The Guild Season 6 Hangout with Felicia Day, Chris Preksta, Nick Towle, & Sandeep Parikh

SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, I'm wearing fur.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: No, it's Pickles.
It's Pickles.
SANDEEP PARIKH: He's gonna join the chat.
FELICIA DAY: People love it when--
I'm gonna have to get Cubby in here.
He's too big, though.
He's such a-- oh, we're live.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: Hey guys, we're live.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Say hi, Pickles.
Say hi to everybody.
FELICIA DAY: Hey, guys.
How are you?
SANDEEP PARIKH: [INAUDIBLE].
FELICIA DAY: Felicia Day here.
Totally unprofessional start to this
semi-professional hangout.
This is our fifth Guild hangout.
And welcome to season six.
And we have an awesome, awesome line of people here.
We have director Chris Preksta.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Hello, hello everybody.
FELICIA DAY: Coming to you from Phila--
where are you?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Philadelphia?
Pittsburgh.
FELICIA DAY: It's another-- it's a P city.
CHRIS PREKSTA: No, it's totally
different, totally different.
FELICIA DAY: OK.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: We have Greg Aronowitz, production
designer, artist extraordinaire, and recent
mugging victim.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: We have editor Nick "Towel"--
NICK TOWLE: Towle.
FELICIA DAY: What?
NICK TOWLE: Towle.
FELICIA DAY: It's been Towle.
How many years have we worked together?
NICK TOWLE: It's Towle this whole time.
FELICIA DAY: No, you changed it recently.
Oh, great.
And then "Pareek
Sumpayperdee." [LAUGHING]
SANDEEP PARIKH: It's
pronounced "Towel." [LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: Towel Pareek.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Mmhm.
FELICIA DAY: Sandeep Parikh is joining us.
Clearly, he's got his best hair on for us.
Yeah, it's pretty sweet.
SANDEEP PARIKH: What's wrong with my hair?
Leave it alone.
FELICIA DAY: It's fluffy.
SANDEEP PARIKH: It's just it does its own thing.
GREG ARONOWITZ: It just looks like a rough night.
SANDEEP PARIKH: It was a rough night, man.
We'll talk about that later.
We'll get into that.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, we're gonna talk about it later?
We should talk about some semi-relevant
things for the show.
And then we'll get into what we really want to talk about,
which is Greg's mugging and your hair.
Who's in your lap right now?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, Pickles.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Which one are you talking to?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, yeah.
It depends on who you're talking to.
This is Pickles.
Pickles is a muppet.
FELICIA DAY: Pickles is cute.
SANDEEP PARIKH: And she's typing.
Type, type, type, type.
FELICIA DAY: She needs to host a vlog, Pickles.
Cubby hosted a vlog last week.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, yeah?
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
SANDEEP PARIKH: He'd do a bang up job, this one.
I just wanted to keep her in frame.
That's difficult to do.
Oh, Jesus.
FELICIA DAY: She's kind of large.
Cubby maybe weighs 15 pounds too much to put on your lap.
That's the problem.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Cubby's put on some weight.
FELICIA DAY: OK, I can say that about my dog.
You can't.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I'm just being honest.
I'm just being honest about it.
FELICIA DAY: He's got a bone addiction.
He just keeps eating them.
Greg, what's behind you right now?
Oh, your favorite--
Moonwalker.
FELICIA DAY: Yes.
CHRIS PREKSTA: I keep staring at it.
Every time you talk, my eye goes right to 8-bit or 16-bit
Michael Jackson.
GREG ARONOWITZ: You'l have to come over and play.
FELICIA DAY: If you've never been to Greg's BarnYard, you
can actually check out a lot of this stuff on his blog,
BarnyardFX, where he chronicles a lot of things
they make there.
What old arcade games do you have in your house, Greg?
GREG ARONOWITZ: There's a bunch of them.
I have Frogger and Tron, Tetris, Space Invaders,
Asteroids, After Burner, the Star Wars trilogy--
FELICIA DAY: All three of them?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Mr. PacMan--
yeah, all three of them.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Donkey Kong.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, all the cool ones.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Defender.
There's a lot.
I can keep going.
FELICIA DAY: What we're going do is we're
going to take questions.
If you have any questions--
especially geared toward how we made the game this year,
because as you know, season six, we have released a lot
more footage than we've ever done before inside the game.
And we have some of the key people who helped
realize that world.
We have Chris, director.
We have Greg, who created a bar and a lot of the visual
elements, and then Nick, who puts everything together on
all the episodes.
So if you have any production questions, this is definitely
a time to ask.
And then Sandeep, he's pretty, so ask him about--
SANDEEP PARIKH: I'm a face.
FELICIA DAY: Just a face?
SANDEEP PARIKH: I'm just a meat puppet.
FELICIA DAY: He's a beautiful meat puppet you should ask you
really funny questions of.
So Chris, can you tell me a little bit about when you got
the script, what did you think when you read the script, and
especially, the in game stuff?
CHRIS PREKSTA: The in game stuff was exciting, because I
know you guys had done some of the stuff, like you guys had
the Guild Hall.
And you guys had just done small stuff, but it was nice
that there was an environment that you guys kept going back
to, that it wasn't just one episode, that it was peppered
throughout the season.
And I see someone ask the question, but I also have the
same question.
I was interested to hear what made you come up with the
underwater theme, because one, it opens up the door for so
many great visuals and so much comedy.
And we don't even stay in one section of
that underwater world.
There's the underwater tavern, there's a cave that's coming
up in a later episode, there's that area with all the kelp.
There's lots of different areas.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I think Felicia tries to think of the
most impossible thing to do, and then does triple that.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, she likes to challenge us all.
CHRIS PREKSTA: I'm like, Pixar and ILM have whole departments
devoted just to water and wet people.
FELICIA DAY: Really?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yes.
FELICIA DAY: I am very spoiled.
I work with some of the most talented people working on the
web right now or in mainstream even.
I guess I'm just spoiled.
I just don't think of the limitations as much as I
probably should.
I'm sorry.
You guys always make it look amazing, so thank you.
Just from my personal point of view, the reason I came up
with the underwater world was, through script revisions, I
realized that The Spires of Dragonor
had just been released.
So I needed to make sure that whatever was in development at
the game made sense, that it was very different from
Dragonor, because I didn't want people to get confused.
And I had the idea of a mermaid.
I thought that was a cool idea.
But then the tavern was not necessarily going to have
anything to do with that.
And then when I rewrote Sandeep's storyline to have a
love interest, it all came together in that everything
could be part of the expansion world and on the test server.
So I backed into it.
And I guess I was also inspired by the WoW
expansion--
Vashj'ir.
I forget how you pronounce it.
But I love that area.
And everybody hates on that area so much.
But I actually had a really great time playing that.
And it was either that or be on the moon.
And then I was like, I don't know how to do a moon bar.
Although, clearly Moonwalker did it.
CHRIS PREKSTA: So it was either going to be floating
through underwater or people hopping really high-- so all
physical difficulties.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Right.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
Well, we talked about that, actually.
You talked about that early on about how are people going
to-- are they going to swim or what?
