CO-OP 0101 -- Introducing the Band -- Killzone 2 & Noby Noby Boy
matt chandronaitYes, I realize this went up yesterday around the Interwebs, but it took me a while to get my shiz together on our faboo, new site. Normally I'd go right into what's in this week's show, but first off there're some thank-yous that need to happen.
The intro title sequence was a massive project that we could never have done on our own. We know from ample experience how important that part of a show can be and how time-consuming. Art inspires art and in that regard we couldn't have asked for better than Jonathan Mann and Jane Pinckard's theme song and the motion design from the incredible Eden Soto. First of all, knowing the financial bind we're in, they did it for free. Second of all, the song and Eden's work go so well together that I actually got a little misty-eyed when watching it all together for the first time. Click over to Eden's reel, you'll see how talented he his. The same with Jane's blog and her band. Of course there's Jonathan's ongoing song-a-day project. When you have people like this gifting their time and talent to you, the superlatives necessary to express the gratitude we feel in return are wholly inadequate. Simply, you three: THANK YOU!
Also, to Phil Fish. You've probably heard his name most in association with the upcoming Fez. He's also a bomb ass designer and gifted us the Area 5 logo you see gracing the top of this page. Our CO-OP logo is also inspired by some designs he did for us. Stay in-the-know on Fez. It's going to be jawsome. Phil: THANK YOU!
Many people have asked about the music in CO-OP. Some of it is ours (well, Cesar's, specifically), the rest belongs to the following people that have given us permission to use their work: SGX, Pie Haqcuard, Torrey Holbrook Walker, Nick Vassallo. To all you audio geniuses: THANK YOU!
Then, of course, to the fans who first gave us the idea of throwing up a donation link and then contributed just over $18,000 dollars by the time we took the donation link down! It's because of you and because of an early sponsorship by EA (Godfather 2, coming April 7th ;) ) that we were able to make this deal happen with Revision3 at all. Quite frankly, we're not going to be making much money in the short term and none of us had a lot of savings to live off of. Contrary to popular opinion, "Money Hats" were not an occurrence at 1UP. Perhaps the monetary haberdasher didn't know which cubes were ours. That meant we were staring down a dark passage of doubt when considering our future and--no lie--we even talked about doing wedding videos to stay afloat until we could make something happen. Several parties were interested in our content. Several of them had up-front offers that would allow us to scrape by, but it only took one meeting for us to know that we wanted to work with Revision3. Still, that deal was--and is--risky. The more people that watch our content, the more we get paid. How can we know how many people will watch? What if we never reach enough of an audience to allow us to at least break even every month? Maybe the fans that stuck with us from 1UP were all we would ever get? The stark reality is that we didn't have the financial backing to wait and find out. Thanks to you and that sponsorship, we suddenly did. Bada-bing, licensing deal signed with Revision3! That nest egg won't last long. Six people trying to live in this area of the country is GIANT overhead and video production is a ridiculously expensive enterprise. Sure, cheaper than it was even a few years ago, but we knew the show needed to be in HD and that meant new computers and new cameras. Out of nowhere we suddenly received a donation that helped solve most of our editing problems: three new Macs. A PowerMac and two MacBooks. We were stunned. The encouragement from the fans is what pushed us together and helped drive us to start Area 5. That push landed us the EA sponsorship and brought us to the attention of the computer donor. Without you I cannot say what would have happened. Something lesser, to be sure, if anything at all. So, to all of you: THANK YOU!
Out of that donation money, we have around $8,000 left. We spent it on software, hardware and camera gear as outlined in previous blog posts. The rest will go to paying rent and bills for the six of us (and to Rob's car since he's become the default company taxi) for March with a tiny bit left over. The EA sponsorship has been received and gone in the bank and we've used a portion of it to buy one more camera so that we can film more than one thing at at time. Revision3 has been letting us borrow one of their cameras for a few days a week, but that situation is untenable; all their loaners will be gone as of this afternoon at SXSW, as an example. The rest of that money will go into the Area 5 bank account and will keep us afloat until we can see returns from CO-OP.
