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Post by BoB3K on Apr 11, 2021 11:32:35 GMT -5
I'd imagine they'd just do it similar to how they produced episodes back in the CC days, which i believe is that batch approach? I'm fairly positive that throughout all of CC and even Sci Fi, they would produce like one a week, one at a time. Literally, they would pick a movie (or have Frank select one that he's been screening), get together in the writers room and watch it once, twice, and more, with someone jotting down all of the riffs. Then the 'head writer' Mike would collate all the riffs, they would come back together and pick and choose and rewrite until they had a script. I'm not sure when the skits got written. Then, they would come in one day, and shoot through the movie in the theater, go to lunch, come back and shoot the hosts segs. (or the other way around, I'm doing this from memory). I'm pretty sure this has been documented on line in multiple interviews. About a week per ep. I'm sure they were working ahead of the broadcast schedule, but not really 'batching' anything.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Apr 11, 2021 11:58:58 GMT -5
Is there any reason they couldn't produce all the host segments all at once but the theater segments over time?
1) Get all the movie rights. 2) Watch all the movies and write the host segments for all of them 3) Schedule the filming of the host segments based on the schedules of the performers then film all the host segments at once 4) Start writing the theater segments 5) Film the theater segments 1 to 3 at a time taking enough time to so it right. Maybe two or three days per episode so like three episodes in two weeks including shorts. 6) Release the completed episodes once per month. Maybe episode on the 1st and short on the 15th.
For me the biggest difference between the old and the new MST3k is feel. The old episodes felt like a group of friends sitting around riffing a movie. The new episodes feel like a group of stand up comedians who don't know each other riffing a movie. I can watch the old episodes 20 times. The new episodes are more one and done to me.
The new ones feel like they flew in a few people who don't know each other. They get two hours sleep and drink 3 cups of coffee to wake up. Then enter a booth and read the riffs they've never seen before as quickly as possible so they can get to their next gig in a day or two. There's just something missing with the timing. The jokes are good, just mistimed.
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Post by Megalon on Apr 11, 2021 12:04:16 GMT -5
Someone needs to ask Joel about B&W movies (and non-HD movies in general). Will they be riffed? Supposedly the HD requirement was part of the Netflix deal.
They can go back to riffing stuff from the 50's again, right?
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Post by majorjoe23 on Apr 11, 2021 12:09:15 GMT -5
I have to say that I am surprised how much $ this has generated so far. There were questions on whether people would have much in the way of disposable income to pledge, and after season 12, I wondered if there be much enthusiasm for the show... But perhaps mine is the minority opinion and most MSTies loved season 12? (for me, it's no better than season 1, maybe the funniest ep, Mac and Me would equal something from season 2) And why did I pledge? Out of support, or maybe the live show and the shorts with Joel, J. Elvis, and Bill reminded me of what I loved about MST3K... but that was with Joel as host, not Jonah (who frankly, leaves me a bit cold). Or maybe I'm hanging on the hope that a monthly schedule could improve the writing, give it a humor boost? There were some good ones in season 11, maybe they can rebound and give us eps that reach Avalanche levels of riffing? That's probably why Joel didn't start this last year. He missed the train to do it in 2019. With how things were going with Netflix, he should have seen this coming but going back to Kickstarter to ask fans to bail out the show again is a difficult decision. Then asking to do it during the unforeseen pandemic would be a no-go indeed. Most MSTies loved season 12 i'd say, it didnt suck but not getting the quality we were expecting was a disappointment. Also fans recognize Season 11 was a product of being supported by the fans while Season 12 was a product of being supported by Netflix. Another reason why i pledged, to get back to MST3K having complete creative control over these and future episodes. My guess is the contract with Netflix probably meant there was a certain amount of time that needed to pass before they could make new episodes elsewhere. Two years is probably a good guess, since season 12 premiered in Nov. 2018.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Apr 11, 2021 12:14:24 GMT -5
Someone needs to ask Joel about B&W movies (and non-HD movies in general). Will they be riffed? Supposedly the HD requirement was part of the Netflix deal. They can go back to riffing stuff from the 50's again, right? Again, that was another thing that felt like "We're doing this to appeal to Netflix". The fans on the whole don't care if the movie is B&W or looks like crap (to a certain extent). We don't care if the episode is 90+ minutes or there are 5 host segments. We don't care about celebrity cameos or if the show looks expensive or if nothing on the bots moves but their mouths and eyes. A lot of the "make MST fit Netflix" stuff was...controversial, to say the least. And is now unnecessary if the show is truly "for and by the fans". So, like I keep saying, I hope Joel shares some plans on how things will be different besides "we'll release them as they're finished".
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Post by BoB3K on Apr 11, 2021 12:50:38 GMT -5
Again, that was another thing that felt like "We're doing this to appeal to Netflix". I'm fairly positive in interviews and such during and after the release of Season 11, Joel said there would definitely be some B&W movies and probably some shorts in the next season, and that he already started picking out movies. I'm sure all of that changed (and was quietly not mentioned anymore) once they had to go to NetFlix to fully fund Season 12 and they had their 'requests'.
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Post by comedyc on Apr 11, 2021 13:08:03 GMT -5
"We don't care if the episode is 90+ minutes or there are 5 host segments."
I do. A lot. I want the commercial bumpers and three host segments, and intro and outro. 80 minutes is too short, I need at least 92, if not 98. My OCD requires these occasional "breaks" throughout the show. The rigid timing of the breaks adds something for me. I can treat the show like a clock. In Season 12, the shortened episodes without the middle host segment and bumpers really threw me for a loop. I made it hard to watch, as I would get lost as to where I was in the show, time-wise. And seeing parts of the show chipped away was not encouraging. I certainly don't want to see more parts of the show disappear with each consecutive season. Eventually, it won't resemble the show we remember at all. And for some, it already doesn't resemble that.
