|
plasticbugs posted:Kevin Rose stealing netcams I can't stop laughing at how much this sounds like an unaired episode of The Broken.
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2015 09:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 08:37 |
|
|
How did that Olivia Munn and Kevin P. "Girl at the video game store" video/song come about with Nerf Herder? Parry just ring you guys up or something?
Sockington fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Jun 1, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2015 11:05
|
|
|
The Screen Savers was one of my favorite shows as a teen, and was probably the singular thing that got me into computers. It managed a careful balance between entertainment and really useful knowledge. I have to ask: what was Patrick Norton like? He seemed like a cool bro, despite the Utilikilt.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2015 17:56
|
|
|
Sockington posted:How did that Olivia Munn and Kevin P. "Girl at the video game store" video/song come about with Nerf Herder? Parry just ring you guys up or something? It was me who made first contact with Parry, because I had done a "Who's Who on YouTube" segment about him. AOTS was run on the cheap and because we were always so pressed for time, I would just do a phone or email interview with whoever was featured on "Who's Who" and then, I'd have our host read the script I wrote based on the interview answers. Weird, right? Also, I never told Parry this, but I was a HUGE Nerf Herder fan when I was in high school. AOTS was a great gig for a nerd like me because on any average day, I'd be interacting with my childhood heroes. Every Christmas, AOTS had a tradition of doing a special credits roll at the end of our holiday episode. It was a way to say "thank you" to the people who made the show happen each day -- but of course, being a part of the special credits WAS NOT OPTIONAL. The entire staff was asked to pair off, come up with a short 10 second bit and shoot it. Some bits were more elaborate than others. One that I was in, our graphics guy Adam did this insane Inception parody and it looked amazing. Edit: Here's the Inception credits thing. Two of the show's producers Chris Jalandoni (Chris worked on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and now I think is doing stuff for MTV) and Yaniv Fituci (who works with Kevin Pereira on his streaming stuff "The Attack", "The Pointless Podcast", and Kevin's production company), wanted to do a bit that parodied Parry Gripp's "Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway". So, because I had already contacted Parry and emailed back and forth for "Who's Who on YT", Yaniv and Chris asked me to ask Parry via email if Parry had an "instrumental" version of "Chimpanzee" and if so, could he send it to us for us to use on the show. Parry's response was something to the effect of: He'd love to do it. If we have the lyrics send them over. Parry's doing all this for free, by the way. He said it would only take a few minutes. The next day, he emails me an audio file with his FULL SONG done with these new lyrics about Chris and Yaniv. They were so stoked when I played it for them. Anyway, fast forward a year or so. We were planning lots of big stuff for our "1000th" episode -- which was roughly calculated, but we were definitely in the ballpark of 1000. Don't forget: nothing on TV is real. One pitch is to make a music video starring Olivia. I think Mike Shaw (who produced most of the show's more complicated comedy sketches) came up with the whole idea and he just needed a song to hang the idea on. Since Parry was already a friend of the show, I forwarded Parry's contact info to Mike Shaw, who directed the music video and you know the rest of the story. Parry wrote a song, Mike directed it on a shoestring budget, Kevin played the drums, Olivia was awesome, and our insanely talented motion graphics guy Adam did all the video game animation stuff in the video. Here's a reel of stuff Adam's done. I think the day after the 1000th episode, our EP says we should try to get "The Girl at the Video Game Store" into Rockband. Scott (me), you're a producer, make that happen. About eight months later, it was playable in Rockband after an insane number of emails & phone calls back and forth. It turns out, making a song work inside Rockband is REALLY HARD and there's very few people willing to do it for free. I don't think Parry ever made any money off the Rockband downloads. Also, Parry Gripp is awesome. plasticbugs fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jun 1, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2015 20:58
|
|
|
plasticbugs posted:It was me who made first contact ... I wanted this to be true and thank you. I still have a few Nerf Herder albums on my phone for extended bike rides and poo poo. Long time fan of the dude 
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2015 21:05
|
|
|
Deathy McDeath posted:The Screen Savers was one of my favorite shows as a teen, and was probably the singular thing that got me into computers. It managed a careful balance between entertainment and really useful knowledge. Dito. The Screen Savers are undoubtedly a big part of why I'm here on this fat old forum today. Thanks for helping to make my every computer dream come true, plasticbugs.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2015 03:50
|
|
|
Alan Smithee posted:So when G4 basically started playing dirty reality shows like Cheaters was it pretty much them putting it on autopilot and throwing their hands in the air because they literally couldn't do any better? The sad fact was that Cheaters and Cops had much higher ratings than Attack of the Show and X-Play. The reason G4 kept AOTS and X-Play going was because the audience was a very important demographic for advertisers - mostly tech savvy 16-34 year olds. With Cops, you're getting a mishmash of people of dissimilar interests who were probably closer to 60 years old than they were to 25. AOTS could also do brand integration a la the poorly conceived Butterfinger Defense League, whereas with Cops, the closest you're going to get is overlaying a "Krispy Kreme" logo over the corner of the show.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2015 19:26
|
|
|
