I Don't Know James Rolfe
June 20, 2024 8:10 PM Subscribe
I Don't Know James Rolfe (YT 1h 17m), a video essay (?) from Dan Olson aka Folding Ideas (previouslies).
James Rolfe is the Angry Video Game Nerd. He makes other assorted videos too, but he's best known for that.
posted by JHarris at 9:06 PM on June 20 [3 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 9:06 PM on June 20 [3 favorites]
I went looking too, and a couple of subreddit comments eg this one I found go into the gist of the video which is about a film YouTuber (Angry Video Game Nerd Guy) but really about the parasociality of film nerds with the subsector's content creators.
posted by cendawanita at 9:06 PM on June 20 [4 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:06 PM on June 20 [4 favorites]
I watched this yesterday. I've heard of James Rolfe before, but this isn't about James Rolfe. This is about us, the critics.
It reminds me of a Jorge Luis Borges short story, one of the ones where he's parodying his book reviews. But add in some genius braintwisting cinematography on top.
23 minutes.... oh god, 23m08...
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:07 PM on June 20 [3 favorites]
It reminds me of a Jorge Luis Borges short story, one of the ones where he's parodying his book reviews. But add in some genius braintwisting cinematography on top.
23 minutes.... oh god, 23m08...
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:07 PM on June 20 [3 favorites]
I listened to the whole thing. I wonder, if Rolfe saw it, if it would cause him to ask himself some hard questions about his life. It's true that in the end it isn't exactly against Rolfe, but it's definitely not for him.
Ultimately, I feel like James Rolfe was trapped by success. His channel became very very popular at a time when you couldn't really make much money on Youtube. But he was racking up views, so he kept going with it, following the same shtick, and in the end got stuck in that rut. Meanwhile his audience was not the type to brook deviation from expectations, and those times when he did spawned an actual anti-fandom.
Dan Olson is a gifted documentarian, and himself has a huge fanbase. I feel like a lot more media creators are like Rolfe than Olson; not everyone can do what Dan Olson does, and Olson takes a lot more time with his videos, whereas the economic facts of James Rolfe's niche mean he has to continually produce, five times a week. And Rolfe has a family. There's nothing like having to support children to make economic realities real to you. It's a thing that he does that earns him the money he needs for he and his family to survive, and it doesn't involve scrubbing toilets or delivering food for tiny tips. This provides that for him, and I can't blame him for doing it.
I fell away from the AVGN's fanbase long ago, but once in a while I find something he's done that I don't find unpleasant. I don't think he's a bad person. And I think there's something of a talent in coming up with so many new inventive ways to say I don't particularly care for these videos game with as many expletives and references to excretions as can be smooshed in. It just doesn't appeal to me.
As time passes, the fans of this niche will decline and die out. It's already happening. The age of the NES fanboy is passing as we watch, and with it the AVGN's reason for being. What will people think of this series, in even 20 years?
posted by JHarris at 1:23 AM on June 21 [9 favorites]
Ultimately, I feel like James Rolfe was trapped by success. His channel became very very popular at a time when you couldn't really make much money on Youtube. But he was racking up views, so he kept going with it, following the same shtick, and in the end got stuck in that rut. Meanwhile his audience was not the type to brook deviation from expectations, and those times when he did spawned an actual anti-fandom.
Dan Olson is a gifted documentarian, and himself has a huge fanbase. I feel like a lot more media creators are like Rolfe than Olson; not everyone can do what Dan Olson does, and Olson takes a lot more time with his videos, whereas the economic facts of James Rolfe's niche mean he has to continually produce, five times a week. And Rolfe has a family. There's nothing like having to support children to make economic realities real to you. It's a thing that he does that earns him the money he needs for he and his family to survive, and it doesn't involve scrubbing toilets or delivering food for tiny tips. This provides that for him, and I can't blame him for doing it.
I fell away from the AVGN's fanbase long ago, but once in a while I find something he's done that I don't find unpleasant. I don't think he's a bad person. And I think there's something of a talent in coming up with so many new inventive ways to say I don't particularly care for these videos game with as many expletives and references to excretions as can be smooshed in. It just doesn't appeal to me.