Can you talk a little bit about how we
logistically made that work?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, one of our first conversations was
are the characters going to swim or are they just going to
walk around?
And we took the Spongebob Squarepants route, where we
said, yes, they are underwater, but they're just
going to walk at the bottom of this ocean, just because the
wire work--
it would have been too impossible.
You would have needed 15 times the budget just for the time
it would have taken to do all that.
Just the little bit why work we even with Sabina and
Justine, you just saw how time consuming and
difficult that was.
Plus, I don't think it's needed.
FELICIA DAY: No.
CHRIS PREKSTA: We said we didn't want people to feel
like-- we didn't need to trick people to think they're really
underwater, because you know they're not underwater.
But we figured as long as we can make it feel like it's an
underwater world, a video game world, we thought that'd be
sufficient enough to sell the idea.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Felicia loves being the character on wires
all the time, though.
SANDEEP PARIKH: She does.
FELICIA DAY: I got to be Legend of Neil.
And I went up to Justine, and I'm like, you've never done
this before.
Picture everything that you don't want to happen in your
nether regions and just imagine that happening
continuously for about 30 minutes.
[LAUGHING]
GREG ARONOWITZ: With 60 people staring at you.
FELICIA DAY: Exactly.
But she was such a trooper.
And I have to do a shot out to Kristen, our wardrobe person,
who made that outfit for her.
I instantly was jealous.
Just like season five where Clara got to wear all the
steampunk, I was instantly jealous of why didn't I create
myself a mermaid?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Why don't write yourself--
yeah, cool costumes.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, boy.
Greg, tell me about how you created this bar, which was--
CHRIS PREKSTA: Freaking awesome.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, first of all, you created the dragon
that Vork perched on, which I think might be the most epic
item ever made for a web series.
But the bar, actually, I think, is even more
impressive.
Can you tell me about how you conceived that and how the
process was developing the look of the bar and how you
actually made it and what it made out of?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Sure.
Well, we knew going into it that it was going to be mostly
green screen.
So Chris came up with the idea of making it in the round in
the hopes that would enable us to move the camera in a 180
and be able to have see different parts of the bar
without having to move the whole set or
move the green screen.
But we didn't want it to look boring
and be straight through.
So we came up with the concept of stacking up the barrels.
And the whole idea was to figure out all the items that
could possibly be in this underwater world that were
obtainable so we didn't have to build every single part of
it and just make something that was part ship wreck, part
Atlantian room.
FELICIA DAY: I love the color palette that you
guys came up with.
How did you come up with that?
GREG ARONOWITZ: I was eating a bowl of fruit loops.
[LAUGHING]
GREG ARONOWITZ: I was like, this would be fun.
No.
This seems kind of mundane, but the first element was that
it was on green screen, so there could be no green.
And it was also underwater, so I figured the visual effects
were going to have a lot of blue and a
lot of watery colors.
The idea was to contrast that so that, within the lighting
and the compositing, it could just become its own element
and not just blend in with everything else.
So we went with this coral reef--
pinks and oranges and purples--
and it just grew from there.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
No, it's awesome.
Nick, can you just talk a little bit about--
I don't know if everybody appreciates from just a
process how much work it is to do even one green screen shot
and do it this polished.
Can you talk about how just the loose steps so people who
have no idea how these shots are made, how that works?
NICK TOWLE: Well, basically you go down to your studio
with your cameras and shoot your actors
against a green screen.
And then that comes to me, and I put the scene together with
my helpers like James [INAUDIBLE].
He's done an awesome job on this season.
So thank you, James.
FELICIA DAY: Good.
NICK TOWLE: And after we've tinkered with that and built
it the way we want to see it, then that goes to
the graphics guys.
And they do their work, and that changes everything.
And then we tweak it and move it around and change things.
And eventually, we get to the stuff you see on screen.
But it's quite a process.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, it goes back and forth 15 times for
every single little thing.

We don't have somebody from the graphics department here,
but in order to change even one little thing, it takes
hours to re-render.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, the rendering time is
unbelievable.
And even the previewing time, as you're applying the
effects, you don't get to watch it
happening in real time.
You have to render it out.
And then you go, oh, I missed something on the 10th frame.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Now, you have to go back and fix that.
And it's another two and a half hours to render that out.
FELICIA DAY: I guess that process gets shorter and
shorter the faster our computers are, but it's still
not fast enough.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
And if you consider that a lot of the graphics--
sometimes a whole scene will be done by one visual effects
person, when, if you were to go back to Star Wars, for
instance, it would take a whole team of people to do
that one thing.
GREG ARONOWITZ: And it would take weeks to
get a single shot.
And if it came out wrong, you just had to start all over.
You couldn't just change things.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Absolutely.
FELICIA DAY: Well, yeah.
Star Wars, back then, they literally painted the
backdrops on shower doors--
hand painted them.
All those ships you see are hand painted on literally
shower doors they went and got at the hardware store because
that was how ghetto it was.
CHRIS PREKSTA: I remember reading somewhere,
and I could be wrong--
GREG ARONOWITZ: That was state of the art.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
CHRIS PREKSTA: You might know this answer, Greg, but I
remember reading somewhere that there was about 400 some
visual effects shots in the first Star Wars movie.
It might be that it's slightly more.
But in episode six of season six of the
Guild, there was what?
100 shots, so a fourth of Star Wars in one episode.
FELICIA DAY: It's unbelievable.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Not to brag, but The Legend of Neil finale
had 335 visual effects shot, so--
CHRIS PREKSTA: Holy cow.
FELICIA DAY: Wow.
SANDEEP PARIKH: No big deal.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, Sandeep, why don't you talk about being
an actor on a green screen?
And then, you have so much experience.
One of our visual effects people, Lincoln, who is
working on the season, actually, I found him through
Legend of Neil, because you used Lincoln on Legend of Neil
and on Super Force, too, right?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Actually, I didn't know Lincoln
on Legend of Neil.
FELICIA DAY: Oh.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I got him on Save the Supers.
He's a buddy of [INAUDIBLE], who was the effects artist on
Legend of Neil.
And he also started Save the Supers, but then he got really
busy with a bunch of Adult Swim stuff.
And so then Lincoln came in.
And he did a bang up job for us on Supers.
We had significantly less green screen in Save the
Supers than we did in Legend of Neil.
Legend of Neil was--
FELICIA DAY: Insane.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, was pretty insane, which Greg
could speak too as well.
We don't have to go off on it.
GREG ARONOWITZ: I have the scars.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah.
Greg built our entire finale setting.
And we had lava and all sorts of crazy effects.
But I would say that directing visual effects is a lot more
harrowing of an experience than acting visual effects.
As an actor, you're just like, well, it's someone else's job
to figure this stuff out.
[LAUGHING]
SANDEEP PARIKH: You can't really put a ton of pressure
on yourself.
Just play the character.
And when Chris yells out, imagine a giant whale flying
over your head, and you're like, OK, well, I'm going to
imagine a giant whale-- holy crap, there it is.
And it's taking a big poo.
You just, I guess, do the best with what you have.
