birth of a Nation

17:04 or Citizen Cane of underground films while other critics heckled the film

17:09 and many walked out Michael snow for his part found

17:12 this hilarious wavelength like many Avant guard films is what you

17:17 bring to it is it a 45-minute long shot of a wall

17:21 or is it a film about film and its relationship

17:24 to time that is an exercise for the viewer this first

17:28 versatility has allowed the film to be used as a foundation

17:31 for complex discussions in film Theory but despite its importance wavelength

17:36 is perhaps better known as a foil for students the archetype

17:40 of heady pretentious films to endure in film school students

17:45 Prime themselves to reject the film but even in rejection they

17:49 engage with wavelength the only constant in watching wavelength is

17:54 the active viewership itself you must physically experience the film film

17:59 to understand it if wavelength could be said to have a Core

18:02 theme it would be reflection the film uses boredom and frustration

18:07 to force the viewer to engage a Wandering mind is

18:11 in its own way an intended response the viewer is compelled

18:16 to reflect on their role in proceedings their role as a viewer

18:21 the movie in essence holds a mirror up to the audience

18:25 in cursing the time lost and in describing their tortuous experiences

18:30 even the most checked out students unknowingly engage with the film's

18:35 ideas that is the unique power of wavelength even in rejecting

18:41 it the viewer learns something about themselves James's profile as a filmmaker

19:03 is ultimately dominated by his one feature film crowdfunded in 2011

19:08 shot in 2012 and released in 2014 summer 2024 will

19:13 be the 10th anniversary of the Angry Video Game Nerd

19:16 the movie a truly bizarre and intriguing piece of Outsider Art all

19:23 movies are Miracles but this one is a bit more

19:25 of a miracle than most by All rights it should not exist

19:29 the production was troubled in all the ways that Productions are

19:32 and then on top of that in a number of ways

19:34 that movies typically aren't it is on some not very

19:39 good but that much has been said before it is

19:43 as a story rudderless and confusing an unresolved conflict of creative

19:47 Fascinations external pressures and foundational bad

19:51 decisions it's tempting to get caught

19:54 in the Quagmire of those decisions but for the most

19:57 part it can all be traced back to boring foundational issues

20:01 and learning of all the Myriad ways in which the budget

20:04 was poorly optimized and seeing the dated and weak humor in watching

20:09 an actor who isn't enamored with the mythology of James

20:12 Rolf pronounce the name death moic to little success it's easy

20:17 to latch on as though those details are the thing

20:20 that makes the movie what it is but the true problem is

20:24 much more basic how you don't get your panties

20:27 in a wad I'm not wearing any panties the script was written

20:36 haphazardly by James and his high school buddy Kevin Finn over

20:39 the course of almost six years originating shortly after AVGN itself

20:44 in 2006 it is trying to be a supersized episode

20:48 of the web show and a flex of james' skills

20:51 as a filmmaker and a self-aware be movie version of a blockbuster

20:55 and just something allog together not the web show this is

21:01 the foundational problem an inability to decide on what the project

21:06 actually was Without A Creative Vision an actual big picture Creative

21:11 Vision of what the finished product is supposed to be the end

21:15 product lacks Focus lacks intent lacks the back stop of feedback

21:20 that would tell the two of them that death moic

21:23 as the name of the film's ultimate Kaiju villain is an in joke

21:27 between the right ERS that just isn't very funny the entire

21:32 movie bizarrely revolves around the nerd being compelled in some

21:36 way to review ET for the Atari 2600 the fragmentary

21:41 shards of the movie as a super sized episode but clearance

21:45 for the actual ET intellectual property was never secured requiring

21:49 the movie to revolve around a spoof instead which undercuts the ver

21:55 similitude of the movie as a big budget episode The Core

22:00 plot never makes much sense the motivations of the nerd

22:03 are incoherent and the core conflict seems to be that the nerd

22:07 doesn't want to review the game because it gave him

22:10 nightmares as a child which itself appears to be an episode

22:14 lifted from James own childhood as a version of the scene

22:17 is one of the recurring nightmares James describes in the first

22:20 chapter of the book the production itself was plagued with indecision

22:24 James was wearing a lot of different hats that placed

22:27 tremendous demands on on his attention requiring a level of Delegation

22:31 that he was simply unprepared for the process stretched out years

22:36 longer than anyone wanted and left James thoroughly burnt out and disillusioned

22:41 with the whole circus some AVGN viewers wonder why the film

22:45 introduces two new characters Cooper and Mandy rather than relying

22:50 on Mike Kyle Bootsy or any of the other day players

22:54 that featured in AVGN episodes and I feel like the answer

22:58 is is obvious can you imagine Mike maai trying to act

23:02 in a feature film no just just no James himself

23:09 struggles through the movie because well he's not an actor like

23:15 well he is an actor in the literal sense he performs

23:19 a character on camera professionally but he is and always has

23:25 been an actor of convenience the only reason he is the nerd

23:31 is because he didn't have anyone else around to play

23:35 the nerd instead that's not to say James isn't good at being

23:39 the nerd it takes work to be a clown James

23:43 has skills as a performer his ability to suppress his self-consciousness

23:49 and yell scream fart and vomit for an audience isn't

23:53 to be downplayed do you have any idea how hard it is

23:58 is to get mad on camera there's a whole Instinct

24:01 of embarrassment of self-preservation that you need to bury in order

24:06 to sit alone in a room and howl at full volume

24:10 for an audience that doesn't even exist they can't see you

24:13 the real you sitting on the floor of your basement

24:17 debasing yourself for them they're just fantasms off in the future

24:21 that are going to consume some Ghost of You spewed out

24:25 at them by their phones as a crass homunculus of photons

24:29 and digital audio it's easy to postulate on what the movie

24:35 maybe should have been instead a low-budget horror movie or Creature

24:39 Feature literally just a big budget YouTube video in the same

24:43 vein as the channel awesome anniversary

24:45 specials basically anything other than what

24:49 it actually was but I have mold on and dismissed

24:54 the notion that AVG and the movie is an aberration well

24:58 there are undeniable conflicting incentives in the mix the whole thing

25:02 was clearly an extension of the Angry Video Game Nerd because

25:05 that was the thing the crowd would respond to the thing

25:08 they could raise money for I still think what we got

25:12 is ultimately truthful to James's instincts as a filmmaker James's earliest

