![]() In the film you can see some of the same strategy and problem-solving skills in action, at times applied to getting a job, making friends, or striking out into the unknown in a new city. "You start to realize the games have really complex rules and goals, and there's an order to how you should do thingsā¦ Once you start to figure that stuff out, even if it's just the very beginning it starts to become very rewarding." "When we first started doing the movie, I hadn't played more than a few games in my life," Drillot says. I'm still a long way from clearing what Drillot and Petry call the "survival mode" stage of pinball play, something I need to work on to properly appreciate Gagno's big-picture, methodical approach to the game. ![]() My attempt at a nudge-to keep the ball in play by lightly rocking the machine-manages to get the thing stuck behind an Addams Family armchair. I fire up a game beside Gagno, but inevitably waste all three balls before he's finished with his first. "Whichever shots I'm making comfortably, I see how I can maximize and get that to work." He also wears signature headphones to ward off distraction. "I try to think: Can I really play for multi-ball? Or do I try to find I another way I can keep the ball in play?" he says of his completion strategy. When he's playing well, he flips his jacket halfway down his arms and goes silent, even as arcade regulars lean over to cheer him on and ask questions. Gagno's style of play immediately earns friends and spectators. More than anything, though, the film is about this innately human hunger to improve, succeed, and win-evoking a sense of excitement that is really, really contagious. In the resulting documentary Wizard Mode, which premieres at Hot Docs in Toronto on May 2 and hits DOXA festival the following week in Vancouver, Gagno doesn't just open up about the ups and downs of competitive pinball, but also his personal quest for independence as a 27-year-old with autism. ![]() For the last two years, he's had the extra challenge of sharing every step of the way with filmmakers Nathan Drillot and Jeff Petry. For Gagno, it's been a long road to the top-six years competing in world competitions, and a decade more practicing on his own collection of machines at his home in Burnaby, BC. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |