We now present to you folks Episode 22 of Web Zeroes, Day in the Life of Diane, an episode whose title makes it quite obvious what the actual content of the show is about. This episode is not to be confused with another short where two machines talk to each other, though that is amusing as well.

Many thanks and kudos to my good-natured (and lovely) wife, who puts up with more than she ought to regarding our Web crazyness. This show constantly finds new ways to land close to home, and this episode really does kind of imitate what an average weekend is like for Jen. Minus actual hobos, though Miles does play the part a bit too well. This episode officially sets us up for the final arc of the season, and the next three episodes really build on one another until an epic and hopefully hilarious conclusion. I think you guys will like what’s coming, but then again, I say that all the time.

Over the next couple of weeks, you guys are going to start to see a few more updates around here, as I’ve been itching to get past my WZ writing so I can put in some good content for you. Look forward to that, which will include more lost TLW information, episode outtakes, and then some. In the meantime, hit the jump to see the episode!

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This past Sunday Nick and I were in Los Angeles and we thought it might be cool to get together with some fans of our work. We met at Kansas City BBQ in North Hollywood and Cristo, Max, and Theo showed up. We had a great time talking to them about all sorts of stuff ranging from music they like to the gut wrenching terror one feels when riding Tatsu at Magic Mountain. It was great to meet some people who liked what we do and hang out with them for a bit. Heres a picture for the guys.

Thanks for coming out, seriously.

download link (right click > save as)

-daniel out

The horse picture has nothing to do with the post, but came up as one of the top results for “beach” on Google, which gave me a hearty lulz. So, there you have it.

As I mentioned last week, we are actually on something of a late Spring Break from releasing Web Zeroes for the next couple of weeks. That’s not to say we aren’t still working on the show, which we totally are. So it’s not really much of a real break. How lame is that? Regardless of the nature of the break’s lameness, the show will resume on its normal release format on May 19th, so hold on to your butts until that moment.

I say that things are “wild” all the time, so I’m trying to expand my vocabulary in that regard a bit, but it’s shocking that we’re half way through the second season. We’re looking forward to getting the rest of it shot and delivered. It gets way more meta. Some won’t like that, I don’t think, but we are fans of meta things. Hell, Chet was always Meta Guy in Leet World.

In other random SFF related news, you may have missed the fact that we run a pretty awesome video game Web site known as GamerSushi. We’ve got a cool community over there, so come swing by. We just released our first podcast, too, which features SFF dudes Nick, JJ and myself. Go check it out.

You also might have missed Daniel’s appearance on Film Riot, another Revision3 show about film production and techniques. We shoot Web Zeroes on a Canon 7D DSLR. If you’re unaware, DSLR filmmaking is kind of a hot topic right now, as it enables people to shoot high quality projects for a relatively low budget. Daniel gives a pretty cool breakdown of how we do our audio process for the show, so it’s a nice behind-the-scenes look at Web Zeroes, if you’re interested. Daniel appears at the 6:40 mark.

Web Zeroes Season 2 is debuting this upcoming Wednesday, March 24th, which I’m hoping you guys have gathered courtesy of the last couple of blog posts. The first episode picks up a bit after the finale of Season 1, showing some of the aftermath of that episode’s zaniness. And it only gets weirder from there.

As I’ve said a million times, we can’t wait for this debut. I think all around, we learned a lot from last season, and really started to hit our stride in the second half. I’d like to think we’re not only picking up the story where we left it off, but the pace and tone of the show as well. Also, I love the look of the new camera. Kind of sweet. Hopefully all of you will agree.

This blog post’s title is borrowed from one of our favorite Leet World quotes, which is something that I’ve been thinking about ever since this awesome trailer that we linked last week. While it may seem a bit vain of us, we are quite fond of quoting our own material. I’m guessing that some of the stuff we like to joke around about differs from some of the things you guys do, so I thought I’d find out.

There are plenty more to add to this list at a later date, but here are some of our favorite quotes/moments…

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While we had some good times working on TLW, we have all moved past it, and are happy with what we produced. Since it’s so far in our rear view mirrors at this point, there is nothing that really makes us miss The Leet World. Except maybe this.

