Dimension 20

Adventuring Party

Crew Edition

Season 3 Episode 17

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Brennan: Hello, what up and welcome back to another thrilling extra special Adventuring Party. I'm your humble Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan and with me as always as always. As always?

(all laughing)

No, no, no. Far from always, extra special just for you. The cherry on top of this season of Adventuring Party, we have none other than the fellow crafters of Dungeons. The spinner of stories, the Titans who have raised from the foundations of the Earth. This show that you know and love, Dimension 20. Say hi fellow Dungeon masters.

All: Hi fellow Dungeon masters.

Brennan: Oh my gosh, it's the crew of the Unsleeping City chapter two. Welcome, welcome. Well, we gotta go through... We're gonna introduce everybody. I'm gonna start in my little lineup here. First of all, Dimension 20 Creative Director, Orion D. Black.

Orion: Hi.

Brennan: Head of Production for a Dropout, David Kerns.

David: Hello.

(claps)

Brennan: Editor for the Unsleeping City, Erin Hassidim.

Erin: Whoa!

(all laughing)

Brennan: And also editor for the Unsleeping City, Amielee Eastin.

Amielee: Whoa!

(Amielee laughing)

Brennan: Unsleeping City Executive Producer, Ebony Elaine Hardin.

Ebony: Hello.

Kendra: We like crowd sounds.

(all laughing)

Erin: I'm supposed to add those in post, I’m sorry.

(All laughing)

Brennan: I know, the normal sound is like, production designer and crafter of the Dome, Rick Perry.

(Rick waves)

Brennan: Roll20 Maestro, Carlos Luna.  

(Crowd noises)

Carlos: (Carlos whispers)I love you.

Brennan: Plus season illustrator, Kendra Wells.

(crowd noises)

Brennan: And tech capture and IT wizard, Ryan Green. Who's working on this episode right now.

Ryan: (off-screen) Hello everyone.

(all laughing)

Kendra: Whoa!

Brennan: Hey.

Carlos: Insert Ryan baby photo right here.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Well, hell yes. Oh gosh, it's so lovely to see everyone's faces. This is the incredible crew. Is just the some of the incredible crew of Unsleeping City chapter two. People who bring you Dimension 20, we're working hard behind the scenes all the time to deliver this wonderful actual play show to you and we're so happy to have them all here. How does everyone find themselves here at the conclusion of the Unsleeping City chapter two?

Kendra: Great.

Orion: Good.

(All laughing)

Carlos: We survived, all good

Orion: We made it to the end, not too much blood loss.

Brennan: Yes. Precisely, precisely. Well, here's the deal, I would actually love to hear from everybody, to go into some detail about like, how you got involved on the show, what your job is for fans in the show who may be just like to consume tabletop content without knowing the ins and outs of like audio, video production. But we're gonna actually... We'll key into that so you doesn't feel like everyone's here doing like a book report. On like, "Here's my job.

(Kendra laughing)

Here's what I do." We're gonna start with an awesome question to lead in. But please, when you do answer the question for the first time, please do also like tell us what you do. And like, if you've worked on like other seasons or you've done other stuff. This one comes to us from Mahal. Thanks Mahal. Mahal asks,

"Hello all, congratulations on a season well done. Truly it was such a delight to watch. Do you have any lesser known facts, funny stories or questions that you wish people asked about the production of the Unsleeping City chapter two? Think of this question as the free space on a bingo card to say whatever you'd like about the season. Excited for the next season."

Kendra: Whoa!

Brennan: And I'm not gonna structure this. So I'm gonna leave the floor,

(All laughing)

a damn free for all. I'm gonna let you all jump in.

Orion: I definitely have something that is a favorite of mine. To explain, I am Creative Director here at Dimension 20. I was not at the time that I was working on season two. I was just a consultant, but I just said, "Hey, this is a cool idea." And also, "Hey, we need to take that out because that makes people feel bad."

(Brennan and Amielee laughing)

So as I went through the episodes, I had a great time watching them. I was watching them for the first time because I was also keeping up with, does all of this make sense to viewers. Every single time that, let's say a sound effect was gonna come up, And like, I wanted to hear a specific sound effect, Erin and Amielee like 85% of the time had the exact thing I was thinking of. And Erin even, like when I was like, "Oh man, some music would hit like right here." Like at the exact second, Erin's music would be there. I think Erin has the same timing as me, I swear like music goes. That was super fun. 'Cause I was like, "Oh, let me write this note." Nope, Erin did it again.

(Amielee laughing)

Brennan: Amielee, do you remember the thing when we were noting through cuts. This was in one of your episodes on Unsleeping I believe. Was this the... Hold on, let's see if memory serves. This was Holland tunnel fight. One of the two episodes that the Holland tunnel fight appears in. And Orion noted a cone of cold-

Amielee: Yeah.

Brennan: That was cast by Pete in the episode.

Amielee: Oh, yeah!

(Erin laughing)

Brennan: And Orion was like, "Hey, this one should probably be done to match the one from the previous, from like four episodes ago. I think it's dah, dah, dah, dah." And we don't have the clip names on the timeline. That spell effect happens under like four other layers of like speaking and laughing and shouting. It is a nearly identical spell effect. Like one notch in a family of sound effects that Orion heard in a feat of like superhuman. That's like some like super taster wine snob shit of like, sound effect is actually I believe from Northern Georgia.

(All laughing)

Amielee: I believe this is Ice Book two and...

(all laughing)

Kendra: It's actually a cone of cold effect if it doesn't come from cone of cold region.

Carlos: There you, you're very faster than me. Though I had that one at the tip of my tongue. I was just like, "Oh!"

(all laughing)

Orion: Don't make it sound so cool. And it was really like, "Oh, that's not the sound effect."

(all laughing)

Amielee: You thought and looked at and I was like, "No, it looks like the same file name." And then I looked and I was like, "Oh, it's the same family, but the wrong number. And it's very slightly different and I have no idea how you caught that." I still think about it. I like go to sleep at night and it's like, "How did they do that?"

Orion: Then the sound part of post-production is like... Like I started putting in more tracks and asking you all for like the music and getting into that. The sound part of everything. I'm a very auditory learner. I love the music and stuff. So like, it all stays in there. Not much else stays in there.

(all laughing)

But random sound effects that you will almost never need. Your life, unless you're in this very specific situation, I got you.

(Amielee laughing)

Brennan: Incredible.

Rick: The sound was exceptional. I thought this last season, like that music was amazing. The sound effects, it was just like... I just was like, "Oh yeah, that's a good choice." You know, like very good.

Erin: Thank you. We can't keep patting on the back...

(All laughing)

Brennan: We should know the outpouring of love from the fans specifically about the soundtrack this season, which was... For people, again... And also because this is like the nitty gritty where, you know, we are the full crew. Like live in the Dungeon and tend to it so the brave adventurers can come in and run around in it. So like, it's fun to get into the Dungeon craft stuff here a little bit, which is like. You know, we don't play sound in the Dome for the most part and especially not, you know, like... I think, Ebony, there was some conversation about like maybe us doing like a playing over Roll20, and then we were like-

David: All right.

Ebony: It would have 'caused so many problems in editing.

Amielee: Yes, thank you.

(all laughing)

Thank you for not doing that.

Ebony: Yes.

(Ebony laughing)

Erin: Also Brennan-

Ebony: It was determined it was best to just... At best people could hear a little something in their ear while they were playing, and at worst, they would have to use their imagination.

(David laughing)

Erin: But also Brennan would have to like, control all of music and DJ basically. Which you did for the for the live season, which was amazing that you could do that at the same time as dungeon mastering.

Brennan: There's a lot of like home game practice that goes into that. But like, also I think there was a threat of real concern too. Because, you know, this was... Something that we should acknowledge I guess it's like, this was our first core cast season shot remotely. Like shot during the pandemic. This was a huge Titanic amount of effort finding- I see Ebony shaking her head.

(all laughing)

We'll wait, let's actually... We'll come back to sound-track in a second. Let's take a move off into production for a second and hear about, from a producer. People that were there in like pre production. What did the lift of trying to do a full season remote mean for the show?

David: Ebony, do you wanna start or you?

(all laughing)

Ebony: You start, because, and then I'll chime in when you called me.

(all laughing)

David: I mean, when COVID hit, which was as we're filming this almost exactly a year ago, we were at the very, very end of our live season of sophomore year. And we had to, within a week, we were like, "Maybe we're hopefully gonna film the finale live still in the Dome." And that just went away completely when COVID officially hit and pandemic hit. And then we just like, we had at that point, all of Crown of Candy that was still releasing, but there was this looming, like we need to keep programming going and everyone... You know, the company had just changed dramatically and COVID had just hit. It was like, I don't even know... We don't even have an office and like, I don't know what we're gonna, nobody... We just literally unplugged stuff at the studio where the Dome was one day when we were thinking we were gonna go back and shoot the live- the finale of the live season. And then we just like literally didn't go back in there for months. And everyone was just like working at home and trying to just kind of like, see how the world was even let alone the nature of like the next seasons. And it was very clear, like, we need to make something we've been making. You know, these types of over zoom, over Skype type of like little things here and there. I was like, we gotta, you know, we can get people together. We can storytell, there's something here. We can use different, we can use Roll20. We can use like different things that are out there. So let's like, put it together and try to make it work.

(Ebony and David laughing)

And it was like, "All right Ebony.."

Ebony: Hi David.

David: were gonna, hello.

(all laughing)

Can you start the day? I think it was. I think whenever we call it was like, can you start today or something like that.

(Brennan laughing)

Ebony: It was.

David: It was like, we need, you know. We don't know... We were kind of figuring it out as we were going along in terms of making the best quality thing, knowing that everyone is gonna be safely at their houses at home, and still trying to include all the bells and whistles as much as possible, but having some serious, like handicaps and not even knowing until we were testing things out the best way to make that recording happen so that it could be edited, and you could have that control in post. So I don't know, Ebony then-

Ebony: Yeah.

(David laughing)

so then, when I got the call from David, he's like, "Okay, we want to do a remote season." And I had been sitting in my apartment doing nothing for a minute. So I was just happy that we're gonna make something. Yes, let's be creative. And then it just turned to ,say yes and then we'll figure it out as we go. Because for me it was... I hadn't didn't have experience shooting remotely, if that's even a thing, it is now. But at the time didn't. Wasn't familiar, I'm not a streamer. Wasn't super familiar with remote streaming technology outside of the tricaster that we use for this. And some of the C8 podcasts and things, like the vodcasts and things like that. So it was a lot of just figure it out as you go. And we are still in a pandemic. So there was a lot of... Everybody suddenly needs to stream from home. Everybody wants to be shooting remotely. So any thing that you need, any piece of remote technology is sold out everywhere.

David: Well yeah.

(Ebony laughing)

Ebony: We, and luckily we are production company. So there were some things that we just had because we had it. But to shift to a full remote was a feat. Luckily we had time and we plan to. We gave ourself- The schedule was built to give ourselves some time to figure these things out. But it was how do you take the best thing that is usually eight people at a table together playing with beautifully, handcrafted pieces that take hours to create. How do you do that on your computer? And it took time, but we figured it out.

David: Yeah.

Brennan: It's wild to me even going back and thinking about being like, "Hey, can we try to like stretch the bandwidth a little bit to like play music in the middle of the things." And then being like, getting the look of Brennan, Ally Beardsley runs their internet out of a lava lamp on...

(all laughing)

It'll be a miracle if we get audio. You know what I'm saying? Like, it'll be a miracle.

