I did a thing and it's a dream come true and I want to share it with y'all!
Long story short, a friend and I film the League of Heels PAX shows and make a (way) better video archive than the live streams. It's mostly for fun as I'm a filmmaker by trade and it gives us a reason to go to PAX and to meet all the amazing people involved in the panel. I just wanted to post this to say publicly how absolutely amazing all the people featured in the doc are. They gave up some of their time on a busy PAX weekend to be part of a relative stranger's (me) project. You might already know it, but everyone is so kind and smart and funny and I want to shout it from the rooftops.
Outside of that, though, it'd be great to get some feedback and thoughts. I broke my back making this thing and I like it a lot, but that doesn't mean much since I'm kinda biased. If anyone is interested in making-of stuff, I have pictures, but I'm also not presumptuous enough to post them.
Duder, this is brilliant. It is the best kind of documentary for making League of Heels seem waaaaay better than it actually was. Revisionist history at its finest. I'm honestly baffled that I've managed to watch all of em' because for as fun as they can be they're all pretty much shit shows in some way, shape, or form. Remember Southern Slam? Woof. I like that everyone acknowledges how dumb and nonsensical this whole endeavor has been. I also love how it goes through the chronology of the shows and how pretty much everyone is in kayfabe except Dan. Line of the century comes from Dave Lang: "As you get older and your reflexes dull, you just get better man." I'm not sure what else I can say other than it seemed really well put together.
@mezmero: Thanks for taking the time to watch and reply! Dave gave some very good lines. I was constantly suprised by how good everyone was at being in character or crapping on everything in a lighthearted way.
Secretly Southern Slam was one of my favourites, but I'm starting to realise I might have a skewed perspective haha
I was lucky enough to be able to watch the premier live at the Brattle Theater before PAX East, and it was a phenomenal experience. This is an incredible video.
@erock: Finally got around to watching the whole thing and it's crazy well made, thanks for taking the time to put it together! Would love to see the making-of stuff.
I'm guessing Jeff just submitted his own video for tracksuit but oh man I wanted his last scene to have been either
someone yelling from inside the house asking what he's doing there at their house and that he's going to call the cops, revealing that he's doing the interview at some one else's patio and as he runs off, the camera pans to a table full of "cocaine" and he scoops up handfuls into his pocket on his way out
him turning to the camera and being startled at the realization that he's being filmed and attacks the filmer
Y'all are too kind and I'm very glad you enjoyed it.
Probably something that might interest some of you is the Q&A we did after the screening. Dan incriminates himself within the first 5 minutes of everyone being on stage! Also everyone played along with my bit for how to get everyone on stage. Again, the nicest people.
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As for some behind the scenes tidbits... The entire documentary was filmed in Seattle at PAX West 2016 in front of a green screen (obviously):
Hence the... roomier audio for half the interviews. Cards Against Humanity was nice enough to let us use the top floor of the theatre they rent out every year at PAX for us to setup our stuff.
I drove an entire trunkload consisting of most of my gear from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada to Seattle. Played it cool at the border as tourist that just loves video.
Just a simple weekend at PAX.
Then PAX let us use one of the signing rooms after they were done with it. I carried almost all our gear over half a mile from the car to this location, but it was worth it.
Someone said Drake's background looked like Detroit, but all the backgrounds were places around Regina during a dreary and soggy winter. I purposely found as many places as I could that didn't show outside or the weather or anything since no one lives near here or anywhere that looks like here.
In total we had over 4 hours of interview footage alone with 21 interviews and although you go into it with a story in mind, you're really at the whim of what everyone says when finding what the final film is going to be. I learned about doing a paper edit in University which was a lifesaver because without that I would have spent months combing through video over and over. What you do is put what the person says into writing, mark the timestamps of each phrase or idea, lay it all out, then move the slips of paper around like you're editing the video. It is waaay easier to see all the content you have available when it is laid out on a table rather than in a timeline. That still created 12 pages of mixed up ideas, phrases, and thoughts. Looking at the second picture below I'm surprised how much the final edit stuck to what I put together in the paper edit.
All interviews transcribed, timestamped, and labeledA small section of the Act 2 turn into Fire Alarm section.
There's some very good stuff I had to unfortunately leave on the cutting room floor as it didn't fit the overall film. It hurts, but it has to be done. Maybe it'll see the light of day sometime, but we'll see!
@lanechanger Yeah, Jeff forgot the tracksuit at home when we were filming in Seattle so he was very very kind enough to make and send in a seperate video. Just another example of everyone being so generous with their time and talent.
The rest of the editing process is a blur as I worked on it day and night for 2 months straight leading up to the premeire screening at PAX East. I don't get nervous before live shows or anything, but this time I got super nervous. Probably because half of Giant Bomb was in the theatre along with a bunch of other awesome people. It went very well though and everyone seemed to enjoy it and it was such a surreal experience.
Buuut, I think that's about it. I wrote most of this post yesterday, but wasn't able to post it so hopefully it makes sense. Thanks for watching everybody! If there's questions or whatever, let 'em rip?
P.S. I super don't know how to format a post on this site, apparently.
@erock: As someone pointed out in the youtube comment already, it looks like there's some funky things happening with the footage past the 20 minute point from the Q&A. Still awesome to see though, thanks for posting this up as well!
And that Dan story at the beginning is pretty amazing.
I've only watched 4 minutes so far, and this may be the best thing I've ever seen. Thank you for the behind the scenes stuff as well, that's gold for amateur videographers. Seeing the lighting and equipment needed etc. Get hype!
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