Hugh over at Machinima For Dummies has posted an article titled “The non-game speedbump,” in which he tries to make sense of the relationship between some machinima films and their audience size. The conclusion, in brief, was that those leaving game worlds to produce independent machinima had best be prepared for the de facto loss in audience they will encounter. My first reaction was, “Where have you been?” (The answer, of course, is Bloodspell). My second reaction was, “Where did Kate pick up her mindreading trade?” because her first comment on the article was precisely the sentiment of my first reaction.

A closer examination of the article reveals some overlooked aspects which, to me at least, eclipse the naiveté Kate and I ribbed him about.

He begins by talking about Tom Jantol’s Fish Incident and Strange Company’s When We Two Parted on a 1000 viewer tier, then mentions What I Love About Xmas on about a 10,000 viewer tier, and finally Baron Soosdon’s I’m So Sick, which has raked in over a quarter million viewers.

He then uses these numbers as an example of how machinima without an inherent game community has a hard time competing with game-rooted machinima.

And while the ultimate conclusion - the gaming advantage - is so true as to provoke the “duh!” response in me, I think the way in which it is reached in the article pays little heed to other very important factors which influence viewership. The four films are presented in an almost “all things being equal” kind of way, with the gaming audience being the sole variable of consequence. I disagree.

Here are some of those influential factors:

Quality

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about publicists and promotion and marketing strategy, but at the end of the day what matters most to viewers is: Is it great? Do I want to press play again as soon as it has finished the first time? Is it something so great that I want to be the one to tell my friends about it before they find out somewhere else?

And by what standard is it great? Is it great “for a machinima film”? Not good enough, not anymore.

Baron Soosdon’s film was one I wanted to tell anyone and everyone about, and that had zip to do with World of Warcraft. I have a confession to make: regarding WoW… I’ve never played it, I have no desire to play it, I find the hype and hysteria about it a bit boring, I don’t even like the general aesthetic of it. So if anything, I came at I’m So Sick prejudiced the other way, having only seen a couple WoW films I really enjoyed. And it blew me away, I told everyone I could think of to tell.

Fish Incident has strong production quality with regards to its animation style and visual design, What I Love About Christmas is of decent quality, and When We Two Parted is pretty good. None of these made me utter a profanity in awe when I watched them. Baron’s piece did that. It’s one of the most exhilarating pieces of machinima I’ve ever seen.

Intent of the Work

Films are crafted for different reasons, plain and simple. I’m not so much talking about the intent inside the creator’s head, but rather the intent that is spoken by the work itself. What I Love About Xmas was out for laughs. Fish Incident was meant to engage the viewer’s brain with a mystery, and then wrapped it in mysterious clothing. When We Two Parted was intended to illustrate a poetic work and - at least it appears to me - was deliberately intended to look different than other machinima.

I’m So Sick was intended to kick your ass up and down the block. It was intended to impress, to wow, to floor - without any prerequisite. Fish Incident could be said to have had some of this same intent… but it begins with 30 seconds of reading a static pane of text - 30 seconds = infinity for a web video viewer - and that creates a wholly different mindset. And it doesn’t impress as much on non-animators as it does on animators, who know the skills required to have made it. I’m So Sick impresses regardless of whether one is a fellow hobbyist.

Intended Audience

Who is your audience? More to the point, given that everyone’s audience potential starts with “All Internet Users Who Watch Videos,” what does your film do to limit that audience?

Fish Incident and When We Two Parted are “art” films, though I hate that term, and as far as I know there has never been a mass market art film. In fact, to be mass market would arguably raise question of whether it’s really an art film. In any case, neither of these films were targeting the whole of the potential audience, or even a large part of that potential. These are not the kinds of films that gain gigantic popularity, they are decidedly niche, and their creators both knew that going in. While I share the general sentiment that part of me wishes it weren’t so, there is nothing surprising to me about the viewership numbers of either of these films, nor am I surprised at all at the general reception of WWTP on the Machinima.com YouTube channel. To take a film that is about as far from game machinima as one CAN make, and put it before a crowd of people who are looking precisely for game machinima, must be taken to be one of the following: a grave miscalculation, an effort at missionary work, or an exercise in masochism. To me, it was as big a mismatch as posting a Team Fortress 2 video on a channel devoted to 19th century literature; what would the reception have been there? Friendlier, more civil? Really?

Moving on… What I Love About Xmas is comedy, which works in its favor audience-wise; everyone loves to laugh. But then it takes broad sweeping strokes and pares down that audience like a widdler with a chainsaw. Some people just don’t like (or get) satire. Christians aren’t generally going to like the irreverence or the profanity. One of its big hooks centers around a non-mainstream pop culture hardcore pornographic reference which, if not understood, makes some of the video incomprehensible. And to really heartily laugh at the film requires a familiarity with bitterness and jadedness that some people don’t relate to at all, and others find very uncomfortable to be around or to revisit.

So sure, the seasonal aspect of it helps it in some ways, as new people are bound to discover it every year… but it is most certainly not something which was aiming for a large target audience. At all. To be honest, the only reason I set out to make the video was to win Moviestorm’s holiday video contest (at which it did not succeed), but as the film developed it became about venting and wringing angst into the sieve of comedy, nothing else really mattered.

I’m So Sick had the widest target audience of any of these films. Sure it was helped by the WoW audience boost, and Baron’s own growing personal following, but ultimately what vaulted his video was the film itself having wide appeal. It has a familiar MTV-like aesthetic, it has all the polish and shine of a professionally produced music video, with a rockin’ soundtrack. The direction is undeniably cinematic. Honestly… what was there not to like? I guess if you don’t like Flyleaf (the band) or don’t like hard rock / screaming vocals, it would have little appeal. But it’s amazing how mainstream the hard rock sound has become; it’s certainly a sound which is not offensive to most internet video viewers.

