“Beat Down Boogie” Filmmakers Tell Us How They Got ‘Mario Warfare’ To One Million Views (While Holding Down a Day Job)
Monday, 17th December 2012Posted in Producer
Tags: Beat Down Boogie, filmmakers, Mario, mario warfare, modern warfare
Written by: Jeff Nau
Follow @jeffnau
After the success of their first webseries Modern War Gear Solid, the Beat Down Boogie crew has managed to combine both old and new classic game franchises in their latest magnum opus, the ‘Mario Warfare’ series of short films.
Though they debuted the trailer for Mario Warfare earlier this year, what was promised seemed an ambitious undertaking — but on all fronts seem to have delivered: in less than 3 days, Blake Faucette and Micah Moore have managed to score nearly a million viewers. We caught up with filmmakers to find out exactly how they did it.
JHS: What are your day jobs? How do you find time to make shorts like these?
Micah: I work 9 to 5 at an office, editing educational videos. And Blake is a video freelancer. The funny thing is we used to work together at a video store that Blake owned. I was a clerk there. We’d watch films from the foreign section all day like Versus, Ong Bak, Azumi…. And come up with ideas for our own films. Back then we were just learning by making short films (The Key, Ninjas VS Pirates, etc) and our first feature film (Dogs of Chinatown). We’d shoot mostly on the weekends, but since Blake owned the store we could either close it for a day or find a friend to watch the place while we went out shooting. It was eerily reminiscent of the movie Clerks.
As far as making time to work on movies, it comes down to sacrifice. We have a small team, so when we really need to make headway, it means someone’s not sleeping. Someone’s not out socializing. Someone’s passing up a paying gig. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to film with your friends. It’s exciting to see it come together in the rough cut. But some of the tasks are tedious yet require intense concentration, such as making sure there’s no missing sound effects, or transcribing a video’s dialogue for subtitles. The big struggle for myself is finding balance. In the past I lived a pretty unhealthy life due to the stress of finishing films.
I wasn’t eating right, not getting enough sleep; I was missing out on life. Right now it’s sort of like having a second full-time job. But I’m trying to get out more and lead a more balanced life. I moved back to Raleigh NC, where I used to DJ and go out dancing, and I’ve reconnected with some old friends from that scene. In an ideal world, I’d make ridiculous stuff on YouTube all day. Then I could spend more time on making films as well as get more sleep and more downtime with friends.
JHS: Can you talk a little about what you do on set/in pro and post production? Do you write the script first and then shoot, make it up as you go along? Neither?
For better or worse, I lead most of the creative roles (writing, directing, cinematography, editing). Around here (Raleigh, NC), you end up with a very small crew and everyone has to wear multiple hats. Whenever someone reliable comes around with more skill in one of these roles, it’s a big relief to share the responsibility with them. For instance, Rick Burnett – who’s very technical – can manage my camera load-out way better than I could. Karel Antonin and Chris Hurn are two composers that we’ve worked with who’ve really helped raise the quality of music in our projects. Juggling my roles on set makes me very focused creatively, but also very absent-minded once filming starts. For instance, Blake, Rick – and even our actors – watch where I set my camera, because I’m constantly losing it between shots.
I think visually, so I usually start with storyboards. If the storyboards seem cool, then I write a script for it. I’m not a great writer, but I try to focus on dialogue that helps define the characters and their relationships. Ideally the action will define the plot. Our script is just a loose guide though. Some of our actors are just learning, and we have to find different lines to make it easier on them. Other actors are great at improvising, and it’s better to give them some freedom. We barely mention action in the script, because we like the fight scenes to incorporate the environment, and we rarely have a chance to visit the location prior to shooting. When there’s a fight, the script might say “Mario comes through the door and is ambushed by Shyguys; after a brief struggle Mario defeats the Shyguys.” Since a lot of character wear masks (the Shyguys, Ghost, Master Chief, our mechs), we actually come up with a lot of lines in post, once we see the edit.
There’s some crew roles that I have no ability in, like making a website, 3d animation, and merchandise. If it weren’t for Rick, Blake, Justin Reich (our photographer), and Andy Coon (who helps with our website), these things wouldn’t exist as part of Beat Down Boogie.