zVxTeflon posted:Was it obvious that the g4 people had no idea how to run a network when you guys got absorbed? Like what in the gently caress were they thinking with half their shows? A show that's nothing but video game clips set to shity industrial music (granted this was before YouTube ). A show g4tv.com??? with two annoying chicks yelling at each other. The loving cheat code show what the Christ. Then legit decent stuff like Icons gets dropped. Was anyone at that station above 30? The cheat code show (SPONSORED BY PRINGLES) was awesome because it was hosted by some dude that was TOTALLY XTREME TO THE MAX BROSEPH YEAHHHH LETS SEE HOW WE CAN EARN 3,000 GOLD IN XENOSAGA. It was right about the time when internet use was popular enough for middle schoolers to know about GameFAQs, too. The Machinima show, Cinematech, was...not very good. Eventually they started putting up themed episodes, but for a while it was just random cutscenes or poorly edited mashups or straight trailers. Arena was actually decent and watchable, if a little CS heavy at times. Pre-Esports poo poo with Wil Wheaton and some sweaty overweight dude. Said dude was canned and Wheaton quit in solidarity/disgust. They managed to strangle that baby in its crib. Probably the worst was Judgement Day, where a guy and Tommy "I wrote the soundtrack to Earthworm Jim" Tallarico would Siskel and Ebert their way through things. Too bad Tallarico had the gaming skills of a noodle. Dude couldn't get out of the first house in Harvest Moon for like 20 minutes. My favorite was Portal!, which started out as a generic look at MMORPGS hosted by some MST3k-like dude in a space station, which later developed actual characters and a plotline involving multiversal nexus and nerdy poo poo. It's pretty clear that the programming was "X, but GAMES" in the beginning. Or really, just "Let's shove GAMES into this somehow!". Portal was probably their most "successful" show, in that it actually grew out of a fairly mediocre and uninspired template into something very unique. They were also way ahead of the mainstreaming of Gaming.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2015 22:54
|
|
|
Was it G4 or TechTV that got the rights to Thunderbirds and showed it nonstop?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 13:23
|
|
|
what kind of swag did advertisers send you guys? or not even advertisers, but like, companies who wanted to get their stuff on the shows
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 14:39
|
|
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:what kind of swag did advertisers send you guys? or not even advertisers, but like, companies who wanted to get their stuff on the shows One time we got a giant box of dog toys shaped like Kid Robot style toys. They looked more like vinyl collectibles than chew toys, so people were totally stoked to get one. Never made it onto the show, however. Our EPs were total pushovers for free stuff. G4 had a connection to LEGO through someone in another department. Anyway, I assume the deal was: send us your most expensive sets and we'll put them on the show. Which we did. And that's how the EPs justified keeping the Death Star and the Star Destroyer sets for themselves. Probably like $500+ worth of LEGO. I made a contact with a really awesome guy at Kotobukiya - they make really nice and mostly affordable collectibles. Anyway, the show was big on giving away stuff on the show to viewers. So Dan, the Kotobukiya guy would come by once every couple of months to give us stuff to give away and he always brought a bag of extra toys for me and the other producers. It was rare we got anything for free as producers, so it was always awesome to see Dan because it would be like Christmas. I never told the EPs we were getting free poo poo or they would totally horn in on it.  Stuff I remember from Kotobukiya that I/we got to keep: Ghostbusters Bishojou statue Marvel light up Sentinel hand with people fighting in the palm Insanely large Thor statue Wonder Woman statue that I gave to Sara Underwood Giant light up Iron Man statue All four Mega Man snap-together model kits A huge box of Star Wars stuff (chopsticks, ice cube trays shaped like Death Stars) Way more stuff I don't remember EDIT: The time we sent a box of AOTS stuff to Ringo Starr to autograph and it came back One time I sent a huge box of poo poo that other producers donated (things like hulk fists, a bedazzled Xbox, a weird baby doll with a markered goatee that we called "Baby Keller" after a former producer, etc.) to Ringo Starr to sign. We had done a segment about sending the box to Ringo, with much pomp and circumstance - Ringo had posted a YouTube video that said basically, "I'm done signing stuff you send to me. This is your last chance. Send me stuff you want me to sign, I'll sign it and then I'm never signing stuff again." I figured the stuff we sent wouldn't stand a chance in hell of getting signed unless I wrote a note. So, I wrote a heartfelt note about being a huge Beatles fan (I AM!) and for a little extra oomph, I printed the letter out on E! letterhead. You KNOW G4 letterhead would have landed that box in Ringo's trash!  About a month goes by, and then one day the box shows up and I do what a good producer does: I tell the EP that the stupid box of poo poo I sent out came back AND EVERYTHING WAS SIGNED BY RINGO. Plus, he included a few drum heads -- signed, drumsticks -- signed, a Beatles tote bag -- signed. You get the picture. Anyway, he goes into super-turbo-overdrive greed mode: GIVEMEALISTOFEVERYTHINGYOUSENTANDEVERYTHINGTHATCAMEBACK! DOTHISRIGHTNOWANDTHENBRINGTHATBOXTOME! IHAVETOKEEPITSAFE!IDONTTRUSTYOUGUYSWITHTHATBOXOFRINGOSTUFF! I'm like, but that's Blair's Hulk hand and Shaw's bedazzled Xbox. The only reason they let me send that poo poo off was because they expected to get it back with a signature on it. I know this sounds silly, but these were prized possessions and each item had a story that had much more history than the blowhard who is now clamoring for these stupid little artifacts. Anyway, I'll be damned if that guy didn't just pretend that the whole "send stuff to Ringo" segment ever happened and he just loving took all the stuff and kept it. We never did a follow up segment and we never addressed the "Send poo poo to Ringo" segment ever on the show. All that signed stuff is probably all sitting in a box in his closet. I hope he sees this. Abu Dave posted:Was it G4 or TechTV that got the rights to Thunderbirds and showed it nonstop? It was TechTV that had purchased the rights to air Thunderbirds and started airing episodes in the months before the G4/TechTV merger. I think TechTV aired it late at night or early in the morning and I'm pretty sure that Thunderbirds aired on G4/TechTV after the merger for at least a month or two before it was yanked. plasticbugs fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jun 5, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2015 02:31
