10/27/13 Episode 64: Walking the Planes

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater. Embedded videos by Shawn Kornhauser and Nate Holt.

Okay, I’m pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It’s time for another Drive to Work.

Okay. So today, I’m going to talk about something a little different. I like to jump around, hit a lot of different topics. So today, I was going to talk about Walking the Planes.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, there’s a video series done by two guys named Nate Holt and Shawn Kornhauser that mostly cover different organized events, Pro Tours, some Grands Prix, you know, the Magic World Cup and such, so I want to talk a little bit because I have an interesting relationship with them, and I—I’m a little bit involved in—I was aware to witness kind of the—the start, so I want to walk through sort of how that came to be, and I’ve definitely been involved with them a little bit, so I’ll talk a little bit about my involvement, and so…

Anyway, so where it all began is I believe that Nate and Shawn are both from Philadelphia. And there was a Grand Prix in Philadelphia. Now let me give a little background on Nate and Shawn. So Nate is an actor, and he was friends with Shawn, who is a video producer, who’s a cinematographer, and edits and such. And the two of them were friends. I don’t know how they became friends, I don’t know how they met each other, but they know each other.

And so Nate was a Magic player. Shawn was not. And so a Grand Prix was coming to town, and Nate had this idea that it would be fun to make a video. That they’d go and they’d make sort of a fun video. And he got Shawn to agree, and so they went and they—I don’t remember, it wasn’t a real long video, it was probably ten minutes or something. But they made a video at Grand Prix Philadelphia.

It got received really well. People really liked it. They enjoyed it. And so kind of emboldened by the popularity of it, they decided that they were going to try—Worlds that year was in San Francisco. And so they decided that they were going to see if they could get to Worlds to make another video. And so what they did is they started a Kickstarter.

So real quickly, for those that don’t know what Kickstarter is, there is a site, a website in which anybody can propose a project they want to do, and then people are allowed to bid money on the project, and usually for bidding so much money, you—there’s something you will get from it. Sometimes it’s a little thing, depending on money, could be a bigger thing, but anyway, Nate and Shawn went on to Kickstarter and said “If we raise enough money, we’re going to make a video at Worlds.”

And the first video had gone over really well. And so the Kickstarter worked. They got the money they needed, and once I saw that they were going to come to San Francisco, I wrote Nate a letter. And what I said to him is, I introduced myself, and I said, you know, “I know you guys are going to be at Worlds, I’m going to be at Worlds, you know, I’m going to be attending, and I would be more than happy, you know, to be involved in the video.”

And so Nate wrote back to me and he said “Oh, that’s wonderful,” you know, “It’d be a great—you know, interviewing you,” and so I wrote back and I said, “Okay, Nate, I’m, you know, more than happy to do interviews, I’m glad to do that,” but, you know, one of the things I appreciate     d about his original video was it’s a little goofier. It had sort of a fun sort of element to it.

And I said, you know, I’d be willing to be a little goofier than that, you know, I’m happy to do interviews, but, you know, if you want to, you know, stretch a little bit, so Nate goes, “Okay, let me think about that.” So he gets back to me—actually I guess I had called him on the phone now that I think about this. I didn’t write him. I called him on the phone. And so he said he’ll get back to me.

And so he calls me up, and he says, “How do you feel about basketball?” And I’m like, “Uh… okay, fine, I guess, I’m not much of a basketball player.” But he’s like, he goes, “Well, here’s the idea for the scene.” And the idea for the scene was that they would interview me, and then at the end—so, you know, during the video—you see me get interviewed during the video.

But at the end, there would be a little clip where he starts aggressively asking me about how good a player I am. You know, and I would say, I mean, this video exists. But, you know, I’d say, “You know, I’m—for R&D I’m on the low end of the spectrum, but I’ve been playing Magic for twenty years. You know, I’m not—not too shabby.” And so he challenges me to a game. And so Nate, you know, complete in his wizard attire, his robe, and then he and I have this battle. Of which I am victorious.

And then I do this—I do an evil laugh, what I’ve learned is I—I showed off to them that I do a good evil laugh, so they—they had me do the evil laugh in the scene. And then I say to him, you know, “Any time you want to play again,” and he goes, “Well, can I name the game?” And I go “Sure.” And then we cut and we’re on a basketball court.

Okay, so—understand, I mean, some of you have seen this video, if not—what I’ve done, by the way, you can go watch this video once you’re done. All the videos—all the videos I’m talking about are on YouTube. I think the one I’m talking about right here, I—there’s a separate section called like, “The Mark Files,” “The Rosewater Files” or something like that shows this bit I’m talking about. I don’t know if it’s part of the Worlds bit.

