What a devastating weekend, both in terms of the devastating Arizona 100+ degree heat and perhaps the biggest fighting game tournament of the year to date, Devastation ‘09. Again with camera in hand, I decided to utilize my amatuer skills to film a short little video montage.

Aside from the gaming festivities, really the people made the experience that much more enjoyable. I have a bit of a laundry list of people to thank for such an awesome weekend. Firstly, I had a blast covering the event with the Get Your Tournament crew, Glenn and Kara, as well as finding the best eats that Phoenix had to offer; I especially liked when we were looking for a good Pho joint, and Kara’s GPS told us to drive back to LA — hilarious. Also thanks to my old friend Tristan Parker aka DJFaka, who was one of the event organizers; you; as well as the other staff such as Rob, Paul and Bryan; did a rockin’ job setting that event up. Mad props to DJ WHEAT, SirScoots, and Slasher for that awesome live streaming coverage of the event. That was amazing production value and it totally gave fighting games as a competitive media a legitimate vibe.

Lastly if the heat wasn’t enough alone to make me sweat, I decided to enter the Street Fighter 4 tournament just for kicks. And again to overuse this word play, it was very devastating. I had to play Combofiend, one of SoCal’s premier Street Fighter 4 players. What made matters worse was that I had to play Combofiend on the LIVE stream — embarrassing to say the least. I am more than willing to admit I am a scrub and never expected to play such a high level player streamed across the Internet for all to see. Damn you Slasher! =)

Recently, I’ve been getting into this arcane voodoo magic that is videography. Granted I’m very amatuer at this stuff, I find I’m enjoying it more and more; I think it’s because I’m trying to justify my $750 purchase on a camera and equipment, and for that amount of money, I better damn well be enjoying it — though I gotta say I certainly enjoyed playing the intrusive creepy video camera guy this weekend at one of the most exciting Street Fighter 4 tournaments I’ve been to in awhile, the SBO Qualifiers.

At the event I ran into Ian Cofino, the director of the fighting game scene documentary I Got Next, who you may remember from my interview with him a couple months ago. We were chating for a bit, and he gave me some great advice in the context of his own experiences creating a film. He told me that, in the beginning of his project, he didn’t really have a set direction for the documentary. It wasn’t until he started going to more and more tournaments that he saw the same faces to which a possible narrative for his film developed. He mentioned to me he had to start broad and then, as time progressed, narrow the direction of where he wanted to take his film. It was great advice, as it was the same dilema I was running into as I was creating my SBO Get Hype video. I had about 1.5 hours of footage to which I had no idea what to do with; most of it was crap from my unsteady nerves and shaking hands. However, as I was culling through my footage, I started to find these moments that made the SBO qualifiers such a great event to spectate in the first place: the cheering, the jeering, and the yelling — or hype as we like to call it in the fighting game community. It was from a few minutes or so of hype I captured that I was able to create a nice little montage. Though I admit I really need to hone my technique as well as pick up some motion graphic techniques to spice up my videos. I seriously have a lot to learn.

As a side note, I’m not sure if you, my readers, know this, but I’m sort of a big deal now in Taiwan and New Zealand. My video received the #51 and #99 “Most Viewed” honor in the Gaming Category … in Taiwan and New Zealand (LOL). You can expect my new Hong Kong action movie filmed on location in the highlands of New Zealand to hit the theaters this Summer.

Among others things like taking silly perverted photos such as the one you see below, I had a chance to go clubbin’, walk the strip, eat at buffets and lose big with some old high school buddies of mine — ya know, the Vegas experience. Of course I just had to bring my new shiny expensive HD video camera along.

If you’ve read some of my interviews you’ll notice that one of my signature questions that I ask is, “In the event of the zombie apocalypse, what is your ideal strategy for survival?” In this relative time of peace, it’s a question that provides some fun insight to a person’s personality. But as everyone knows, zombies or robots — whatever comes first — will eventually inherit the Earth; it is extremely important that you have a game plan when it happens. I, myself, have never gone on record on how I would survive the zombie masses, and since I am an altruistic person who cares about the survival of the human race, I will share with you my strategy for survival.