As time passes, the fans of this niche will decline and die out. It's already happening. The age of the NES fanboy is passing as we watch, and with it the AVGN's reason for being. What will people think of this series, in even 20 years?
posted by JHarris at 1:23 AM on June 21 [9 favorites]
What will people think of this series
“avgn set the tone that all Youtube reviews would in some form or another respond to” 12:08 …13:10 …16:30 ~ 35:40 “metallica, metallica, metallica”... 1:02:10
posted by HearHere at 1:42 AM on June 21
“avgn set the tone that all Youtube reviews would in some form or another respond to” 12:08 …13:10 …16:30 ~ 35:40 “metallica, metallica, metallica”... 1:02:10
posted by HearHere at 1:42 AM on June 21
I listened to the whole thing. I wonder, if Rolfe saw it, if it would cause him to ask himself some hard questions about his life. It’s true that in the end it isn’t exactly against Rolfe, but it’s definitely not for him.
I watched the whole thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rolfe were to feel defensive about it, as it comes across as a bit mean: the whole bit about his jury-rigged gear set-up (why is he such a weirdo??) which doesn’t get a resolution until the end, and hour and change later (he’s not that weird, actually: people have their complications, whatever).
I think Olson’s insights about Rolfe’s perceived arrested development in terms of his film-making ambitions are interesting, though, and they gel with my own feelings about Rolfe as a critic who, in my opinion, doesn’t really “get” criticism. I’ve watched a lot of his non-AVGN stuff, Monster Madness and that, and from these my impression of Rolfe is as someone who doesn’t engage with film much beyond a surface level. Or if he does, he doesn’t articulate it; a “this is cool” suffices for him.
I’m reminded of one of my last philosophy classes as an undergrad, where our lecturer signed off with: “Philosophy is bullshit, but for me it’s the only game in town.” I feel like Rolfe is the kind of person who would only ever consider the first half of that sentence.
posted by macdara at 2:17 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
I watched the whole thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rolfe were to feel defensive about it, as it comes across as a bit mean: the whole bit about his jury-rigged gear set-up (why is he such a weirdo??) which doesn’t get a resolution until the end, and hour and change later (he’s not that weird, actually: people have their complications, whatever).
I think Olson’s insights about Rolfe’s perceived arrested development in terms of his film-making ambitions are interesting, though, and they gel with my own feelings about Rolfe as a critic who, in my opinion, doesn’t really “get” criticism. I’ve watched a lot of his non-AVGN stuff, Monster Madness and that, and from these my impression of Rolfe is as someone who doesn’t engage with film much beyond a surface level. Or if he does, he doesn’t articulate it; a “this is cool” suffices for him.
I’m reminded of one of my last philosophy classes as an undergrad, where our lecturer signed off with: “Philosophy is bullshit, but for me it’s the only game in town.” I feel like Rolfe is the kind of person who would only ever consider the first half of that sentence.
posted by macdara at 2:17 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
Jharris nailed it. I watched it when it came up in my feed and late-night YT watching is very much my jam, so I went for it. I was vaguely aware of AVGN (not as a criticism, just that YT's algorithm over the years never suggested it to me, and I generally don't love watching negative reviews, unless for research) but the video confused me for at least the first half because I generally love Dan Olson's work.
This seemed, largely, out of pocket for Folding Ideas. But at the closing end, I got the point : this is someone who trudged along with a character they experimented with, and it worked for them, so they ran with it. Because of that, the true passion(s) they had took a backseat to chasing an algorithm and audience they never really found a way to monetize because that wasn't quite yet a thing and by the time it was, they - and their audience - were largely disengaged.
The target audience for this content, unfortunately, are defensive nerd gamer types. I'm laying no judgment against nerds (of which I count myself) or gamers (of which I don't know why anyone would label themselves, but yes I have played and continue to play videogames) but the defensive nerd gamer is how we got things like gamergate, and boy do they hate change and absolutely love to hate things loudly.
posted by revmitcz at 4:00 AM on June 21 [3 favorites]
This seemed, largely, out of pocket for Folding Ideas. But at the closing end, I got the point : this is someone who trudged along with a character they experimented with, and it worked for them, so they ran with it. Because of that, the true passion(s) they had took a backseat to chasing an algorithm and audience they never really found a way to monetize because that wasn't quite yet a thing and by the time it was, they - and their audience - were largely disengaged.
