#had a Lot of fun with photo editing tools :3

[erstwhilesparrow]

hey seriously the electric zine maker is great. i made a thing!

[deskraven]

《Keep On》 - but with the Terrans!

This is a recreation of Digimon Adventure's ending scene with Earthspark characters :)

As a cross-fandom fan I've wanted to do this for a good while and eventually started working on the project in December, 2024. While it's not perfect and a lot of pieces are still missing, I decided that it's good enough for now and it's time to just post it. Also, this is actually for an International Children's Day (June 1) Chinese fandom event.

Details under the cut

OG Video

Tools I used

Art: Procreate

Animation: Figma (most of the complicated ones), Python (for creating gifs of simple animations), DaVinci Resolve (for putting the whole video together)

Components of the video

00:00 - 00:36

The first sequence is just the main character's silly faces, which is the most fun part to draw! And they already look adorable even without the rest of the video or any music.

I also need to create the flipping effects, which I initially attempted to do with Figma but realized that flipping 8 images at once overloads the tool and makes its animation laggy. I need them to all flip in sync, so this part is actually done with a Python script.

Compared to the OG video, the middle row is missing. I initially planned to draw the human Maltos but unfortunately ran out of time.

00:36 - 00:51

The second sequence provides an overview of 1) locations in the show, 2) side characters of the show, 3) iconic items that belong to the main characters.

For the locations, I took screenshots and edited them into having anime vibes:

Also had to distort the side characters' images so they follow a tilted route. The distortion part is also done with a Python script.

I initially planned to draw the following items for the Terrans but ran out of time:

Swords and housework star stickers for Twitch

Shield and balls for Thrash

Inventions (smart trainer / hologram projector) for Nightshade

Tablet and the director's viewfinder for Hashtag

Dinobot comics & dinosaur fossils for Jawbreaker

Contaminated energon cans for Aftermath

Cyber Slayer for Spitfire

Yeah the items for the Chaos Terrns are pretty cursed lmao, but I honestly can't think of anything else that are iconically theirs.

00:51 - 1:17 Roll out!

In the OG video this part is the main characters rolling out with their Digimon partners. For the Terrans, of course they will be rolling out with their mentor-ish counterparts. (I'm so sorry that Bumblebee wasn't included. You are the best mentor. But like, you are the shared mentor so it's kind hard to point to one Terran and declare you their specific mentor.)

At this point you probably already realized that the only characters that I do not run out of time for are the Terrans. And yeh, once again I run out of time for the Mentors and had to use low resolution stock images, screenshots, and even very inaccurate toy images.

I struggled to decide whether Starscream should stand by Hashtag or Spitfire, but Spitfire really doesn't have anyone besides Starscream so it had to be this way, which is again pretty cursed.

1:17 - 1:31

Turns out I do run out of time even for the Terrans! I was initially planning to draw the "everyone running towards the silver lining" scene but kinda suck at drawing animation. So have some Terrans dancing.

1:31 - 1:42

Hesitated between drawing "Terratronus getting armored up, each armor piece representing one Terrans" - which would be a perfect way to represent the ending of S3! But it'll probably look weird with a horizontal frame so I eventually just drew a traditional family photo.

[paracosmic-sims]

My top 24(?) screenies from 2024!

Tagged by the lovely @changingplumbob, thank you Kirsty <3

I literally don't know if I even have taken 24 screenshots this year. Let's see...

1, 2 and 3: Some screencaps from a photoshoot I did with my revamped simself. I have MANY variations - check it out, none of those are the one on my current profile picture, or with...

4: Oh Kinha, that's cheating! That is an edit, not a sceenshot! Shhh! I literally don't think I have enough screenies to make this post. Anyways, once I can figure out how to do my tags and navigation posts, expect to see this one in my pinned <3

5: An outfit I made for Sienna that I needed to save for other kiddos too! It's so cute!

6: Vlad. What are you DOING walking around Evergreen Harbor? Not even on my lot, since Journey Delight - the founder of my personal Whimsy Legacy challenge - doesn't even have a house at this point. Just... passing by. It was like... the second night? Anyways, appreciate how marvelous this woman is (and how wacky the sims can be sometimes)

7: Speaking of personal legacy challenges, here's Hendrix Baccinus, the Mint of my NSB save. (The light makes him look blue-ish, but I swear it's mint.)

Look at him. Hot. Handsome. The male quota of this post. He is a baby and a pathetic wet cat of a man. This mfer tried to kill himself! (No joke, he autonomouslt went swimming when his energy was low on Sulani, because he was burnt out. Dude, sims used to be able to juggle a job and an Uni degree!)

I still love him <3

8, 9 and 10: Obligatory Arielly Vespertinai appreciation. Look at her. Gorgeous. My baby. Watcher's favorite (little chew toy nomnomnomnom) <3

Have you seen her? yes? Well, go look again. Until you're mesmerized enough to forfeit your entire mortal posessions to this siren of a woman. Nobody understands the amount of adoration I hold specifically for this little bean. She could kill me and I would still thank her. She consumes my thoughts almost daily even though I have an entire cast to think about so I can support your story babygirl unleash my brain!!!

Also, obligatory gloating that this woman was elected Bronze Medal in @simblorbo-bracket's 2024 SIMBLR SEXYMAN TOURNAMENT. Yes, you heard it right. She's a Sexyman. And is the Sexiest™ of the human competitors.

11: Speaking of Vespertinai's, a draft of Arielly's mom, Elysiann! Still unsure if I want them biologically related or adoptive (makes some sense with part of the lore, screws some other part. UGH.)

don't be fooled, this woman has SUCH a resting bitch face outside of CAS.

12: And on that resting bitch face note, Scione Vespertinai! Ari's younger sister, of whom I have shared custody with @momoception <3 (because someone in her game needed to simp over Lucius Holt, and given I'm his #1 fan in the real world...)

Could you tell my game's eyelashes were still broken on those last 2 pics?

13, 14 and 15: Enough of sim pics for a while, appreciate Elio Alvoretter's (aka, Ari's bestfriend, partner, and overall soulmate) (no, literally.) room. I'm insanely proud of it even if it drove me majorly crazy at some points.

(We do NOT talk about the small desk under the desk. It was fixed after.)

16: On the topic of building, a little bar decoration I made using TOOL. It took me longer than you'd expect.

17: Okay, back to sims because it's all I have at this point. I forgot this cutie's name, but she never really left CAS despite this picture. She was for a BC that never really happened, so I'm saving her for another opportunity. Maybe a spouse for one of my families. Maybe a founder for another legacy? She's kinda packed with CC, so I don't think I'll ever set her for dl.

18 and 19: Some of my girlies for other simmers! Moxie and Apolline were some of the ones I had the most fun doing, and I think that the unused photos deserve a place to shine too.

===================

Unfortunately, the most I could is still short by 5. But then again, 2024 was THE year for me, in terms of personal growth, so TS4 kinda fell behind (a LOT. Some of those pics have literal months of gaps between them)

I am not sure who has been tagged already or not, but if you're seeing this and you want to participate (even again), you're tagged!

[depmode]

tagged by @josiesruffles and @fenrelmercar so long ago im not even going to think about it lmao. this was interesting, kind of hard honestly! i don't know if there is anyone that hasn't done this one by now? if you haven't, doooo it!

Rules: Choose 10 objects that you will place in the room of your Rooks on the places intended for customization. These should be small objects that can be placed in the following places: 2 on the tables by the doors, 2 on the tables by the aquarium, 4 on the bookcases and 2 on the walls. Attach a photo of these objects and give a short description of why your Rooks chose them.

nice little things: sasha edition

Front tables:

Pile of books: when sasha finds an interesting book that he is totally gonna read one day, it gets drop off on the table as he enters his room. it turns to a game of sorts, keeping it from toppling and seeing how high it can go. he manages to get high enough he can barely add more to the stack. then he realizes he played himself because he's the one who has to get them all down lol.

Pile of jewelry: the other thing that often gets dumped as soon as he is back in his room is jewelry. rings, bracelets, necklaces, hair jewelry, all sorts. yes, it spills off of the table often, and no, sasha doesn't always bother to pick it up. and then he has to untangle all that shit when he wants something. played himself x2.

Back tables:

Makeup stuff: maybe if the lighthouse had a BATHROOM he would put this there, put alas. all his various powders and liquids and brushes live inside a chaotically unorganized state that sasha can somehow always find exactly what he needs in it. there would also be a big mirror stored close by that he could sit in front of to do his face.

Wine. One glass. that's it. the team starts keeping a not so secret eye on it, both making sure it doesn't get empty and that sasha is not going through it at an alarming rate lol.

Bookshelves:

His first set of basic surgery tools: received as a gift when he became an official mourn watch member. buuuuut never really used. this is a tongue in cheek kind of keepsake; scalpels dull pretty quick, things break, there is no such thing as a "set" that will survive long lol. they live in a pretty black leather pouch with the MW symbol on it.

Potted plant from Arlathan: sasha isn't the nature sort, but he didn't have access to much of it for most of his life. in spite of the stuff that tries to kill you, he likes Arlathan; it's beautiful and peaceful (when the aforementioned killing is not happening), and great fun to run around exploring. he asked bellara for help because he didn't want to take anything he shouldn't or that would die in a pot. one night he gets drunk and decides its name is Vestibulocochlear because it's a very funny word to say. even moreso when you are sauced out of your mind. mostly he calls her Vesta.

Box of stuff: odds and ends useable for various arts and crafts activities. drawing, needlework, beading, a few bits of colored glass, lots of scraps and strings and mysterious things rolling around the bottom. likely does not at any time contain enough materials for a whole project of some sort, but it's not like he actually has time for that shit. having the box present lets there be a nice "one day" delusion going on.

Several vertebrae on a leather cord with decorative baubles: a gift, of sorts, from a long time lover and patron of the necropolis. she knew sasha since he was born and watched him grow up somewhat over the years too. their relationship was not quite family but something fond. when she died she donated various parts of her body to different things; sasha was one of few who she allowed to take something for private use. he picked 3 and turned it into a necklace. he never plans to wear it (it would be weird and heavy and clunky anyway.)

Walls:

A woven tapestry that reads Anything As Universal As Death Must Be A Blessing: this is the sasha version of the "hang in there" cat. motivational poster.

Four frames arranged in a small square formation: the frames hold somewhat rough but carefully done sketches of different bodily systems, unlabeled; skeletal, respiratory, heart, and brain. sasha drew them :) but he's a loser who never tells people that.

[khluvvy]

I usually don't post stuff like this but I found it fun to do and I'm a lil proud of it. For this term, one of my courses assigned us to create a mini photo essay (3-5 photos) under the theme of : Seeing the Special in the Ordinary. I had different ideas I wanted to do, one of them was taking photos of like broken trinkets that my friends still keep parts of because they liked it so much. like broken keychains and broken pens. (i might do this one at a future date it sounds fun). but I was cramming this one and so I opted to do people and how being special relates to all kinds of relationships with people. I wanted it to mean something like , the label in which we define relationships don't really diminish how special someone is. and so I took Knapp's 1978 model for Relationship Change and used it as a means of giving/removing context from the photo. NOTE : THIS WAS MY FIRST TIME DOING THIS KINDA THING I JUST WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT CUZ IT WAS SO FUN TO DO .

Initiating : something something about we see others under the image of others #deep #13

Experimenting: Yeah

" " - I titled this blank and tried to edit it so that the shadow is merging with the figure. somrthing something , someone becomes so special to us that our identity merges with parts of another , is there a type of relationship thats defined by this or is it possible for everyone or something something. I feel like I could've thought of something to get this point across better but I couldn't think of anything with the tools I had at that moment.

Stagnating : According to knapp this is the stage that people willingly just stop talking and emotional connection is at its minimal

initially wanted this to be a person taping the light such that the shadow covers their face but not everywhere else but 1.) i lacked the technical skill to do that with editing and photography (fuck) and 2.) the light was too pervasive and it was going through the tape regardless.

Terminating . my prof liked this one the most and told me it was the most story rich one. I taped a photo and my jacket to the left side for this and I think it came out well.

I presented this at like 7:30 AM in the morning and pulled an all nighter for this and a programming project that was due in the same day. I was really scared cuz my prof typically had high standards for the students but I was really happy that my prof liked my project. She gave me a 4.0 for the course and told me that I should do more art photos like this one. I never really considered it until she told me that. IDK IF THATS STUPID OF ME BUT IDK THAT VALIDATION AT 0 HOURS OF SLEEP GOT ME FEELING LIKE I GOT SENT TO CHINESE HEAVEN. I'm probably going to end up doing more art essays when I have the time, me and my friend (the one in the photo) had a lot of fun taking the photos and that validation definitely convinced me to try doing more.

