Dota 2 Films: a Community Endeavor
Submissions of DOTA 2 films for the Valve sponsored short film contest are quite good! DireDota HQ resident film expert, Rachel Wilson, highlights her favorites.
Whew, I’ve been meaning to write this article for a couple of days now. Submissions for the short film contest were closed at 4:00 PDT on the July 26. From now till the winners are announced at TI6, you can vote for these one minute films on the Steam Workshop.
And you should vote, because there are significant money prizes for the films that place first through third, as well as small money prizes for the rest of the top ten ranked films. Film makers work hard to create content we all enjoy – the least we can do is give ’em a vote!
Using that good ol’ college education
Film was pretty much my favorite subject while going to school. Being something of a film snob, I didn’t have very high expectations going into my initial viewing of these vids. After watching through most of them twice, let me be the first to tell you: they’re hella awesome.
Videos made by our kind of people, for our kind of people. Maybe a contributing factor to my low expectations comes from the way mainstream companies/corporations try to use memes or gamer lingo to sell stuff to me. Somehow it always feels… unnatural. “Forced” may be a better descriptor. Like when your parents use hippy-talk to try and be “hip.”
You’ll find none of that awkwardness in these short films. So here we go! Here’s my top four favorites. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
Baited
I love it when a story is told without anything having to be explained. This one was very well polished, I might add. Everything comes together in the end – for some more than others.
Till the End
Can you blame a girl for feeling? This one tugged at my heartstrings. After it was done I dried my eyes and promised myself I’d take better care of Lone Druid’s bear. Because I can’t go through this kind of sadness again.
Survivor
This is my favorite action oriented film of the bunch. Really took me back to the days when I used to wake up early in the morning to watch anime. For only being a minute in length, they did a kickbutt job of conveying the right atmosphere.
Rubick’s Mega Magic Stick
My favorite live action video. It’s pretty chuckle-tastic. I was shushed by Phil Newman (he sits next to me) while watching. What can I say? I have a soft spot for the infomercial aesthetic.
They’re only a minute long, give ’em a watch!
If you have time, I highly recommend you check out the rest of these films. Even the ones that are obviously put together by less experienced film makers usually have some gems or callbacks to the good ol’ days of DOTA.