What they did for the Kickstarter video, by the way, was one of the promises for people that give them money was they had a special edition of it that was for just—was just for the—the Kickstarter people, people who had donated money, and it was longer and more stuff in it, and my—my bit was in that part. And then later, Nate and Shawn released just my bit as a separate little thing. Anyway, all of this is on—on the internet.

So anyway, Nate, for those that do not know, is very tall. 6’4, maybe? I am not very tall. 5’5. So Nate is almost a foot taller than me. So we have us on the basketball courts, we’re both wearing, like—I think I have like my cutoff shorts, my Superman shirt, but we’re, you know, we’re all set up for basketball, and Nate had brought all the props, so we had like mouthguards, and—so then we proceed to play basketball, which through the power of editing, because Nate is a very good basketball player and I’m a very bad basketball player, through the power of editing we kind of somehow make you believe that I beat Nate at basketball. And…

So anyway, it was fun. So what happened was that—so Nate came back to me and said “I want to shoot this scene.” And I said, “Okay, sure.” You know, he sent me the script, and I said “I’m game.” So one day at Worlds that year, we trekked off, we walked down the trolley, we went far away because they had found a basketball—like, a empty basketball.

And we got to the court and the basketball court was just, like, a decimated court. Like, I didn’t even know if there was a—this was the kind of thing where like, the net was, like, hanging on, like by, you know, two strands onto the—onto the rim, and—but anyway, we had (???) all around, it was a little chilly, but we were, you know—we were game to play. And anyway, so that’s the first chance I had a chance to meet them. And we had ended up walking back, so, you know, I had a chance to talk to both of them.

So it was interesting for me, because I actually have kind of a background that splits the difference between the two of them. I have an acting background, you know, growing up I did a lot of plays, in college I directed plays and wrote plays, and I was—I was in an improv troupe and I ran a writer’s workshop where we did different skits and things.

So I’ve done a fair amount of acting, and—I mean, not as much as Nate and such. But I mean it’s—I’m familiar with the acting world. I mean, I’ve taken acting classes and such. And Shawn is a—you know, video editor, a video producer. And hey, I went to communications school. And I shot video. And I’ve edited video. You know. You know, I—it’s fun talking with them.

So one of the things, by the way, real quickly to point out, which is I think Nate—because Nate’s in front of the camera, everyone knows Nate. And Nate is fun and goofy and—Nate writes the material, by the way. The scripts are written by Nate. Nate writes the scripts.

Now, what had happened is, when they first started, Shawn did not know how to play Magic, and Nate did. I mean, Nate was a Magic player. And then as they got more involved in it, Nate has learned how to play. I’m sorry, not Nate—Shawn has learned how to play. And so Shawn now knows how to play, and he plays, and he enjoys it. But when they entered it Shawn was not a player. But he has since become one.

And so it’s funny. Shawn—no one knows what Shawn looks like. Although he appears once in a video—there’s a video—oh, the video with—with me using the voodoo doll to make Nate collapse, Nate collapses, and then the camera gets put down, and then Shawn runs to Nate’s aid to make sure he’s okay. That’s the one time on-camera you see Shawn. It’s the one—Shawn’s one little cameo.

And the thing, by the way, that I want to state is, I think both of them add a lot to the process. I know that it’s very easy to see Nate’s contributions, because you know he writes the scripts, and  he acts in them and he does all the, you know, interviewing and stuff. But Shawn does all the cinematography and, I mean, all the different cool shots, and all the—I mean, I’m very impressed with what Shawn’s able to do with the camera. And I think that’s a—a big part of what makes the—Walking the Planes what it is, is Shawn’s cinematography and—and just the way he cuts things, and, you know…

Essentially what happens is, Nate is in charge of the scripts, and getting the talent, and the acting, and then Shawn’s in charge of the cinematography, you know, all the shooting, and then the editing. And I believe Nate works with him on the editing, but I mean, you know, Shawn is responsible for the editing. And so…

But anyway, the two of them work very closely together, and—okay, so, anyway, I’m jumping around in my story here. So they make the Worlds video. That—I’m in it, shoot basketballs, and the video went over really well.

The first one was in—was at a Grand Prix, so they interviewed a few pro players, but the second one was very much them going and interviewing the pros, and sort of giving a behind-the-scenes and this and that. And one of the things that happened almost immediately was the pros gave a lot of easy access. It’d be very easy for them to sort of go “Eh, who’s this guy?” You know. But one of the things that I really think that one of Nate’s charms, or Nate and Shawn’s charms, is that they really are able to sort of get in there and, you know, put it—put a human face on the players. And—you know, I think everyone kind of responded well to it.

