Last August, I entered a loft in downtown Portland, walked through a door, and met someone I’ve wanted to talk to for the last 20 years: Ghyslain Raza, the unwilling subject of the “Star Wars Kid” meme, the biggest viral video of the pre-YouTube era.

Since the video and its remixes exploded online in 2003, Ghyslain has refused all interview requests, except for the 10th anniversary of the video’s release in 2013 for an interview with a French-Canadian journalist for L’actualité magazine, which was translated into English for partner magazine Maclean’s.

But over the last couple years, he’s quietly worked with a group of documentary filmmakers to tell his story for the first time, in his own words. The full-length film was released today in French and English, as you’d expect from Quebec-based filmmakers. In English, it’s being released as Star Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows, but I’m partial to the French title, Dans l’ombre du Star Wars Kid, which translates to “In the Shadow of the Star Wars Kid.” It feels much more fitting to the story they told.

It’s now available for streaming free from the National Film Board of Canada’s site, and I highly recommend watching it. I was lucky enough to get an advance screener and it’s a powerful film expertly told. Update: After a short window, the documentary can now only be viewed in Canada. No word on when it’ll be available elsewhere.

Making the Documentary

In February 2021, the documentary’s director, Mathieu Fournier, reached out to see if I’d speak to them about my role in the video’s initial spread and the fundraiser we held for him, my ultimately-futile attempt to shift the narrative to a positive light.

I’ve declined every interview request about this subject since 2003, but was surprised to hear that Ghyslain himself was deeply involved in the production, so I immediately agreed to participate.

The production team came to Portland for the filming, where I was interviewed for a couple hours by the filmmakers. Then, Ghyslain and I sat down for a long one-on-one conversation on camera about everything that happened 20 years ago, the impact it had on his life, and how he looks back on it now.

I’ve never talked about it publicly, but I regret ever posting it. From the start, it was obvious it was never meant to be seen, and mirroring it on my site without consent was wrong in a way that I couldn’t see when I was in my 20s, one year into blogging. I removed the videos once it was clear how it was affecting him, but I never should have posted them in the first place.

Meeting Ghyslain gave me the opportunity to tell him all of that in person, as well as in my interviews, some of which made it into the finished film.

As a side note, it was fascinating to get answers to questions I’ve wondered about for 20 years. Yes, Ghyslain actually received the iPod we sent him from the fundraiser, and used the gift cards we sent him to buy an iMac G4, both of which he kept to this day. He managed to avoid most of the remixes and media coverage, except for Arrested Development, which he watched live as it aired.

But more than anything, it was great to finally talk to him in person and see that he’s doing well. By all accounts, he handled everything that happened back then with a profound emotional maturity, despite how painful it was, and emerged on the other side with a uniquely interesting perspective that’s worth listening to.

Afterwards

After the documentary taping, we all met up for drinks on the roof deck at Revolution Hall, where we hold XOXO every year, and then went out for dinner and more drinks until late at night.

This time, Ghyslain and I were able to talk privately off camera, about our lives and families, about the Commodore 64 and typography, finding natural common ground. When he was younger, he was really into computers, but for obvious reasons, Ghyslain spent much of his life offline after 2003.

Like so many others, I saw my geeky teenage self when first watching the Star Wars Kid video, and sitting across from this 34-year-old man, I saw a parallel-world version of myself in my 30s. I first fell in love with the internet at age 15, the age Ghyslain was when he made the video.

That night, I couldn’t help but wonder how his life would have changed if it never happened. I was surprised to see that in the final film, there’s a moment where Ghyslain talks about our meeting, and wonders exactly the same thing. I hope you take the time to watch it.

Thanks to Ghyslain for his generosity and empathy, and thanks to the filmmakers for making this meeting possible: something I’ve quietly hoped would happen for 20 years.

It’s Oscar night! And for the second year in a row, every single Oscar-nominated film has leaked in HD quality before the ceremony, but only three of the 32 nominated films leaked as Oscar screeners, a radical change from years past. What the hell is going on?

Back in 2004, I started tracking the illicit distribution of Oscar screeners because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was seemingly in denial, or completely unaware, that virtually every nominated film routinely leaked online. (The L.A. Times headline that inspired it still makes me laugh.)

That project turned into an annual ritual where I’d wake up on the day the nominees were announced and add to a spreadsheet now covering 643 Oscar nominees across 20 years and write up my analysis about the trends that emerged from the data.

Continuing the trend from last year, we can see the pandemic accelerating a rapid decline of interest in screeners. Let’s take a look at the data to see why.

Death of the Screener

Screeners, as we know them, are dead. But not for the reasons you might think.