25:17 filmography has been lost to the inevitable rot of VHS tapes

25:22 but conveniently the book preserves many of them as anecdotes lessons

25:27 and technological milestones in James's Journey as a filmmaker the book

25:32 by volume is mostly concerned with second the shooting of AVG

25:37 and the movie and first the documentation and preservation of over

25:41 two dozen home movies James produced in the 1990s between

25:46 the ages of 12 and 18 James from his own telling

25:50 draws a lot of energy from being the director which

25:54 in the nebulous hierarchy of the playground is less a creative Visionary

25:59 and more the child who leads the play these home movies

26:04 which James pointedly and explicitly calls films are from their descriptions

26:10 basically what you'd expect from a child let loose

26:12 with a camcorder their improvisational loose unfocused and shot in linear order

26:19 in short film making as a form of play getting friends

26:25 to act wasn't easy everyone was busy next time I got

26:29 some of them over with Snick 1993 I quickly thought

26:32 of a spontaneous story about an ancient warlock snicks who died centuries

26:36 ago but left behind a mask made of paper and feathers

26:40 in the present day the mask is discovered and possesses

26:42 my friend with the Warlock Spirit when he puts it

26:44 on he stalks me and tries to kill me we made up

26:48 the plot as we went along but it was cut short

26:50 when his mom called him home to dinner after that I

26:53 had to complete his scenes by puppeteering the mask in close-ups

26:56 only and per performing sni's voice myself again it was complete

27:01 garbage but it survived it's my oldest existing movie to feature

27:05 live actors besides myself and has become sort of in a strange

27:09 way a classic of mine his actors were whatever neighbors

27:13 were available in spite of his pleas the filming of Dino

27:17 men from D4 1994 rolled over from Saturday into Sunday

27:22 and had to be abandoned because his friends just didn't want

27:26 to do a second day night total Terror 1996 was

27:30 the first movie where James felt his friends wanted to be there

27:33 it was in his own words a blatant rip of Raiders

27:36 of the Lost Arc and the maltes Falcon the McGuffin

27:39 of those films replaced with a cursed Genie lamp his films

27:44 eventually settled into a routine of James hanging out with a few

27:47 friends making stuff they found fun James learned to treat

27:50 the films with soft hands as his friends refused to learn lines

27:55 rarely respected continuity and occasionally would just overwrite the tape

27:59 and destroy the footage this informed his style as a director James

28:04 says he likes to work in small Crews treating actors

28:07 as close personal friends and encouraging them to improvise this informal

28:13 style where Productions are measured in hours rather than days

28:17 and the enjoyment of the actors is given priority was well suited

28:21 to The Angry Video Game Nerd series Mike could goof

28:25 around and make James laugh and it would translate reasonable well

28:28 to YouTube but the AVGN movie exposed the flaws in james'

28:33 film making approach Union actors in Los angelist don't want to be

28:37 the director's friend and the shooting schedule of snicks returns

28:41 does not prepare you for 28 days of principal photography

28:45 for a feature film The AVGN movie is spiritually just another

28:52 home movie so I may have misrepresented to the book though maybe

28:59 you already figured this out it's bad but in the constellation

29:03 of awful YouTuber autobiographies which

29:06 range from shamelessly improvisational to active

29:08 attempts to obfuscate crime a movie making nerd doesn't really rank

29:13 it's not that kind of bad but it is also impressively

29:17 self-destructive as I went through its pages I found myself

29:20 tempted to make sweeping claims about how James sees the world

29:23 how he sees himself but stopped when I realized that I

29:26 couldn't tell the difference between statements that implied a total lack

29:30 of self-reflection a mind that still held juvenile opinions 20 years

29:34 after the fact as sincerely as the day they were first

29:36 formed and the weak writing large SAS of the book are

29:40 very basic in their construction pages of paragraphs of six to seven

29:44 word subject verb sentences the most fun class was acting

29:47 the instructor was very serious about it he was like a Drill

29:51 Sergeant the fans take an active role in the movie

29:54 they're the ones requesting the nerd to review the game I

29:58 think that's a great thing the fans helped create the idea

30:01 for this movie but my character the nerd doesn't want

30:04 to review the game he feels pressured not all of the assignments

30:08 were fun some of them were rudimentary like painting gray scales

30:12 and color wheels all were tedious messy and basic some

30:15 of the textbook classes required writing boring essays to explain why

30:19 time is like a grain of sand in other words do

30:22 your best to come up with some[ __] over 430 words

30:26 are dedicated to a failed location scout for a boiler room

30:30 set during the filming of AVGN the movie that could be

30:33 funny if it were well told could be a trivial event

30:36 that details a state of mind or just elicits a chuckle

30:39 but is delivered with the narrative intensity of a grocery list

30:43 I don't doubt that the book is a reasonably accurate accounting

30:46 of factual events more or less in the order that they

30:50 occurred and that it contains certain insights into James his life

30:56 his way of thinking and his relationship with himself

31:01 but at the same time I don't think it can really be

31:04 trusted for much else it is not a bad thing

31:08 that it was self-published but it is a keenly present thing it

31:12 is self-serving as all autobiographies

31:15 are but equally self-destructive the portrait

31:19 painted by the book is one of a stagnant man

31:22 with limited capacity to self-reflect a poor understanding of how

31:26 and why things happen happened the way they did and a general

31:30 lack of curiosity a movie making nerd compels us to conceptualize

31:35 James not as a revolutionary YouTuber but as a failed filmmaker

31:42 James Rolf the main character of the book reflects back

31:45 on University two decades after the fact and seemingly has no new

31:49 insights into what his instructors were trying to impart there

31:52 are no lessons that were obnoxious in the moment but made

31:56 sense years later there is no appreciation for the exposure

32:00 to cross disciplinary fundamentals nothing to suggest that being made to draw