|
|
|
I have a friend that worked on AOTS for a long time, it is interesting hearing more stories from a different perspective. The neat stuff he got was certainly a perk I remember, his apartment was full of just neat things, like a zombie Kirk & Picard picture done by someone from the walking dead, I forget who exactly drew them. Enjoying the stories so far
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2015 17:53
|
|
|
RNG posted:What was the fallout from the David Thorpe interview? I'm pasting this from the Leo's Dick thread because I don't feel like retyping it... The time Something Awful pranked Attack of the Show  I want you to know that before Kevin Pereira and David Thorpe gave me any input, this interview was going to be SO bad - unwatchable and hopelessly boring. I was not great at producing guests back then and all I knew of SA was everything BUT the forums. Pereira was at least an active SA forums lurker for a long time, so I'm almost positive he was the reason we contacted Lowtax to be on the show to talk about SA. Lowtax turned us down and I think he gave our talent booker the actual excuse that he was in prison so he couldn't come out to LA. Knowing very little about the site, I started looking at the home page - which was the worst place to start, but what the gently caress did I know. So I found a bunch of David Thorpe's articles by clicking his byline on his articles and saved all the links and that was what we were going to talk about. Then, the day of the interview, David's there in our G4 "green room" which was probably the shittiest green room in all of LA with a crappy Dell in there perched on a card table and a couch that barely qualified as a place to sit, no food and nothing to drink but bottled water. Totally terrible. I prep David in the green room and tell him what we're going to talk about - and he's not really digging it. I'm so glad he said something, because otherwise this would have been the straightest most boring interview in the history of TV. David says something like: "I want to just not say one factual thing for the entire interview." This was not really a show for taking big chances at the time, so I tell him that I've got to check with Kevin and the producers to make sure that's cool with them. I tell Kevin first about David's plan and Kevin's totally psyched because it sounds amazing to him, so then I tell the only other person who could say no, our EP Gavin Purcell (who now works on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon). Gavin asks if Pereira likes the idea (he does), and his only other requirement was "we have to rehearse it". So, one hour before the show, I walk David out there to the set to introduce him to Kevin, they quickly chat on the side about what this interview is going to be and then they just go for it. David at one point even asks Kevin if he can call him "Kenneth" during the interview and Kevin laughs. They do the full interview beginning to end and it's completely absurd and Kevin loves it. Our EP really thinks it's funny but with no live audience to react to it, this whole plan is definitely a little risky. They had gotten rid of The Screen Saver's live audience a few months prior because it was too expensive to have insurance on all those people and a full time audience booker. I'm beginning to like the idea too, and I'm just hoping our audience is intelligent enough to get the joke. Here's the actual interview again in case you didn't click the link above, and it's a testament to both Kevin and David's acting ability that the live interview only deviated from the rehearsal one time that I can remember. In the interview, SA started as a Monster Truck Rally newsletter, but in rehearsal David said it was something like a children's beauty pageant newsletter - I don't remember, but it was funny both ways. What I'm trying to say is that the rehearsal and the actual live interview were word-for-word the same with David calling Kevin "Kenneth" -- everything except for that one small change about SA's origin story. Of course, most of SA and a vast majority of our viewers were too clueless to realize that nothing on TV is real and no, Kevin didn't get totally pranked. But I'll admit to being the dumbest person that day for planning a straight, intensely boring interview for Lowtax's stand-in. Next time, I promise to do better and include relevant questions about Doobie's Dog House. Captain Filth posted:I have a friend that worked on AOTS for a long time, it is interesting hearing more stories from a different perspective. The neat stuff he got was certainly a perk I remember, his apartment was full of just neat things, like a zombie Kirk & Picard picture done by someone from the walking dead, I forget who exactly drew them. Who's your friend?! First name last initial would be plenty. plasticbugs fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jun 6, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2015 00:40
|
|
|
I have somehow never seen that interview. Goes to their credit that they can keep a straight face for that whole thing. It really is amazing though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2015 04:50
|
|
|
plasticbugs posted:How one of the TSS hosts paid for his SF rent by slowly stealing viewer giveaways loving Zynga, burn it to the ground too. Salt this lot, it is cursed also I have to admire the brass on Kevin. It's one thing to have the method, which I could easily reproduce, it's another to be in the time and place and self-assured fortitude to carry out that plan and drat if I didn't wish I was in his shoes and in that dumpster
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2015 13:30
|
|
|
FilthyImp posted:Probably the worst was Judgement Day, where a guy and Tommy "I wrote the soundtrack to Earthworm Jim" Tallarico would Siskel and Ebert their way through things. "A guy" was Victor Lucas, who represents roughly 90% of the programming on G4 Canada (which still exists, by the way) with like twelve different shows (Judgement Day aka Reviews on the Run still airs DAILY). He is literally that entire channel, plus several podcasts. He never loving stops.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2015 19:08