[bohemian-nights]

Hey, can I ask you how do you make your gifs?

It took a lot of trial and error, but here is what I have learned(so far cause I'm very much still going through it):

1. Photoshop vs Photopea

To make your gifs you can either use Photoshop or Photopea. I started off with Photpea because it’s cloud-based and doesn’t take up any space on your computer, but I've since moved onto Photoshop. Most of the tutorials you’ll find will use photoshop. So if you need help or want to learn a new skill it will be much easier to find that help if you are using Photoshop.

Photoshop

👆🏽They have ones out there for mac if you search for them on here, but I happen to have a Windows PC so this is the one I use🤷🏽‍♀️

Photopea

2. Downloading videos

I get most of my videos from either YouTube or torrent sites which have a wide selection of shows and movies for you to download.

Watch So Much

👆🏽Is my favorite torrent site. You can also stream shows and movies on their site well.

YTS

👆🏽Is another torrent site I use, but they only have movies on there.

Qbittorrent

👆🏽Lets you download torrents. I should note that If you torrent you'll need a VPN. Literally do not try and download any content from HBO or Disney without a VPN, because at least here in America, they will email you threatening to disconnect your internet😅

For VPN’s do not use the free ones. They don’t work. I’ve personally used NordVPN, but there are other ones out there like Surfshark, or ProtonVPN.

4k downloader

👆🏽Lets you download most things off of YouTube(as well as a couple other sites like TikTok). I say most things because they will not let you download those free movies(ex. Twilight) YouTube itself uploads onto its platform.

Occasionally someone will upload an old movie onto a private channel which you can download with no problems, but anything new or recent you won’t find on there.

You do not have to use a VPN to download videos from YouTube.

3. Resources:

Whatever you're trying to gif will probably be on the long side. So you're either going to need to trim it down to make a 2-3 second clip that you can then use to make your gif, or you can screencap your video.

Screencaping allows you to take a shot of each individual frame* which you can then use to make your gifs out of.

*I like to use anywhere between 40-90 frames per gif.

VLC

👆🏽This is a video player that lets you play your videos and create screencaps from them.

👆🏽This is a great post on how to screencap using VLC.

KMPlayer

👆🏽Is another video player/screencapping software, but I found their interface to be overly complicated

Clipchamp

👆🏽This lets you trim down your videos to create those 2-3-second clips. There are better video editing tools out there(like DaVinci Resolve), but if you have Windows for what it's worth, it’s simple and gets the job done 🤷🏽‍♀️

rPiracy

👆🏽Has links for torrents and things of that nature.

👆🏽This is a great post on how to make a basic gif using Photoshop.

👆🏽This is a great post on how to make a basic gif using Photopea.

👆🏽This user has a lot of tutorials so when you're ready to move onto more complicated gif making, use them as a resource.

4. Lastly, have patience with yourself.

GIF making is time-consuming and as I stated it takes practice. So don't sweat it too much and have fun🎉

[thegreymoon]

Well, this got several hundred notes in a few days and I am BLOWN AWAY by all you people and the support I received. The Merlin fandom remains the best 💙💙

Anyway, this post is for my buddies who think I'm some sort of accomplished artist and are asking me for my horse-drawing secrets (I love you all, BTW):

Secret no. 1: USE A REFERENCE!

Using a reference is not cheating! All the great artists used references, had models sit for them and whatnot. Leonardo da Vinci WISHES he had our resources and didn't have to create them himself! I personally had a good behind-the-scenes photo of Bradley and Colin (and the horse) in this pose, which made my life here very, very easy.

Secret no. 2: USE A GRID!

If you struggle with perspective (and spatial awareness in general, like yours truly here), a grid can be of immense help. What you do is you slap a grid on that reference photo, and then slap an identical one on your blank canvas. Now you can start drawing. It is much easier to gauge where the lines are supposed to go in smaller designated squares than on a whole empty sheet of paper. Now, this may sound tedious and like a lot of work, especially initially, but it will improve your art by leaps and bounds. I promise it's worth it and it is ALSO NOT CHEATING!

Secret no. 3: USE LAYERS!

This one applies only to digital artists and honestly, I'm not going to pretend I'm any kind of expert here because I too don't know what the hell I'm doing. Any results I get are purely accidental, after too much experimentation with brushes and brush settings. However, I find the layers to be immensely helpful. I noticed people appreciating the details on the horse and they were all done in layers. The harness and the decorations had at least a dozen, where I layered the colours to get that shading effect. Again, this may seem tedious and unnecessary, but it is much easier to edit and delete the stuff that is not working in a single layer than it is to edit the whole painting. I am sure that more accomplished artists can do this in far fewer layers (or a single one), but I am not one of them and I never shied away from using any tools that can help me get the desired effect. Of course, once you get what you are looking for, I recommend merging the layers so that your final piece does not end up with 200 of them or something equally ridiculous.

In any case, I hope that helps! References, grids and layers are my (not-so-secret) secrets! 😅 Enjoy drawing and have fun!

Flowers for his dollophead.

Done in Autodesk Sketchbook.

[amproductreview]

💻 Apple MacBook Air M4 (2025) Review: Light as a Feather, Fast as a Rocket 🚀

📝 First Impressions

Alright, so—Apple did it again. I didn’t plan to upgrade this year, but the second I tried the new MacBook Air M4? I was hooked. It’s crazy light, super fast, and somehow feels better than using my old iPad setup. Seriously—how is this even real?

If you spend your days in Google Docs, open way too many Chrome tabs (guilty!), edit a few pics, and watch YouTube late at night—this thing might be your new bestie. The M4 chip makes everything feel faster, smoother, and just more fun.

Let’s check out the good stuff. ✨

📘 Quick Specs at a Glance

Chip: Apple M4 (10-core CPU, up to 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine)

RAM: 16GB (you can go up to 32GB)

Storage: Starts at 256GB SSD (up to 2TB)

Display: 13.6" Liquid Retina (500 nits, True Tone)

Camera: 12MP FaceTime HD with Center Stage + Desk View

Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), MagSafe 3, headphone jack

Battery: Up to 18 hours (yep, for real)

Colors: Midnight, Silver, Starlight, Sky Blue

Weight: 2.7 lbs (1.24 kg)

OS: macOS + built-in Apple Intelligence (AI features)

More Info Get The Product Here>>>

💡 Why People Are Loving It

⚡ It’s Super Fast This chip is no joke. I had Photoshop, Chrome (with 20 tabs!), Spotify, and a Zoom call running all at once. No lag. No heat. No noise. And yep—it’s fanless!

My old M1 Mac feels slow next to it. The M4 runs like butter. M2? Not even close.

🧠 AI That Feels Helpful Apple’s new smart tools actually work. You can get quick summaries, smart replies in Mail, and even photo edits—all right on your Mac. No cloud needed. It’s fast and private.

Oh, and Siri? She finally gets it.

🔋 Battery for Days Apple says 18 hours. I thought, “Yeah right.” But I used it all day, watched a movie, wrote some stuff, and still had 20% left. No charger anxiety here!

I didn’t even pack my charger for the coffee shop. Game-changer.

🎨 Looks That Turn Heads That Midnight color? So pretty. Sure, it shows fingerprints, but the MagSafe cable matches, so I forgive it. The whole design feels fancy and clean—and it’s lighter than most books.

🔧 Best Parts (and a Few Downsides)

✅ What I Loved:

M4 chip is fast—like, really fast

Bright, colorful screen that’s easy on the eyes

Webcam looks good and auto-frames you (love that)

Fanless = silent

AI tools that make sense and save time

Touch ID is fast and simple

❌ What Bugged Me:

Only two USB-C ports—come on, Apple 😩

No HDMI or SD card slot (dongles forever)

256GB isn’t enough if you do a lot of photo or video work

Not made for serious gaming or 3D stuff

💬 What People Are Saying

🗣️ From Reddit, X, and Amazon:

“Lightweight but crazy fast. A beast in disguise.”

“Battery life is unreal. I charge it every other day.”

“I wish it had more ports… but it’s still worth it.”

“Midnight finish is 🔥 but yeah, it shows smudges.”

Tech reviewers are also fans:

Laptop Mag: “Power and portability in one.”

TechRadar: “No fans, no noise, no heat—Apple nailed it.”

WSJ: “One of the best laptops out now (unless you need a ton of ports).”

Honestly? I agree. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close for most people.

💶 Is It Worth the Money?

✅ What You’re Paying For:

🚀 Super smooth performance with the M4 chip

🔋 All-day battery that actually lasts

🧠 Smart tools built right in

💻 A bright, sharp screen

🎨 A sleek, stylish body (Midnight is my fave)

⚠️ What Might Bug You:

⚡ Only two USB-C ports

💾 Base storage is tight if you do creative work

💸 Price adds up fast if you upgrade everything

🎮 Not meant for heavy gaming or 3D editing

🏁 Final Verdict: Who Should Get This?

This MacBook is made for:

People who work on the go

Students who need speed and battery

Creators doing light photo or video editing

Anyone who wants a Mac that just works—and looks great doing it

Unless you need pro-level power or lots of ports, the MacBook Air M4 is an easy yes in 2025.

More Info Get The Product Here>>>

[ardn716ashleighdanby]

Ashleigh Danby's 'Boots vs Roots'

Statement

My ad campaign is called ‘Boots vs Roots’, which leads to a website that documents the importance of washing your shoes before entering a track with Kauri trees. I want to create more recognition in people when they see cleaning stations and stress that it is compulsory, not a choice.

For the longest time, this project was meant to be a brochure aimed at children, but after some feedback, I realised I wasn’t reaching far enough and changed my deliverables to an ad campaign that leads to a website. Now, I had to plan new photo shoots to better suit the deliverables. I spent the last 2 weeks of the course making the ad campaign and website, and this was the best part of this project, as I had full control of everything - no weather to navigate and no people to wait for.

I took a lot of photographs during my 4 photo shoots, so most of my thinking came in making the ad campaign. I had to pick 3 images that worked well, but each told a different part of the story. When it came to fonts, it was a long process, but I eventually chose Post Cut Neue as it’s easy to read and has a fun and playful energy. The colour palette was something that evolved a lot throughout this process and eventually landed on a complementary colour palette of blue and orange, which the website displays, as well as having a slight green background to compliment the photographs themselves. A complementary colour palette uses 2 colours that are directly opposite each other in the colour wheel to create contrast (FIGMA, 2025). The layout came naturally to me on the print ads as I had practised a lot leading up to the final submission. I wanted the text to be interacting with the photograph it was sitting on, so it didn’t look like text slapped across a photograph. I used the warp and drop shadow tool on my text in the billboard ads. The layout of the website came easily as I used a template on Squarespace to build the base of it and went from there. Don’t take that as I only put my photographs where the template told me, the only part I didn’t directly edit was the introduction. I believed it was important to hook viewers in by showing them the beautiful side of the Waitakere Ranges and then stress the importance of washing your shoes, etc.

I began with the working title of ‘Roots vs Boots’, which I thought had a humorous element, while also being direct and straight to the point. As I was putting my campaign together, I was thinking of headlines. With some work around the cliche phrase: ‘you can run, but you can’t hide’, I came up with ‘We can run, Kauri can’t’, the unsaid implication of Kauri not being able to run from the Kauri dieback disease. However, after feedback, I came to the realisation that I’m not targeting runners, so why use the word run? Even if the headline works in theory, it’s not necessarily perfect for this work. He suggested going back to ‘Roots vs Boots’ but making it alphabetical instead: ‘Boots vs Roots’.

Most of my research focused on identifying my target audience. I initially chose children, aiming for my work to be used in schools to encourage them to remind their parents to clean their shoes, since kids are the key to getting parents to feel guilty enough to change their habits (Wilson, 2018). However, because my deliverables changed, targeting children is not the best route. Instead, I want to target casual hikers. Not people who live and breathe hiking, but people who might go hiking in the summer, or who would only go with friends or family, who do a hike for ‘the gram’ (Welsh, 2022). As my ad campaign is not to spread awareness of the tracks themselves, but the impacts of kauri dieback disease, it’s important to show to effects of everyone who uses the tracks and that even casual hikers make a difference.

Once my deliverables changed, I needed to rethink what kinds of photos I was taking so that they would be suitable for an ad campaign. I started with researching artist models and found Peter Peryer’s “Apple Tree” at the AUT library and fell in love. That image became the inspiration for my last photoshoot of minimalist photographs. Having looked at this photo, it also guided me into picking what 3 images would become part of the ad campaign.

My first steps for my campaign were to just take photos. Through feedback, I learned that I need to work on my close-up photography and post-production editing. Previously, I photographed at face value and did minimal edits, but through learning and experimenting with my tools, I was able to make some images that I thought I’d never produce. 