First, a few assumptions: the zombie outbreak will most likely affect the majority of the population with only about less than 1% of who will have immunity, meaning survivors will be far and few between. Also, those that are affected will suffer symptoms of two mutually exclusive kinds: zombies will either be slow and mindless or extremely mobile and ravenous; in any case, it is important to plan for both kinds.

In order to deal with any kind of zombie, you are going to need to arm yourself, preferably a melee weapon along with a firearm. Contrary to popular belief, a flamethrower is not effective against zombies. Zombies no longer feel pain, so using a flamethrower will only succeed in creating not only flesh rotting zombies who want to eat your brain, but now flaming zombies who want to eat your brain. What you’re going to need is a firearm with stopping power with a wide angle of shot. Ask any gamer what that weapon is, and they will tell you it’s the “Boom Stick” aka the shotgun. It is the perfect weapon that doesn’t require much marksmanship and perfect for dealing with zombies that tend to attack in hordes.

Next, you’re going to want to try to meet up with at least another survivor. Dealing with the downfall of humanity alone is quite taxing on a person’s psyche. With less than 1% of the human race able to resist the viral infection, be prepared to meet up with that one person you swore you’d hate for the rest of your life but now must work together with to survive. On the flip side, be prepared to shoot that person you had a crush on who, due to unfortunate genetics and circumstance, is now a zombie. It’s cliche I know but also probable. With all that being said, limit yourself to only traveling in pairs. As my elite video game training has taught me, when you mix untrained civilians; guns; zombies that come from all directions; and panic, you get the perfect recipe for crossfire and friendly fire.

It is proven through classical zombie films and video games that the mall use to be the ideal place to wait out the zombie apocalypse; it had everything you needed: food, shelter, and lingerie. Unfortunately, America’s malls have become nothing more than a cesspool of competing brand name clothing, so unless you want to die wearing the latest Abrecrombie fashion, I wouldn’t recommend heading to your nearest mall. Instead I recommend that you make the arduous journey towards Cheyenne Mountain. Not only does Cheyenne Mountain have facilities built by the government to withstand nuclear attacks, it also houses the Stargate program, a transgalactic gate system for traveling to distant worlds light years away. So as zombies slowly eradicate the remaining survivors, it is your duty to dial the gate and continue the human race on another planet.

You know, I made the mistake one time of telling one of my colleagues at work that I was at a Street Fighter IV tournament over the weekend, and I could just see that look develop in her eye; you know that look I’m talking about, that one look in which you have just learned of an awkward hobby your coworker does off hours. I’m pretty sure she walked away thinking I was in a basement at my parents house playing Street Fighter IV with my friends all weekend. But what she didn’t understand, as well as most people, is that the Street Fighter IV and fighting game community have a rich and established history dating back to the early ’90s, along the way developing its own lingo, events, legends, rivalries and, most importantly, a sense of pride and community. So when I happen to stumble upon the trailer for I Got Next, I thought it captured quite well the essence of the fighting game subculture.

What started as a small senior project has now ballooned into a full length feature production that has been generating quite the buzz amongst Street Fighter IV enthusiast.

I so happen to run into Ian Cofino, the director of the documentary, at Street Fighter Bar Fights, and he graciously agreed to answer a few questions for an interview:

What inspired you to make a documentary about this particular subculture?

I’m currently in my final semester (juggling classes, my senior project and looking for a job) as a Graphic Designer at Purchase College, School of Art and Design. As graduating seniors, we are required to create a senior project for ourselves. I’m passionate about many things, but two things over almost anything else: motion design and video games, particularly fighting games. So the documentary started as a way to bring these two separate fields together. Originally, I intended for the project to be a short piece on the fighting scene in general, particularly on the east coast, considering the difficulty I would have getting around to other tournaments without any funding. The scope of the project changed when I drove to Virginia for Sinsation in February and really got time to interact and talk with players like Justin Wong, Joe Ciaramelli and Ryan Gutierrez. After meeting with these incredibly passionate players, they motivated me to create something much greater than I had originally intended.

I’m sure a lot of veterans in the fighting game community will liken your documentary to Bang the Machine. How is your documentary different?