|
|
|
The Frozen in Carbonite Mexican Midget Fiasco The G4 art department was a group of seriously talented and fun guys. They survived multiple complete set makeovers, a Power Wheels Car with a Dildo mounted to the front, and a kiddie pool full of pudding. However, one set piece they made for us that we all hated (even though I'm sure they were made to spec based on someone else's stupid idea) were these two goofy-rear end looking robots that were in front of our Twitter wall. We finally got completely tired of them after a couple years of staring at these loving dumb rear end looking robots every time we checked in with what people were saying on Twitter during the show. So, we sent our perennial good sport Weston Scott to blow them the gently caress up in the desert somewhere.  Watch the robots blow up. Now, no one thought about what we'd fill that empty space with. And holy gently caress, it was empty over there every time we went to the Twitter wall. I think we even stopped checking in with Twitter, because now, the set looked completely abandoned in that empty space. At this point, the producers are almost 100% removed from the show's larger creative process. We each have 'buckets' to fill -- like I have to produce a segment called "Go Hack Yourself" about stupid life hacks. I have to fill the "Go Hack Yourself" bucket, but no one's telling me what to make or how to make it. There's an approvals process, but pretty much if I think it's a decent idea, I usually get a green light. Or if I do a "Who's Who on YouTube", I'm the poor fucker watching hours of YouTube videos to find diamonds in the rough to make contact with, interview and feature in the segment. However, we as producers didn't get much say in the bigger stuff or stuff anyone actually gave a poo poo about, like what to put in place of those stupid loving robots. So that's why, several months later, an idea comes down from on high that we're going to replace the robots with statues of Kevin and Olivia frozen in Carbonite like Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back and they tell me that I'm supposed to make it happen. All of it.  I get a budget to work with ($10,000) and I start looking at special effects and prop houses that could possibly make these things for us. I contact a guy named Michael Mosher who calls himself The Makeup Guy. He's a special effects artist who does lots of horror movie stuff. Super-talented guy and he says he can work with our budget. After a couple of phone calls, I'm convinced he can do this. I tell him the only caveat is that we're going to come to his shop with our hosts and film the whole process - which he's totally down with.  Michael did this:  and this:  Michael says he only needs Kevin and Olivia's faces and and hands. He'll sculpt their hair, and he's going to use mannequin bodies for their torsos, arms, legs and feet. I painstakingly walk through every step of the process: deciding whether to use LED effects (yep), what kind of wood to use (beats the gently caress out of me), what kind of clothes to put on the mannequin bodies (I get a shirt and pants for Kevin and a dress for Olivia from wardrobe), how long it takes to do a cast of Kevin and Olivia's hands and faces (about 30 minutes after they pour it). And of course, we can only do this poo poo on a Friday because we have no live show on Friday. AND it has to be a very specific Friday because we have to get it done and produced before our first week of shows in April - because of "Epic April". If you didn't know, Epic April was a yearly promotional stunt for the network that amounted to a month of AOTS shows wherein the show's producers were forced to work twice as hard to make countless half-baked 'stunts' a reality for the show's overlords. Hopefully the show's fans enjoyed it, but we producers mostly hated every second of it. Originally it was Epictober (which I called Fucktober), but for some reason they switched over to doing this stunty poo poo in April so "Epic April" was born -- and sadly, Fuckapril isn't as funny. Oh well, we still had inside jokes and secrets (like poisoning Olivia) that neither our bosses or the hosts were wise to. On this very specific Friday, we're all to meet at Michael Mosher's studio in downtown LA -- I think somewhere on 6th street. So me, our field producer, shooter and audio person, our makeup artist/ hairstylist Diana and Kevin Pereira all show up around the right time, but Olivia is late. The network had a habit of overbooking the poo poo out of Olivia - she was the face of the network. I'm not sure what they had her doing that morning that was more important than getting frozen in Carbonite, but whatever it was, some corporate rear end in a top hat in a suit totally hosed me that day by deciding it was better to have Olivia do some press stuff, or some photo shoot or some other bullshit instead of being on time to this very specific appointment. Olivia finally arrives nearly an hour late, and she's apologizing profusely even though it's totally not her fault whatsoever. We're all ready to get down to business and then Olivia asks, "Is there petroleum in that goop you're going to pour on our heads?" Totally crazy specific question, but Michael the Makeup Guy is like, "Yes, this stuff IS made with petroleum." So Olivia says, "You can't pour that on my face, my eyelashes are fake and the glue that holds them on will dissolve if you pour that goop on them." Now I'm getting a sinking feeling in my stomach that Olivia doesn't want to do this, but when I look at Diana, our makeup artist, she's nodding her head in agreement. Olivia's totally telling the truth. I'm in damage control mode for sure now, and I'm like,"how can we solve this problem?" because gently caress if I know and Michael the special effects guy suggests that we get some swimming goggles to put over Olivia's eyes. Goggles will prevent her eyelashes from melting off her face. And I can't believe that finding swimming goggles in downtown LA is even a thing, but one of his guys runs out and 7 minutes later he's back with swimming goggles. So we put them on Olivia and they fit and then Olivia says, "how long is this going to take?" and I'm pretty sure everyone knows it takes 20-30 minutes once they pour the goop because I included the exact amount of time I needed Kevin and Olivia for in my request (two hours -- NOT ONE HOUR FFS). And she's like, "I have another appointment and I have to leave in 45 minutes." which is DEFINITELY NOT ENOUGH TIME to shoot intros, outros, the pouring process and whatever the gently caress else. I start to panic because this poo poo HAS TO GET DONE TODAY. I tell our field producer and shooters to shoot everything we can with Olivia. They're way calmer than me and they start shooting it and doing coverage "in case we have to fake it", which I'm guessing is way more common on field shoots because these guys are giving Olivia directions to put the cap on and they start pretending, shooting this complete loving fiasco.  