 So what happened was, they make this Worlds video. And so there’s a guy named Greg Collins. Greg is in charge of all of our—whenever—all the coverage of all the Pro Tours, of everything. That he’s in charge of all that coverage. He’s in charge of everything that you would see that has to do with any of the organized play.

He is also is one of the persons that—there’s a couple articles, like Brian David-Marshall’s article—that’s something that Greg has a hand in. The stuff—all the stuff that’s related to sort of the coverage of any way of organized play, especially of Pro Tours and Grands Prix and such.

And so Greg saw the video. In fact, he saw both videos. He saw the Philadelphia video, and he saw the Worlds video. And he liked it. He thought it was very cool. So he contacted them and said, “You know what, guys? I—I would like you to work for me.”

And that’s when—so the first two videos weren’t branded Walking the Planes. They were just videos they did. And then once Wizards got involved, they decided to come up with—with a brand, if you will. And so…

Now remember, the—so Nate’s character he calls, “the wizard.” The one with the robe that sort of—he’s the planeswalker but kind of a down-on-his-luck planeswalker. And the—I think—he showed up in the Philadelphia video. He did this little intro, where—which was very funny. One of the things that (???) me the first time I watched this video is the intro in the Philadelphia where he’s in the wizard garb.

And then that character showed up again—he and I played in the—in the video, although it’s funny, once you get to actual Walking the Planes, there’s a separation between the wizard character and the character of Nate, if you will. And in the basketball, it’s the only time—because it’s before Walking the Planes started, where like he’s kind of the wizard, then “boom,” now he’s Nate playing basketball. And so that—now there’s a sort of well-established—in fact, the most recent video as of me doing this has the two of them meeting in the video, sort of establish that they’re different people. And so…

Anyway, so what happens is, they—they get—they get the—Greg comes aboard and says “Okay. We’d like you to make videos for us.” And so the—I think one of the very first videos they did was actually at Grand Prix Seattle. And so I was—I showed up there, and I hadn’t realized they were going to be there, so we didn’t plan anything. But I did do an interview with them in which—I forget the shtick that we—something about Gleemax, I think.

And like—somehow can you talk about Gleemax, and I say something like “Well, you know, we’re not supposed to talk about him, but, you know, he’s not here, so sure, I can talk about him,” and then like in the middle of talking about him I grab my head and fall to the ground.

And then for whatever reason they weren’t able to use that, so—but there’s a cut of me—there’s like a three-second cut of me like grabbing my head and falling to the ground, with no explanation, so—and that’s in the very first—one of the first ones, which is at Grand Prix Seattle. That’s my cameo there.

So then what happened was—I’m trying to remember what it is. So next I went to Barcelona, and so they had—that season they had started doing Walking the Planes, and so I contacted Nate, and I said to Nate, “Okay, Nate, I’m going to be in Barcelona.” So one of the—one of the standing things is we don’t line up all that much. We don’t travel all that much—I mean, they’re here in Seattle every once in a while. And so sort of the open invitation is, look, whenever we’re in the same city at the same time, I shoot with them. You know.

And—so one of the things that’s happened is that Nate and I—one of the ongoing jokes of the—Walking the Planes is that he and I had this rivalry. Or—you know, the wizard character and I have this rivalry. And I—the way I described it, that I said—I finally said to Nate, “I think I figured out the—the archetype that we are playing out.” And I said, “We are Spy vs. Spy.” And yeah, sometimes one of us gets the upper hand, sometimes the other one gets the upper hand, but it’s just this sort of ongoing shenanigans where each one of us is trying to get the other one.

Okay, so in Barcelona I contacted them and said, “Okay, I’ll be there.” And so Nate—so Nate always writes the scenes. Every once in a while I’ll give them an idea, but Nate writes the scenes. So Nate wrote the scene where he is interviewing me, I think there’s a couple different scenes, but one of this—the scenes—my favorite scene from Barcelona is, he is interviewing me and then all of a sudden I have the cloak on like the wizard, and I use my Jedi powers to knock him unconscious because he’s asking me uncomfortable questions.

So that’s—Barcelona is where he actually—Nate went and got me my own little—my own little robe that I wore. And so—and we had a couple—we shot a couple of scenes—in fact it’s funny. We shot a bunch of scenes there, but not all the scenes ended up getting used there. So there’s a video one or two later where he has a nightmare where I’m like—I have the robe on and I’m making a trip. That was shot in Barcelona but he didn’t use it until later.

So that’s the funny—real quickly. This little bit is—we shot a bunch of me torturing him, the idea is I have Jedi powers and I can torture him. So I have my little—the little robe on. And so Nate is walking with a bunch of cards, and I, like, come out and I trip him with my Jedi mind powers. And he trips.