The trailer was cut by Daniel Sheehan, who we’ve linked to before for another sweet trailer he made during Season 2. Apparently, he used four clips from every. single. episode. Pretty impressive. Give the dude some love.

I know I said I’d update more, but my life is a bit of a mess right now, and I mean that in the absolute best way possible. Between work, writing for Web Zeroes, writing for GamerSushi, a powerful need to play Mass effect 2, doing some more personal writing, and my obsession with Lost’s final season, I’ve been a tad MIA lately.

However, the good news is that we started filming Season 2 of Web Zeroes last weekend, and so far, so good. I even brought some screenshots to prove it. I’m loving the look of the new footage we’ve shot on Daniel’s sexy new Canon 7D. It’s a great camera. Take a look and see for yourself.

We’re going to start on Episode 2 this weekend, and will keep hitting the grind until sometime during the Summer. The show starts in March, so it’s not too much longer before you guys will get to see what we’re working on.

In the meantime, who’s played Mass Effect 2? I kind of love it.

Well, here’s a late “Happy Christmas” to all of you guys from us here at Smooth Few Films: new Leet World outtakes!

I meant to have these things up on Christmas morning, but I got a bit distracted by how awesome my weekend was. For real. We’ve finished filming Web Zeroes (the season finale is out on Wednesday) so Daniel, Nick and I are getting to experience the now-awkward warmth of actual friendship for the first time in a long time. You know, playing Dungeons and Dragons, hanging out, Rock Band, etc. It’s the opposite of how our time is spent when we make this stuff, which usually involves family curses, tiger uppercuts and CQC.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these outtakes. They hail from Season 2 of TLW, Episodes 9 and 10. As such, there are no Leeroy lines as he was out adventuring in the Matrix Mordor. There are also plenty of things from Ty doing his Asher and Mendoza voices and even some beatboxing at one point, as well as lots of Daniel having fun with Adam Sizzler. Because honestly, who wouldn’t have fun with that guy?

Sizzlin’ indeed. Right click and “save as” to download this stalwart mp3 to your general desktop region.

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Enjoy!

A few weeks back, I posted a feature called The Lost TLW Factoids, which included bits and fragments of things that you guys never knew about your favorite Counter-Strike:Source machinima. We received lots of great feedback and some awesome questions. I didn’t quite get to some of those questions this time, but I do plan on it. I just thought these tidbits were a little juicier.

Here are some more lost TLW factoids.

• The clusterf*** of Episode 12. A little known fact about Episode 12 of Season 1- it was re-written no less than 3 times during filming. One of the earliest concepts of the episode actually included Ahmad assuming leadership of the Terrorists, because let’s get real, why would he let Cortez stay as the leader? This presented some funny ideas (like him making Cortez do the chores introduced in Ep 2), but ultimately we decided that we needed to get to the Ochos Muertos, because we had taken too long to bring them to the forefront. The original draft also didn’t involve the Domination Man, but we eventually included him just because we thought it would be cool. Which lead to other problems…

• The Domination Man’s Early Demise. Sometimes red herrings are cool. Other times they are not. Like when they distract you from the real plot and confuse the audience. While introducing the Domination Man to save Cortez in Episode 12, we ran into an unfortunate problem- most everyone that saw the episode thought that the Domination Man was in fact Mendoza. From a storytelling standpoint, this makes perfect sense. Leeroy is talking about Mendoza, Cortez’s brother, and then the very next scene, the Domination Man is heard while we see the logo of the Ocho Muertos, and then he saves Cortez. Suddenly, we were worried that Episode 13 wasn’t going to make any sense and that people were just going to assume for the rest of the season that DM and Mendoza were one in the same. So… we wrote a quick scene where Mendoza kills him. Boom, end of confusion.

• Leeroy’s Death. This was one that I regretted cutting from the story badly, but we just couldn’t make it work without it being stupidly confusing. Instead of getting kicked off the show by the Producer, Leeroy was going to be killed after the second challenge of Season 2, in either a crazy awesome explosion of his lair, or a shootout with Cortez. The death would send Westheimer spiraling into depression, and Ellis on the run at a slightly earlier time than he eventually did in the series proper. The twist? Leeroy had merely faked his death and went to study the death room. Cortez was in on it, too. We decided it was easier just to have him kicked off, because we thought that a fake death would lessen the impact of Ahmad’s sacrifice when it happened. Also, before we had fully fleshed out Leeroy’s arc for Season 2, it was going to be the Domination Man that appeared half dead on the house’s doorstep, spilling the Producer and Player’s secrets. Ever wonder why we didn’t show him getting shot?