(Brennan laughing)

There were like so many-

David: Yeah. Well, there is a big element with on our side was like, most of the cast, most of this cast aren't streamers. You know, so look at Carlos Luna down there, fucking looks amazing. Perfectly lit incredible background. But we needed to make this, whatever we were figuring out, that we were all figuring on the production side for the very first time, we also had to make that translatable and approachable enough for a group of very talented actors who are learning the technical side of things as we're learning it mostly for the first time. 'Cause they're not your normal like streamer as well. And so that was part of like the package to put together to give to people. Of like, trying to make it as simple as is possible given that we were asking for, trying to make it look as good as possible all along the way.

Amielee: I will say I would love to absolutely give a shout out to both the talent of Dimension 20 and all talent who is remotely filming right now. So many additional parts of production work has been thrown on people that are just trying to give a performance. And like my hat is off to everyone who is making it work well, dealing with things they never wanted to learn how to do while still making a fantastic show. I think it's an absolute feat and a...

Brennan: Hell yeah.

Amielee: Just y’all killed it.

Brennan: Hey, well said. Also, if I can piggyback off of that, shout out to all the partners and roommates of that talent.

(all laughing)

Izzy, I love you very much and I'm so sorry.

(all laughing)

Erin: There was a part were Ally's roommates were like in the kitchen making noise and I was like, "I'm sorry, I have to go tell them to stop."

(all laughing)

Then I heard on the microphone, "Guys, it'll just be like five more minutes, it's the finale. I promise it's almost over."

(all laughing)

Brennan: I know, what's wild, cause yeah... That's the thing is, It's lucky it was five more minutes because it could very easily be eight more hours. You know, like, so...

Amielee: I'm gonna need you to not cook any food for the entire day.

(all laughing)

Kendra: Could you just say in your room and he's just so quiet...

(all laughing)

For like anywhere, or like three and eight hours in the middle of the day.

Amielee: Yeah.

Brennan: Ah that's...

Amielee: For a week.

Brennan: Yeah, bonkers. Well, and that's the thing too. The timeline of this is so interesting. Again, you know, COVID clipped the final episode of sophomore year, something people don't know. And listen, I'm literally gonna say the only thing we're allowed to say before it's spoilers. Rick, you were working Mice and Murder at that time. Correct?

Rick: Yeah, mmh.

Brennan: So what people don't know is that, Pirates of Leviathan and the Unsleeping City chapter two jumped Mice and Murder in the line. That was what was being worked on at that moment and COVID just threw everything into chaos, which was wild. This is also I think, to turn it over to like our visual... To the visual artists that are here and people who were like helping with like the visual production design of the battle sets. This is, because of us going remote, we involved the most of the visual team, the earliest, I feel like. Rick obviously starts work on seasons really, really early and it's like helping to like come up with battle concepts and different like production design elements. But like, Carlos, this was our first time doing Roll 20 and like, I think the first contact of Dimension 20 with you professionally was for this season, right?

Carlos: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it started...

(all laughing)

Everything started at the same time. That's all I remember. There was like three things that started at the same time. It was like, "Hey, can you run Roll 20?" And I was like, "Oh yeah.” And then I was just like, "You guys are gonna need tokens." Like yeah, "We need tokens." And it's just like, "I can make them." And it's like, "Well, if you can make tokens, do you know how to make overlays?" And I was like, "Yeah." They're like, "Can we hire you to do the overlays?" And I was like, "Okay." And they're like, "Yeah." It's so funny because like, that must be an example of the worst quote I've ever given any client my entire life. Where I was just like like, "Yeah I can do that." And I totally underestimated because I can't multiply.

(all laughing)

'cause they specifically asked for like, "Okay, we need it in blue, gold and red." And I was like, "Okay, well that's three." But then it was just like, "No, but we need it. We need a one, a two, a three and a was a-"

Erin: Seven, six.

Carlos: A five or a six. And I was like, "yeah, okay." I'm like so six. And I'm like, "no, no, no, dummy."

(all laughing)

They need a one of each color. I was like, "Oh, so there's like 30 something of them."

(all laughing)

Ebony: Speaking of when Carlos came on. I remember having early email exchanges with Carlos and it was kind of like, Carlos had our model everything and seemed to really understand what it took to make something look good online. And it turned into, "Well, what else can you do Carlos?"

(all laughing)

"Do you know anything about this?"

(all laughing)

Kendra: What else have you got in your pockets? Come on.

Carlos: At first it was like, okay, well they contact me for this one thing and it's that. I forgot what the term is called when something can't be... If you say something has many talents or many uses or something like that, you just assume that it's not good quality. So I try not to explain that. So I'd be in meetings and sometimes everybody is just like concentrating. And I think like, "This woman does not believe what I'm saying right now."

(all laughing)

Like, I said something about lighting and it is not sitting well. I better send her an email tomorrow.

(all laughing)

Ebony: With pictures please? I need pictures. I'm a visual person. So for somebody to just be like, suddenly I'm in a world where were talking about lights and bandwidth and things that I can't stand the next to you and see, I have a problem.

(Ebony laughing)

Carlos: Yeah, it's hard.

Brennan: I also feel like there's almost a... Like, the reverse of that is almost true as well. Where it's like, yes, you're you're being approached for... Like coming on and handling Roll 20 for us. And the first zoom meeting we have, you come in like, boom! Like 1980's, what is it? What's the term you use online? Bisexual lighting, like...

(all laughing)

The purple teal and red backdrop. And we're like, "My God, look at..."

David: Yeah, we want that.

(all laughing)

Ebony: Carlos show us everything.

Brennan: You like, "This is the battle map guy!"

(all laughing)

But then all of a sudden, 'cause you got reached out to you by production, by Ebony and (David) Kerns. And then they were like, "Oh, we have our Roll20 solution. Carlos Luna is gonna be jumping on.” And I was like, "Carlos Luna, like rivals of Water Deep Carlos Luna." And there, you know. And I was like... And the first time we talked, I was like, "shit, dude, do you want to jump on pirates?" What the fuck like come on

(all laughing)

Carlos: Yeah. That was a weird thing too. 'Cause I'm like answering emails and there'd be some people that like assume that I knew I was working in this capacity in this way, and I sometimes I'd have to fake it. Where I'd be like, "I don't know what we're talking about or what this is for."

(all laughing)

Like, I don't know if this is... I mean I have to be there, so I'll figure it out.

Brennan: I think again, like with multi-talent it's like, you may have been invited to a meeting and we're gonna figure out why you're there. That's actually agenda item one on a meeting.

(all laughing)

David: We know that we need you, you don't know what it's for yet.

Carlos: Yeah.

(all laughing)

It was more like more like traveling with like a Swiss army knife, you know what I mean? Just like, "it'll come in handy. Just don't worry."

(all laughing)

Ebony: In my mind, it was like if we suggest anything that is completely outrageous and cannot be done remotely, Carlos will speak up.

Carlos: Yeah, I have no filter. I have no filter at all. Like...

(Carlos laughing)

Ebony: And you didn't steer us wrong so appreciated, much appreciated.

David: This also it will... Maybe you're going to hear Brennan, but there is... For Rick's world and participation in this, we knew that we needed to be remote and therefore that physical miniatures were not a possibility. And this is when, apart from Kendra's amazing work illustratively, we were like, we need battle maps. What are our battle maps solution? And it was very much Roll20, and we were like, well we make Roll20 maps. And just like, I think we've tried to do different aspects in different seasons when we're leaning into different medium. Leaning into like a battle map that can work for Roll20 that we couldn't necessarily do on the table in the Dome. And I thought that that was kind of an interesting process. Like, I don't know, Rick, do you wanna talk about that whole thing for you?

Rick: Sure, yeah. I remember something similar to Ebony and Carlos. 'Cause I was definitely full steam on Mice and Murder and I think you did like, "everyone thinks it's hard to be about this other season." And they're like, "Do you know? You know, we need your help or whatever." And I'm like, yeah, I could probably work weekends on that.

(all laughing)

Like at night or something. And so of course I said yes, but I knew that it would be a really fun thing to do. And we were talking to Carlos. I know a lot early trying to understand like resolution and size and then we were thinking about all the things that we can't normally do with a 24 by 36 inch board. You know, like these long maps or dungeon crawls and explorer mode and these kind of things. So super fun to get to do. I really liked building things in 3D, but yeah, it was a really fun different version of D20. And it was really cool to put so much of the creative of visual work into Kendra's area just to see what they were gonna come up with and like cause, yeah. So that was like definitely a pro.

Brennan: Well, let's talk about that because this was... We have a bunch of amazing artists that we’re always so excited to work with. Like painting the minis and creating the battles and stuff like that. But for this remote season, Kendra Wells kind of became Rick's mini shop. And because Kendra, you had been always involved in season one of Unsleeping city. You've been involved in post. But you actually kind of came on hat by, we needed you to come on way ahead of the time. What was it like kind of jumping in ahead of the curve on this one. And also just like, Kendra your work just slapped this season. But you got so much love from the fans for all the incredible arts.

(Kendra laughing)

But yeah...

Amielee: It was too hot.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Impossible. Be at like, coming on because I... correct me if I'm wrong. just from having to do all the enemy tokens, I'm sure that this amount of portraits like dwarfed your work on season one.

Kendra: Yeah.

(all laughing)

I mean, it was interesting 'cause it was like on season one, there was so much that was like kind of already done that I was just sort of filling in the gaps for. Like the... This season gave me a lot more freedom to just like go hog wild.

(Kendra laughing)

Like even just a... Like I remember updating the character art was really fun because their little minis were so beautiful and they were so like incredibly done, but there's a certain limitation to I think the sculpts and the details and that kind of thing. And I was given freedom to be like, what if Ricky's wearing gray sweatpants? I don't know.

(all laughing)

Like maybe this is some... Maybe that was my, you know, my calling here on this season. But...

(all laughing)

and I don't know. It was a lot of... I mean, I'm trying to remember what it was like front-loading the season. I think I was in a bit of a fugue state.

(Kendra laughing)

But it was like... My cats running around in the background, sorry. I don't know. It was incredible to be able to like, have so much freedom to work on all of the, like all of the tokens, all of the enemies, those horrible clowns.

(Kendra laughing)

Like it was such a treat to be able to like dive in and have that kind of like hand in everything.

Brennan: The- the horrible true clowns. Look at that little cat. The horrible true clowns.

Kendra: I love them.

Brennan: I got, I'll be honest. There is something, I don't know. There's something wrong with me in saying this. They're so terrible, but something about the siege devils, the giant salmon board shorts with like the bull horns throwing up the shocker with like the long forked tongue hanging down, I just find them so charming. I don't know.

(all laughing)

There's just something about that.

Kendra: Listen, I thought you were gonna say hot and I was gonna say yes, exactly.

(all laughing)

Like they weren't not hot.

(all laughing)

Like my job was to make everyone really hot.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Oh!

Erin: And the detail on the... Like the ones in the subway fight where the, like alive garden. Was that what you wrote on the bag?

Kendra: Yeah, that was one of my favorite little Easter eggs was the the Ghost family. That the tourist goes to family and the subway fight had a bag from alive garden.

(all laughing)

Brennan: God that was so...

Carlos: Oh, that's awesome.

Kendra: Not only did you eat at the time square alive of garden, but you brought home the leftovers.

(Ebony and Amielee laughing)

David: Oh, that's so good.

Ebony: I remember Kendra. I feel like when it comes to keeping art and everything organized, we just had a giant running list. And it was like new, revised, keeping. So there were some things that translated. That came over with it from season one and then there were some things that were like, we're gonna to switch it up for this. And then we were like, "Go for it Kendra." And when those illustrations would come in, it would be, it was magical. Like there were a lot of them.

Kendra: It's just an absolute dream gig to be able to draw a bunch of like... D and D set in New York is just like, what a dream come true.