And so we’re doing this at the entrance at the Barcelona, and so he comes out, and the funny thing is, he’s—he’s a perfectionist. You know, Nate—Nate is—I mean, where—where I have fun goofing around, Nate’s a real actor. You know, and obviously not a real actor, as you can tell, because if you ever watch our scenes he’s the one acting. (laughs) I try.

So the—so he—he kept wanting to redo the scene. But every time he dropped, like cards were flying everywhere. And it would take us a couple minutes to clean all the cards up. And we did that something like four or five times. Just thrashing his cards in meanwhile, by the way. Whenever you see Magic cards in a scene in Walking the Planes, they’re always—they’re always Nate’s Magic cards.

And so—did we do another scene? We did one other scene where we’re playing Magic and I think he uses Jedi mind tricks on me to win the game. We had this—the little shtick there was we kept using Jedi mind tricks on each other in that one. And we both—whenever—whenever you use Jedi mind tricks you have the robe on. And like—but—anyway, so right. So we did that at Barcelona, and then he ended up using the tripping scene in a future video.

And then I think the next video was at the Player’s Championship. Not this year, but a year ago. And so this is one where Nate came up with probably the most complex scene he’s ever had us do, which is he wanted to do a parody of the Princess Bride. So the scene that we parodied is—what’s Wallace Shawn’s character?

So Wallace Shawn plays one of the bad guys, and the main character Westley and him have a scene in which there’s a battle of wits. Involving poison, and there’s two cups and one’s poisoned, and one’s not, and, you know, figure out which is the poisoned cup.

And so Nate wrote this scene using Magic decks instead of, you know, instead of—and we went to this park—in fact we—I met him at—The Showbox is where we have our PAX party every year, and last year the Player’s Championship was at—was at The Showbox. It’s in Seattle, it’s—in fact, it’s right across the street from the Pike Place Market, which is a pretty famous landmark in Seattle.

And so we walked to this parkway, we found this parkway, it was like—it’s a good trek. It’s like a twenty-minute walk. And so we went there and we shot most of the day. So he had sent me the scenes ahead of time. And I actually—I remember rehearsing it with my kids. They would hold the lines and I would do the lines with them. Because they were long, complicated lines. And Nate had written a very funny script, and I wanted to make sure I got them all correct.

Now what’s normally the case, by the way, because I’m a—I’m a—I was a comedy writer—Nate will write things and I’ll always come back and say, “Well, can I change this, or…” you know, “tweak this.” Usually I find a way to take what he’s doing and just add a little extra funnier. Or there’s some topic that I—you know, I know—something’s been going on recently, I just find to make fun of, and I’ll give an example in one of the most recent video.

So anyway, we shot that video, it took forever—I thought it turned out really good. I was very, very happy with it. That it—because one of the things that happened was, since we were doing a parody, I got the scene, I already owned the Princess Bride, but I got the scene on my phone, so I—I was watching the scene again and again to sort of—I was trying hard to sort of—get the general gist of how Wallace Shawn was doing the scene—now I’m no Wallace Shawn, but—I was trying to get—have a similar feel to it. And so…

But anyway, then the next thing we did was they came back in town for… what were they in town for? Maybe it was—was there a Pro Tour in town? Maybe there was a Pro Tour in town. Right, there was a Pro Tour in town. And so that shtick was—the idea was that the video started, you’re watching Trick walk—walk down a hallway. And eventually he gets to a door and he unlocks the door. And then Nate and I are locked inside this closet is the idea. And then he says that one of us gets to host the show, and then he picks Nate and I—I think he picks Nate because he’s taller.

So the funny thing about that scene is that’s—it was done at Wizards, but the problem was—oh, so what—we needed to find a closet, but we couldn’t actually find a closet that worked. So what that was  shot in was a hallway—stairwell hallway. That was just the top of the stairwell. And the funny thing was it was a—it was a stairwell that got used.

Not a lot, but enough that every once in a while someone would walk through. And so we had to shoot it in between people walking through. And then we—we just shot—you know, Shawn shot at angles so, you know, it looks like it’s an enclosed room even though one whole side was just the stairwell, you couldn’t see.

And that was fun because the—Nate had scripted some stuff out, but then I—I improvised a little bit. The little sequence when they come back and they throw Nate back in the room, and I’m playing against myself, I—that was my little shtick. So—and the idea was that, since I—since we’re locked in this closet, I have to pass the time, they gave us Magic cards, so I was playing Magic with myself. But I’m like trying to bluff myself and stuff.