JHS: There’s a John Woo/Luc Besson vibe to it. Was it just an obvious decision to you, to implement those influences?Oh sure. It was a fun exercise to think, “if these video game characters had a famous movie counterpart, who would they be?” Toad is a mix of Leon and Seraph (who were both protectors of a girl/woman), and he takes his action cues from Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium. We knew the series would start with gunfire. Based on Toad’s look we felt the Gun Kata style would be a perfect fit. It’s the ridiculous escalation of the HK “bullet ballet” that was popularized by John Woo.
When the one Shyguy is kicked and shot in the air, it was actually a nod to the game Bulletstorm, which was published by our Raleigh pals at Epic Games (though the game was produced in Poland by People Can Fly).
Each character draws from different influences – which will shape their personality and style of action. You’ve seen the Equilibrium/Matrix action. Episode 2 takes more subtle fighting inspiration from Sammo Hung. Later we hope to do a Jackie Chan style fight scene as well.
JHS: Going back to the original trailer you debuted in late August, you had obviously shot some of the ‘short’ then. What was your thinking behind releasing the trailer early anyways? Anything could go wrong between August and now…
Haha, we learned a very big lesson. Never tease something until you’re safely in the middle of working on it, and you know that it’s going to work. All that stuff was shot specifically for the trailer, as a proof-of-concept.
We started working on Mario Warfare a long time ago, but a bunch of huge obstacles popped up – and not just the normal film problems. I moved into a historic loft with questionable wiring one month into filming, and a lightning storm ended up frying some important hard drives. Shortly after that I was bitten by ticks while filming outdoors and I got lyme disease. I was very weak and tired for nearly 3 months. As soon as I started feeling better, Rick got married and needed to spend some time on the wedding.
During all this, we were trying to make a hugely ambitious version of Mario Warfare with tons of characters and extras. We were trying to make this giant fleshed-out world. But that meant we were stretching our tiny budget and resources really thin, in the midst of a string of bad luck and bad timing. We were quickly reminded why it’s best to work with a small tight cast and crew. The more people you add, the more things can go wrong. Supporting actors who didn’t quite understand the dedication it takes to make films would leave before we got all our shots. We had to make more and more concessions in editing.
Finally I said, “this just isn’t working.” We thought we could be more ambitious because of Modern War Gear Solid’s popularity. But the truth was that our budget was the same, the amount of reliable people was the same, nothing had really changed. So about six months of struggling film making was scrapped. It was terrifying, but extremely liberating. I told our team, “look, tell me exactly what you want to do, and that will be the new story.” If we’re having fun making this, the audience will pick up on that. So we ended up with a much better version of Mario Warfare because it focuses on our best abilities – action and fights – while allowing moments to challenge ourselves on stuff that is new to us like acting and effects.
I’m really hesitant to share the original scrapped scenes and plot, but I’m going to do that as a Kickstarter reward.
JHS: What’s the most difficult part of making a short like this?
The original budget from our pockets was blown on those scrapped scenes/plot. And we had spent a long time raising that money on our own. We finally got busy making a really exciting version of Mario Warfare, but the remaining budget only covered two episodes. Since our viewers were real hyped about Mario Warfare, the best solution seemed to be a Kickstarter campaign. With viewer support, we can make the rest of the episodes much faster, and better.
It takes a lot of patience to make films, but I have to give our audience props for their patience too. A lot of them showed their support, telling us that making it right was better than rushing it out.
JHS: Obviously you’ve managed to reach out to both old school fans (Mario) and newer ones (MW). Do you find yourself playing more of the classic console games, or newer ones nowadays?
For me, it’s a mix. When I’m working on films, I embrace arcade-y games that focus on gameplay. I can play those for 30 minutes – like if I’m rendering video, or needing a break – and put them down. For that type of play, New Super Mario is cool. Racing games like Mario Kart Wii, Wipeout HD and Motorstorm are great. Peggle and PuzzleQuest, that sort of thing. When I have time, I really love games as a means to tell a big story, like Mass Effect 1 and 2, Uncharted 2, Fallout 3, Skyrim, and AC3. Lately I’ve been playing X-COM, because I can play a mission in between editing crunches.
CoD games are good inspiration for blockbuster action. In our crew Rick, our tech director, and Brian Lee, who played Toad and Ghost, are the multiplayer FPS guys. When they have time to game, they’ll usually be rocking Borderlands 2, or Black Ops 2 with their pals on Xbox.
Matt Sumner (Mario) mostly plays “Mary Kate and Ashley Crush Course” for the gameboy. And “Barbie Groom and Glam Pups” for the DS.