The target audience for this content, unfortunately, are defensive nerd gamer types. I'm laying no judgment against nerds (of which I count myself) or gamers (of which I don't know why anyone would label themselves, but yes I have played and continue to play videogames) but the defensive nerd gamer is how we got things like gamergate, and boy do they hate change and absolutely love to hate things loudly.
posted by revmitcz at 4:00 AM on June 21 [3 favorites]
I feel like this is Dan Olsen's Bo Burnham: Inside
posted by ericedge at 6:23 AM on June 21 [3 favorites]
posted by ericedge at 6:23 AM on June 21 [3 favorites]
I found the episode kind of bewildering. It’s a step down for Olson because Rolfe, however historically important he might be, isn’t a big deal now. AVGN and Cinemassacre have gotten some attention for featuring in hbomberguy’s plagiarism video and related videos about the same time. Rolfe just isn’t big enough for an hour-long sort of condescending take down.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:26 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:26 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
I don't think Olson was trying to be condescending. I think Dan Olson made it mostly to evict Rolfe from his brainspace. He became legitimately obsessed with James Rolfe, and just wanted to be free.
posted by JHarris at 7:18 AM on June 21 [4 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 7:18 AM on June 21 [4 favorites]
It's not about Rolfe. It's about Rolfe, but it's not about Rolfe.
It's about what it's like to go to film school as somebody with intense ambitions, and wind up as a middle-aged YouTuber, and to feel, really deeply, the gulf between your youthful ambitions and your actual accomplishments. It's about Olson understanding that what he's criticizing Rolfe for is also true of himself.
(Which, incidentally, I don't think is really accurate! If you are doing work on the caliber of Line Goes Up or In Search of a Flat Earth, you are a Real Filmmaker insofar as that's even a useful distinction [which it's not]. But if you look at, for example, the shot of Dan yelling superimposed on Rolfe yelling, I think it's hard to ignore that piece of the argument.)
posted by Jeanne at 7:23 AM on June 21 [12 favorites]
It's about what it's like to go to film school as somebody with intense ambitions, and wind up as a middle-aged YouTuber, and to feel, really deeply, the gulf between your youthful ambitions and your actual accomplishments. It's about Olson understanding that what he's criticizing Rolfe for is also true of himself.
(Which, incidentally, I don't think is really accurate! If you are doing work on the caliber of Line Goes Up or In Search of a Flat Earth, you are a Real Filmmaker insofar as that's even a useful distinction [which it's not]. But if you look at, for example, the shot of Dan yelling superimposed on Rolfe yelling, I think it's hard to ignore that piece of the argument.)
posted by Jeanne at 7:23 AM on June 21 [12 favorites]
I am now legitimately in the mental space to buy a projector though...
posted by cendawanita at 7:24 AM on June 21
posted by cendawanita at 7:24 AM on June 21
I think Dan Olson made it mostly to evict Rolfe from his brainspace.
I mean, OK, but that sort of thing generally leads to "write a letter laying this all out which you will never send and leave locked in a desk drawer forever." If he wanted to really dig into his own feelings of ambivalence about his career, he could have done that as well. You don't address your own failures by mostly gesturing at someone else's; that feels more like an excuse. No matter how self-reflective it may seem or was intended, it feels very mean-spirited to me, which is not something I associate with Olson.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:07 AM on June 21
I mean, OK, but that sort of thing generally leads to "write a letter laying this all out which you will never send and leave locked in a desk drawer forever." If he wanted to really dig into his own feelings of ambivalence about his career, he could have done that as well. You don't address your own failures by mostly gesturing at someone else's; that feels more like an excuse. No matter how self-reflective it may seem or was intended, it feels very mean-spirited to me, which is not something I associate with Olson.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:07 AM on June 21
There are two characters in the film: Long-bearded Grognard Dan, and Trim-bearded Sympathizing Dan.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:12 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:12 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
I have a suspicion, based on what I know about how long the turnaround time generally is for a non-sensationalist documentary, that OIson was already in progress on this when hbombberguy mentioned Rolfe in his longer video on plagarism. Leaving Olson with the choice of either ditching the project and the work entirely, or completing it with a different focus.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:13 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:13 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
I started watching this when it popped up on my feed the other day, not knowing who James Rolfe is, and I made it to the point where the host starts examining James earliest efforts at making films when I realized I don't care who James Rolfe is and closed the video.
posted by hoodrich at 8:39 AM on June 21
posted by hoodrich at 8:39 AM on June 21
I liked the last couple of Folding Ideas videos I watched. But as a desperately non-handy person the mocking of his camera setup kind of got to me.
