Hardly Working

Directed by Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf · Starring Jacob Banigan · 2022

A pseudo-ethnographic study of video-game background characters (a laundress, a stablehand, a street sweeper, a carpenter) endlessly looping their labor in Red Dead Redemption 2.

A witty, melancholy machinima that turns video-game extras into a meditation on meaningless work.

In this short documentary, a laundress, a stablehand, a street sweeper and a carpenter are observed with ethnographic precision. They are nonplayer characters, or NPCs, in the blockbuster Wild West-themed video game Red

Plays in YouTube's player · Watch on YouTube