So please, no more chipping away at the show. All segs and bumpers, please. This is not MST3K: The Movie, where executives demanded that the middle (and best) host segment be removed. (*I love the movie, but it would have been even better with the bunker scene included.)
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Post by kracker on Apr 11, 2021 13:26:23 GMT -5
Yeah I really enjoyed that they put bumpers in Season 11 even though they weren't necessary. They gave the show a lot of the nostalgic charm of TV watching and served as a "palette cleanser" as Joel put it. I'm sure he'll make the episodes as long as they need to be. Thing i didn't enjoy was the super-long credits to get to the stinger.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Apr 11, 2021 13:38:58 GMT -5
If there's no one telling them what to do there is no reason that they can't show the entire movie or put in extra host segments or have bumpers in spots. There should have something like having a bumper every 20 minutes or so and an extra host segment for every half hour the show is longer than a typical MST3k episodes. So if the typical MST3k episode without commercials is ~90 minutes it has the standard number of host segments. If the movie is two hours add another one.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Apr 11, 2021 14:02:22 GMT -5
2,570,549 via 14,204 backers. Avg pledge is $180.97
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Apr 11, 2021 14:21:15 GMT -5
Is there any reason they couldn't produce all the host segments all at once but the theater segments over time? There might be. I don't know the stipulations of the Screen Actors Guild or the Writers Guild of America (or even if MST3K counts as a "union shop" in a way that matters for those kinds of unions), but there might be certain industry standards about what constitutes "an episode" or "a season" that limit what they can do in terms of batch production scheduling. From an efficiency standpoint it'd certainly make sense, but I don't know if there are rules in place that would prohibit some of their cast members from filming one aspect of a show that might not see the second part of it filmed (much less edited or released) for an indefinite amount of time. The second side of this is that Joel might not want to bite off more than he can chew. There's a certain "safety" in not overworking in some areas. Like, if production schedules allowed for the creation of 18 episodes' worth of host segments, but then each episode took too long to produce, you wouldn't want fans to develop a kind of "What is TAKING them so long?!" mentality while waiting for the next thing to drop.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Apr 11, 2021 14:35:43 GMT -5
Rifftrax doesn’t have any time restriction limits, but they still edit most of their VOD episodes to 75-80 minutes. I’ve always been curious why.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Apr 11, 2021 14:55:38 GMT -5
Is there any reason they couldn't produce all the host segments all at once but the theater segments over time? There might be. I don't know the stipulations of the Screen Actors Guild or the Writers Guild of America (or even if MST3K counts as a "union shop" in a way that matters for those kinds of unions), but there might be certain industry standards about what constitutes "an episode" or "a season" that limit what they can do in terms of batch production scheduling. From an efficiency standpoint it'd certainly make sense, but I don't know if there are rules in place that would prohibit some of their cast members from filming one aspect of a show that might not see the second part of it filmed (much less edited or released) for an indefinite amount of time. The second side of this is that Joel might not want to bite off more than he can chew. There's a certain "safety" in not overworking in some areas. Like, if production schedules allowed for the creation of 18 episodes' worth of host segments, but then each episode took too long to produce, you wouldn't want fans to develop a kind of "What is TAKING them so long?!" mentality while waiting for the next thing to drop. Many movies have a second team filming in a different location. A lot of this depends on scheduling. Is it easier for the cast to work for a week or two every two months or maybe a month every six months? Filming A batch of 3 to 6 theater segments every 3 to 6 months gives more time for the writers to finish the scripts. "We've got a month to write 18 episodes and 18 shorts with host segments" just doesn't work for me. IMO writing and filming the host segment first and in one or two big batches works because the mads are the best known and probably the busiest of the actors. Spend a month writing all or many of the host segments and the first 3 movies theater segments. Then film them. Then spend a month editing them. Then film the next 3. The writers work all the time. The actors come and go as needed so they can have other jobs. I don't like rushing through everything as quickly as possible. A 22 minute sitcom takes more than 22 minutes to film. What it boils down to is that I don't think writing and filming an entire season all at once as quickly as possible is the best way to produce a comedy show. Smaller batches spread a little further apart allows more time for the actual writing.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Apr 11, 2021 15:06:10 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, how much did you pledge, MJ? I'm at $85 ($15 pledge, with DVD add-on), might change that to the $100 level, skip the DVD, and just save the downloads on a flash drive. Or maybe I'm hanging on the hope that a monthly schedule could improve the writing, give it a humor boost? I'm very curious about this. Because, if it's going to be the same cast and crew, then assume same production style/schedule, I'm not sure why it would be any different than last time. Because of season 11. It sounds like they were doing all the same things production/schedule/recording-wise, for both seasons, so why the humor drop? If you were able to deliver several solid eps under those conditions (with double the output) in season 11, why couldn't you do it again? Eps like Cry Wilderness and others show they can deliver the funny, maybe they can deliver the funny again for season 13, and maybe allowing more time, to prepare and write and get in a groove with the script, or whatever having extra time gives you, can help with that? Don't know, but I'd be curious if any thought has been given to retooling the creative process.
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Post by said43 on Apr 11, 2021 18:17:23 GMT -5
I just noticed the community page tells you how many "new" backers there are (backers who haven't previously backed a kickstarter).
As of right now, 2,124 are new out of 14,313 or about 15%. I'm guessing a lot of these are people who found the show trough Netflix and want it to continue.
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