Language

It’s a relatively minor point, but not an insignificant one in this global arena. Language can serve as a limiter, a divider. Films which transcend language have greater potential.

What I Love About Christmas and When We Two Parted - virtually incomprehensible to someone who doesn’t know English. Fish Incident, not so much, but would non-English viewers have endured 30 seconds of introductory English text?

I’m So Sick, while it has English lyrics, illustrates the power of music: if one likes that style of music, understanding the lyrics becomes entirely secondary, and does nothing to subdue the enjoyment of the song and/or the video. The same could hold true for Fish Incident once one gets past the intro, but it would leave one wondering “am I supposed to understand what is transpiring here?” I’m So Sick requires no comprehension; it is a pure performance.

Emotion

What does watching this or that film make me feel? This is an important question to the viewer that he/she has answered most of the time without even thinking about it. But that feeling evoked has a significant impact on the likelihood of sharing. Do I want to share this feeling with someone, to make them feel this way too? Sharing the film with someone is sharing the feeling with them.

In this sense, Fish Incident is probably one of the least equipped to snag audience by contagion of emotion, because it is an intellectual endeavor, synapses over heartstrings. Inquisitiveness. Curiosity. Wonder. Bewilderment. All “feelings” that a thinker treasures, but then thinking has always been a mostly solitary preoccupation, and these kinds of feelings are not particularly social in nature.

When We Two Parted conjures emotions we are all familiar with. Yearning. Desire. Nostalgia. Love. Loss. All laudable and accessible feelings… but ones which some associate with pain. Ones which do not, for many, carry with them a large scale pass-it-on compulsion. Watching this film, you might think of someone in your life who might be in a situation where they’d really appreciate the sentiments this film will evoke. And you’d pass it along to them. But Digg it? Mass mail all your friends? Hardly. It’s not that the film isn’t good work… it’s just not the kind of film you do that with.

What I Love About Xmas seems at first glance to be well poised for viral sharing; after all, comedy is pretty much king in this area. But a closer inspection of what feelings this film actually evokes, and it starts to take on a different hue. As I mentioned above, in order to really laugh at the black cynicism of the film’s embittered joyless narrator, one must either know something of what he is talking about, or must - as Arthur Schopenhauer once said - derive joy from the knowledge that others suffer more. Either way, this makes for one jaded viewer. And the birds-of-a-feather rule guarantees that they know other cynics who will get deep whole-belly cramp-in-the-side laughs from hearing someone say what they wish they could be more open about. So there is some potentiality there… until you acknowledge that most people are NOT bitter or cynical, particularly about their own loved ones, or at the very least they don’t like dwelling on or encouraging those kind of thoughts about family members.

When you really peel back the layers of WILAX, the distinction from MRE becomes clear: MRE was edgy, and pointed to something we can see in ourselves that we can laugh at, and the resultant raised self-awareness reduces the tensions which caused the silly rules it mocks to evolve in the first place. It ultimately leaves one in a positive space, and with something you feel comfortable relating to others because we’re all in the same boat after all. WILAX doesn’t do any of those things. It starts dark and ends dark, it doesn’t make one feel particularly good, the viewer with even the remotest of sensitivity feels a bit guilty laughing at it because what it casts a light on is uncomfortable and raw and ugly. It’s a purposeless and hopeless anger. It’s something you’re not sure you’d want to share with everyone. It’ll be shared among fellow cynics, but the pass-along factor will be much lower among normal well-adjusted people. I knew that going in, and don’t consider it a weakness of the piece; it serves its purpose. But it’s definitely not for everyone.

Once again, I’m So Sick triumphs here. It makes you feel like dancing, playing air guitar, smashing your air amplifier. It quickens the pulse, it widens the eyes. Even though the song itself is dark and tainted with anger of its own, the video is somehow wholly invigorating and inspirational. And the lyric is open enough to allow for multiple interpretations, allowing anyone who has felt justified being mad at the world to connect with it in some way. And who hasn’t, at some point, been there?

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In conclusion, I want to reiterate that I do not deny the gaming audience advantage nor do I deny its power, but it’s not everything. It’s not even the most important thing. Is the film a work of great quality? What is the film’s inherent intent, and who is your intended audience? Is your audience limited by the language of your film? What emotion does the film evoke, and is that an emotion others will want to share?

Answer these questions… but for Pete’s sake, use these as tools to tweak your film, not as tools to dictate what that film will be at its core. I have no doubt in my mind that while Baron Soosdon had in mind the wide appeal of the rock style his video was based on, and while he was not ignorant of his WoW core audience… he made the video first and foremost because he liked the song, and that personal inspiration was injected into every frame of the film. Sans that as its first value, if the foundation of the film had been any other contrivance of marketing or promotion, it would never have had the same vitality and exuberance.

Learn from him. Hold your idea as sacred, and damn the torpedoes.

If you ask me, forget publicity stunts and press releases, forget focus grouping and crafting something with a marketing chisel. Make great movies. Some will hit, some will miss. Be aware of your audience, always, but don’t pander to them or they’ll see right through it; they are more clever than any marketing guru. The great popularity beast is a fickle monster, and you can expend a hell of a lot of energy trying to manipulate it and trick it and get it to do your bidding, and the most you will get from all that effort is short-term gain, your 15 minutes. Set your sights on slow steady gains; build up your 1000 hardcore fans. If the entire world gets excited about what you are doing for a moment - and that may never happen - but if it does, realize it for what it is: a moment which will pass and will leave you feeling empty if you spent all your energy and emotional capital chasing it.