So to mount a camera to a board you need a bolt called a "low hat", the official one costs $600, but everybody knows you can substitute a normal bolt from Home Depot. But James Rolfe didn't know that and kludged a crappy alternative that's hard to move around. So haha, he's not a true guerilla underground filmmaker after all.
OK, so maybe that makes James Rolfe an idiot, but he's exactly the same kind of idiot as me, because nobody ever tells you the stuff "everybody knows" and you've got to get the job done somehow and you can't afford $600 for the official bolt.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:48 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
So to mount a camera to a board you need a bolt called a "low hat", the official one costs $600, but everybody knows you can substitute a normal bolt from Home Depot. But James Rolfe didn't know that and kludged a crappy alternative that's hard to move around. So haha, he's not a true guerilla underground filmmaker after all.
OK, so maybe that makes James Rolfe an idiot, but he's exactly the same kind of idiot as me, because nobody ever tells you the stuff "everybody knows" and you've got to get the job done somehow and you can't afford $600 for the official bolt.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:48 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
> but he's exactly the same kind of idiot as me,
Which is the point of Dan superimposing James' face on his own as he's ranting, and of physically becoming him in the second half of the video.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:53 AM on June 21 [2 favorites]
Which is the point of Dan superimposing James' face on his own as he's ranting, and of physically becoming him in the second half of the video.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:53 AM on June 21 [2 favorites]
I listened to the video while driving, so the face superposition was lost on me.
posted by JHarris at 8:59 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 8:59 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
This was one that you have to watch. The spectacle of the cinematography on display is critical to the words making sense. It's not a video essay, it's a Film. I might even go so far as to call it a work of fiction. That's why I compare it to Borges.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:42 AM on June 21 [2 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:42 AM on June 21 [2 favorites]
Yeah, this video is not really about James Rolfe at all. You are not supposed to come out of this video with updated opinions about Rolfe. This is not an hbomberguy style takedown video with a dose of self-deprecation; this is a more like backward critique of takedown videos, and/or a story about Dan Olson's fear/hatred of this kind of video.
It is a little movie masquerading as a video essay. It's not really like Olson's more recent stuff, but it's something else that I think is cinematic and delightful.
physically becoming him in the second half of the video
And part of it is delivered by Olson, on an iPhone, on the dollhouse scale couch of Rolfe's studio: the model of the couch that he is accusing Rolfe of having imprisoned himself on.
And it even ends with him running away from an evil doll come to life.
posted by fleacircus at 10:57 AM on June 21 [10 favorites]
It is a little movie masquerading as a video essay. It's not really like Olson's more recent stuff, but it's something else that I think is cinematic and delightful.
physically becoming him in the second half of the video
And part of it is delivered by Olson, on an iPhone, on the dollhouse scale couch of Rolfe's studio: the model of the couch that he is accusing Rolfe of having imprisoned himself on.
And it even ends with him running away from an evil doll come to life.
posted by fleacircus at 10:57 AM on June 21 [10 favorites]
I'm about Dan and James' age. I went to art school. I like my life a lot, but it's not what my teen or 20-something self was going for. Sometimes I wonder if that matters to me, you know? Or to what degree, because if I catch myself wondering it must matter at least little.
I read the trajectory of my creative career (such as it was) in my late 20s and picked up something else. I'm pretty sure my art never would have worked in the way I wanted it to. I'd be less happy, frustrated. I still like drawing, but I just couldn't get out of my own way as a professional. James' art isn't good, but he's on a kind of path of self expression that he's stood by. Dan's art IS good, but doesn't seem like what he wanted when he set out. If I'd stayed on that frustrated path, would I be a purer expression of myself? Who I want to be in the world? Again, how much does that even matter? I don't know. I probably never will. I think about it sometimes though.
Nice to know I'm not the only one.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 1:07 PM on June 21 [4 favorites]
I read the trajectory of my creative career (such as it was) in my late 20s and picked up something else. I'm pretty sure my art never would have worked in the way I wanted it to. I'd be less happy, frustrated. I still like drawing, but I just couldn't get out of my own way as a professional. James' art isn't good, but he's on a kind of path of self expression that he's stood by. Dan's art IS good, but doesn't seem like what he wanted when he set out. If I'd stayed on that frustrated path, would I be a purer expression of myself? Who I want to be in the world? Again, how much does that even matter? I don't know. I probably never will. I think about it sometimes though.
