Countdown to King Project Update — Jan 29th to Feb 4th

In my previous Medium post I announced that my thesis project would be a documentary on the TCNJ Super Smash Bros. community titled Countdown to King. During the last week, I started drafting interview questions that I wish to ask the featured players and Lions Gaming staff members in order to introduce them and give more background to what King actually is.

Some questions I plan to ask the players include:

1. What is your name, year, and major?
2. What is your Smash tag?
3. How did you get into the Smash scene at TCNJ?
4. Did you enjoy King 2019? If so, what made it an enjoyable event?
5. What are you looking forward to at King 2020?

Questions I plan to ask the Lions Gaming staff include:

1. What is your role in Lions Gaming?
2. What is King, and/or what does King mean to you?
3. What was your role in King 2019, if applicable?
4. What does Lions Gaming have planned for King 2020?

These questions will help serve as an introduction to King for the viewers and an introduction to the video itself. Along with coming up with interview questions, I have also began thinking about how I would like to start the video, as the majority of the content will be live video footage from Lions Gaming’s biweekly Smash tournaments. One idea I have is starting in medias res with footage from King 2020 or one of the biweeklies, then dialing it back to explain what is actually going on or what led to that moment. Something that inspired this idea is a Super Smash Bros. Melee documentary that was released recently by EmpLemon:

The beginning of this documentary tells of the infamous “crab incident” at Pound 2019, where Melee’s #1 ranked player, Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma, had an actual crab thrown at him shortly after winning the tournament. The following section of the video explains why this moment was so significant and why this sort of thing could only happen to Hungrybox. Giving a brief introduction to Lions Gaming and to King in this style might serve my own video well.

Along with work on the thesis project I have also been working on the video for TCNJ’s Fall 2019 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate power rankings, which may serve as an element of Countdown to King. The players on this ranking will be featured in the documentary and the graphics from the ranking video will be shown.

I have gotten permission from Professor Buckleitner to use the AIMM Cage for video equipment, and along with the camcorder I have brought with me from home I will be filming footage at the upcoming Smash biweekly this Friday.