Finally, we have to thank Revision3! Everyone over there has been so phenomenal to work with. They've allowed us all-access to their equipment, building, the *ahem* kegerator, and studio even before the deal was actually signed. How many companies can you say would do that? The support and encouragement we've received from them and their insistence on our creative freedom has been forefront since the very first time we talked. Their CTO let us deliver our premier a day late--to his house--and their studio manager has stayed late to work around our bizarre filming schedules.
The following is what these show-release blog posts will usually look like:
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From the creator of the universally belovéd Katamari Damacy, Noby Noby Boy is such a simplistic experience that it defies explanation save by complex sentences. Luckily, the always brilliant Tiff Chow was available to raise the level of discourse which would undoubtedly have ensued (see: immature jokes involving the words "stretch" and "length") had Cesar and Matt been allowed to carry on the conversation alone.
Rainbows, eating, and pooping may not be your thing (just watch the Noby segment, you'll get it), but perhaps gritty, realistic, eye-meltingly gorgeous first person shooter, is? Our friends John Davison and Will Tuttle join Ryan in our critical assessment of what may be the PS3's largest contribution to the console FPS pedigree.
Of course before we did all this we had to get the band back together! Being the first of the month, half our team--Jason, Rob, and Cesar--went on to find new jobs in order to pay their rent. Can we convince them to come back in time to land the deal with Revision3? The fact that this show description exists at all is probably spoiler enough on THAT front. Sorry about that.
Reader Comments (64)
Wow! Thats all I'm saying - F'EN WOW!
Congrats guys!
Nice job! This is really something. I am glad to see the site and the show looking how it should be. Keep up the great work!
Excellent show, looked great in HD on my tv, amazing new opening sequence. Congrats on everything!
Congratulations on a fantastic return! The show is better than I had expected.
Finally on the Itunes! hooray for Revision3.
You guys are awesome, hope you can do this for a long long time.
A genuine congratulations, guys! The final scenes were awe-inspiring. You could be the start of something wonderful.
Now that half of Area 5's production crew have day jobs, will they still have time for CO-OP on a weekly basis?
John Davison = WIN.
Great, I thought this site would be shut down with the Revision3 deal and all. I come back and it's better than ever! I always loved reading about the creative process you guys do on each week show.
Awesome show and congrats on being pick-up by Revision3. One question where can I get the song from the intro/title sequence?
Bravo
:: applause ::
Great first episode at rev3. I'm really happy to see you all back at it. I'm subscribed and waiting for more.
Cheers
ps. I promise I'll watch your ads.
Wow. Full HD Fidelity lets us see everyone's arm hair :D
Great job guys! Can't wait to see where you go from here!
So, what is the best way to pimp your show to everyone I know? Is there a prefered link I should give our, or should I tell people to register with Revision5 (and is there a way to tell Revision5 that I am regestering specifically for you guys), subscribe on iTunes? I wanna help!
Yay! Site redesign looks good. Thanks for uploading the full song too! So I guess this means no more random banners at the top, eh? (Vader voice) NOOOOOOOOOOO.
I'm so excited to see all that is going to come from you guys. Keep doing what you've been doing and I'm sure new viewers will come. And don't be afraid to put up that donate button. I know I was disappointed that I wasn't able to help in time. I would still love to do something.
Hey, congrats on the new show and on joining rev3! I can't think of a better pairing and I wish you the best of luck.
Hooray! You guys all rock, and your site design is slick as fuck! Congrats congrats and congrats again :D
A big congratulations! Hope everything keeps working out for in the future. You easily have the best video game related show on the internet and I want to keep watching!
Looking pretty AWESOME in HD chaps
Another fantastic episode - you guys really seem invigorated by your (well-deserved) good fortune.
You've certainly sold me on Noby Noby Boy for one. :D
We in England will continue to spread buttery words of your AWESOMEness,
and hope that shi' doesn't get too heavy for you
lots of love.
Loves me some co-op. Loved the music and the intro, keep up the excellent work my friends!
Watching the 720p version from here in Madrid, Spain. Keep up the good work. Love the new credits!
