BTS - Simpsons Skateboarding (154) (Patreon)

G'day shrimps, sorry these Hawktober BTS posts have been slow to get out. Still battling with incredibly inconsistent internet but I'm still working on them. Today we're gonna discuss the Simpsons Skateboarding episode which is a video I wanted to make for the longest time. It performed strongest out of the entire week special which was expected and many have said it's a new favorite of theirs, which makes me real happy. So let's get into it!

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How did this episode come to be? Given there were only 3 Disney skateboarding themed games for the special, I knew that wouldn't be enough. I'd wanted to play the game for myself for so many damn years that I was getting impatient, so with Disney now owning The Simpsons, it seemed to still fit in the mix quite well. My copy of the game had been donated to the channel by a subscriber so that too, was something to help make it just that little more special for me.

Playing the game: Like most of my content in 2021, I streamed the gameplay on Discord to my partner. He was present for the first half of the game and holy shit did we laugh. It actually reached a point of starting to hurt, especially as the glitches and fucked shit started to occur so much more frequently. Hearing SHREDOPHILE for the first time is a memory I'll never forget and he is also responsible for pointing out that Ralph was always hanging around in the sewers, which I think is just a funny observation. Had to include it. But as the game continued, I grew less fun and more aggressive towards it which only made him laugh even more. I think it may be the first time he actually said "wow, it really feels like I'm dating Square Eyed Jak" which was funny for like 2 seconds until I struggled and cracked the shits with the climbing grinds in the Sir-Putt-A-Lots level. Oh my god. Nightmare shit.

Logos and Artwork! Because I only really had time to make one logo for Hawktober, the classic Disney intro. I didn't really know what I was gonna do for the Simpsons episode. I had considered the 20th Century Fox logo but it's quite out of my depth to try and recreate that myself. But it also felt SO WRONG to have the Disney logo proceed a Simpsons game. So in the end, I recycled my old Simpsons logo from when I covered the mobile games a few years ago, touched a few things up and it was brand new!

For the thumbnail, I once again hired the very talented Ari who did my Road Rage artwork earlier in the year. They're incredibly talented and a gem to work with. So I'll just show you some of the very rough concepts and mood boards I sent them and some of their WIP until the final product.

So these were the rough ideas I sent off just to show what I was looking for, with some poses in the art style. Fun tip: if you wanna commission artists, it's always best to do be as clear as possible with your vision and do a lot of the reference work for them so that they don't need to go hunting, it'll give them more time to focus on their artwork! 😊

For the logo itself, I searched high and low for a similar font but nothing came close, meaning that I had to frankenstein myself new letters using pre-existing pieces of the original text. This is a method I used to hate doing because I found it always looked messy but I've grown attached to it the more varied logos I find myself working on, because sometimes it's just a necessary evil. But I like to think that I've also gotten much cleaner working in this way.

Production time!
The video was written differently to other episodes in Hawktober this year. Given I went to the extra effort to play through the entire game, I really wanted to capture what that experience felt like level by level. It's not too often I go through each level and give critique, while still reviewing the boarder game as a whole but honestly... it was the right call in my opinion. I feel like it really made the episode feel a lot more natural as opposed to the unjustified frustration myself and many others often fall into the trap of. Pacing my issues out and bringing them up at their worst cases within levels, such as the inexcusable grinding mechanics in the levels that are plagued by it just makes sense. And details such as EXCELLENT-tastic and SCREAM-tastic is something it took me a while to even notice, so I waited to bring it up in the video. It was a video that was very easy to write, so much material to work with and I wasn't afraid to let it run longer as I knew the video could easily hit 30 minutes if needed. 

Filming the episode was a very rushed process as I was running out of time late into September at this point and I wanted to go take a week holiday to visit my partner. The thing is with such funny and fun episodes like this, they're a breeze to edit because I get to laugh and recall everything that happened from a viewers perspective I guess. Seeing my vision for the episode after so many years come together really made me happy working on it.

Copyright conflicts!
The original intro, I wanted it to be a bit punchier and include that same punk rock aesthetic of the Pro Skater franchise. The original edit of the episode featured the Green Day Rock remix of the Simpsons theme from The Simpsons Movie which is honestly the best version of the theme I've ever heard and it REALLY pumped up the intro, setting up to a highly anticipated review on the channel. Unfortunately, it was instantly struck with content ID on YouTube. Even my usual tricks around this didn't help so I was just forced to use the Hit & Run theme. It's one of those little things NOBODY would notice or even care about watching the video but it pissed me off honestly. Music for Hawktober can just be a real pain sometimes.

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That's a WRAP!
Well that's everything I have to say people. Going into Hawktober with such low momentum on the channel definitely impacted the performance on this one but as I mentioned, it was the strongest performing episode of the week which was very welcome. So I'm very glad everyone enjoyed it as Simpsons games are always a lot of fun to discuss!

Anyway thanks so much for reading. If you have any further queries, please don't be shy. I promise I'll try to get the final Hawktober BTS post up ASAP so until then, I hope you all have a great fucking day. Cheers guys! 👍