Super Meat Boy Commercial: Behind The Meat

We’ve had meat on the brain here at AREA 5 HQ, and by now we hope that most of you know why. Not only has the highly-anticipated indie game Super Meat Boy just hit virtual store shelves, but we’ve finally wrapped production on the official release day trailer. Check it out below:

Being an independent production, we knew the commercial needed to be cheaply-made, so we used what had: Ryan as a mad chef, my kitchen became our set, and 2500 watts worth of lights turned the apartment into a sauna. It was a blast! But don’t take my word for it. Check out our making of: “Behind The Meat: the Making of a Super Meat Boy Ad”

We learned tons over the two-day shoot, least of which was how to make buckets of water-soluble blood (it turns out the stuff you get from a Halloween store doesn’t wash off walls so easily). We also constructed a dolly from plans we found on Ikea Hacker and rigged up a pulley from my roof to make Meat Boy jump out of a pan.

It’s not often that we get to flex our commercial production muscle. When Team Meat approached us about creating a trailer for their mega-awesome, indie platformer, we had to say, “Yes.” We wanted to stay true to the over-the-top, 90’s-style that makes Super Meat Boy so charming and approachable for fans of 16-bit games. So, we looked many many of our old, favorite Sega Genesis commercials for some aesthetic inspiration. Later, we bought a VCR along with a handful of used VHS cassettes. To degrade the quality of the piece, we re-dubbed the commercial several times. The result, an awesomely-grimy, retro version, is embedded below.

Here are a few of the old ads that influenced our video:

This SEGA CD/32X commercial was responsible for the dark tone of our ad:

Obviously, overly-enthusiastic voiceovers were a staple of the 90’s era video game commercial. We bit that too.

Who could forget the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 commercial? SEGA!

When we finished editing, we were really proud of our work. We sent it to a few friends, and they all seemed to like it! Though, a few of them mentioned that we may have gone over the line. With the “fetus juice.” Yeah. We thought it over, and decided to make a “clean” version as well. Ultimately, Team Meat opted not to use it, airing our original dirty cut.

Thanks to everyone for the overwhelmingly positive response. We leave you now with the previously-unaired “clean” version of the commerical. Let us know what you think!

AREA 5 out.

CAPTIVATE 2010, PART 2: GHOST TRICK

As you might have read previously, AREA 5 was lucky enough to be invited to Capcom’s annual gaming soiree, Captivate 2010. We spent three beautiful days basking in the warm glow of LCD illumination… and that Sun thing.

As expected, we fought on the street, planets were lost, and the dead rose again. But some of the most genuinely surprising news to come out of the event, was Capcom’s decision to bring a couple of DS titles stateside: Ghost Trick and Okamiden.

Ghost Trick, the latest game from the Ace Attorney development team puts you in the shoes of Sissel, a recently deceased dude with a score to settle and the power to possess inanimate objects. He decides to change the fate of several endangered individuals, while uncovering the mystery of his death, one puzzle at a time. It’s kind of like “Ghost” meets “Final Destination,” if it were animated in Japan.

Still don’t get it? Don’t worry, just check out our thoughts on Ghost Trick below:

Be sure to check back early next week to see what we thought of Okamiden, Dead Rising 2, and watch our interview with Keiji Inafune.

THE ULTIMATE, FAN-MADE, 1UP SHOW BOX SET

We were relieved to find out that the shoe box sent to us earlier this week did NOT contain a decomposing cat:

Instead we opened the case to find 45 amazingly well-mastered 1UP Show DVD’s, courtesy of Dana Laratta, an incredibly dedicated 1UP Show/Broken Pixels/CO-OP viewer whom (like many of our fans) we owe an incredible debt of gratitude.

You know, working in an industry where release dates dictate our production schedule, it’s easy to forget the work we did four weeks ago let alone four years ago. These DVD’s serve as a great reminder of all the wonderful people we met, games we played, and times we had while making the 1UP Show. Suddenly, sitting in those busted cubicles, watching Jason getting body-slammed by Mielke for being an unruly intern doesn’t seem like that long ago.

Thanks Dana :)

PS. Unfortunately we don’t have the rights to sell the DVD box set, but I’m sure if you talk to Dana, you guys can work “something” out… if you make it “worth his while…” I’m talking about “SEX.”

WHAT WE'RE PLAYING: NINTENDO DSi CAMERA TOOLS

It feels silly to admit, but despite the dozens of games I should be playing right now, I can't seem to stop noodling with the DSi's photo tool, something I originally deemed 'throw-away' when looking at the list of DSi hardware updates.

It's not even that the DSi takes particularly great photos. It's VGA resolution and weak low light performance barely stack up against most cellphones, but the pack-in photo editing tools more than make up for the cameras sub-par performance.

Part Photoshop, part Kid-Pix, part Kai's Power Goo, the photo tools make it quick and easy to render your photos cell-shaded, or see what it would be like if 2 of your friends mated, and DSi's stylus makes image editing feel super organic.

gaze upon the source of my procrastination:

:)