And then at the same time that they were there for that, we shot a couple different scenes. The only one I think got used—I mean, there’s a scene they might use later, I guess. The one scene that he did use was we shot the voodoo scene.

So this was my idea was that I had a voodoo doll, and that I’d be torturing him with the voodoo doll. Because I was trying to come up with stuff—because I had done a bunch of scenes, and they were pretty popular, and so Nate and Shawn were trying to find ways to get me into videos, and so I said “Well, maybe we could shoot some stuff, ahead of time, and then you could use some of that stuff in later videos.” And so we—the reason I liked the voodoo doll was all you had to do was just picture me torturing a little voodoo doll, and then just in some future (???) have Nate, you know, collapse on the floor, which is exactly what happened.

And it’s funny, by the way, that voodoo doll is a Ken doll with Nate’s head, like, super-large, like taped to—to the Ken head. And I have that doll on my desk right now. And people either have one of two responses when they see the doll—either the response is “What in the world is that thing?” Or they go, “Oh yeah, good video.” So…

One of the… when for Nate’s birthday last year everybody—Shawn had asked us to shoot videos that he edited together for Nate’s birthday. And I did a video at my desk, where I talked about how—the way I inspire myself is through fear, and that I keep that doll on my desk to keep me focused. Keep me sharp. Like putting a shark in a minnow tank, keep the—keep the fish moving.

Okay, so that was—okay, so the next—I think the next one—I mean, Nate—Nate used the voodoo video, and then he—he did a video where he—in fact, he called me up one day and said, “Okay, you said you were going to be in Amsterdam, is that true?” And I go, “Yeah, I’ll be in Amsterdam,” he goes, “Good, we have—the cut depends upon it.”

And it turns out that they did a “To be continued…” at the end of the previous video. Where they had someone dressed up as Elspeth who turned into Liliana, and that the whole shtick was that I—I had sent her there. And so… so for the video this year for Worlds, the idea was that he was going to travel to Amsterdam to find me, to finally confront me.

And one of the running jokes is that he and I play Magic, but that we never—we never quite seem to finish our—our big game. So he came—and then so we were at Worlds, we shot this at Worlds just recently in Amsterdam, and—basically the idea was that it was a showdown, and then they were going to edit together kind of like a—a fast-paced sequence of pictures.

And—oh so one—a few fun tidbits, one is we needed to get a pro player to run away. Because the idea of the scene was, I was walking and talking with some pro player, and then when he approached me, you know, I—he and I would face off against each other, but the pro player would run away. And so they decided they wanted Reid Duke to do it, and so they asked and Reid said okay.

One of the things, by the way, that they do, which I love, is that—in fact, let—let me wrap up my portion, get through my sort of interactions with them, and then I’m going to talk a little bit about why I like Walking the Planes so much. Or—whatever. I can—it’s my podcast, I can do whatever I want.

So one of the things that they do that I really love is that they really have gotten the entire Magic community—especially the Pro Tour community—involved. You know, that, you know, whenever you watch the video, there’s just different pro players showing up and doing different things, and, you know, he’s fighting side-by-side with Tom Martell, or he’s, you know, David Ochoa’s causing him grief, or, you know, just like—there’s just like different characters, and I love how all the different, you know, people have taken on different roles in the video.

In fact, it’s funny—originally Tom Martell was going to be the guy that ran away, but then Nate was like “Oh, no no no, we’ve already established that he and the wizard know each other and they get along, so why would he run away? That doesn’t make sense.” So Tom didn’t do it and Reid did it instead. And Reid did an excellent job. So…

But like I said, I really appreciate that, like, I appreciate that for the average person who does not know all the Pro Tour personalities, that—just in the same way that like I was very gung-ho early on for the original Worlds video of saying, “Look,” you know, “use me in a capacity beyond how other people use me.” You know. Because when he’s like “I want to interview you,” like, “Well, everybody interviews me,” you know, I’ve been on—you know, I’ve been in hundreds of interviews me. But, you know, no one’s ever had me play basketball. Right?

So that I—I definitely wanted to have some fun, and I thought that they were the kind of people who, like, you know, could show people in a different light. You know. It sort of… I think it’s fun to take some of the people that you know as, you know, Pro Tour people, but see them in sort of a more goofy, fun light. Excuse me… (sneezes) Sneezing on my podcast.

