Papapaint and LSL
If you’re hoping for a big, dramatic, juicy announcement, then this post isn’t for you. However, at Evo 2017, I was shocked by the double-digit number of people who not only recognized me, but wanted to know what was going on with LSL. This post is to satisfy anyone else wondering the same thing.
Prog started LSL with the original goal of making 3–5 minute videos about various games in melee history. The team worked together for the first time at Evo 2015, with Prog, Gangly, Cartega, Brentos, and myself conducting 45 minute interview sessions with Kage, HMW, Phil, and PPMD. We realized that not only were the videos gonna be a LOT longer than 3–5 minutes (Our shortest is 11 minutes, and Mango vs Armada clocks in just over 46), but we also needed a lot more money, time, and supplemental interviews. We didn’t think that we could really pursue crowdfunding beyond our initial kickstarter, so the funding for additional interviews and longer editing time would have to come from other projects.
In early 2016, Prog and I decided that one of the best ways to finance the series was to do paid video work for events, like my top 8 intro videos, trailers, montages, etc., and then, during our downtime, do the interviews we needed. Additionally, since our team was already filming these events for professional use, we would be certain to have an extensive library of stock footage.
Doing the first season of LSL was extremely fun, even though money was tight. Travel was expensive, and, despite what people may think, most of the events that we dealt with had little to no money set aside for video marketing. Many still don’t. It brought me back to my days of TV production: late nights, high-stress edits, the satisfaction of getting your work done just in time for broadcast… the kind of stuff that most editors hope to leave behind. At the time, it made me feel younger, more passionate, and more alive. Every day brought fresh ideas, new concepts, new ideas to pitch, new twists on a roadblocked edit.
Of course, this frenetic pace isn’t something I could keep up. Travel is much less exciting when all your sightseeing is done through the window of an uber on the way from airport to hotel. Anyone backstage at these events will attest to the fact that I don’t stop working except for sleep and the occasional meal, so I generally don’t have time hang out with the homies until things are done.
More than anything, though, leaving my son at home on a semi-regular basis was emotionally exhausting. I’ve always been something of a homebody, preferring personal art projects and close friendships to loud nights and bright lights with big crowds, so constantly attending giant events filled with people was a big ask of myself. Getting sick after events is common enough, but when you’re attending two or three events in a single month, those sicknesses seriously hamper post-production schedules. I’d recover, then I’d spend several 12-hour days in the edit bay to finish edits before an event, all before heading out and getting sick again. Plus, as my son grows older, leaving home gets downright depressing at times. My frantic work pace used to be driven by passion and ideas; now, it’s often to help the time pass faster until the job is done and I can see him again.
I realize that many people have to leave their child for longer stretches of time, and that what I’m describing doesn’t sound so bad to plenty of parents dying for a break. What makes this different is the fact that the work we were doing out of love simply wasn’t generating much money, and so we needed to do a whole lot more to make ends meet. I’ve loved the melee community ever since I first heard about it back in ’06, and much of my work has been done because of that love. However, I really, REALLY love my son, and it’s hard to constantly justify spending so much time and energy on a game I love at the cost of quality time with my family. The amount of travel and limited budgets don’t mix well with our focus on medium-format documentary pieces. Switching to some sort of daily or weekly Youtube release would shift the focus away from what we want to do, while leaning too heavily into Patreon or Kickstarter has serious downsides that I’ll perhaps elaborate more on someday.
To get to the point — Last Stock Legends still exists, but is slowing down dramatically. I’m shifting away from doing event work, meaning less travel and fewer opportunities for LSL interviews. We’re going to be producing Season 2 over the next year or so, but it’s unlikely to release as sporadically as Season 1. I’ll be at GOML and TBH6 with the usual team, and a UMVC3 documentary from Danger Room should release in mid-September. Other than that, any future esports work you might see me doing in the future will be as an individual freelancer, rather than a representative for LSL.
TLDR: The current relationship status of LSL is “it’s complicated.” There’s no internal animosity or bad blood or anything of the sort, just a gradual acceptance of the fact that our content model isn’t enough to sustain us in the long term, and that there isn’t a solution without massive compromise on the products we wish to create.