And luckily, we had Chris, who had a very specific vision in
mind, if felt like, when we were acting,
telling us what to do.
CHRIS PREKSTA: It was totally lies-- totally lies.
SANDEEP PARIKH: But it was nice, I would say, to have the
physical set make such a big difference.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
SANDEEP PARIKH: It didn't even really feel like a green
screen stage.
When you're acting just on green screen, you
feel kind of naked.
It just didn't feel that way with the underwater world,
because we had that entire coral bar and costumes and all
the actors were there.
Besides some eye line things and having to flip the room so
you weren't necessarily always looking at the exact person--
though, actually, we basically did always have the other
person on the other side of the camera.
So it wasn't so challenging.
I don't think it was like when you watch the behind the
scenes on Star Wars and you see Liam Neeson and all them
on a green nothing.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, they're just like
oh my god, I'm terrified.
SANDEEP PARIKH: It wasn't that.
So I think it's nice that we got Greg--
you have physical things to play with.
CHRIS PREKSTA: No, absolutely.
SANDEEP PARIKH: It makes a difference.
FELICIA DAY: We have a lot of questions.
So I'm going to go down the list here.
A couple for Sandeep from optimistforthewin.
I have two questions for you. optimistforthewin asks Sandeep
is always being the funniest person in the room cause a
jealous divide amongst The Guild cast.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, thanks, Mom.
It's really kind of you to learn how to use a
computer to then chat.
She really went to great lengths to ask that question.
FELICIA DAY: It's pretty sweet.
And then hoboyho asked, will there be as Super Force season
two or a Save the Supers season two?
SANDEEP PARIKH: So, gosh.
I'm going to just skip that first question, because I'm
definitely not the funniest person in the room.
If you ever get to hang out--
FELICIA DAY: Jeff Lewis.
SANDEEP PARIKH: --with Jeff Lewis.
FELICIA DAY: I have to say, you're a close second-- a very
close second.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I have to try to be funny.
Jeff is accidentally funny.
FELICIA DAY: Mmhm.

SANDEEP PARIKH: Just the way he talks or the way he eats--
anything he does is weird and funny.
I imagine his birthing was even a hilarious experience
for all those involved.
Weird dude.
Now, what was the second question?
Save the Supers--
we hope so.
We hope so.
I think a lot of folks in the YouTube world right now are--
FELICIA DAY: Waiting.
SANDEEP PARIKH: --sharing this same experience, whether it's
waiting to see what kind of budgets are
coming in for the channels.
FELICIA DAY: Yes.
So guys, if you like Geek and Sundry, make sure to subscribe
and watch our shows, because that means if we go on.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Right.
FELICIA DAY: Literally, it does.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Exactly.
I will shill out for My Damn Channel as well--
FELICIA DAY: Exactly.
SANDEEP PARIKH: --who's my partner on Save the Supers.
And if you want to see more Save the Supers, the best
thing you can obviously do is like and share it and
subscribe and all those little widgets.
Click on them and make them have more numbers than they
had before.
FELICIA DAY: Yes.
rodrigocruise asks will The Guild season six end on
Christmas Day?
Oh, good question.
We are actually pushing--
I made the assumption that maybe people will be busy on
Christmas Day.
We're actually go into show The Guild finale on the
seventh, I believe, of January.
So that will be the Tuesday after New Year's.
And then we'll do one more chat after that to round
everything up, hopefully with all The Guild members, if
they're available.
Let's see.
What were the biggest challenges bringing
raspberryroopoo--
no, raspberryroo.
Sorry, no "poo." Did you face any specific challenges
bringing the visions to life while still on a budget?
[LAUGHING]
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, what challenges didn't we face?
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
Let's talk about how a regular show would work and then what
we have to work with.
Like lead time, everything.
Everybody go down the line, because the scope of
The Guild is so--
I think I'm very proud of what we've done.
And especially this season, I think we raised the bar.
But doing that is very challenging.
Can you guys give some instances?
What were the most challenging things?
I
GREG ARONOWITZ: I think right off the bat, if you want to
talk about television shows versus web shows, take a show
like Star Trek or X-Files--
I think I got made fun of last time we were on Google Chat
for mentioning X-Files because it was so old.
FELICIA DAY: What?
That's still a good show, man.
GREG ARONOWITZ: It's still a good show.
It had a lot of effects.
But you can take any single effects shot from any one of
those shows, and it costs more than our entire budget for all
of the 300 shots in a single episode or whatever it is.
So right off the bat, that's the biggest challenge.
When it boils down, each shot that is in the cut that people
are watching is within the 10s of dollars.
That's difficult to do.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
CHRIS PREKSTA: And the quantity of those shots--
there's so much of the underwater world stuff, and
it's really difficult.
It takes a visual effects artist a long time, a lot of
times, to do those shots or to create those backgrounds and
create that world.
And then those have to come to me and to Felicia, to Kim, to
walk through them and approve them and give our notes.
Then they have to go back and go through tweaks
and stuff like that.
So just the sheer quantity of them-- but at the same time,
not just as a creator but then just also as a fan, you love
being in that world so much.
I wish we had the ability to do more of it.
Because you get to do a lot of this in the comics, Felicia.
A lot of comics takes place so much in the world.
And so that's what I liked about these underwater scenes.
But at the same time, they're really challenging.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, I actually wanted to write a lot more.
And actually, I think I cut two scenes out that we just
had to kind of transport to the real world.
We had to shoot all the green screen shots for our whole
season in two days, which was extremely challenging
considering just the wire work alone-- just to make Justine
dance and lower down, that took one half a day.
That's how long it takes to do those wire shots.
Nick, what were the biggest challenges for you?

NICK TOWLE: Not having enough takes, enough material,
because you guys were rushing in the field.
I think you did a great job, but we're trying to piece it
together from not much stuff.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
Because we shot--
NICK TOWLE: How long does it take to
shoot a normal episode?
FELICIA DAY: I think we shot 15 days total.
We usually shoot 15 days.
And then it's 12 episodes.
So it's a little more than a day an episode, which is kind
of crazy considering all the green screen we did and all
the locations.
SANDEEP PARIKH: And there it is, right?
A normal show would do 15 days of the green screen.
That would be just those shots, or 15 days of just the
build out that Greg did to create that coral bar.

The production's work on the production triangle, right--
money at one corner, time in another,
and quality in another.
And that's I think what sets shows like The Guild and the
Legend of Neil and Save the Supers apart from other shows.
We just refuse to compromise on quality, so where do we
have to compromise?
We've got to compromise on--
GREG ARONOWITZ: Sanity.
SANDEEP PARIKH: --on sanity, on money, and on time and
having to be forgiving.
For Legend of Neil, we had to go to an every other week
schedule because the effects were so cumbersome and such a
long process that you just had to go, well, we just need more
time, because we don't really have the money.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, we actually pushed a whole week.
We pushed The Guild a week.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Right.
FELICIA DAY: Episode seven got pushed a week because we just
weren't able to catch up with the green screen.
And it's just necessary.
And that's why usually, you have dozens and dozens and
dozens of people working, finishing a show on a TV show.
And then you only have Nick and James and a couple other
people, too.
