Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #64 - Walking the Planes

Episode Date: October 25, 2013

Mark discusses the Walking the Planes video series.

Okay, I'm pulling on 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 and 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 Sean Kornhauser

that mostly cover different organized events, pro tours, some Grand Prixs, 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'm a little bit, because I have an interesting relationship with them, and I am a little bit involved in, I was aware to witness kind of 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 Sean are both from Philadelphia. And there was a Grand Prix in Philadelphia. Now, let me give a little background on Nate and Sean. So, Nate is an actor. And he was friends with Sean, 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. Sean was not.

And so 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 Sean to agree, and so they went, and 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 who 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, there's something you will get from it. Sometimes it's a little thing. Depending on money, it could be a bigger thing.

But anyway, Nate and Sean 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 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 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 great if we could interview you.

And so I wrote back and I said, okay, Nate, I'm more than happy to do interviews. I'm glad to do that. But, you know, one of the things I appreciated about his original video was it was 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 mean, 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 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, 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, you know, so during the, you just see me get interviewed during

the video, but at the end, there'll be just see me get interviewed during the video. But at the end, there'll 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 I say, you know, for R&D, I'm on the low end of the spectrum, but I've been playing Magic for 20 years,

so, you know, I'm not too shabby. And so he challenges me to a game. And so Nate is, you know, completing his wizard attire, his robe. And then he and I have this battle, of which I'm victorious. And then I do this evil laugh. What I've learned is I showed off to them that I do a good evil laugh. So they had me do the evil laugh in the scene. And then I say to him, you know, anytime you want to play again, and he goes, well, can I name the game?

And I go, sure. And we cut, and we're on a basketball court. Okay, so understand, I mean, some of you have seen this video. When I'm done, I'm like, you can go watch this video once you're done. All the videos I'm talking about are on YouTube. I think the one I'm talking about right here,

there's a separate section called like the Mark Files, the Rosewater Files or something that shows this bit I'm talking about. I don't know if it's part of the world's bit. What they did for the Kickstarter video, by the way, was one of the promises for people that gave them money was they had a special edition of it that was just for the Kickstarter people, people who had donated money, and it was longer and more stuff in it, and my bit was in that part. And then later

Nate and Sean released just my bit as a separate little thing. Anyway, all of this is on the internet. So anyway, Nate, for those who 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 some basketball, of course. We're both wearing, like, I think I have my cut-off shirts, my Superman shirt.

But we're all set up for basketball, and Nate had brought all the props, and we had, like, mouth guards. 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. So anyway, it was fun. So what happened was that Nate came back to me and said, I want to shoot this scene.

And I said, okay, sure. He sent me the script. And I said, I'm game. So one day at Worlds that year, we trekked off. We walked. We got on the trolley. We went far away because they had found an empty basketball. And we got to the court, and the basketball court was just like a decimated court. I don't even know if there was a... It was the kind of

thing where the net was hanging on by two strands onto the rim. But anyway, we had a spot 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 ended up walking back. So, you know, I had a chance to talk to both of them. So it's 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 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 or as such, but I mean, at least I'm familiar with the acting world. I mean, I've taken acting classes and such. And Sean is a video editor and a video producer. And I went to communication school, and I shot video, and I've edited video. And, you know, it's fun talking with him. 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. Nate of the camera, everyone knows Nate. And Nate is fun and goofy.

Nate writes the material, by the way. The scripts are written by Nate. Nate writes the scripts. Now, what has happened is, when they first started, Sean did not know how to play Magic, and Nate didn't. 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.

Sean has learned how to play. And so Sean now knows how to play, and he plays, and he enjoys it. But when they entered it, Nate has learned how to play. I'm sorry, not Nate. Sean has learned how to play. And so Sean now knows how to play, and he plays, and he enjoys it. But when they entered it, Sean was not a player, but he has since become one. And so, it's funny.

