BTS: Extinction - The Tasmanian Tiger (116) (Patreon)

G'day cobbers, hope all is well! It's so exciting to finally see this Ty the Tasmanian Tiger series begin after a lot of hard work. As of writing this first post.. it's STILL not even fully finished yet, but it'll definitely get there before you know it. Now I will be having a new one of these Behind the Scenes posts for each episode as they release, so be sure to keep an eye out for those. And I'll also have a more full, overall video Making-of episode when the series is completed, which you'll all have early access to. I expect that'll be released later in the year (Nov, Dec). So with all that out of the way, let's get into it!

(Strap in, there is A LOT to cover!)

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How did this episode come to be? This entire series begun development back in January of 2018 and was initially only going to be a 5-Part saga. The initial concept for the series was to try and combine the analytical/comedic video game review format with a documentary style (or more accurately, a mock-umentary) with an over arcing story line. I thought it'd be cool to try and genuinely teach people on a subject I'm familiar with, while also making something that could be entertaining as well. However, I was worried that most of the world probably wouldn't even know what a Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine was, so I decided to include an introductory episode on top of that. Just something much easier to digest that gets a lot of the important information across, to try and help people keep up with me.

Influence for the episode and the character! Obviously the style I'm going for here is the cliche Australian Bush Ranger stereotype: Steve Irwin, Crocodile Dundee, Russell Coight was actually quite a strong influence as well. Put simply "what does the rest of the world think Australia is all about?" and that's what I went for!

As for the general structure of the episode itself, this was taken from another YouTuber known as 8 Bit Brody who I highly recommend you check out. He has a lot of videos going around interviewing people and being extremely awkward, often at game conventions but also in public. While I was developing ideas for the documentary style introduction episode, it seemed like a perfect fit to actually go out and try to interview people as a fun segment for the video. Immediately, it sets this episode apart from everything else I've ever made which is always something I strive for with the more involved projects! Before this episode actually existed, all of this going around interviewing people would have taken place within the first game review. I don't see how that could have worked without feeling like an over-complicated mess, so that was a great decision looking back!

The FIRST DAY of shooting:
"Interviews in town" was the very first thing that we filmed for the entire project, which was on the 27th of April, 2019...

***It was a fucking disaster!***
First of all, it was a Saturday. In Launceston, that means nobody is really in town because most people only go out if they have to. And especially given it was an overcast, cold and cloudy day, the general mall area where we were filming was essentially empty. On top of that, I learned the hard way how difficult it is going up to random people on the street and asking them about stupid shit they don't care about. The first person we asked did actually get featured in the episode, who responded "Fuck knows" to the question, which I had to use. But after about 2 hours of walking around, trying to get footage, we only asked about 3-4 other people. All of these people either didn't want to be filmed, or just didn't have good answers to use in the video. And as a result, we wasted precious hours I'm still trying to make up even though the episode is out at this point.

We were still able to have some fun but it was a day that really crushed my spirits and motivation to even work on the project. 

The second filming day:
Thankfully, our second effort was SO much more successful! At this point, it was actually the 5th of July. The 2 months between filming was an incredibly wild and complicated time where I really believed, that this interview concept would just have to be cut... and the ENTIRE EPISODE rewritten so close to deadline!
I'm so glad we didn't give up and gave it a second go though, because almost everyone we asked delivered some amazing content. And again, we had a lot of fun filming and continued filming into the Gorge. A solid 80-85% of the episode was filmed that day and after months of turmoil, it was so satisfying to come home and start editing immediately!

Not to mention, just look at these pictures. You can tell that the second effort was so much fun and how much healthier I was feeling that day! :)

Original plans and how/why they were changed!
Here is a list of some of the major changes that were made during the writing of the episode, as well as on the go while filming:

• The video was initially going to go more in-depth with the history of Tasmania. There would have been a lot of specific details of the Thylacine that aren't all that necessary for the general viewer. The history lesson crap was cut purely because there was no interesting or funny way to talk about it and as a result, the overall pace of the video was effected. 
• Interviews were going to include a lot more questions! I had a large variety of questions prepared that you can see below. After the first failed attempt at filming, I just decided to keep it as simple as possible with a YES or NO, on whether or not people believed they're still out there. It's the entire grounds that the series is based on, so it's the only information actually relative to everything yet to come.

You can also see where I've written notes of random ideas that come to me, so I can try to include those. Of note, responding with "Well that's pessimistic" which made it into the final episode. The walking through the crowd saying G'Day to everyone was cut simply because there was no crowd of people.

• There was also going to be a SECOND interview segment at the Gorge. The problem with filming at the Gorge in July is that it's winter. Locals aren't around and tourists don't really know enough to give decent responses. So we didn't try, it was simply cut to keep the video length as short as possible.
• Without interviews in the Gorge, the lead in joke had to be altered. Because the episode was written during the Summer time when locals are actually visiting the area, the original lead in was "These days, the only things you'll find roaming the land up here are some peacocks... and some bogans!" -Begin Interview-
  
  But without any bogans (locals) actually being at the gorge to interview, the line was changed to "...you'll only find some peacocks, some wallabies and occasionally... a rugged, manly explorer!" If you refer again to the question sheet above, you can see one of the joke question I originally wanted to ask people was "Does this outfit make me look rugged and manly?" just to get some funny reactions for the video. Given I thought it was a good line, I re-purposed it to hide the lack of a second interview segment.

Hollywood Magic!
To end this off, here is just a fun bit of trivia from the episode. Since all of the audio was captured with a discreet clip on, lav microphone. I needed some kind of mic to actually hold up for the interviews. SO, I clipped the mic onto the back of my RODE camera microphone shield... then put that onto a screwdriver to form a makeshift, interviewers microphone! xD

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That's a WRAP!
Let me repeat myself: I am so glad that we didn't give up on this episode. The end result is something I'm incredibly proud of as it's quite different to what I normally put out. My cousin Beau did an excellent job filming for me and if it wasn't for 8 Bit Brody then I may have never been so inspired to make a video in this style! Once the series is over with, there will be a solid chunk of un-released moments from this episode and all of the others. So you'll get to see first hand a lot of what I'm talking about here.
But until then, thank you so much for reading and have a great fucking day. Cheers guys!