32:05 household objects with the cold Precision of a draftsman gave

32:09 him an appreciation for the geometry of camera Optics no reflection

32:14 that being made to write about film as an art as metaphor

32:19 gave him tools that he has called on in his nearly

32:23 20year career as the host of a show deconstruct creative Works

32:31 he tells a story about a technical exercise in his first

32:35 year of University an assignment meant to familiarize students

32:39 with the basic operation of the 16mm bulex cameras that were standard

32:44 film student tools of the day that he hijacked in order

32:49 to remake a night of total Terror his own framing

32:53 of the story makes him look like an egomaniac the assignment

32:57 is to Simply use the camera successfully to create an image

33:02 of literally anything James pitches an elaborate shoot with costumes

33:08 and lighting the instructor kindly explains that it's not that kind

33:12 of assignment James says he found the assignment annoying at the time

33:18 but on reflection it was really valuable because it taught him

33:23 to stand up for himself because he ignored the instructions showed

33:28 up on the day with a box full of Halloween costumes

33:32 and hijacked the entire class and then the instructor just kind

33:36 of caved because whatever it's not entirely clear from the book

33:42 but the implication is that he spent the entire time

33:46 as the Director no one else got a turn with the camera

33:51 they just got to be his actors he let me

33:55 have my way coaching me through the bulky 16 millimeter technicalities

33:59 but letting me shoot my little narrative as intended directing

34:02 a room full of 20 students gave me a positive Rush

34:05 the energy and excitement was high and nobody here was goofing

34:09 around like some of my younger experiences here they were all 100%

34:14 Cooperative it made me feel like a director it's a heartwarming

34:19 story about how if you just ignore the instructions and disregard

34:23 your peers you too can get to feel important for an afternoon

34:27 he would then remake a night of total Terror again

34:30 in junior year his third crack at the story by my account

34:34 the cursed skull being replaced with a cursed cat statue

34:38 seemingly every movie James makes revolves around an inanimate object

34:43 that is either cursed or alive or cursed and Alive a conspicuous

34:49 chunk end with the protagonist being pursued by a demonic

34:53 doll or action figure he just he just he just he

34:59 he keeps remaking movies he made when he was a literal

35:02 child if not remakes then sequels there are six Snick movies

35:07 his most recent crack at something not AVGN related was

35:11 the head returns a 20 years later sequel to a home movie

35:16 he made in high school and it ends with James being

35:20 chased by a haunted doll boring anecdotes are interspersed with bizarre

35:25 claims that seem rooted in entirely in an understanding of the world

35:29 that calcified decades ago speaking of high school James states

35:34 that in 1997 he got into the kind of music you

35:38 don't hear as much on the radio like Metallica Metallica Metallica

35:47 in 1997 was one of the biggest bands in the world

35:52 every weirdo nerd our age had a Metallica phase in the mid90s

35:57 I had a Metallica a phase in the mid90s just

36:01 to seal the absurdity he Nam drops King Nothing a top

36:06 10 single on the US Hot 100 from an album

36:09 that was number one in 18 countries in a decade where

36:13 people still bought albums if you wanted to communicate the irony

36:18 of a character in a film someone with a self- mythology

36:22 of Outsider status while ultimately being no less in step

36:26 with extreme mainstream tastes you would drape the character in a Metallica

36:32 t-shirt an editor would have caught this immediately the actual substance

36:37 of the book is largely a chronological catalog of over two

36:41 dozen of James's home movies many of which are sequels

36:45 and outright remakes of his own prior movies in a roundabout way

36:50 this actually seems to have been the original impetus behind writing

36:53 the book or at least one of the books that became

36:58 this book there's evidence scattered throughout that large chunks

37:02 of the book are lightly adapted from contemporary documents though by evidence

37:08 I really mean James basically says it outright on page 150

37:12 now the trauma has long faded just as the VHS tapes

37:16 have deteriorated I never digitized or preserved them since the tapes

37:20 have had no purpose to me outside of the college

37:22 Circle this text is the final preservation which I first wrote

37:26 down while the incidents were still fresh in my mind it

37:29 was the Catalyst that made me want to write a book

37:31 in the first place sure it took decades to finish

37:34 and publish but those decades have given me plenty to add

37:40 this is weird right the admission that this was the Catalyst

37:47 that made me want to write a book in the first

37:49 place and that that Catalyst was still an animating force

37:53 in 2019 that you're just adding stuff to something you started

37:58 two decades earlier is this autobiography legitimately a project he began

38:05 in 2002 long before the days of his public success

38:10 and then just uncritically picked up 16 years later and just started

38:16 tacking more onto as though the snicks sexology getting suspended

38:22 for an academic year and launching one of the most influential you channels

38:29 ever are all equally weighted events the trauma he's referring to is

38:35 an episode that consumes much of the middle of the book

38:38 over 50 pages about a sixth of the volume are

38:41 dedicated to James getting kicked out of University at the end

38:45 of his first year due to a whole chain of events

38:49 where he had these roommates who were trashing their dorm

38:52 and he began taping them documentary style so they began performing

38:58 for the camera escalating their behavior and then at the end

39:01 of the year James took all of the tapes he had

39:04 of them lighting trash on fire putting holes in the wall

39:09 throwing things out of the windows and cut it all

39:13 together into a pseudo documentary that he then sent copies

39:17 of to the few other people involved and one of these copies

39:22 made its way to the dean who expelled them the entire

39:26 episode isn't completely devoid of accountability he does at times express

39:31 some remorse for well mostly his inactions but these statements are seemingly

