Captain Disillusion


Alan Melikdjanian, known by the alias Captain Disillusion, is an American independent filmmaker. Melikdjanian has been active in the founding of video-sharing sites Openfilm and Filmnet.com, and is the creator of the YouTube web-series Captain Disillusion, a comedic series of videos promoting critical thinking and skepticism, mainly centering around the use of visual effects and video editing.

Early life

Melikdjanian was born to Soviet-era circus performer parents. His father, Vilen, was a particularly well-known performer. He toured the Soviet Union with his parents until beginning school at age 6, at which time he would live with his grandmother in Riga. Melikdjanian is of Armenian and Russian descent. In Riga, during the school year, Melikdjanian would spend most of his free time trying to copy the styles of Disney animators. During summer, he'd resume his circus life on the road.
He attended high school at William H. Turner Tech, in Miami, and studied video production and 3-D animation. He continued to do so at the International Fine Arts College, now known as the Miami International University of Art & Design.
He graduated from college with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film production.

Career

FilmNet.com and OpenFilm

Melikdjanian was the co-founder and creative director of FilmNet.com, and was the co-founder and chief creative officer of Openfilm. Both were intended as alternatives to popular video-sharing site YouTube, but for serious amateur filmmakers who "don't want to place their work alongside YouTube's mediocrities." OpenFilm closed in August 2015.

"Captain Disillusion" YouTube Channel, 2007–present

He publishes his Captain Disillusion videos on his eponymous YouTube channel, which as of 2020 has over 1.9 million subscribers and 159 million views. On his channel, he debunks, amongst other things, viral and paranormal "hoax" videos, doing so humorously, and with a heavy focus on visual effects. He edits his videos using various software programs beginning with Avid Media Composer followed by Adobe After Effects, Blender, and Da Vinci Resolve.
In his videos, he wears a vintage 1980s tracksuit, and the skin of the lower part of his face is covered in silvery paint.
Melikdjanian described how he designed his superhero costume:

Format

Firstly, the Captain addresses the audience. A typical introduction to his videos is "Greetings, children, Captain Disillusion here." Secondly, he goes on to show a popular video, often a paranormal or viral video which is 'too good to be true.' Thirdly, he reviews the footage, utilizing his expertise in digital editing, to 'break down' the video and show how the end result was accomplished. He also likes to recreate effects from the videos he debunks, often incorporating this into episodes.
He ends each video with his motto: "Love with your heart. Use your head for everything else." His videos often conclude with a humorous ending sequence, which occasionally relates with the preceding video.

DVD

In 2011, Melikdjanian released a DVD of his Captain Disillusion series, entitled Captain Disillusion – Fame Curve Collection. It contains the first 16 episodes remastered with optional commentary and additional bonus features. He debuted it at TAM9, and later made it available for purchase online.

Recognition

His work has gained recognition from The Huffington Post, Kotaku, Russian TV International, Phil Plait, the James Randi Educational Foundation, Fortean Times, Home Media Magazine, and Sun Sentinel, among others. He has also received thanks from people for debunking videos they had shared.

Interviews

In 2008, during an interview for The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, he describes Captain Disillusion as a YouTube web series that tackles paranormal and illusion videos uploaded by others on YouTube. He started this effort as a blog entry on Myspace but later saw these items as ready made scripts for short videos. He notes that Penn & Teller were instrumental to his current interest and eventually found the skeptical movement involved in similar work. He finds that his followers like to learn about the illusions. It is not his intent to spoil legitimate entertainment or spoil a current performers work. His intent in showing how video illusions are created is to clear up misconceptions. Melikdjanian describes the basis for Openfilm.com briefly, saying it "was formed for film makers. The goal is to provide higher quality product and a group of serious content creators."
During an interview for The Skeptic Zone, in 2010, he describes Captain Disillusion as a superhero. and in a following 2011 interview, he describes his work as Captain Disillusion is done "in the maximum fun way possible". He describes his work with James Randi, Randi calling him to participate in The Amaz!ng Meeting and his video work with Randi in a later project. During an interview by Susan Gerbic for Skeptical Inquirer, he states "I think it's best to focus on what you know—something you're already an expert on outside of skepticism—and explore the ways in which it's connected to skepticism. With Captain Disillusion I connected a random thing—visual effects—to skepticism in a way that people seem to find engaging. I'm sure that can be done with many other fields in different ways."
In a 2017 interview with Richard Saunders from The Skeptic Zone, he said, when talking about the video effects editing process that "You know, the tools change but the methods really don't. It's all about making things look questionable and kinda crappy and low quality and then you can pretty much get away with anything". In replying to a follow up question regarding believing what you see on the internet he said "When I started out, people just kinda believed everything, it was like shooting fish in a barrel, but these days people are just really asking me "is this fake?", "is this fake?", "is this fake?" and half the stuff they show me is just you know, a juggler juggling a lot of balls. They can't conceive that that could be real, people just don't believe anything anymore. I guess that's good for me because I get to explain lots of stuff but I wish people could finally strike that balance where they're not too credulous but they also know not to just dismiss everything out of hand".

Credits

Filmography

Additional work

Awards