No one knows what Sean looks like, although he appears once in the video. There's a video, oh, the video with me using the voodoo doll to make Nate collapse. Nate collapses,

and the camera gets put down, and then Sean runs to Nate's aid to make sure he's okay. That's the one time on camera you see Sean. It's Sean'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 he writes the scripts, and he acts in in them and he does all the interviewing stuff. But Sean does all the cinematography and all the different cool shots. I'm very impressed with what Sean's able to do with the camera. And I think that's a big part of what makes Walking the Plains what it is, is Sean's cinematography 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 Sean is in charge of the cinematography,

you know, all the shooting, and then the editing. I believe Nate works with him on the editing, but, I mean, Sean is responsible for the editing. And so, but anyway, the two of them work very closely together. Okay, so, anyway, I'm jumping around my story here. So they make the world's video. I mean, shoot basketballs. And the video went over really well.

The first one 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 behind- 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 just 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 Enchon's charms, is that they really were able to sort of get in there to get in there and put a human face in the players

and I think everyone kind of responded well to it. So what happened was, they make this world video. There's a guy named Greg Collins. Greg is in charge of all of our... all the

coverage of all the pro tours, of everything. He's in charge of all that coverage. He 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 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.

All this stuff is related to sort of the coverage, or any way way of organized play, especially of pro tours and Grand Prixs 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 would like you to work for me. And that's when. So the first two videos weren't branded Walking the Plains. They were just videos they did. And then once Wizards got involved, they decided to come up with a brand, if you will. And so...

Now, if you remember... So Nate's character he calls the Wizard, the one with the robe that sort of... He's a 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, which was very funny. One of the things that endeared me the first time I watched the video is the intro in Philadelphia, where he's in the wizard garb. And then that character showed up again. He and I played 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 he's kind of the wizard, then boom, now he's Nate playing basketball. And so

that now they're sort of well-stuffed. In fact, the most recent video as of me doing this has the two of them meeting in the video, right, to sort of establish that they're different people. And so, anyway, okay, so what happens is they get, Greg comes aboard and says okay, we'd like you to make videos for us and so I think one of the very first videos they did was actually at

Grand Prix Seattle and so I showed up there and I hadn't realized they were going there so we didn't plan anything but I did do an interview with them in which I forget the shtick that we, uh, something about Gleemax, I think. We were talking about Gleemax.

And, like, somehow can you talk about Gleemax? And I, I, 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 them, I grab my head and fall to the ground. And then for whatever reason, they weren't able to use that. But there's a cut of me, there's like a three-second cut of me grabbing my head and falling to the ground

with no explanation. 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 all this.

So next, I went to Barcelona and so they had, that season they had started doing Walking the Plains 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 basic outstanding things is we don't line up all that much. I don't travel 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 Plains is that he and I had this rivalry.

The wizard character and I had this rivalry. And the way I describe it, the planes is that he and I had this rivalry. The wizard character and I had this rivalry. And the way I describe it, I said, I finally said in Nate, I think I figured out the archetype that we were playing out. And I said, we are spy versus spy. And that, 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 always writes the scenes. Every once in a while, I'll give him 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 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's where he actually, Nate went and got me my own little my own little robe that I wore and so and we had a we shot a couple 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 him trip that was shot in Barcelona but he didn't use it until later so that's a funny real quickly so this little bit is and I'm making him trip. That was shot in Barcelona, but he didn't use it until later. So that's a funny, real quickly. So 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 the little robe on. And so Nate is walking with a bunch of cards and I come out and I trip him with my Jedi mind powers and he trips. And so we're doing this in the entrance at the Barcelona and so he comes out

and the funny thing is he's a perfectionist. Nate is, I mean, where I have fun goofing around, Nate's a real actor. An honest to God real actor, as you can tell. If you ever watch our scenes, he's the one acting. I try.

So the so he kept wanting to redo the scene, but every time he dropped, the cards would fly everywhere, and it would take us a couple minutes to clean all the cards up. And we did that scene 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 Plains, 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 little shtick there, was we kept using Jedi mind tricks on each other in that one. And we both, whenever you use your Jedi Mind Tricks, you have the robe on.