Nice to know I'm not the only one.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 1:07 PM on June 21 [4 favorites]
I've followed AVGN on and off since the character first appeared online. It was probably another 10 or so years before I was struck by a "where are they now?" urge and looked him up on YouTube. I binged every episode and came away with mixed results.
The nostalgia trap is real, even for people like me who aren't overly interested in it as a hobby. (I'm not averse to retrospectives or celebrations of genuine classics, but I also don't get wistful as I think about the hundreds of banal products and failed brands that existed in the 90s.)
As got into the newer content, I detected a sense of weariness — you could hear the scraping of the barrel's bottom pretty loudly. It gave me pause to reflect; initially I had assumed AVGN was living the idealized life — taking a fun thing you did and turned it into a successful, monetarily rewarding venture.
I have since revised that assessment, and I genuinely do not envy Rolfe's position. I'm not ready to pity him, but I don't know what I would do in his position and I am, in many ways, thankful I don't have to solve that problem.
I also agree with the sentiment above, that his ability to review material is extremely limited to surface details. I am not a Movie Guy by any stretch, but I found his reviews lacking in substance, even if I do think there is room for someone to just say "here is a thing I like and think is cool." I always found that striking, considering his aspirations as a filmmaker — like someone who wants to coach but can't articulate the reason for certain plays.
AVGN certainly makes for an interesting lens to view one's own media aspirations and achievements through (or lack of the latter, in my case). I am also sure that's the last thing James Rolfe, or anyone would want to be.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:27 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]
The nostalgia trap is real, even for people like me who aren't overly interested in it as a hobby. (I'm not averse to retrospectives or celebrations of genuine classics, but I also don't get wistful as I think about the hundreds of banal products and failed brands that existed in the 90s.)
As got into the newer content, I detected a sense of weariness — you could hear the scraping of the barrel's bottom pretty loudly. It gave me pause to reflect; initially I had assumed AVGN was living the idealized life — taking a fun thing you did and turned it into a successful, monetarily rewarding venture.
I have since revised that assessment, and I genuinely do not envy Rolfe's position. I'm not ready to pity him, but I don't know what I would do in his position and I am, in many ways, thankful I don't have to solve that problem.
I also agree with the sentiment above, that his ability to review material is extremely limited to surface details. I am not a Movie Guy by any stretch, but I found his reviews lacking in substance, even if I do think there is room for someone to just say "here is a thing I like and think is cool." I always found that striking, considering his aspirations as a filmmaker — like someone who wants to coach but can't articulate the reason for certain plays.
AVGN certainly makes for an interesting lens to view one's own media aspirations and achievements through (or lack of the latter, in my case). I am also sure that's the last thing James Rolfe, or anyone would want to be.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:27 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]
AVGN also has the inherent limit that after some time he has reviewed most of the bad games that still sold fairly well in the 80s and 90s because of the limited information available to gamers back then, and the fact that mainstream games were fairly low-budget and low-stakes affairs in those days compared to now, even if the barrier-to-entry, at least for consoles, was quite high.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 1:58 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 1:58 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]
Some of Olson's best work to date. I don't think I agree that it's not really about James Rolfe, but I think you have to believe that Olson takes both the video and the essay parts of the formulation seriously, so this isn't a vlog, a podcast, a takedown, a "deep dive" or something other than that.
If you're over 40 or under 22 and your reaction is "who is James Rolfe and why does anyone care about him?" I suggest checking out Lady Emily's video about him. She's given special thanks in the credits of this video.
posted by jy4m at 2:38 PM on June 21 [5 favorites]
If you're over 40 or under 22 and your reaction is "who is James Rolfe and why does anyone care about him?" I suggest checking out Lady Emily's video about him. She's given special thanks in the credits of this video.
posted by jy4m at 2:38 PM on June 21 [5 favorites]
I Don't Know Dan Olson, but I feel a certain amount of kinship with him.
This is basically how Olson starts the video, and like fleacircus I think this is a statement primarily about Olson himself, about what it is to exist as a ‘content creator’ on YouTube. I think Olson made a piece of Fluxus art and a Structural film.
