Closing Words for 2022

 Another year over. Another one has just begun. 2022 is almost at its end and it has been a very interesting year. This year saw the release of four projects (ONRIDE, DUSK, Pixelated Soundwaves and AR3NA) and many of these projects were a first. ONRIDE, for instance, was my first Valve based machinima used with the demo smoother. DUSK, was my first real Source Filmmaker project if you don't count all of the testvideo's I made over the years. Pixelated Soundwaves was the first audio-based project released for A Pixelated Point of View, and AR3NA was my first longform film and possibly the longest and ambitious film I have created so far. Wow. It didn't occur to me until I just started thinking about it. A lot of boundaries were pushed this year and a lot of projects were 'first-timers', so to speak. 

 In addition, a new format called APPOVTALK was established and its first two installments were released. The first episode saw me rambling about the use of depth of field maps inside of Quake III machinima alongside some examples from recent Quake machinima I had made. The second installment took us all back to 2007 in order to enjoy the nostalgic tunes of Habbo Trax and a deep behind the scenes look of how Pixelated Soundwaves was conceived and why.

A lot of new interesting games and software were added to my 'to-do list'. For example Microsoft 3D Movie Maker became open source, which is a very interesting relic from the past in terms of machinima-making (1995) before Diary of a Camper even existed. I'm not saying that 3DMM will be something that I'm going to explore in 2023, it's just something I've added to my research list alongside a lot of other games and pieces of software to eventually check up on when I get around it. I love to open that list from time to time because I forget about almost all of the other projects I came up with most of the time. It's often super inspiring to re-read short scribbles for possible projects that I thought of a year or three years ago. One of those scribbles always pops up in my mind and it's one that reads something like: "Play old FIFA games on the Nintendo Gamecube emulator and try to break loose from the game's camera. Then try to capture a bot match from your own point of view". It's something I've always wanted to try but just never got around to doing. These tiny little things are always a joy to read.

In terms of festivals, it is safe to say that 2022 has been the best year so far. I've noticed a trend since 2020 where the amount of festivals my work has been featured almost doubled every single year. It all started in March with 4 (!) Quake III machinima films present at the Milan Machinima Festival. All films were screened in the Milan Interactive Museum of Cinema. I was really glad to be part of the Milan Machinima Festival for the second time! Shortly after, May was another fruitful month. Two films went to Greece. Another two films went to Spain. After a quite busy summer full of AR3NA shot rendering, IGNIIITIION Instagib was featured on Serbest Film Festival in Moldova and 5 (!!) films were viewable all at once at an online showcase called Lift-Off Sessions in October. The year was concluded with a finalist-spot as 'best experimental short' for DUSK in a Bulgarian film festival called V.i.Z Film Festival and during the time we are exchanging wishes for the new year during christmas and on new year's eve, AR3NA can be seen in its entirety on MMF VRAL (also my second solo exhibition on their platform, thanks for having me again!) What a year. I am legitimately excited for what next year will bring. Not only in terms of festivals but also in terms of projects.

I want to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for watching my work again. Stay awesome. I wish you the best for the new year and have a great holiday season. I will be back from January onwards when there are new updates about projects. 2023 is going to be great. Until then!

- Jordy