The Story So Far...

I have a feeling we're about to get a slew of new visitors, so I thought I'd give you a quick catchup on the crazy little story of this movie.  For those True Believers who've followed our blog for the past three years, feel free to chime in if I forgot something important.  I'll keep this short.

The whole thing started five years ago, when Juan Carlos (the director) and Peter (we're producers) started a documentary company mostly focusing on industrial videos.  They built Pure West Documentaries from the ground up, and as successful as it was, they were itching for a feature-length documentary of our choosing.  Then along came Ben, a friend of ours, who gave me the MMO Star Wars Galaxies for my birthday.  Juan Carlos and I jumped into the virtual world, ooh-ed and aah-ed, and soon tired of it thanks to the millenial ADD that plagues us all.  Well Ben stayed focused, and began playing it every waking moment he could.  He started coming to work with bags under his eyes, and would run home (ten blocks) at lunch to log in for three minutes before running back.  From the outside it looked crazy, but from the inside it was remarkable-- Ben was one of the most important people in Star Wars Galaxies- a mayor of the largest town and captain of the largest space armada in the game.  By day he taught with me, but by night he led a rich life as a leader of hundreds.

I quit the teaching gig, and Peter and Juan adopted me into the PWD fold.  We dove right into Second Skin, researching tirelessly for months, and scouring the internets for possible interviews and subjects.  Those first few months were scary (who am I kidding- 90% of it was scary) as we only really knew what we *wanted* the movie to look like.  The going was slow at first.

The Making of Second Skin seemed to really get launched by a big road trip we took to the Games & Learning Conference in Madison, WI where all the virtual world academics gathered.  We scrambled for three days to nab as many interviews as we could (I can't even remember how many we got- fifteen?) and after crumbling exhaustedly, awoke to find the foundation for our movie complete.

Then we had to find the subjects for the movie.  This took a lot of scrounging around, though the results started pouring in after Juan Carlos created a website for the movie- an online beacon for any gamers- and Kotaku trumpeted our "casting call" to the world of gamers.

Before we knew it we were on our way, lugging what must have been three tons of equipment in the back of my car, as we drove all across the US finding the hardcorest of the hardcore gamers, and stalking them, sometimes for weeks at a time.  It was frantic and our shoestring budget made it tough, but in retrospect, those were some good times. 

We watched, cameras on, as a couple that met in a virtual world met in real life, and had front row seats for all the ensuing drama and euphoria.  We hung out with a gamer guild that spanned age and location, drawing people from around the world to their meetings.  We watched an MMO addict claw his way back from destitution.  And we met some of our best friends in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as we followed their lives for the better part of a year.

There were a lot of crazy moments.  Juan Carlos and I were chased by the Chinese mafia, Peter and I played Guitar Hero with some porn stars, Juan Carlos and Peter hired a PI to help them on a manhunt...

The whole time our website was our home, and our blog let the growing community know where things were at with the movie.  Coming back from an adventure and blogging about was like telling our friends & family- nothing felt quite complete until we blogged about it.

After we were done filming (well before that, really) Juan Carlos began editing.  It was his Luke and Vader In the Cave moment, and it lasted for six months.  He brought all his editing equipment to his cave (basement I guess- looks more like a cave) and didn't surface for 180 days (conservative estimate).  When he finally emerged, after spending consecutive 20 hour days for months, Second Skin was finished.  It was a miraculous thing, and it's hard to even begin to imagine how hard he worked on it.  It was dizzying just thinking about it.  I still get vertigo.  Juan then had to whip up a trailer, so he descended into his cave again, and cobbled together a Juansterpiece.

We released the trailer in late January, and then things got really surreal.

The trailer got 200,000 views on YouTube in two days, we were being interviewed by NPR, the BCC, Newsweek and dozens of other media outlets, we were accepted into SXSW (barely we thought) and then were given the coveted Opening Night Premiere slot.  Austin was a strange blur of stress, anxiety and elation.  SXSW treated us like the belle of the ball, and we spent our days interviewing, and our nights showing the movie and hitting wild parties.  Still, the three of us were only focused on packing our theater and selling the movie.

Two months after SXSW, in the midst of other film festivals, we got The Email.  Liberation Entertainment wanted to buy our movie.  As we continued attending festival after festival, we began sculpting a deal with Liberation.  These things take time- everyone warned us, but we never took it to heart.

We spent the next year and a half building our company Pure West, and waiting for our movie to be released.

And here it is, three years after we piled into my car and made our way to Madison, Wisconsin.  It was so much harder than we could have ever imagined, but a hell of a ride the whole way.

Thanks to all of you, and all of our longtime supporters for making this possible.  It would've only been a dream if it wasn't for your constant support.  Really.