While they're pretending to suit up Olivia, I'm in complete cover-my-rear end mode. I call our EP and tell him everything. He's screaming at me that I should have told Olivia how long this poo poo takes to harden and I definitely did. I'm not the rear end in a top hat who triple booked our talent. He knows Olivia's schedule will not permit another trip to downtown LA and so he's in problem-solver mode and he tells me to ask Michael the prop guy, "If we send over someone who LOOKS SIMILAR to Olivia, could he make it so that the statue looks like Olivia?" So, I go over and ask Michael the pro and I'm praying he says no, because if he says "yes" that means another loving trip to downtown LA to pour goop on someone who looks like Olivia and I have to be here and I've got like 10 other loving things to do. One thing about AOTS, once you're assigned a segment, THERE'S NO loving WAY THEY'LL TAKE THAT poo poo OFF YOUR PLATE. If you or someone else completely fucks up and your segment won't be ready in time, they just push it until tomorrow or the next day, so then you have THREE segments to deliver for the next day. It just snowballs and gets worse. I was not looking forward to adding YET ANOTHER loving THING TO GET AN ULCER OVER. Of course Michael says "yes". He's a loving pro. He makes zombies and aliens out of silicone and chicken wire. He makes Fred Willard look like The Joker.  I tell our EP that Michael can make whoever look like Olivia as long as they have the same facial structure. He tells me they'll go through talent casting and find someone to send over next week on Tuesday. We hang up. I feel like I'm off the hook. Then, my phone rings again. It's our EP, but this time he's saying some crazy poo poo. Olivia's half asian and Diana our make-up artist is Asian. I'm now supposed to ask Diana (who is also very pretty but, by the way, LOOKS NOTHING LIKE OLIVIA) if she'll do it. I think he tells me to offer her $500 to do it if she says no. I look over at her and start to ask and she says "gently caress no." So, we shoot everything we can and there's enough time to cast Olivia's hands which took about 15 minutes but of course not enough time to cast her face. The field shooters and producer are reassuring me that they can work with what they've got but I'm super skeptical. They promise they'll shoot whoever shows up next week from behind so you can't tell it's not Olivia. They say we're good and I trust them. I can't be there on Tuesday, so I'm hoping for the best. We've got a huge book of faces to cast random people from and I think if we find the right person, we might be saved. I put it in the hands of our talent department and our EP. I've got too many other things to worry about and I don't have time to babysit whatever happens on Tuesday. So Wednesday around lunch time, I go into the edit bay to meet with our editor and start working with whatever they shot on Tuesday and everyone in the edit bay is smiling at me. I'm not sure what to say. They ask me if I know who they sent over to be Olivia for the Carbonite thing and I have no clue. I think I said "I hope someone who looks like Olivia" and they're laughing, but I'm not sure why. I'll never forget the moment they opened up the footage and showed me who our genius EP sent over to the special effects studio - A loving MEXICAN LITTLE PERSON. This very short Mexican midget appeared on the show from time-to-time for a very specific comedy bit we did called "Little Olivia". They would hire this female Mexican midget to run around in the same clothing as Olivia during the show. Little people are loving expensive, so beggars can't be choosers if you want a wacky midget running around on your set dressed like your co-host. That's how Little Olivia came to be a MEXICAN MIDGET who's not even remotely Asian. My boss thinks a Mexican midget looks like Olivia Munn just because we call this midget "Little Olivia". Holy gently caress. I seriously didn't even know what to think. Forget the loving 4 minute segment right now. These Carbonite statues are going to be a permanent part of our set for a long time to come. If that poo poo doesn't look exactly like Olivia, people are going to loving know. I'm watching the footage they shot with Little Olivia and I'm horrified. Not only are they casting the face of a Mexican midget to be Olivia, the midget makes THE WORST loving FACE I'VE EVER SEEN as they pour the goop on her. What a complete clusterfuck. So we cut the piece and our editor does his best. To anyone who watches the finished segment closely, it's pretty apparent that Olivia doesn't get the goop poured on her head, but I wholeheartedly believe that my bosses thought the AOTS audience was so clueless and stupid that they wouldn't notice, nor would they notice that it wasn't even Olivia's face, but instead the sour puss of a Mexican midget. The segment is completely cut and the Carbonite pieces are finished on our deadline date -- the morning of the day that we're to unveil them live on our show. The art department moves the statues to the side of the set by the Twitter wall, stands them up and covers them in red fabric for the "big reveal". I make sure that NO ONE looks under the fabric until the reveal -- ESPECIALLY Olivia, because I'm pretty sure if she sees what her statue looks like, she will forbid us to allow it to stay on the set.  The moment comes for the reveal on the live show and I'm holding my breath because I know what horrors lie under that red drape. The look on Olivia's face when the red drape comes off really says it all.  WATCH THE SEGMENT AND REVEAL  That terrible travesty of a statue stayed on the set until AOTS did another set refresh which I think was many, many months later. They offered the statues to Kevin and Olivia after the art department removed them from the set. Kevin kept his statue. Olivia's went right in the dumpster. 