Once all of my photographs were taken, I did more post-production in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to create the ad campaign. I had some base knowledge of these apps, but creating the campaign allowed me to learn all of them in more depth, especially the text and warp tools.

Finally, I had to learn how to make a website. I enjoyed laying out all of my work, and it was satisfying that I had all the content that I needed without having to go out and reshoot.

What worked during this project was that I felt organised. I am proud of the amount of work I achieved and the end result. What didn't work so well was my inability to attend some of the later half of the semester’s classes. I could have benefited from my peers' feedback rather than my Mum and Dad’s. Perhaps I could have gotten the contacts of my peers to message them privately for feedback. 

References

FIGMA. "Triadic Colors - Everything You Need to Know | Figma." Figma. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.figma.com/resource-library/what-are-triadic-colors/.

Simpson, Peter, and Peter Peryer. Peter Peryer, Photographer. 2008.

Welch, Josh. "The Top 5 Reasons People Hike – Chosen by You!" A Hiker's Friend. Last modified December 2, 2022. https://www.ahikersfriend.com/post/the-top-5-reasons-people-hike-chosen-by-you?srsltid=AfmBOorhgWO_5tHejkidXZaFhoPodIWV7Pd6CWr4aNc_KzhD5ADO0p5p.

Wilson, Marlena. "New study looks at the role kids play in parents breaking their smoking habit." News Channel 6 ABC. Last modified July 30, 2018. https://www.wjbf.com/featured/the-means-report/new-study-looks-at-the-role-kids-play-in-parents-breaking-their-smoking-habit/.

Campaign x3 Billboards

Website

Password: ARDN716

Link: springtail-bullfrog-8pw3.squarespace.com 

In case the website link doesn't work, I've screen recorded the website

[creativemorningsberlin]

CreativeMornings/Berlin Interview - Susann Massute on PUNK

We’re excited to introduce a new CreativeMornings Berlin short interview series, where we welcome our next guest. Susann Massute is a Berlin-based freelance graphic designer and illustrator, and the speaker at CreativeMornings Berlin on 20th of June. This month we had the pleasure of catching up with Susann to talk about our monthly global theme PUNK, about artificial intelligence, and the upcoming event.

1. PUNK often challenges norms.  How does the spirit of punk resonate in your creative journey as graphic designer and illustrator?

Punk is very important to me on a personal level. The music made it easier for me to grow up in the Brandenburg countryside and the aesthetic of rebellion naturally appeals to teenagers in particular. When you study design, you quickly learn that you have to do a lot of things yourself – from bookbinding to developing photos – and that it will never be as perfect as when professionals do it. But in the end, this perfection is not so desirable and the process can be incredibly educational and fun. For me, this has also reduced my fear of things that I haven't yet mastered.

2. Technological advancements are very present. What role do you think artificial intelligence could play in the work of an artist?

AI is now omnipresent and I have experimented with it a lot. I don't think we can completely avoid it anymore and I welcome the debate. On the one hand, like all creative professionals, I find it difficult that all AIs are trained with our work and that there is no appropriate form of remuneration and appreciation. On the other hand, it's an interesting tool to create aesthetics that you can't yet produce yourself. But I'm bored by what most people do with it: A Studio Ghibli-style image now feels like an Instagram filter in the 2010s and I'm waiting even more for application scenarios that are less about copying and more about actually creating.

3. On your website is written that ‘you love telling stories utilizing a wide variety of tools within the realm of visual communication’. Could you please offer us a short insight in the story you plan to tell on the Creative morning Berlin June edition?

I would like to tell an encouraging story that it is less about perfection and high-level specialization and more about the creative work process in a small team. That you can still achieve a lot with limited resources and little time and that it's actually fun.

Feature photo credit - Kristina Wedel

Interview conducted and written by Aida Mola - an economist that blends business insights with creative writing and travel notes, with a passion for both numbers and culture. Discover more at aidamola.com or connect on LinkedIn.

[babygirlaffirmations]

11-19-23

Things to journal about yesterday

DND - sexy time and naps: sucking Master's cock. Distracting him and making him moan during. Laying down and having 10-15 cummies by his foot. Feeling content with mischief and taking a nap. ❤️ The cheeky process. Master starts removing his pants without me even needing to say anything. I cheekily slide the kneeling pad over. Then put down my phone on the table. And remove my glasses.

Zoo - zoo lanterns. Very pretty. Was sad Master wasn't present in the beginning due to texting. But we got a cute photo together and it was gorgeous. We got overwhelmed together and it went by fast.

Permanent bracelet - Master taking the tool and putting on the bracelet that doesn't come off. Around the same time as contract. Gorgeous. Matches my collar in a different color. Another sign of his ownership over me.

Contract- contract is officially signed. Officially under contract to my amazing Master.

Monster under the covers- First time playing monster under the covers with Daddy. I loved it. He started touching my princess parts under the cover. Told him to tell Daddy when the monster attacks and to be quiet. Daddy asked if the monster had gotten inside me as he fingered me. I giggled and said no. And we both laughed really hard. Clearly the monster was inside. So Daddy had to use his cock to fight the monster. I told Daddy he had to breed me for the monster to be gone for good. Was so hot. Hoping to make a fet writing about this one. Delicious.

Burger date- Took Daddy for his first date at habit Burger. Was cute. Got to snuggle together in the booth for a bit while he caught up on my fetlife writings and Tumblr journals.

Up movie date in bed- Daddy introduced me to one of his fav movies, UP. It was cute. Sad. Hilarious. I loved it. I asked for a pause before the end of the movie. And then Daddy gave me like 20 cummies. Asked for Daddy's cock to fuck me. He wasn't in the headspace. Completely okay. But now I'm lusting for him to fuck my pussy again extra. 🤤🥴

Watching true and the rainbow kingdom- we watched the spooky special episode together. It was really cute.

Things to journal about today:

Sadness in packing and waking up- we always prepack most of the stuff the night before due to 7am wakeup those days. Was sad packing. Doing last sleep in his arms. Last cuffs he did where he could grab the chain and make me a whimper and made my pussy tingle. And say Mine if he desires. Doing last walk through. Last Master dressing his babygirl for a while.

Cute hair braids- Master braiding my hair at the class site. Two small braids. And one big braid. Butterfly hair piece semi close to the bottom. And 3 tiny butterfly clips. Yellow, green, and pink.

Yogi- cute time with Daddy showing me the YouTube channel I'll be using for my new obedience daily habit. And us both doing it horribly. Looking at his butt. It was fun. Silly older Daddy. 😉

Bonding in the classroom with data entry- sitting on my pet bed on the ground at his feet while he played a game. Did data entry. And then we did a quick update to his fetlife profile. Master gave me I think 3 verbal cummies today in person. And one was as I hugged him behind while he sat in the chair. And he held my hands to his chest during.

Daddy hugging me tights- big crunchy Daddy hugs and snuggles in the morning half asleep. And in my apartment before he left. I already miss his sweet messy bed head. Looking over at his cute face occasionally in the middle of the nights.

Big sads- lots of panic attacks today. Editing this at 11:11. Just made 11:11 pm wish just now. He left me at about 1:30. Last time was closer to 4. Was a bit sad about that. But we had class not show up today and got extra time for data entry and stuff. And another empty class before where we drove to it and had the hard talk. Did pros and cons list etc. And read that chapter of Kushiel's dart and Master explained it to me a bit while he did contract rough draft.

Target adventure with toys and food- bought 2 minis for me. Food for us to eat in the car in the parking lot before he left. Introduced him to Oreo cakesters and we split a pack. Also dino teether that's also a fidget. Excited for that one. Got to hold his hand. Had the weirdest cummies on the way to target. I think 11. But most I was cumming but overwhelmed knowing he was leaving soon so I was crying. Seeing Daddy lick and suck his fingers after he gives me cummies and finger fucks my pussy is always so hot. Daddy and I need more kissies. He's such a good hot sexy kisser. Takes my breath away. And gives me butterflies.

Last Starbucks and Starbucks brefast- Daddy had a coffee and two ham and cheese breakfast sandwiches. I got one for squeezy baby food. A muffin. And a bagel I couldn't make myself eat.

Going home in Daddy's sweater- mwahaha. Victory. Haven't taken it off yet. Just sniffed just now. Daddy scented and feeleded.

15 cummies today. 290 total. Holy fuck.

[fightingdragonswithwho]

How do you go about making your gifs? And where do you download the content safely? Hoping for some help :) but no pressure to explain!!

hi, anon! no worries at all, happy to help if i can!! :)

putting a quick rundown of everything below and hoping i managed to make this somewhat clear and organised!

for downloads, i always use torrents and i try to always use at least 1080p in terms of quality! i’ve been using torrents for so long now and never had any real trouble, but i always try to download them from sites dedicated to shows/movies torrents, just so i know them and that they are safe to use: i usually check these two: (x) (x) You can search the movie or show there and see if they have links in their directory!

Moving on to the actually gifmaking (this will all sound very confusing at first, but it gets a lot easier as it goes!), i use Photopea to make my gifs, which is an online tool that basically has the same features as Photoshop and works pretty well! this tutorial was a true blessing for me when i started making gifs and i basically still follow everything that is in it, since it outlines the whole process from screencapping the frames for the gifs using KMPlayer to actually making the gif on photopea. this tutorial is also amazing, especially to know more or less how Photopea works.

This is what Photopea looks like to give an overall idea for all the steps i'll mention below, which are a little more specific to how i started doing gifs once i had some more practice:

once the gif is cropped and resized according to the tutorials i linked above, i can explain the process how i personally have been doing lately! i always start by using double sharpening (go to Filter at the top bar >Sharpen > Smart Sharpen) and it tends to be around the values below:

once i have the gif set up, cropped and with the sharpening settings applied, i might go in with a little bit of the reduce noise option (Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise) - i screenshoted the values below, just for reference!

these settings can be really different for different shows (editing Criminal Minds or Stranger Things is very different because the quality in ST is waaayyyy better so the values might vary a lot accordingly, but i wanted to give an overall idea!)

after that, i start working on the coloring process. this one is very much trial and error because it really depends on the show but here are the editing layers i usually use in case you wanna play around with these:

these can all be found under Layer > New Adjustment Layer and then you can select the one you want from the list!

sometimes i might use Color Balance or Photo Filter from that list too, to really adjust the coloring. For example, for shows like A League of Their Own that have a little bit of a yellow filter, i usually add the Photo Filter Layer to correct the color a little. Here's an example below of the before and after the PhotoFilter:

and i’m linking some more useful tutorials, including for coloring, that go into a bit more detail and that i followed a lot when i was starting: x and x.

aaaand i'm done (sorry for rambling so much!) and i'm sorry if this is all a little confusing, i tried giving an overall idea on everything, but please feel free to reach out if there’s anything in specific you’d like to know and i’ll do my best to explain! i’m still learning a lot of stuff myself, but it’s truly a try and error process, especially with coloring, but it can be really fun!

feel free to reach out if you need anything, for questions or for any links to shows/movies! thank you for the question and wishing you an amazing day! <3

[artofjim]

5 Years of Drawing: Part 1

Originally posted on ko-fi.com/artofjim

July marks 5 years since I started learning art and drawing every day.  As they say, time flies when you're having fun, and time has really flown!   I want to use this blog post to reflect on some things I've learned, look at some old work and compare it to current, and emphasize my gratitude for all of the support I've received in the last half decade.  This is a long one so I'm breaking it into 3, but it should give you a ton of insight into my journey as an artist that brought me here today, and hopefully help you carve out your own path!

Before July of 2018, I would occasionally get it in my head that I wanted to draw.  This would be prompted by seeing some cool art online, or needing a way to pass the time on trips.  I'd spend money on new sketchbooks and tools, and doodle for a weekend in them.  That would be that, and my sketchbooks would sit until the next time I felt like drawing again, which was no more than a few times a year.  I had a little natural talent at copying proportion and detail, but there was no methodology to my picturemaking and I relied heavily on replicating others' art.  Because of the inconsistent schedule and lack of interest in learning,  I usually say I started drawing after all of that.  Here's some sketches from before 2018.

This is a direct rip of Nate Van Dyke, with a couple additions of my own. 2014?  I learned about ink and decided that was the only medium I wanted to work in.

Around the same time. Every artist has been here at some point, I think. I found some photo portraits of homeless people on pinterest probably and took it upon myself to draw them. Lots to unpack there but we should move on (please we must move on oh God). Again, I wasn't trying to learn, I was just copying photos and other art with no rhyme or reason to it, and very rarely.  I just loved that kick when people would look at it and say it was good.