39:38 stapled on with the vast majority of the event talked about

39:42 as unfair accusations and guilt by association a thing that was

39:47 done to him and he even speculates that the school

39:52 was deliberately malicious in their timing as the letters of expulsion

39:56 didn't arrive until too late in the summer to appeal

40:00 before registration he insists throughout that he was just a bystander

40:04 and doesn't really contend with the fact that if you point

40:08 a camera at someone and they turn to the camera and go

40:12 hey check this out before jump kicking a light fixture

40:15 until it explodes you are a participant but is all

40:22 this an expression of a true James or just bad writing

40:29 is self-reflection absent because James doesn't experience it or is it merely

40:34 his weakness as a Storyteller is it the lack of an Editor

40:39 to point out that he's ultimately just talking to himself

40:43 to tell him his emotions however deeply felt just aren't making

40:47 it on to the page the way he talks about unfinished

40:51 home movies from when he was 12 is just really

40:55 weird because he treats them as completed objects that are

40:58 of the same stuff as everything else AVGN the movie 2014

41:04 and crazy Carnage 1996 the sequel to Mighty Joe Rampage 1996 left

41:10 unfinished when the camera battery died are not strictly treated

41:15 as equal but it's insane that they're being compared at all I

41:21 keep coming back to James's camera setup the longer I stared

41:25 at it the more the Beast consumed me why was it

41:31 what's going on does he even know maybe if I

41:38 built it myself if I held it in my hands I

41:42 could understand is this the fruit of obsession is this where

41:49 compulsion takes us are the Damned and the damnable all doomed

41:53 to wander to Home Depot building something kind of the same

41:58 isn't enough a half-ass cynical replica isn't enough if you build

42:05 it out of malice you inject it full of all

42:08 your own prejudices it ends up bad for reasons you created it

42:13 tells you nothing James's board is pled and square so

42:18 my board must be pled squared and sanded taken seriously a good

42:25 faith replica non not just a joke this thing is very

42:30 strange to build physically confounding at times two strips of scrap

42:35 wood and 4 3-in carpentry screws hold the fluid head

42:39 in place by gripping the flange around the base a thing

42:43 only possible because of the odd profile of the Davidson Sanford

42:47 fm18 fluid head I'll admit that by the time my replica

42:51 was complete it felt more secure than I'd assumed from photos

42:55 but simultaneously precarious I didn't think it was at risk

43:00 of spontaneous self-destruction but still there's a looming sense that I

43:05 shouldn't push my luck my screws had already started to bend

43:09 during the tightening so done was pretty much done the thing

43:14 I struggled with from the very beginning the thing my brain

43:17 chafed against like cheap khaki is that the end goal here

43:22 a camera head mounted to a board isn't some far off

43:28 concept isn't some radical use case it's a thing the thing

43:32 is already made for already designed to do thousands of commenters

43:38 saw this build and knew immediately intuitively that it wasn't right

43:43 but plowing through the comments and the commentary of the assholish

43:47 variety seemingly none of them knew why that the head

43:51 already has a hole in the bottom for a bolt you

43:54 can take the lumber and just drill a hole in it

43:58 in the industry it's called a lwh hat Cardellini will sell

44:02 you one made out of anodized aluminum for almost 600 bucks

44:05 but those aren't very popular everybody knows you can get away

44:10 with 10 bucks of wood and bolts it's so simple so

44:16 straightforward that I can't stop making them I keep drilling holes

44:21 in wood and bolting camera heads to them the thing that's

44:26 confounding about it is that this is lowbudget film making like

44:31 that's James's thing right Scrappy lowbudget film making practical effects all

