Category Archives: Extras

The Lost TLW Factoids, Part 2

tlwpromo1A 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.

Return of the Outtakes

mic-audioThis 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.

http://www.smoothfewfilms.com/extras/tlw207208outtakes.mp3

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

The Lost TLW Factoids, Part 1

magnifying-glassThanks 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!

FAQ’in Around

faqIt really is nice to have the Web Zeroes announcement out in the open. We’ve been working our butts off on the rebooted version of the series for a couple of months now to make the Fall release date.

The support coming in from you guys and from other places has been really awesome for us, especially after giving our all to get that TLW Finale up. Thanks for that. We even got some nice props from Burnie Burns, of a little outfit known as Rooster Teeth.

In recent days, JJ has updated the trusty SFF FAQ page. We’re still taking some questions, so send them in. A few of you have been asking some questions about the new show. So I thought I’d answer those and a few more below the jump:
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Announcing: Web Zeroes on Revision3!

We’re excited to announce that Web Zeroes is coming next month to Revision3!

For some of you, the cat has already been out of the bag since the newest episode of Diggnation aired last night, but the rest of you can still be surprised. If you’re unaware, Rev3 is the king of awesome Internet television content like Totally Rad Show, Film Riot, Co-Op and then some. Those of you that already watch their stuff can easily attest to that.

As for our show, this is going to be a slightly rebooted version of Web Zeroes, hence the removal of the episodes from our site. I can’t go into a whole lot of detail about it just yet, but for now, you should go watch the new Web Zeroes trailer over at Revision3! This is a huge opportunity that we’re extremely pumped about. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on.

Go watch the trailer!

More Community Spotlights

batman-spotlightOne thing that we love doing is watching things that dudes from the community have made concerning our ridiculous library of Smooth Few Films work. It’s baffling to us that people like what we do enough to spend their own free time making a tribute to it.

Before, we’ve posted some community favorites of ours, so I thought I’d repeat that again with some new links that we found recently.

Check these out:

  • Day in the Life of a Turret piano cover. Though sometimes YouTube can be a pit of despair, there are plenty of dudes that make it worth it to be there, such as David Debono, who has an awesome video of him playing Nine to Five, the song from our Portal video. We were hanging out last week during our shoot when Jace found this video and promptly freaked out, he was so excited.


  • TLW Season 2 trailer. A pretty impressively put-together trailer for our 2nd season. While it’s not heavy on effects and such, the guy just did a great job of researching through the season and finding some great lines. The clips are organized really well and the trailer kind of pumped me up a little for the finale, even though I know how it ends.


  • TLW Typography. This one needs almost no explanation. It kind of made me a lulz bandit.

So yeah, view those guys for some awesome tributes. We have some hearts for them. And if you have anymore things that you want to draw our attention to, send them over.

Oh, and if you’re wanting a TLW Finale update, our target is still this upcoming week. Probably later rather than sooner. Also, everyone dies. Not really. But maybe.

Reunion-ing

filmThis weekend marked the second time that Smooth Few Films has been together in the 2 years since The Leet World started, and we had ourselves a good time. A hard, busy, working-like-burros time, but a good time nonetheless. Mr. Dangerous, Jace Ford himself, flew down from California to bring his expertise and his music to the new project and the finale. Our webmaster and co-writer JJ also drove in from Austin.

We used the holiday weekend to beat the new project like it stole something from us (ex: our lives), putting in four consecutive twelve hour work days. We also talked Final Fantasy 7, video game music, argued about making a cooler of beer look awesome, and ate lots of queso.

Signing deals means deadlines, and we are rushing like crazy to meet them. In all honesty, we probably shouldn’t be working on the TLW Finale at all to make sure that we hit these mystical lines of death, but we are doing so whenever we can spare an instant, just for you guys, since we think you’re cool. We’ve barely been able to make much progress on it in the last two weeks. That being said, the Finale should be out some time next week. Or at least, that’s what we’re gunning for. Feel free to woot.

If you’re curious about what our weekend looked like, hit the jump to see some pictarz of our SFF Reunion. Jace is the wild one that looks like an animal.
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Screenshot World, Yeah

Thanks for all of the congratulatory posts regarding our news from last week. I really wish I could tell you guys some more, but unfortunately, that cat has to remain in the bag for just a little while longer. All I can say is that this new project is already starting to eat up all of our time, and will continue to do so for months to come. Funny enough, we are managing to put one time sucker to rest in exchange for a shinier one.

It is impacting the series finale (and already affected Episode 13) in a few ways, mainly in that it’s taking longer to make. We’re getting pretty close to being done filming it completely, and as I said before, I’ll let you guys know when we’re about a week away from release.

In the meantime, check out some new screenshots. They contain images of machinima ownage and dudes shooting at other dudes.

tlw214_ss4 tlw214_ss5 tlw214_ss6

Also, has anyone seen District 9? I’m planning on going this weekend and I keep hearing great things. I have a condition where I ache to see awesome sci-fi action, and the movie appears to be able to scratch my itch in a meaningful way.

Unlucky Screens

Just wanted to stop in and give a quick update about the progress of Episode 13, part 1 of the series finale. It’s mostly in the can, with post production left in front of it. It should be out next week at some point. Don’t hold me to that, though. We all know how I hate magical binding contracts. Especially when it comes to picking release dates.

In other news, Daniel finally returns this weekend. He’s been living it up and having fun in other places (read: touching butts) while Nick and I slave away at Leet World. But don’t worry, we’re not bitter. Much. Regardless, we’ll be glad to have him back. There might be group hugs and/or beers to celebrate.

Besides all that, we’re already working on stuff for Episode 14, which is part 2 of the series finale and hugely massive. Anywho, here are some screenshots from Episode 13.

tlw213_ss1 tlw213_ss2 tlw213_ss3

Enjoy. Also, if you haven’t been reading Anthony’s Phantasy Star game blogs over at GamerSushi, you are seriously missing out on some hilarious video game writing.

Where the Magic Happens

tlwsetupNick and I have been hard at work on the series finale, parts 1 and 2 for the last couple of weeks. We’re hoping to release them close together, but we haven’t quite decided on how that will go down yet. We have a limited amount of time to finish all of this, and we’re working our butts off to do so. You’ll get the first screenshots this weekend or early next week.

I know that some of you long timers have seen some of our setup pictures before, but I thought it would be cool to talk about again. For those of you that don’t know, TLW isn’t made inside of a studio, but rather, in my spare bedroom, with a total of 6-7 computers, depending on what’s working at the time. That’s machinima for you.

Ideally, we’d show this in the making of video we’ve been wanting to do, but that’s been put on hold indefinitely while we try to finish this darn show. Anywho, there’s a general overview, with pictures, after the jump.
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