That’s a good question, considering I have yet to see it. From my understanding talking to players who have been in the film and who have seen the film, Bang the Machine focused on the first US Street Fighter team to go to Japan to compete. My documentary has a broader discussion of the fighting scene in general, but it also has a narrative of East coast versus West coast, coming to a head at Evo this year and potentially culminating with the first SF4 team to go to Japan to compete, paralleling Bang the Machine. Bang the Machine also follows what I consider the first generation of competitive Street Fighter players — Mike Watson, Alex Valle, John Choi, etc. — while this documentary focuses more on the upcoming and established group of players from the second generation — Justin Wong, Ryan Gutierrez, Joe Ciaramelli, Mike Ross, among many others.

Do you intend this movie to be geared towards the mass audience — a sort of outside looking in perspective? Or perhaps a documentary more for the fighting game community audience?

Well, my hope is that this documentary will work on both levels, [having] a broad appeal, that everyone watching will be able to take something away from it, and, at the same time, I hope that it will give the core audience of competitive and casual fighting game players just what they want out of a documentary of this type.

You mention on your website that you plan to release the documentary for free. That is quite generous considering the economic situation and the amount, I’m sure, you spent out of pocket to produce this film.

The decision to release the documentary for free came from multiple places, but, first and foremost, I really wanted to give back to the community. I’m really working on a shoestring budget right now, so there is no lighting guy, no sound guy, no editor, no camera man, no art director or cinematographer, no producer, no director, and no designer. I’m basically taking on all those roles. So when I go to a tournament, I’ll handle the lighting as best I can (e.g. move the person I’m filming underneath a light) and act as cameraman, sound guy (shotgun mic on my camera) and interviewer. When I get back, I do all the editing and motion design work for the documentary. I try to cut costs as much as possible, and, if I can’t, I know it’s going to be worth it in the end. Otherwise, I would not be able to create the documentary if I had a crew with me or if I hired an editor or assistants. Recently some incredibly generous players have started to donate to the documentary through the link on the I Got Next website which will greatly help.

Did you expect that this relatively small college senior project of yours would balloon to a feature length production? How are you dealing with the exposure and excitement that your documentary is generating?

I definitely didn’t see this project being nearly as big as it has become when I first started it. It’s really overwhelming seeing the support that has come from the community and from people outside the community that are just highly anticipating the documentary. It’s been a great boost to my morale and has helped push me forward to complete the project.

In the event of the Zombie Apocolypse, what would be your ideal survival strategy?

Okay. So I’m a big fan of Walking Dead, written by Robert Kirkman, who does really spectacular work. So I’m gonna have to take a page out of his book. First and foremost: round up other survivors, you’re definitely not getting anywhere by yourself (as cool as that would be). Second, find some weapons to defend yourself against hordes of ravenous zombies (preferably weapons that are sharp, very sharp, or set fire to things). Next, find a prison or some place well fortified (must have food supplies!) and hunker down. Fourth, have good friends turn upon you in post-apocalyptic-induced psychosis. Fifth, join zombie hordes in terrorizing the nation, possibly/preferably the world.

And lastly, who do you play in Street Fighter 4?

Akuma and Fei Long.

Thanks Ian for taking the time to answer these questions. As stated in the interview, Ian is doing this all on his own dime! He can certainly use the help and support. So please, if you like what you see, go to his website and donate! I certainly wish Ian the best of luck Ian in producing and directing this film. I hope it turns out to be fine work of cinematography.

If it was ever more evident that Street Fighter is a cultural icon, it was definitely at the Nucleus Gallery and Store in Alhambra last night for the Jab Strong Fierce Street Fighter Art exhibit. Who knew you could fill an art gallery dedicated to Street Fighter with hundreds of gallery patrons. Gamers, fans, and art snobs alike were treated with a night of tasteful art, wine and tournament gaming, all to celebrate our favorite hadouken throwing, lightning kickin’, bear wrastlin’ characters.

