BTS - Ty GBA Games (130) (Patreon)

Hello people, here we are finally taking a look behind the scenes of the Ty the Tasmanian Tiger GBA Games episode, also referred to as the Nightmare Episode! Let's not waste any time and get into it!

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Ideas and Pre-production:
Like I've mentioned previously, one of the big goals for this series was to try and have each episode look visually different, to replicate the large variety of locations we see in the games. But with limited locations to use, I decided that I nighttime episode would be a simple way to introduce some of that variety. It also worked well with the adventure story trope of being lost on your own, as well as the horror themes that were introduced to the narrative later on.
This episode actually went through 3 full revisions, which is rare for me. The first draft I was happy with, up until the trailer for the series review premiered on YouTube. I saw a lot of people saying things like "holy shit, this is going to get real crazy" and I looked at what was supposed to be THE crazy episode and thought... "damn, it's not crazy enough!" So keeping majority of the review writing the same, the second version was written to include far more interaction between Jak and the Whisperer. There was a lot of dialogue, I went all out on the wacko stuff until I felt like it was up to par.

The problem now however is that I had to take a break away from working on the series. When i came back, I was a very exhausted broken man looking for a way out, so while still quite heavy. The 3rd and final revision was written to cut as much unnecessary crazy out, as well as streamline what work needed to be done. I'd also had the new idea that instead of just talking about Ty 3 on GBA. That the whisperer would attack much earlier on in the episode and dive into Jak's mind, as that was the only place where the Thylacine was still alive. This again added a new visual element to the episode, featuring some regular segments within my normal setup that wasn't seen anywhere else in the series.

Filming Choices (Night time and Green Screen):
The big issue with filming night time stuff is lighting, it just looks bad when you don't have the correct equipment. So instead I opted to film during the daytime and blast it with effects. I've never done this before and while I think it turned out ok, it definitely could have been better. There were inconsistencies both in the effects itself, but also the natural lighting across the various days of shooting.
This episode was filmed in December of 2019 over 6 sessions: 3 of which were the night scenes and the weather went from overcast and cool, all the way up to the high 30's celsius and sunny as all hell. So for that reason, you can see many differences across all of the different footage in both the final product and the original RAW files.

Now if you can't tell from these shots, my main actor for the role of the Whisperer is actually not in this shot. Since the actor playing the Whisperer is my Uncle who is a bit older, I thought it would be a lot more efficient if we filmed all of the chase scenes with my cousin standing in for him, then any shots where you could see the face, we'd do on the green screen. As far as making things as simple to shoot, this was actually a god send. It would have been unrealistic to get my Uncle (who has poor eyesight by the way) out here doing all this running around. It was a little bit of extra work to cover the face in shots where it's not him but I think it was a solid decision in the end. Combining the green screen with these night time effects was also no worse than the real shots so I was happy with the mix between these two methods.

BLOOD!
To really sell the horror element of this episode, of course we needed a lot of blood. Plus it made for a strong contrast against the deep blues of the night scenes. The one problem with this blood though... is that it legitimately got me high!
One of the key ingredients in the recipe is cocoa powder which when sorted, gives the same effects of a mild ecstasy. What's interesting is that it also likes to pool over your nostrils, meaning you're basically huffing that stuff the entire time it's on you... and I was COVERED in the stuff!

The story idea for the blood was that the Whisperer's vice grip or whatever, was essentially burning Jak. I took a lot of inspiration from the Harry Potter films for the imagery in this episode and of course, in Philosopher's Stone, Harry's touch to Voldemort burns away his skin and chars him to dust. My version of that was blood and I am REALLY happy with how a lot of these visuals turned out in the final product, even if I did have to get high to capture them. After about 20 minutes of laughing, I had a real come down off the high which made me hyper focussed on getting the work done... which no joke, is an additional side effect of this high. The chase stuff with the whisperer appearing and disappearing was inspired by the Death Eaters apparating in Deathly Hallows, I wanted some smoke effects to go along with it but I was so fed up with the project at this time, I didn't even try to go there.

The ending where I cough up the blood was an idea I had literally the night before filming the scene. I just thought it would look really awesome and help sell the idea that I'd been under an evil spell for weeks. It's really gross to look at in HD fullscreen but I was really proud with how it just amplified the peak of the narrative for the series.

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That's a WRAP!
That mostly does it for the intricacies of this episode, without going into crazy detail about menial unimportant shit anyway. Of all of my projects, Ty is definitely the largest and hardest to complete. But this GBA episode is one of my favourites that I've ever done. From developing the crazy ideas and writing all the insane dialogue. Filming in good weather with good people helping me and getting high on my creation. It's one I'm incredibly proud of on almost every front and while there are a lot of things I wish could have worked out better, this is probably my last masterpiece on this scale for a while.

So thank you all so much for giving this a read and supporting the project. Sorry this post took so long to get out, I promise the blog for Ty 4 will be up very soon so keep your eyes peeled for that. I AM ALSO LOOKING FOR QUESTIONS FOR THE WHISPERER for the upcoming Making-of documentary on the series. So if you'd like to know his perspective on anything particular in regards to the project, please leave some questions below.

Anyway thanks for reading and I hope you have a great fucking day, cheers guys!