My friends and I have made a show for you.

[Alexe123]

This thread is kind of about video games. A while ago a friend and I got an honorable mention for a short we had done for the Escapist Film Festival called Alt+F4. The then head of video content and now editor in chief Russ Pitts talked to us about maybe doing some stuff freelance for the front page. Long story short, the half of that endeavor with all the camera equipment and editing software lost interest and I had to come up with something else. It was then that a man on a flaming pie descended from the sky and said: "why don't you just do a show at school? Surely you can come up with something."

It was then that Video Game University was born. The concept is pretty straightforward, college based situational humor with video games, nothing groundbreaking, but good enough for a laugh and it turned out to be a lot of fun to make. I sent a copy of it off a few months ago to the Escapist and after a few polite inquiries I've yet to receive any word of the pilot's fate. So, the cast and I agree that it was for you wonderful people that we made the show in the first place, and we all got tired of keeping it from you. It took a lot of time and energy to make this in the final months of the spring semester when we all probably should have been studying. I feel very privileged to have worked with some great and flexible actors and I cannot say enough that this final product is all thanks to them. So, in short, here is our show, please watch it, tell us what you think, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

The Show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X00QA-mQ1I

 

[Titanguy654]

That was....intersting. The sond quality could have been better, though.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

Advertising is frowned upon in threads. If you wish to link to your youtube channel do it on your profile.

 

[HardRockSamurai]

Spoiler: The Short Answer

I didn't like it.

Spoiler: The Slightly Longer Answer

I really didn't like it

Spoiler: The Long Answer

I'm sorry, but I didn't find anything about this video to be funny at all. While I like the fact that you guys actually put in some effort to making an Escapist series, you honestly need a lot more. Firstly, none of the jokes were funny, NOTHING WAS FUNNY!!! Secondly, "the jokes" were really drawn out; the best humor is succinct and punchy, short and sweet, and most of all, FUNNY!!! Thirdly, the props were a mess. Seriously, if you're going to go to all the effort of making a show about video games, please TRY and make the props believable. And lastly, MAKE IT FUNNY!!!

I'm sorry if this comes to you as a bit of a harsh rant, but hey, at least it's constructive criticism.

To make you feel better, here's a picture of a puppy:

Spoiler: A Puppy

Aww...

Nice try, but please try again.

 

[kickin wiing]

Great job guys! I really liked it.

 

[Alexe123]

Advertising is frowned upon in threads. If you wish to link to your youtube channel do it on your profile.

Is it advertising if the content was intended for the Escapist? We're not promoting anything from the outside, like our own website or anything, and we never really considered broadcasting it anywhere else. We always considered this to be our target audience, we're all big fans of the community so we wanted to contribute.

 

[KingPiccolOwned]

I really liked it.

 

[hopeneverdies]

I kinda liked the spy part and the Ctrl Alt Del bashing wasn't what it really could have been.

 

[Dusty Donuts]

You should make episodes of their daily lives. Then you could put it on here!

 

[Minimike3636]

I think this show would work best as a series of game related jokes, as opposed to an acutal plotline series. I especially enjoyed the Mario + vending machine / Louis + stuff-that-rhymes-with-pills parts.

 

[Soulgaunt]

It was kinda funny, I liked the bit at the beginning, but that's just about it.

 

[Alexe123]

You should make episodes of their daily lives. Then you could put it on here!

That was our original intention, to make it about their lives on this college campus and how they had to learn all the skills they needed to become who we know them as now. But that would take doing longer episodes with significantly more time and development and us all being juniors and seniors, time unfortunately was something then we didn't have. What we ended up with was the best of a brainstorming session for faster and more physical based comedy. I know we'd all love to do more and give it the time it really needs, but without some financing it'll be hard to do.

 

[Archemetis]

I'm not entirely sure what I just watched, but unfortunately it wasn't entertaining...
I'm not saying it to be a prick, as much as I know the internet is pretty much only used to be an anonymous prick, but really, I'm not sure how this really seemed funny, even to you people who made it...

I had no idea what was going on in the Spy sketch, I mean that might just be me and my lack of knowledge concerning TF2 or whatever, but what connection does the Spy have to hentai games?

I get that hentai games are kind of scream worthy, but your two pop culture references are completely unrelated.
It's as if you're seemingly hoping for jokes of the "Hey look, it's the spy, he's funny right? Oh! Look out he's found the hentai room! Badum-tish!" variety.

and Ctrl+Alt+Del bashing was funny, when Yahtzee did it, in his own, subtle way. I'm not saying it's his joke and no one else can do it, I'm just saying it was funnier when he did it, because he tried to hide it while making it glaringly obvious.
[Edit]: not excluding several webcomics whose creators know the guy personally and have on many occasions made fun of him and his comic, they all handled it better too, before it became a "thing".