44:37 the movie Magic that can be worked with styrofoam hot glue

44:42 some plywood and a drill so why are his lowbudget

44:47 rigs so bad I have been watching Angry Video Game Nerd

45:00 episodes for days now in a tsunami of diarrhea and Nostalgia

45:06 for games I never played as a child I find myself

45:10 at times uncertain about what it is that I'm actually watching

45:15 maybe some of the beauty of internet video is that it

45:19 demolished a lot of corporate ideas about what genres are

45:22 and what a show looks and sounds like we now have so

45:27 many things that never could have existed in a framework of network

45:31 television where someone needed to describe their Vision to a 50-year-old

45:36 man in a suit who hasn't watched TV since he

45:39 was 12 and convince him to pay for it AVGN is

45:45 one of those things it is a cross time formulaic

45:49 but ultimately very loose with its structure and identity and the longer

45:54 I think on it the less I believe that it's even

45:58 a review show I'm probably not the first person to notice

46:02 this and maybe I'm even late to the party but it

46:04 occurs to me now as I psychologically weigh hip deep

46:08 through buffalo turds that AVGN is at its heart a skit

46:13 show that uses the premise of video game reviews as little

46:17 more than a framing device and as such there's scant aliance

46:21 to the games themselves but even that's not entirely true because

46:26 that would suggest a level of consistency that doesn't exist really

46:32 it would seem that the show is both review and skit

46:36 in whatever ratio James and his co-writers are compelled

46:40 by at the time of writing though it's unclear to what extent they

46:45 are aware of that about themselves the game serves as fodder

46:49 for jokes and skits and the videos are rarely a comprehensive

46:54 overview of the subject because they just kind of work

46:58 the material until they've got a video worth of stuff it

47:03 is what it needs to be in order to exist

47:06 the nerd was never a sincere expression of James's obsessions the nerd

47:12 was always a character the critiques are as authentic or performative

47:18 as is convenient superficially the membrane of performance makes AVGN

47:24 useless as insight into Jam but the hitch is that James

47:29 just isn't a good enough writer to divest himself fully

47:33 from the end product to write organically in the voice

47:38 and mind of the nerd the way that James talks about wavelength

47:42 both in the book and in the Standalone video on the subject

47:47 as himself are largely indistinguishable from the way that the nerd

47:52 would talk about wavelength wavelength is long it's boring ing

47:57 it's grading it's abrasive it doesn't make any sense there's no

48:01 story they show you a dead body but then nothing happens

48:05 it's just a picture of some waves on the wall is

48:08 that why it's called wavelength the length of time it takes

48:11 to get to some waves why would they do this what

48:14 were they thinking I feel a certain amount of kinship with James

48:36 Rolf we're basically the same age we both went to film

48:39 school and we both ultimately found ourselves making videos about media

48:43 for YouTube we both have an enduring interest in the Aesthetics

48:47 of old media be it VHS cam quarters or vintage video

48:52 games and we both feel the pressure of creation the sense

48:56 that there's just never enough time to do everything that we

48:59 want to get done better better known as The Angry

49:02 Video Game Nerd James has this behind the-scenes video that I

49:05 can't stop thinking about AVGN behind the scenes in nerd room

49:09 tour 2021 there's just so much going on with it

49:13 there's a light stand suspended from the ceiling with craft wire

49:17 a it's not all weird though James has all his studio

49:21 lights on the same power bar so he can turn the whole

49:24 setup on and off at the same time a kind

49:27 of obvious yet still clever trick that inspired me to rewire

49:31 the lights that I have over my workbench so so I've

49:34 got this idea the video ends the video ends with James

49:37 cataloging a Litany of reasons why he doesn't have

49:39 as much time for AVGN as he used to in addition

49:42 to this behind thes scenes video James has an autobiography A movie

49:46 making nerd which he self-published in 2022 these glimpses James allows

49:51 into his private life have become the locus of an entire

49:54 par audience of hate Watchers s Massacre truthers who have memeified

49:59 and dissected them to truly bizarre levels of hostility and entitlement

50:03 that I don't particularly care to fully unwind it's the usual

50:08 soup of in jokes piled on in jokes piled

50:10 on in jokes almost as compelling as Rolf himself is this community

50:16 that swirls around him seemingly offended by his continuing existence though

50:21 they will absolutely take offense

50:22 to that characterization and assist that they're

50:25 not hateful fat Folk misogynists they're just too edgy for woke

50:29 soy boys and it is merely their unwavering commitment to free

50:33 speech that compels them to allow the hateful fat phobic

50:36 misogynist to stick around you know the song and dance thing

50:40 is though that Cinemassacre Broadley has provided them with a lot

50:44 of red meat Mike maai who handled moderation of the studio

50:48 social presence for years is kind of an edgy[ __] himself

50:52 who would pick fights go on aimless Banning sprees and other

50:56 misbehavior Behavior he once posted a photo of a penis

50:58 not necessarily his penis but certainly framed to imply that it

51:03 was his penis to his Twitter account to win a literal

51:06 dick measuring contest with Rowdy commenters in the shame soaked aftermath

51:10 he tried to scrub this event from history and as the moderator

51:14 of the cinem masar subreddit went on a Banning

51:16 spree there which led to the formation of the Splinter sub

51:20 the Cinemassacre truth as production of AVG and the movie dragged

51:24 on through 2013 and 2014 James contracted with multi-channel network

51:28 screen wve to manage more of the Channel's backend now okay

51:33 in the book James mentions that he has not in fact

51:36 made his millions that during the time where AVGN was at its

51:40 peak cultural relevance their ability to monetize that success was pretty

51:45 spotty their relationship with YouTube as a platform wasn't the best

51:49 and while they were able to be grandfathered Into the Now

51:52 long defunct director program and retain their ability to post videos

51:57 longer than 10 minutes they weren't in the first or even

52:00 second or even third wave of channels admitted to the partner

52:04 program merchandising the publication contract

52:07 with game trailers and various one-off

52:10 contracts provided an income that made AVGN viable as a job

52:14 but James claims and I'm inclined to believe

52:17 that this did not manifest as the kind of wealth drawn

52:21 in by the likes of smos Shane Dawson and other early

52:24 YouTube contemporaries James is justifiably proud of AVGN the movie a film

52:30 that by All rights shouldn't exist that should have fallen apart

52:33 that very well could have ruined the channel ruined his finances

52:37 for the rest of his life ruined his marriage and ruined

52:41 his friendships a lot of people helped make the movie but very

52:46 few championed it AVGN the movie for all its faults

52:50 isn't the product of a miracle it's the product of James

52:55 Rolf and nearly destroyed [Music] him so I have this theory

53:13 that in 2014 when the movie did not manifest greener pastures

53:17 when James realized that he kind of hated making movies

53:20 at that scale and was loaded up on credit card debt

53:23 from finishing the movie someone at screen wve said we can

53:26 fix your monetization problems because what follows in 2015 through 2022 is

53:32 just an absolute frenzy of content podcasts clip compilations panel shows

53:38 roundtables Vlogs full season videos basically every form of content possible

53:43 that could either be offloaded entirely to an outside editor

53:46 or would otherwise maximize efficiency stuff that takes an hour to record

53:50 and 40 minutes to edit cinem masker goes from publishing

53:54 a little over one video per week in 2013 to publishing

53:57 five videos a week in 2017 in order to facilitate

54:01 this a new cast of hosts appears very suddenly screenwave employees who

54:06 are already on the clock and don't have scheduling conflicts

54:10 or other jobs that they would need to work around to do

54:13 a podcast and two panel shows a week people who

54:17 are convenient cin Massacre through

54:20 screen wave became visibly extremely corporate

54:23 extremely quickly and remember James doesn't see the Channel

54:26 as the Angry Video Game Nerd he sees it as cine Massacre

54:31 the production house so while this transition made sense to him

54:35 it made less sense to his fans since all of these secondary

54:38 videos would show up in their subscriptions not just AVGN

54:42 videos when you see the channel has a panel show where

54:46 James is only an occasional Guest The Narrative of a corporate

54:50 takeover of James selling out writs itself but like none

54:56 of this would matter if it were good if the podcast

54:59 is entertaining no one's going to care that Justin and Kieran

55:02 and Ryan suddenly show up out of nowhere or that James

55:06 isn't the main focus but it's not good because these dudes they

55:10 bring in are a void of Charisma with basically no

55:14 onscreen chemistry because the reason they're there is convenience recently I

