Jonny Four
July 24th, 2012

Posted by Matt

Hey Bros and Bro-ettes, Jonny is back on his game, and it sounds like he had quite the night, so check in with him down below.

LoadingReadyRun: Jonny Four
Unskippable: Max Payne 3, Part 2
Checkpoint: Gamer Marketing
Feed Dump: Dakota & Madison Work Stuff Out
Loading Time: Building Planes

Given that this week’s video is the fourth in a series, and was filmed on a Friday when I wasn’t around, I don’t actually have a lot to offer in the way of behind the scenes insights, other than to tell you that the pink… thing the Graham is wearing in this episode is the same pink…. thing that Bill wore as a part of his West Coast mother-Lovin’ G’s gang outfit from the first season of commodoreHUSTLE.

In other news, I understand that there will be no Loading Time this week, as the Friday video shoot interefered with our abilty to record one. That said, there will be one for the next video (which we shot on Saturday) and I know there’s a plan for another different sort of Loading Time in the coming weeks that you should find pretty interesting.

As a final note, I thought I’d also let you all know that we laid down some commentary tracks for a new DVD on Saturday. I won’t say what it is, or when it will be available, but we have something in the works for you, and we hope it’ll be ready soon.

Cheers!

Ways to Spend Your Summer
July 3rd, 2012

Posted by Matt

Ah, summer. That time of year when school is out, and playtime is in. Are you looking for ideas on how you can spend some time now that the sun is out and the weather is warm? We’ve got some ideas for you!

LoadingReadyRun: Ways to Spend Your Summer
Unskippable: NeverDead
Checkpoint: DOA Flashback
Feed Dump: French Fry Attack!
Loading Time: Behind the Green Screen

Filmed (in the majority) while Graham and Kathleen were out of town on Saturday, this video was primarily a James, Paul, and Matt production. The big prop in this one was the watermelon, which we procured from a local Thrifty’s grocery store. James and Paul were quite impressed with the fact that I managed to so perfectly extract a slice from the side of the melon without otherwise compromising the integrity of the rind, but I didn’t really think it was such a big deal. Is this a thing people normally have problems with? Have I discovered my super-power at last? In other notes, wearing my ski clothes was hot as hell, and I actually just stepped into the shower with my clothes on for the “Bathe in sweat” segment.

One final reminder (because it’s coming up on Friday) that the LRR crew will be playing in the Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 ‘Game With Fame’ event this week. We’d really like to see you all come out and play. the crew has been practising all week, and we’re sure it’ll be a blast for all involved. Check out the details here.

Cheers ’til then!

Find My Friends
June 5th, 2012

Posted by Matt

Our video for the week is online, and in keeping with the press conferences that were ongoing for much of the day today (thanks to E3) it introduces some great new apps that you may find extremely useful to install on your iOS device.

LoadingReadyRun: Find My Friends
Unskippable: Godfather 2
Checkpoint: Infinite Lawsuit
Feed Dump: The Salty Watermelon
Loading Time: Friends and Foes
GPLP: Cursed Crusade (PT4, PT5)

As occasionally happens, I had nothing to do with any part of the filming or production of this video. Thankfully, Paul was kind enough to pass along some thoughts about the thought process for this one, so I’m going to let him take it from here. Paul?

Since the entire crew has iPhones, Find My Friends has actually been quite useful to our production schedule. We will often be scheduled to meet up at the office and be waiting around for the last person and Find My Friends allows us to call them and say “Why are you still at your house when you were supposed to be here HALF AN HOUR AGO?”. There is no doubt that it definitely raises some privacy concerns, though, and that is what made me want to write this video. Also I love the idea that Apple is devoting ridiculous amounts of engineering to solving minor social faux pas.

We actually shot the “Bob from Apple” bits and the intro with Jer and Tally more then 2 months ago, but with various conventions and other commitments, we did not have the time to do the needed post production with the CGI stick figures and fancy interface mockups until this week. As I was writing the script, I had a general idea of what I wanted to graphics to look like, but I wasn’t really sure how complicated they should be. The actual direction in the script is “illustration of how the app works, either with a live action reenactment or with futuristic cg sick figures”, and I think Graham nailed the futuristic cg stick figures part.

If you want the apps shown in this video for your iPhone or iPad, go to these pages and bookmark them to your home screen:

Find My Friends (Who are Doing it)

Messages (Only From People I Like)

Game Center (Without Everyone Who is Better than Me)

I made these pages so that we could show a real iPhone with the apps. We didn’t end up using them in that form (we used the large versions of the icons instead), but maybe someone will enjoy having them. They won’t actually work as apps, of course, but you can fool your friends into thinking that you are on the cutting edge of Apple product development.

Cheers!

Friends and Family
May 28th, 2012

Posted by Matt

We’re sorry, this week’s video is not currently viewable with your Neighbourhood Wireless plan. Please click below to upgrade.

LoadingReadyRun: Friends and Family
Unskippable: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Checkpoint: Beyond Infinity
Feed Dump: Facebook Girlfriend
Loading Time: History of the Moonbase
GPLP: Cursed Crusade (PT3)

The video this week was one that came together with remarkable speed and very few roadblocks. Written earlier this week by Paul, this one got rapid approval, and was shot with remarkable efficiency on Saturday. I won’t get into too much detail over why this video was so quick to shoot (we’ll be covering that on Loading Time, Thursday), but suffice to say that more time was spent travelling from location to location than actually filming.

One thing you may notice is that during my brief appearance in this video, we’re actually in a pet store. That was all luck. We didn’t have a location lined up for that shot. We just drove to a local Bosley’s and asked if they’d let us shoot a couple of lines in their store. Turns out they were totally cool with it. They may even be reading this now! (Hi Bosley’s guys! Thanks for letting us film!) It’s a good thing they did, too, because we did not have a backup location ready to go.

For more on this video, make sure to check out loading time this week, it should be pretty cool.

Cheers!
Matt

Cruising
February 21st, 2012

Posted by Matt

Hey, you looking for some “fun”? If so, I have it on good authority that the videos posted below qualify.

LoadingReadyRun: Cruising
Unskippable: Dead Island
Checkpoint: Legacy of Shame

So, I happen to know that the script for this one has been kicking around in some form or another for quite a while. I know this because the concept of it was a topic of discussion in my car as we were driving around Vancouver to pick up merch on our way down to PAX. We’re always a little nervous when we do videos with gay characters, as we have a sizeable LGBT fanbase (who we adore, and invite you to join, if you’re LGBTQ or an ally), and it can be difficult as a fairly homogeneously heterosexual crew to be certain that we’re not crossing lines when we do a video like this. It’s pretty important to us that we maintain an open and accepting message, so a lot of care went into making this video funny because of the situation, and not because of orientation or stereotype. I do hope we succeeded at walking that line gracefully. We joke because we love.

Unfortunately there won’t be a Loading Time for this episode, as Ray was unfortunately not able to make it out for this shoot. It’s alright though, because this shoot was extremely uninteresting, given that it only took about an hour and a half, had one location, and was only interrupted by forgetting the Zoom in the car, forgetting the keys to open the car to get the Zoom from it, and some of the worst possible timing in the universe on the part of an automatic flush device that shall remain unnamed. There will still be A Loading Time this week, though, so you’ll have to check back and see what it’s about!

Cheers!