Brennan: It was... 'Cause I remember there were all three tiers. There were a tremendous amount of pre production illustrations, right? So what would normally have been our miniatures shop. There were, of course the post-production illustrations 'cause new characters get improvised. It's an improv show. The PC is create a new character by doing what we call the Sam Smorkel effect, which is, you know. The PCs pick the most random underdeveloped NPC and are like, "You're my best friend." And I'm like, "Kendra is gonna have to draw this."

(all laughing)

But there were even, we shot 18 episodes three weekends in a row. That means that from episode... Oh, Ebony.

(all laughing)

Ebony: I forgot I erased.

Brennan: Pirates of Leviathan was the previous weekend. So it was twenty four episodes and content in four back-to-back weekends. But the...

David: Erin just lost her mind. I don't know...

(all laughing)

Orion: Am actually getting a memory right now.

(all laughing)

Brennan looks like, the first time I saw him on camera. Brown then, it was like... You were like...

(all laughing)

Hello Orion.

Kendra: Worse than the usual.

David: You were fugue stated at all times for that whole month and a half or whatever.

Brennan: That's right. Like Orion and I have known each other sort of like, I think for a few years. But really started working together back in August. 'Cause you came on for pirates I believe and then it was immediately Unsleeping and other things.

(Brennan laughing)

But the like... Yeah, I remember around the time that we first started like talking all the time. I did like an Instagram live and it's always rough when a bunch of your fans aren't... Like, it's one thing for them to be like, "LOL, not looking great." But when people are like, "Brennan, you need to go to sleep. I'm a stranger on the internet.”

(all laughing)

Kendra: Never see you before and I know that you've been awake for 28 hours.

Brennan: What's John Malaney, like this tall sick child or something like that.

(all laughing)

Carlos: I came here to troll you but I'm now looking for your go fund me.

(all laughing)

Like anything that can help you out.

Erin: Or you look like your movie pass CEO character.

(all laughing)

Rick: You look like time is almost in the CEO.

Kendra: It's becoming method, yeah.

Brennan: It is, it's really a method. But I remember like even within the illustrations, I think there were even a couple of like not pre or post, but like production illustrations. Which is a wild turn of things like, "Kendra, can you draw this in the next 12 minutes?" Like...

(all laughing)

Kendra: I'm like, "Yeah, I got nothing else going on."

(all laughing)

Carlos: Just watching some guy on Instagram.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Like yeah, it really is a wild thing to be like. This season was shot. The season is 18 episodes long. It was shot in 16 days.

(Brennan laughing)

Like three back to back weekends it's 16 days, so-

Kendra: They also like not to blow up my own spot too much. But there was a point when I was working on the pre-production illustrations when I had also misunderstood my deadline for my graphic novel I'm working on, and I had to write a hundred page novel in seven days in the middle of pre-production.

(Kendra laughing)

Brennan: Oh my God!

Kendra: I'm like, I'm sitting here being like, why don't I have any memories of like this week and a half period in like June or July or something. And it was like, "Ah, yes!"

David: Kendra, thank you so much for not telling any of us about that.

Ebony: Yes.

(all laughing)

Eb - Thank you for keeping that to yourself.

David: You saved Ebony from not having slept for...

(Kendra laughing)

Brennan: Everyone on this call. I feel like everyone... (stammering) I love you all so much. It's such a pleasure to work with all of you. The vibe of everyone on this call is absolutely the thing of like self care. Work is not gonna save you. You gotta take care of yourself and I will say that to everybody in my life except for me. For me...

(all laughing)

Kendra: I don't do that.

(all laughing)

Brennan: That's advice for other people. I'm like, "You gotta take care of yourself."

Kendra: Not me though, I'm fine. Brennan, there was a time where we were on a call together and I was like, "How are you doing?" You're like, "I'm fine. You know, actually it's really good for me when I'm doing like 18 things at once. And I feel really good. It's kind of like that marathon high." And I'm like, "Okay, yeah, ah!"

David: As he’s eating a thousand almonds as he is talking to you.

(all laughing)

Praying he goes to sleep while he's still awake.

Ebony: Almonds and coffee.

Brennan: Almonds and coffee. Half and half and almonds are high in fat And that's what your brain's made of. And I assume that...

Kendra: Are you eating them like cereal?

David: Like cereal? I don't know, like...

(all laughing)

I think it's more like an IV.

Amielee: Like almonds in coffee

Kendra: Real chunky IV.

Orion: Brennan, when we started talking about... I think we were in the middle of Pirates of The Via Finn and you were like, "Hey, there's all this stuff that you can do. There's just like all of these roads." And you were giving me all these subscriptions of things that could happen. And there was one point where like, "If you do any one of these things, I will be able to breathe. You will be my savior."

(all laughing)

There was literally... I literally at one point it was like, "I'm gonna do this job like 99% up for me, but then like 1% for Brennan's health." More like a reaching out like, "Please, a little bit of this."

Brennan: I'm sure there were some no pressures around there, but I might've been visibly jittering some much. Absolutely no pressure.

Kendra: No worries, no worries. It's fine. It's fine if not. It’s fine

Rick: You can say no, it’s fine

Brennan: No, but it's really, it's beautiful. And again, like the... The season was like against so many hurdles for this not happening. For it to have happened. And again, to be like, you know, I think... I don't know about everyone else here, but I had like very real concerns about like, "What's this gonna be like not in the Dome? What's this gonna be like, not in a thing." And it's one of my like favorite seasons we've ever done. And it was so beautiful. And the cast jelled right away. Like all of that telecommunication distance like totally faded away immediately. It was like a very, very special season. And I was so glad for whom to work on. And like, look at this incredible crew. Oh, I'm just like, "Oh, this is such a great group of people to have at your back." It makes all the hard work worth it.

David: I know that we're still on this first question of stuff, but I think it's in, 'cause like there was a whole production and pre-production build of the whole thing which was heavily influenced by it being remote and distant. But the same thing went for posts. Like Erin and Amielee are sitting at their desks. Way there've been editing basically constantly since the pandemic hit. And for those of us, you know, those listening to this, there's like, you know, this season had all. Like the maps had to be made by eightfold paper. Kendra did all these amazing illustrations. All those things had to meet and connect and go together with Carlos’ help. And Rick overseeing the designs of the map and how things would come together, and Ebony made it all happen. And we overall doing it while sitting in our like home office, whatever you call them, at our computers. But then that's so much footage. Like we normally have, in a normal situation, we would have a full on server that has all this space and then all your computers and your editors are connected to that server and they can share footage and they can share assets and all that stuff. And now that just went-

Amielee: The good old days.

David: People at their homes. Like in a hard drives and, "Oh, you don't have the thing. I guess I have to copy it off of this hard drive somewhere and get a person to bring it to you." And I don't know, I kind of wanna hear a little bit from Erin and Amielee about that whole physical post thing of doing that remotely.

Erin: Yeah, well also we had eight, seven cameras plus the Roll20 recording. And we had to manage all of those different cameras. So it's not all... You know, we normally have that three camera shoot, I think plus miniatures.

Amielee: Where it's like the sign of a table and then Brennan.

Erin: Right? Oh, and then the top yeah.

Amielee: Yeah.

Erin: Anyway, now it was like, it was way too many.

(all laughing)

So I tried to start trying to edit on my laptop which is like an eight year old laptop. It did not work at all. So we had to get a computer. We had to try, you know. RAE Rommel brought us, literally brought us hard drives once he finished prepping an episode for us. Physically brought us a hard drive. And if I needed anything else that it was like, that was huge, too big to upload to the internet. Rommels gotta drive all the way to my house.

David: Yeah.

Erin: It was a lot. But then also mastering like the actual finished episodes are like 600 gigabytes, and there's no way I'm gonna upload that.

Amielee: Or like, I straight up. Like, I think I had six drives that I was working on. Off just like based on when information was going. I just ran out of room for the masters. I just had to like give them back to Rommel.

Erin: And you ran on your room on your physical desk. You were like, there's no space for more archives.

Amielee: I was like, I don't. Like I already have like a USB hub. They're all full. Like, please stop. Please stop bringing me drives.

(Amielee laughing)

David: Running out a physical space for digital assets.

(all laughing)

'Cause it's so many digital assets that your running out of physical space. It's crazy.

Brennan: That is-

Amielee: Yeah. It's been wild for sure.

Brennan: Yeah. It's been a very rough year.

(all laughing)

Carlos: It's been a very rough year.

Amielee: You know, I've learned so much.

(Amielee laughing)

Erin: Yeah.

Amielee: To put a positive spin on it. There's so much information that I never wanted to learn that I have learned.

(Amielee laughing)

I never wanted to work from home and I have figured out a way to make it work, where it's not miserable. You know, it's... This year has been wild. I think for everyone in film, in any regard. I think everyone has just kind of had their career changed entirely. Nothing is how I was working like a year and a half ago.

Brennan: Yeah.

Erin: So intense.

Brennan: I remember the first time I was like... 'Cause obviously you knew it was gonna be a rocky year just from following the news and the medical science of it all. I knew it was going to be a rocky career year when right after we did the sophomore year finale. And that was the first thing we were recorded from home. I got a... There was a note on my door that just said, "I don't know what's happening in your apartment

(Erin and Carlos laughing)

but whatever it is, it can't happen that late at night again." And I was like, "What?" And I was like, "Oh, the sophomore year finale was eight hours. And I was here at my desk." You know, being like, “All of you will pay” at the top of my lungs in a straight up apartment building. These walls are not that thick.

(all laughing)

David: Oh my God! I never had that. That's crazy.

Brennan: Oh yeah.

David: Did you remember who it was?

Brennan: I believe, I know, it's these people (points to one side of the room)

(all laughing) (Brennan clapping)

You don't like my dragon voice.

(all laughing)

It's like... Yeah, it's been a while. Everyone's had to do so much juggling. It's been totally, totally bonkers. We're still on question number one. But also we know what happened. We know what's interesting to talk about. So there's definitely more stories. If anyone has any other... Again, lesser known facts, funny stories or questions that you wish people asked about the production of TUC2. But again, there's like... Some folks have been on, everyone's been on for multiple seasons at this point. And some people, like Ebony and Rick and Kerns had been here literally since Fantasy High season one.

David: And Erin.

Brennan: And Erin, hat's right. Oh my God!

David: Yeah.

Brennan: Damn, this show's been going on for a long time.

(all laughing)

It's not that long in the grand scheme of things but there has been like a whole... I'm trying to think of like any production stuff that comes close to like rivaling how wild this remote season was.

Carlos: I remember I was photoshopping in real time. Like when they were playing. Like in particular the... Like it started off like just like with like little things. Like the Moped was like really fun to do and Easter egg wise, like. I think I put both a breaking Benjamin sticker on the Moped and a... God, what's the name? Lincoln park sticker on it as well. So you have to zoom in real close to see it, but it's definitely on that Moped.

Erin: I saw that on the Roll 20 recording. You went to another tab and you're like, looking up Lincoln park.

(all laughing)

Kendra: Frantically Googling.

Carlos: Hard to do. The hard one though was..

Erin: Ellis Island.

Carlos: Ellis Island, yeah. 'Cause I was doing that. I was just flipping back and forth, flipping. 'Cause they'd be like, "I go into this picture and I'm like, cool." Gotta photoshop at that real quick.

Kendra: You were doing that live?

Carlos: Yeah, I was doing that all live.

Kendra: Oh my God!

Erin: I went back latter and finessed it a little bit.

Kendra: I didn't realize that, that was. 'Cause I mean , I drew the photos for Ellis Island, but like, as I was watching the episode I was like, "Oh wow! How are, how?" I don't know, that's good.

(all laughing)

Amielee: I would hear everyone reacting. I was like, "That was done in real time. I bet that was all prepped somehow hard." I didn't realize that.