Wow, it's really inspiring to see how far you've guys come! I thought I'd never see something as great as the 1UP show again but it looks like we might have something better coming up :)
Congratulations guys! We'll always be watching!
Great show guys!
Glad to hear my financial contribution helped you out!
Amazing Show !!!!!!!!
Congratulations guys, you deserved it. And awesome job with the opening credits!
Hi Matt Chandronait
The "iTunes Large" link is wrong. Please remove one h ;)
hhttp://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=307861814
Really happy to see you guys get picked up by Revision3. The 1UP Show was one of the reasons I couldn't wait for the weekend, and to see it go down a few months ago was quite a shock. Congratulations on all the recent success, I'm really looking forward to more great shows like this one.
I love you guys!
Awesome episode, looked BRILLIANT through the HD-i-ness of my TV. Keep up the good work, ohh and wedding videos!!??!!1!
Congratulations on the sponsor and the whole redesign of site & show, looks great!
It's amazing that your dedicated to keep making shows for the fans, really means a lot.
Keep up the great work!
.tiff - and you're slick as fuck on our show! Thanks for giving us a hand. First of many, I hope :)
Ack! Thanks Tom, fixed the link :) -- give it a go again if you haven't found it already in iTunes proper.
Many thanks to everyone for all the kinds words. We're very excited to have the premiere go over so well and the fact that people can actually get the show relatively painlessly *gough*gamevideos*cough* is a big relief! And yeah, we're super-pleased with the intro as well! Those kids did a bang-up fucking job all right!
Alex G ... yeah, no more rotating top banner, sorry :/ ,,, I can't see a way to make it work on Squarespace. If I can figure it out, we'll let ya know!
Mark V ... the best way to pimp our show is just to keep watching and tell your friends. Facebook it, Twitter it, Digg the posts when they appear, stuff like that! Since our financial viability depends on how many people watch and keep watching it's really important for us to know what people think, too. So comments here, on the Revision3 forums and the various other places people can comment are read by us and taken in as well!
Oscar ... in Spain? Awesome!! How's it look over there in Europa? Was it easy to download? Are you streaming it or did you get it via iTunes? We're very curious about the extent of our international audience and if it is easy for them to get the show :)
Dan Barker ... haha, yeah! When you're strapped for cash you start coming up with, um, "creative" ideas to stay afloat ;)
AlexMeth ... Yes!! Without contributions from our fans this could not have happened!! THANK YOU!
Fish De Meatshirt ... my new favorite handle, btw... Same question I gave to that Oscar fellow in Spain. How is it getting the show over there across the pond? Did you stream or download? Was it slow? Acceptable?
It's amazing that it streams even faster than the 1UP Show =)
congrat's y'all! that's really fucking awesome, the website looks sooooo much better, the show is awesome, the intro super tight. compliments from a calarts grad. i knew you guys would pull this off. you guys' story is very inspiring and a life lesson for everyone who may have lost faith in humanity, i mean it. in fact, that would be a good topic for the new "a life well wasted" from mr. ashley -- how you guys, rebel fm and geekbox, just regroupped after a nuke attack and rocked our faces off! but wow, you guys really managed even to get money, get paid!
this could only happen within the gaming community.
i love you guys! fuck yeah!
First off, huge congratulations! Second, what is the most preferable way to view CO-OP that yields you chaps at Area 5 the most profit? Downloading from Revision3, iTunes, etc?
Congraturation & thank you for delivering the great show. Seeing you guys are trying so hard to create something worthy&beautiful even in a tough situation gives me some kind of power. And I'm so happy I could hear Jane's voice again since her presense&character was one of the reason that I became fun of 1UP show several years ago. That opening scequence is beautiful. Rooting for you from Japan, Good luck! 幸運を！
Congratulations you guys! I'm so happy for you, and I just want to say thank you for always thinking of your fans. The show is amazing and I think you made everyone happy by bringing it back in such a timely manner with such high production values, updating us through the whole process. Again, thank you!
Great news guys. Going to watch it this Saturday in HD and I am really looking foward to many more.