Anyway, let me finish my story. So we got Reid to do the running away scene. And then the way we shot the scene is, we needed this table, so what we did is we asked the people who were doing the food if we could steal their table for a while. And we carried it to this—near this lake or this pond. And then…

Oh, the other thing that’s funny, by the way, for people that have never shot video before, is how you always shoot in pieces, and that what you need is things that will look right when you cut them together. But a lot of times, where you’re filming things, like they’re not connected. It’s just when you cut the edit, you can’t see them not connected. And so, you know, but we wanted—Shawn really wanted the picnic table against the backdrop of—I guess it was a canal, because we were in Amsterdam.

Yeah, Shawn, by the way, is very, very precise about images, I mean as he should be, he’s a cinematographer. So it’s very interesting, when we shoot the video, I’m always fascinated, that like Nate is trying to get the jokes right and the beat right, and you know, all of Nate’s comments are about, you know, “I think this joke’s funnier if you hit this beat.” Or whatever. Where Shawn’s all about the visuals and trying to figure out the right, you know, how the action’s going to play. And so it was neat watching them work together. They’re a very good team in that, you know, each one of them comes up with interesting ideas how to add to their component.

So anyway, we shot the video—oh, I promised to give you an example of me adding a joke. So the script that in Amsterdam—Nate wrote the whole script. I just changed one line, which was… he was talking about… oh, the line was, I was talking to Aaron. We were playing the game, and I get called away because I get a phone call from Aaron. You know. I guess “Back to the Future Sight” was about to go to Development. And anyway, I was talking with Aaron on the phone.

And the original line was like, “No, Aaron, it has to be purple, chartreuse… chartreuse wasn’t working” I think was the line. And I said to Nate, I go “Oh, Nate, we’ve got to get in market research. Because I’ve been having on my blog, I—there’s this ongoing debate on my blog about market research and what it means, and I keep saying we’ve learned things, and they go “I believe differently,” and I’m like, you know, “All the indicators say that Kamigawa wasn’t popular,” and my blog will be like “We liked Kamigawa.”

So anyway, I knew we had to use market research. So I say to him, “Can I involve market research?” So the line changed to “No, Aaron, we have to go with purple, market research showed chartreuse wasn’t resonant.” And I added the “resonant.” So I was just trying to use more R&D-speak. Anyway.

So, that’s most of my contribution. So let’s talk a little bit about just—about Walking the Planes in general. So one of the things they do now is they go to all the Pro Tours, they go to some of the Grands Prix, and then a few other random events. Like, they did a little snippet, they were at the Pax Party, they did a little snippet of the Pax Party.

So one of the things, for those that don’t—I’m now going to go behind the scenes for you. So—so Nate—Nate has been playing Magic a long time, he loves Magic. He is—he’s one of those players that like—who kind of wants to be a better player, but—but just embraces a lot of the goofier aspects of the game.

And he’s a lot like me in that, like, when I play Magic, I have—I joke that I have like my Johnny brain and my Spike brain, and that I’ll be drafting in R&D and I’ll like—my Spike brain will go, “Okay, pick that card. That’s—of all the cards in the pack, that’s the best card. That’s the card that will help you win.” And my Johnny brain goes, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. This card’s going to be more fun. Here’s what you can do with this card!” And like, Johnny and Spike always fight, and Johnny tends to beat Spike, and I pick the fun card. But I feel like Nate is a lot like that. Although I feel like he has three brains, I think like he also has a Timmy brain.

But anyway, Nate loves Magic. Nate looooves Magic. You know. And I feel like the whole reason he did the video in the first place was really he was just trying to make a little love letter to Magic. Which was, by the way, one of the reasons that I think the videos have done so well is a couple things. I will explain why I think Walking the Planes videos are awesome.

One is that Nate has a love for the game that is pretty infectious, and I believe that it comes through the videos. That—I mean, Nate likes to poke fun at stuff, but it’s stuff that, like, it’s not mean-hearted—not mean-spirited. You know. It—that—you can just tell that Nate, honest-to-God, loves the game. And I—dealing with Nate, just talking with him, like, he loves talking about Magic, and, you know, he’s always excited to sort of get my take on things, and, you know, and trying to get information out of me about the future. Which I do not tell him. But…

But anyway, so number one, I love that you can tell that this is—it is a love letter to Magic, you know, that people who make this really do love Magic. And Shawn has become a big Magic fan too, so… and number two is, like I said before, they involve people. That it’s not just them standing aloof, but they—they’ve really got the acceptance of the Magic pro community, and that they have access to everything. I mean, they’re in on, you know, on actual playtesting, and, you know, people are talking to them and saying things that, if they were not comfortable, they would never say. You know. And that—I really, really like how they’ve done a good job of sort of—building a rapport with the Magic community, and especially with the—the pro community at the Pro Tour.

