i'm thinking about going, it looks pretty rad. they've had great machinima selections over the past two years and outside of the machinima category it looks like they have a lot of really neat things lined up.

also, that description applies to the overall film festival - the machinima part of dragoncon is very much so a subcategory of the event, quite low key. after a quick look I can't even find a mention of the machinima side of things off their website. but i don't find the whole "coffee house" thing deterring, the event is, after all, called DragonCon :P

I guess this is an image thing..ok I'm sure this will change but coming from a position of knowing nothing about this festival Dragoncon, part from the odd photo on their website and their film criteria, this sounds like maybe a fantasy festival, maybe with people swapping comic books and talking about world of warcraft and dressing up in hats.
Is this the case and what kind of films do they choose Xan?

My films MRE, NIN: Only, and Apology have been DragonCon screening selections in years past. Their machinima section of the film festival seems mostly interested in narrative fiction, but are open to just about anything. Christina Rollins has run the machinima track there for a few years, she takes it seriously and earnestly looks for quality / entertaining stuff to show. And they do a machinima panel every year; I've had to turn her down for a role on that two years in a row now, unfortunately, but I'm making plans to attend / participate at some point in the future.

The festival itself is multi-genre, rooted in fantasy / sci-fi but it's definitely not a bunch of nerds sitting around playing Magic: The Gathering. It attracts quite a bit of high profile entertainment types, musicians/bands and authors, and features a pretty impressive curriculum of workshops on everything from writing to art to gaming to robotics.

Matt Kelland is a regular attendee, knows Christina. I'm pretty sure he's going this year too.

Thanks Phil. It is really hard to get context from the position of knowing nothing about a festival, and I found their jokey lowdown quite hard to understand without that context, or a definite example of a film which fit the 'coffee house exclusion criteria'.
Only and Apology, to me anyway, seem like slice of life films (I love both those films as you know).

"Slice of life" is a particular approach where narrative form is basically ignored, emphasis tends to be on normal ordinary people doing normal ordinary things, but without any tangible story context. (I sure as heck hope [i]Only[/i] and [i]Apology[/i] don't fall into that category). Just about everything at DragonCon hinges on the world of storytelling, so they emphasize that element pretty heavily for their film fest. But, to their credit, they're open to more abstract forms as well. Actually, looking at their 2007 and 2008 programs, there's a remarkable diversity to the pieces shown:

http://www.neositesolutions.com/gaming/dc07machinima_post.htm

http://www.neositesolutions.com/gaming/dc08machinima_post.htm

Thanks for the links Phil.
I didn't realise 'slice of life' was a recognised film genre, I took it to mean relating to real people and their emotions rather than fantasy or mythology (hence my seeing your films in those terms)
It's an interesting concept, which seems to be a topic of debate.
When I looked up the term on wikipedia, [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slice_of_life_story[/url] I found that the article's talk page made interesting reading also. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Slice_of_life_story[/url]

is anyone going? i'd really like to but it looks like every venue for lodging is just about booked... got a video of mine into the machinima segment for which i'm glad, but i've also been looking at some of the things planned and it looks pretty sweet. a lot of big names there and some neat panels. that dress-up sort of thing totally doesn't appeal to me but hey, everything else looks awesome.

ben aka gamemaster is going but he's staying with friends. doesn't look like matt's going this year.

anyone going that has lodging plans can ya post here, or i'd really appreciate a response asap. i know it's probably of little good since the event's so near, but hey, it's worth a try! just wondering what anyone was able to find or if they wouldn't mind me tagging along.

email is cexanatos[at]yahoo[dot]com

Does anyone know how old you have to be to get into the Toronto Film Festival? I love film...so I really want to go in my senior year of High school.
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