Last year, the Academy announced they were finally banning physical screeners. Voters would no longer receive DVDs or Blu-Rays by mail, with screeners exclusively available through Academy Screening Room, a free video streaming app for iOS, Apple TV, and Roku accessible only by Oscar voters.

Studios and filmmakers are charged $12,500 for inclusion in Academy Screening Room and an additional $5,000 fee for optional forensic watermarking, and required to follow rigid technical specifications for video, audio, captioning, and art. (Animated features, international films, documentaries, and shorts are exempt from the fee.) Presumably, this is still much cheaper for studios than producing and distributing physical screeners to all 9,487 eligible voting members, especially when individually watermarking to discourage piracy.

With so many voters still avoiding theaters because of the Omicron variant, and without the option of physical screeners, it’s safe to say that virtually every Academy voter was using Academy Screening Room this year. Over 160 films from 2021 were available in Academy Screening Room, including every eventual Oscar nominee.

To ease studio concerns over security, the Academy partnered with several technology companies for secure digital delivery of screeners, including Brightcove’s streaming video platform, NAGRA NexGuard Streaming’s forensic watermarking, Akamai’s Adaptive Media Delivery, and BuyDRM’s KeyOS MultiKey Service.

With all this DRM and forensic watermarking, could this spell the end of leaked digital screeners forever? If history is any guide, no. Historically, any DRM and watermarking can be defeated or bypassed, often with a surprisingly trivial amount of effort, if there’s demand for what it’s protecting.

Screeners aren’t dead in the piracy scene because physical screeners are gone, or because digital screeners are any harder to pirate. They’re dead because nobody cares about them anymore.

Screeners Are Irrelevant

There are two trends we can see over the last few years that have transformed how films are leaked online, and both of these radically accelerated during the pandemic.

1. Fewer screeners are leaking than ever. Only three nominated screeners have leaked in each of the last two years, 9% of nominees compared to 80-90% 20 years ago and 30-50% pre-pandemic.
2. Nominated films leak faster than ever. It used to take a median 10-11 weeks for the first high-quality leak of a movie online. The median for the last two years has been between 1-3 weeks.

As I noted last year, the pandemic destroyed the traditional release window between theatrical and streaming/video-on-demand dates. Movies used to have a theatrical window of exclusivity, typically 75 to 90 days, enforced by deals with theater owners. These windows vanished during the pandemic as box office ticket sales cratered, either because theaters were closed or people were just staying home.

Studios and streaming platforms opted instead for streaming-only releases, or they were released simultaneously in theaters and online as “day-and-date” releases, to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+, or other streaming platforms.

The result was that every film leaked online in HD format from streaming/video-on-demand platforms before Oscar screeners were even released, rendering screeners effectively useless.

To be clear, this is continuing a trend that started long before the pandemic. We can see the impact of tightening release windows starting in 2015, but their decreasing desirability started in 2009, first driven by demand for higher-quality video than DVD screeners could provide and then by the ubiquity of streaming platforms.

The Rebirth of Screeners

20 years in, I’m tempted to end the project. It feels like a good stopping point. It’s clear that pirates won this fight, and as far as pirates are concerned, screeners are now largely irrelevant.

And yet, I’m still very curious what will happen when the worst effects of the pandemic on the film industry subside. Studios are planning to return to theatrical windows this year, though with an emerging industry standard of 45 days, down from the 75- to 90-day windows of the past.

It seems likely the gap between theatrical and streaming release dates will start to rise again, creating more pressure and demand for screeners. The Academy is putting a lot of faith in their technology for Academy Screening Room, but it feels like the only thing saving them right now is a lack of interest in what they’re protecting.

If that changes, the attention of every scene release group in the world will turn to getting access to an Academy Screener Room account, defeating its DRM, and removing any digital watermarks. The first to unlock it will find itself in possession of an incredible treasure chest: instant access to every screener submitted “for your consideration.”

So maybe I’ll keep this going a little longer to see what happens. Grab some popcorn, enjoy the show, and I’ll see you next year. 🍿🏴‍☠️

As you may remember, I’ve spent the last few months working on Skittish, a playful space for virtual events and gatherings of all kinds — requiring only a browser and microphone, using spatial 3D audio to talk to others around you. Skittish was built in a 3D engine with a powerful but simple editor, making it easy to customize the world.

It took some time, but I’m happy to say Skittish is now open to everyone, along with a new homepage and public demo showing how it works. Anyone and everyone can now create their own world, start editing, and invite others to join you. Go try it out!

Huge thanks to all the beta testers, event organizers, and creators who used Skittish over the last few months, but special thanks to the XOXO community for their continued support and enthusiasm.

And extra extra special thanks to Simon Hales, lead engineer for the project, for everything he’s done to make using Skittish (and working on it) so joyful.