(Amielee laughing)

Carlos: They were jumping in random paintings. And I was just like... And on top of that, I just didn't wanna put them in the painting. I wanna put them like a little bit behind someone so it makes it actually looks like they're in there.

Kendra: It was amazing.

Carlos: That was real fun. I found my...

Kendra: We have overachievers. That's what this is.

(all laughing)

Amielee: Do you wanna do it the easy way.

Carlos: Found my walking folder here. Like when I started doing the production, the graphic design stuff and I had never watched the show before. So I downloaded a picture of Zac and I just labeled it Dude, with capital D.

(all laughing)

and then there's another... There one of Emily in the bottom, just under woman.

(all laughing)

Kendra: Generically, Emily Axford as woman number one.

Carlos: As a woman.

(all laughing)

Those are my easter eggs

David: I have a funny recollection of right before we were shooting. And this again, this was the week after we'd shot Pirates of Leviathan I think, right? Like it was all back to back to back weekends. But we wanted to make... You know, everyone had to have their own setup in their own house. And we were, you know, Ebony and I were working really closely with the cast to give them the green screens and the lights and everything. Try and make it look as good as possible, but also try to be like, not ask as much of them as we could. But for Brennan we were like, we really want that green screen to be really good. We're gonna send somebody over to his place.

Carlos: (whispers) Oh yeah.

Ebony: Oh my goodness.

Carlos: I remember this, yeah.

David: Like, we're gonna send somebody over to your place and they're going to make like a really good green screen for you. So you didn't have to do anything, it's gonna look really great. And we had this person. You know, a really good gaffer or whatever, trying to do a good job wearing mask the whole time. We couldn't see what was happening obviously. What was happening in your apartment Brennan. But we're just looking at the camera, it's like, "Oh yeah, it's looking okay." Can we, is it possible? And we're just looking at like what it looks like on our end. And at a certain point Brennan, you like left and called me and you're like, "Listen, if this is what my apartment is gonna be like for the next month, my partner is going to kill me."

(all laughing)

Right, what are you talking about? Like, it doesn't seem like there's that much. And it was like, can I, you don't know? And we saw what he had put up and it was like 12 lights, three different interactive green screens all in your entire apartment.

Ebony: It was sound stage in an office.

Brennan: Am sure this dude is the loveliest dude in the world. My furniture was on its side, hurled, feathering young through the apartment. There was like a battery charging station in the kitchen. There was a crafty table dude, I don't know what to tell you.

(all laughing)

David: Dude brought his own crafty table instead of-

Brennan: I walked in, there was a PA shutting down traffic on the balcony. I was like, "What's happening?" This is unreal. It's a very hard thing 'cause it's like, I do have the the like Dimension 20 producer in my head going like, "Okay, so you don't have a living room or a den. What's wrong with you and your partner staying in the same room for a month. Like you'll just be in your bedroom. That's good for your relationship." And then, you know. I took one look at my partner who again Izzy is never the issue. Like Izzy was a complete champ about everything as everyone's partners have been if you're working from home during quarantine. It was me being like, I am not going to ask this of her.

David: No.

Brennan: It's like...

Carlos: I like to think that Izzy left that note. I don't know what that was,

(all laughing)

it needs to not happen ever again. Walks outside, pins it to her own door.

Kendra: Crafty table’s a no.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Exactly. Well, that's the thing to. We ended up talking about it too, which is this thing of like, everyone's been very understanding because obviously, I'll speak for myself. Like grateful to have employment during the pandemic. Grateful to be one of the people that had work during the pandemic. But it doesn't mean that, you know. Like everyone's individual apartments, no ones... They're not studios, they're not like rental spaces. It's like, "Oh, for that month, you know, your partner or whatever lost a use of a place that they're paying rent for." So it's like, you love the understanding but you try to protect. I think everyone has dealt with finding that balance of like protecting personal life and trying to strike a balance, but also being like grateful to have work.

David: Yeah.

Erin: However, one fun thing that came out of you all being at home is the meowing that we heard in the background multiple times. Most of them got eliminated in the mix, but that one that's like in the finale, I think.

Brennan: Yes.

Erin: Everybody just hearses meow at the most perfect moment.

(Kendra laughing)

Brennan: You know what, I realized this was a huge missed opportunity. If we'd put a little sparkle on that, we could have said it was Legarn Gata and that could have been...

(Amielee laughing)

That's some free feline VO right there. How about that?

Erin: We didn't even think it.

(all laughing)

Kendra: They're not paying rent, we gotta make the most of that.

Brennan: Exactly.

Rick: Lets get this cat to sign some releases

(all laughing)

Ebony: I need those, everything. And that was another thing. All this art needed to be cleared and make sure it's legally okay to use. But that's normal D20 stuff. So, that's just the way of the world. A fun story that I thought of was when Brennan's internet, we weren't sure if it was going to work.

Carlos: That was what I was thinking of.

Erin: It was pretty bad.

Ebony: Everybody's working at home. Now all of your neighbors are constantly home. We're all still, you know, working from... I don't know how the internet works but there wasn't enough of it for Brennan.

(all laughing)

Brennan: We had a choke point 'cause I live in an apartment with a lot of other units in the building and there's just a choke point for how fast the internet can ever get.

Ebony: Yeah, we hit it.

(Ebony and Amielee laughing)

But it's okay, because we got spectrum out there, but that was another thing. We were like, "Brennan, somebody is coming to your house." And while we're in the pandemic, Brennan's such a trooper.

(Ebony laughing)

Brennan: We love it, we love it.

Amielee: Shout out to Brennan.

All: Shout out to Brennan.

Amielee: B’s in the chat for Brennan.

(all laughing)

David: Even crazier on that same thing Ebony. 'Cause I going back to Pirates. So at the very last minute, fun fact, I don't know if this is. But Brennan shot Pirates at my house-

Brennan: Yes.

Ebony: Yes.

David: Because straight up internet just did not work. And so there was no other possibility besides getting a computer over to my house where we were sure that the internet would work with the recording software stuff and doing that. And it was like, that was a decision that made last minute. Like mask the whole time. Like giving you and cleaning before you came and then, you know, if anybody out there is a fan of Becca Scott, my wife and recognizes that background. That is her normal background 'cause Brennan shot like on the table up there after we cleaned it and prepared it and put his computer up there for Pirates of Leviathan and then had to figure out the internet solutions were just the following weekend for Unsleeping City. It was crazy.

Brennan: Shout out to the partners. Thank you Becca again.

Erin: The discord definitely noticed her awesome chair that she had.

(all laughing)

Brennan: And also you mentioned them before in passing but also shout out to Rommel Rodriguez and Matt Matforest as our like tech computer awesome people that are just so incredibly proficient and none of this would've happened without them.

Ebony: Truly.

(Amielee laughing)

Brennan: I got a fun question for everybody here. We're about like 40 minutes in let’s go to question two.

(all laughing)

This is a fun one. We don't all have to answer this. If you need time to marinate on it, take your time, no rush. But maybe some of you already have answers for this. This one comes from Wolf Lavandousca. Shout out to the mod squad. What's up Wolf.

“If you could have a character in the Unsleeping City, who would they be? If you could have a character in the Unsleeping City, who would they be?"

Kendra: Here's the thing, I already live in New York. Technically I am in the Unsleeping City.

(all laughing)

Brennan: You don't gotta rub it in that you live in New York steller.

Kendra: It would be me, with elf ears, that's it.

(all laughing)

Erin: You're already magical, you don't need more magic.

Brennan: There you go.

Kendra: And I think, you do own a sword, correct?

Kendra: I own several. I have two swords.

(Brennan and Ebony laughing)

The swords are in the other room. I do have one, two, three daggers.

Amielee: Third within reach.

(all laughing)

Carlos: Don't keep weird things on your desk.

(all laughing)

Kendra: You know, it's like, I just need to have it around just in case, just in case, just in case.

Amielee: Yeah.

Kendra: So maybe I'm a rogue. I'm an elf rogue freelancer.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Even in the wildest realms of imagination, it's like no, I don't have anything steady.

Kendra: I don’t have healthcare, I'm just doing my best.

Orion: Adventurers are contract free-lancers

Amielee: That's what Trago was about. Three adventurers trying to get by in the gig economy. It was great.

Kendra: There it is. I mean, what is an adventurer in D and D if not an underemployed freelancer who was just trying to get by?

Brennan: Yeah, absolutely. Just going after that job.

Orion: No health insurance.

Kendra: No health insurance. You got a healer. If you're lucky you get a healer.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Hell yes. I love elf Kendra. That's a great, great Unsleeping City OC.

Erin: I think I would work at Gramercy-

Brennan: Yes.

Erin: In the library maybe. Some sort of wizard who does a lot of research and helps JJ and Esther figure out New York minutes and stuff like that.

(Erin laughing)

Orion: That sounds so perfect.

Brennan: I love that.

Orion: Someone get on that, start writing that. Ask for Erin’s permission first though.

(all laughing)

Brennan: That would be so rad. Yeah, that would be... What a life to just be in a giant MC Escher library. No wrong way to go up or down stairs. That's just wonderful. Hell yeah.

David: I dunno, I inspire. I really like Kingston Brown as a character of just the idea of similarly being like a very powerful, old, magical entity, but also, just like living your life as a normal big day part of the city of New York and the reverence given to the idea of New York as a bigger than you sort of entity, I just like that a lot. But I don't know if it would be like, for me, I might be like, I don't know. A subway driver or something like that, but also is like somehow touched into the darker, deeper, weird knows about transportation and souls and the crossing back and forth between the realms or something like that. That'd be cool too.

Orion: Two subway tokens.

(Brennan and David laughing)

Brennan: Hell yeah. I love that. The conductor of the mystery train.

David: The mystery train.

Brennan: This train only stops at the secret stops. The ones they don't tell you about.

David: It's the explanation why there's just a certain trains that have nobody in them is because they've come from like a secret mystery. It's not the piss on them.

Kendra: It’s not the weird smell.

(all laughing)

It's all weird, it's nothing.

Brennan: And it's also the reason that sometimes a train will be like, "This local train is making all express stops and then one second later says no stops, no stop, stop."

David: No stops at all.

Brennan: 185th street. I've been kidnapped by the MTA.

(all laughing)

David: There are more important places to go.

(Brennan laughing)

Orion: I actually definitely know where I would go. and I would have a character who works at the bookshop with Pete and I forgot the other person's name, Zyne.

Brennan: Zee.

Orion: Yeah, It was just Zee. I think I told people in the discord, I was like, "There are two scenes that are my favorite in this. The first one is that scene inside of the bookshop where Pete ends up meeting the little kid who's kind of questioning."

Amielee: I kept waiting for them to come back.

Orion: I was like, so many people are going to feel amazing right now because I'm about to cry. Like this is fantastic. So I would work there and I would hang out with those two. Hang out with Pete just sounds like a good time. I'd have to reject all of the offers for drugs but I feel like Pete almost like past that now, you know?

Brennan: Yeah.

Orion: No more microdosing

Brennan: No more microdosing. We got clean Pete. Working in a cool, cool bookstore. Uncommon Knowledge was the name of the book store.

Ebony: Yes.

Brennan: Uncommon Knowledge.

Orion: Oh, I wanna play dominoes with...

Amielee: Winston.

Brennan: with Winston.

Orion: Winston, yeah.

Brennan: Hell yeah.

Orion: Absolutely.

Brennan: Would you be magical? Would you be or, or would you tap into some sort of arcane forces in the city or no.

Orion: I think that I would figure it out magic stuff because people would just tell me one day And I'd like figure it out from there. And also I'd spend way too much time hanging out with Kingston's dad and Kingston's eventually. I'll have something like the Mummy, the Mummy, right?