55:21 took the old website and I made a big document

55:24 of every single article that was on the old website and what

55:30 YouTube video or it goes to or whether that video is

55:34 like lost and we would have to get it from the sources

55:37 so I have this like huge map and I gave

55:39 it to Justin and Kieran and all of them and they're

55:42 going to start digging through that or having someone dig

55:45 through that and start uploading some of the old stuff like

55:48 the uh like all the turtle Tuesdays and all of all

55:53 of that stuff the goal forgot about those cuz all the WordPress

55:56 stuff and stuff the goal is to get monster man

55:58 that's on there fully and finalized also like James just isn't

56:03 very good at spontaneous conversation he's not a strong podcast host

56:07 but he's the star of the show he's the person people

56:10 are tuning in for which makes a chatty podcast format a really

56:15 bad choice it's a product showing the star of the show

56:19 in the worst light possible then there's James dad rock

56:23 band Rex Viper named after a joke character from the big

56:27 rigs over the road racing episode of AVGN Rex Viper

56:31 is so insubstantial a project that it would barely Merit mentioning

56:35 it if it weren't for the fact that James and James

56:38 alone seems to take it really seriously and talks about it

56:42 like it's important the sum total of Rex Viper is two

56:46 live performances and four music videos for parody songs that are

56:50 just songs from 80s movies with the lyrics sometimes retooled

56:53 to throw in video game references or the instrumentation altered to mix

56:58 in game themes ey of the Tiger Electronics Mighty Wings

57:02 and hukin Nintendo Power of Love I'm going to be honest

57:07 I hate this entire genre I am the last person

57:11 to give it a fair shake so I'm just going to move

57:14 on all of this is easy pickings for truthers whether

57:17 it be the cringe or the cynicism there's a lot here

57:21 to make fun of truthers even have a name for all

57:24 of it the slob wave era get it because Justin Silverman

57:28 is fat and Kieran Fallon has that heavy metal look going

57:31 on ultimately though no matter what the cinemas truth might be

57:36 accurate about it's all just a vehicle for ableism fat phobia

57:40 sexism transphobia and but they're Chan trolls it's not that deep

57:45 they are in fact just haters they have a particular

57:49 hate boner for James's wife April for reasons that are complicated

57:52 but not complex they'll frame it that James was dragged Kicking

57:56 and Screaming from his basement because she wanted kids they cast James

58:00 as a henpecked husband whose career was derailed by a woman

58:05 this flies in the face of both Everything James has ever

58:07 said and also just observable reality James and April were together

58:12 before the first AVGN episode Hit YouTube there is no Garden

58:16 of Eden for Eve to tarnish April has been here

58:21 the whole time during the filming of AVG and the movie

58:24 she moved with James to La for 6 months and took

58:27 on the role of production manager if the movie had one

58:31 Champion it was James if it had a second it was

58:35 April but because he describes her as giving him an ultimatum

58:39 about having kids they are able to depict it as brow

58:42 beating vilifying April as a nagging shrew who uses their children

58:46 as a chain to keep James from realizing his Ambitions

58:50 as though it is preposterous on its face that James might honestly

58:53 prefer fatherhood to making videos for the internet one time James

58:58 and Mike sat down to record a let's play and James

59:01 had somewhere he needed to be to pick up his kids

59:04 from swim lessons or something which gave him a hard

59:07 out of 540 if he was going to get there

59:10 on time 540 came and went James started to visibly panic when

59:15 he noticed the time and wound up leaving rather ungracefully

59:19 before finishing the lp later in the evening alone let's break

59:23 it all right well anyway it we just ran out

59:27 of time because I have to be done at 5:40 right now

59:30 and so what's going to happen is exactly 540 next time

59:33 you see this James is going to beat this on his own

59:35 uh without me cuz the way we record so yeah

59:42 okay just to make it clear again what happened was

59:45 that we ran out of time truthers have clung to 540

59:49 as a meme ever since these are what James describes

59:53 as comments of an assholish variety and really the thing

59:57 with the 2021 behind the scenes video the odd texture of the whole

1:00:01 thing isn't that it's partially a response to these comments

1:00:05 but that all of it is that's the animating force behind it

1:00:09 that's the reason why it exists it's not a behindth scenes

1:00:14 room tour for the sake of easy content it's an explanation

1:00:17 a defense as a room tour it's bad James bounces

1:00:22 from odd detail to odd detail spends tremendous amounts of time

1:00:26 outlining problems and the whole of it is weird and a nearly

1:00:30 incomprehensible level of honesty about his bespoke inefficiencies but all