And so, 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 Players 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, Wesley, and him,

have a scene in which it's a battle of wits involving poison, and there's two cups, and one's poison and one's not, and figure out which is the poison cup. And so Nate wrote the scene using magic decks instead of... And we went to this park. In fact, I met him at the show boxes where we have our PAX party every year. And last year, the Players' Championship was at the Showbox. It's in Seattle.

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 park. They found this park, but it was a good trek. It was like a 20-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, it was normally the case, by the way, because I'm a comedy writer. Nate will write things, and I always will come back, and I'll 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 fun here. Or there's some topic that, that I, you know, I know something that's been going on recently that'd be fun to make fun of. And I'll give you an example in 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. Because one of the things that happened was, since we were doing a parody, I got the scene. I already own The Princess Bride, but I got the scene on my phone, so I was watching the

scene again and again. 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 it was a pro tour in town for... What were they in town for? Maybe it was... Was there a pro tour in town? Maybe it 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 down the hallway, and eventually he gets to the door, 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 a door, we unlock 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 think he picks Nate because he's taller. So the funny thing about that scene is that was done at Wizards. But the problem was 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, a stairwell hallway that was at 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. Um, and then we, we just shot in between people walking through. And then we just shot at angles so it

looks like it's a closed room, even though one whole side was just the stairwell that you couldn't see. And that was fun because Nate had scripted some stuff out, but then 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, that was my little shtick. And the idea was that since we're locked in this closet, I have to pass the time. They give us magic cards, so I was playing magic with myself. But I'm 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 few they might use later, I guess. The one scene that he did use was we shot the voodoo scene. So this is my idea, was that I had a voodoo doll and that I'd be torturing him with a 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 Sean were trying to find ways to get me into different 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 the reason I liked the voodoo doll was, all you had to do is

just picture me torturing a little voodoo doll, and then just in some future shooting have Nate 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 super large, taped to the Ken head. And I have that doll at my desk right now. And people either have one or two responses when they see the doll. Either of the response is, what in the world is that thing? Or they go, oh yeah, good video. So,

um, in fact, it's funny, one of the, uh, went for Nate's birthday last year. Everybody, uh, Sean had asked us to shoot short videos that he edited together for Nate's birthday. last year, everybody, Sean had asked us to shoot short 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 at my desk to keep me focused, keep me sharp, like putting a shark in a minnow tank, keep the fish moving. keep the fish moving. Okay, so that was, okay, so the next,

I think the next one, I mean, 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're going to be in Amsterdam, is that true?

And I go, yeah, I'll be in Amsterdam. He goes, good. The cut depends upon it. And it turned out that they did to be continued at the end of the previous video. and I go, yeah, I'll be in Amsterdam. He goes, good. The cut depends upon it. And it turned out that they did a... to be continued at the end of the previous video, where they had someone dressed up as Elsbeth who turned into Liliana,

and the whole shtick was that I had sent her there. And 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 we never quite seem to finish

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 it was a showdown, and then they were going to edit together kind of like a fast-paced sequence of pictures, and, oh, so 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, talking with some pro player and then when he approached me,

he and I would face off against each other but the pro player would run away. And so they decided they wanted Reed Duke to do it and so they asked him and he said okay. One of the things, by the way, that they do, which I love, is that... In fact, 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 plane so much. Or whatever, I can it's my podcast, I can go whatever order I want. 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 do that I really love is that they really have gotten the entire Magic community,

especially the Pro Tour community, involved. You know, that whenever you watch a 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 Cho is causing him grief. You know, there's just like different characters, and I love how all the different you know people have taken off different roles in the video in fact it's funny originally Tom Hurtado 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 Reed did instead and Reed did an excellent job so but in the end I really appreciate that. I feel like for the average person who does not know all the pro-choice personalities, just in the same way that I was very gung-ho early on for the original Worlds video of saying,

look, use me in a capacity beyond how other people use me. Because when he's like, I want to interview, I'm like, well, everybody interviews me. I've been on, you know, I've been in hundreds of interviews, 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, that 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. Oh, excuse me. know, pro tour people, but see them in sort of a more goofy, fun light. Excuse me. Sneeze in on my podcast. Um, anyway, let me finish my story. So, uh, we got Reed to do the running away scene. Uh, and then the way we shot the scene is, uh, we needed this table.

