Shatner and the Elans: The Canadian Awards for Electronic Arts and Animation
This last Thursday was the first annual Canadian Awards for Electronic Arts and Animation, the Elans, set in the luxurious River Rocks Casino in Vancouver, B.C. hosted by none other than William Shatner. Does he look a little drunk in that photo? He probably was. The awards were, in a word, awful. Set up to be like an Oscar-style red carpet event, it just fell short. Scratch that, it fell miles short. Peppered with pseudo-celebrities and self important Vancouver-based game companies, the award show proper was two and a half hours of repeating game trailers, awkward award recepients and even more awkward industry voice actors trying to be funny presenting on stage. Even a guy from G4 was there, and it wasn't even Tommy Tallarico. Yes, it was THAT D-list. But there were other, more technical reasons this show was a travesty.
The evening started out disorganized. As media we weren't even issued badges, just told where our seats were in the auditorium. We weren't even encouraged to stand by the red carpet and take photos, though three of us intrepid gamers did. It was me, my wife, a very nice freelance photog named Laura and a guy named Carl from canoe.ca. Oh, G4 was also there for a couple minutes. After some random people walked down the red carpet, including Teryl Rothery and Gary Chalk from Stargate SG-1, and William B. Davis, the cigarette smoking man from X-Files. Other than Shatner, who made a mad dash past everyone, that was it. Shrugging, we entered the foyer of the theater for the champage reception and watched as hordes of other media, such as Entertainment Tonight Canada swarmed Shatner for interviews. We sat back and watched the craziness while taking our share of the free champagne. After an hour and a half of this we were led to our seats in the theater. VIPs from the industry, such as developers from EA and Ubisoft had tables and were served a three-course meal, while the media were relegated to the back of the bottom floor and had a buffet. Now, I am not one to complain about free food, but every other event I have been to as media we were treated as well if not better than VIPs. Our words reach thousands more than a VIP could reach, and our input is very valued. Not here.
The evening started with Shatner going off on how CGI is killing the industry by replacing actors. Well, not in so many words, but that was what his speech was alluding to. Then he left and wasn't seen again for about two hours. The first presenters came out and started going over nominees, and the same four games were nominated over and over again. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Peter Jackson's King Kong, Need For Speed and Farcry Instincts: Predator. Over and over and over again they would play the same game trailer. I counted seeing the Prince of Persia trailer nine times over the whole evening. They would play the same trailer for score as they would for graphics, even if the trailer had no score in it. The student categories were even worse, as the demo reels submitted looked like mid 90's era Lawnmower Man graphics. These were the best of the best of Canada? The same four games and some stills of some kid's demo reel?
My new buddy Carl from canoe.ca shed some light on the subject. Carl is from Montreal, and he said that there weren't any companies nominated from French-speaking Canada. Ubisoft Montreal didn't even know the event was going on. Carl investigated by going over to the Ubisoft table and asking them why their other half wasn't in attendance, and they said that the event was originally supposed to be just Vancouver developers. At the last minute they decided to say that they were encompassing all of Canada, apparently to look like a larger event. What they effectively did was snub a huge amount of Canadian developers. It was laughable. Kim Possible for the Nintendo DS took the award for best handheld game. EA effectively swept. Most categories were either EA or Ubisoft competing against themselves. Then, in a stunning display of "adding insult to injury" Uwe Boll came out and presented an award. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I was so angry at this boring event, putting Uwe Boll out there as a representative of the game industry was the last straw. I yelled very loudly "UWE BOLL SUCKS" across the auditorium during a quiet moment. I dearly hope he heard me.
Shatner came back out to present a large check to an equestrian-based child rehabilitiation center from Golden Palace.com. Yes, even Golden Palace got theirs in this event. The self-congratulatory masturbation of this event was insane. After about two hours of watching the exact same Barbie in Mermadia trailer (which looked like a very quality bit of entertainment, if I do say so myself) the majority of media in the back had left. My wife was bored out of her mind, resorting to checking her email on my cell phone. The after party couldn't have come soon enough as we all made a bee line for the third floor of the casino. We happened to be walking to the elevator at the same time as Shatner, and some other member of the media who was standing with us, waiting for the elevator, had just offhandedly told him he did a good job. Without a wink or a grunt The Shat turned on his heel and walked away from the elevator. Snubbed by Shatner. My life's work is complete.
At the after party I saw the smoking man from X-Files helping himself to a torte of some sort, and he was more than happy to talk to me and have his picture taken. Teryl Rothery, who played Doctor Frasier on Stargate SG-1 was also there, and seemed giddy when my wife and I came up to her and said we were fans. We chatted about Stargate with her and took pictures. This was the best time we had all evening.
After 30 minutes of the after party we went outside to wait for a taxi, and the smoking man approached us and started asking us about our trip, if we had fun, and when we were going back to Seattle. He was incredibly kind, and made the evening worthwhile for us. But we are nerds.
This was the first year of the Elans. It was marketed as an Oscar-like red carpet event, honoring the best of the best in the Canadian Video Game and Animation Industry. What it ended up being was a hastily put together Vancouver developers-only love-in. It said nothing for the quality of product coming out of Canada, in fact it made Canada look horrible in comparison to the US and Japan. The winners weren't even worthwhile to report on. Hopefully next year they will get their act together, but as it stands, the CAEAA Elans are like a proof of concept event. The concept being that if you can't do a video game awards show well, don't do it at all.
What say you?!