After the opening music began to play, it felt like I was "going home". If that makes any sense. :p
Congratulations! ;)
Keep up the amazing job, guys! Everything was awesome!
this seems so fresh... and yet so familiar...
:o :D
fuck yeah just subscribed on zune marketplace
Congrats Area5 CREW!!! The partnership couldn't have been better!
Intro looks great, pixelated and at the same time in polished 3D models - awesome, the intro song hasn't grown on me yet, but neither did 1UP Show's one at first, after a while couldn't get it out of my head, it's probably going to be the case here as well.
The main show is entertaining and informative as usual, I loved how you separated ads from the main show, besides Squarespace one, but greater consistency would be better, regarding the ads that is, either separated from the main content or integrated, in case of the latter then make it entertaining, personal and informative, again like Squarespace one for instance.
You might want to put PayPal subscriptions or one time donations, like TRS guys do, so those of us who want and able to support you will be able to do so, it would be a nice backup financing plan for you, however big or small it might become.
Have you met with Louderback before when you worked at Ziff? Just curious, was he familiar with your work or other guys from Rev3 introduced your work to execs, like Patrick Norton or whoever? Also, since Garnett comes to guest host Tekzilla, would you get him on Co-Op as well?
If you interested, I'm in Switzerland at the moment and I downloaded your HD version of the show in 7 minutes and watched it through my AppleTV on HDTV and it looks phenomenal!
Keep up the good work and good luck!!
Hey, just watched the HD show via TVersity to my PS3. Great to finally see game reviews in HD on the big TV! I'm glad that you guys were able to power through the aftermath of the 1UPacolypse and come out the other side with a seemingly good situation. Congrats on the new deal, slick new show and site, and I will be looking forward to my weekly fix of Co-op.
I'm really happy to see this happen and bloom for you i really have no inspirational words all i can do is show gratification and enthusiasm and a big warm thank you keep up the good work.
P.S. the ending of Reflections Part 2 and Introducing the Band made me wanna cry it was perfect.
Maybe CO-OP doesn't need a theme song.
all I'm saying is, all least I skip the intro, but that represents your show... and it's kind of off putting.
I live in Sweden and wtach this show with big interest. There is NONE other game show that has the same quality or depth like yours. It's fantastic piece of work that you all started with 1UP Show and now keep on improving with CO-OP. I downloaded the HD version and it took about 15-20 minutes to have it ready I believe so there is no problems in downloading it speedwise if you have a good connection.
There was ONE thing that annoyed me during the program though. Is the quality of the picture different from time to time? When the Killzone 2 segment started the videoquliaty went down for me, quite a lot. Did you capture the Killzone 2 footage in HD too? Some times the material felt more grainy than other times. Any explanation for this? it's still gold but when I looked at it in HD I didn't expect to see such a nosedive in picture quality from time to time.
Keep up the good work! I will spread the word among gamers in Sweden! ^_^
Glad to see revision3 picked up the show, now I can download a large quicktime version. :)
Will you guys be adding the previous episodes to revision3 as well?
... Now if Revision3 would just take over DL.TV I'd have all my favorite podcast in one place.
love the new episode. DL straight from rev3 to the ps3, and the quality is good. it could be better, but you guys are still working out all the HD details i suppose. it looks alot better on my tv than the youtupe versions though :).
i only own a ps3 (not at all a fanboy, and i enjoy coverage of all games).
but, it was the perfect episode for me personally. as i'd spent most of the week playing...
killzone2 and noby noby boy, although NNB is losing it's excitement... maybe i need to be a dope smoker LOL *cough* *cough*
p.s. while i like the new look and layout of the site, i did prefer the old art, and color scheme more. and, why is it set to only display one post per page. that's kind of annoying. it should be multipost per page, with dedicated buttons for CO-OP, news, snacks, etc.
(are you still going to be doing snacks?)
Im happy for you all. The show is great and good to know you all are on your feet. I look forward to your next episode and want to mention MadWorld. It is a great game and think it would be great for a co-op episode. I think it will likely be the Wii's best title of the year. Anyway, keep up the good work.