Ian Danskin is a freelance animator, writer, video editor, and visual essayist. His YouTube channel, Innuendo Studios, hosts a dozen videos analyzing aspects of gaming culture and media, including how fame manifests itself in the gaming industry, using Phil Fish of Fez as a case study; the evolution and manifestations of Sonic the Hedgehog; and how GamerGate exploited angry gamers to launch a harassment campaign.
In this interview, Ian and I nearly come to blows over who made the better adventure games: LucasArts or Sierra On-Line. We then shake hands and move on to the surprise success of his debut video in 2014, and what it was like to make a video about someone who ended up seeing the video; what Ian was angry about at the age of 15, and what steered him onto the path of being a feminist, atheist, and vegetarian; why he stuck his neck out to make a video series critical of GamerGate; how the GamerGate mentality can be seen in the current political campaign of Donald Trump; how Ian’s Kickstarter and Patreon crowdfunding campaigns have enabled him to produce even more videos, despite his work’s slow gestational rate; and why Ian uses Final Cut Pro 7 (FCP7) instead of Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) or Adobe Premiere Pro.
Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spoke, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Ian Danskin on:
- Ian’s videos:
- Adventure games:
- The Womansplainer by Elizabeth Simins
- Ian Danskin on the Critical Distance podcast
- Tony Zhou’s Every Frame a Painting
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:14:43 — 35.1MB) | Embed
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