CHRIS PREKSTA: All those shows you've mentioned, like The
Guild, you guys start releasing before
the series is finished.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, which is super hard.
CHRIS PREKSTA: And so it's a moving training.
I know with Mercury Men, we had the luxury of saying,
we're going to finish it, then you just release it.
So you get to take the time to do all that stuff.
SANDEEP PARIKH: That's the smart way of doing it.
FELICIA DAY: That is the smart way of doing it, yeah.
CHRIS PREKSTA: But at the time--
our show, no one knew it existed.
So we could take the time.
But The Guild--
they're clamoring for another season.
You can't always keep them waiting.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, we even released much later in the
last year because of changing from Xbox to YouTube and then
launching Geek and Sundry.
So that was tough.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah.
So Felicia, speaking of the audience clamoring for more
Guild and whatnot--
is that some of the inspiration behind Floyd's--
I know we talked about this offline a little bit.
But I see some of Felicia in that character being like, I
need to service my audience in the way that
they want to be serviced.
FELICIA DAY: Yes.
I couldn't start writing The Guild until after Geek and
Sundry launched because everything was so difficult.
And then I'm launching a network and I'm constantly
looking and seeing how people like things and what I could
do different.
And I think I did want to make that a theme in that if you're
a creative person and you're trying to create something
that lasts and is bigger than just immediate blogging stuff,
it's very hard to have so many other opinions, because then
you forget what you like.
You literally can forget--
I don't know what is funny anymore, because your brain is
switched on to just look for other people to approve of you
before you even can decide it for yourself.
And I did want to inject that into this character who loves
what he does.
He's just gotten so caught up in other people's approval and
what other people think and all these other outside
pressures that he's forgotten why he does what he does.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I loved how you incorporated it.
I feel like it's such a catharsis.
Even for me watching it, I'm like, ah, yes.
That's how it feels sometimes.
CHRIS PREKSTA: And The Guild, obviously, is always so funny.
But it was nice that there was also a message buried in
there, the idea of commenting and what you say--
it's a dangerous thing, that you really can--
they don't realize that they can be so incredibly hurtful.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, exactly.
There are a couple of lines in episodes 10, I think, that
summarize what I think.
I do the same thing.
We've all done it.
We've all been like, that movie has that actress.
I hate her.
But you don't really hate her, right?
You don't know her.
You just say, oh, I hate her, because we have a lot to
consume and we have to dismiss things in order to just focus
on things we like.
But at the same time, that actress, if she heard me,
she'd probably get her feelings hurt.
And unfortunately, the internet lets you see what
everybody thinks about you.
It's challenging.
Let's do more.
Let's see.
Where do you think web shows will be in five to
10 years from now?
This is from gordontwilson.
And will the added competition increase your costs?
Guys, any pithy answers?
CHRIS PREKSTA: I think quantity-wise, there'll be a
lot more of them because now it's getting easier.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Can there possibly be more
than there are now?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yes.
FELICIA DAY: I know.
It's everybody.
There's so much.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I feel like the flood gates have opened.
CHRIS PREKSTA: I don't think that's going to stop.
Every high schooler, every middle schooler has their own
YouTube channel that they're going to make their own stuff.
So it's going to be that they're a lot of that lower--
I don't want to say lower and I'm not talking quality.
I just mean notoriety for whatever reason.
A lot of that stuff is going to compete
with your major stuff.
FELICIA DAY: Well, that's he challenge.
How do you justify spending--
every episode of a TV show is millions of dollars every
week, because that's what it takes to
make all that content.
And then web series are tiny fractions of one episode.
But at the same time, if you have somebody who uploads just
from their phone and is getting more hits and more
traffic, how do you persuade people to give you all that
money to make something like this show or like Supers or
Mercury Men or anything when the number is right there?
You might have made the best show ever, but people might
not find it.
They have too much watch.
GREG ARONOWITZ: That's why on TV, there's the rise of
reality television, because the producers figured out,
wait a minute, we can just put six people in a room for
$100,000 instead of two actors that cost millions a week and
more people watch it?
It's the same thing.
Because there's more competition doesn't
necessarily mean the costs go up.
It's actually we have to be more clever and bring costs
down, which is a hard business to be in right now.
FELICIA DAY: Well, is it, and also because it encourages
people to make more immediate things.
You want to eat a Cheeto over an oat bran muffin.
But the oat bran muffin will--
I don't know.
It's just interesting.
It's interesting being in an environment like that with the
web series.
So I think we're going to see really fancy web series come
in and be TV-like.
And then but then, yeah, you're right, Sandeep.
It's so much competition for one person.
Can we expect tons of views every time, or do you have to
settle for less, or how is that going to work?
It's interesting.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, it's a great question.
But I guess we'll see in five to 10 years.
FELICIA DAY: Exactly.
In five to 10 years, we'll all be women.
I'll be an old woman.
CHRIS PREKSTA: I will become an old woman.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, I'm suddenly becoming an old woman
in five years.
FELICIA DAY: Felicia, what was your favorite Codex moment in
the latest season?
My favorite Codex moment was the first episode where we had
that Steadicam shot.
And I think we talked about that before, Chris, right?
At our last hang out?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, because you were so
scared of that Steadicam.
You were so scared of that Steadicam.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Someon's going to check into this hang out
and be like, this is a repeat.
I've already seen this one.
I've already seen this hang out.
FELICIA DAY: Damn it.
Table flip.

sexykexas asks what was all involved getting that dragon
inside the lobby of the game building to work?
[LAUGHING]
SANDEEP PARIKH: That thing was awesome.
It was on a big lever, right?
FELICIA DAY: Mmhm.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah.
CHRIS PREKSTA: It looked like a battering ram, like you bust
it through a door and then it would breathe fire into a
bunch of orcs or something.
GREG ARONOWITZ: IT pretty much was.
It had a rolling cart.
The design of it was a lot like an old style catapult.
It just a lot of pulleys and ropes and levers to
make the head move.
FELICIA DAY: And you made that, right?
GREG ARONOWITZ: I did.
FELICIA DAY: And the you made or helped to make it with--
who owns that thing?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, it was actually, just like the weird
cycle that we're in with The Guild, the guys from Sypher
Motion Pictures came to help us on season five.
They brought a lot of the proppage for the steampunk
that we needed for the convention, because I wanted
to make it really epic.
And I was pretty strained on the budget.
So I only had so many things I could put in there.
But they have the ball--
the LoJ--
every year, so they have all this
steampunk, old world stuff.
They brought that as a favor.
And as the Labyrinth of Jareth was coming up, they called me
and said, hey, can you return the favor?
We need a giant dragon.
And I'm like, OK, sure.
I'll just pull that out of nowhere.
So I sculpted this giant dragon.
And then we animated it for the show.
And then for this season, you wanted a giant dragon in the--
FELICIA DAY: I want dragons everywhere.
GREG ARONOWITZ: --in the lobby.
And the dragon that was outside was originally meant
to be inside.
But then the location that we found, the script was written
that Vork is up in the tree.
And there was no tree to be found.
FELICIA DAY: Awkward.