plasticbugs fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Jun 8, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2015 09:34
|
|
|
plasticbugs posted:Who's your friend?! First name last initial would be plenty. Brian C
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2015 18:40
|
|
|
That's insane. How much crap was just thrown at you like that at the last minute? What was the most annoying segment you had to work on?
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2015 18:56
|
|
|
Honestly the best show on G4 was that one where those two brothers ran face first through dry wall and tried to rip an airplane apart with their bare hands. Any great stories about them and what are they up too now?
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2015 03:04
|
|
|
FilthyImp posted:My favorite was Portal!, which started out as a generic look at MMORPGS hosted by some MST3k-like dude in a space station, which later developed actual characters and a plotline involving multiversal nexus and nerdy poo poo. I totally remember that show. I've wanted to hunt that thing down for years now. I would only catch the show once in a while (which is a really terrible idea for a serial, by the way). It was so weird and ridiculous that I want to watch the whole thing just so I can put the fragments I still remember in context.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2015 04:09
|
|
|
plasticbugs posted:
No, she just didn't want to do it and this is a pathetic excuse. Since a makeup artist was right there she could have removed them properly and then glued them back temporarily afterwards if she insisted on having it re-done at a salon or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2015 04:35
|
|
|
Scudworth posted:No, she just didn't want to do it and this is a pathetic excuse. No, I'm 100% sure that she had fake eyelashes that could not easily be reapplied, but I can't say more than that unfortunately or I'd be a huge dick.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2015 07:19
|
|
|
I remember one of the Myspace Girls of the Week won by hacking or otherwise exploiting some vulnerability in the voting but they didn't care and even said so as they awarded her on air. Was there anything interesting about that beyond what I just said or was that it? Thanks for a great thread, by the way.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2015 13:58
|
|
|
Harveygod posted:I remember one of the Myspace Girls of the Week won by hacking or otherwise exploiting some vulnerability in the voting but they didn't care and even said so as they awarded her on air. Was there anything interesting about that beyond what I just said or was that it? Thanks for a great thread, by the way. No fallout for that really that I recall. We were all rooting for the hacker and it was an easy decision. There was literally nothing at stake, so why not? I vaguely remember how terrible it was to produce that segment every week. Thank goodness I only had to do it a couple of times. However, we stopped doing "Women of the Web" -- which was what Myspace Girl of the Week became -- because to produce it, we downloaded pictures from the internet without permission, put them on the show, and eventually pissed off one photographer who found out we used his photos without permission and invoiced us for like $5000 per picture that we used. I think we ultimately paid him what he wanted to avoid litigation and that killed the segment for good. Here's another quick story that ended badly: One ill-advised segment called "Cougar Hunter" or something like that actually ended in a lawsuit. We went 'undercover' into a local bar and our host (I honestly don't remember who the heck it was) hit on older women. After we aired the piece, the network was slapped with a lawsuit by one of the 'cougars'. That's the last time we did a "Cougar Hunter" segment. EDIT: Found the video! And it was a $1,000,000 lawsuit. Don't gently caress with cougars. Captain Filth posted:Brian C I love that guy! I miss bumming cigarettes off of him when poo poo got SUPER stressful. No more stress, no more cigarettes. plasticbugs fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jun 12, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2015 06:35
|
|
|
plasticbugs posted:Here's another quick story that ended badly: One ill-advised segment called "Cougar Hunter" or something like that actually ended in a lawsuit. We went 'undercover' into a local bar and our host (I honestly don't remember who the heck it was) hit on older women. After we aired the piece, the network was slapped with a lawsuit by one of the 'cougars'. That's the last time we did a "Cougar Hunter" segment. lol for how awful G4 was it sounds like the best job ever
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2015 06:51
|
|
|
plasticbugs posted:The time they hired Olivia and then hired Olivia's mortal enemy, setting the stage for an E3 catfight and a new rule You keep saying that Olivia was really nice to work with, which makes me interested in her having a "mortal enemy".