(Brennan laughing)

Erin: What's going on with that mummy?

Brennan: The Mummy was, I just love the vibe of when there some...

Carlos: You saw how upset Erin was.

(all laughing)

Yeah, What's up with the Mummy.

(all laughing)

David: You know what you did.

Amielee: Finally your chance to ask that question.

Erin: We never got the answer.

Brennan: You never got the answer. Oh, I actually can do a lore drop. I can do a little mini lore drop here about the Mummy of the Mat. First of all, the whole deal with the Mummy of the Mat is I just love the trope and stories when there's like the old guard, the old school. And for like in season one that was Kugrash, Misty and Kingston. Although Kugrash wasn't an adventurer in the early 1940's, like mid, mid 1990s. He didn't sort of get his powers until later than that. But Misty and Kingston had this thing and I was like the best trope is when the old timers are like, well you remember, this is just like that that went down with the Mummy of the Met. So that's the most I ever wanted it fleshed out. And I gave them carte blanche 'cause like, part of the... There's some intimidating stuff about role-playing in a place that is simultaneous. It's like, not only do we not know Brennan's magic lore, we also don't know real things about New York city. Like that's a real place. It has as much texture as a real place can have. And like the idea of with Lou and Siobhan specifically, I was like, you guys can't be hamstrung with checking in with me if is true or not. So even more so than the other PCs, you have carte blanche to just make some up about the setting. Like, Oh actually this is a cool Rick story. Siobhan made up the thing about the L train being the train to nod. And even though Rick had already built that entire set and all the trains for that fight, Rick ran back in. 'Cause I think it was a different train. It was some other kind of, it was a nonexisting letter. It was a non-

Rick: Or X something or-

Brennan: The X train. And went back and changed everything to an L just to yes and a bit of Siobhan’s improv from like three days earlier. That was such a cool move, Rick. And like Siobhan lost it. 'Cause it's like my improv came to life.

Erin: And she was right. She was right. She just knew what it was.

Brennan: Knew what it was. But that was the thing with the Mummy of the Met. it was me just going like, "You guys have to be able to improvise shit and have it be true about the city. You can't be checking in with me. You need to be authorities on what is real in the city. So like here's your deputization to like do impromptu world-building so that your characters always sound like they know what they're talking about."

Rick: I definitely brought up there. And I brought up the Mummy of the Met numerous times and the early meetings I was like, "Hey, we have this list of stuff. Like what about the Mummy of the Met." And there were like, "Hey, they're going to be in a museum. You know, we could see the old friend, the Mummy of the Met"

(Rick laughing)

Brennan: As God as my witness, you're never getting the damn Mummy.

(all laughing)

But it was supposed to be that funny thing that always gets hearkened back to. Like what's the thing that in the Black Widow and Hawkeye had they like talk about Budapest. And you know like, as you remember Budapest. It's like that trope of like the ship we went through that happened off camera. The Mummy of the Met did have a lot. I did say to Lou in his character's backstory that the Mummy of the Met when Kingston was destroying him as a young man back in the 90's, that Kingston had said something along the lines of like now the most powerful undead force in, you know New York has like taken care of. And in the Mummy's destruction was like, Oh you think I'm the most powerful undead in New York and vanished. And it was like a cryptic thing. And Kingston's backstory that never got referenced in texts but it was like in a lore email somewhere. Other people it's anyone else have no what their character would be.

Amielee: I don't know what class would be. Oh, sorry. I feel like I would, I really want to see like some kind of restaurant industry figures in the Unsleeping City. Just always kind of that chaos of the weird hours of like a line cook, you know, no idea no idea what they would do but I think they be fun to see in the Unsleeping City.

Orion: You should be a sorcerer.

Amielee: Yeah.

Orion: Yeah, the natural magic thing that just comes out of you. 'Cause that's what people who serve in these places do like what be impossible. Really. Yeah.

Amielee: Yeah. I think that'd be cool. Sorcerer line cook.

(Amielee and Kendra laughing)

Brennan: Yeah. Draconic origin a little breath weapon to start the stove. I can cook this right here. That's amazing.

Carlos: I feel like I- For a very long time, I've always known that like I'm the first person to die in a disaster movie. Right.

(all laughing)

Like I know I would be the first NPC out. Right. Like if there's a devil swarm, it's just like, yeah you can't talk to my boss and these dead. Right? Like...

(all laughing)

Brennan: What sorry, you're defending your boss from something happening.

Carlos: Like I'm so low status in this world.

Kendra: That’s what Brennan has a problem with, you should never defend your boss

Brennan: There's a devil afraid they're going to be rude to your boss. What's happening.

Carlos: I mean, someone tries to go after the Jersey devil. I'm like, I'm speaking up for him on his behalf. But like, yeah, I know. I would, like, I know every time I watch like a disaster movie, like I sympathize most with the first guy who dies in the tidal wave, you know everyone else is running away really fast or in their car getting away. I'm always like, I'm probably the guy in the car floating away like that. So if anyone's watching any Dimension 20, the first NPC that dies in any fight scene, that's Carlos.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Oh no!

Amielee: Carry your own picture of guy labeled dDCarlos: Yeah, exactly.

(all laughing)

I'm the Dude.

Erin: Capital D so...

Carlos: Yeah.

Brennan: Being a red shirt in your own mental image of yourself just like my life is about about dying to prove how high the stakes are.

(all laughing)

Carlos: I'm the example

Brennan: Rick, Ebony, what do we got?

Rick: I feel like I would be like, maybe like a truck driver. I lived in New York for a couple of years and I drove some big trucks around and I don't know something about that. I'm not sure what class, but maybe someone who had some kind of seemingly mundane job, but somehow assisted like Kingston or Ricky or something that was sort of like, you know I don't know what it is. Like moving, moving the magic materials in and out of the city or something like that

Kendra: The guy who drives the mummy around.

Rick: Yes.

Kendra: The guy who operates the fork lift.

Rick: Yeah.

(Rick laughing)

David: Driving in New York is a rare thing. Like it's, it's so narrow for how many people there are. There are people driving. What like 60 miles an hour going down avenues with people just walking on sidewalks, a couple of feet away. Like there, the laws of the road just don't exist anymore because people just have to navigate around people walking and other cars, stopping for random reasons. And it's like, it is wild. And it is an experience that is unlike anything else. So like to tap into the energy of driving and being in charge of transportation on the roads of New York city is a feat.

Rick: It definitely does have some kind of magic. There's like a way to class or something. There's like something going on then.

David: Whenever I've been in a taxi car in New York city I always treat it like, it's a rollercoaster because it feels, it's like, Oh, this is fun. Like Ahh, woah great

Kendra: I might die, this is great

 (all laughing)

Brennan: Like. Truly. When I was a kid and I got into a cab I remember I was like six years old or something. And I was with my dad and I buckled my seatbelt because the cab was driving so fast. And my dad looked at me. He was like, you know, as a New Yorker, you know and he was like, “you don't have to do that.” And I was like...

(all laughing)

Kendra: No, no, no. We die like men.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Is that toxic masculinity? Is that New Yorker pride? Is it both? Probably. But yeah, God, that's so funny. I love the idea of the mundane being magical, which is like what urban fantasy is. Right. The idea. If you're a guy is like some kind of weird like a transmutation wizard truck driver. Who's like, Oh I can get this 18 Wheeler into that parking spot. And you just watch space folded in on itself.

(mimics) (all laughing)

And we go, we're gonna load that bad boy. Ebony, what character would you play in the sleeping city?

Ebony: I don't, I don't know exactly who, who, what I would play but I would love to have been in. I love Ellis Island, the Ellis Island time jump. And I would have loved to go back to historic Harlem in that scene and just be, just be there. Just be hanging out with everybody. I'll do whatever, I'll be.

(all laughing)

I just want to hang out, have a drink

Brennan: I so badly would wanna play a like 1920's Harlem Renaissance one-shot with you Ebony. And have you play like, like you'd be like early Grammercy occult society or it's some, some awesome like, Whoa that'd be great. Or do you like a jazz era Bard would be incredible. There's that would be like.

David: That's very cool.

Carlos: Harlem unbound, Harlem unbound cthulhu yeah.

Brennan: There's a, there's an incredible extension. Does that do, does that magic system does that still focus in that kind of like Eldritch horror world or does it like expand? Gotcha, cool. Cool, cool.

Carlos: Yeah. It's like all set in the Harlem Renaissance jazz. Like all that...

Orion: Shoutouts to Chris Phoebe.

Rick: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Brennan: Yeah. That the photo of like the Brown family wedding all those Ellis Island photos, Kendra you went so hard on those photos. They're so they're so touching. I got gotta-

Kendra: They were so cute. I mean, it was, it was so exciting to branch out from like the character illustrations which are like, obviously, like, I love designing characters and I love like pulling these people out of nothing. But like the photos was really fun because it was just such a completely different assignment. It was like historical, it was referential. It was like diving into these different cultures these different like people, these different lives. And it's like, I mean, it was, it was it that's that's New York too. It was just like, it was this beautiful moment of like Oh yeah, all of these people were here, you know at one point or another, all of you like, so varying walks of life, like different origins, different histories. And they all like lived and loved and existed in New York and like, Oh my heart, like...

(Kendra laughing)

Brennan: Yeah, it was very, those photos were so special that the battle everyone's hard work making the season happen. I got a rare, not not rare because he is stingy with affection. But just because, you know Lou Wilson is a very professional guy. He's clocks into work. But Lou sent me a text after that specific fight after the Ellis Island battle. And he was like, he was like “this was something really special”. And that's like the photos the work on the battle map, like all of it. It was like, yeah, yeah. I'm getting like misty eyed. It's like, I miss my home all the time. I miss New York all the time. And like the...

Kendra: Come back Brennan, come back.

David: It's cold in the winter.

(all laughing)

Brennan: I love you, Kerns you said the absolute wrong thing.

Brennan: You like little cold in the Winter of yours.

Brennan: Yes, why do I deserve to be comfortable? Why do you deserve to feel good?

Kendra: That's the New York attitude. I deserve this, I live here.

Brennan: I know the weather is bad. I'm where I belong.

Orion: I’m from Northern California so I'm like Y’all want it to be cold

(all laughing)

It's not comfortable in here, it's everybody else's fault.

Kendra: You see New York has to be. If you're living in New York, you have to be like I deserve this. And like my me gritting my teeth and like living through it means I'm strong and I can do it and I can live here and be here. And it's fine. I love it. It feels good

Brennan: True Story. One of my most beloved memories of being in New York was. It was during the time that I had fully grown my beard out. And I had like just a sweat shirt on, 'cause I like cold snap. I didn't have a full coat. And I had this incredible, I used to carry a like a little carrier briefcase with my laptop, multiple D and D books in it. It was like heavy as hell. And I had another bag of some like food stuff or something. And I was walking and the wind was coming in like a hundred miles an hour snow’s, horizontal just and it gets to be like a white out. It's just roaring down eighth Avenue. I can see kind of the haze of the lights of port authority ahead of me. It's like this air, this part of like eighth Avenue is just the taint of Manhattan. It is the worst strip. It is so nasty. And I'm like, and I step fully into a puddle up to my ankles and pitch forward and having to lean forward as far as I can. So the wind does not knock me back. I'm at a 45 degree angle, pitched forward, leaning into the wind of this puzzle. And I can see my beard is solid white in the snow just frost. And I just went like, everything is trying to kill me right now.

(all laughing)

And I reached into myself and just went (Brennan yells) Yelled as loud and long as I could into the wind. And I have never known a greater satisfaction since that was the best yell I've ever done. And you should keep track of how good-

David: That was your as your favorite moment in New York?

