Darkon: "Everybody wants to be a hero."
Writer: Josh Jackson
Film Clips, Published online on 12 Sep 2007
Every other weekend, aspiring warriors, dark elves and Amazonians gather on soccer fields in Baltimore, crafting their own mythologies and dressing as warriors of the imaginary realm Darkon. In Darkon, filmmakers Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer do a tremendous job of sharing why people participate in live-action role-playing (LARPing). Capturing the full contact battles, the behind the scenes political turmoil inside the game, and the lives of the players away from the game, Neel and Meyer’s first film makes for an intriguing and endearing two hours.
Paste: Where did the idea for this come from?
Andrew Neel: When I was a senior in college I wrote a screenplay about the present day life of Dungeons and Dragons players. Through the research for that script I discovered LARPing. I actually rewrote the script integrating LARP in place of D&D. Finally I decided that the best way to get at the material—at the things that fascinated me about the behavior—was to go shoot it. I met up with Luke at a wedding and asked him if he wanted to direct it with me. We spent the next couple years of our lives embedded in the Darkonian culture.
P: What were the original themes that you wanted to explore and did they differ much from where you ended up going with the documentary?
Luke Meyer: Originally, we wanted to look at what drew people to a hobby that was so generally unaccepted, far outside the mainstream. We had some feeling that, in general, it was a reaction to things we all experience in the modern world. I don’t think that we ever approached people with this as a pre-determined answer, but in the end I think we found that the film retained a very similar theme to the one we saw at the beginning.
AN: As time passed, our shared concepts changed and evolved. But our basic interest and thesis about the phenomenon stayed true to our original inspiration, I think. There’s this cliché about filmmakers going through this over-determined “journey” as they make their film. It’s not always the case. You know why something is interesting to you, you dive into it, it becomes richer, more complex, but the original spark is often the through-line in the film. If your notions about your subject matter change radically during the filming of a project, it probably means that you came into the shooting process with a lot of assumptions. I think both of us try to avoid that at all costs.
P: The most impressive thing about the doc to me was that you rarely felt like you were looking down on the subjects despite an innate nerdiness of LARPing. Was this the result of a conscious choice or simply the result of coming to genuinely like your subjects over time?
LM: Films that look down on their subjects always feel shallow, misguided and often boring. There is an undeniable ridiculousness to LARPing, and LARPers are well aware of it. I think the humor in LARPing shows through in the film, but it doesn’t overshadow the more salient elements of the film (both narrative and philosophical).
AN: I was drawn to this subject matter because I was genuinely fascinated by it. It immediately captured my imagination. The game obviously has a built-in amusement factor, but I think most Darkonians also indulge in the ridiculous humor of what they’re doing. I understand the desire to have the horizon expand beyond the finite everyday reality of our lives. The misty hope that there’s something more out there is something we all want to feel. I think religion is evidence of this longing to somehow transcend the concrete elements of our mundane experience. So “making fun” was never really some thing I think even occurred to me. To the contrary, I was reverent. We indulged with them.
P: How much did you feel like your presence filming changed the actual storyline of Bannor’s quest to topple Keldar?
AN: A lot. The simple fact that the camera is there changes everything even in a reality that is not malleable like Darkon. Darkon’s reality is molded by the characters that play it. The game created what they call a “special adventure” for our film. It’s a battle or series of battles that are fought over multiple events. The “story line,” if you will, was sort of based on real tensions within the realm. The Darkonians devised this scenario very loosely with us, and once the ball was rolling there was no stopping it. It took on a life of its own. Bannor (Skip Lipman) is a very enthusiastic guy, and he funneled his creativity into the moment. Shit, the camera was there—he’s gotta go for it.
LM: Our presence and the presence of the camera definitely encouraged Skip as Bannor to take on the Mordomian Empire. There’s two sides to how this worked. Skip saw the documentary as something that would be great for the game of Darkon. He really wanted the film to be great, and so for that reason he put a lot of effort into his role-playing as he went after Keldar and the Mordomians. In addition, the quest for glory is a big part of Darkon. It’s apparent in the speeches people make and the work and attention they put into their armor. I think the opportunity to have a camera capture that quest was appealing to Skip and many of the other people in the film. If we’re talking in general terms though, I think the presence of a documentary crew always changes the way people act when they get in front of a camera. For some of the larger battles, Andrew and I were involved with the planners of the events. In order to bring a crane and multiple camera units into the mix, we had to know where the action was going to be and that the players have a clear sense of what obstacles would be on the field. These events ran together in a series, an adventure centralizing on a war between Bannor’s Laconia and Mordom, and during this time the film crew was worked into the game-play.
P: I originally saw the film at SXSW. What was that experience like and did that feel like the big break for you?
LM: SXSW was the first time that I’d ever shown any of my work to such a wide audience. The reception of the film was mind blowing for me.
AN: At the time it felt like a big break. But I thought it was a damn good film, so I wouldn’t say I felt lucky per se. I felt like we were getting the attention that we should be getting for a unique film. Then all of us bled and bled and bled as the film found its final resting place. It took a long time for this film to find its home. We’re excited to see it get out into the world.
Darkon opens September 14 at Cinema Village in New York. The film will have its broadcast world premiere on IFC TV November 12 at 9 pm