2018

In 2018 I was working in Tacoma and there was a great little book store called Culpepper's across the street.  Jerry Culpepper had ran that store for decades, and had no great love for comics.  As a result, anytime he got graphic novels in, he'd hide them in an unorganized shelf and price them way, way down.  This was also true of artbooks, but I wasn't interested in those (yet). Jerry and I had an amicable relationship, with him busting my chops about the coffee shop I worked at being too expensive, and myself ironically bringing him free drip on my breaks.  I remember him going into great detail explaining how "Black Panther was absolute shit! Waste of my time seeing that film!"  I probably went in there once a week and dug around, spending tip money on anything that looked interesting while Jerry peered down at the titles with a furrowed brow.  My love for comics started at this time, and some of the first graphic novels I bought were from Jerry Culpepper. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and A Small Killing, both written by Alan Moore, and drawn by Kevin O'Neill and Oscar Zarate, respectively (a great place to start, if you ask me!).

Still have them!  Jerry always priced books with pencil on the first page.  He'd usually charge me at least 30% less than this, and shave off sales-tax if  I paid cash.

I bought so many comics and bothered Jerry so often that he started giving me stuff for free (again, he had no interest for comics and was intent on filling his store with civil war history and first edition antiques). I'd pay $20 and walk out of there with an armful of graphic novels, video game concept art, Japanese editions of collected Ukiyo-E plates, published artist sketchbooks, and all sorts of odd things I wouldn't normally look for. That's the beauty of local used book stores, you cannot predict what's waiting in there for you.   Those early Culpepper finds were, and still are, very influential to me. I dig through my bookshelf for them regularly.  I think it's very important for creatives to have a personal, physical collection of things that inspire and interest them, because they will bury into your style way more than temporary online influences.

"Culpepper Books: here you'll find a man struggling to get the hell home with as much money and few books as possible before he retires" -Jerry, during his last week of business when I asked him for a caption

In late-2019, Jerry Culpepper got an offer to end his lease early from a big developer and decided to retire right as the pandemic started to hit, which was definitely the right decision for him.  While writing this, I searched his name to see if I could find his online collection, and learned that he passed away in 2022 at the age of 70.  Here is his obituary if you'd like to learn more about my old friend at the bookstore who impacted my life more than I could have realized at the time. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/tribnet/name/gerald-culpepper-obituary?id=32332566

My last purchase from Jerry

Now that I was reading comics a lot, I became hip to Jim Lee, comic art superstar of the early 90s known for his work on X-Men, Punisher: War Journal, and countless other titles soon after.  Jim Lee streams on Twitch, and one day in July I popped in to watch purely out of curiosity and ended up following along with his live tutorial drawing Wolverine. There's a recording of this tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wxoH_eZgrw I had never had drawing explained to me in the analogous way that Jim Lee did.  Much of the concepts he was demonstrating are very fundamental no-brainers to me nowadays, but back then, despite drawing off and on my whole life, I had never been exposed to them.  I specifically remember him relating the teeth to a can of soup, and the triceps muscles to parallel canoes.  This was mind blowing to me, and sparked an obsession that is still roaring to this day. Here's my results from drawing along with Jim Lee that day.

A little heavyhanded on the spot blacks there, Jimbo...

Even though the idea of using simple forms like soup cans and canoes had been demonstrated so brilliantly by Jim Lee, I immediately went back to my old ways of rote copying.  Only now, I was doing it for a few hours a day.  I also started streaming art on Twitch during this time, and I'm amazed anyone watched because I was completely directionless.I was reading a lot of Frank Miller and the interest in ink was renewed, and I would just copy things straight out of comics, line-by-line.  I didn't have the tools or direction to study in a more meaningful way, so I just copied and copied and copied, with no real improvement besides hand-eye coordination, and my ability to copy from image to paper.Jim Lee had also mentioned Bridgman, and I found a copy of his big book at Culpepper's and copied a few pages (poorly) before giving up. 

Notes?? Why would I write down anything from the book?  This is drawing!!  Sarcasm aside, this was the extent of it.  Whatever concepts I pulled from it, I didn't cement with mileage so it was all for not.  Granted, Bridgman is not beginner friendly at all.

I also took part in Inktober for the first time in 2018, and actually attempted concept creation.  I knew I was bad at drawing heads, so I decided I would twist every prompt into a helmet of some kind.  Strange method.  You can view the completed pieces here, if you really want to: https://www.instagram.com/p/BokqcKngdlz/

2019

In 2019, I began to become invested in history, and really enjoyed drawing historical garb.  Japan especially grabbed my interest, and I bought tons of books about it from Jerry.  I'm surprised I didn't try to copy more Japanese  art, especially Hokusai's ink sketches.  I was filling sketchbooks regularly by now, still just copying for the most part, and getting a little better at it!  When I look back at those sketchbooks now, there's a  common "Jim" thread present even if I wasn't being very original.  I want to point out that I don't think there's anything wrong with copying references, ever, but especially as a beginner artist.  The way I was doing it, though, was from a limited perspective: drawing straight to final linework and not considering anything but the 2-d image.  I wish I had pursued fundamentals more, and varied my tools, but I just didn't have exposure to those things.  I was still wielding a brush pen like a club on every drawing, and using expensive markers that bled through the page.

I learned about Karl Kopinski, and some of the other star artists from Super Ani, and didn't know about all of the mileage and proper practice between where I was and where they were, so I tried to just do what they were doing. Of course, KK appealed to my interest in historical costume, and I copied a bunch of his drawings in my sketchbooks. I also dug into Sergio Toppi, attracted to his painterly hatching and masterful ink compositions, and learned about Moebius. I picked up a Final Fantasy 1-7 artbook for $10 (thanks Jerry) with tons of drawings by Yoshitaka Amano in it, and tried to match his watercolors with my bleeding Copic markers. Because there was no method to my drawings beyond copying mark-by-mark, there was an element of luck involved that decided the success of each drawing. The artmaking journey, then, was just chasing that next lucky winner drawing, which is not sustainable long term! Sure, I might get lucky more often as I copied more accurately, but I wouldn't know why, and I had no lens to understand what made an image work.

Toppi copy

One of the lucky drawings

Kopinski copy

Amano copies.  Notice the difference in quality between the Toppi samurai above and these; this is the element of luck I'm referring to.  There was no repeatable process, just diving into the final lines and gambling on it.

Beyond that, I wanted to create, not replicate.  I would watch Karl Kopinski, Kim Jung Gi, and Peter Han create worlds on the spot, with no reference, and have no idea how to accomplish that.  I figured it was my poor visualization ability holding me back.  All I thought mattered was drawing a lot, and drawing a variety of things.  I would stream on Twitch and take requests to draw anything anyone wanted for ten minutes.  I drew 20 different outfits from the Camp-themed Met Gala.  I drew video game characters, Power Rangers, cartoons, and Kermit the Frog smoking a blunt.  Occasionally, I'd try to draw people and places from life. 

My first ever POV sketch

I knew that clothing was something academics studied,  so I "studied" some drapery as well! All that meant for me was copying, line by line, a few reference photos.  I downloaded Autodesk Sketchbook, a free drawing program, and tried my hand at digital art.   If I wasn't just attempting photocopying, I did try my hand at some imaginative work, with a degree of realistic rendering. Here's those paintings, just so we can compare to my current paintings later.

I would paint over Bill Sienkewicz sketches, this is one of those

This funny little fellow is a Japanese God, Fukurokuju. The drapery is looking especially mushy.

In mid-2019, I decided I would challenge myself to making a comic for Inktober.  I was very naive, but still took a lot of time planning for it before October started.  I scripted out the pages, did some character "designs," and even  worked on turnarounds.  My thought was that if I took the time to figure out what a character would look like from any angle, I could just use that as reference when I needed it.  This is true, and how animators do it,  but I created this sheet by smashing together references and finding an image for every expression and angle I could need.  I also sculpted the main character's head so I could use it as reference.  I had not rediscovered the power of "form" yet, despite Jim Lee's great tutorial that started all of this, and the literal sculpted 3d form sitting on my desk.

Here's a few pages of my Inktober comic, Dog Days.  I made it 13 pages in and burned out super hard, since I was working full-time still and spending at least 8 hours a day on the pages.  The cyst on my wrist got massive and I was not sleeping at all.  I took a break for a few days to go on a trip and just never came back to it.  Surprisingly, I haven't ever experienced a burnout since then.

If you're interested in checking out the other 11 pages, they're available to Ko-Fi Members for $4.50/month, along with my other comics.

For my first comic, I am extremely proud of that work.  There's a sort of energy that is now inhibited by experience and judgment.  I was fearless and committed to every page, because I had no idea how long it would take me or what challenges I might face.  I  don't think I will or should ever finish it, because I cannot replicate that vibe.

I returned to drawing a few weeks after the burnout and dove back into Japanese historical drawings, becoming obsessed with the photos of Felice Beato, who brought photography to Japan right as it modernized.  Some coworkers of mine were my first ever commissioners, asking for some work relevant to what I was already studying.  The first was a family portrait taken in the early 1900s.  The second was a 6 panel piece on the history of Taiko drumming.  I think they spent more on the frame then what I charged them for the piece, which is hilarious to me now.   I also experimented with some blacklight ink and collage, which was a nice change from all the inking I did in October. 

I did these on expensive Awagami rice paper with ultra-archival Noodler's fountain pen ink.  I was fooling myself into thinking that expensive materials were necessary for any sort of "professional" work, and that they would elevate it.  In the end, it just made the process nerve-wracking and left no margin for error.

I will continue with years 2020 and 2021 in my next post to keep this one from getting any longer!  Follow my Ko-Fi to get  notified via email when that comes out, or tune into my social media: https://linktr.ee/artofjim

If you'd like to support my art career and get some goodies in return, become a Ko-Fi Member in exchange for art in the mail every 6 months, monthly giveaways, access to my comics, discounts in my shop, and more.  Starts at $4.50/month, goes up for better rewards. https://ko-fi.com/artofjim/tiers  Thank you to all of my members, past and current, for enabling me to pursue my greatest interest in life more comfortably. 

[helbramstrauma]

What do we do when you don't want to write but your brain tells you, you have to before you can go to sleep. Time to write a headcannon for a character I have already written headcannons for. Now without further ado I present

Even More Feitan Relationship Headcanons

It has been a while since I've actually done a general Headcanons for him and I'm pretty sure the last one has something about him terrorizing geese.

Anyway, his giving love language is gift giving, but his receiving love language is Acts of Service.

Whenever he is tasked with taking something he will always pick up a souvenir. Value does not matter to him, it could be something as small as a bookmark or a priceless vase, really just whatever reminds him of you.

On the same note, he will bring something of yours when he goes on trips. He doesn't ask though, because he thinks it would be an awkward conversation.

You've probably caught on though. It is weird that your favorite shirt, book, perfume ect. Go missing when he leaves and magically reappear when he comes back.

He hates photos, he does not want to be in them ever. However he probably has like one photo of you two together from like 5 years ago that he carries everywhere.

Acts of Service. It doesn't have to be anything big, maybe organizing his torture tools, cooking, cleaning blood off the floor, or starting the coffee machine for him.

But in all seriousness, growing up Feitan had to do everything himself, so someone doing anything for him makes him feel appreciated.

You simply give him that sense of home he never had

It doesn't matter if your cooking is garbage, he's had worse growing up, he'll adore it.

He doesn't like going out much at all. But when you do it is at night, or simply a car ride to get take out.

His ideal date is solving those murder mystery podcasts.

He isn't outwardly possessive/jealous but it is in the little things.

For instant the bed is in the corner of the room and he has you sleep on the inside. He says it's because he gets up in the middle of the night a lot. But deep down it is because he doesn't want you to leave.

On the topic of sleeping, I feel like he is big on conversation.

Conversation being a loose turn, because he is an insomniac he likes to listens to your little rambles. It helps him get comfortable enough to sleep.

Also he strictly has photos of you that you hate and photos of you sleeping.

Is taking pictures of people sleeping weird? Objectively, yes. But I feel like if you fall asleep on someone it is fair game.

Feitan has an interesting lifestyle, and I'm not even talking about the killing part, he moves around a lot and doesn't stay in one place. So keeping up with other personal relationships would be difficult. He would absolutely accommodate that, it may not be super consistent but you'll probably see those people a couple times a year.

Bookshop dates? Bookshop dates.

I feel like you would actually pay for the books too. He wants to support the author's.

I get the vibe that he loves to travel, you will probably travel the world with him. Either on official phantom troupe business, personal vendetta's or just for leisure.

What started out as a joke slowly became a tradition. When you were traveling with Feitan you saw a place offer laser tag, and you poked fun at the odd similarities to his job. But now no matter where you go, you must play laser tag.

He, obviously, is very good at laser tag, and he will not go easy on you or any strangers that might be part of the game. A child could be wearing a birthday hat and crying, there will be no comfort just winning.