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2015 18:06
|
|
|
This is an awesome thread. Thanks for sharing. Whatever happened to Yoshi and his crazy mod boxes? Younger me thought those things were amazing at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8SvMXkF6kM
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2015 07:14
|
|
|
Nitr0 posted:This is an awesome thread. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for reading my ramblings! I hope they've scared you off of working in live video game-centric television. I think Yoshi is currently working for 3D Systems. When he left The Screen Savers, his primary work was scanning celebrities to digitally insert them into movies. That was super-groundbreaking technology at the time -- and still is. He may have worked in Mocap stuff, too but I'm not sure. As for his mods, he kept and/or cannibalized most of his mods to make other mods with. There was nothing left behind when he left. I hope he saved some of his mods for posterity! He's also married and has a kid - who's almost 10 years old now I'm guessing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2015 00:25
|
|
|
Harveygod posted:You keep saying that Olivia was really nice to work with, which makes me interested in her having a "mortal enemy". The time they hired Olivia and then hired Olivia's mortal enemy, setting the stage for an E3 catfight and a new rule After Sarah Lane left the show, I think they spent about two months searching for a co-host to join Kevin. The hardest thing was that they needed someone who could keep up with Kevin. He's preternaturally smart & effortlessly witty. Almost every person who stood next to him paled in comparison, until they had Olivia try out. She seemed to be able to hold her own next to him and ultimately they hired Olivia right before E3 of that year. Backing up a bit, before Sarah's departure, they were just finding up-and-coming talent and giving them a quick interview and then having them do a tryout bit that they would turn into a segment. One of these odd try-outs consisted of sending some poor girl with a hard-to-place British(ish) accent to a bar in Marina Del Rey where they raced turtles. They cut a package from it, and that was that. I'm so glad this terrible poo poo is documented on the internet still.  Watch some of this so the rest of this poo poo makes sense. This poorly-disguised host tryout Turtle Race thing was before they hired Olivia, so Layla Kayleigh was already in the show's Rolodex so-to-speak. I think we did some tests with Layla at the studio and had her read "The Feed" news segment. She could read, was good on camera, and I guess her accent was semi-exotic so they hastily hired Layla days before E3 to add a new member to the show. Now, remember that my boss' bosses are not smart people. They made these decisions in a bubble and I'm pretty sure they never thought that it might be worthwhile to have Kevin, Olivia and Layla all on set at the same time to see how they got along. Day one of E3 rolls around and Olivia's in the make-up trailer getting ready. It's also Layla's first ever day on G4 as a permanent host -- and hardly anyone has ever even met her. So Layla walks into the make-up truck and now this next part is all hearsay because I wasn't there, but I know someone who was. I believe Olivia said something to the effect of "What's that bitch doing in here?" And then Layla lunges for Olivia and the make-up artists and hair stylists have to physically separate them right there in the make-up trailer outside of E3. Olivia is loving fuming and in retrospect she was likely more angry with the pinheads who hired Layla than at Layla. After this blow-up, it comes to light via whispered rumors that Layla and Olivia were in an acting class together and they did not get along during that class whatsoever. I'm guessing there was mutual hatred, and Layla of course knew that Olivia was on the show, but Layla's thinking was probably something like: 'gently caress it! I'll take the job and take the money -- it's my big chance and I can deal with being around someone I hate'. That day the executives had to grovel and eat poo poo and they made two rules and somehow we made it work: Olivia and Layla can never be IN THE BUILDING at the same time. Olivia WOULD NEVER HAVE TO SAY LAYLA'S NAME EVER If you go back and watch the show, you'll never see Layla and Olivia on screen at the same time. You'll also never hear Olivia say "Layla Kayleigh" ever in the entire run of Attack of the Show. Layla went into make up at 8am. Layla's "The Feed" segment was shot at 10:15am in the studio. Layla was out of the building by 11am. Olivia showed up for work at 11:30am. That's how it went. If Layla did something out in the field (a movie junket, a set visit, a loving turtle race) when the package aired in the studio, Kevin would toss to the piece, never Olivia so that Olivia would never have to say Layla's name. This all happened. EDIT: To this day, I and several of the show's writers are convinced that Layla's accent is completely manufactured. We have no way to prove it. EDIT2: It strikes me now that Layla has never seen Attack of the Show live in the studio. plasticbugs fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jun 20, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2015 01:10
|
|
|
I loved the screen savers when I was a teenager. I never saw it until I moved to Texas which is dumb because I used to live in Concord, CA and didn't even know all that stuff existed. My only claim to fame is when Cat I think was showing off Runescape on the show. While she was demoing it, I messaged "The screen savers rocks" or something and she mentioned it. I was a pretty excited weirdo nerd. Then some guy messaged me saying he wanted to play with her boobs. That's how the internet goes I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2015 15:15
|
|
|
Deathy McDeath posted:The Screen Savers was one of my favorite shows as a teen, and was probably the singular thing that got me into computers. It managed a careful balance between entertainment and really useful knowledge. Patrick is very nice. He's extremely smart and his desk area, no matter where he works looks like controlled chaos -- boxes everywhere, half built computers sitting in a pile, every kind of gadget and tool. He did things his own way and didn't take any of the network's poo poo. As much as there is love for TechTV, lots of the people who worked there were unhappy with the management and the direction that things were headed. Look up Russ Pitts' "eagle semen" email and you'll have a different view of TechTV from the trenches. I see Patrick every now and then at birthday meetups, going away parties, etc. here in SF. FAKE EDIT: The email Russ Pitts sent "to all" at TechTV on the day he quit. I saved a copy of that email in my inbox for many years until I left G4 in 2007 (I went back to work at G4 in 2009 and worked there until 2011). Russ turned his email it into an eBook.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2015 20:02
|
|
|
I'm a big Mega64 fan, and I know they were in talks with G4 with potentially getting picked up for the network. Remember hearing any rumblings about them at all around the office?