The third chapter is where Olson rolls out his film school credentials with homage to the seminal experimental Structural film Wavelength. Structural films are deeply concerned with the composition of the presentation. Wavelength for example slowly zooms in over most of the 40 minute run time, as well as ‘featuring’ a buzzing sound that steadily gets more annoying. It also used different film stock as a special effect. Structural film often include looping or flickering, as well as a number of experimental video styles - shifting to inverted, negative, or monochrome colors.
Wavelength gets described as "a singularly unpadded, uncomplicated, deadly realistic way to film three walls, a ceiling and a floor... it is probably the most rigorously composed movie in existence."
The third chapter Olson begins to radically experiment with the tone and presentation. The video goes in and out of focus, and he uses a projection of Rolfe’s video’s as lighting/double exposure. Wildly different types of recording and display equipment are used. Olson’s appearance abruptly changes during the video - which I think is another Structural film inspired choice of incorporating some rephotography (refilmography?) - which is images of an individual in different stages of life.
It also includes using the same vantage to capture same thing- like phone version of Olson in the mini set vs Rolfe’s.
I think including how the video was made was also an overt adoption of the Fluxus approach, another art movement that was also certain to be featured in film school. Olson is likely familiar with the Fluxes emphasis on the making of the art itself. Perhaps rejecting the ‘traditional artificialities of art’ is just cover for never having the resources in either time, money or personal to actually achieve a formally finished video. Or it might just a way to avoid burnout, or just to have some fun. Like the Johnny Fingers videos that primarily detail the painstaking process of creation (and that will inevitably be destroyed or given away).
posted by zenon at 6:31 PM on June 21 [4 favorites]
This is basically how Olson starts the video, and like fleacircus I think this is a statement primarily about Olson himself, about what it is to exist as a ‘content creator’ on YouTube. I think Olson made a piece of Fluxus art and a Structural film.
The third chapter is where Olson rolls out his film school credentials with homage to the seminal experimental Structural film Wavelength. Structural films are deeply concerned with the composition of the presentation. Wavelength for example slowly zooms in over most of the 40 minute run time, as well as ‘featuring’ a buzzing sound that steadily gets more annoying. It also used different film stock as a special effect. Structural film often include looping or flickering, as well as a number of experimental video styles - shifting to inverted, negative, or monochrome colors.
Wavelength gets described as "a singularly unpadded, uncomplicated, deadly realistic way to film three walls, a ceiling and a floor... it is probably the most rigorously composed movie in existence."
The third chapter Olson begins to radically experiment with the tone and presentation. The video goes in and out of focus, and he uses a projection of Rolfe’s video’s as lighting/double exposure. Wildly different types of recording and display equipment are used. Olson’s appearance abruptly changes during the video - which I think is another Structural film inspired choice of incorporating some rephotography (refilmography?) - which is images of an individual in different stages of life.
It also includes using the same vantage to capture same thing- like phone version of Olson in the mini set vs Rolfe’s.
I think including how the video was made was also an overt adoption of the Fluxus approach, another art movement that was also certain to be featured in film school. Olson is likely familiar with the Fluxes emphasis on the making of the art itself. Perhaps rejecting the ‘traditional artificialities of art’ is just cover for never having the resources in either time, money or personal to actually achieve a formally finished video. Or it might just a way to avoid burnout, or just to have some fun. Like the Johnny Fingers videos that primarily detail the painstaking process of creation (and that will inevitably be destroyed or given away).
posted by zenon at 6:31 PM on June 21 [4 favorites]
I'm not even sure it's (ultimately) about being a filmmaker or youtuber. At the end of the little youtube description section, Olson writes: "I found myself fascinated with his creative fixations, the motifs and stories that he keeps coming back to, and felt like the only way to engage with that honestly was to expose all my own fixations, insecurities, and fears."
Towards the end of the video, around 1:05:50, he says this:
"And, okay, now, every film set is crowded with junk, every film set is a jungle of stands and tripods and apple boxes and lens boxes and lights on standby, but this tightens things down to a point where you just can’t get in and out without stepping over everything, it becomes a game of parkour just to change a battery, and when you’re working mostly alone that gets frustrating really fast, and when you get frustrated you get impulsive, and those impulses lead to half measure solutions, and those half measure solutions accumulate into a whole network of bespoke inefficiencies that you just live with because the process of unravelling them feels just so… big."
If that isn't about looking at your life and wondering about the choices you made, and how you got there, and whether you can make things better or different, then I don't know what it is. I don't think he's talking about filmmaking, or sets, or even physical clutter.
