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AC 4095 from YVR to DEN
Departure: 07/29 8:35 AM
Arrival: 07/29 12:28 PM
Class: Economy
Aircraft: 738

I’m writing this from seat 28E flying high over the Rocky Mountains. Usually I earmark some time later in the month to flesh out my newsletters, but the beginning of this month was dense with planning for an event I hosted on July 19th (more on that later) with a lengthy vacation planned for the last week of July.

For the last five days I’ve been hiking, boating, and relaxing in Vancouver, BC. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but getting an extended break from screens, especially when you’re someone like me who works at a computer and has hobbies that mostly consist of staring at a screen with a remote in hand or staring at a screen with a controller on hand, is a wonderful change of pace and leaves my eyes some time to relax. Some highlights from the trip so far have been seeing a group of seals up close, having a few drinks on a remote beach out in Deep Cove, failing to stand on a paddle board, and having some down time with friends I don’t see very often.

I was able to fit in some Sad Land development earlier this month, working on coding the war game sequences mentioned in last month’s newsletter and writing some text to go along with it. Once I've returned to Boston, I’ll be going back to my two week design sprints so that I can start crossing some of the bigger boxes off my to-do list. I’m still planning to release some version of a demo in December and have been working out which aspects are necessary for an initial build and what can wait until later.

This past winter I attended a Survivor-themed birthday party at a friend’s house in Worcester. For those unfamiliar with the show, it is a reality show competition that takes place in tropical locations where contestants (or “castaways”) spend 39 days together fending for themselves, hunting for food, and building and maintaining a shelter. There are challenges that award the winners certain benefits (immunity from elimination, comfort food, spa days, etc.) usually followed by rounds of voting to choose who will be the next person to leave the competition. The real meat of the game is the social element that drives the castaways to create alliances and blindside their competition during nail-biting rounds of voting. A Survivor-themed party adapts these elements - challenges/games, voting/elimination - into a single afternoon: a marathon of yard games by the grill and grabbing a fresh drink before the next round of voting. The moment we landed on a winner for the first Survivor-themed party I attended last winter, I offered to host my own version in the summer to celebrate my own birthday. The hosts agreed to hold a “season 2” at the same house in the summer with me as the host and game master.

There is no better feeling for me than having a cool idea and plenty of time to ruminate on it before I have to take action. One element I wanted to add to my version of the party was the reality television aspect of the show itself. What if we filmed the whole thing and set up a confessional for the castaways to divulge their allegiances and confess their frustrations? Although I don’t have access to a documentary film crew, I had enough cameras, tripods, microphones, and portable recording devices to plausibly pull something like that together. I’d study the format of the show, work to be a passable stand-in for Jeff Probst, Survivor’s longstanding host for 50 seasons and counting (two per year), compose a list of games/challenges, and create a plan to film it all to be edited later. A lofty proposal and probably more work than most people would plot for their birthday, but it was an exciting prospect on several levels and truly exciting prospects are few and far between.

The rest of this newsletter will act as a postmortem of how the party went and what I’ve learned from the experience. My flight is landing in a few minutes so I’ll pick this up during my next spout of downtime.

AC 5688 from DEN to SAN
Departure: 07/29 1:44 PM
Arrival: 07/29 3:08 PM
Class: Economy
Aircraft: 738

Rushed to our gate and had just enough time to pick up some cheese, veggies, and hummus for lunch. The direct flight was ludicrously more expensive so we took the one with the layover. It’s not all bad. Only two hours and there is a large, sedated orange cat in my aisle.

Anyway, I didn’t start truly planning the Survivor party until late May. Deadlines are an incredibly effective way to get me focused on a project, and this was no different. There were three prongs of planning for the event: researching the show, coming up with challenges, and figuring out a way to feasibly film everything. Over the course of a few weeks I watched Season 16 of the show Survivor, recommended as one of the best seasons and a definitive piece of the Survivor canon. For challenges, I borrowed from party games I’d played in the past, both drinking games and yard games. Flip cup and corn hole were on every planning list I’d made since the beginning. The last piece, the filming, was both the last thing that fell into place and the thing that motivated me to work as hard as I did on research and games.