1:00:36 because it's a defense of screen wave a defense of his wife

1:00:40 a defense of his children and a defense of his priorities

1:00:44 in life so screenwave hooked me up so screenwave set

1:00:47 me up with a whole new server screenwave also helped me

1:00:51 with my internet screenwave and I have been working to resolve

1:00:54 it and then I sent a rough edit to screen

1:00:55 wve and they just did the rest of the post production

1:00:58 and effects so why doesn't James have enough time anymore what's

1:01:03 he spending his time doing if not making AVGN I don't

1:01:08 know and I honestly don't particularly care if AVGN has declined

1:01:13 in some spiritual way it's not because James isn't grinding away

1:01:17 with burnout inducing 16-hour days in watching through all 52 hours

1:01:22 of nerd videos in Reverse chronological order I'm not even convinced

1:01:26 that there is some calculable decline maybe this is to its

1:01:30 detriment but the show has always been spotty and kind

1:01:33 of ragged at the edges and it has remained incredibly consistent

1:01:38 in that zone maybe the format is just dated YouTube has

1:01:43 left AVGN behind maybe the audience is just aging out maybe

1:01:48 James does lack ambition or he's just out of ideas hell

1:01:53 maybe it is his wife and kids getting in the way

1:01:56 of the show but here's my hot take on that that's

1:02:00 fine the Angry Video Game Nerd is not a loadbearing pillar

1:02:04 of reality it's a YouTube sketch comedy it doesn't need

1:02:09 to exist I do not know James Rolf but in this I'm

1:02:14 confident James Rolf loves his wife and kids and they

1:02:17 are his top priority the best written parts of his autobiography

1:02:22 by a substantial margin are the stories about the challenge ing

1:02:26 births of his two daughters and how he discovered that he really

1:02:30 really enjoys being a father his mistake was to share

1:02:34 that fact with an audience too immature to comprehend it no

1:02:38 not just too immature an audience patently unwilling to comprehend

1:02:44 it probably the most baffling mistake James has made is assume

1:02:48 that his haters are here to be persuaded do they want

1:02:51 me to suffer yeah James they kind of do but still

1:02:57 like mistakes have been made like what's the point of having

1:03:02 a company to handle all this stuff if James is going

1:03:06 to make a video where he tries to do his own

1:03:09 PR response to his haters by showing off his janky DIY

1:03:14 rigging why employ editors if they're going to leave in the footage

1:03:19 where he has a humiliating panic attack well anyway part

1:03:23 of what is so transfixing in all of this is

1:03:25 is this parade of contradictions that from the outside there are

1:03:29 these very visible very public decisions being made but those decisions

1:03:35 aren't producing the intended results even without access to their actual back

1:03:40 end I can say that massively increasing the channel output

1:03:44 absolutely improved Revenue even if

1:03:46 the podcasts and whatnot underperformed there's

1:03:49 just so many of them it is on net hundreds

1:03:53 of millions of views but what good is that if it damages

1:03:58 the brand what's the point of doing damage control at all

1:04:03 if it just raises a million more questions in a spiritual

1:04:15 sense James has trapped himself on the couch his access

1:04:19 to the capital resources needed for larger

1:04:22 projects is dwindling and his sensibilities

1:04:24 as a filmmaker are are too myopic to appeal

1:04:27 to an audience that isn't humoring him telling him that Rex Viper

1:04:31 is cute and they're just glad he's having fun in a more

1:04:35 literal sense James has trapped himself on the couch because

1:04:39 the room is just too small I had heard this before

1:04:43 but I find that just saying it or looking at frame

1:04:46 grabs doesn't do justice to the realities of physical space so

1:04:51 I did the thing any normal person would do and built

1:04:54 a 112 scale biorama of the nerd room he needs

1:04:58 to haphazardly hang things from the ceiling and build Frank and low

1:05:02 hats because when he moved house in 2016 he had

1:05:05 Kyle build a replica of the nerd basement in the new

1:05:09 garage so that the new basement could be dedicated to a fake

1:05:13 video rental store but Kyle whose day job is renovating

1:05:17 houses built the room as an actual room not as a set

1:05:22 with accommodation for the needs of recording and for reasons

1:05:26 I can only speculate on the set is only 8 ft

1:05:30 wide I don't know maybe the rest of the garage is

1:05:34 a workshop or they still needed to fit a car

1:05:37 in there I really truly don't know but it would feel cramped

1:05:43 just as a wreck room but as a film set

1:05:46 it is claustrophobic there's just there's nowhere for stands to go

1:05:52 and okay now every film set is crowded with junk every

1:05:55 every film set is a jungle of stands and tripods and apple

1:05:59 boxes and lens boxes and lights on standby but this tightens

1:06:04 things down to a point where you just can't get

1:06:07 in and out without stepping over everything it becomes a game

1:06:10 of Parkour just to change a battery and when you're working

1:06:15 mostly alone that gets frustrating really fast and when you're frustrated

1:06:20 you get impulsive and those impulses lead to half measure Solutions

1:06:25 and those half measure Solutions accumulate into a whole network

1:06:29 of bespoke in efficiencies that you just live with because the process

1:06:33 of unraveling them feels just so big it was in the finishing

1:06:43 touches of James's low hat that it began to make

1:06:47 sense screwing on a bubble level did something to it transformed

1:06:52 it it was still janky it was still inexplicable but I

1:06:55 suddenly cared for it no longer saw it as just

1:06:58 a heap of scraps stapled together for a bit it's still

1:07:03 a bad solution it still looks visibly like a bad solution

1:07:07 but it felt personal I could imagine myself as James self-c

1:07:13 conceptualizing as not an indie filmmaker but as a backyard

1:07:18 filmmaker a kid with no resources but what he can scr

1:07:23 out of the garage and this felt far more homogeneous

1:07:28 with that than with any other James I had considered so far

1:07:33 in 2010 James posted an autobiographical documentary called the dragon

1:07:37 in my dreams James tells a story of a recurring nightmare he

1:07:40 had as a child being born down on by this massive

1:07:44 Dragon an image that he connects to a dragon-shaped water feature

1:07:48 in a neighborhood park his parents took him to as a toddler

1:07:51 for the video James with friend Matt behind the camera

1:07:54 visits the park on the day it just so happens

1:07:56 that workers are removing the dragon from the spot where it

1:07:59 sat for 30 some odd years in voiceover he reflects

1:08:03 on his childhood on the imagery of the dragon on the then

1:08:07 upcoming Milestone of turning 30 and holding back tears he takes

1:08:11 a knee beneath the dragon and avows himself to the path

1:08:14 of the filmmaker while the dude who was working the Jackhammer

1:08:17 stands just off screen having a smoke while these two

1:08:21 guys do their thing it's all kind of cringe a truly

1:08:25 element Al example of pretentious self-important Film School Pap but whatever