Also escape rooms. He is not a huge fan of them, as heisting is a regular event for him. BUT he loves seeing you struggle through the puzzle. He would never let the time run out though!

All in all, this is pretty good for 3-ish am. Now to attempt to edit this.

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 14, The Three Strikes Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Dean: Hi I'm Dean Devlin, Executive Producer and Director of this episode.

John: John Rogers, Executive Producer, Writer of this episode.

Chris: Chris Downey, Executive Producer, and this is the Three Strikes Job.

John: This is the first half of the big season finale which we like to do. And we are meeting our favorite recurring character Detective Bonanno, played by our friend Mr. Blanche, right?

Dean: Yes, Robert Blanche.

Chris: Robert Blanche.

John: Fantastic find; local actor. And it was interesting because really as we had come to- first time dealing with split season, first time Sophies not around, we had to- you know, we really hunted around for the character we would be emotionally anchored to for the season finale; you don't want it to be a random vic. And- cause last year was the whole Nate arc- 

Chris: Right.

John: And having- Robert having established his character made him really beloved, made it easier.

Dean: And we've never really done a pre-opening like this that's quite this violent.

John: Yes.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: So it was a little bit out of our tool box, but yet we tried to do it in a way that it didn't seem like a completely different show.

John: This is the edited version. In the original version, a toddler wanders through the field of fire and is brutally mowed down.

[Laughter]

John: I'm glad we cut that out, that was weird.

Dean: That wasn't good.

John: Just seemed odd.

Dean: Especially when the toddler pulled out a gun and-

John: And was doing the [unintelligible] the dubs were cool though. I liked those.

[Laughter]

John: So this is Sonny at the toll booth; there's no two ways around this.

Chris: Oh, yeah.

John: How tough was this to shoot?

Dean: You know, it was actually pretty easy. We had about six cameras shooting simultaneously; we did it 3 different times and moved the camera each time. And this van you may recognize from Beantown Bailout-

John: Yes

Dean: Which also got shot up. So whenever we need to shoot up a car, that’s the car.

Chris: And did we add-? Or did we-

Dean: Now here’s the interesting thing-

John: We putty it in.

Chris: We putty it in? Oh.

Dean: The actor was not available this day to shoot. So that’s a different actor made up to look like Robert Blanche.

Chris: Oh wow, that’s great.

John: That's great. So our local Portland actor has a double? A stand in? 

Dean: Has a double. [Laughs]

John: Wow, that's great. Oh, she's fantastic. And now this is- again, one of these sorts of things where we’re trying to anchor all of Nate Ford’s emotional cues. And you actually tried to shoot this identically, if I remember correctly.

Dean: That's right. We wanted to try and match the look and feel of the hospital scene from the pilot, but just skewed enough so that we know we’re someplace else.

John: Paul Blackthorne's name. And this was a lot of fun. This was a big giant episode concept.

Dean: One of the things you have to understand is- you gotta know when we do these two-part season finales, they're really shot like a movie, cause you shoot them all at the same time. And this one is, as you will see - far more ambitious than what we did in season one. Yet because it’s at the end of a very tough season where the writers actually ended earlier than normal; we only have four days to prepare to shoot this two-part season finale.

John: Yeah. We actually started prepping off outlines.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And then I think I turned in the first half? First half first? Second half- 

Dean: Yeah.

John: I think I kept in order at least. And then, you know, turn them each in. And by that point, nicely enough, the Portland crew was such a well oiled machine that they knew what they wanted. Also, we had learned by this point to really try to find anchor locations. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: To build and tie our acts around. So knowing that we were gonna do the baseball scam, they knew they could start processing all that was needed.

Dean: This is also the first time in season two that we brought back this recurring nightmare of him reliving the death of his son. The idea was that he had to some degree resolved it at the end of season one, but yet it’s still there just below the surface, and then suddenly kicking in to the end of season two it comes back up again.

John: And it was really the last trigger. If you’ve been watching the arc all the way through, we’ve been playing with his control issues and the fact that he's drinking again, and that feeling of helplessness has triggered him back into his addictive behavior. I mean, he’s already kind of bathing in his addictive behavior at this point in the previous episodes, but this is what really pushes him over the edge.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: Also normally we like to have fun kick in pretty early after the opening scene, but yet this- because we're trying to set up a larger emotional arc in this two-part season finale. We have an emotional opening with Bonanno getting shot, then we have another emotional beat where he’s reminded of his son, and here another emotional beat where he’s trying to connect with Sophie and his frustration of not being able to reunite with her is bubbling. So we really actually took a long time on this before we let the fun kick in, which is not usual.

John: Because we were really gonna screw with Nate Ford in these two episodes, and you really feel like you just can't, ‘Oh, remember that stuff you should have noticed in previous episodes? That’s why he's doing this.’ We really needed to reset it.

Chris: One of the reasons that I think this plays so well is that if you watch them back to back, which I'm so glad they were broadcast that way on TNT, is that this scene here really pays off in part two.

Dean: Yeah.

Chris: And it’s- you know, it's a little ways to go if you have to wait a week between them. 

John: Yeah.

Chris: But now it really plays like a movie.

Dean: And big kudos to Jeri Ryan because she had- she only had a few episodes to create an arc, and really everything she did in the previous episodes come together in these last two. 

John: Yeah.

Dean: She’s really part of the team by now.

John: Yeah. And that bit where she drinks his booze in order to get it away from him was actually the first physical bit we ever pitched talking about the character. We were trying to figure out a way to differentiate between Sophie and Tara, and the idea where Sophie is a little more sensitive, a little more coddling...

Chris: More empathetic.

John: More empathetic, yeah. Tara will just basically drink you out of your own problems. 

Chris: Right.

John: This was a tough day. Mainly because Tim really dug in on this.

Dean: Yeah.

John: This rage- this was a tough day. You know, he’s angry. And you can hear him- 

Chris: Yeah.

John: And you can- he really- this was a small set for them to be screaming at each other on. It was really nice.

Dean: Yeah. And it really helped the other actors as you’ll see just in the way they are reacting. I mean, you see Christian is really messed up by this. 

John: Yeah.

Dean: And it was a great way to-

John: Yeah cause one of his best friends in the world is sitting eight feet from him screaming at his face. 

Dean: Yeah.

John: I mean, you know. And yeah, they're all really digging in on the idea that Nate Ford has gone off the rails. 

Dean: But once they jump in, then the fun begins again. 

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: And now we start to get into that rhythm of, ‘Ok.’

Chris: You can see his little look on his face right here is the cue for the fun on Hardison.

John: Yeah. As soon as- yeah, as soon as the sarcastic ‘these guys are goons’ face comes up.

[Laughter]

Dean: Now by the way, those goons faces on the board are actually people who work here at post production at Electric.

[Laughter]

John: So don't be alarmed if you see them at your local bank or supermarket.

Chris: And I'll call out another couple of people whose faces are on this, too, you two guys a little later.

John: Oh yeah, we’re a little later. Exactly. This was also fun because this was something we kind of picked up on if you watch the second season episodes. A little bit more of detective Nate Ford. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: You know, he was a guy who hunted bad guys.

Dean: Right.

John: And we put him back in the context a couple times this season of hunting bad guys. You know, and this one in particular he figures out exactly the situation in which case they should pursue. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: Good crime scene photos. Big shout out to Derek.

Chris: Gruesome, yeah.

John: Gruesome, yeah. Nice.

Dean: But because we shot this scene before we had shot the scene with Bonanno getting shot-

John: We had no footage, that’s right.

Dean: We had no footage, so we had to make up fake crime scene photos and hoped that they would somehow-

Chris: Derek had those crime scene photos pretty easily, don’t you think?

John: That was a little disturbing.

[Laughter]

John: ‘I just went out and did it in a back alley in Chicago.’ This is also fun because this is one of the few times we’ve had Hardison of all people go, ‘I don't want to do this one. This one seems like a bad idea.’

Chris: Yeah. Now look at this shot.

Dean: Now this actor here- those of you who may have seen my film Flyboys, he was one of the pilots in Flyboys. And he did me a solid and came and did this little guest spot. And this is Richard Kind, who I had not worked with since Stargate-

John: Wow.

Dean: -and has been a family friend forever, and I think one of our most underrated actors in this country.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, it's the kind of part you typically don't see him in. I mean he plays kind of a nebbish-y guy. 

John: Yeah.

Chris: And boy, did he just bring a gravitas and a menace and really built a whole backstory to his character. 

John: Well let's talk about it- that’s where this story comes from. We really wanted to do our city of industry, corrupt east coast port town. I grew up near Boston, you grew up in New York- 

Chris: Yeah.

John: -and, you know, this is very much based around that, sort of, north of Boston, Route 1 type of town. 

Dean: Right.

John: And so getting an east coast actor, just a guy who could bring you that kind of New York power family vibe made a difference. And he showed up- he loved the script, showed up with three ideas. Three lines of dialogue, in three scenes that gave this character backstory, depth, and pathos. It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s a very good actor.’

Chris: And what the fact to do is Brad Culpepper the Third. I mean that he was from a long line-

John: Yes. And he dug in on that and he found something that just made you, you know-

Dean: He also came up with this concept that he wasn’t in it for the money, he was in it for the power and the legacy. 

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: Which is an interesting distinction.

John: Yeah, exactly. There is- he really dug in on the evil speech of evil. The idea that he is not a bad guy in his own head in any way shape or form. This was- what hotel was this? Was this the Governor?

Dean: This was the Governor Hotel. 

John: They really did us a solid this episode, they did a fantastic job.

Dean: We ended up shooting three different episodes at the Governor, and then they were our host for the Leverage convention.

John: Oh, also the wrap party.

Chris: Which was fantastic.

John: I don't remember that much.

Chris: The Leverage convention, which was awesome.

John: I can't believe you people missed it.

[Laughter]

John: We’re gonna assume nothing horrible happens. The horrible irony of when we try to recall these DVDs. 

Chris: Oh, no, please.

[Laughter]

John: Lovely little- this was a great neighborhood; they put up with us. And this was a lot of fun, whenever you can play the annoyed brother vibe between the two of them.

Dean: Oh, I could watch it all day long.

John: Yeah. This was also the night we found out we got picked up for a third season.

Dean: That’s right.

Chris: Oh yeah, that’s right.

John: This is fun, that’s Beth in the rig on the ledge. If you go to my blog, you’ll see the pictures of her doing this. It’s insane. There's just no way we should be allowing her to be on the edge.

Chris: Oh that’s great.

John: That’s city hall, by the way, in Portland. That’s city hall.

Dean: That is, that is.

Chris: They let you just jump off the roof in city hall?

John: You know what- if you're in Portland, show up, ask, and they'll let you. I'm sure there will be no repercussions to me saying that. And this is kind of fun, Paul Blackthorne as the shadowy character that you kind of touch on. And this is all based on- his character’s actually based on a guy down in Florida-

Dean: Yes.

John: -who got an arms deal with the US government, who was like a bar guy.

Chris: Yeah, he was kinda like a party kid. 

John: Yeah, who somehow got a 300 million dollar contract with the US government selling recycled arms from Eastern-

Chris: Recycled arms from Eastern Europe, yeah.

John: That’s Beth on the rappelling line. Remember that? We shot that.

Dean: And I’ll tell you, this is an example of how Beth, even alone, just completely captures your imagination. She has no one else to act with here except for our AD off camera reading dialogue, and yet she's completely engaged in the story, in the character.

John: Yeah, this was a lot- this was- actually you wrote this whole chunk.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: Oh, here's another great local guest star.

John: Yeah. And that was another thing that Portland gave us. There's a lot of great local theater guys, a lot of local great actors who can really land a joke.

Dean: Yeah, it was so surprising.

Chris: I love that he has the ice tea, it's such a great-

[Laughter]

Chris: Such a great touch.

John: I like- and also the sort of- I don't know if it’s the weird veiled hostility between Hardison and Eliot gets turned outward whenever they run one of these cons- 

Dean: Right.

John: -but that guy is going to be the subject of their rage at each other. This guy was really great. 

[Laughter]

Chris: And this is a crime lab bit. I mean, let’s be honest, there are eight different CSIs on; we wanted to have a little fun.

John: Yes. We were kind of making fun of the CSI- the whole idea that CSI shows up at your house. I had my house broken into, they didn’t show up.

[Laughter]

Chris: The fact that the beat cop could be-

John: Bossed around by-

Chris: Bossed around by CSI guys was born out of those shows

John: And this, by the way, the bit with the balloons, was Richard. 

Dean: Great.

John: Just awkward, just trying to shift it, trying to ground it. And again, this- what amazes me when we got into the research of it, was how cheap it was to buy these guys. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: I mean really- like $10,000 gets you somebody's kid in city politics.