The third thing is that I think Nate has a good sense of comedy. I mean, as a—as a former comedy writer, I really, really appreciate—I mean, Nate and I a lot will talk jokes, and like, you know, we’ll riff back and forth on ideas, and that I think Nate has a very good sense of comedy. And that one of the things I like about Walking the Planes is that it has a very comedic touch. You know. That it definitely—it is funny. It’s goofy, but I think that’s—I don’t know. I find it endearing.

Now the other thing is, my next thing is that—the other thing that they did, and they did in the very first video, and they did in the Worlds video, which is why I think Greg was interested in them, was not only did they show you the world of Magic in a way that, you know, die-hard Magic players were interested in, but they did it in a way that was very approachable by someone less enfranchised in Magic.

That the comment we kept getting is, you know, people would say “Well, I was watching this, and my significant other or my friend or some non-Magic-player also watched it and really enjoyed it. That they managed to take Magic and boil it down in such a way that it is something that you don’t need to know Magic well to get.

Like, one of the things they do for example is, which is a double edge but kind of cute, is that they talk about the game in very vernacular terms. They don’t go into heavy detail about—you know, they don’t talk in gamespeak. And that it’s kind of fun for the people who know to sort of get what they’re hinting at, and the people who don’t, it actually is a lot easier to understand when they, you know—and sometimes they poke fun a little bit about, you know, because some decks are kind of silly when you think of the visual context of what—what the deck is doing from a story standpoint.

But I—the thing I think Walking the Planes does very well is they make things very approachable. You know. And approachable to people who are not as ingrained. And that I feel when you watch the Pro Tour coverage, I mean, we’re doing things to make it a little more approachable. But that’s very—look, you need to know Magic to follow that.  You know. You have people talking about optimal plays and this and that, and that—you need to know enough of Magic to follow that.

Where Walking the Planes, you don’t. You know. You don’t even need to know Magic necessarily to follow it. That I—I think it’s a fun enough video that—I mean, knowing Magic enhances it, it does, but I feel like it just—it makes it approachable.

Okay, the next thing is I think that Shawn does amazing work. Now, I—I come from a background, like I was saying. I went to film school, I took courses, you know, in cinematography, you know, I learned a lot about art direction and—there’s a—and editing, I had to take editing.

I mean, there’s a lot that goes into doing video. You know. And that Shawn does such a good job of it that it kind of seems effortless. But that it’s not. There’s a lot of work. And that the other thing, remember, is they go, and they get footage and coverage, and then they go back and they have to edit it.

They have to chop and they have to figure out what’s their story and what—you know, like, because the neat thing about it is, while they always have written bits that they do, most of it is based on the tournament. And that they have to figure out at the tournament, “Well, what’s going on? What’s the story?” And that, you know, they’re doing essentially a documentary. In fact, they’re doing kind of like—most of it is a documentary, and then a little bit is like sketch comedy if you will. And that—you know, intertwining those together to make it a cohesive whole is tricky.

And doing a documentary is really hard. I actually took a class on documentaries, and it is tricky. Because when you—when you normally shoot a script, like you have—you know, when you shoot a movie, you’ve got a script. Like, you know every scene. And you can plot it out. “Today, we’re going to shoot scenes 22 and 43…” and, you know, you can sort of figure out the—you can scout locations, and you can do all the stuff to figure out what you’re doing.

But with a documentary, you just shoot a lot of footage and then you’ve got to figure out what you have. And so—and like I said, both Shawn and Nate are involved. I mean, Shawn does cinematography, and they work together on the editing. I mean, at least Shawn does the actual editing. But Nate helps figure out what the storyline is and stuff.

But I—I think that the visual, the eye candy of the videos, that like—if you just turned the sound of the videos down, you know, you didn’t even listen to them, and just watched them? They’re pretty amazing. I’m very impressed with the stuff Shawn does. And that I think that they get a lot of attention for sort of the content, and that the—the presentation sometimes isn’t given as much due, I feel that Shawn really does excellent work.

So any other things that… I mean, the other thing that—that I love is that—I love that it is something that is also built up over time. Like—like for example, the fact that Tom Martell couldn’t be the guy who ran away, because there’s—was established—I feel like the videos slowly built—has a feel to it, like it feels like a show.

Like for example, one of the things I’ve had fun with is like, I’ve—you know, Nate and I have this relationship in the video. I mean, the wizard and I have a relationship in the video. Which is kind of fun, you know, like—one of the things that’s fun is, that it’s fun to sort of play, you know, a personification of me, that, you know, I get to be this, you know, vindictive, you know, jerk, and like, you know, he and I have at it, and… that’s fun.

