The Guild

Guild Crew: Draft’d!

We here at The Guild are privileged to work with the most talented crew and cast in web video. I wanted to spotlight a few of these hardworking folks who became true Guildies for Season 2 but started as Volunteers…or were drafted!

Back in August we posted about some brilliant fan art showing The Guild members in combat stances. Here’s the art:
When I saw it, I sent a thank you email to Matthew Brackney the artist. In passing he responded ” I do flash animation. If you ever want an updated intro animation I’d be happy to make one.” Oops! Don’t offer if you don’t want us to take you up on it! About 3 weeks later Matthew came up with our new intro you can view on Matthew’s Vimeo page or any of the Season 2 Guild videos! It’s made this season so much more polished, we are so proud of his work, thank you Matthew (@mastermatt111)!

We also had 3 crew members who volunteered through the web site who were on set for every shoot day of Season 2, 16 looong days over almost 3 months! Without them, the show would not look, sound or BE what it is!
Jared Hoy volunteered his services as a Gaffer, or “Chief Lighting Technician”. If you wonder why Season 2 looks so wonderful, a lot of the credit goes to Jared and our Director of Photography John Schmidt. The many times I came to set looking quite tired, the magic of their lighting and framing is solely to credit me looking the least bit decent Jared is a WOW player and working in the industry on fancy productions and just wanted to help the show out as a volunteer. Lucky us!! Thank you @jaredhoy!

Sandy Fleck is another crew member we found indispensable, although most web video crews aren’t lucky enough to have a Script Supervisor on set. “Scripties” keep track of shots, call out lines to actors who forget them (ahem, never me ), determine how the scenes are numbered on the clap board, and a million other things that are wonderful to have available to the director and producers in production and post-production. Due to the accelerated pace of shooting for this season, rolling out episodes every week rather than every month, Sandy’s help was a life saver!

Lastly, Kenny Mittleider(on Twitter @geekyfanboy), behind-the-scenes master, is another Hollywood-employed professional who kindly offered his services and ended up shooting over 140 hours of behind-the-scenes footage as well as thousands of still photos from The Guild shoot. Yes, you heard right. Kenny shot almost every frame we filmed, as well has many hours in between, tons of profanity, ahem, and outtakes and he even ran into a pole and broke his camera trying to get a shot. That’s dedication. Kenny’s true talents will shine with a Behind the Scenes video of Episode 4, available in a few weeks, as well as many many extras for the Season 2 DVD next summer. Oh, and he decorates a mean Christmas Video, very excellent eye. Kenny, you are wonderful to work with, and we are so happy you came to our crew.

These are just a few of the people who made Season 2 possible, and I can’t tell you how it made me feel to be able to actually pay these and all the other cast and crew for their services because of our distribution deal with Xbox. Maybe I’m a bad producer, but writing checks makes me happy Over the long weeks of shooting we became a real Guild family, and we try to have that same relationship with each and every one of our viewers, so I hope you enjoyed reading about a few of the integral behind-the-scenes crew of The Guild!
OXXO
Felicia