Scott Fisher

Back Channel Log

damn... someone beat me too it!

hah

Last night’s seminar was lively, and I agree that many important issues emerged, but it was 99% off topic.

It took asking twice and two hours to finally get an answer to why SCMRPG was pulled in the first place. Please correct me if I’m missing something, but the answer appears to have been fear of legal exposure to copycat crimes. End of story. Nothing to do with marginalization, “second class medium,” immaturity, trivialization, tastelessness, or artistic quality. We were all barking up the wrong trees. If the reason was fear of copycat crimes, why wasn’t it directly addressed at the time? Precedents exist, e.g., Judas Priest and Black Sabbath trials (both I believe were thrown out of court).

This is an entirely different set of issues, none of which were addressed last night. I too have had multiple death threats relating to my work (“While Mr. Naimark acknowledged that he had some ethical discomfort about his project because his information could be useful to terrorists, he decided to go ahead.” NY Times Oct 7, 2002). My first response was to watch my back, 24/7 for weeks. But the second response, for me at least, was to play out the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there was some truth to the threats. Was I ready to accept responsibility if people die as a result of my work?

Hmmm, two possible explanations for last night. 1) Video games result in massive ADD and nobody is capable anymore of staying on topic. Or 2) Tension is extremely high right now between video game artists, particularly indies, and the video game control infrastructure (the industry). Maybe there are more, but neither of these were addressed last night either.

"It took asking twice and two hours to finally get an answer to why SCMRPG was pulled in the first place. Please correct me if I’m missing something, but the answer appears to have been fear of legal exposure to copycat crimes. End of story."

Michael,

Actually, we don't know if that was Peter Baxter's reason. Baxter won't say. Even Sam Roberts, the only Slamdance representative present, stated that Baxter has never given him a straight-ahead explanation and even he can only guess.

I agree that the panel was less useful than it could have been. Peter Baxter should have shown up and explained why he did what he did. Until he does that, he's essentially making himself unaccountable and leaving us all in the dark as to why this entire controversy happened.

Was it fear that Red Bull or another advertiser would pull its advertising contract with Slamdance? If so, what's more important to Slamdance -- selling Red Bull or standing up for artists? If "selling Red Bull" is the answer, should Slamdance even bother to exist at all?

Was it fear of a copycat-crime lawsuit? If so, why SCMRPG and not the many violent films Slamdance has shown? And how exactly was this imagined copycat-crime lawsuit supposed to play out? Does Slamdance plan to reject future films and games on this copycat-crime lawsuit fear? If so, what are the standards?

Was it fear of some copyright "clearance" issue? If so, what clearance issue, and why was it more significant than the dozens of other clearance issues Slamdance routinely ignores every year (including this year) in the films competition? And why wasn't Danny Ledonne offered a chance to correct this rumored clearance issue?

Until Baxter actually tells us what happened, we can only guess. I think Peter Baxter's failure to show up and explain himself was the main contributor to the lack of focus in the discussion last night.

--Brian Flemming

Some folks you know have started down the road towards respectable journalism...

if anyone missed the talk but is interested in what all this discussion is about, I realized I could share the link:

http://www.deekayel.com/2007/02/special-edition-slamdance-guerilla.html