Our first outing! Awwww, look how young we all were. So young…so naive…
From my Second City days, I became a big believer in the “Power of the First Line.” Basically, a strong enough first line can power you through an entire scene, and “I pickpocket the Gold Dragon,” isn’t a bad way to kick things off. Most of my episodes start this way.
My main goal for this episode was to, as quickly as possible, get the audience familiar with the personalities of the group around this table. We have the High Intelligence/Low Wisdom Rules Lawyer, the I-Want-To-Be-Cool-Guy Who is Kinda an Idiot, the Sexually Frustrated Goth Girl, and the Bewildered and Ineffective DM.
My co-actors are superb. Leeman nailed Doug’s character right from the get go, John plays a wonderful enthusiastic idiot, and since Sophie is nothing like Terri in real life, I’d say she’s a pretty damn fine actress.
I met John from a podcast parody we were both cast in way back in the day. Since then, we’ve made a habit of using each other in our own projects, and then it just became habit for us to produce projects together. Sophie was friends with John’s girlfriend, Jen, and they were both exactly who I was looking for to play the parts of Sara and Terri. Our one casting problem was the part of Doug. Fortunately, John happened to work at Starbucks with Leeman and thought he might be right for the role. We had him read for the part, and it was pure magic.
This episode was back in the early days when we didn’t know crap about lighting. Every time I watch these early episodes I can’t help but cringe from hard shadows and over exposure. Slowly and steadily we’ve gotten better, thank God. I’ve often joked with my friends that Metagame was our first film school.
And for only giving Jen a very vague idea of what I wanted, she did a fantastic job on the opening credits and all the character designs. When I saw the animations for the first time, I thought to myself that they were far better than I deserved. Since then, I’ve made a habit of being purposefully vague with Jen about the animations and have always gotten great results.
All the D&D props are mine. The dice have been in my possession since I started playing D&D 15 years ago and, with luck, will still be in my possession after the next 15 years…and the next 15 after that…and the next 15 after that….
-Matthew
