Inside the Extraordinary Mind of a Pinball World Champion | Short Film Showcase

[Applause] I do believe parties can take two months of planning, you know, to get them to run successfully.

Yeah, good. L to be last night! So, I've made like um, free of cupcakes. That's the other thing I've made, so I'll bring those out kind of in there. And I made a regge cake, so it's like a chocolate Texas sheet cake. And then that's a spinbol initials R Robert amilio G, so we call it the reg [Laughter] cake. I only do this once a year. All the machines on but each of the breakers I've actually put them at 20 amp breakers. They worked last year with 10 machines, now I've got 13, but we should be [Music] okay.

Pinball tournaments are really challenging to win. You have to know how to play on all style of games from old to new to Mid AG. I remember playing them when I was like 5 years old, almost in kindergarten. It was just so much fun! I like the music, the lights, everything kind of almost combined it all together, kind of thing.

Dear, happy birthday to [Music] you! I think you have that natural passion for a certain thing. If you want to get good at something, you have to feel that passion in you. It feels amazing when you can just hit everything you want to. To me, I call that being in the zone. I think of nothing but being in that zone. Don’t think of anything else at all. It's one of the most amazing feelings in the world, actually. You feel all happy [Music] inside. I think I was meant to play Pinball.

[Applause] [Music] Robert was born almost exactly 2 years after my oldest child and I felt really good. But he was kind of a floppy baby. Like, um, he used to like just spin everything! He'd spin himself, he'd spin objects. Um, if something wasn't spinning, he'd make it spin.

He'd gravitate to like exit signs and try to reach exit signs and buttons and light switches and stuff. Like, he wouldn't play with any of the toys, he was always going for all these mechanical things. So all these kind of red flags were at the back of my head. But he was also a very, very cute baby. He looks so good! Like, people said, "Oh, you know, lots of boys don't talk till they're like four or five." So I used to think maybe I’m just over-imagining things or over-analyzing things.

Yay yay, what do you want? He eventually got um, by the time he was three, he got diagnosed with autism and um, a mild mental handicap. And we were told um, he may never learn to talk or read or write. I went to Gladstone High School in east Vancouver and I'd always go to Wally burgers. I took Robert there just for the hamburger. I love the hamburgers, and I thought he'd like them too.

I think he was about 5 years old and there was a game in the corner, Twilight Zone. And uh, he got on this uh, soap box and he started flipping away those flippers. And I think that was really the first time he ever played pinball. Four or 5 years old and uh, um then after that uh, he was hooked on [Music].

Himing up something good and Daddy's on S Bri of the neighborhood. My brother's in the Val. Soon you got it and I'll be a good me. My dad and I feel like we're on a pinball tour, kind of like Guns and Roses. One time dead in the US, and this is feeling like a concert tour almost with pinball. Like, I feel like I live on the road away from home a lot of the year, it seems.

It's probably like 30 weekends of pinball competing, which is quite a lot during the year. I want to become a legend like he did in the state. He has the most complete slipper work of all. When this mini ball's going, once he can think like he adapts. Andre is a wild type to me. Andre's game is like complete on the fly, yet amazingly accurate. I like that guy.

Kayy George is a well-researched type player. Me and Kayy are the two highest ranked players in the Pacific Northwest together. Andy Rosa, I like him for his hairstyle. Andy Rosa, I say is one of the best nudges out there. His reaction time is incredible.

Joran has complete flipper skills and accuracy. He's a very serious player and he's actually a very skilled poker player back in this country. Alena Walter is really good at shooting the ramps and also shooting narrow shots, and she's probably one of the only women ranked in the top 100 in pinball ranking.

When he first started off, like, it was a lot of social coaching. Like, remember to go shake the hand, remember to say congratulations, work on uh, being a good loser but also a good winner. Sometimes I can feel over-stimulating, kind of thing, because there's so much information my brain has to process. But I want to be treated just as a typical individual who doesn't have autism.

Nice going to my final game! Congratulations, that's awesome! One of the features of many people with autism is that when they're interested in something, they're really interested in something. So they learn the rules, they like to read about it. Um, if it's something they can practice, you know, they'll practice.

And so like he does have that as well. He probably plays more pinball than most people as well. Like he does have other interests, but that group of people, they don't mind talking at length about pinball or about minute details of pinball 'cause they kind of get that too. Like, they're just as interested in pinball as he is.

I think he likes that! Like, I think he likes the fact that um, a lot of players look up to him or they ask him for advice um, 'cause of how good he is. They appreciate Robert and Robert probably feels a lot more at ease with them as well. People will respect you for who you are if you just behave good and have a good attitude.

I would say, I would say best friends are hard to come by. Hard would you get attitudes is what people seem to always remember best. I would love to achieve world ranking number one one day in pinball, but that's going to be quite a way still to climb. Being number one in the world in anything, that's a long work in progress right now.

But you can't really get anything you want just from standing there. You can't expect it to just fall from the sky or something. It takes a lot of determination, passion, and just really, really wanting this so much that you'll do everything in your power possible to get it. You have to keep that discipline no matter how frustrating and how slow it's going to feel to you.

We all have to slowly build our way up, right to the end. [Music]