eSC: Interview with CSFlicks Joe "Subject2Change" Cutick
By Staff Writer - CEVO|DeShong
In this edition of eSC, CEVO|DeShong talked to Joe "Subject2Change" Cutick, the Head Adminstrator of the famous movie site
www.csflicks.net. Subject2Change has some big upcoming plans for his site,
Thank you for taking time to answer a few questions that not only I had, but I'm sure many others have right now! But to start it off, will you please introduce yourself for those who may not be familiar with who are?
My name is Joe "Subject2Change" Cutick, I am the head site admin of www.CSFlicks.net and have been since December 2003.
Throughout the past few months, many people have been wondering where CSFlicks has gone. Our once prominent provider of updated gaming movies disappeared it seemed right when the popularity was growing. What has happened?
In July 2005, CSFlicks.net was hacked. Originally it started with our PHPBB Forum being taken over and being messed with but after a few occurances of that happening our actual website was maliciously attacked by deleting our database and giving out several admins passwords. At the time of the hack we had roughly 200,000 members with roughly 40,000 hits daily and 5,000 downloads daily. The hack tore apart the site but gave us the need to work harder to release CSFlicksV2 as soon as possible.
Version2 web design began and after a month it was complete. We began looking for coders and found an individual, but after 2 months of work, the coder was forced to quit due to previous jobs and real life priorities. Thus we had to find new coders. Skip Wilkinson, owner of CSFlicks, found 2 individuals that took the job and some additional work. After 2 months they copied over our original movie database thus saving us all of our movie ratings, download ratings and all working mirrors for movies. I personally don't think these coders knew how large the v2 Project would be and how many people were waiting for its release.
In your opinion, why do you believe gaming movies are becoming more and more popular in this growing community?
When I started viewing gaming movies in 2002, the community generally didn't have the ideas and resources as they do now and also the amount of movies were limited cause not everyone had the patience or desire to make one. Now there is an ever-increasing popularity to make your own movie, which has increased due to all the tutorials, resources and the ease of making your own movie. Many individuals like to represent some of their memorable moments for others to see. On the opposite end you have the editors and producers who simply don't make a movie but tell a story behind their editing and work. These videos often hype players up and often make them want to play.
I'm sure you have watched many gaming movies, do you have any favorites or favorite directors who really caught your attention?
When I began watching gaming films I was generally watching Team Fortress Classic & Quake 3 movies but at the time was a Counter-Strike player. The films and editors/producers that were a huge influence to me were Darth.Bokothor "Make Me [BAD]" a Team Fortress Movie, APM a Japanese Team Fortress Classic movie maker who made films like "Last Dinosaur" & "Last Dinosaur 2" and on the Counter-Strike end Zaknafein's "eyeless" & "eoLithic" and you can't forget BDS' "Frag or Die" and to the more present day films DchozN and The Family God are two movie makers whom I've connected with on many levels and thoroughly enjoy their work.
When do you plan on seeing CSFlicks.net return to an operating state?
CSFlicks.net V2 is in early beta stage and at this time we are looking for bugs, changes, additions and comments on the state of the site so we can get additional coding to better the site. At this time there is no time frame but I.d like to see it at an operating state in either late summer or early fall of 2006.
With other organizations such as Planet-Videos, what makes and made CSFlicks.net so appealing to such an audience as the Counter-Strike community?
I'd have to say our support and tutorials. In my opinion we have some of the best tutorials in the community, tutorials that have taught many people how to enter the world of digital editing and production. Also our support on movie making either on IRC or on our forums has helped numerous people. I think our focus just on the Counter-Strike movie community offers more than a general movie site. With focus just on Counter-Strike, you may know the players in the videos even if they aren't on a professional playing level, you may even see yourself being fragged or fragging in the videos. This both is good and bad, I personally enjoy watching other well produced/edited gaming movies and with a focus on just Counter-Strike you cannot achieve this.
Thank you so much for your time! Do you have any shoutouts or people you'd like to mention?
I'd like to thank Skip "A2" Wilkinson for the opportunity to work for CSFlicks. Also, Snorlax637 & Jake` for numerous random conversations over mIRC at random times during the day & night. Next, Fragalishus & Stevester for their help and support with CSFlicks. Finally, all of CSFlicks and my supporters for sticking with us through the good and bad times.