(NB: I'm open to being told I'm projecting here, but this is how the whole end of this video feels)
There's a section in the middle where he's sets up a camera with a graining viewscreen, and you see him first through that, and then it pulls back and you see the camera in the shot, he's all blurred out, and you're looking at a camera filming him talking. I think it's also about the camera, in addition to what's he's discussing.
This is a great video, with many layers.
posted by Gorgik at 7:40 PM on June 21 [11 favorites]
Towards the end of the video, around 1:05:50, he says this:
"And, okay, now, every film set is crowded with junk, every film set is a jungle of stands and tripods and apple boxes and lens boxes and lights on standby, but this tightens things down to a point where you just can’t get in and out without stepping over everything, it becomes a game of parkour just to change a battery, and when you’re working mostly alone that gets frustrating really fast, and when you get frustrated you get impulsive, and those impulses lead to half measure solutions, and those half measure solutions accumulate into a whole network of bespoke inefficiencies that you just live with because the process of unravelling them feels just so… big."
If that isn't about looking at your life and wondering about the choices you made, and how you got there, and whether you can make things better or different, then I don't know what it is. I don't think he's talking about filmmaking, or sets, or even physical clutter.
(NB: I'm open to being told I'm projecting here, but this is how the whole end of this video feels)
There's a section in the middle where he's sets up a camera with a graining viewscreen, and you see him first through that, and then it pulls back and you see the camera in the shot, he's all blurred out, and you're looking at a camera filming him talking. I think it's also about the camera, in addition to what's he's discussing.
This is a great video, with many layers.
posted by Gorgik at 7:40 PM on June 21 [11 favorites]
> the shot of Dan yelling superimposed on Rolfe yelling
There's also a bit at the end of Dan on a phone on a couch in a model of Rolfe's set. Dan inhabiting the role of Rolfe, in miniature, in an emblem of the medium they both work in.
Is the tablet taped to the wall a reference to the banana?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:46 PM on June 21 [1 favorite]
There's also a bit at the end of Dan on a phone on a couch in a model of Rolfe's set. Dan inhabiting the role of Rolfe, in miniature, in an emblem of the medium they both work in.
Is the tablet taped to the wall a reference to the banana?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:46 PM on June 21 [1 favorite]
I'm only partway through, but, even not knowing a lot of the film-school-ish references, I took this as very much a film school grad looking at another film-school grad from a film-school-gradish perspective. It's still engaging enough to bother to finish, but I'm not that engaged with that aspect of YouTube (I don't think that I'd ever even heard of AVGN before hbomberguy's video), and that's fine, not everything that Olson does has to be as generally interesting and/or as important as Line Goes Up or This Is Financial Advice.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:18 PM on June 22 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:18 PM on June 22 [2 favorites]
I think the slow zoom on the tablet taped to the wall is the Wavelength homage.
Olson's focus on the old Sony TC-100A cassette tape recorder from the 60's is an interesting choice.
posted by zenon at 8:19 PM on June 22
Olson's focus on the old Sony TC-100A cassette tape recorder from the 60's is an interesting choice.
posted by zenon at 8:19 PM on June 22
> ...the Fluxes emphasis on the making of the art itself. ... Or it might just [be] a way to avoid burnout...
This thought reminded me of REJECTED by DON HERTZFELDT
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:26 AM on June 23
This thought reminded me of REJECTED by DON HERTZFELDT
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:26 AM on June 23
Makes a nice follow-up to Olsons The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall, where he exposes the flaws of an early youtuber that had initial success with yelling at pop culture, tried to pivot to something more artistically rewarding, but failed and had to return to their original popular rut.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 9:55 PM on June 23 [2 favorites]
posted by WhackyparseThis at 9:55 PM on June 23 [2 favorites]
Finished it and LOLed at Dan turning into Rolfe not long after documenting how Rolfe seems to have at least partially escaped his own legacy by putting his family first.
Makes a nice follow-up to Olsons The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall
Oh, yeah. Loved that.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:39 PM on June 24
Makes a nice follow-up to Olsons The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall
Oh, yeah. Loved that.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:39 PM on June 24
« Older "You're right. Seems more like a Shelbyville idea... | Half the size & twice the fun Newer »
posted by mmoncur at 8:57 PM on June 20 [3 favorites]