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2015 02:40
|
|
|
I used to be in a chat room with a chick that was on Screen Savers, Star Road98 or some poo poo. She did an interview as a DEFCON chick, she didn't even know how to hack, she was just like the token nerd girl. A big drama in the chat was when she admitted to having sex with a dog. Martin Sargent was great in interviews. And his tech advice where he would insist the color of the mac mattered.
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2015 01:17
|
|
|
ElectricNeonPanda posted:I'm a big Mega64 fan, and I know they were in talks with G4 with potentially getting picked up for the network. One or two of the Mega64 guys were actually in our Olympic Blvd. lobby one day looking kind of lost and I don't know who they had a meeting with if they did have an appointment. They had a bunch of DVDs with them and they gave me one. I must not have been very busy because I had time to chat with some random people in the lobby long enough to be offered a free DVD. I think the only reason I remember any of this happening is because they had to explain to me who they were. I distinctly remember watching that DVD on my PC for ten or fifteen minutes and that's all I know about Mega64. I'm a terrible person and that's a lovely story, but it's the truth. This must have happened some time in 2004 or 2005. I still don't really know much about Mega64 beyond that encounter and that DVD. Edit: and now for some reason, I think I remember that they were friends with my friend Ryan who went on to work for MTV/Gametrailers. I'm asking him on Twitter for the rest of the story because now I want to know. Edit 2: Okay, one of the production assistants on a show called G4tv.com (yes, that was the name of a show on G4) was a cinematographer for Mega64 before he worked at G4. So that must have been the connection. In those olden days there was barely a YouTube and if you were watching Mega64 it was some crunchy internet video on their own site or a $9 DVD you bought from them. That's some real grassroots poo poo. plasticbugs fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jul 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 07:00
|
|
|
plasticbugs posted:One or two of the Mega64 guys were actually in our Olympic Blvd. lobby one day looking kind of lost and I don't know who they had a meeting with if they did have an appointment. They had a bunch of DVDs with them and they gave me one. I must not have been very busy because I had time to chat with some random people in the lobby long enough to be offered a free DVD. I think the only reason I remember any of this happening is because they had to explain to me who they were. I distinctly remember watching that DVD on my PC for ten or fifteen minutes and that's all I know about Mega64. I'm a terrible person and that's a lovely story, but it's the truth. Haha wow, that's crazy. Interesting stuff! Yeah, the anecdote the Mega64 guys tell is that they were actually in the final stages of their show actually being picked up, but they would lose all creative control and G4 would own the rights or something like that. Luckily they decided to stick to what they're doing, and they're actually still going strong 10 years later - which is surprising, considering not a lot of internet personalities last that long. Thanks for sharing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2015 02:05
|
|
|
That is an interesting read about Munn. From what I've read on tabloids and heard from people meeting her at conventions she really came across as an actress/tv personality who was extremely stuck on herself and self-conscious enough to take it out on her fans, but I guess that was just some libel written to beat down on someone famous. That's a pleasant surprise, I loathe whenever actors/actresses treat their community like dreck.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2015 19:50
|
|
|
TechTV was always a great watch, and felt like a bunch of nerdy friends came together to talk about technology. Were you (or anyone you know) involved with Cinematech or TechLive? I used to love those shows, but they felt isolated from the usual TSS, AOTS, Call for Help, etc. crowd.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2015 16:44
|
|
|
I still listen regularly to a variety of Laporte's TWIT network podcasts and really like listening to him in general. Was he that easy-going and friendly in day-to-day proceedings? Along similar lines, did you ever run into Dvorak? Is he really as old-man crotchety as he (purposely?) comes across? Thanks.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2015 21:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 08:37 |
|
|
I once visited the AotS set for a story I was writing a bunch of years ago, so it's interesting to hear about all of this other stuff behind-the-scenes. I was struck by two things: 1) The set and studio was incredibly tiny. Essentially two corners of a room. 2) The episode I saw go live involved some pre-tape about...fashion, I think? However, the stage manager reminded everyone that the mics were hot, so you could hear the crew reacting and laughing to the piece. I don't remember who was in the pre-tape (maybe it was Layla Kayleigh, because it'd make a lot of sense now), but Olivia very loudly called her the c-word in studio. Was this a common occurrence, because it kinda blew me away? Oh, and one time I interviewed Kevin at Comic Con about geek culture/trends he was seeing and tried to lob some softball questions that I was hoping would prompt some funny answers, but he took them really seriously (This was in like 2008, and I think I might have asked about dragon shirts and he told me this wasn't the place to judge fashion) and he thought I was a huge dick. I still feel bad about it, mainly because I'm working in TV now and know how awful and stressful shooting in places like Comic Con are and he probably just didn't want to deal with my poo poo. Please tell Kevin I was just trying to be funny.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 09:42
|
|