(all laughing)

Amielee: I kept waiting for the point and I loved it.

(all laughing)

Kendra: It's not about love, it's like this sort of like Stockholm syndrome kind of thing, where you're like I'm not gonna give up. You're going to give up.

Brennan: Yes, the world failed to kill me, I won.

(Brennan laughing)

Kendra: I'm alive, I'm here, I'm miserable and I love it.

Brennan: Yeah.

Kendra: 79 cent coffee at the deli.

Kendra: Yeah. Well it

Orion: I remember the moment in your life, I was at the beach.

(all laughing)

Amielee: That's about to say, it rained one day last week.

(all laughing)

David: I also lived in New York. Not, not as long as I have for maybe three years but it was like, it's the highs. The lows are real low. Guys. Lows are real low. Lows are like, this city hates me and I hate it. And I never, like existence has crumbled in and made it unworthy for anyone to exist anywhere. And this place hates me. It's the worst. But the highs are like real palpable, like emotionally resonant and energetic just for being in the place. And I have never felt that anywhere else besides New York where it's like, I, I lived in a number different places in New York over those three years. And it was, I went on runs and I was like running in the city on the side, sun, just like mundane, whatever but like would stop and just look around me. It'd be like...

(David shouts)

Like relating to the palpable energy of all the people and all this stuff going on. And like the unexpected, you know turn a corner, open a door. And there's like a festival going on. Or there's like a whole crazy world that you had no idea existed is really something special.

Kendra: Also, if you, you can cry on the subway and no one will look at you no one will pretend to be aware of you. It's an incredible, it's like the most communal like the most tightly knit family that also hates each other, but would also die for each other.

David: Yeah. You can have really intimate and really just like non intimate completely solo moments at any given time interchangeably. Like I remember I bought a chair at, at bed bath and beyond and I brought the chair onto the subway cause I didn't have a car. And I was just I was standing as there weren't any seats left. And I was like, I just bought a chair. It's like put the chair down. And I sat and literally this whole like thing in the train car of like people like good idea, man.

(all laughing)

Already getting into like, we will, I don't know. Everyone had props, all of a sudden in my mind

Carlos: That was the moment that you were like, I love this city.

David: That was my best experiences. Like everyone just like, yeah, we're having a moment. We're having a New York moment, everybody. Yeah. We'll never see each other again. Cool. You know?

Brennan: Yeah, I will. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like I could go on with amazing New York stories like that forever. I do. I do want to get to some of our questions because we have wonderful questions from people and we'll but I love, I love that city that, that chair on the subway car is like a perfect encapsulation of what I'd missed. We got some questions. This one comes to us from I'm your pal. Thanks. I'm your pal.

“Hi guys. Long time washer. First time questioner. I can't say how impressed I am at how well this season was done under difficult circumstances.”

Thanks I’m your pal.

“My question is what is the one thing you would have loved to do with the sets in minis that you couldn't do this season and what worked out better over Roll20 lots of love. You're all the best.”

David: Yeah.

Carlos: I feel like that my question was sent from my boss at Roll20.

Brennan: Yeah.

David: What was especially awesome about Roll20

(all laughing)

Brennan: Well, I would say like, like there are just Carlos is like impromptu design work in the battlefield the ability to like push out that stuff. And again, like there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into managing the physical properties of miniatures, like shipping them, packaging them, handling them with care. We've had multiple PCs multiple Intrepid heroes have destroyed a mini within 30 seconds of touching it. You know, like that's a, that that doesn't does not happen with digital assets.

Rick: There's definitely an awesome thing to Roll 20 in and is the, you know, being able to manage all the the crunchy stuff, you know, dice rolls and hit points and spell effects and measuring, like there's a lot of really cool things that could speed up combat and make combat that much more fun. You know, so.

Carlos: Yeah, that would have been really good. Like if we had more time to like, actually, cause we didn't actually put them in, we didn't put the character sheets in and everything was kind of coming together like real last minute, by the time I got in there where like, I wish I would have known, like I got the the breakdown of the sheets and like we met maybe a week before, like we were supposed to do it. Like we sat down and you'd be like, I want this here, here here, here. But I didn't know like the story or like what the kind of like what, what the backstory is, you know for the encounter. So I feel like if I would've had that, I could have, if I would've understood it a little bit more I could have taken a little bit more care of the placement and like how things come out and then, you know the light we could play with light a little bit more with lighting and stuff like, but that being said, like you guys did push it like that subway map was the biggest map I've seen. And then the finale map is gigantic. Like, yeah, I was very afraid that we are gonna like start breaking things like at a certain point

Amielee: As I was editing that walkthrough I could occasionally when, like you would reveal a new room I could see it clunking up a little bit. No, no keep going.

(all laughing)

David: Full disclosure for listeners that a lot of the times some of the battles will also help dictate some of the narrative throughline to get there and the ability and size and parameters of what those battles are, will like change depending on the medium, as it did this time like a long train car would have been impossible on the on the table or maybe it would have happened in like smaller chunks that would have been interchanged or whatever.

Erin: Or the photos and Ellis Island. I don't know.

Rick: Yeah, that one. That was amazing thing to do. It was such a cool to do a battle map that is a photo, you know

Brennan: There's, there's a lot there too of like, you know I think some of and something I always think about is the impact on like the narrative structure and the flexibility of like how much can I let these six goof off? Like how, how much do we have to like get to the next thing and wanting to do the next thing and the ability for us to like start a combat halfway through a role-play episode take another role-play episode here, do something else. Like that's, that's a lot to ask for like, like when we swap in a combat set and a physical season, Rick and usually Maxi or somebody else has to go in key in these metal hooks to the thing, like get out of their way. As they're carrying a heavy, thick wooden slab with a set on it, it's, you know, no pun intended it's a whole fucking production. It's a lot that has to happen to make that work. So I think one of the strengths of Roll 20 was absolutely that the digital aspect of it allowed us to be more cavalier with some of the things that I think would we would be less cavalier about in a typical season. For sure.

Carlos: There was a lot of good ideas too, that like I wish we would have used more of or found ways to do that again, but in a different way like the subway like had like those blowout holes you know, which, you know, takes using like a PNG and, you know, messing with the layers and stuff. And like that could've been used like later on in a different thing. I don't know exactly what, but like, that was just fun like to like put on, it's kind of hard because like when you... The differences when you're home playing your home game or setting up your home game, it's just like a completely different than this situation where you're like onstage. Like, it feels like you're onstage. Like when you're, when you're recording these because everyone's time is, is going the recording button is going and you have a certain amount of time and everyone is like ready to go. So it's not like any, at any point, Brennan can say like you're you you're sending me private messages. Like they're in a battle. I don't know if we got enough ants.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Yeah. It's a lot more slick to be able to message Carlos and be like triple the ants quadruple the ants,

(all laughing)

than it is to like, you know, magic that out of thin air. I'm like their line of sight. Wouldn't be able to.

Carlos: Yeah. I’m like sending a message. Like I'm hiding them up here because their line of sight wouldn't be able to like Brennan’s like in his own world, he's not reading there.

(Carlos laughing)

Brennan: It was awesome though. Having literally having someone who was not only like creating a fact adding front effects, making the moped but also truly like what was the word I use the first time? It was like a croupier like someone like, like like in Vegas, who's like managing the game table while I'm sitting there trying to narrate what happens to Cody Walsh when he beefs it on a moped with a triple bladed sword.

Amielee: Oh yeah. I mean, watching down the edit there's there's a lot of magical little Carlos moments that we definitely we watch and appreciate it.

(Carlos laughing)

Rick: Good move hiring that guy

Brennan: I love it.

Carlos: I love when someone... And I have to like stop myself every time. But like when I do something that like, cause I'm muted no one could hear me and no one can see me in this game. They just see the tokens moving. But when I get one of the players to laugh by moving something or like moving things around, Oh my God it is the best feeling in the world. It's like what I imagine a ghost feels like when they talk to someone who's alive, you know what I mean? Like that's what it probably feels like.

Brennan: Carlos is a poltergeist, he like shaking something on a mantel and the people in the house are like, “that's hilarious”.

Carlos: You won't believe what I did today. They were just standing there. And the chandelier started moving.

(all laughing)

Rick: There’s your Unsleeping City character. It's like a ghost comedian. He was like...

Carlos: Yeah.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Oh my God, that banana’s moving itself. It's on the floor.

Kendra: You're the first guy who dies in the first fight. But then you come back later.

Brennan: Wow.

Carlos: Yes, exactly.

Ebony: And in, in true producer form, I say that there are it's a lot of fun that everybody can make things up as they go, but I'm watching on my end with a timer going because I know how much time we have. And I'm keeping these times in mind so that when this does have to be uploaded to a physical drive and go to post I don't want the episodes to be too long for anyone. So all there's the, the it's fun that everybody can make up new things and we can do this on the fly but it still needs to be done like within a certain amount of time.

(audio cuts out)

It all works out.

Brennan: Yeah. It's very, it's, it's a very elegant dance and to everyone's credit across like some like this season was very, very stressful for a lot of reasons, but you know, Ebony was there on a crown of candy when we had to completely change our shooting location at the drop of a hat. And you know, I have never, for all of the things that have to be accommodated of like of like production elements, design elements, again just the clock. I have never, ever gotten a hard no from like anybody on the crew ever. It's always like, we're going to make it work. Like why do we have to do to make it work? 'Cause occasionally he'll be, you know you'll be somewhere and, and it'll be like, okay like we have 30 minutes left and they'll be like, we did a thing. There was a guy named Chungle-Down, Bim. We have to see- God it got away from me and you're just there. And there's all of the, like, everyone always comes together and make it work, which is like it's miraculous because this is a weird cause like nobody went to film school for the like edited, designed actual plays show. Like half the shit we do here we like made up. They're like, Oh, well the industry standard for tiny miniature combat edited with graphic effects after the fact it's like, no, that's what that was like. It's all, you know, hacking through the wilderness ourselves, trying to figure out like what the hell are we gonna do. This next question comes to us from Steph M, thanks Steph M. This one goes out to Erin and Amielee.

“What has been the most challenging part about editing for D20”

And the open-ended question if this season and other seasons like Erin have you edited every season, save Bloodkeep. Is that correct?

Erin: And Pirates, I didn't edit pirates.

Brennan: And Pirates.

Erin: But I have done every other one. So

Brennan: And Amielee, Bloodkeep was your first one, right?

Amielee: Yeah. Bloodkeep was a wild ride as a start to D20, I will say.

(Brennan laughing)

Erin: That timeline was very tight. So Amielee took very little time to do anything and it came out beautifully. And it was like, that was probably the hardest thing for you because they didn't have enough time.

Amielee: We, that was the start of having a dedicated assistant editor on Dimension 20. So it, it was crazy, but the way everything was set up before we got there, it worked out. I, I mean, like compared to now I think the biggest issue is just it really is kind of the amount of cameras that we have now. Like in the way we have it set up it I will be editing where there are a couple cameras. I can't even see on my setup that I’ll like blindly cut to when I know I can use them.

Carlos: Wow!

Amielee: I mean, like, I could see, I can change my setup but it's like the number of key pad I want three and three and three.

(Erin laughing)

it's a brain thing.

Carlos: We set up like a multicam for each overlay then. Right. Like...

Erin: We did. In our multicam, we have three up of the left side, three above the right side. Everybody's individual cameras, six up a seven up. And the, and I am sorry for the listeners. I call it, I call them ups seven up because it's funny. Right. Okay. Get it.

(all laughing)

So we have like, and then we have the Roll20 and then something else for the next season. And then...