Dean: That's true.

Chris: The promise of a job when you're out of the office. You know, I mean, that's what brought down the Illinois governor.

John: Yeah, that's right. That’s right. And that's what is kinda fun is we do- oh, I love this bit.

Dean: Comedy frame.

John: Comedy frame! What is this? A locked off comedy frame.

Dean: Exactly.

John: Locked off frame, two people come in facing each other-

Dean: And I love this little smile right there on Christian’s face .

[Laughter]

Dean: He was just enjoying the bit until he realized, ‘Oh wait, I have to perform in the bit.’

John: Is that on the X? Is that- how did you get the RED so low?

Dean: Oh we just put it right on the floor on a sandbag. 

John: Oh that's good. 

[Laughter]

John: Thanks to these nice folks for letting us trash their home, by the way.

Dean: Yes. And for those of you who may have noticed in the wide angles, just the little numbers on the evidence things on the floors.

John: Yes, that they’ve scattered all over the ground. Yeah no set-dec did a great job.

Dean: You can see the numbers in the background.

Chris: Oh those are great!

John: And- and earning his pay-

[Laughter]

John: Nicely done.

Chris: That’s a nice little transition there.

John: It is a nice- almost like you put some thought into this.

Dean: And I swear I didn't. And this is our line producer’s wife .

John: Yeah.

Dean: Who also did a guest star in last year’s two-part season finale.

John: Last year’s finale! 

Chris: Oh, that’s right!

John: I like the idea she was on vacation in LA last year.

Dean: Exactly.

John: And now she’s back and involved in another Leverage scam. In my head it's the same person.

Dean: And this is an interesting scene for their arc, because, you know, Beth - Parker - really didn't trust Tara coming in.

John: Well she's not part of the family.

Dean: And only in this scene does she actually start to earn her trust, and they start to bond.

John: And we also wanted to reset the fact that, again, Parker is good in the short con. If you throw a surprise at her she doesn't handle it well, because talking to people doesn't even go well. Interestingly enough, she relates to people better in character than as Parker. 

Chris: Yes.

John: Yeah. And so until Tara gives her- so yes, the awkward- we really pulled up every political trope we could find. 

Chris: Oh, sure.

John: I think we sat down - adultery, pregnancy, corruption. Then we just went through the Times one day, just pulled up every scandal from that summer.

[Laughter]

John: And the 4-18 months. And there's actually a mayor’s conference, too.

Dean: That’s right.

John: We found out where the mayor’s conference was.

Chris: It's in Vegas. Sure that's where you would have the mayors conference, and that’s where he would meet her.

Dean: I like the little turn Parker makes here, after she’s been coached part way through it, now she gets it. So now she’s feeling comfortable doing it.

John: Now she understands, yeah.

Dean: And you can see her-

Chris: ‘Yeah, I'll just wait out there.’

John: And that is an actual office- that's a conference room at the city hall?

Dean: That sure is.

John: That we rappelled down into.

Dean: We had to use it as the mayor's office, cause the actual mayor's office was too small.

[Laughter]

John: That's right.

Chris: Oh, yeah.

John: Infamously the mayor took the smaller office in the city of Portland cause he just felt like he only needed that much work space.

Dean: That's right. Mayor Sam Adams who’s been incredibly helpful to this show, and we’re very grateful.

John: Yes. Very cool guy. I don't regret that duffle bag full of cash at all.

Chris: That is a great shot there.

John: That is a great shot. That really establishes that space. 

Chris: She’s- jeez.

John: She's beautiful, yes. I was referring to the setting, but-

Chris: Sorry, I was just-

John: Yes, Jeri Ryan was very beautiful, too.

Chris: I was just lost in Jeri Ryan.

John: It happens. And this is the great speech. And again, we listened to transcripts and looked at testimony. I mean if you look at Blagojevich-

Chris: Blagojevich, sure.

John: The remarkable bluntness with which they announce their terms and prices always amazes me.

Chris: Yeah. And it almost sounds like movie dialogue, but it’s not! It’s just the way they talk!

John: Yeah.

Dean: The evil speech of evil.

John: And we come up with evil speeches of evil, and then when you go find the real ones it's like, really? You said that? With a straight face? Alright. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: No, research is your friend. We really- you know, this is a remarkable static act with an awful lot going on. I never noticed that before.

Dean: Well I think- again, this is- when we separate our team into different locations, but yet having them communicate, it really gives a sense of energy to it. 

John: But we only have, like, three agendas.

Dean: Right.

John: You know, running it at any one time. This was a tight little shot. I remember this. This was- we were in that back bedroom, and trying to shoot. And then you had to- you had a totally different blocking, if I remember correctly.

Dean: Yeah, instead of being in the room with him, we decided we’d squeeze him through the doorway and make him feel like he’s in an even tighter space than he was by framing it that way. But it also gives a chance to use this hallway and bring in our guest performer.

John: Yeah. And the clue that travels over two different episodes. Hopefully, again, I'm glad that they aired these back to back because it would be tricky to-

Chris: Yes it’s- to track- there's a lot of stuff that this really did play like a movie.

Dean: And once again, we got to the-

John: Oh, the big smile.

Dean: -comedy frame.

John: Yes.

[Laughter]

John: That’s for all you young filmmakers out there, that is the comedy frame. And then the look- just the look of pity on his face. Yeah. 

[Laughter]

John: And the badge on the- there's no reason the CSI guys should have a badge on a shield. Chris just loves the badge on the shield- the badge on a chain. 

Dean: Exactly.

Chris: He likes that.

John: He really likes that look. If he can be doing like a 1970s- if he could be doing the British version of Life on Mars, he’d be the happiest man alive.

Dean: Oh yeah.

[Laughter]

Chris: Now I got a question for you. So was- now we had a Maltese Falcon joke, just one line in-

Dean: The previous episode.

Chris: -the previous episode. Did that give you the idea for the Maltese Falcon? Who came up with the Maltese Falcon bit?

John: No, you know it was- it was literally, I was trying to figure out, ‘What's the MacGuffin? What’s the maltese falcon? You know what, it'd be actually kind of fun to just call it that.’

Chris: Just the Maltese Falcon, OK.

John: Cause it’s so famous now, it's a little meta. And, you know, the fact that it would be called something rather than a shorthand for something- 

Chris: Right.

John: Cause we use that in the writers room all the time.

Chris: Yeah, we do.

John: The maltese falcon, what's the thing? Macguffin, Hitchcock famously defined it as. And this is Nate deciding to bail on the pitch and making- and this is tough. He’s basically processing offscreen dialogue and acting like he’s coming to a decision. 

Dean: I love Richard’s reaction to it, it's like ‘What?’

John: We just went for the whole-

Chris: ‘You just paid all this money, you don't want to engage in graft with me?’

John: Behind though-

Dean: Even out of focus he's stealing the scene.

John: I know. He's really upstaging the hell out of- out of focus. Look how far back he is. Aaand you're back. 

[Laughter]

John: And we've announced our agenda.

Chris: We've announced our agenda, we know our- and here we go.

Dean: Now this place was great, this ballpark. We wanted to shoot here all year and hadn’t really found a way to do it.

John: And that's why I give full props to Chris, is cuz I had the crime story back half of this done, and I could not figure out what the con on the mayor was. And you had fallen in love with this location you had seen- you were like-

Chris: This was great, I had gone to a game here.

John: We can finally pay off this location. And that’s- again, that's an advantage of being a city where you get to know- cause the baseball con was always a half an episode.

Chris: Right.

John: And we could never quite get it to be a whole. And then it was like, ‘Oh, we need half an episode. Boom.’

Chris: Well also there's a lot of public corruption around building ballparks, and we did a little research that minor league ballparks bring 30 million dollars into the local economy.

John: That was great. The day we did research and found out it was just a flat 30 million for almost every ballpark, it’s like, that’s just a great number.

Chris: Yup.

Dean: And by the way, I think some of the best special effects we’ve ever done are in this two-part season finale, but I don't think you'd even notice it. For instance all these shots in the ballpark, we had to erase and change all the signage-

John: Oh, that’s right.

Dean: -because we didn't have permission. And then later, we had to put in the crowds that were reacting. So there are amazing special effects in this, but they are so real you didn’t even know.

John: That’s right. Utterly seamless. If you see them, we screwed up. Yeah, and this particularly since those aren’t lockoff, the camera is moving, you know, the character is wiping in front of it, yeah.

Dean: And again, I love what David is doing in this scene, he is just channeling Smithers.

John: Yes.

[Laughter]

John: And there’s Paul Blackthorne, he’s really doing the job for us as evil European dude. He has a large black car- 

Chris: Yeah.

John: He's got a halfway rolled down window. We know what his job is in the story, we know what his job is in the narrative. 

[Laughter]

John: But what I love here is the fact that Richard there's just so dismissive. I mean the body language here besides- Why is this a good shot? Because you don’t have to turn around to get both of them.

Dean: Exactly.

John: He’s very casually powerful. 

Dean: Right.

John: This is a man who’s used to the world running the way he wants it to run.

Chris: Right, in this little burg of Bellbridge.

John: Yes.

Dean: And this is such a terrific location, and we were there early in the morning, got this great light. I was so excited to shoot this. 

Chris: And they have a nice-

John: Story shcmory. Pictures.

Chris: They have a nice rapport here, too. They have this kind of easy going, you know, banter.

Dean: You know, so much of this episode- these episodes, was wish fulfillment. We wanted to be in that ballpark all year, we wanted to get near the water under the bridges...

Chris: Yes.

John: You also- in case you're skipping through the commentaries, you’ll notice this happens in Bellbridge, Massachusetts. Bellbridge is the corrupt town in Chris’s episode, Order 23.

Chris: Yes, yeah.

John: We decided to create just one imaginary Massachusetts city we could crap on for an entire season.

Chris: Yes.

John: Just to make sure we had clearances, and we always knew- 

Dean: Exactly.

John: So please, if you're from a real Bellbridge, don’t be angry. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah, their rhythm here is lovely. They are partners by this point, in a very different way. And the fact that Jeri has established that over six episodes is pretty cool. How tough is it to shoot in a ballpark, my friend?

Dean: Well some of this we actually stole footage at a real- during a real game, but the rest was very easy because they were so cooperative. I mean, this is the actual locker room and they let us have it for the day, and gave us equipment and were-

Chris: And those are the- are those the uniforms?

Dean: Just terrific. Those are the actual uniforms. The ‘P’ is actually for Portland. 

[Laughter]

Dean: But in our show it’s-

Chris: Palmerstown.

John: And I love the fact it's actually the Portland Beavers, because if we come up with a comedy mascot we couldn't have beat beavers.

Dean: No.

John: And by the way the Portland Beaver? Good guy.

Dean: Very good guy.

John: Very good guy. Really cool. We hung out, everything.

Chris: Oh apologies to Crash Davis here, but boy does he do- he does-

John: Oh he's so digging in.

Chris: Does a great Bull Durham.

John: Really digging up. This is- we went back and forth- are we doing Major League or Bull Durham here?

Chris: It's pretty Bull Durham here. 

John: It’s pretty Bull Durham.

Chris: The journeyman catcher who shows up unannounced, it’s- 

John: Yeah, and also the idea that these- you know, talking to a lot of these guys who play this level ball, the precarious nature of their lives- I mean the guys who are kind of on rota from a major league team make a lot of money. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: The guys who are journeymanning this out, a lot of them have day jobs, man.

Dean: What I love about this is that Eliot himself doesn’t like baseball. Because we’ve already established what a big, giant sports fan he is. 

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: About how excited he was about all the sports channels in- both season one and season two.

John: But it's hockey- and it’s always hockey and football. And interestingly, we gave him your problem with baseball.

Dean: Exactly.

Chris: Yes we did, it really worked great.

John: I love baseball and I'm like, ‘I have no idea what he wouldn't like.’ And you said, I don’t like-’ Oh.

Chris: Oh, and John did a beautiful job directing this.

John: This is my directing debut right here 

[Laughter]

Chris: Mark it down folks.

John: Japanese power drink commercial. Because it really was one of those things I had in mind and it's like, ‘Alright describe it. You know what? I can't describe it, I'll just shoot this.’

Chris: I think I originally wrote it as it’s like a car- like a local car ad. 

John: Yeah.

Chris: Oh my god, how great is this Japanese sports drink commercial?

John: Also, again, you're lucky to have Chris Kane because a lot of actors wouldn't do the comedy beat in the commercial.

[Laughter]

Dean: Nails it.

John: He nails it. Look at the big smile! 

Dean: And he enjoys it!

John: Look at that, having a good time.

[Laughter]

Dean: But he hates baseball, and then he comes in here and the minute he cracks that bat you just see- you know, heroin to the junkie.

