In a move hailed by some as the most complimentary pairing since peanut butter met jelly, CO-OP is now on
Revision3! There's a lot to talk about. More after the show:
Yes, 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.
matt chandronait
