Filmmakers Without Cameras: a film and games zine – Issue 2 is now live on Kickstarter!
Story
I always loved that Nintendo’s game designers were all people without a games background: Pikmin was created by a gardener, Splatoon by an artist. Disco Elysium was written by a political activist and novelist. If your reaction is to say that “Shigeru Miyamoto wasn’t a gardener!”, this magazine might not be for you. That’s okay.
Filmmakers Without Cameras is a misnomer.
It’s not a magazine just about or for filmmakers; it’s a love letter to films, video games, and board games written by people whose passions lie beyond those things.
It’s down to earth, thoroughly unpretentious, and easily accessible. I want this to be a platform for people who don’t usually write about games or films to write about those things, and I want this to be a gateway for people to start looking at the art they love in meaningful ways.
We set out to find the most niche of takes, asking contributors to write things only they could write. Things like:
🐛 Strong beliefs that A Bug’s Life is the socialist bible for the masses
🎲 Interests in the historical origins of board game mechanics
❗ That one really oddly specific take you have about Keynesian economics and Netflix’s The Floor Is Lava.
This is volume two of the pitches we received; pitches which were personal, pitches which made us say “I hadn’t ever thought about it that way before!”, and pitches which carried voices we don’t see enough of.
You’re not just backing to secure a copy of the mag; you’re also backing to support a platform for unique perspectives that don’t have a place in mainstream publications. Every penny we raise after printing and distribution costs will go straight to our contributors, divided evenly between everyone involved.
FWC2 will be A5 sized, perfect bound, and span over 80 pages. It’ll be printed on lovely 120gsm paper.
Our first issue went better than we ever could have imagined, raising over £1,100 and selling over 60 copies. It featured articles like:
- Storytelling in games as compared to films: How cinematography, interaction, and narrative design affect user experience — should games strive to be “cinematic”?
- Life At Sea: Mysteriously missing merchant ships and the science behind the Kraken.
- The Colour of Love in the Twilight Saga: Melissa’s quick, witty overview of colour and the difference a change of director can have on a series.
- The Cult of Bubbling Waters: A random encounter table for Mörk Borg or other roleplaying game of your choice.
- High School Musical 2 is a Communist Manifesto: Does what it says on the tin.
It’s been stocked at Rook’s Press and at the Travelling Man. Now you’ve got another chance to pick up a copy alongside the second issue.
Issue 1 reprints will be perfect bound. No more staples – the Issue 1 you get here will have a square spine, sitting perfectly alongside Issue 2 on your bookshelf.
This is our second issue so we’re well-versed, nay, battle-hardened by the process and ready to bring you another magazine chock-full of great content. We’ve been shaped by your feedback, so here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect of our next issue.
Issue 2 sees a whole host of new writers:
- Maria, who you might know better as eurothug4000, is contributing one of her gorgeous essays exploring what it means to explore.
- Returning writer Joshua Luke Cable has watched the 29 Godzilla films he could get his hands on (out of 36) with the express purpose of comparing Godzilla to Jesus. You have to read it to believe it.
- Marxist analyses of films are going to be a thing in FWC now – Zach Diaz writes about Office Space and shit jobs. Everyone’s had one.
- Sydney Bollinger played Hades and quickly realised it was one of the hardest games she’d ever played. With time, she grew to appreciate an unexpected lesson: being bad at something isn’t the end of the world.
- Harry Stainer writes about the role The Last of Us Part 2 played in helping him come to terms with his own trauma.
- Sophie Wallace explores her experiences growing up playing videogames, and fighting with her brothers over the controller.
- Tobias Gavelle, asking the question of: what happened to all the split-screen?
- Samuel T McNally writes about finding joy in the tedium of Snowrunner’s Alaskan off-road trucker simulator.
- Melissa Fielding explores Hanna and the origins of fairytales.
- B.C. Wallin looks at Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s soundtrack, and how soundtracks give us the permission to feel.
- Joey Palmer hiked through Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule 37 times on their road to recovery.
- Richard Cook explores how board games are becoming a new medium for storytelling. Board games have spoilers now!
- Adam Richards writes about finding a new hobby thanks to the pandemic: playing board games solo.
- Zach Webster looks at the renaissance of practical effects in action films.
- Oleksandr Derevianchenko walks us through Soyuzmultfilm, the Soviet-backed Disney opponent.
- and Bash Hornby writes of Nier: Automata and how, for a game intent on upskirting it’s female characters all the time, it has a lot to say about false idols, religion, and selfhood.
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