(Erin laughing)

so there's like 12 different video layers that we have to choose from just so that we don't have to manually make every version of a set up every time. But sometimes then if we want, like let's say we have the left side of the table but we want to put somebody else in the middle. We manually do that.

Carlos: Yeah. Okay. That's what I was wondering. Like, if you have like a three set up how do you add that fourth person? Or how do you, you have to manually do it.

Erin: Yeah. And then we have all of the options in front of us at all times. So that's another thing is like, just mentally, like, okay we could go to a three up here. If we want to see these three people or we could have like seven at a time. So there's just almost too many options is the problem.

Amielee: Yeah. The the setup just to get started is a lot more chaotic from working from home.

David: Yeah. Especially without the, the shared server.

Amielee: Yeah.

Erin: Yeah. The other than technologically, the other thing that's a challenge is when, I'm afraid to say this. Cast members just walk out of their chairs.

David: What are you talking about? (walks out of his chair)

(all laughing)

Brennan: Blow up their spot.

David: It's almost like our kitchen is right there and they're right.

(all laughing)

Carlos: Oh because you can’t use those overlays then

Erin: You can't go to the 7up or the three up if they're in it, because they're so good explanation because of your following, like Brennan Lou or whatever. And you're like Oh, I've got to cut a line.

Carlos: So then do you drill down into that multicam? And then you're like, I got to put another person into that. Move that another person into that overlay. Yeah.

Erin: Yeah.

Amielee: Yeah. I, I changed my setup a little. This is going to be really boring for About the viewers. I no longer care viewer, this is just for Carlos. I changed my, my three up cameras and my two up cameras to have everyone's video tracks. So I'll like dive into the multicam slice in and just like enable the cameras I want. And then that's it, I think Erin does it slightly differently where she likes, sets them up on the main, her main timeline where then she'll like set up the stacks that camera's, there are some, it, we we figured out this, this is all like completely new workflow that you had to develop over Unsleeping city. I think we got it pretty nailed down now. Erin made a spreadsheet about it.

David: Very nice.

Amielee: Very nice, It's color coded like Erin Erin's real good at spreadsheets guys.

David: I love that also serving to me as like a very helpful production meeting.

(all laughing)

Carlos: It's great for me right now. I get a deep dive on how to How to do this because there is no information like this doesn't exist, right? Like with this many cameras, it doesn't really exist. Like, no-one's thought of a good way to do this. Cause I'm having similar problems anyway. Sorry.

(Carlos laughing)

Amielee: I also did this on like a past job before I joined in on Unsleeping city. And I passed on my project to someone else. And because there's so many cameras it's it complete issue for computers. Like not very many computers can handle it anymore.

Carlos: You just make a bunch of proxies or...

Amielee: Oh yeah, we have proxies for everything. Super interesting

Brennan: No, it is. This is fascinating. I want to be very respectful of everyone's time. Cause we, we, we said like an hour and a half there are a couple of other questions and I would love to do them, is another like 15 minutes. Okay. Is that if anyone has a hard out hell yeah, but Bubba this one comes from Krys Rocketman. Thanks Krys Rocketman.

“Hi Kendra. Your character art. This season was, *chef’s kiss* you absolutely knocked it out of the park.”

(all laughing)

David: Did they spell out Mwah

Carlos: Yeah how did they write it

Brennan: you wanna know how they wrote it, asterix Chef's kiss asterix. So they got a performed chef's kiss

David: Oh, that's amazing.

Carlos: That's really good.

Brennan: I could do a different, a different take or we could do a “mwah molto bene” or “mwah chef's kiss”.

Carlos: I love the side chefs kiss.

Amielee: mwah chef's kiss

Brennan: mwah chef's kiss

Kendra: mwah chef's kiss

(all laughing)

Brennan: Exactly

“your character art this season was *chef’s kiss* you absolutely knocked it out of the park. I felt like I knew so much about the characters just from how you drew them. My question is, what is your process around conceptualising”

By the way, conceptualise is spelled with an S we. Got a British person on our hands or someone who spelled with an S (Krys is Australian)

“what a character might look like before you put pen to paper, so to speak. What sort of things do you think about when coming up with a vision for these characters?”

I also am going to add my own little ademptum, which is I also would be used to how this process applies to updating a character doing your three years later for the PCs.

Kendra: Yeah, I mean, so it depends on the character because some of the, depending on how they were, whether I was designing them because like we mentioned before, this is the first season. I mean, this is the second season I've worked on but season one, I was doing everything post. So it was like, if they had a description in game I was going off of that. Versus if this was a character that they are doing in game now I am then doing post the character art on that you know, it was like, eh, so depending on the character like some characters came to me with descriptions from Brennan where it would be like, Oh, this is so-and-so. This is, they are of blank descent. They are this age they're wearing this. Other than that go wild or something like a good example was Heather Heather Simos was a character that had no description. And I was just like, and I or I think Brennan said like, like Cindy Lauper, eighties. And I was like, got it. Here's, I mean, I've been drawing for a long time. And I, sometimes these characters it's just like bang. And I just, like, I got it. I know exactly what this character is going to look like. It's like, I, I don't know how to describe it beyond that. I just have a feeling for them, but it, I mean it really depended on the character. There were some characters that like went through a couple different iterations again, with the with the updated art. I was able to kind of go back and like there was some character art in season one that I just didn't like my drawings of. And I was excited to go back and like do the characters the way that I like, really, like I was like, yes. Okay. I'm going to make these characters look better. And I don't know, like, it, it, it just it like a good example is Pete Pete season one description. It was like, okay, he's got a backpack he's got a cowboy hat and a back and a suit jacket and glasses, but not, he's not wearing they're on his pants. And he, and then season two, it was like a paragraph that was twice as long from Ally being like, and he's got tattoos and he's got his peppermint tooth and he has a key ring with these key chains on it. And then he's holding a book and this is what the book is. And I was just like, all right, okay. Okay. Let's see. I mean, it's, it's exciting. It's a different thought exercise every time where it's like, okay, well, this is a character. Like, you know, if I have it like a super detailed description of a character, I can work with that. If it's like go, you know, buck wild, I can also work with that. But it's a, it's a different sort of head space that is sometimes it is a mystery. Even to me, they just like Athena from the skull of Zeus, like fully formed Heather Simos. God bless her

Erin: Also. I just want to say your update on Sophia was amazing that everybody loved that one, because she had such a transformation between seasons and no longer crying for sure

Kendra: Yeah. I mean, it's so funny. Cause it was like, it was such a transformation of character and it was so exciting to be like there've been so many incredible cause players of Sophia in particular that are just like, they just get it. It's like, yes, it's like leopard pants and a Gucci belt and the cat. And it's like, I just like it was that kind of thing where it was like it was so exciting to go back to these characters and like keep in mind what their growth was in season one and like where they were starting in season two and just be like, yes, leopard pants, gray sweatpants. I'm not sure why all of my character designs revolve around pants so much

Amielee: But you gotta, you gotta have

Brennan: We've talked a lot about the hotness of Kendra Wells characters, but let us not forget that. Let us not forget the cuteness of those little babies, those little babies.

Kendra: I got, I was given the opportunity to draw. I think it was five adorable children because one of them was, was in Ellis Island photo. Yes. The little, yeah it was a little chunky baby, little tiny baby. And then I got her drunk baby Langston. There's another little chunky baby. And then I got to be the older version of them and it was just like, what a dream? What a, what a delight?

Brennan: Oh, those little babies. Incredible. This'll probably be, we gotta be have time for one more. This one, it goes out to the production crew. And I think actually this is like, this is kind of a nice one to end on because it is kind of broad. A nice broad question from Spencer Walsh. Thanks Spencer.

“Hey gang. Y'all made an absolutely incredible season. How has the limitations of the production of this season evolved your approach to producing the show? What new things that you tried this season? Are you excited to implement when we're back in the dome also, and most importantly and God it wouldn't be adventuring party. If we didn't get it favorite post filming day meal or snack.”

It's a show about what food would be like to eat people and that's how it goes.

Amielee: Listen I've made, I've made Pete’s Popcorn a lot. You make popcorn, you put some nutritional yeast in it, add some olive oil. It's a, it's a meal

Kendra: That is a meal, nutritional yeast on popcorn is like “mwah chef’s kiss”.

Orion: You brought it up in the in the comments when we were working.

Amielee: I think about it all the time.

Orion: We had a little conversation back and forth where you were like, it's so good. And I was like, you really made it. You're like, yes, absolutely. They used and everything. Yeah. That was probably one of my favorite interactions. Just Hey, popcorn

Amielee: Markers up on cuts and like, Oh, please review this graphic. Please look at the sound of fact I left one that just said like, please try this popcorn. This is great.

(all laughing)

David: I, I would say for, for stuff that we learned from this season and it, it almost says in thinking about how early it was in COVID there it is like earlier tech in terms of our current knowledge about how to shoot things remotely. I think that we've learned a lot over the course of this. And then after about the best way to record over the internet, unfortunately like this this season is an example of people's actual internet speeds has an effect on the quality of the recording that you can get. And since then there's been like improvements as to how we can do recording that that will be implemented in Mice and Murder and beyond, and hopefully getting back into the dome in not too long fingers crossed, but but I wouldn't say overall the things that's like to learn and implement is like there are all these amazing different ways to have people interact and tell a story as a group for, for this season it of course was Roll20. Like getting everyone on the same page being able to play a game tell a story remotely through a very very cool tool that allows all that to happen within a shared, you know, digital but physical representation of a space was really cool. And also, and like might be just technology that we'll continue to use in different capacities in the future. Even like going back into the dome, you know, Oh now we know we can do this online. Now we know we can call people in different places. Now we know we can have like a cool digital effect and or play music or whatever, not play music. Not play music Ebony.

(all laughing)

Ebony: Na-uh

David: I Know, I think that the tech of this remotely Roll20 things like that is definitely stuff that we'll we'll keep in mind. And like it's not just tabletop physical minis although that has been our signature with Rick at the helm. But like with Rick at the helm in terms of designing how our battles work there's many different iterations of what that could be and where and how, and that's exciting. Yeah.

Orion: Try to hold it in so hard.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Yeah. Talking with Orion here about the future is such a mean question to end on.

(all laughing)

Stay tuned gang.

Amielee: Guys it’s good, it’s good news

Brennan: Yeah. Are there other lessons to kind of take away are the things that are excited to do back in the back of the dome? Oh, and Kerns, you give us your favorite snack. What's the best. What's the, and end of a long work day.

David: Oh, well a snack is just a meal. I just heat up chicken broth and put like a bunch of noodles in it and have my own like super noodley soup. But it's only like five minutes to make.

Carlos: What is that?

(all laughing)

Are you one of the grandparents from willy wonka.

David: I will make where we walk in our kitchen? It what be called the noodley soup bowls which are saved only for ramen and for dislike. Whenever I want to make a shitload of chicken broth and just like a bunch of noodles and go ham and feeling and comforting and warm and nice. And yeah, I'm an old person

Brennan: But the way you're describing it is you're keeping the noodles so separate from the soup.

Carlos: That's what it is.

Brennan: That's what it is.

Kendra: It's like, you mentioned ramen. And I guess ramen is just broth and noodles, you’re right

David: I’ve put so many noodles in soup, that’s what I’m saying, I don’t think you could call it a soup. I think you could call it wet noodles. With some broth in it.

Kendra: wet, wet noodles

Brennan: I’m picturing Kerns with like a giant soup bowl in his hand and taking a little like spray bottle. It just says broth on the side and going like spritz, spritz spritz, and then just opening a huge like Scrooge McDuck, vault of noodles that just blast in the bowl.

