Gaming Today Q&A: Team Awesome

We all know Team Awesome, or at the very least, of their work. And if you don’t, shame on you. Team Awesome is the group behind the excellent Contra and Punch-Out!! trailers which you’ve undoubtedly seen around the ‘net. I recently had a chance to speak with Team Awesome about everything from what inspired them to Big League Chew.

Seriously.

First off, there’s a question on the mind of every Team Awesome fan out there: How many years of grueling acting school did the entirety of Team Awesome attend before becoming so awesome?

We’d like to take the time to thank our teachers, Uta Hagen, Stella Adler and Constantin Stanislavski…ok, so those aren’t our teachers, but they’re the most famous ones we know. All of us have done some acting in the past, but Natasha is the only bona fide actor. Oddly enough, she gets the least amount of screen time. That’s just how we roll.

Schooling was an important aspect for the videos, however. Steve (The Vaj) studied music composition and sound technology, and Andy and Nathan went to school to study filmmaking.

What inspired the ideas for these videos?

Long hours in a dark room, escaping the trappings of an eight year old life, illuminated by the glare of the TV screen.

While video games now are amazingly detailed and graphically superior, there’s something heartwarming and special about those early 8-bit games.

How long did the videos take to produce?

On “Punch-Out!!” we were limited to a month from start to finish, which meant a lot of all-nighters to get what we wanted to get accomplished. We learned how to greenscreen and composite via a crash course that month. For Contra, it took a lot longer, since all of us had trips/lives planned. It did mean that we could shoot actual Tahitian islands to use, though. Generally, the videos shoot over the course of a weekend or two and then take two or three weeks to edit with another week for removing the green screen and compositing shots.

Did Team Awesome form as a result of the Nintendo Short Cuts Showcase Contest? If not, were these ideas brewing before the contest came about?

Yes and no. Team Awesome had formed as a result of us wanting to creatively attack the internet, but until the Short Cut Contest, we didn’t have a focus. Nate had been dying to do a trailer for “Punch-Out!!” since high school, but we never had the time or means or equipment to do it right. When those two elements combined, Team Awesome truly took it current form.

Why Contra and Punch-Out?

When looking at which video games to make trailers for, we looked at a variety of components. The popularity of the game was the first thing to evaluate. How familiar are people with the game? In the 8-bit world though, popular games never relied on novel gameplay or how great the graphics were; these games were based on great characters and great stories. And great characters and great stories are the key in any type of storytelling whether feature films or internet videos. People love “Punch-Out!!” for the same reason that they love Rocky: underdog stories are fun to watch. Contra didn’t have the most well-known characters, but the world of ‘80s action movies was something people were familiar with and we could have fun with that.

Have you been approached to do anything commercially, or do you see this remaining a hobby?

We would love to continue to make these video game trailers. Whether we can quit our jobs to do it commercially is a different story. People all know the potential of the internet, but with no revenue model, it is difficult to figure out how. We created high5city.com to showcase and try to sell something that nobody else has – our particular brand of humor and creative skills. While we have been trying to shop the concept to Nintendo and other game companies, we haven’t had any bites yet. One of the difficult aspects is that we’re using previously developed ideas, characters and stories. With high5city.com we will be doing video game trailers, but we’ll also be creating videos that are completely original ideas.

Is that Big League Chew that the General is chewing during the Contra trailer?

Absolutely. Original flavor. Just like you used to chew in Little League. Big League Chew is one of those things that brings you right back to that childhood time and place, which is basically the goal of the video game trailers too. The overwhelming response to both videos is something along the lines of “Oh my God, I remember playing this when I was ____ years old!” People love reflecting on those precious childhood memories. If we can rejuvenate that feeling of being a kid, then we’re doing what we set out to.

What’s next for Team Awesome?

We’re trying to do so much it’s ridiculous. We’ll be creating more content by making videos that don’t take quite so long to shoot and edit, more along the viral videos you see from other comedy troupes. We can’t give up fake video game trailers though. People are very informative about what they think our next video should be. If you look at the classic games that have great characters and stories, the list gets smaller.

I hate to make this a hard-hitting interview, but I have to ask – how awesome is Team Awesome?

A bunch of people who spend tremendous amounts of time and money working on a trailer for the internet to us is pretty awesome. What we think is really awesome, however, is the tremendous support we’ve gotten from the video game community. Without that audience and their “awesomeness,” who knows if we would’ve continued on.

Thanks so much for your time.