GREG ARONOWITZ: And Felicia said--
SANDEEP PARIKH: So make another.
GREG ARONOWITZ: --oh, great, they'll just make a giant
dragon sculpture.
FELICIA DAY: I didn't--
that was not even--
yeah.
But it looked so good.
It makes the whole season.
GREG ARONOWITZ: So I just made a giant dragon sculpture.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Greg, do you ever get--
I just went to an event where I got to wear a tux.
And so I bought that tux in 2005.
And every time I wear it, I get this really satisfying
feeling that I'm amortizing the cost.
[LAUGHING]
SANDEEP PARIKH: I'm like, yes!
Another--
I get to I divide by n plus 1 again, and it
feels really good.
When you reuse a huge, awesome prop like that, do you get
that same rush that I do?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Oh, absolutely, because as you
guys know, I keep everything here at the BarnYard.
FELICIA DAY: It's nice the most--
you need more cubbies, it's for organization.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, and everybody always says, what
are you ever going to do with that?
It's such a waste of space.
So when you finally get to use something again--
FELICIA DAY: You always use it, yeah.
GREG ARONOWITZ: It's so justified.
I don't know if the giant exterior dragon will ever be
used again.
It's so specific.
But it was cool to be able to take the--
SANDEEP PARIKH: Let's just do a whole web series with me and
the dragon hanging out or Jeff Lewis and the dragon hanging.
FELICIA DAY: It would be an interview show.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Jeff's Dragon?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah.
FELICIA DAY: Jeff's Dragon.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Jeff's Dragons.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: Nick, can you tell us something?
What editing equipment do you use?
And how could somebody do something like this
as a one man band?
How would that be possible?
What would they need?
NICK TOWLE: Well, we use Final Cut Pro 7, not X. So
basically, we have two or three systems.
We don't have a network.
We basically just hand off drives.
And it's pretty much like being a one man band.
When I cut on season one, we just did have one system.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
And what would they use if they wanted to do some of the
green screen effects and stuff?
You can't do all that on Final Cut, obviously.
NICK TOWLE: We use After Effects for that.
FELICIA DAY: After Effects.
NICK TOWLE: And Chris is actually an expert on the old
After Effects.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, we do After Effects, but we use
Photoshop as well.
So the visual effects people will remove the green from the
green screen.
And then I'll make a lot of the backgrounds in Photoshop--
make the world and the environment Photoshop--
and then give all those elements to a visual effects
editor that has to make the world come alive, animate the
particles moving and plants swaying and add all those
animation stuff.
So After Effects and Photoshop are really the main things.
I know Lincoln used some 3-D modeling program for the
whale, but I don't remember what the name
of the program was.
GREG ARONOWITZ: And then we did a bunch of models again
this season.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, exactly.
We photographed actual physical models.
The columns that go around the tavern--
that was a physical model that we had shot and then
composited in.
And then in a later episode, we have the cave, which I just
got to see the final cut of, which looks awesome.
FELICIA DAY: It looks really great.
GREG ARONOWITZ: [INAUDIBLE].
SANDEEP PARIKH: I think the one missing ingredient to what
you need to become this one man band is the intense desire
or desperate desire to have to make your thing.
And the only way that you can make your thing is if you
learn it yourself, because no one's going to really do it
for you unless you have an exorbitant sum of money.
I don't know about you guys--
and actually, this is a question for Chris and Nick--
I taught myself Final Cut and Photoshop.
Was that the same experience for you guys?
Or did you actually go to classes?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
NICK TOWLE: I've done classes here and there, but mostly
self-taught.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, self-taught as well--
Photoshop, After Effects, all of them.
FELICIA DAY: And you can go to-- there's a site called
Lynda.com--
L, Y, N, D, A .com--
that you can basically pay a monthly fee and get as many
video tutorials as you possibly consume.
And that's how I taught myself very early on in The Guild.
I took a Final Cut class.
I'm by no means an expert, but I learned how to do the
website for The Guild.
I learned Photoshop well enough to do all the graphics
for The Guild very early on, because I just really wanted
to make my thing.
We had no money to make any of it and I literally had to
learn everything.
And I never got to be that great at any of it, but it
never would've gotten made if I hadn't been just so
determined and not waiting for other people to help me out.
SANDEEP PARIKH: But I think it's also super important to
you that you went through that experience, whether or not you
become a master at all these things.
You can't really.
But at least you get to learn what it's like to have to use
those programs so you can speak the language.
When you finally get to work with an editor or a visual
effects artist.
You can actually speak their language and communicate with
them in a way that makes sense.
CHRIS PREKSTA: And then you also know what you're asking.
When you make a request, you know what the cost of that
request is.

With the visual effects guys, I know if I'm asking them,
hey, I need this, this, and this, I know in the back of my
head whether that's an hour of work or whether that's three
days of work.
SANDEEP PARIKH: But I never taught myself sculpting, so I
just assume it takes Greg five minutes to do.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Anybody could do it.
FELICIA DAY: Any kind of drawing, sculpting--
that's the thing that intimidates me the most,
because I know that'll never happen for me.
That's the one thing that I'll never be able to do.
This is a good question to follow up on that.
johnnychu1989 asks what inspires you guys?
So where do you draw your inspiration from?

CHRIS PREKSTA: I'll go first.
I think the biggest thing that I draw from is that I just
can't stop.
You have it in you.
Sometimes you feel like you either have it
in you or you don't--
that drive.
And if I just was to stop telling stories and stop
creating things, it would drive me nuts.
It's naturally there.
It's intoxicating to create something that wasn't there.
It's your vision, your world, your story, your thing.
And forget the distribution of it.
Forget whether it draws an audience or it grows to
popularity.
Set all of that aside.
You made something that was not there previously.
And there's something really special there.
So I always encourage that we don't all just be consumers,
that we are also all creators.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I like that.
i like the whole forget thing.
I need to keep reminding myself to
forget about the money--
CHRIS PREKSTA: Becuase you have very little control over
that, to be honest.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, you know what-- just keep making it.
FELICIA DAY: You can't tell if something's popular or not.
You can't.
Running a network has been a lot of lessons for me this
year in that things that you might love, people might not
respond to it as much as you'd think they would.
And then things you never expected will exceed your
expectations.
I think that's important.
And that's what inspires me is that how
people react to things--
The Guild, so many people come to me and say, I love gaming
now or I started gaming because of this show or I feel
like I belong somewhere.
And the same thing with TableTop.
It does that a lot, with people just discovering the
love of table top games.
So making things that help people discover their passions
and things that enrich our lives-- that's very important
for me, as well as I just love making people laugh.
I just love laughter.
The one thing I miss is I just can't do improv as much as I
would love to.
And that's something I miss a lot.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yes, we that too, Felicia.
FELICIA DAY: Well, maybe January I'll come back.
I need to make some New Years' resolutions.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.
I think for me, it's the laughter thing.
It's so addictive.
That's why I can't stop doing improv.
And I wish I did more, as well.
I think the first coming on stage and said something came
from the ether of my brain--
and trust me, there's a lot of ether in there--
and made an audience laugh was just such a rush, man.