Chris: He really did- he gave it a real arc, you know. 

John: And also, I like the fact that this is the first time he uses a baseball bat for what it's actually meant for.

Dean: Right.

[Laughter]

John: He's been beating people up with baseball bats for like 20 years, and never really hit a ball with one before. Also, by the way, cool digital ball.

Chris: Oh watch this.

Dean: Exactly.

John: There you go.

Chris: Oh that is great.

Dean: I'm telling you some of our best digital effects-

Chris: That���s fantastic.

John: Oh look at that look.

Dean: And the second one- watch the indentation on the pad on the wall when the ball hits it. Small thing for effects artists, but really lovely, just oh that little indentation.

John: Oh that’s nice, the shadow. And there we are.

Chris: Oh there you go folks, there's Dean and John.

Dean: Oh dear, oh dear.

John: We’re also doing the voices here on the radio shows. On the DVD there should be about nine takes of this scene. Because the two of them, at one point it got very weird and sexual with her speaking Spanish, and Hardison getting all ramped up.

[Laughter]

John: It- this was definitely one of the ones where you just, like, park the camera and let the two of them go.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: Interesting, one of the challenges of shooting the greenscreens is color temperature.

Dean: Yes.

John: We actually had a little bit of trouble with this shot because- most people don’t understand, there’s a lot of different greens that go on green screens. It was not dead right, doing the special effects goes from easy to unspeakable.

Dean: Exactly, and so this one had- a lot of work had to go into being able to see what was on the screen.

John: Ironically, a lot of this was harder to see than the incredibly complex crowds and baseball stuff.

Dean: The stands, exactly.

John: This was a lot of fun. Outside real city hall, outside Portland city hall, at a coffee shop across the street at some ungodly hour of the morning.

Dean: Yeah, this was the first thing we shot that day.

John: And again, this is- it was interesting how originally there was an entire subplot where, how they’d been lured there, how the mayor- and you don’t need it.

Chris: Yeah. This is much better.

John: Yeah.

Dean: He just sees them, he walks across the street.

Chris: Yes.

John: We even took that bit out. We originally had him see them.

Dean: I love the really, really bad heist.

[Laughter]

John: The bad lift.

Dean: Smithers stumbles into the table.

John: And Kind just drops the look there a little bit.

Chris: A little disgust right there.

Dean: Just a little squint.

[Laughter]

John: And the turnaway when it’s like, ‘Oh horrible lift.’ They don’t even have to- they both know what happened, they both know it was unspeakable. 

Dean: Well, you know, amateurs to pros, you know?

John: And this was fun, these are based on real blueprints.

Chris: Yeah, real blueprints for-

Dean: This was that other shot was the beginning of the day. This was the last shot of the day, and we’d run out of time. So I had to shoot this all in one shot.

John: Oh this is a one-er!

Chris: This is a one-er, take a look at that.

Dean: This is a very hard steadicam shot. While it’s not that impressive of a shot, it's a very difficult shot.

John: And also-

Dean: Cause you’re doing all the coverage with one camera.

John: And you're banging focus like crazy.

Chris: You’re getting a lot of information, right.

John: And also the actors can’t mess up.

Dean: That’s right.

John: At no point can they stop, can they drop a line, can they, you know.

Dean: The only thing we did is one little reverse at the very end on David’s character. But as you can see all of this-

John: To give you a cut, or?

Dean: Just to give us a cut in case we needed to combine.

Chris: It’s interesting how great these end of day one-ers come out.

Dean: Yeah.

Chris: And they're born of necessity.

Dean: That’s what so interesting about television is, you know, it really forces you to be creative.

John: Yeah. Oh there you go, I see what you did.

Chris: Oh here's the ballpark.

Dean: Now this is a mixture of stuff that we staged and stuff that we stole during an actual ballgame. But all the-

Chris: The actual ballgame you shot before, I think, the script was written.

John: I think I sent the outline saying we would be at the ballpark. And so Dean had to come up with a shot list based on basically our friendship- 

Chris: This is great.

John: -figuring out what I would probably put in the script.

Dean: These are all real things there. 

John: Yeah.

Dean: That we shot. Now all the crowds, though, we added digitally.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Oh that’s great.

Dean: So in all these wide shots when you see these full crowds, they had about- there was a scattered amount of people. In all the shots where it’s full, that’s us.

John: Yeah.

Chris: That’s great.

Dean: For all these shots here. And of course all the signage is changed digitally.

John: And Kane went down, caught a couple pitches, and actually on the shot we have him hit, he actually connected, put it on the warning track. It was a good day for Chris Kane.

Chris: That’s a beautiful shot, too, there; love that.

John: That's a beautiful one, yeah.

Dean: And this actor is actually a state senator.

[Laughter]

Dean: Who had helped pass the legislation for us to-

John: I actually think we’re the bad guys at this point. Seriously, we’re doing an episode about graft and corruption and- 

Dean: Well the hilarious thing is, he wanted to play the corrupt mayor.

John: I know. And we were like ‘You know dude, that's probably not the best idea for you to play the corrupt mayor.’

Chris: I can see the campaign commercials.

Dean: All those crowds, digital. 

Chris: Wow, that’s great.

Dean: I mean that's really something.

John: And look at that, through a moving shot.

Dean: And then all the signage behind them is changed as well.

John: And that’s our-

Dean: And if you notice, that’s Hardison’s orange drink on the sign.

Chris: Oh that’s great.

John: Oh my god, that's right.

Chris: And to do with- with a moving camera is very difficult.

Dean: Very difficult.

John: And this is a conference on the mound from both Major League and Bull Durham.

Dean: And the pitcher is actually our second AD.

John: Kyle, yeah.

Dean: Yeah.

John: That's right, you give him a nice hero shot here, too.

Chris: Oh, that's a great shot of Kyle.

John: I also love- This helps lock in the arc where he’s like, ‘I'm now fully committed to winning baseball as much as I am to winning fights.’

Dean: Exactly.

John: No this was a lot of- and this is a lot of fun. This was- it's amazing what you can do with implication.

Dean: Right.

John: You know, just put two people in the same geography and let the characters draw their own conclusions. 

Chris: Yeah, let them do the math.

John: A lot of time you'll try to oversell the con, and what you have to remember is people create narrative about the world around them, you know?

Dean: Oh and I love this bit.

John: Yeah this is a lot of fun, the stuntie really took a hit. And down!

Chris: Oh, oh, oh!

[Laughter]

John: I love he does kind of the -

Dean: Notice that the ref is cross eyed; he's a real ref! 

[Laughter]

Dean: That is not something that- I didn't ask him to act cross eyed.

John: I love this- that dude is dead. That dude is dead. He’s plainly just- he's not getting up. Right now they're asking people to leave the park quietly.

Chris: I think he did that in one or two takes, I mean, he just got it.

Dean: Yeah.

John: He just- it was a beautiful fall.

Dean: By the way, this is another one-er and this is a very difficult scene to light for television where you don't have that much time. And our DP was really creative in the way he made the sun blazing through the back to light up pretty much the entire set.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Now was it easier because you're working with the RED camera for something like this? Available light...

Dean: The RED helps, but at the end of the day it’s about your DP and your gaffer, and we really have, really, two of the best guys in the business.

John: And again, this is also- so much help to be able to do the research on this. Where it’s like, ‘Well, how could he possibly communicate in code how much money-?’ No, he would write it down and give it to him.

Dean: Right.

John: That's what they do, apparently, I had no idea. 

[Laughter]

Dean: Right.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Or they'll just say it, unaware. And this yeah, this was a lot of fun, because also- Richard really found the idea that he was supposed to help Nate feel overconfident. 

Dean: Right.

John: You know, he's supposed to play into it a little easy. And he's- now he's totally into it.

Dean: I love how cross eyed the ref is, that's so great. I mean, the umpire, that's just so great.

John: Boom! That was a good solid hit. That's- Chris Kane put it on the warning track ladies and gentlemen.

Dean: And if you listen carefully in the background, you can hear the crowd chanting ‘Roy, Roy.’

[Laughter]

John: Oh he's become a hometown hero in roughly two weeks. What's the next shot up? Oh there we go, back at McRorys.

Chris: Now- now we're back.

John: Now this is one of our lovely roundy- and oh, this is great. One of our roundy-rounds where we just basically- script kids, when you want to communicate pipe and reset, the way to do it is have somebody not give a crap about the pipe that you're talking about. 

[Laughter]

John: He has his own agenda, it makes it instantly amusing.

Chris: Somebody comes in irritated.

Dean: And boy did he knock this out of the park. 

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: Kane, who didn’t care- I mean Eliot, who didn't care about baseball at all, is so proud of himself and he's so mad they didn't share his moment of glory.

John: His joy. They named a sandwich after him. Also, that’s a nice beat that they all chose. It’s like, you know, alright, you gotta give it up. That's a nice moment; boom, boom, and the fistbump.

Chris: You got a sandwich named after him.

Dean: Eliot has a hoage? No a reuben.

[Laughter]

John: I also like- I had not noticed before because I was kind of- Nate’s taking a phone call and I was watching it for that beat, the, sort of, fun that Jeri Ryan’s playing there, it's like, ‘OK, I'm part of the family now, this is genuinely amusing.’ 

Dean: Now this is a fun reveal shot. 

John: One of the cross cuts that I gave you again as your birthday gift. Moving in opposite directions?

Dean: Moving in opposite directions so that they are always looking at each other screen direction wise.

Chris: Right, right.

John: Cause we know awful things happen when you cross the lines.

Dean: If you cross the line, cities fall.

[Laughter]

Chris: No, but I mean, when you do phone calls that's an important thing to do.

Dean: For me I think so. I’m old school.

John: What I love is the fact that he starts the incredibly confident powerful guy that we know. And by the end of this swing around, Richard lets himself just kind of look- just 

Dean: Now he's-

Chris: Nice reveal there.

John: Yeah, and nice reveal on that blown out window. And now he's just a pawn, he's just a broken little man, you know. And that's very- the last shot is plainly Nixon. 

[Laughter]

John: It’s plainly like- what's that famous shot of Nixon at 2am in the oval office?

Dean: Right.

John: It’s that look at him. And he did all that in one take, conveying pipe to Nate.

Dean: And now we switch to our handheld, because our guys are in trouble. And I love how much Nate is overcompensating. Whenever Nate’s overcompensating, you know something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. 

John: And his addiction is taking over. Be it booze or control.

Dean: And in this case, both.

John: Yes. He's not really got his head on in this particular case. Yeah, everyone's arguing with him, everyone- and this is another great thing, when Nate spins out you don’t ever have a problem with the plot, because the problem with the plot is the point of the plot. 

Chris: Right.

John: Like with, ‘That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense.’ Exactly! Tell that to Nate!

Chris: Yeah.

John: It's important for him to know.

Dean: Our editor did- Brian Gonosey, did a very interesting choice here from cutting from Nate to Nate. Which we almost never do, and it gives it, kind of, strange, nervous energy.

Chris: Well you're kinda-

John: It's claustrophobic.

Chris: You get the sense of people's eyes on him.

Jon: Right.

Chris: A lot of people looking at him.

Dean: But it’s not- again, that kind of cut we don't normally do on the show, and it really makes this a nervous scene.

John: Yeah, you’re going-

Dean: Nate to Nate to Nate to Nate.

John: Yeah, cause you're hopping- Jeri to Parker, you're seeing him plead his case. Jeri to Beth, Jeri to Beth, you know, you're seeing him through their eyes. And then back to the reactions where they know, yeah.

Dean: Something’s wrong.

John: And each one of them is making a very specific decision at that point.

Dean: Again, this port- these guys were so great to let us shoot there.

John: Oh man.

Dean: Gave us such wonderful access.

John: That’s the real port, that's not stock, baby, that’s-

Dean: That’s right, that’s the real deal.

John: And- and a lot of fun doing the TSA stuff, doing the Homeland Security stuff. The research on this was as horrifying as you'd imagine. Most of this is security theater, your ports are not secure, sleep tight America. 

Dean: And this actor was also discovered in that same improv group that we found the actor from the doctor episode.

Chris: Oh that’s interesting.

Dean: The Order 23.

Chris: John, you made a good point about how Order 23 pays off. A question about Order 23, about security at the courthouse. 

John: Yes, in Order 23 there's a beat like ‘How do they get the gun in there?’ And it’s because the courthouse has not been refurbished, because the budget on the town-

Dean: Right.

John: The city is so poor. And that's also why he felt confident hiding the money there. 

Chris: Right, right.

John: That pays off here in the- you find out the reason there's no money for the city is the mayor has grifted it all.

Dean: Right.

Chris: All the security money that he got, federal anti-terrorism money went into his own pocket.

Dean: And I love how Eliot is now playing a celebrity.