‘Mario Warfare’ Delivers Carnage to The Mushroom Kingdom
Wednesday, 12th December 2012Posted in Online Series
Tags: Beat Down Boogie, Equilibrium, guns, mario brothers, mario warfare, modern warfare, peach, princess toadstool, toad
Written by: Jeff Nau
Follow @jeffnau
Last we heard about “Mario Warfare” — a conglomeration of Christian Bale’s Equilibrium, Modern Warfare and all things Mario (especially Mario Bros. 2) — all we had to go on were some pretty large promises, a pretty insane-looking trailer, and oodles of violence.
Turns out the guys and gals at Beat Down Boogie have delivered on all fronts, giving us our first full Episode 1 of the series. Continue reading “‘Mario Warfare’ Delivers Carnage to The Mushroom Kingdom” »
Daily Online Series: ‘Mario Warfare’ Combines Best of Both Worlds
Friday, 31st August 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming, Online Video
Tags: Beat Down Boogie, Equilibrium, mario bros, modern warfare, Yoshi
Written by: Jeff Nau
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Via Beat Down Boogie, Mario Warfare manages to successfully combine the worlds of Mario Bros., and of all things that decade old Christian Bale movie Equilibrium (the one with all the gun-dancing). It makes for a pretty solid, professional looking preview.
What you’ve got in the end is a far less-pudgy Mario and Luigi, a Yakuza-ed Yoshi doing Bale’s gun-kata martial arts moves, and a lot of random characters from Super Mario Bros. 2 forming the last thing standing between Bowser and complete annihilation. Continue reading “Daily Online Series: ‘Mario Warfare’ Combines Best of Both Worlds” »
Portal 2, Battlefield 3 Win Big At The BAFTA Awards
Monday, 19th March 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: awards, BAFTA, battlefield 3, best game, call of duty, modern warfare, nominees, portal 2, skyrim, winners
Written by: Craig Hunter
Follow @jordankahn
Just this past weekend the annual British Academy of Film and Television Awards were held to celebrate the best of the best in entertainment, including video games. Valve’s Portal 2 was the big winner of the night taking home the Best Game award. The breakout puzzler also won Best Design and Best Story.
Other than Portal 2 there were many big surprises of the night when some of the year’s biggest titles went home empty handed. Despite being nominated 5 different times, Bethesda’s immense RPG Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim didn’t win any awards. Not to mention, epic cinematic adventure Uncharted 3 and Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, although both nominated, went home without awards. Continue reading “Portal 2, Battlefield 3 Win Big At The BAFTA Awards” »
MW3 Content Collection DLC Lands For Non-ELITE Xbox Users March 20
Thursday, 1st March 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: Activision, Blackbox, content collection, DLC, drop, elite, march, modern warfare, MW3, Overwatch, xbox
Written by: Craig Hunter
With Call of Duty: Elite Premium subscribers on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 now playing the newest MW3 maps, it seems as though Activision will be bringing the DLC out for the rest of us.
The first Modern Warfare 3 DLC is hitting Xbox Live for non-Call of Duty Elite members in the form of Content Collection #1. Activision has announced that on March 20th the first “collection” of MW3 DLC will be available for download and will include four multiplayer/survival maps as well as two spec ops missions.
The first available map pack Continue reading “MW3 Content Collection DLC Lands For Non-ELITE Xbox Users March 20” »
Call of Duty: MW2 Box Art Re-Created With Image of Real Soldier
Tuesday, 21st February 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: art, box, close, cod, cover, modern warfare, MW2, pose, real, recreation, reddit
Written by: Craig Hunter
How close did the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 box cover art get to the real thing? We finally know exactly how close with Reddit user and real life American soldier serving in Afghanistan, Travissimo, posting his recreation of the artwork created using an image of a real solider in action.
When you think about soldiers on tour in Afghanistan the word “bored” usually doesnt come to mind, but Travissimo seemed to have time to create one the most impressive renditions of the cover to date. He and a freind decided to mimic the now unforgettable pose and edit it into the existing box art… Continue reading “Call of Duty: MW2 Box Art Re-Created With Image of Real Soldier” »
U.S. Army Branded Xbox and PS3 Accessories Coming Soon
Friday, 6th January 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Gadgets, Gaming
Tags: army, controller, CTA Digital, gun, headsets, modern warfare, Move, peripherals, playstation, ps3, xbox
Written by: Craig Hunter
There isn’t a shortage of gaming accessories on the market for Xbox and PS3, but the U.S. Army is intent on cashing in on the success of games like Modern Warfare with a selection of official Army-branded gaming accessories.
