The Review Must Not Go On.

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Will “Critiquing the Critics” return?

Please keep in mind that this was a “joke” video and isn’t intended to really insult anyone, except maybe myself. It’s very crudely edited, but it was fun to make and fun to watch. The ending was shot in my old room because I forgot the webcam at Mom’s house so couldn’t do it in my room. The house was too crowded to do it in the computer room.

I’m thinking of buying a better camera and finding a new location. To watching/clicking on ads helps, as I tend to use money I make for video producing stuff. The lighting in my ‘computer room’ scenes is odd because I was trying to be a little moody. The last scene I filmed was the POV shot when I’m looking in that location. I liked how the music (taken from Doug’s video) fit that scene, lol.

Whether you liked Doug’s video or not (I thought it was alright), there’s no denying that the music was pretty amazing.

I was not expecting to actually go through with this. As I said in the video, I was gathering footage for the re-review, only to see an advertisement for that. I watched the video and found it reasonably enjoyable. Some of the cameos worked (Brad), others not-so-much (Nella) and I’m pretty sure Linkara was ripping me off with his ‘talking props’ gimmick. First Phelous and now him? Man, TGWTG just needs to come out and say that I am a major source of inspiration for them (kidding, kidding). Doug is a good performer though and I will admit that some parts are moving or hilarious.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to do. My script was closely tied in with the Critic retiring the character and I would look like a jack-ass if I just went off that. Furthermore, I only added Doug to the list in honor of him ending the Nostalgia Critic. I was mildly annoyed that I wasted so much time in preparation, especially considering how far behind I am. But I also have to confess that I’m sorta looking forward to his return. As I said, I’ll reserve judgement.

I’ve planned on many videos that I simply cancelled because I didn’t like where they were going. I was considering an in-depth review of AVGN’s “Rob the Robot” video (Asalieri beat me to it), a rant-vid where I discussed the RPG Fanatic’s descent into insanity (I just didn’t like how it came out, so deleted it) and my infamous “Halloween II” review (I filmed like 3 hours worth of footage that I don’t want to edit). During my early stages of planning this, I was pretty sure it would suffer the same fate. My early drafts were thrown together on the day Doug released his video and I didn’t think my parody was very funny. I decided to return to it the next day and if I was more enthusiastic about the material, I would proceed.

I thought about it during work, wrote a few more notes when I returned and the next day….I was pleased. Originally, I would copy almost every scene- just abridge it- but I re-tooled the project so I was doing my own thing. I was considering asking a few people to cameo, but also decided against it. I was thinking of Spazzmaster (whom I haven’t worked with in quite some time) playing the role that Linkara filled. If not him, then maybe Diamanda Hagan or Robert Million. I decided against this primarily due to time and a possible conflict of interest. Spazzmaster has slowed down his output considerably, Robert Million was likely busy with the Golden Critic Awards and Diamanda Hagan is a TGWTG reviewer. While my parody wasn’t intended to be an attack, I didn’t want to risk bringing her into any controversy. But most importantly, I wanted the video to be completed in a day and I doubted there would be enough time to get them involved. So I decided to bring back my age old Nemesis, myself.

This was problematic as the last time I fought with myself (when I reviewed myself), some complained that it was kind of confusing. How do I clarify which me is…me. Obviously the computer room would be the proper location when playing ‘the creepy bald guy’. My old room would make a nice setting for ‘overlong, quasi-boring v-logs’, since I usually film those there anyway. This left my room for me and I reluctantly decided to use my old room to be the setting for my conversation with the ‘linkara’ stand-in. Originally I was going to parody the Linkara-talks-to-his-props gag. I would say something like.

– Now I have to go fight MechaMartial, who wants Malachite’s hand again.

Or something that would make it seem like Im ripping him off. I decided against it for time purposes (I couldn’t decide what storyline I wanted to parody). I decided to target just about everyone else- from Spoony’s Twitter-rants to the Irate Gamer Sucks blog. Obviously I don’t hate anybody, but the Irate Gamer Sucks Blog has become obsolete and kind of creepy. I wouldn’t mind if they just targeted bad reviewers and maybe the Irate Gamer would be a re-occurring topic, but now they’re just resembling E-stalkers. They made a perfect stand-in for Douchey. I was trying to think of something to say where I could satirize James Rolfe, but nothing came to mind.

I filmed the scenes in my old room first, which turned out to be more troublesome than I expected. But I eventually finished and started editing. The footage came out fine and I started to film the scenes in the computer room next. It was getting dark, so I used my softbox light. I liked the almost ‘moody’ effect, but I now regret doing that as it just looks like it was bad lighting. I edited those scenes and returned home to do the rest in my room and hopefully complete the editing process. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to fully transfer the project, so my deadline wouldn’t be met. The scenes at home would be the most difficult to film and took about 2 hours. I nevertheless saved the footage and went back to my Mom’s house, where I would finish editing.

Then I realized I had cut the footage so tight that I was messing up words. After practically re-editing everything when I noticed an awkward gap, I realized that Thursday was wasted. Friday was a bad day for me to work, so I didn’t and swore to finish on Saturday. Happily, I completed it! But then I remembered that I needed to record me talking about how the re-review was cancelled. Shit! So I did that (I forgot my headphones at home, but had to work from Mom’s, so I just went old-school with my crappy camera. Believe it or not, my webcam might look better, but it sounds like ass), but kept stumbling. I ultimately decided to redo a scene I had originally cut out, where I say how mean my fans are and how Doug was obviously parodying me. However, I lost my train of thought, but liked the take so much that I decided to just use an edit. Then I had planned on saying that my fans would either

1) Devour him like piranha

2) Attack him, because my fanboys are robots, programmed to target anyone who spoofs me.

3) Rape him.

I was planning on using one of the above, but for some reason, decided to use them all at once. The look of confusing you see is genuine, as I wonder ‘wtf’ I had just said. But that was off-script, so why not just use another edit. Finally I finished at the END OF THE DAY and released it.

So far, the reception has been positive and I’m glad that people like it.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/#/MartialHorror

To watch Doug’s video: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/38009-the-review-must-go-on