It was such a rush.
It just felt so good.
And you're like, I need my next fix.
I need to hear that laughter again.
And why I like to create the shows even beyond making
people laugh--
I love the collaborative process.
I love being able to work with guys like Greg and--
Nick and I haven't worked together--
and Chris.
I love to work with all these other creative-minded people
for a common cause with all these disparate abilities,
whether it's the electrician or the whatever, everybody has
all these specific talents.
And I get another kind of adrenalin rush from that, when
you have 40, 50 people--
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
SANDEEP PARIKH: And you're the general, man.
And it's all on you whether this thing's going to work it
or not, but really, it's all about making sure that
everybody else is doing their job and having fun doing and
they know what the schedule is and what the vision is.
And that buzzing of the 40 creative people floating
around trying to make a show happen is highly
addictive as well.
NICK TOWLE: I think for me, I'm just looking for really
interesting material and the stories that
really speak to me.
And I get to work on a lot of different things.
So it's all about the ideas, and also how much people care
about what they're doing.
And I find, working on The Guild, you guys really care
about putting out a good product.
So that's what it's all about.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.

We have a great team.
And I think sometimes, you can do a project and everybody's--
it's the same thing wherever anybody works.
You can have an office where everybody loves each other and
inspires each other, or you can have an office that just
doesn't work that well.
And everybody might be awesome people, but it's all about the
synergy between everybody that is the most important, I
think, on especially a film set, because it's so intense.
Everything's just packed in.
And people are working 20 hour days.
And toward the end, there might be a fight, or people
get really upset or impassioned, but it's only
because everybody cares so much.
That's so much more important than just being on a set where
everybody's like, well, I'm just pumping gas.
I'm just getting my paycheck and getting off.
I did a soap opera once, and that's what it felt like.
Not to insult anybody who does soap operas.
But it did feel like I could just be at a day job here,
because that's how they treat it, because it is
a day job to them.
And to me, I always want to just do things that I care
more than anything about.
And I'll just press on, no matter what the obstacle to
get it done because I care that much about it.
CHRIS PREKSTA: I think that's a big reason why The Guild has
been such great quality for so many years.
And that's one of things I first noticed, day one,
walking onto that set-- since I was a new
addition to this season--
is the passion all across the board.
Every single person on that set and every single person
part of the process was just so passionate about making a
great story.
And so I think that's why you get such good quality, because
you have an art department that was doing
way more than they--
FELICIA DAY: Amazing.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Way more than any of us deserve to get, they
were going above and beyond because they were passionate.
I think that extends to actors who put in much longer hours
than they should have or been in hot conditions that they
shouldn't have been in and still did it, to visual
effects artists--
FELICIA DAY: Very hot.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Very hot.
FELICIA DAY: Poor Jeff.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Visual effects artists that are just doing
it-- this very moment, they're working really late hours and
really long days to finish this stuff up.
So I think that passion--
you guys have fostered an environment of very passionate
and talented people, which is rare.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
Wow, no, Cyd is not going to murder a hobo in season seven.
I don't know where you're getting that, dude.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: This is the weirdest--
I'm just looking at the comments.
I'm like, um, OK.
Wow.
That's really creepy.
OK.
Type your questions.
Let's talk about what everybody's working on.
Do you guys have anything else that you're working on?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, here's what I'm working on.
FELICIA DAY: Whoa.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Whoa.
FELICIA DAY: Don't take your pants off.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
FELICIA DAY: Please don't take your pants off.
Legend of Neil DVD.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Sorry, I took off my earphones so I didn't
hear any reactions, but I'm sure they were awesome.
FELICIA DAY: We were screaming.
We thought you had no pants on.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, we were afraid.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, that I had no pants on.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
CHRIS PREKSTA: That we were going to see little Zaboo.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, well, he's not so little.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
FELICIA DAY: Creepy.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Wow, this got really weird really fast.
No, this is the DVD of the Legend of Neil.
And I'm really excited.
We're shipping--
remember what you did for season one and two, Felicia,
where you had to fulfill a billion orders?
And I came over and helped you with labels for five minutes,
and then was like, I got to go.
FELICIA DAY: I know, I remember that.
SANDEEP PARIKH: My house is in a total state of disarray.
We got thousands of pre-orders.
And I was foolish enough to say that I'm going to handle
the pre-orders and then hand it off Amazon.
So we're--
FELICIA DAY: Oh god, what are you doing?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah.
It was kind of crazy.
But it was cool, because--
not to monopolize too much time-- but the reason why we
did the pre-orders was we had people contribute to help me,
because I put my own money into making the DVD.
So people contributed, and this is our crazy long list of
names of all the people that spent extra money to get their
name in the DVD.
So every DVD that goes out is going to be shipped with those
people's names in them.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, that's awesome.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, kind of cool.
FELICIA DAY: That's how we did The Guild
GREG ARONOWITZ: Let me check out that cover again.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Let's check out this sexy cover.
FELICIA DAY: That's awesome.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Some broken-armed, talented man
painted this.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, well, those were the good days when
I had two arms.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, Greg, you've got to tell your story.
Nobody go to Paris.
This has seriously happened.
SANDEEP PARIKH: So tell them nobody ever go
to Paris ever again.
FELICIA DAY: No, Greg said-- tell what happened.
GREG ARONOWITZ: I was in Paris doing MineCon for Minecraft.
And I took the train to a nearby train station to get to
my rental car.
And me and my crew got mugged and somebody beat the crap out
of me with a metal pipe and broke my arm.
That's my story.
FELICIA DAY: In Paris--
I didn't think French people did stuff like that.
GREG ARONOWITZ: I know.
I thought I was going to be over there, I thought I was
going to be in love and wearing a beret and doing art.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Instead, I was just beat down in the dirt.
NICK TOWLE: At least they could have
hit you with a baguette.
[LAUGHING]
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, so it was a very [INAUDIBLE].
FELICIA DAY: What?

GREG ARONOWITZ: We went to the hospital and then we went to
the police, because I just wanted to get out of there.
The police were coming, but I didn't want to be sitting in
the dark waiting for the police.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
GREG ARONOWITZ: So we got out of there, we went to the
hospital, and then I went to the police.
And they're like, oh, you need to go to our doctor in order
to make this a legit report.
And I was like, well, I'm in the middle of a show.
I'm super busy.
I can't-- because I was in hospital for 15 hours before
they even looked at me.
And they said, no, no, we'll make you an appointment so
it'll only take 15 minutes.
And they're like, we'll call you when we have the
appointment.
They never even called me back.
FELICIA DAY: What?
SANDEEP PARIKH: It is because you're American?
GREG ARONOWITZ: I think it's because I'm American.
FELICIA DAY: Wow.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, man.
FELICIA DAY: I'm sorry.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I thought the whole idea of--
FELICIA DAY: Policemen.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Well, policemen, yes, but France's
universal health care was that it's supposed to be really
efficient and good.
But I guess that's--
GREG ARONOWITZ: No, my arm was all swollen and crazy, and it
hurt like nothing's ever hurt before.
Because I'm an artist, I'm not designed for
getting beat with pipes.
