Super Meat Boy Commercial: Behind The Meat
cesar quinteroWe’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.
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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.
Reader Comments (8)
Awesome, I was excited when I noticed the chef was Ryan while checking the trailer out for the first time. After a long wait I'm loving the game so far. Great job guys.
I love how the clean version is the un-aired one. It should be banned. "Officials deemed the clean cut inappropriate...".
OUTSTANDING work guys! Really professional. You guys are the best.
Well that certainly was disgusting, alright.
AWESOME
Well that was quite a sight to see! Excellent work guys! I look forward to seeing what other pieces you churn out. ;)
I have a sudden craving for meat right now.
Ryan, I could totally see you having a career as a chef in a videogame. Particularly a video game involving the mafia...
Cooking Mafia - Co-Op edition
Love the ad, hopefully it will sell some meatboy's and lead to more cool deals for you guys.