It’s one thing to see your favorite pixelated Street Fighter franchise evolve throughout the years with technology, but it’s another experience to see an artist’s interpretation of the beloved characters I grew up with. My favorite piece of the gallery is “The Red Cyclone” by Derek Yu. I can just imagine this piece menacingly staring at you in the halls of the Kremlin along side portaits of past Czars and Russian Leaders.

I also had the chance to catch up with Mike Ross, who recently finished 2nd in the Gamestop US Nationals, and John Rog — both Street Fighter IV pros. Among other things, I asked Mike Ross about Justin Wong getting in his face during recent matches.

You can still check out the gallery at the Nucleus in Alhambra from April 25, 2009 – May 11, 2009.

As a bit of an idealist, I like to think video games and professional gamers alike are becoming a bit more ubiquitous throughout the sexes, but the truth of the matter is, when you think of the Street Fighter scene, you think of legendary names such as Alex Valle, Justin Wong, John Choi, and Daigo Umehara — all men mind you. For as long as I can remember, the fighting game community was essentially, and still is, a male dominated e-Sport. However, Ciji Thornton aka “starslay3r” recently announced that she would be giving up her lustrous plastic guitar fretting career and making her way into the world of focus attacks, kara throws, and ultra combos.

Ciji is also not just your regular run-of-the-mill competitive player. In fact, she has developed quite a gaming “resume” by competing professionally in Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 5, Need For Speed: Carbon, as well as Guitar Hero, for which she is most notably known for. She has even appeared on the SciFi Channel’s WCG Ultimate Gamer, a reality based television show that follows the lives of various professional gamers. Regardless of her sex, if there was ever a gamer with the fortitude and discipline to take on the art of competitive Street Fighting, it’s definitely Ciji.

I met Ciji at Arcade Infinity, one of Southern California’s premier spots for Street Fighter 4 competition, and she was kind enough to answer some questions for an interview:
So what made you decide to play Street Fighter 4 professionally?

Honestly it was a nice long talk with gootecks (Ryan Gutierrez) that made me decide this is what I wanted to do. At first I just wanted to learn how to play and be decent at the game, but after a good talk with gootecks and listening to his big plan for SF4, I was totally on board for putting my guitar to rest and becoming good friends with the fight stick.

What is your history with the Street Fighter franchise and fighting games in general?

I have a history with Soul Calibur 2 (SC2) mostly, and I am new to the Street Fighter scene. I [have] multiple 1st and 2nd place finishes for SC2 for both the arcade version and the PS2 version, but when it comes to the Street Fighter series, I’m a total noob. I think the fact that I have never played any of the prior Street Fighters will make it a lot harder for me, but at the same time, I think people will have more respect for me if I do succeed in my attempt to go pro knowing I had to practice my ass off and had less time to do it.

Unlike some games today, such has Halo 3 or Guitar Hero, Street Fighter and the fighting game community have a rich and established history dating back to the early ’90s. How does that contrast to some of the other games you play professionally? Is it intimidating?

It is very intimidating. Games like Guitar Hero and Halo are newer games, so they tend to have temporary stars. I’ve been lucky for the past 3 years while I was playing Guitar Hero on a professional level that I stayed in the public eye, because when it comes to these type of games, the spotlight always seems to be shifting to a new person or team every quarter or 6 months of the year. With Street Fighter, people like Justin Wong have established a name for themselves that will last as long as the game goes on and probably longer, and when it comes down to it, I’ve noticed the great Street Fighter players get a hell of a lot more respect from the community then any of the other games that have become popular in the past 5 years.

How do you feel about the Street Fighter 4 and fighting game scene being such a male dominated sport.

I think it’s about time I come in and change things! In Guitar Hero I was competing against many guys for the top spot, but when it comes down to it, there are lots of girls who play Guitar Hero; even though they don’t compete, a girl playing Guitar Hero and being good is not that surprising. On the other hand you have Street Fighter which is very male dominated. I noticed that even if a girl does happen to pick up the game, they seem to have no idea what they are doing; but if they DO know how to play, they don’t tend to compete. I think a lot of the female players are probably intimidated by the fact that the game is mainly male populated and that males tend to talk very aggressively when playing. I’m hoping that if I can pull off going pro with this, that I will start a trend that will encourage many more girls to join the Street Fighter scene. I just hope, if I pull off being a high ranking player, that guys in the SF4 scene will think twice before underestimating a female when she steps in front of that machine in the future.