[Laughter]

Dean: And he's so proud that he's a celebrity.

John: And we also flipped roles for once, cause Hardison is usually not the one who’s annoyed, it’s-

Dean: Right.

Chris: Yeah, no it's true, he is.

John: It's really he’s- and it’s really both, ‘Get back on the job,’ and, ‘I'm not the center of attention.’

Chris: Yes.

Dean: These two are magical together.

John: Yeah, that's a great- this is a great noir set up.

Dean: Yeah, even with the black car in the distance, which is a bit of red herring.

Chris: Look at this shot, I mean this is a movie shot.

John: Beautiful. Now how do we- was this at night? Or were we during the day here on this?

Dean: This was at the end of the day, so we actually spilled into night and had to light it to keep it looking like this. And that's an actual oil tanker that they allowed us to shoot at.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Wow.

John: And then that- this walkway is actually exactly where we just located it. It's directly below the docks. And it really was- a lot of the fun was walking around the location going, ‘OK, this scene can happen here, this scene can happen here.’ And we didn't get too poisoned shooting in this warehouse. We all had funny coughs for about a week, but we were OK.

Dean: They warned us about spiders and raccoons under this- 

John: Yeah.

Dean: So we were looking for eight-legged raccoons at some point.

John: At some point we were very worried there would be a horrible combination.

Chris: Oh really? Wow, I missed this part.

John: Well you weren't up here for shooting at the oil tanker, getting poisoned by fumes.

Chris: Yeah, yeah. I looked at the schedule and went, ‘What’s the day you hang out in the baseball park?’

John: I noticed that. You came for the baseball park-

Chris: ‘Oh, I’ll come for that.’

John: You really didn't hang out with us in the oil tanker hold. Yeah, black lung kicking in. 

[Laughter]

John: This is a great cross cutting by Brian, this kind of- what he's doing is he's finding some- finding an odd rhythm here. It's not danger, it's unease.

Dean: Right.

John: You know, every shot is a little too short, it's a little too- yeah. And again, sort of end of day shooting, everything in the warehouse from the moment they walk in- like they get to the oil barrel, through the end of the episode pretty much, you did in a one-er. 

Dean: Yup.

John: One direction one way, one direction the other.

Dean: Your easy bake oven reference is awesome. I don't know how many people under the age of 40 are gonna get it, but god I love that reference.

John: Who under 40 watches television anyway? 

Chris: I appreciate it so much. Made me laugh so hard.

John: They've still got those. I got one for my niece.

Chris: With the one little bulb that actually makes the cake. 

John: Who knew? I love, Parker is constantly finding crates full of guns.

[Laughter]

John: I'm fairly sure she could open a gift with purchase from Neiman Marcus and it would have guns in it.

Chris: And by the way, kudos to you to find- when we put this thing together, to find the transition between corrupt mayor and arms deal in the docks. I mean, the thing was built around certain setpieces.

John: Yeah. And also it sort of made sense these- when you research, the amount of legal arms dealing that goes on in the states is magnificent. 

Chris: Right, right.

John: And when you find out these guys run these things out of Boston, New York, Miami, you know.

Chris: Right.

John: It's got to be somewhere.

Dean: And this is one of the rare times where our team is really losing at the end of an episode.

John: Oh yeah, they’ve got to lose. They really- they have- and this was interesting, because it really was one of those times where we sat back and said, ‘In what version of this show are our guys the bad guys that get caught?’

Dean: Right.

John: Just write this section of this show like that show. Like we're writing NCIS or we’re writing CSI or something. And really put our guys in the dead seat. And man he just radiates rage.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And it's not just because Richard Kind is a bad guy, it's because he's lost control.

Chris: Yeah.

John: You know, that is Nate Ford in a world he doesn't want to live in.

Dean: Now we got them in this impossible situation, and- but we can’t end the show without a little bit of fun. 

John: Yeah.

Dean: And the win within the loss here is, I think, is truly inspired.

John: Oh yeah, managing to get them out of there. 

Dean: Yeah.

John: That was a lot of fun. I can't remember where the idea from- the idea of the multiple exits came from. We were playing around in another episode with ambiguity, somebody- signal of, like, time and ambiguity, and that held over, because you use all the parts of the animal, and that hung out and that's of course-

Chris: That's Katie O’Grady.

John: Katie O’Grady.

Chris: She’s a terrific Portland actress. She runs an acting school up there. 

John: Yup, yup. And she really came in as kind of one off, and it’s- after two episodes it’s like, ‘Yeah, I could see this character coming back. I could see this fed,’ you know. A lot of Portland actors did that. A lot of Portland actors turned one day into a recurring role. 

Dean: Yeah.

John: The- and just barely buying him enough time. And that's the important thing here, is that each character is finding a little piece of the solution. That was the fun of this episode is, there's a famous fighter pilot saying which is, ‘Stay alive for the next 10 seconds.’ That's all you have to do. In the next 10 seconds, your wingman will get the guy, or the guy will get out of position, and that's all they are trying to do for this section of this script.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: Thers a great turn here where he reveals that he was somehow part of this attempted assassination of one of the family- the extended family. 

John: Yeah.

Dean: And the rage that comes out of Nate is everything that’s built up over the entire year. 

John: And what's really interesting is, because you shot this all in one piece- this is not split up into takes, this built in real time.

Dean: That's right.

John: You know, this really builds from that confession- and I was out of position the first time he did the wrench, and I was like ‘What the hell just happened? Did Tim just crush Richard Kind’s head?’

Chris: It's his friend! They're friends!

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, they're friends, but the wrench wasn't in the script. Tim just picked up the wrench!

Dean: Right.

Chris: He just picked up a wrench. And we were like, ‘Is that a rubber prop wrench?’

Dean: I love her character is like, ‘Then just kill him.’ I mean, she has no moral position on this, she just wants to get out alive.

John: Yeah, this- like we were talking the other day, where Sophie still exchanges Christmas cards with people she's ripped off, Tara Cole has walked out of a lot of burning buildings with metal suitcases full of bloodstained cash. 

Dean: And never looked back.

John: And never looked back. And in that moment she is absolutely serious. If you're gonna kill this guy, get it done. You know, but she’s not gonna coddle him.

Dean: Now this may be one of my favorite bits that you guys have ever come up with, and it starts with a great turn.

John: It’s like- you know why? Cause it’s a locked off comedy frame, my friend.

Chris: That is.

Dean: Locked off comedy frame. But it's one of the oldest gags in television. 

John: It is.

Dean: Is that slow turn look.

Chris: The turn look.

John: And then the turn reveal, and this- 

Chris: ‘Oh no. Oh no, you're not gonna do it. Oh no, no way, Jose.’

[Laughter]

Dean: And once again, Aldis Hodge showing why he is a truly, truly special talent. This part is not written.

John: No.

Dean: This part is just him going- 

John: The printed page ends with, ‘They turn and look at the van.’

Dean: Right.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John: Yes and- 

Dean: All of this is him being brilliant.

John: And that means also that Beth and Chris had to find the timing to when they were both gonna turn.

Dean: Right.

John: And that's the thing is, they work together a lot, now they've got a lot of, sort of, physical cues from each other. But yeah, this is all him, this is all him going off. And this is born of 207 when we shot him and Will Wheaton versus each other; they spent the whole day in the van alternating. And so Aldis was making a joke about the fact he has a very weird relationship with that van, cause he's in it and nobody else is.

Dean: And he even brought back in the fact that everyone teases him that the van smells.

John: Yes, exactly.

Chris: That the van smells, we made that a recurring thing.

John: So that's become a recurring thing and it was really- it was really the actors discussion of his character that led to the bit. 

Dean: Now a lot of people may miss this-

John: Oh this is my favorite bit-

Dean: -but just watch Parker when the doors shut.

John: Yup.

Dean: Because Parker is so close to Aldis she gives a kiss goodbye and leaves the little lip print.

[Laughter]

John: I never noticed that before. 

Chris: Oh she did, she leaves the lip print, that’s great.

John: Not in the script. 

Dean: One of my favorite camera moves right here. ‘Aaaaand, let’s begin.’

[Laughter]

John: There is- definitely been working together long enough now that we know- and now that jazz music is in the background, we’re up and running.

Chris: There you go.

Dean: It all kicks in. And again, how Richard was able to now change from that dark to humorous. Literally turning on a dime.

John: And this is him-

Chris: Oh there's so many speeches he made saying goodbye.

John: This is him doing the- that is Kirk saying goodbye to Spock.

[Laughter]

John: By the way, from the Wrath of Kahn, that is the speech he's doing right there.

Dean: And we- my favorite digital effect.

John: No van, no van there.

Dean: All painted.

Chris: Oh that’s great.

John: ‘I’ll miss you.’ No and that was- but of course, again, you were blowing stuff up at a dock.

[Laughter]

John: Without any real permission or notifying the authorities. It’s really I think I'd be disappointed now if you called ahead. 

Dean: That’s right.

John: And this is the reveal, and this was really tricky, trying to figure out the timeframe, how they could get around, how quickly they get around.

Dean: So we had to use the bomb as the time signature.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Right.

John: Because the- when we got there originally, this was structured slightly differently, but the exits in the physical locations didn't match. But that’s why TV is great, you have a writer on set-

Dean: Exactly.

John: So you can actually have the director walk around with you and go, ‘This isn't gonna work.’ ‘Sure it will.’ ‘No it won't, fix it.’

[Laughter]

Chris: Well I think originally the thing went inside the- 

John: Yes, yeah. And we couldn't do that, and you couldn't see the blow, and then you had to blow all three doors simultaneously if you did it, and it would've been madness. And Katie's look of rage there is magnificent. 

Chris: That’s great, as the car goes by.

John: It really- ‘I am an angry, angry fed.’ And this is also one of the times when we don’t let Nate off the hook.

Dean: Right.

John: You know and Aldis is genuinely- yeah.

Chris: Yeah, he managed to transition from the fun of saying goodbye to the van, to actual rage.

Dean: Genuinely pissed off. And now another bit of John Rogers directing on this episode is the car getting away.

Chris: Nice!

John: The car- yeah, this is-

Dean: Right here, here we go and then look at this nice power slide.

Chris: Oh, good job.

John: I caught the reflection in the side of the car that was suction cup bounce and they actually hold on. You didn't give me the wet down one.

Dean: And this is my favorite reveal of a character ever.

John: I have no idea how you did this! Did you lower him by rope? How does he get in the shot?

[Laughter]

Chris: Well he comes in-

John: And we’re coming around, this is all a one-er and… he… is… there.

[Laughter]

John: He just- it is one of those things where, much like- 

Chris: How would he fit inside?

Dean: [Mimicking Mark Sheppard] There's no one else that can make an entrance-

John: Quite like Mark Sheppard.

Dean: -like Mark Sheppard.

[Laughter]

John: And by the way, we decided to make him- because we were cooking up a threat, and- we’ll actually continue talking about this in the next episode...

Chris: In the next episode.

Dean: Please stay tuned for the second part of this. 

Chris: Stay tuned.

Dean: But this was a lot of fun, and thank you for listening to the first half. Stay tuned for part two.

[perrypixel]

1, 5, 9, 13, 29, 21, 26, 32, 33, 42, 49

What are your top 3 favorite sets you’ve made

darklands gifset - all the darklands gifsets SLAPS

return of human jim - soft baby baby boy uwu

chat blanc - the colors are immaculate. I peaked here and it's all downhill from here

5. What is your favorite movie/TV show to gif

Any 2D show, cuz i have more control over the colors than with 3D ones.

9. What/who inspired you to start making gifs

Idk. I saw a post about how to install photoshop and I was like 'why not' and then I went digging for gif tutorials and they seemed fun to do.

13. Where or from whom did you learn how to gif

From several gif tutorials! I used zue's @bananagreste gif tutorials and some from other resource blogs like @completeresources

29. Have you ever posted a set, realized you made a mistake later but it was already too late

LMAO THIS ONE. But i didn't care enough to change it. But a lot of them do.

21. PSDs or original coloring for each gif

I can do both but I definitely prefer original coloring

26. How many un posted sets are in your drafts right now

Four. I'm getting ready for goldenlight week.

32. What is your favorite tool/adjustment layer in Photoshop

Selective coloring or photo filters my most beloved <3

33. Do you like to/can you make edits and graphics too or only gifs

Yeah, I've definitely made graphics and icons. Most recently I made the prompt list for @goldenlightweek2022

42. How is your gif folder organized? Is it organized at all?

It's barely organized. I have my edits folder where all my gifs and psds are saved and I have the icons folder for my icons and I order it by most recent

49. How much would you say you’ve improved since you first started giffing

A LOT. Like look at these two images. I had no concept of resolution and dimension

gifmaker asks!