The Guild Season 3 Finale was posted today! We MADE IT!
Streaming on Bing Video
Alt Streaming MSN Parallel Universe Site
Zune/Xbox Download (You can also view the episodes here through the Zune Software PC users)
And Episodes 8-12 Outtakes!
And if you need a place to catch up on all seasons, Bing Video has a nice place to watch them all in a beautiful organized fashion.
Episode 11
Episode 12
Gag reel for ep 9-12
Well, what to say. I guess I’m surprised that director Sean Becker and DP John Schmidt survived this shoot. It was pretty insane to accomplish coverage of such complicated stuff and make sure it edited together properly and was fast and funny. In two days. They did an amazing job due to impeccable planning and storyboarding. We were lucky to have the local LA Zune House (a party location) to shoot in! Kim and I had attended a few parties there and thought “Wow, that’s a cool coincidence, can we pull some strings and not shoot in a janky cheap warehouse?!” Thank you all the Microsoft people it took to arrange it. Pretty much the best location to shoot at EVER since there was SOOOO much room. Production value through the nose that we couldn’t have accomplished any other way on our budget.
So the episodes. Two Guilds. Fifteen Actors. 20 Extras. What a nightmare, who thought of this storyline anyway?!?! Well, for episode 11 it is the finest frenzy we’ve ever done. I was determined to give everyone a grace note in one of these episodes, and I think everyone got wrapped up pretty well. There were, frankly, too many storylines going on this season, but out of necessity I made them work, because I couldn’t think of any other way to do the season. I think for season 4 there will be a more streamlined story on my writing part, but due to the chaotic nature of this season’s storyline I’m really happy with how it turned out.
An aside: I know when the episode goes up on any World of Warcraft site the main comment will be, “A PRIEST survives 2 on one with DPS characters?!? STUPID!” Well, whatever. Artistic license and this isn’t WOW. I always picture Codex running and hiding, and then stunning Tink and Fawkes a lot. I feel like she’d be good at evasion as a player. 🙂
It was a joke with me and Sean when I was writing the season, “What’s gonna be the Special Effect Shot in episode 12?” Well, I hadn’t planned one, but just because he was joking around I came up with the Codex/Cyd conversation. And I like it so much. They say you never change unless YOU want to change, and to get Cyd to grow a spine she looks inside herself. Or inside her monitor. Because, at heart, I believe we are a piece of our avatars online, whether actual or aspirational. Ok, I’ll stop being semi-deep now. 😀 Another reason was the costumes were expensive and it was another reason to use mine, LOL.
In episode 12 I also love…*SPOILER*
…the arc of Wil’s character and mine culminating into the season cliffhanger. When I wrote that down I giggled with GLEE. And coincidentally it was the first scene we shot, with a skeleton crew to prevent anyone knowing what would happen. Well, we always have a skeleton crew, but whatever. I wanted to keep it a big surprise. When I was planning the season I wanted to avoid a romance arc for Codex since she already did that with the stunt guy last season. I kept wanting to hook these two up though, I didn’t massage it to happen, I wrote it because it made sense. Every time I read the script through that transition from Zaboo and me to that last scene made me laugh. I’m so excited to see people reacting the same way! When I rewote the season (the MANY times) I kept trying to sprinkle sexual tension between them, but make it very subtle and not a give-away.
Another scene that I like is the Riley/Venom kiss. The line, “That’s a hell of a long kiss,” was so lame but made me and Sean laugh a lot, so we kept it in. Script-wise I originally planned that Riley grabbed and kissed ME, but as I was writing I felt like Riley’s nature and Venom’s nature would suit each other. I could see these two having a good relationship actually. Well, “good” is widely interpretable. Above all I wanted Zaboo to step up and get HIMSELF out of the mess of this relationship. I didn’t want Codex saving him, and I wanted that moment before Fawkes steps in between them at the very end to have a sense of possibility, because they’ve grown alone they might be able to be actual friends together. Oops.
What else, the cool conversation between Bruiser and Bladezz, Clara being pregnant, Zaboo’s hashtag #sweetburns, there are so many moments that we had so much fun with. All in all I’m so proud of the season, I feel like we stepped it up on every level. Our cast and crew this season were fantastic, thank you each and every one. And thanks to you guys for watching and commenting. It’s what we do this stuff for. 🙂
We have lots of DVD extras that are being processed now, S3 DVD to be early next year. I’m working on the comic (the art is looking AMAZING, so exciting) and hopefully I’ll have time for more blogging about non-Guild stuff for a bit. I know I need a bit of a creative break because I’ve been downloading history books of World War I and enrolling in trapeze classes. I guess the strange stuff I do to shake my creative boredom can only go to more inspiration!