Behind the Scenes: The Number 3 (111) (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the BTS of Episode 1+1+1=3... I hope you enjoyed it! This video was a lot of fun to work on. If you hadn't noticed, given how busy I've been in 2019 doing work on future projects, I've been trying some different stuff and having a play with the style a bit. This episode is a big part of that, with the culmination coming up very soon. But before that, let's take a look behind the curtain of how 111 was born!

----------------------------------------------

How did this episode come to be?
I've always been trying to find ways I could cover a large amount of unrelated games or topics within a single episode, under the same umbrella. While working on scripts for a 6-Part review series coming later in the year, I noticed that the 3rd game in a series is quite often a step down in quality, compared to the previous game. From there, I got distracted and moved on from working, to realizing that there are just as many '3' games that are superior. So I then did what anyone would do... I took the idea to Twitter!

I expressed my findings and much to my surprise, a lot of people had their own examples and discussions, really taking to the idea. And for the following week, I continued noticing even more strange patterns linked to the number 3. So again, I took to Twitter to throw the idea out that this could be the perfect topic for a video. I'm not big into conspiracy or fan theory videos so I thought this could be a fun way to spoof them with how crazy it could be, while also creating a genuine discussion on the topic and getting to fill a video, with a bunch of seemingly unrelated games!

Ideas and pre-production:
I started to take notes on as many things I possibly could, to the point where my desk was full up with random pieces of paper, wildly scribbled on like I was actually a mad man. The idea was to show as many examples of each scenario as possible, before going into some with a little more detail. Grand Theft Auto got the most attention in the end, as I was easily able to make A LOT of connections. And even though this video wasn't a review, it was nice to give the time to some games I normally wouldn't get to say much of, until I get the chance to review them. (I've got big plans for GTA, they'll happen some day. Think Hawktober, but with more story).

Unfortunately, Grand Theft Auto wasn't originally supposed to be the biggest star of the episode. Plan A was to do the last minute switch out, swapping Ratchet and Clank for the Red Dead games. However, I was originally going to come back around and look further into these games, as the debate between 2 and 3 was hot in the Twitter conversations. Plus it'd make for a funny, definitely unexpected part of the video. But in the end, I just didn't have as much to say about them as Red Dead. And with the video starting to get a bit long, it was just easier to cut it. Maybe some other time, sorry guys. It's for the best though, what I'd written wasn't even that good as I was just covering more of the same ground and getting nowhere.

The video branding process:
It's easy with a game review, to create intros and thumbnails to match. But for a weird, umbrella topic with no real ground to stand on, this was the part I had the most trouble with throughout the project. Mostly for the custom Square Eyed Jak title card at the beginning, so let's go over how this evolved...

This was my first idea. I wanted something simple and the idea I'd talked about with friends was having the 3 E's in SQUARE EYED JAK, glitched out and change to 3's instead. But as for everything else, I really didn't know. With the idea of 'glitch' on my mind, I started with some of the stock graphics from Watch_Dogs 2. I really like the aesthetic in that game and since the entire plot is exposing government conspiracies, it seemed to fit. I do like this starting point but as my friend Pete (Petronious on YouTube. Pete and I always bounce ideas off each other, especially in this area) pointed out, it just gave the impression of a Watch_Dogs related video. So I moved on...

Me being stubborn and not wanting to lose any progress, I decided to throw what I already had on top of a background of games that were the number 3 of their series. That way, it would be clear that we're talking about multiple games and not Watch_Dogs. But I hated this. It looked REALLY messy, embarrassingly awful so I scrapped it and took my lunch break.

It was at this point, I sat down to watch an old video from a channel called Nerd City that I stumbled across something that looked good and was also simple. Ideas I always struggle with in this area. I'm not a good graphic designer, I'm a good counterfeiter meaning I can make something decent ONLY with an original to copy...

I messed around with trying to use the same semi-transparent effects but I wasn't super happy with the results. So then I just started trying a bunch of other different effects and mixing in transitions and honestly, just trying to do anything to salvage the fucking thing. Until finally, I arrived at the final product. It's by no means my best work and it looks a little too dirty for my liking. But after a couple of hours doing this... it just had to be done.

Easter Eggs!
Now fair warning here, I'm going to be pointing out and spoiling, all of the little hidden secrets of the episode. So if you haven't watched it yet or don't want to know, skip this part!

.
.
.

Alright so some of the more obvious ones of course, is that it's Episode 111 and only the 3rd Episode of the 2019 season of videos. Both of those are pure coincidence but I just love how that happened. It was a big reason I wanted to make this video.

I think more obvious is the Illuminati all seeing eye quickly appearing in the intro... on top of the word EYE. Wow I'm clever! But along with that, I only realized after I'd written the script, that a triangle is a 3 sided shape. So when I'm investigating the 3 games I linked to the Mount Chiliad Mystery in GTA V, I place them in a triangle formation and literally draw out the 3 sides.

The entire video is based around 3 main points which are: Number 3 as the best, Number 3 starts the decline in quality and finally, game Number 3 may not even exist and if it does, it took a long time to get here.

Now onto some rules I set for myself in this video. You may have noticed... that I only said the word 'FUCK' 3 times! This was a post-script writing rule I went with, as I always check the count to see if I can cut back a little. I only had 5 to begin with. The first was in a quick camera segment I wanted to cut because it was unnecessary. So then I removed the other one that was right before another FUCK in the Ghostbusters Video Game piece. Brings the total number down to 3, which makes me very happy.

And the other rule I set, which is a little more subtle. Though I'm sure some people will have noticed it. I only used background music from Number 3 games: Ratchet 3, Mega Man 3, Crash 3, Spyro 3, Mario 3, Here Comes the Pain ( the 3rd Smackdown! game on PS2) and the black suit theme from the Spider-man 3 game, along with a couple of others.

The final one is a lot more basic and has nothing to do with the Number 3. When I'm talking about how confusing the Red Dead series numbering is, that entire segment was my little tribute to AVGN's Chronologically Confused video. One of my favourite lines of the entire video is the end of that: "Red Dead 3: Redemption 2... which is actually Redemption 1" I dunno, it's just such a weird and silly thing to give it such an officially accurate title.

.
.
.

---------------------------------------------- 

That's a WRAP!
Like I said at the top, I had a lot of fun on this one. It's just something different but trust me, I had a good laugh making all of these connections and even though it was difficult in areas, I haven't laughed so hard trying to do the voice over for a video in a long time! It was a rush to get it done on time, as I had to miss an entire day without warning. But even though the editing took longer than I expected, it got there in the end I think this may be one of my favourite discussion/essay type videos that I've done so far.

It's not a format I'm super comfortable with but I still enjoy having a go at something other than analytical game reviews, as much as I love to do them. So with that said, I hope you enjoyed the episode! Let me know what you thought of it and what you thought of all of this Behind the Scenes trivia. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great fucking day. Cheers guys! :D