Annette – Internet Receptionist
September 19th, 2011

Posted by Matt

The LRR video for the week is online and ready to watch! You can find it right here.

So, you may note from the credits of this video that it was written (in part) by none other than the video’s co-star and our good friend Andy Cownden! On top of writing the video itself, he was also kind enough to write a paragraph about his part in the writing process! I’ve included that below.

Back in June, I had this idea for a sketch. It had one location with one actor and was therefore the perfect sort of script for Loading Ready Run. The problem was, I was only able to write two pages of one-liners and two pages is not quite long enough for a LRR sketch. Dissatisfied, I sent it along to Graham and Paul anyway, hoping they might be able to do something with it. Naturally, we all forgot about it. The other day when I was visiting from Vancouver, I brought it out again at the Moonbase. Paul sat down with it, added enough lines to flesh it out and we shot it all on the same day. I was immensely pleased with both Paul’s new material as well as Kathleen’s performance.

Unskippable this week features everyone’s favorite blue hedgehog in Sonic and the Black Knight.

And Checkpoint is tackling some hard hitting questions (and birds) over on PATV.

Cheers!

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Posted in Checkpoint, LRR, Unskippable | 3 Comments »

Whole Story: Fire Hydrants
September 12th, 2011

Posted by Matt

Fire hydrants: Stoic, unflinching protectors of our livlihoods. Have you ever wanted to know more? Today, we give you the Whole Story.

This video marks the second appearance of Nigel Fitzgerald Brouwer, and marks the point at which “The whole Story” has officially become a series, rather than a single video. As such, Paul provided me a few words with regards to his inspiration.

The Whole Story series was inspired by, among other things, John Hodgman’s Areas of my Expertise and Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg’s Alt Text videos for Wired. I love the idea of a historian not only being incorrect but actually flat out lying, but speaking with enough authority to seem semi plausible. As with the Spam episode, instead of just making everything up whole cloth, I found it was funnier to get the small details correct even if the larger parts of the story were completely silly. For instance, the modern fire hydrant was indeed invented by Birdsill Holly around the time mentioned in the video. Big thanks to Tensen for providing the great drawings of a dragon attacking a plasma tv and with its nose caught in the 6 pack ring (the most dangerous weapon mankind has ever developed). I was also quite happy with what I came up with for the diagram of the Fire Hyrda. It is the combination of 4 highly detailed engine cross sections and I feel it gets across the ridiculous complexity of the 23 foot long machine.

Checkpoint is available to view over at PATV. Today’s episode is titled: Project – Buy Our Shit

UPDATE: There it is! Unskippable is now online! Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers

Cheers!

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Posted in Checkpoint, LRR, Unskippable | 4 Comments »

More Sleep!
September 2nd, 2011

Posted by Matt

This post was originally intended as a video update post, as indicated by the banner above. However, it’s friday today, all our videos are up, and despite incessant badgering on my part, Paul still hasn’t sent me a write-up for this week’s LRR video. So, I’m going to make this a sappy post-PAX thank you thread instead!

But first off, here are this week’s videos, just to get them out of the way:

LRR: More Sleep
Unskippable: Fallout: New Vegas
Checkpoint: Nintendo 4DS
Feed Dump: The Prostitute Permit and Other Tales


(Thanks to UnknownGamer from our forums for posting this photo in the PAX Thread, which, I’ll admit, I shamelessly grabbed and reposted here.)

So, PAX is over, we’ve had a few days to recover, and there’s no apparent outbreak of the PAX-pox among the crew. We had an absolute blast meeting all of you, and on behalf of all of LoadingReadyRun I’d like to extend our thanks for all the handshakes, hugs, photographs, cookies, and goofy hats from those three days in Seattle. We hope you enjoyed our panels, screening block, and meetup as much as we did.

For those that didn’t make it to PAX this year, we look forward to meeting you (for the first time, or again) at one of the many conventions yet to come.

In summation, from all of us, thanks for being the greatest group of fans one internet sketch comedy group could ask for!

Cheers!

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Posted in Checkpoint, Community, LRR, Unskippable | 5 Comments »

The Amendment
August 15th, 2011

Posted by Matt

Friends, countrymen… lend me your clicks. I have come to you today to alert you to a pressing issue facing or nation: This week’s video!

Our video this week features our good friend Brad, who happened to have returned briefly from overseas. I believe he has once again returned to the Old World, but while he was here he did grace us with his appearance (and what a fine appearance it is!)

Since Graham is off gallivanting in England at the moment, I turned to Paul this week for a few words on the writing of this episode. Here’s what he had to say:

While not as splashy as the 1st Amendment or as controversial as the 2nd Amendment, you have to admit that a bunch of soldiers sleeping in your house, emptying your fridge, and having loud parties late into the night, would really suck. Graham initially wrote about half this script, but was having trouble figuring out where to go with it, so he brought it in to the office to show it to me. We liked the idea of Brad being confused about the meaning of “quartering” because it has the great wtf moment of the reporters all realizing how far over his head this politician is. Like any good politician, Brad does not waver, though, and quickly doubles down in an effort to dig up. I feel like if politicians are going to be corrupt and incompetent, the least they can do is be entertaining as well.

Unskippable this week features Dead Space 2. You can find that here.

Also, CheckPoint is up over at PATV. While you’re there, check out penny-Arcade’s sleek new site layout. It’s purdy.

Cheers!

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Posted in LRR, Unskippable | 4 Comments »

Smile
July 18th, 2011

Posted by Matt

This is a thing we recorded and put on the internet.

This week’s video was shot only days ago, up at the University of Victoria. Filming was a bit of an adventure, because the script only really came together in it’s finalized version earlier that morning. Graham had some thoughts to share on the writing process for this one, so I’ve posted them below:

A long while ago we thought it’d be cool to shoot a video entirely from the perspective of security cameras, but for the life of us we couldn’t figure out what. It was a cool visual concept, but we never really had a script that made sense in that context.

Fast-forward many moons, probably more than a year: I was thinking again about that concept and realized that a video about video cameras made perfect sense!

I wrote the great bulk of the video, but I wasn’t happy with the ending, and there was a problem with thematic flow around the three-quarters mark. Paul, Kathleen, Jeremy, James, Matt and I sat down for about 20 minutes prior to shooting and hashed it out, everyone throwing in ideas. Not only did this make the video much better, but I love writing as a group, and I don’t think we do it often enough.

Actually shooting it was another crazy matter involving iPhone mics and tripods on desks, but we’ll get into all that in an upcoming LRRcast. Hope you enjoy the video!

Unskippable this week was Dark Void. You can find the episode here.

And the new Checkpoint, “Plants vs. EA” s viewable on PATV.

Finally, please remember that there are now two weeks left in our Lasers of Understanding tee-shirt pre-order period!

Cheers!

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Posted in LRR, Merchandise, Unskippable | 1 Comment »

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