You know. I think that if you can’t poke fun at yourself, that, you know, that—you know, one of the roles, for example, for me, as  spokesperson, is I like being public and I like having access to me. And I feel like the videos give access in just a different way, just a different side of me. You get to see me act a little, although once again, my acting is not on par with Nate’s. But you get to see me do some stuff, and it’s fun, and I get to do my evil laugh, and I get to—you know, I get to rip off my sunglasses and do stuff like that.

So that’s—it’s fun, you know, and I—I enjoy doing. It’s why every time that we’re in the same city, I always shoot stuff with them. And from what I understand from Nate, I’m—my shticks are pretty popular. I mean probably because—the other thing Nate does very well is that he’s taking established people from Magic, so like—it’s not really like—it’s not just like the wizard’s main nemesis is anybody, it’s like “Well, it’s the Head Designer of Magic.” I think that’s—that’s part of what makes it funny.

And… I’m trying to think. I’m not too far from the office. I had some traffic today, so I have not looked at the time yet. But I predict I’ve been talking about this from the while. I’m trying to think—any final sort of notes on—on Walking the Planes?

Like I said, it—it is—if you’ve not watched Walking the—okay, for the people that managed to listen to this entire podcast and have not watched this, they’re on YouTube, I think they’re all on Wizards as well, at least the Walking the Planes. The first two might not be on Wizards.

Although I actually linked to them in one of my articles. I talked about them. I mentioned Walking the Planes and I linked to the two early ones in my article. So somewhere on the Wizards website you can find them. If not, by the way, I think you can just look for like Nate Holt on YouTube, that you can find it. And…

Yeah, and like I said. The… if you’ve not seen them, I would watch it. It’s a lot of fun. And it gives a lot—beyond the—the goofiness and the skits and that part of it, just the actual getting to see Magic, you know, pro players, like, really honestly discussing, you know, how they’re feeling and what’s going on, and—and you can see some of the camaraderie.

Like one of my favorite (???) they did was actually at the very first Worlds. The one that got them the gig. They were interviewing different players and asking them questions about the other players. And then they would go back and forth—“So-and-so said this, and so-and-so said that,” and they were kind of having these little, like, it was a cute bit where like the two of them were commenting on the other ones, but like as Nate as a go-between. You know. Stuff like that—I don't know, it cracks me up.

Nate in general cracks me up. I—one of the things is we had a meeting recently where we were talking about humor in Magic. So I talk a lot about cardcrafting, so one of the things I talk about is we have a different meeting called worldcrafting, in which it’s the same idea but instead of talking about card issues, we talk about creative issues.

And so we had a meeting about humor in Magic. And—and it’s a very interesting meeting, because there’s lots of different kinds of humor, and Magic does a lot of different kinds of things. And so in the meeting, at one point, we stopped and we watched Walking the Planes. And it was very funny, because some of the room thought it was hilarious, and some of them like didn’t quite get all of it, you know, that it was—that it was a little goofy for them.

And—one of the things that I love about Walking the Planes is that Magic—within the context of the game, we don’t do tons of goofy. I mean, the Un-sets do goofy, and goblins do goofy a little bit. There’s a little bit of goofiness in Magic. But it’s—in general, you know, Magic is a little less goofy—we treat ourselves a little more serious.

And that one of the things I enjoy a lot is that Nate is allowed to sort of take Magic, and in a context outside the game, but related to the game, give kind of a—a goofy quality to it. That is something that Magic does—we don’t do a lot of. And obviously as the creator of the Un-sets, I like goofy.

I like sort of—I like parody. I like poking fun at ourselves. I feel that outside of silver-bordered cards, it’s very hard for Magic to poke fun at itself. And that I enjoy that Walking the Planes is a venue for making fun of ourselves. I think that it’s a sign of a mature product that you’re able to make fun of it, and that, you know, it is fun to laugh at yourself and sort of, you know, you know… like I said, I—that’s why I have fun kind of playing my persona. That it’s fun kind of laughing at my persona in general, and, you know.

But anyway, I am at work. And so I’m not sure what—I didn’t know what I was going to talk about today when I started on this topic, but I—I try to just jump in to different things. And try different vantage points. And so, let me check my time—oh boy, I had a lot of traffic today! It was a long one.

So anyway, I hope you enjoyed me talking about today’s topic, like I said, if you have not watched the videos, please watch the videos. They are awesome. Nate and Shawn do a really, really good job, and I cannot recommend the videos enough. Especially if you at all care about organized play and the Pro Tour and stuff. It will give you a lot of insight beyond actually being fun to watch and poking at Magic, it also actually gives you a really good insight into who the players are and the competitions and stuff.

But anyway, now that I’ve talked for almost forty-four minutes, it is time for me to go be making Magic.