• Darth Westy. When we did the initial brainstorming for the end of Season 2 and story for Season 3, we had 2-3 ideas that we toyed around with but ultimately scrapped. I’ll save the others for a later date, but one of them involved the house exploding with Westheimer trapped inside. The rest of the cast has fled, assuming him dead. Right before the credits roll, a half dead and burned Westy is found by the Producer, who kneels down and whispers, “Do not worry, Westheimer. We are going to fix you.” You can only guess who the main villain of Season 3 was going to be in that scenario.

Got any more questions that you’re curious about? Send them in, and let us know your thoughts on these new revelations. Also, we’ve got a new episode of Web Zeroes out tomorrow, so be sure to stop by.

This was my first semi-free weekend in ages. And what did I do? I spent some time putting together outtakes from Season 2 of TLW, Episodes 7 and 8. The lengths I go for you people!

It was interesting going back through these old audio files. One thing that we’ve never really done in outtakes is include bits where cast members have dropped spoilers as a joke. Now that the show is over, those boundaries are gone, so there are one or two of those sprinkled about. I’m also particularly fond of the Asher outtakes here, as well as Ben’s constant surprise when he reads jokes for the first time. He became a tad fixated on the idea of Cortez’s extra balls, but aren’t we all?

So, listen and partake in a couple of lulz. I know I did. Right click and save as to download. And as things typically go with goofing around, the language is more than likely NSFW.

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In other news, Episode 4 of Web Zeroes is out on Wednesday. Probably my favorite episode so far.

Thanks for all of the feedback on Episode 1 of Web Zeroes. We’re looking forward to the release of Episode 2 on Wednesday. It’s hard to believe that we’ve already shot 7 of those things, and I’m writing the 8th for this upcoming weekend. The whole thing has been a crazy learning process for all of us at SFF, and hopefully you guys stick with us through it.

I was thinking the other day about The Leet World and doing a bit of reflecting on the Counter-Strike machinima that was, and I remembered some cool pieces of commentary that I’ve been wanting to share with you guys. Normally, this kind of stuff would come up in a podcast, but as we haven’t had any time to ourselves lately, I thought it’d be good to go ahead and post it.

Here are some lost TLW factoids for you to nom on.

• Player was originally going to be a girl. Yes, how very Spriggs (and Red vs Blue, come to think of it) of us. I’m not sure when the decision was made. Somewhere in the middle of making the first episode, we felt that if Player ever got a voice, the voice would have to be funnier than what he already was. We decided we could never top him as he has always existed in the show, so he stayed voiceless and male-ish.

• Asher’s original name was Jenkins. As many have surmised, Leeroy, the World of Battlelore player extraordinaire, was named after Leeroy Jenkins. As even more of a nod to the classic video, we were going to name Asher as “Jenkins”. We eventually changed this idea so that people wouldn’t start assuming that Leeroy and Asher were twins, seeing as how they shared the same model. Asher’s actual name is a reference to Ash, the android in Ripley Scott’s Alien.

• Westheimer was going to be Chet’s father. This is one that I’m still kind of sad we ditched. For whatever reason, we chunked it by the end of season 1, but Westheimer was intended to be Chet’s father. This adds even extra humor to Chet’s lamentation in Episode 5 about never knowing his father.

• Ahmad’s original murderer? The Producer. After Asher detonated (inside the warehouse instead of outside), the gang was going to leave the burning building behind, assuming Ahmad’s demise was inevitable. He is eventually found by the Producer and some Noonien soldiers. Ahmad reaches to the Producer for help and is shocked when Prod pulls out a silenced pistol, executing him amidst the rubble of de_nuke. The Producer simply walks away, ordering the soldiers to “Clean up this mess”. As awesome as this would have been, it was just a little bit too brutal and far less heroic for our lovable noob.

There are plenty more where those came from. Feel free to send in your questions about The Leet World, I’d love to give out more information like this. And come back on Wednesday for more Web Zeroes!