1:08:30 let he who is without cringe throw the first stone

1:08:33 the conclusion of the video is muddled just kind of wanders between

1:08:37 a few different ideas but the intent is clear it's

1:08:40 a reflection on just how far James has come and an aspiration

1:08:44 of just how far he has to go a phase

1:08:47 of his life coming to an end just as conclusively as this Dragon

1:08:51 being torn out and replaced that metaphor crumbles to Bitter

1:08:55 Ash when you realize that the dragon didn't really go anywhere

1:08:58 it was displaced all of 30 ft from sitting inside

1:09:01 the water fountain to standing beside the Gate of Fox Chase playground

1:09:05 in a way the dragon in my dreams is itself

1:09:08 a brutal metaphor for James's career James is a calcified Dragon whose

1:09:13 films have barely changed between high school and middle age

1:09:17 uprooted from VHS and transplanted 30 ft away in HD I

1:09:22 think about James every day now every time time I have

1:09:25 to step over something that's in a bad position every time

1:09:29 I need to get something off a shelf but there's stands

1:09:32 or tripods or boxes in the way every stack of books

1:09:35 every lens without a home every camera bag left on the couch

1:09:38 for weeks on end every clamp every cable every stray

1:09:41 roll of tape has become an accusing presence in my life

1:09:45 a bespoke inefficiency that I can stare directly at and yet

1:09:49 never fully Escape what if the problem is me James hasn't

1:09:54 moved I've moved AVGN is what it's always been the truthers

1:10:00 claiming that the show is bad now are getting spooked

1:10:03 by their own Shadows the show is what it's always been it

1:10:08 isn't bad now but good in the past you're just getting

1:10:11 older you're not seeing a Titan of YouTube fallen from Grace

1:10:15 you're seeing a man as immovable in his interests and habits

1:10:19 as Atlas but so what would it even matter either

1:10:24 way we we don't have the James Rolf we have

1:10:28 a crass homunculus of James constructed out of photons and wavelengths delivered

1:10:33 to us through our screens a codex of symbols we

1:10:36 can interpret but never fully understand and in that void between

1:10:41 the real and the perceived imposed meaning compelled by what we'll

1:10:46 never know today we're going back we're going FL flashback released

1:10:56 in 1991 this game was available for most consoles available

1:11:01 at the time plus PC but all I've got is the Super

1:11:04 Nintendo version so that's what we're playing this was part

1:11:07 of a trend of so-called cinematic Platformers many of these games are

1:11:11 considered Classics because of the way they elevated games as an art

1:11:14 form took it seriously and confronted audiences with complex sober

1:11:18 stories they weren't just reflex based arcade games where you hop

1:11:22 on glomas to rescue a princess they told complex stories like

1:11:26 films so will flashback to light and aound or will

1:11:29 it put the ass back in classic let's find out it

1:11:35 opens with a pretty impressive 3D cut scene that was clearly

1:11:38 intended for PC because the Super Nintendo is really struggling still

1:11:42 many super ports at the time would have replaced

1:11:44 these with a static slideshow so the fact they even tried to keep

1:11:47 it is impressive okay so your character crash lands in the jungle

1:11:51 with no guidance on who you are or what you're

1:11:53 doing here well turn turns out that's intended your character

1:11:56 has Amnesia and needs to figure out why he crash landed

1:11:59 in the jungle the only thing you know is your name

1:12:02 is Conrad the first thing you notice is that the animations

1:12:05 are very smooth and lifelike because like Prince of Persia

1:12:09 the developers rotoscoped actual footage of actors walking and jumping this does

1:12:13 lend the game a certain weight when you drop down off

1:12:16 a ledge with your pistol drawn and Ice tube mutants it

1:12:19 feel super badass yeah take that you mutant[ __] the second

1:12:24 thing you notice is that the controls are ass every

1:12:27 time you push a button on the controller Conrad takes one

1:12:30 giant step forward or jumps or rolls or draws his gun

1:12:34 and you need to wait for the whole animation to finish

1:12:37 before you can do anything else and that'd be fine

1:12:41 but the game still has tons of reflex based obstacles that require

1:12:44 very precise timing one of the very first challenges you're given

1:12:47 is jumping over this pit but to do it you

1:12:50 need to start running on the previous screen and then enter

1:12:52 the command to jump before the new screen has even finished

1:12:55 loading or you just run off the ledge into the pit

1:12:58 below and then need to climb back out waiting a short

1:13:01 Eternity for Conrad to go through his lifelike cinematic animation every

1:13:05 time just like in cinema Conrad doesn't have a life meter

1:13:09 on screen instead he has a personal Shield that can absorb

1:13:12 a certain number of shots okay so that's Health by a different

1:13:15 name so to check your health you need to open

1:13:17 your inventory and cycle through everything you're carrying until you get

1:13:21 to your Shield module where it'll tell you how many charges

1:13:23 you have left oh yeah yeah that's cinematic cinematic is dog

1:13:27 farts yeah it turns out that in video games cinematic is

1:13:30 a code word for[ __] oh the controls suck ass just

1:13:34 tell players it's cinematic the story gives you no clues about

1:13:37 where to go or what to do it's Cinema you eventually

1:13:40 get to a giant pit that this Shady[ __] tells you

1:13:42 to jump into in order to get to New Washington

1:13:45 at least he warns you that you'll die if you jump without

1:13:47 an anti-gravity belt which he offers to sell you for 600

1:13:50 credits okay so you need to go find some credits fortunately

1:13:54 there's lots of them hidden around different areas of the Jungle

1:13:57 but here's the thing if you go out of your way

1:13:59 to get all of them thinking they'll be useful later

1:14:01 you're wrong he doesn't just take 600 credits he takes all

1:14:04 your credits he robs you cinematic anyway after you pay this lying[

1:14:09 __] everything you have Connor jumps into the pit and enters

1:14:12 level two [Music] there's nowhere to go there's just three

1:14:42 screens there's nothing but an elevator down into a hole sure

1:14:45 you can recharge your Shields down there in the hole

1:14:47 but it's not going to get you anywhere it's Cinema you can

1:14:50 jump up to this ledge but it doesn't go anywhere

1:14:52 either there's this ledge you can see but it's out Out

1:14:55 Of Reach you just can't jump high enough to reach it

1:14:57 and pull yourself out this is your life now you're trapped

1:15:00 here on these three screens until you quit anyway what you

1:15:03 need to do to progress is confront your insecurities and accept

1:15:06 that you're not a filmmaker either what did you say he's

1:15:26 the angriest G youve ever ass [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music]