David: It’s close. It's like the very very thin egg noodle managed to have like whatever it's about. Like, you know, those ones it's super thin. And I just pour the whole thing in and it's just mostly noodles, but it has it's soup. You know

Carlos: You keep putting me in quotes though

(all laughing)

David: I suppose it’s a bunch of noodles, but it's flavored with chicken broth.

Carlos: Ooh. That's just such a strange way to, to describe it. It's just like, I get the best milk and I mix it with eggs. Oh yeah. And then I add the pancake mix. I’m like What

(all laughing)

Orion: I feel like this is the 35+ version of butter noodles.

Carlos: Oh yeah.

Brennan: Other- Oh yeah go for it Ebony.

Ebony: I want to start with my favorite snack because deh-

(all laughing)

And that is a bacon, like, you know I'm sorry to my vegetarian and vegan friends but you get some good, like thick cut bacon and you put it in the oven, not on the cooktop. You put it in the oven at 400 my oven 400 for like 16 minutes. And it's perfect. And then when you then you eat the bacon and you can eat it. You can save it for later and have a vacant snack. That's way down the road

Carlos: Down the road

Ebony: Then you take the bacon drippings. And you put them in a container and kind of like how Kerns has like a special thing. I have like a special jar in my fridge of cold bacon drippings that I put on all sorts of shit. Like whenever I want something to be extra delicious. It's like the gift that keeps on giving.

David: You just put a little, like a like using it like butter or like a little bit of oil.

Brennan: I used to take bacon,

David: I put that in my soup with my noodles.

Brennan: I didn't say. I saw Carlos had a reaction to when Ebony said and then you take the bacon and then you eat it. Carlos is like, all the producers of this show are aliens.

(all laughing)

Like Ebony is like, you take the bacon and then you eat it, and Kerns is like you add the noodles to the soup.

Carlos: I'm a human being so I have a digestive system, so I put the bacon in my mouth.

Ebony: So simple because we have so many complex things to communicate at other times. Like, and then we eat it. Don't need to get into the details you know how it works.

David: You gonna try eating the noodles before eating them.

Carlos: What is this anarchy

David: What are you doing, what’d you eat, dry noodles?

Brennan: All right. Well, listen. I know we've once rerun so long. We have to get everyone's favorite snack. That's the finish line as soon as as soon as we everyone's favorite snack, we're done. But I got to everyone’s favourite snack.

Kendra: Well the pressure is on.

Ebony: Wait, I have on more favorite snack. I'm sorry. Go for it.

Brennan: Yes. Yes.

Ebony: It's another go-to anytime stressed during production trader Joe's dried mangoes get this bag of dried mangoes. And they're like not the soft and juicy because those have added sugar not be organic because those are too dry. The regular, a little processed, but still real fruit that will heal any production woe that you have. Before, after, during.

Erin: I was just literally going to say that but I get them from Costco and a giant bag.

Ebony: You're smart. What I need, I need a Costco. Can I borrow your Costco.

(all laughing)

Orion: I’ll need it for the whole thing, delivery, cosco bag. I grew up in a Filipino neighborhood? I miss those things.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Truly. I feel like my life has been changed numerous times by craft tables on Ebony's productions. Like, like the mangoes, the trader Joe peanut butter pretzel nugs the little peanut butter pretzel nuggets. Ooh. When you're running close to empty the little peanut butter pretzel nugget it goes a long, long way.

David: Carlos will love this one, I just like olives, just eat a bucket.

Kendra: What kind of Olives, are we talking green olives black olives out of...

David: Any of them, but Cosco has so many olives

Kendra: Because there's something so satisfying about like the canned, like pitted black olives. And like you stick them on your fingertips and then you just like, you just eat like 30 or 40 of them and that's a meal. And you're like, this is healthy. This is good for me. And I eat them and I digest them. And that's that's dinner.

David: And it's dinner, that's your whole day.

Brennan: Ooh. Okay. We, we need it. We need snacks from Orion. We needed them from Rick. We needed them from Amielee. We need them from Carlos. We need them from Kendra.

Rick: Right now I’m eating some chocolate. Dark chocolate covered ginger.

Brennan: Ooh. A man of discerning taste. Terrific. I love that. Hell. Yeah. A long day. Tired. What's the snack.

Erin: Another good one. It's trader Joe's bruschetta. Fresh bruschetta. That's the best Bridgette I've ever had. Yeah.

Brennan: Trader Joe's does you're right. It really does. You're right.

Orion: I feel like my snack is so dog water tier in comparison to everybody else and like the mangos. I just eat gummy worms man.

(all laughing)

I'm just like, this will last me a week and a half. I'm watching episodes.

Brennan: Yeah.

Carlos: I like bananas and heat peanuts. If you ever gone to like gas station and buy like the peanuts, the bag of peanuts, they're like two for a dollar. They're called heat peanuts. I don't know if anyone ever has one

Brennan: Now you sound like a fucking alien. What the fuck is a heat peanut.

David: You come after my noodle shit and you have heat peanuts

Kendra: You know those peanuts that everyone has had

Brennan: Hello, I'm from earth, my favorite flavor is heat.

(all laughing)

Carlos: Well, I spend a lot of time on the road. So like, if I wanted to eat something like from a gas station, like constantly it was just always junk food. So like, I would always eat like a banana and like pick up some peanuts. And it was the only thing somewhat like somewhat okay for me. But like, it's like a peanut. And then I have like a blueberry muffin or something that says like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a banana.

Brennan: There is a very arts to the creation of like the gas station meal. You know what I mean? Because it's like, you almost never want to go for real gas station food. Like there's stuff that they're like, Hey this is the food from the gas station. You're like, no, thank you.

Kendra: It's like a, it's like a combination like Savara and Dunkin donuts somehow. And everything is stale. And everything is burnt

Orion: I have a question for Brendan and Kendra is like seven 11 food equivalent to the same kind of New York thing where you're like, I won't die. You'll die kind of thing. Cause I'm feeling the sort of parallel.

Brennan: It isn't very, it was a very easy thing. There are parts of near the old UCB training center was in a spot in New York that is in that. But like I said, the eighth Avenue between Penn station port authority is the taint of Manhattan and the,

Orion: Don’t know what that means, keep going

Brennan: The taint is the area between your genitalia and your butthole

Kendra: So in this, in this, in this metaphor Penn station is the and port authorities, the genitalia. And you know, you just have to hose it all down.

Brennan: And the UCB.

Orion: If you had explained it like this, I would be so much more on board.

(Brennan laughing)

Brennan: And the UCB training center was right in the midst of this taint. And it's like one of those areas in New York city that has no real bodegas near, right? Like there's like a weird Dean and DeLuca type place. It's like, it's like near times square. And then these big like Metro station

Kendra: It’s a jarfrids center where it's just like a dead zone of like, what is even here, it's like some kind of like a deli that'll sell you like a $23 sandwich and then nothing else for 12 blocks.

Brennan: So like I used to have to, I would say like, like horror of horrors would sometimes have to like eat at a seven 11. Cause this was back in the days when I would be teaching like some between like two and four three hour improv classes a day. And like, would you have like a half hour break? And you're like, I'm going to go get and like you're like, Carlos, just like you said, it's like, okay I don't trust any of your food. I'm going to get a Chobani, a banana and these almonds, these are staples. None that like, yeah. Like, like Spyros had nothing to do with this other companies.

Carlos: Yeah. The high turnover stuff, the stuff that, you know probably got stocked in the last couple of days like that's  the stuff you go for?

Brennan: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Oh God. That's so funny. Bring it.

David: Seven 11 donuts though, are quite good.

(all laughing)

Brennan: Kendra, Amielee. We gotta get, you gotta get favorite snacks.

Kendra: My, I don't know if this is like my favorite. Cause like my, my work schedules are different than I think like the rest of the production team but a real goon meal that I enjoy is like a sandwich. And I used to make these as a kid and I still make them now. And it's still like, one of my favorite sandwiches is peanut butter and chocolate chips.

Brennan: Oh,

Kendra: It’s incredible. It's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Like it like it doesn't like Smucker's Jiffy, whatever you whatever peanut butter you have you put it like I do whole wheat bread. Cause like I attempt health.

(all laughing)

Amielee: With your peanut butter and chocolate.

(all laughing)

Kendra: It's so it's like cold and crunchy because of the chocolate. And it's like, it's, it's it's goonie but it's like real good.

Amielee: Mine is just Pete’s popcorn now. That's yes.

Brennan: Okay. Yeah. Wait and I forgot. I've heard that's when Ryan unmute yourself for a second. I know you've been working this whole time. We gotta get, we gotta get your favorite snack.

Ryan: (Off screen) Okay. So two directions to go here if it's a really long day and it's a lot like like post whatever we, cause we did pirates of Leviathan on Saturday, Sunday, right? And then Monday through Friday was game-changer and then Saturday, Sunday.

David: Oh my God.

Ryan: And it's Saturday, Sunday for me was-

David: I forgot.

Ryan: This one that we did.

Kendra: You were just photosynthesizing I assume.

David: you were working like 12 or 13 hours, days straight so-

Ryan: Yeah, we did the weekend and then we did game-changer and then we did another weekend and then I did Um Actually and then I did another weekend and I think then there was something else in between that. And then we finished up and I was like, so I, I went I was a marathon. So if I could remember to exist, it was cheese, fruit and crackers. If I couldn't remember to exist, it was peanut M and M's

David: Ooh, Oh yeah.

Kendra: Peanut peanuts are really holding it down on the emergency snack.

David: Ryan I’m so sorry.

(all laughing)

Carlos: That's all I was thinking too.

Ryan: I appreciate it. But honestly, we're here now and everything's great. And like learning experiences and all of that of like what did we learn during the pandemic? And you know, with tech and everything I learned a lot from it. And there was like that was a really cool thing to be able to go through and I wouldn't change any of them. It was really awesome.

David: Yeah.

Kendra: New york baby, big Apple

Brennan: Only in New York was this Los Angeles production.

Erin: Orion. What about your favorite snack? Or you've said it already.

Orion: Honestly it's Gummy worms. You wanna see the bag, it very huge.

(David now holds his dog)

(all laughing)

Brennan: Honestly, gummy worms listen. I can talk about food all day, but like when I'm doing like how everyone knows that like I'm jamming salami cheese and almonds in my mouth. Non-stop coffee all the time. There are times I think when I get to a breaking point where it's like because the thing with the cheese salami and almonds is they're, they're high fatty foods. They're good for your brain. And they they're, and they're they're a little bit more filling without having to chew that much. They, they, they have a lot of calories for not that much density. There are times where if I get to a certain place of like, Ooh, the the machine is getting angry that the engine is making a noise that should not be making. I will go to sugar

(Amielee is also holding a dog)

Doggy, doggy. Oh my God.

Amielee: I got jealous of Kurns. So I, I dragged my dog onto my lap,

Kendra: (holding a cat) my animal.

Orion: We'll wait, I need to pick up my animal. Oh, I'm all alone. I have all of you

(all laughing)

Brennan: Well, you know what? And we have each other and that was the message of the season. And that's our message here. Yeah. The, you know what the best snack is a snack shared with friends.

David: Oh, I thought you were going to say soup with noodles in it.

(all laughing)

Carlos: Chicken broth with noodles.

Brennan: It sounds like we're describing soup but I can't be sure. Just to everyone here I know that we're recording. I think. And this is like for people to watch it and get to know all the cool work that everybody did. It's a goddamn honor to work with each and every one of you. This show is it's such a, it's such an, a crazy gift in life to be able to work with all of you and make something where we all get to show off our cool skills and make something altogether. And I love you all very much. It's like an honor to work with all of you.

All: “Mwah chef’s kiss”.

Brennan: This has been Adventuring Party, chef’s kiss to you.

Captions extracted by: OliverC

Edited by: OliverC