So you feel your professional involvement with Street Fighter 4 will attract other women into the scene?

Yes! Basically that’s the plan is to show women that it can be done, and that SF4 is fun! I think if women saw a female high ranking player it would give them some motivation to pick up a stick and play as well!

Have you encountered any sexism in the Street Fighter 4 scene thus far?

It’s funny actually; I’ve only had a couple guys make fun of me and say something about me being a girl. [They thought] I would totally suck, and luckily I totally dominated those people which surprised them. Something about a person doubting me for any reason really helps motivate me to pull out my A game. I’ve noticed more guys are excited about the idea of a female playing then anything else and are messaging me like crazy offering help. I’m excited that I have so much support from the SF4 community.

So I hear Ryan Gutierrez aka “Gootecks,” a well established Street Fighter 4 pro, has decided to take you in as his pupil? How does it feel to be “powered by gootecks?”

I’ve heard what he can do, and I know what he has planned for me; so I’m very excited. I know, if we get to spend a lot of time working together, he will help to drastically improve my skills. I couldn’t have asked for a better trainer.

When I met you at Arcade Infinity you mentioned that you had “a lot of ground to make up” to be competitive in Street Fighter 4. Do you still plan on competing in games like Guitar Hero, for which you are known for, or will you focus solely on Street Fighter 4?

I have actually written a retirement letter of sorts in my blog which states I have decided to quit competing in the Guitar Hero series and plan on focusing about 40-60 hours (depending on how much I work and around events) to Street Fighter IV. I have been practicing every weeknight and on weekends. I am also making sure to attend local Street Fighter Tournaments as well as going to Arcade Infinity to get the actual arcade experience under my belt.

Who do you play in Street Fighter 4?

I’m currently trying to perfect Sagat. I was recommended to use him and have caught on pretty fast but am waiting until I get my stick in the mail before I decide who I’m going to use competitively. I have only used about half the characters in the game so far, and ,of the characters I’ve used, I find Chun-Li and Sagat are the two characters I use the best. Once I do some training with gootecks, the character I use to compete with may change after he looks at what character would be best for my play style.

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, what is your ideal strategy for survival?

Hahahaha! I’d totally get my hands on a sniper rifle and head to the local Costco. Everyone knows that’s the way to go… bulk food so you don’t starve and getting up on the roof with the sniper rifle will give you a way to pass the time until someone comes to rescue me. Well…. that’s imagining that we’re talking about the typical stupid Resident Evil 1 type zombies that can’t climb things — unlike the zombies in Left 4 Dead, in which case I’m just totally screwed. Luckily I got to spend some time at the shooting range so I know that I have incredibly accurate aim when it comes to head shots. You’ll notice I haven’t read the zombie survival guide, so my answer is just what I’d do off the top of my head. It sounds like a good plan to me though.

Thank you so much Ciji for taking the time to answer my questions! You can catch Ciji on WCG Ultimate Gamer which airs it’s Season Finale next Tuesday 10/9c. Also make sure to give her a run for her quarter at Arcade Infinity near Rowland Heights.

Touted as one of Time Magazine’s top 100 Best Novels, it’s expected that a movie adaptation has quite the expectation in the hearts of geeks. You can expect much more scrutiny from fans of the novel as I believe they won’t be as forgiving to discrepancies and creative freedom as some of the more recent super hero movies such as X-Men. Fans of the graphic novel, I’m sure, are hoping to have the same experience they had with Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbson’s masterpiece. But will it be able to satisfy the fans as well as appeal to the majority of moviegoers?

The thing with The Watchmen is I believe the general movie going audience is not going to get it. If you look at the majority of super hero movies today like Batman, Ironman, or Spiderman they are all seemingly mass marketed — toys, happy meals, and rated E video games — because they all fall under the relatively friendly super hero archetype movies we’re use to. There is a good guy; there is a bad guy and the both end up in a 2 hour motion picture struggle. I believe this is the general expectation of your audience the second you put a shiny leather cowl or cape on an actor. Instead, viewers of this movie will be treated to a sort of cynical realism and the human element of these, essentially, masked brawlers — the same sort of super hero human element you might find on an episode of Heroes. As such, I feel this movie is going to serve a more niche audience, an audience of comic book book readers who are use to a variety of super hero stories that deviate from the vanilla super hero movies that many of us are use to.