So we did is we asked the people who are doing the food, if we could steal their table for a while and we carried it to 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'll 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 they're not connected. And so, you know, but we wanted, Sean really wanted the picnic table against the backdrop of the, I guess it was a canal because we were in Amsterdam. Yeah, Sean, 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 funny if you hit this beat or whatever. Where Sean is up with the visuals and trying to figure out the right, you know,

how the action's going to play. And so it's 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.

I promised to give you an example of me adding a joke. So the script that, in the after time, 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, I was playing the game, then I got called away because I got a phone call from Aaron, you know, I

guess Back to the Future site was about to go to development, and anyway, I was talking with Aaron on the phone, and the original line was like like, no Aaron, it has to be purple, chartreuse, chartreuse wasn't working, I think it was Hawaiian. And I said to Nate, oh, Nate,

we got to get in market research because I've been having, on my blog, this is 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 said that Kamigawa wasn't popular and my blog was like, we like Kamigawa. So, anyway, I knew we had to use market research.

So, I said 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 was added as resonant. So, I was just trying to use more R&D speak. Anyway, so, that's mostly my contribution. Resonant. And I also edit Resonant. I was just trying to use more R&D speak. Anyway. So, that's mostly my contribution. So let's talk a little bit about just about walking the plains in general.

So one of the things they do now is they go to all the Pro Tours. They go to some of the Grand Prix's. And then a few other random events. 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 who don't, I'm not going to go behind the scenes for you.

So, um, so Nate, Nate has been playing Magic a long time. He loves Magic. Um, 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 joke that I have, like, my Johnny brain and my Spike brain, and that I'll be drafting an R&D, and I'll, like, my Spike brain will go, okay, pick that card.

Of all the cards in the deck, that's the best card. That's the card I hope 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 he also has a Timmy brain. But anyway, Nate loves magic. Nate loves magic. 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 is, 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 Plane 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, it's not mean-spirited, you know,

that you can just tell that Nate, honest to God, loves the game. I'm not dealing with Nate. It's 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 try to get information out of me for the future, which I did not tell him. But anyway, so number one, I love that you can tell that this is,

it is a love letter to magic, that, you know, the people who make this really do love magic. And Sean 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'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 play testing, 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 pro community at the Pro Tour. The third thing is that I think Nate has a good sense of comedy. I mean, as a former comedy writer, I really, really appreciate it.

I mean, Nate and I a lot will talk jokes and, like, you know, we'll riff back and forth on ideas. And I think Nate has a very good sense of comedy. And one of the things I like about Walking the Plains 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, the next thing is that the other thing that they did, and they did in the very first video and they did in the world's 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.

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 edged kind of cute is that they talk about the games in very vernacular terms. They don't go into heavy detail about, you know, they don't talk in game speak. And that it's kind of fun for the people who know to sort of get what they're hinting at. And the people that 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 the 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 the deck is doing from a story standpoint. But the thing I think Walking Plains 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 Pro Tour coverage, I mean, you're doing things to make it a little more approachable, but that's very, look, you need to know magic to follow that. You have people talking about optimal plays and this and that,

and you need to know enough of magic to follow that. When walking the plains, you don't. You don't even need to know magic necessarily to follow it. I think it's a fun enough video that, I mean, knowing magic enhances it, it does, but I feel like it just makes it approachable. Okay, my next thing is I think that Sean does amazing work. Now, I come from a background, like I was saying, I went to film school. I took courses in cinematography.

