Director's Commentary

World of Offline Gaming was a video that was almost never made, actually. Javad, Adele and I were sitting around during a reading for Idle Dreams, when the conversation sidetracked to World of Warcraft, which Javad and I were (and still are) quite nuts about. So we were telling her about the annoying people who populate that game, and the things they do that piss us off. It was then I got the idea to make a short video about what would happen if people behaved like that in real life.

Fast forward a month or so, and Pete & Dave are over from Sydney for a holiday and we decided to shoot something to submit to Tropfest. We actually intended to shoot a Foot-skating documentary, parodying the elitism of skaters. However, while poking around the net we discovered to our horror that some fools have already taken the Foot Skating idea and made something really dumb out of it. Not only that, but they had it released on MTV as well!

So after all our brainstorming and planning, we had to think of something else to do because fuck if we're going to make another Foot Skating video after some dumbasses bastardized the idea and put it on TV... I don't want to have to hear some little kid write to me complaining that I stole the idea.

Then I pulled out the Woog idea, and we immediately set about planning for it. I've already had the concept pretty thought-out in my head, so it didn't take long to storyboard and write the various scenes and chapters. The three of us hit Toys R Us and gathered the various weapons and props, sparing no expense to have the nicest equipment we could get for under $50, and then gathered the regular gang for the shoot.

This all happened pretty quickly as Pete & Dave wasn't going to be in Singapore for long, and then the first preview of the video was up within a few days. Then the 2nd more complete version came up... and then the usual thing happened and I stalled big time. Without a deadline to keep me focused, I got pretty lazy and started sidetracking to other projects like Drew Kombat and leveling my Troll Priest.

This all changed when Jo decided to take control and start dishing out deadlines to me. As the new producer she kept me in check and made sure I got things organized and done (with many many threats), and before long I had new high res color images to go with the video, a brand new chapter to add a bit more length, and a whole lotta polish to the overall package.

So now it's done, and it's looking quite pretty. We can't host the video up or anything because of some Tropfest rules, so bear with us for a while. In the meantime, do check out the stills and download some wallpaper featuring your favorite characters in full-color glory!

Update: We didn't make it into Tropfest after all... oh well... guess the gamers don't quite control the world yet.

Further update: After Woog got posted up on various online hosting sites (especially WarcraftMovies.com which gave it their Seal of Recommendation) it was amazingly well-received by the internet fans. I think it's completely psychotic to have a video downloaded a few thousand times a day, and it even peaked at something like 10,000 times a day and was Warcraftmovies.com's Hottest Download for a while. As of March 2006, Woog has been downloaded and watched by over 160,000 people... a pretty insane number in my opinion for being uploaded for less than a month. You'd think it was a leaked porno starring some celebrity or something.

Thanks for all the support, everyone!