August in review

Just a quick update for those interested. After a 3-day "vacation" doing editing, and then the infamous all-nighter, I started working on the movie almost every night, for an hour or two each session. Word of advice: slow and steady wins the race! It's better, at least for me, to do a little bit more frequently than marathon sessions. I'm happy I did both though, for sure.

All told, I logged at least 35 hours of editing work during August. I have a rough cut of the first 10 minutes of the film. And probably another 10-15 shaping up nicely right after that part. Large segments are coming together, and a coherent progression of discussion is emerging. That's exciting.

But August is gone, now. Oh, hai September! Let's get to work. Now I'm thinking about what I can do for something trailery or promotional in October (Essen season) since it's unlikely I'll be ready to release by then.

Alllll night long

Hour 1, going through the Mark Kaufmann (Days of Wonder) interview.

• Heated debate at dinner about editorials vs. documentaries has made me very awake (but with sore throat). All to the good.
• Fruit punch NOS provided by Justin is enabling lots of editing! Does that make Justin an enabler?
• Even though I can't really pay attention to it, listening to "She Does" by Collective Soul and loving it.

Hour 2, Mark Kaufmann continued

• Mark talking about word of mouth and distribution channels, and that designer games don't really belong in Wal-Mart in the first place, because in order to hit the right price points, the quality would have to go way down. And kids, we don't want that, right?!
• Whistling to Collective Soul "Fuzzy." You know, at first I didn't like this album. It's growing on me. Like this fruit punch NOS...
• Saving the timeline. I've been bitten by not doing so before...
• Oh, right, right! Stand up break... BRB
• Time to switch it up... "Nine in the Afternoon"
• Can I just tell you what a joy it is editing on a widescreen monitor vs. the laptop??

12:30 AM

• Sleep, I laugh in your general direction!

1:00 AM

• Now at bat, the Christophe Boelinger interview from Essen. I love this guy! The hottest French game designer/rapper/extreme sports enthusiast in the entire film, guaranteed! He's sort of got the Viggo look going.
• Just put a jacket on. This is not August weather at ALL. How refreshing.
• I think I smell a skunk outside.

1:38 AM

• hmm, is this train slowing down? Inconceivable!
• Starting up the interview with the Lamont brothers (Shear Panic, Snow Tails, Savannah Tails)

2:30 AM

• What? What? Whut? WHUUUT????
• T-Cat wants to know urgently, "Mistress, what are you doing up?" I tell her, "Not now, the Lamonts are talking about Ostrich-racing!"
• Film timeline is currently at 4 hours, 37 minutes including bonus material
• Eyestrain

3:00 AM

• Finished the Lamont interview, got all the segment marker snips back where they belong
• I think that's it. I hope this counts as all night...

Proper execution of an all-nighter

I'm thinking about doing something I've never done before.

Friday night, the kids are going to be with the grandparents. I'm in the mood to edit, but I can't take any more time off work just now.

I'm thinking of doing an all-night editing session. Yes, true believers; an all-nighter. And I want it to be a flawlessly executed all-nighter in the classic style. I somehow got through college without ever learning this art. The closest I have been to it was a Sunken Temple raiding session in WoW that went till 2 AM. /shudder

So what do I need to do here? How late is Starbucks open, I wonder? Is it dangerous to mix cappuccino with Amp? Should snacks be involved, or no?

The planning has begun!

Editing Marathon Day 3

Uh, where am I? What YEAR is it?

Processed the following:

• Added the pre-Essen "People's Choice" Awards ceremony, featuring Jay Tummelson, Donald Vaccarino, and Matt Leacock and others
• Guido Teuber interview. Awesome
• Alex Yeager (Mayfair Games) interview - great speaker, had a good overview of the industry and where it's gone. Also awesome.
• Klaus Teuber interview - a triumverate of awesome!

Just enough time to shut down now. I planned on doing so an hour ago, but anything but a full court press just seemed like the wrong way to end a 3-day editing extravaganza...mission...quest...thing.

The latest runtime for the film (and this is a meaningless number of course) is I think 2 hours and 45 minutes or so, not counting bonus features.

Tons and tons more to do, but from here on out, I will be grabbing every spare hour of time I can wherever and whenever I can, to do it. I've been doing so, to a point, up till now, but let's just say... @#$%& just got real!

Essen Vittles

One of the things that struck me while wandering the halls at Essen was that I was hungry. Borderline starving. I'd been full-tilt filming so intensely, running from one interview to the next, eating was pretty far down on the priority list. When I finally did force myself to address this bare necessity, though, Essen was there for me.

First, there were the bulk candy bins. This is another indicator about how kid-friendly the event is, Haribo has at least two massive tables filled with bulk candy. It's like a scene out of Willy Wonka (the original).



I passed that up, though, for the Snack Point, a stand about the size of a Starbucks in a mall or airport, alive with sizzling sausages and all manner of good food. I got a curry bratwurst there, and it was anything but bland. They probably thought I was an idiot, there with my camera filming the sausages, but my job as an indie servant is to bring you the sights and sounds of the moment (even if I have to look like a fool to do it).



On one of the following days, I found mushroom goulash at another stand, and it was truly the best mushroom stew type thing I've ever had. I would be hard-pressed to make something as good at home. It was only made better by the combination of being ravenous and expecting far lesser fare at a game convention. Oh, and I do believe the goulash stand also had beer. Not something you'd see at an American convention, especially one that welcomes children, right? If there was one in the US that was this kid-friendly, of course...



I forgot to get a good shot of the crepe stand, which was a silver volkswagen-style van serving crepes out the side. I didn't get to try one, but just, Hello!?! A crepe stand at a game con! FTW!



OK, back to work! Live from Editing Marathon Day 3, this is... me.

Editing Sprint Day 2

Day 2 is drawing to a close, and I'm feeling it. After a poor night's sleep (humidity makes me a sad bunny), I didn't really dive into it until 10 AM. A wasted HOUR, shame on me. Time is precious.

Here's what I got through today:

• Started with the display shots from the press room at Essen. This was a big quiet set of rooms that had a bit of an echo, but were relatively quiet as far as space to be found at Essen goes. The Donald Vaccarino and Nick Medinger interviews are shot here.
• ...which led to the creation of the Agricola header banner at the top of the blog. Hey, call it a warm-up exercise! :)
• Most of the day was spent pulling good cutaways from the Essen floor footage. This included an interview with a German convention-goer, some focus on the various concessions stands (will do a separate entry about that in a minute) and an interview with Markus Welbourne of JKLM Games (publishers of Huang Di and Tulipmania 1637)
• Chainmail bikinis.
• Found the footage of the life-sized foosball table they had set up in the kid hall, as well as a Star Trek-style game where kids tried to knock each other off pedestals with big nerf staves (Riker and his Dad played this if IIRC)

Feeling pretty tired right now, I think pretty close to the way I was feeling around Essen day 2, when I filmed a Blair Witch parody about being lost. I *may* let that footage see the light of day sometime.

Tomorrow, I still need to shuffle the segments, and bring in the Matt Leacock (Pandemic) and Nick Kellet (GiftTrap) interviews. Oh, and the Klaus and Guido Teuber interviews, because now I have a spot in mind for where to put those. :)

Going Cardboard at GenCon

All you lucky Gen Con 2010 attendees, make sure to swing by the GameSalute.com booth there! It's booth 929, and in addition to all the other board gaming news and interviews you'll find out about there, you may just catch a glimpse of the Going Cardboard teaser trailer. On the show floor. At Gen Con. /squeeeee! :D

Big thanks to the great folks at Myriad Games in Salem and Manchester, NH for making this possible. You'll be seeing them in the film!