I learned a lot about art direction. I had to take editing. I mean, there's a lot that goes into doing video. And that Sean does such a good job of it that it kind of seems effortless, but that it's not. There's a lot of work. 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 have to go back and they have to edit it. They have to chop it, and they have to figure out what's their story. 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 they're doing 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 a little bit of 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 in documentaries, and it is tricky,

because when you normally shoot a script, like you normally 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 can sort of figure out, 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 you've got to figure out what you have doing. But with a documentary, you just shoot a lot of footage and you've got to figure out what you have. And so, and like I said, both Sean and Nate are involved. I mean,

Sean does the cinematography and they work together on the editing. I mean, I think Sean does the actual editing, but Nate helps figure out what the storyline is and stuff. But I think that the visual, the eye candy of the videos, that like, if you just turn the sound of the videos down, you know, and didn't even listen to them and just

watch them, they're pretty amazing. I'm, I'm, I'm very impressed with the stuff Sean's does. Um, and that I, I think that they get a lot of attention for sort of the content and that the, the presentation sometimes, uh, isn't given as much due, I feel that Sean really does excellent work. So any other things that... I mean, the other thing that I love is that... I love that it is something that is also built up over time.

Like, for example, the fact that Tom Martell couldn't be the guy who ran away because there was a staff, like, I feel like the video is slowly built, um, has a feel to it, like, it feels like a show. Like, for example, one of the things that I've had fun with is, like, I've, you know, Nate and I had this relationship in the

video, I mean, or the wizard and I had this relationship in the video, which is kind of fun, which, 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, you know, he and I have at it, and, I mean, 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 very different way. It's 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, you know, I get to do my evil laugh and I get to rip off my sunglasses and do stuff like that. So it's fun and I enjoy doing it. That's why every time that we're in the same city

I always shoot stuff with them. And from what I understand from Nate, my sticks are pretty popular. The other thing Nate does very well is that he's taking established people from magic.

So, like, it's not like... It's not just, like, the wizard's main nemesis is anybody. It's, like, what's the head designer of magic. I think 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 for a while. I'm trying to think. Any final sort of notes on Walking the Plains. Like I said, it is... If you've not watched Walking the Plains... Okay, for the people that managed to listen to this entire podcast and have not watched this, they're all on YouTube.

I think they're all on Wizards as well, at least the Walking the Plains. The first two might not be on the Wizards ones. 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 Holtz on YouTube that you can find it. And, yeah, and like I said, if you've not seen it, I would watch it.

It is a lot of fun. Um, and it gives a lot of, beyond the, the goofiness and the skits and that, 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. One of my favorite things they did was actually at the very first Worlds, the one that got them the gig, they were interviewing different players

and asking different players 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 this little, it was a cute bit where the two of them were commenting on the other ones but Nate had to go between, something like, I don't know, it cracked me up.

Nate in general cracked me up. One of the things is we had a meeting recently where we were talking about humor and magic. So I talk a lot about card crafting. So one of the things I talk about is we have a different meeting called World Crafting 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 and magic.

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 Plains. And so in the meeting, at one point, we stopped and we watched Walking the Plains. And it's very funny because some in the room thought it was hilarious, and some of them, like, didn't quite get all of it, you know, that it was a little goofy for them. And one of the things that I love about Walking the Plains is that magic,

within the context of the game, we don't do tons of goofy. I mean, the Unsets 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 thing that 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 goofy quality to it. That's something that magic does, we don't do a lot of. And obviously as the creator of the Unsets, I like goofy. I like sort of, I like parody. I like poking fun of ourselves. I feel that outside of Silver Border cards, it's very hard for magic to poke fun at itself. And that I enjoy that Walking the Plains

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, 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 try to just jump in different things and show different vantage points. And so, let me check my time.

Oh boy, I had a lot of traffic today. Today was a long one. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed me talking about today's topic. Like I said, if you've not watched the videos, please watch the videos. They are awesome. Nate and Sean do a really, really good job. And I cannot recommend 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 really good insight into who the players are and the competitions and stuff. But anyway,

now that I've talked for almost 44 minutes, it is time for me to go be making magic.