As a geek myself and fan of the graphic novel, all the parts that I enjoyed from reading the graphic novel are there: from exploiting super heroes to fight in the Vietnam war, to the global political instability of having a God-like super hero, to Rorsach’s general psychotic badassery. Save for some awkward choices of music, I had a good time watching this film.

The only other complaint I have is the movie was rather long. The movie took its time getting to the eventual revelation of the mastermind plot — something that works for a serial comic but not necessarily for a two and a half hour film.

And finally the answer to the question that, I’m sure, is burning through the hearts of fans: Yes. There is plenty of blue penis in the movie. Let’s just say that Dr. Manhattan really puts a spin to the “blue balls” moniker.

Arbitrary Score
I give this movie 5 bloody smile face pins out of 3 cans of beans.

I had first heard of Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father from Dan Trachtenberg of the Totally Rad Show stating that the film had moved him to tears. Wow. To tears? Usually when I watch a documentary I usually end up in a momentary state of guilt followed up by apathy. So I was quite intrigued to check this out hoping it would be quite different from the norm of social commentary documentaries that I usually watch. The documentary had a limited run on MSNBC, but considering I only had basic cable I had to wait till it hit Netflix’s instant watch service before I could check it out.

In short, this documentary is about a man named Andrew Bagby who was murdered to which all signs pointed to his accused girlfriend, Shirley Turner. Shortly after fleeing to Canada, Shirley gives birth to Andrew’s son, Zachary. Kurt Kuenne, the director of the film and long time friend of Andrew Bagby decides to create a documentary as a letter to his son in hopes that Zachary can get a glimpse of what his father was like. The documentary tells of Kurt’s journey in interviewing Andrew’s colleague as well as following the grandparents of Zachary and their battle with gaining custody of Zach and their seemingly never ending struggle in the quagmire of the Canadian judicial system.

Despite its unique premise, I am still inclined to use a cliche that I often hear in movie reviews. I often hear the cliche of likening a movie viewing experience to a ride set on an emotional roller coaster, which I have chosen to shamelessly use in this review. However, to my credit, it’s not of the classical rolling bumps and hills of a roller coaster that many of us liken a roller coaster to; instead this film is edited in such a way that there are abrupt changes in mood. One second you feel elation and sense of warmth from the way Andrew’s colleagues and friends describe his life then the next split second you’re infuriated and caught up in the custody battle of Zachary. It’s more akin to a emotional roller coaster with abrupt cliffs. Despite the slew of emotions from seeing this movie, anger was the inevitable emotion that had overcome me by the end of the film.

As I have mentioned before, most of the time when I watch a documentary; particularly of the of the Michael Moore-esque, social, political, commentary style; I usually end up coming to an apathetic conclusion of “Gee that’s bad” or “Wow that sucks” then go about my good ol’ American way of life — buying SUVs, shopping at Wal-Mart, and playing violent video games. Then I saw this documentary which at the end proclaimed I should write a letter to Parliament to demand change. I was so angry by the time this documentary ended that I was about ready to write a scathing email to Parliament before calming down and realizing that the majority of the film took place in Canada and that the United States, much like the metric system, doesn’t do Parliament.

On a less serious note and instead of writing a letter, I have hatched a different plan. I am going to travel to the American-Canadian border and set up a trap by luring a Canadian judge across the border to American soil with the irresistible scent of Canadian bacon. I will then proceed to punch said Canadian Judge and flee to Canada knowing that in the event I am caught and charged with a crime, I will most likely spend the majority of my time out on bail due to a state of limbo in the ridiculously slow Canadian extradition process.

I give this documentary my recommendation and an arbitrary score of 3 USB thumb sticks up out of 2 dolphins — because as we know, the state of reviews on the Internet is that reviews require an empirical score.