The Chinatown Fair, 1944. It’s official.
Posts tagged chinatown fair
We shot all around Chinatown this week. Definitely captured the neighborhood. Here is our director of photography, Owen Strock, getting the very necessary shot of duck and chicken hanging in the window. You can barely see it, but in the background is a cook in his chef whites chopping meat. Owen is amazing at rack focusing, which he nailed on this shot.
We are in the middle of a lot of shooting. I will be documenting the process. Check our Flickr page and Facebook (www.facebook.com/arcademovie) for more!
-Kurt
My only picture from my last visit to Chinatown Fair.
Last Friday I was a part of a panel discussion about arcades at NY Comic Con. It was an amazing time. Somehow, at 11 am on a Friday, we filled the room with people eager to hear a talk about arcades. Leaves me feeling hopeful that the movie will receive a lot of attention when it is finished! The panel was moderated by Tal Blevins who has been at IGN since the early days, 13 years and counting! He was the perfect host. Seth Killian was there providing an incredibly unique perspective (As far as I can tell he has one of the coolest jobs in the world). Jamin Warren was beyond articulate, as always. And let me state this here: In 20 years, Kill Screen will be the Rolling Stone of video games. The Harlem Hero, Norman Burgess, was there waxing poetic about Chinatown Fair. And the star of the panel, Henry Cen, “Golden Cen” aka 50 Cen, was wonderfully cynical and cracking up the audience with his musings.
Thank you all for coming and saying hi. I met some new friends and look forward to continuing this discussion!
-Kurt
A letter I received about a night at Chinatown Fair arcade
I got this in my inbox last night and thought I would share it with you guys.
I’m not a super avid arcade gamer by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, one of my favorite nights ever was spent at Chinatown Fair.
My roommates and I were Sophomores at NYU, living on the border of Chinatown and the Financial District at the time. After a particularly rough run, we were all depressed, bored, and my one roommate had just been broken up with. We decided that we needed to do something. Wandering to one of Chinatown’s closet-like liquor stores where you pay through a hole in the glass, we got a few little bottles of booze using my fake ID, and mixed it with the Gatorade each of us had just picked up. It was classy.
Then, we wandered over to Chinatown Fair. It’s hard to describe why - the alcohol, the camaraderie or the video games - but this place was an escape for us that night. I still remember it fondly and talk about playing a seemingly unnamed Japanese vertically scrolling shooter that we pumped at least 20 dollars into, just for the mere fact that you get a giant movable laser cannon. Something changed in our collective friendship that night.. we all became a little closer.
A week or so ago, I was enthusiastically telling another friend about Chinatown Fair and demanded we go - which is when I found out it was closed. I wanted to play that shooter with the laser cannon and now, all I’ve got is the memory of the experience. Which may be better than the actual game, admittedly, but still.
-Steve
I think a lot of people have had similar experiences at Chinatown Fair. Irene, Reed, and I spent a lot of time at Next Level arcade this weekend. Friday night felt a whole lot like the way CF used to feel. I am so happy that Nick and Henry, the owners of Next Level, have put their heart into creating such a welcoming place.
-Kurt
My first visit to Next Level was originally for work rather than play. I went to help document a 3rd Strike tournament, but ended up being completely entranced by its siren-song of gaming. The venue itself lies just off the D train, tucked away amongst residential houses and small shops. The neighborhood is pleasantly quiet, although compared to Chinatown, pretty much everything seems quiet. I enjoyed a shoulder-check-free walk through the neighborhood and upon entering Next Level I was immediately greeted with sweet, glorious, air-conditioning. For those unfamiliar, Chinatown Fair did not have air-conditioning, and believe you me, that place got hot in the summer.
I was greeted by a helpful staff member (he said his name was Kuma, sick) who explained how the arcade worked, which was great, because I’ve never been to an arcade that worked like Next Level (which is not at all a bad thing). I worked my way through the Arcade Edition machines and sat down next to a guy playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I pulled out my trusty Hori stick, and instantly remembered why I love arcades so much: I felt that nervousness that you don’t get playing online, or with your friends. That pit in your stomach, your heart-rate eclipsing that of a mid-jump skydiver who also happened to be on fire and taped to a bear, feeling the need to beseech the Marvel gods so they might be kind in your upcoming match. The match starts, and I immediately went into autopilot. I started strong, hit my combos, got my DHC’s, and ended up winning pretty decisively. And then, I was totally fine. No more nerves, just Marvel. I ended up putting a 30-winstreak on that station, and had other people challenging me left and right. I played some other games, played some money matches, and before I knew it, just like CF, it was 5 hours later and dark outside. As I left, I was greeted by a familiar sight: people hanging out outside, smoking cigarettes, laughing, and talking about games, just like CF. And walking away, I felt that sting of community, and couldn’t wait to go back, just like CF.
-Reed
Rooftop Film's Kill Screen Video Game Film Festival
Rooftop Films and Kill Screen Magazine have put together an evening of short films for Saturday, July 30th in Brooklynn New York. We have put together a work in progress excerpt to show! Our piece introduces Chinatown Fair and one of our favorite people, Anthony Cali Jr, aka HelgenX.
Check out the link for more info!
KILL SCREEN VIDEOGAME FILM FESTIVALSHORT FILM PROGRAM$10 ONLINE OR AT THE DOOR.
8:00 PMSATURDAY JUL 30, 2011
Venue:
THE OLD AMERICAN CAN FACTORY
On the roof of The Old American Can Factory
GOWANUS/SLOPE
232 Third St. at 3rd Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215
F/G to Carroll St. or M/R to Union
Screen Grabs: Ivan’s Puma Tapers
Behold, the Puma Tapers. Pictured here with one of the In The Groove gods of Chinatown Fair, Ivan Yeung, these shoes are the must-have of music games. Like a Mad Catz TE to fighting gamers, like Wonderboy to Roy Hobbs, or a hefty .44 to Dirty Harry, these bad boys are the go-to for any serious DDR or ITG player. If you want to be doing this, you had better be wearing those.
-Reed
Photo by Michael Nagle (originally appeared in the August 4th, 2010 New York Times)
Today we are interviewing Ivan, a devoted rhythm game player and a former regular at Chinatown Fair, where he maintained the In The Groove arcade machine, while hacking it to keep updating the song selection. It amazes me how passionate the ITG community is. The story of how the the game series, which is widely considered to be the best of all music dance games, was discontinued after a lawsuit against the game’s manufacturer and how the community took matters into their own hands to keep the game alive. The Wikipedia entry on In The Groove is worth reading. The “Machine Hacking” section is particularly interesting to me.
“Technologically savvy players have found methods of hacking additional content onto an “In the Groove 2” machine. The most popular methods involve utilizing a live Linux distribution (most methods SLAX Frodo) to boot the machine to a rogue operating system that the user has control over. Additional songs are loaded onto a USB card (plugged into the Player 1 USB port), and a USB keyboard (plugged into the Player 2 USB port) is used to type commands at the Linux console. Most of these hacks utilize an option in one of StepMania’s configuration files, Static.ini, to load songs and content from additional locations other than the main song folder.”
-Kurt
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