The product page for the products describe them as for “modern gaming warfare”, which I guess is as close as you can get to marketing something as “Modern Warfare” without Activision suing you. Continue reading “U.S. Army Branded Xbox and PS3 Accessories Coming Soon” »
Google Shoot View: Google Maps Meets Modern Warfare 3
Monday, 12th December 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: controversy, FPS, game, google, maps, modern warfare, Pool Worldwide, Shoot View
Written by: Craig Hunter
We’re not exactly sure Google will approve of using the Google Street View API to give users the ability to shoot up pedestrians, but that’s exactly what Dutch advertising agency Pool Worldwide has done with their Google Shoot View project.
When visiting the site, you might possibly think you’re simply using street view within Google Maps, and you are, the difference being the ability to shoot at will using an M4A1 assault rifle.
It’s as close as you can get to Modern Warfare meets Google Maps. It’s clearly meant to get a reaction out of people and promote the company rather than actually be a game, but we’re thinking Google’s not Continue reading “Google Shoot View: Google Maps Meets Modern Warfare 3” »
War Crimes and War Games: Does The Red Cross Want In?
Monday, 5th December 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming, Pop Culture
Tags: battlefield, call of duty, controversy, Geneva convention, hague convention, modern warfare, red cross
Written by: Jeff Nau
With the recent influx of games like Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 flooding the market, Kotaku reported the international Red Cross has announced that it’s investigating whether the rules of the Geneva and Hague conventions should be made mandatory in war-based video games.
THE GENEVA CONVENTION TREATY
To further elaborate the issue, here’s some history: The rules and regulations of the Geneva Convention (first held in 1864) make mandatory the humanitarian treatment of war victims, addressing the humane treatment of people overall (or lack thereof).
The following Hague Convention (first held in 1899) addresses specific kinds of warfare (chemical, bio-chemical, and so forth). Continue reading “War Crimes and War Games: Does The Red Cross Want In?” »
Have you spent $76 on Call of Duty?
Friday, 2nd September 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: black ops, call of duty, modern warfare, modern warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3
Written by: R Bryant Francis
Rejoice! Modern Warfare 3 to have Dedicated Servers on PC
Thursday, 18th August 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: battlefield, battlefield 3, call of duty, dedicated servers, modern warfare, Modern Warfare 3, PC, PC gaming
Written by: R Bryant Francis
In the ever-raging “conflict” between Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3, Activision just made a move that will no doubt bring some embittered fans back into the fold.
That’s right–multiplayer on Modern Warfare 3 is back on dedicated servers. Continue reading “Rejoice! Modern Warfare 3 to have Dedicated Servers on PC” »
German Study reveals Gaming DOESN’T make you obsessed with violence.
Monday, 15th August 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Gaming
Tags: battlefield, counter strike, modern, modern warfare, video game violence, video games, violent, War
Written by: R Bryant Francis
Hear that guys? If you ever become a gun-toting congressman hell-bent on starting a war with another country, we can officially NOT blame it on Video games. Continue reading “German Study reveals Gaming DOESN’T make you obsessed with violence.” »
CULTURE – Modern Warfare, Backwards Thinking?
Thursday, 23rd June 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Offbeat, Pop Culture, Technology
Tags: drones, military drones, modern warfare
Written by: Paul Nyhart
For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
- The Art of War
By Paul Nyhart
Modern Warfare. No, it’s not just a video game title. It’s the mode we live in. It’s a subject that should give us pause–not because it is so entrenched in our everyday activities, but precisely because it’s not. There is a gaping hole in our awareness, or lack thereof, in regards to the evolving methodology and ethos of modern warfare, which we should probably be paying more attention to. The kicker is, it’s a bit hard to notice.
War can be summed up as the eternal expression between nations whose differences have grown so great, the only way to settle matters is to battle over who can suffer more. World War after World War, the United States has stood standing, with a few battles in between where we more or less pondered, “why are we here” instead of “can we overcome. “
Today, Modern Warfare has evolved concurrently with the rapid expansion of technology. The modern approach doesn’t worry about avoiding war, as much as it focuses on staying (literally) on top of it.
One invention in particular perpetuates this thought. The invention of an unammned device which can cover great distances and possesses the power to simulatenously spy and/or attack enemy targets Continue reading “CULTURE – Modern Warfare, Backwards Thinking?” »
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