Again this might be my total lack of video trivial knowledge, but what was the deal with the "day in the life" segment? I didn't see video game related humour, all I saw was some guy saying things that rhymed with the last thing he said...
And it just left me thinking "Whuuuuuut?"

I'm sorry, but maybe you should consider going back to the drawing board with this one.

 

[smithy1234]

Advertising is frowned upon in threads. If you wish to link to your youtube channel do it on your profile.

Is it advertising if the content was intended for the Escapist? We're not promoting anything from the outside, like our own website or anything, and we never really considered broadcasting it anywhere else. We always considered this to be our target audience, we're all big fans of the community so we wanted to contribute.

Is a Pepsi commercial advertising if the content was intended for the general public? Ahaaaaaa!

I appreciate the gesture, I'm sure we all do but it just wasn't that funny. It's advertising if anything else because you are advertising your own show.

Also, what did it have to do with The Escapist?? It was just video game characters in some university. It had nothing to do with the website, no Thanks! badge references, no Deja-Nazis running around, Badge Whores, etc. The only reference to The Escapist was at the beginning where you saw the text "An Escapist Production" or something like that.

If more of the humor was based around that it would at least be a little bit better but for now it looks like you made an amateur Youtube show about video game characters and in a shallow attempt at advertising made it look like it was for The Escapist, then posted your thread.

 

[smokeybearsb]

I thought it was pretty funny, although Louis was white.

 

[Timotei]

Could have been a hell of a lot better.

First, get a tripod for the camera.

Second, find a way to get better sound

Third, make sure the person playing Louis is black. Otherwise it's just plain cheesy and poorly. Also have Bill grow a beard, and GET A FRANCIS.

I like the concept though.

 

[headshotcatcher]

First of all:

Third, make sure the person playing Louis is black. Otherwise it's just plain cheesy and poorly. Also have Bill grow a beard, and GET A FRANCIS.

The grabbing peeeeeeels part was kinda funny, so was the spy thing eventhough it was way dragged out. I didn't really know what to think about the webcomic thing because I didn't know what the hellw as going on..

It could be a lot funnier if you'd do it that like every episode is about a certain person out of a game and you see his 'daily life' at the university riddled with puns and physical humor. It took a while to figure out what was happening in the scenes this way.

Don't give up though!

 

[Alexe123]

in a shallow attempt at advertising made it look like it was for The Escapist, then posted your thread.

Maybe I'm not making myself clear enough. Russ Pitts, the guy who ran the video section of this website said to us "make a show" we made it, we never heard back from him, so now we've put it up here. If the show had gotten picked up and made it to the front page then there would already be a thread about it, wouldn't there? I fail to see how this is advertising for something outside of the escapist since it was explicitly intended for this website. I only uploaded it to youtube to link it to this thread, that's it, this isn't some advertisement about a show that we're doing on our own, it was a demo for a job on this site, we didn't qualify, so I'm posting our efforts here, what is so hard to understand?

So far everyone's critiques have been spot on. We didn't have any money, my assistant director forgot the tripod at home and we had a maximum of about 2-3 hours work on each sketch, with me doing all the filming, lighting, and sound. So I guess try and think of it as a try-out, something that gets the essential premise and setting across which would improve with some financial backing. There's more than a good chance if they took us up on it they would have ordered a fresh season and this clip would have likely never seen the light of day. We only had the best intentions in making and the hope that it would develop into something unique with this community in mind. And as far as Louis being white, as strange as this sounds, we couldn't find any African American actors. We go to a college where about 99% of the population is white.

 

[Standby]

First and foremost, if you're going to have A Louis, go out and FIND a black actor to play him, never just rely on your friends as actors if you want quality performances.
The spy/Hentai sketch: don't repeatedly show the same shots of someone doing something, in this case running down the same halls 2 or 3 times, just not good for several obvious reasons.
Thirdly, the lighting wasn't great for most of it, make sure you have proper lighting equipment when shooting indoors.

The majority of this, and everyones elses criticism has been quite harsh, and for that i do feel bad, however if like you say this was intended for broadcast on the Escapist, a certain level of quality is expected, keep working at it.

 

[Killerbunny001]

meh

But if you make it funnier maybe I`ll watch more.

For teh lulz : GET A FRANCIS!