Divinity Bullshittery - Preproduction scrubbing #2 (Patreon)

Good evening everybody. Hope you've all had a lovely weekend. A complicated post below. But for those swinging through, here's the TL;DR:

• Last week I've been categorising highlights in a "master" project file for Divinity. Carefully watching through the livestreams to identify useful moments.
• I'd like to continue that process for another week please. I need more time.

So the Divinity II project is something of a headache.

Before each bullshittery cut, I like to spend time going through the previous entries in the series. In order to help with continuity of presentation. And on doing that for Divinity II I've come to the conclusion that I could have done a much better job for the prior 3 entries.

They are, in my opinion, not funny enough.

Part of the problem is my shot selection. I definitely think it could have been better. For what is the importance of including an NPC like "Lord Withermore" in Fort Joy? Who is neither plot important, or even particularly relevant. Since the crux of the joke is us pratting around in a tomb, clicking stuff repeatedly. And triggering every trap we can find.

You arguably need none of the dialogue from somebody like Lord Wither. As even those unfamiliar with the game would shrug it off as some random quest.

But the other problem (and I would argue the biggest flaw) is something I've waffled on about in previous posts - that the narrative-nature of this extremely story-heavy game stands in stark contrast to your typical bullshittery. As rather than being able to pick moments from a broad bucket of jokes, recorded over hundreds of hours of disconnected survival-game gameplay, the story has to be preserved. Else it becomes a fragmented mess in which you don't know who any of these people are.

It's not going to make any sense if the audience don't know why we're even trying to become a "Godwoken". There's a really heavy narrative to this cooperative game. And those narrative moments are the brakes that bring the comedy to a screeching halt.

For if there's a joke, followed by 30 seconds of dialogue about "Alexander the Divine", then another joke, it's just not going to be punchy. It's not going to have the same energetic rhythm.

There's something else. And I'm loathed to bring it up. But lets be honest, I do bring it up all the time. But never really in a comparative manner below

Whilst comedy is a highly subjective thing that you should never boil down to simple numbers, I regularly make posts talking about the "11122322111" pattern in my bullshitteries. Which is how I sprinkle clips down. To avoid blasting the audience with too many short cuts. Or boring them with too many long sequences.

To set this up, I need a way to quickly assess 'how comedic' any given joke is. And therefore I grade them on the rewatch and tag them up in my clips bin:

• "1" joke - a brief line that might produce a smile ("Why do you have a Deagle, Moogle? Because it's Thursday").
• "2" joke -  something that might produce a laugh. (Bagpipe player constantly walking into frame in Arma 3 followed by a groan of "Oh god...")
• "3" joke - a punchy, probably lengthy sequence, that might be produce a lot of laughter. And makes for a good opening or closing joke (Cyanide trying to arrive at the Space Engineers base, whilst I quietly re-enable the turrets. And he shrieks as he's blown to smithereens)

Now this part feels improper. Because these games are very different, played in a different way, with a wide selection of people and at without the narrative elements. BUT....

Briefly opening some other Master project files of other projects I've completed, I can quickly quantify the ratios of the 1, 2 and 3 graded jokes by counting down the clip bins I've created.

• Holdfast Nations at War's Master file has about 238 clips cut and graded. The split being: 71.5% - 23.9% - 4.6%
• CSGO's Master file has about 135 clips cut and graded. The split being: 61.5% - 27.4% - 11.1%.
• Space Engineers' Master file has about 81 clips cut and graded. The split being: 51.9% - 33.3% - 14.8%.
• VR Onwards' Master file has about 59 clips cut and graded. The split being: 55.9% - 37.4% - 6.7%.

But Divinity II has a split that's 74.2% - 20.1% and 5.7% between 1, 2 and 3. It has one of the highest ratios of 1 moments versus everything else. And the fact that some 2 or 3 jokes might only make sense if you explain the context of the joke with narrative elements - which slow things down - it can all really drag.

Divinity is at its heart, a gentler comedy.

Where rather than blowing each other up and laughing, Digby quietly picks up an egg and immediately eats it.  And then we quietly giggling 10 minutes later as we realise that random egg was literally the NPC baby chicken we were meant to save for the quest we were on.

There are far fewer 2 and 3 moments to balance out the weights placed on it by un-funny narrative segments. Which are - arguably - absolutely essential in places.

So I have a two part plan going forward.

A two part plan to help make this next episode funnier.

First part - I need to scrub more. At least for another week. I need to tease out as many of these 2 and 3 graded jokes as possible and chain them together as best as I can.

I've already gone through and carefully categorised about 13 hours of livestream footage. But I need to trawl through more of Chapter II (in which we run around Driftwood and the surrounding countryside) letting as many 1 jokes fall to the cutting room floor a possible to make room for any 2's and 3's. Trimming back the narrative moments to only that which is immediately necessary.

After all, the livestream VODS are available for those inclined. I need to focus on making a highlight compilation, after all. I need to canvas more VODS to find more good moments.

Second part - I need to consider doing a 'provisional' cut. And then perhaps present it to you to receive your comments and feedback. Deciding then whether or not I should proceed to text animation, or move on to another thing.

For there's really nothing stopping me from making a bullshittery without the text. Without committing to the weeks of painstaking keyframing. Surely it would be best first to determine if it's worth assigning so much time. 

For Divinity is actually very hard to keyframe. There's lot of motion, limited auto tracking opportunities, and multiple voices on screen at any one time. So an initial cut to test the waters would be wise.

So that's the plan currently.

• 1.) Go through more of the vods to find the best bits only.
• 2.) Consider making a non-text cut. Receiving feedback for its overall quality before committing to any text visual effects.

Hope that makes sense. And thank you always for your patience.