FELICIA DAY: I don't think anybody is.
GREG ARONOWITZ: I feel like some people could
probably take it.
FELICIA DAY: What's going to happen to your arm?
You have to break it again, is that what you said?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, the shoulder is dislocated.
And it's been a month now.
So they were basically like, can you move it?
And I'm like, it hurts.
It's the other arm.
That's why I can move this arm.
And they're like, oh, then you're fine.
And they just gave me some morphine and sent me home.
But they didn't reset it.
And now, it's been a month and it's kind of healed.
So now I have to go to another doctor here and they're
talking about that they have to relocate and reset it.
FELICIA DAY: That's unbelievable.
GREG ARONOWITZ: It's not going to be fun.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Well, I'm really sorry that I hired
those guys, dude.
I feel bad.
FELICIA DAY: No!
GREG ARONOWITZ: Dude, you couldn't just--
a stern phone call would have done fine.
FELICIA DAY: Where were you working, Greg?
SANDEEP PARIKH: No, I hired them to hug you, but they
misheard me, and they heard mug you--
an unfortunate pun.
FELICIA DAY: But Greg, you were doing something cool.
What were you working on there?
GREG ARONOWITZ: MineCon.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah.
FELICIA DAY: So that's pretty cool.
GREG ARONOWITZ: It was pretty epic.
Thousands and thousands of people came from all over the
world to see all the stuff that I made.
So I was over there for a month.
This happened on the fifth day.
So it wasn't even where I had it set up enough that I could
have left and someone else could have handled it.
So I just toughed it out.
My whole crew--
one of the girls, Jen, who's actually in The Guild of
Extras, she got punched in the nose and broke her nose.
And then Red 5 was there, and a banshee jumped in the van
and some guy chased her in the van and dragged her out.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, my god.
GREG ARONOWITZ: So everyone's a little shaken up.
But we pushed through.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Holy cow.
GREG ARONOWITZ: The show must go on.
But yeah, in London, beware the moors, and in Paris,
beware the parking lots.
FELICIA DAY: Wow.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Holy cow.
FELICIA DAY: So you can't work on anything, Greg,
because of your arm?
GREG ARONOWITZ: No, I can.
It's just one handed for the moment.
FELICIA DAY: I'm so sorry.
GREG ARONOWITZ: There's tons of stuff to do.
Don't say I can't work on anything.
There's going to be 1,000 emails right now of people
freaking out.
FELICIA DAY: No, no, no, I'm sure you--
GREG ARONOWITZ: Sandeep's like, wait a minute, you owe
me blah, blah, blah.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, boy.
Chris, you shoot all the time and you do not
actually live here.
You flew in to direct The Guild this season.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, I was just there for a little bit.
I don't always read YouTube comments, but I was just
reading YouTube comment the other day and saw one that was
like, that Preksta, that new director, he makes everything
look so Hollywood.
FELICIA DAY: What?
CHRIS PREKSTA: From Pittsburgh, PA.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Are you sure that was tone of it?
Maybe he was like, hey, that guy makes
everything look so Hollywood.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Oh, it was definitely the tone of it.
I'm giving the nicer version.
Yeah.
We shoot stuff every day.
I shoot a weekly YouTube show called Pittsburgh Dad.
We do that at every single week, so that's nonstop.
But then I have a new big science fiction series I'm
shooting in May.
So we're at middle pre-production on that, so a
lot of writing, a lot of assembling our crew
and stuff like that.
It's very different than The Guilt, but
it's going to be fun.
FELICIA DAY: And you're shooting in Pittsburgh again?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yes, we are.
FELICIA DAY: What are the advantages of not shooting in
LA or what are the hindrances?
Are there any advantages?
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, it's given both.
One of the difficulties is there's not as many actors or
crew members.
So it's a smaller pool to choose from,
which can be difficult.
So a lot of times, I actually hire actors or crew members
from Los Angeles and just fly them out here for a while.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, really?
Because my agent hasn't gotten any calls.
So that's weird.
[LAUGHING]
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
FELICIA DAY: Awkward.

CHRIS PREKSTA: Locations are infinitely easier.
I've yet to pay for a location in anything I've ever filmed.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, that's amazing.
That's the most expensive thing that's here.
SANDEEP PARIKH: And do you find that people are like
excited for you to shoot?
CHRIS PREKSTA: They're pumped, exactly.
SANDEEP PARIKH: They're like, yes.
CHRIS PREKSTA: They're just excited.
GREG ARONOWITZ: At least the first time.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Right.

CHRIS PREKSTA: For instance, I was shooting one scene where
we needed a bunch of cops to come and arrest all these
characters.
I'm like, man, that's going to be so difficult.
They're going to charge us for this.
And we found all these on duty cops.
They're like, yeah, we'll come help you out.
And they shot with us for like eight hours--
the whole day-- while they're on duty at the police station.
[INAUDIBLE].
NICK TOWLE: Crime rate [INAUDIBLE] through the roof.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
They had to leave for an hour to go handle a call, but then
they came back.
It's so different, because we didn't get permission.
We just started filming outside of this police
station, and they came out like, what are you guys doing?
And we're like, we're filming.
And they're like, can we be in it?
And we're like, yes.
[LAUGHING]
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh, my god.
That's so funny.
FELICIA DAY: You lucky!
CHRIS PREKSTA: [INAUDIBLE].
So there are advantages.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, there's nothing going on, just some
French guy getting mugged.
[LAUGHING]
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, here in LA, though you end up having
to pay even just to shoot in your own house.
FELICIA DAY: You do.
NICK TOWLE: Yeah.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
FELICIA DAY: It's literally the worst.
People are trained here to extort money from people.
So there'll be a gardener next door, and they'll turn their
weed whacker on deliberately when you're shooting just to
get paid $100 to shut up and go away.
CHRIS PREKSTA: That's unbelievable.
I was doing a commercial one time--
GREG ARONOWITZ: [INAUDIBLE] season four.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, season four.
We had to pay the guy.
And then I did a commercial one time where the guy-- it
was a boombox place.
And it was 7:00 in the morning, and he came early to
open his boombox place and turn all the radios while they
were trying to shoot.
So they had to pay that guy.
I'm sure it was way more money.
But yeah, it's pretty tough.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Some people.
FELICIA DAY: There's so much fancy production here.
People just generally-- that's how you do it.
But to do a web series here, it's just a little harder.
I think, if you have good actors and crew, it's easier
if you not shoot in LA for a web series.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, there were times, especially on
Mercury Men--
we took over an office for over a month, and it was a
completely empty.
We never could have shot that series in any
other city in the world.
And plus, I've been here so long, so now I've built up
enough relationships, now that we've got a pretty
good thing going on.
FELICIA DAY: Well, OK, just to wrap it up--
let's see.
Oh, everybody wants to know what video games that anybody
is playing.
Is anybody a gamer?
Who's a gamer and not a gamer?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh my god, I was just in Seattle with Chris
Avalone and Steve Dengler and Jeff Winkler, our producer,
and a bunch other awesome people.
And we visited Hidden Path, which was really cool, run by
this guy, Jeff Pobst.
