Hi everyone,

Yesterday the Dev Diary video was revealed. You did not get a chance to watch it yet? Here it is.

We thought that today we should show you the special place we chose to film the whole thing and how did the filming go.

THE PLACE

The last bar before the end of the universe

The shooting location for the Dev Diary was easily decided. Our choice was to do it in this bar of Paris called “Dernier bar avant la fin du monde” (“The last bar before the end of the universe”, a nod to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).  This is where Julien shoots 1D6, his TV show about pen-and-paper role-playing games. There you can find lots of books (fantasy, sci-fi, etc.) and lots of games (board games but also role-playing games). If you want to play in the bar, you just have to pick a game and start playing! In other words, it was an obvious choice: the scenery is great, and quite fitting for our game.

Entrance of the bar

So we gathered in this bar, at around 10am, with the film crew and started setting up everything we needed.  The owners gave us a space next to the counter where there was an enourmous bookcase and of course some armchairs and a sofa. The first thing to do was to move all the furniture and choose the place where Julien and Stephan would sit. Naturally we chose to have the bookcase as it would be a perfect background for the video. 

After all that preparation the equipment was installed: cameras, lighting, microphones, etc. When we finally agreed on the perfect place, it was time to get ready to film! But the real problem was the sound: we could only film during the open hours of the bar and there were already some customers. It was a challenge for the sound engineers to limit the background noises produced by the patrons and staff preparing coffee or drinks. Fortunately everyone did his best to make as little noise as possible.

Unfortunately we couldn’t start yet. Stephan was still on the train bringing him from Frankfurt, where Limbic Entertainment is located, to Paris. He was actually stuck in the train with Frankfurt football supporters going wild about a coming match against Bordeaux. They made such a ruckus aboard the train that it had to stop in the middle of nowhere for about one hour. When Stephan finally arrived at the bar around noon,  we almost let out a cry of relief :).

THE FILMING

After getting prepared, we were finally ready to begin shooting. Both Stephan and Julien were installed in the settee and we started the first take. At first everyone was a little bit tense, but quickly everyone managed to forget the cameras and act in a more natural way. As is often the case, the first shot was not that good, but it allowed us to see what would work and what wouldn’t.

Filming started around noon and was wrapped by 6pm. Three separate takes were necessary to complete all the scenes we planned to do. It was quite a long day but we were satisfied with the results. Of course, shooting was only the beginning – the filming team still had to do the editing and post-processing to create the final video.

Here are some photos from the filming:

We hope you enjoyed the dev diary as much as we enjoyed doing it!

Your M&M X team