Season 16 of Survivor lived up to the hype! I’d never watched a season of Survivor, but it will not be my last. The show starts fairly slow and unwieldy, with a cast of 20 castaways it’s hard to give any one contestant enough screen time to get to know them on a personal level. About halfway through, the season really starts heating up, with fun and interesting challenges and a smaller cast every week where fewer contestants means more time with those who are left. There’s the expected larger than life characters that comes with the territory of reality television, but I appreciate the stakes of Survivor. Yes, there is a film crew and paramedics standing by, but there is also the reality of food scarcity and inclement weather. Throughout my watch I took notes on the show’s format (each week has predictable pacing of award challenge, immunity challenge, elimination) and camera placement (the end of episode voting has a very distinct tone and camera placement for coverage). For a show where the cameras aren’t on all people at all times, the editors need b-roll and cutaway shots to stitch together the edit.

The games were the trickiest aspect of the entire planning process for a few reasons. First, the games/challenges needed to be substantial enough to feel like a worthwhile activity but short enough to keep the pace going. Second, they needed to be suitable for the group size and environment. Finally, I needed to order a bunch of stuff for planned activities but needed to keep my supply list reasonably priced and manageable.

I’ve been interested in videography and filmmaking since I was in middle school and that itch has never really gone away. In the past few years I’ve been building an arsenal of film gear in hopes of exploring some form of video production, whether it’s video essays or documentary shorts. This party was the perfect not-quite-high pressure but not-quite-low-pressure project to get in front of the camera, behind the camera, and within the editing suite. For anyone curious, we used a MacBook inside a side room to act as the confessional for anyone to use during down time, iPads and iPhones were mounted to tripods that were moved around the yard/house as needed for coverage, and I used my Sony AX700 mounted on a shoulder rig as the main floating camera. Audio was captured through the iPads’ and iPhones’ native microphones except for one iPhone that was connected to a Bluetooth lav mic, recording clean audio for one person (usually myself as the host), and we had a small shotgun mic attached to the Sony AX700 for some decent all around audio for that camera. My plan is to edit the footage down to standard definition so I’ll be able to zoom in on the native HD footage without losing quality. That will also free me up to add digital zoom and artificial screen shake to hopefully match the style of 2000s-era Survivor.

I spent many evenings taking notes, writing and rewriting lists, and getting everything hopefully ironed out before the party. Roughly enough people had RSVP’d for the game to function as needed, but the list seemed to expand and contract with each day. Two people couldn’t make it but then two others reached out to say they could. This wasn’t much of a problem, but I did realize at a certain point that I had to bake some flexibility into the broader schedule depending on the actual head count on the day of. The games also needed some buffer at the beginning in case people showed up a little late but also at least an extended break for dinner and cake. At one point I realized anyone eliminated from the game could become a crew member to help with setting up games and filming. This ended up being an integral part of the production and a great way for people to participate even after they were eliminated from the game.

I often get anxious before big events, and this one was no exception. I slept a few hours but mostly tossed and turned with the thoughts of last minute preparations and potential catastrophes running through my head. I tried to sleep in the passenger seat of the car on the way over, but the adrenaline kicked in when I set up and gave me enough energy to get through the day. Overall, it went mostly as expected although I wasn’t able to fit everything in so we had to think on our feet at the end to choose the winner. My main takeaway was that it was too much work for one person and in the future we’ll split up the work and leave the filming to just the confessional, which is both fun to have and very low maintenance to enact.

The day was a huge success despite not getting through everything, but there was enough of the day that felt like being on a reality show set that I’m glad I ended up sticking with my original goal. I have a few plans on how I’m going to cut the footage together for a watch party of everyone who attended but have no plans to release footage publicly. It felt weird to invite people to a party with heavy surveillance without promising everyone I’d never release it online. Starting my initial descent! I’ll wrap this up later today.

Location: San Diego Airport Terminal 2
Time: 6:02 PM PDT

We arrived at the San Diego airport with a few hours to kill while we wait for our friend to arrive from New York. Got dinner in Terminal 1 and had a few drinks. This has been a very liminal day. Anyway, there are some takeaways from my time with Survivor that can apply to my digital game development. It’s a friendly reminder that deadlines are terribly valuable to focus a project down to just what is necessary. I could have and should have scoped the day down to fit everything in but live events can’t really be playtested the same as video games. And finally, none of it really means anything unless it is shared. For months I had been running through this party and envisioning what could go wrong and what aspects might be successful, but in the end the energy, joy, and community came predominantly from outside of me and was not within my control. When I needed help, I had plenty of friends to lend a hand, and when things were jelling and the party was moving along with momentum, it felt great to share that with everyone.

I’ll be spending the next few days working remotely in San Diego before heading back to Boston. Hope you’re enjoying your summer!

Sincerely,
Neil