And they do Counterstrike
He set up 10 machines for us to play together.
It was unbelievable.
And we had this list of all these games that we we're
going to play.
We started playing Counterstrike, and literally
seven hours later, stopped playing Counterstrike to go
eat finally.
But we played seven hours straight.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Holy cow.
SANDEEP PARIKH: 200 rounds of Counterstrike.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Oh, my word.
SANDEEP PARIKH: And it was teams of five and five.
And it ended up being 98 to 97.
So it was almost 200 rounds.
FELICIA DAY: What?
SANDEEP PARIKH: It was the most evenly matched--
insane.
Now, I'm like, oh, I think I'm going to be a lot of
Counterstrike.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: I've never played that.
What kind of game is it?
SANDEEP PARIKH: It's a shooter?
It's a shooter.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, OK.
SANDEEP PARIKH: But it's really fun to do as a
multi-player, play with your friends kind of thing.
That was a total blast.
Outside of that, Josie and I are in the middle of
Dishonored.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, I did that over Thanksgiving.
It's the most fun.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Was it awesome?
Does it continue to be awesome?
We've only played the first couple missions.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, no.
I love it.
I think the world is awesome.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, the world is great.
FELICIA DAY: And I love the mechanics of it.
Actually, I started playing Assassin's Creed after that,
and I had to stop playing Assassin's Creed because I
kept comparing the two.
And Assassin's Creed is really cool, it's just a very
different kind of game.
But then I kept comparing the way all the-- because
Dishonored, you can have a little bit more control over
your character.
You have to jump.
You can fall off things.
But Assassin's Creed, it feels like yo just press forward and
you're literally climbing and jumping.
GREG ARONOWITZ: He does a [INAUDIBLE].
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, so it's a little bit more
automatic for you.
It was tough to compare.
So I'm going to go back to that.
I'm playing the Skyrim DLC right now--
so good.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I can't get into Skyrim.
CHRIS PREKSTA: How do you even have time to
play all those games?
The amount of stuff that you make--
I'm always like, how does she play these?
I
FELICIA DAY: I just try to take an hour or two a week at
least, because that's the thing.
If I can't play video games, I actually don't
want to do this anymore.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
[LAUGHING]
CHRIS PREKSTA: You do need time, though, especially if
you are working so much, you do need time to just focus on
something that isn't that.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
SANDEEP PARIKH: It turns out that cybernetic beings need to
play video games as a replacement for sleep.
FELICIA DAY: Oh.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Because Felicia's a robot--
FELICIA DAY: Oh, OK, because I'm a robot.
Yeah.
SANDEEP PARIKH: That's how she sleeps.
FELICIA DAY: Robot.
Robot.
I wish.
SANDEEP PARIKH: [INAUDIBLE].
FELICIA DAY: If I could give up sleeping and just play
video games or read books, that would actually solve a
lot of my problems right now.
GREG ARONOWITZ: You've probably spent more hours
playing video games than you have sleeping.
FELICIA DAY: No, because I love sleeping.
I just don't see anybody or socialize.
That's the thing that I cut out.
Hi, Sandeep.
Haven't see you in months.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Yeah, I know.
[INAUDIBLE].
FELICIA DAY: Although, that's my New Year's resolution--
next year, actually see people more.
So we'll see if that works.
GREG ARONOWITZ: You said that last year.
FELICIA DAY: I did?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah.
FELICIA DAY: I didn't know I was starting a network.
Nick "Towel," what about you, gaming?
NICK TOWLE: Towle.
Towle.
FELICIA DAY: Towle.
God damn it.
[LAUGHING]
Darn it.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Like the cookie.
GREG ARONOWITZ: I'm not really a gamer, but an Xbox has
appeared in my place.
And I've been playing Borderlands 2.
FELICIA DAY: Yes.
SANDEEP PARIKH: Nice.
FELICIA DAY: That's a good game.
NICK TOWLE: Yeah, so I've now got to stop and get rid of it
and not do it anymore.
FELICIA DAY: Why?
Do you find it to be too-- are you an addictive personality?
NICK TOWLE: I'm very addictive, yes.
FELICIA DAY: Join the club.
We should have a club.
NICK TOWLE: So nothing is getting done.
FELICIA DAY: And Greg, you probably can't
play because of--
you're not going to play that Moonwalker because
of your arm, huh?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, I don't really play all the new modern
stuff anyway.
I like all the old stuff.
But I'm all interactive with the new stuff, doing all the
commercials and everything.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah, you worked on something for
Borderlands 2, right?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Yeah, Borderlands 2.
NICK TOWLE: That's my game.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: It's awesome.
Well, thanks everybody for joining us.
I think we're going to wrap it up.
And if you like The Guild, keep watching.
We have three more episodes.
There's 12 episodes.
And like I said earlier, episode 12 will
be delayed for Christmas.
And it will air on the 7th.
And I believe, the week after that, Learning Town, our new
show on Geek and Sundry, will premiere.
So just keep watching.
And I appreciate it.
And everybody, thanks for joining the hangout.
I really appreciate you guys making time.
NICK TOWLE: It's fun.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Thank you.
SANDEEP PARIKH: I'm fondling everybody on the internet.
FELICIA DAY: And everybody's on Twitter, right?
So if you guys want to-- oh, let's just go down the line
and how everything can keep in touch with everybody.
Chris?
SANDEEP PARIKH: Oh.
I thought we were done.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah, Twitter--
@cpreksta.
They have no hope of even spelling that.
FELICIA DAY: What?
CHRIS PREKSTA: They have a no hope of
finding that on Twitter.
GREG ARONOWITZ: Just visual effects it in real quick.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Yeah.
FELICIA DAY: Yes.
What is your Twitter, Greg?
GREG ARONOWITZ: Just my name-- gregaronowitz.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, that's hard to spell, too.
Yeah, they ain't finding any of these.
GREG ARONOWITZ: All right, we all need movie star names like
Felicia Day.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, yeah.
I did that deliberately.
Sandeep, you're sandeepparikh?
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: Oh, he's writing his down.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Oh, he's writing.
FELICIA DAY: Nick?
SANDEEP PARIKH: I'm VFXing it in.
FELICIA DAY: Oh, boy.
SANDEEP PARIKH: This is a visual effect.
FELICIA DAY: Is that a--?

SANDEEP PARIKH: Someone's order label.
Yeah, it's @sandeepparikh.
Yeah, you got it.
FELICIA DAY: And then Nick?
SANDEEP PARIKH: If you can spell it, you're Indian.
[LAUGHING]
NICK TOWLE: I am not on Twitter.
I don't have time to even play video games.
FELICIA DAY: OK.
So he's not going to talk to you.
NICK TOWLE: Yet.
FELICIA DAY: All right, thanks a lot everybody.
See you later.
CHRIS PREKSTA: Get him on a telegraph, Pappy.
FELICIA DAY: Yeah.
[LAUGHING]
FELICIA DAY: OK, bye.
SANDEEP PARIKH: You're listening to "Towel."
FELICIA DAY: Towle.
NICK TOWLE: Towle.