Knifeshow's Mike Benson and Casey WrightsmanLast week Mike Benson and Casey Wrightsman, founders of Knife Show productions dropped their much anticipated Gnarcade video edit. Following on the success of previous releases like Magic Flashlights and Gnar Wars, Gnarcade adopts the skillful application of After Effects production to a snowboarding film in stunning creative perfection. Filmed on location at Mt Hood, Benson and Wrightsman applied their childhood love of Nintendo into a space invaders storyboard snowboarding saga. Integrating classic characters and sound effects from Mario brothers, Pacman and Frogger, they have proved that creativity in video production remains. Here we chat with team Knife Show to find out why they are so sharp.

- James Sullivan

Knife Show's Mike Benson and Casey Wrightsman

So Gnarcade has been out for little over a week and has already been viewed over half a million times. What are your thoughts on such a swift response?

Casey: I thought seeing big companies posting it on their Facebook pages and Twitter was pretty crazy. To see big companies backing something you do is a cool feeling. Makes you motivated to make a new and better edit.

Mike: We've had big videos before, but they usually take a long time to catch on. This one just blew up really quickly. It helps that it ties into something that a lot of people are already interested in.

Arguably your most creative endeavor yet, what inspired the retro video game theme?

Mike: I actually work on a cable show on G4TV called X-Play, which is all about video games. So obviously, games are a huge part of my life. Casey and I made a video called Magic Flashlights the year before, and it had a definite theme: light-drawing. We wanted to do something similar to that, but give the riders more involvement. So I asked each rider to pick their favorite game. Scott Stevens picked Mario, Tim Eddy chose Bubble Bobble, and so on.

The opening montage has the 8-bit Gnarcade invader zapping hapless and shocked onlookers. How did you approach this creatively? Did you script the storyboard for the intro before or after you captured all the action footage?

Casey: Mike is super good at directing people around and taking them out of their comfort zone, haha.

Mike: Well, I don't know if I'd call myself super-good, but I definitely don't mind walking up to random people and telling them to do stuff. Like every Knife Show intro, the storyboards were drawn on the back of some scrap paper at three in the morning. But then when I went to shoot it, it was really surreal because I basically just set up the tripod and told people to start running and screaming.

Gnarcade

Gnarcade from Mike Benson on Vimeo.

Speaking of action footage some of the integrations are amazing -- from Mario, to Pac Man to Frogger and the Portals, how many different game characters/scenarios did you consider before settling on those featured?

Mike: For almost all the riders, we let them pick their game. But for Casey's part, I chose for him. I had just finished playing Portal for the second time and I was obsessed with it. It's not a retro game, but the visual possibilities for that theme were way too good to pass up.

How many hours would you say went into the creation of this both filming and editing?

Mike: Well, it came out exactly one year to the day we started shooting. It was filmed over the course of two weeks, but to be honest with you I didn't know how to do a lot of those effects, haha. So then I spent probably over two hundred hours behind the computer. Fortunately for me, I had an amazing crew of volunteers helping me with the more complicated shots. I really owe the success of the video to them.

Last year in your interview with ESPN you gave a great background on how you started out including your use of After Effects as a primary editing tool. Have your techniques changed or evolved since then?

Mike: Well, after this project I feel as though I know After Effects a million times better than I did before I started. But obviously everything is still assembled in Final Cut.

Gnar Wars

Gnar Wars by Mike Benson from Mike Benson on Vimeo.

What's the story with Ground Up? The soundtrack really tied the whole piece together.

Mike: We really like their music, and one of our friends grew up with them. So I just took a chance and sent them an email asking if they'd do the song. Casey and I were psyched when they said yes. Each rider's part is accompanied by music from that matching video game. So one of the hardest things about this video was that we had to edit it months before the effects were in place, because they needed to know when to start and end each song sample. We sent them the edit of the video with no effects, so it must have been really weird for them to work like that.

Moving forward what do you have planned in the coming months, and how do you top this effort?

Casey: It's top secret.

What are your thoughts on the state of gaming industry in general from an artistic and technology standpoint?

Mike: As much as I loved the games I grew up playing, I have to say that video games now are (on average) way better than the 8-bit ones. Anyone that tells you differently is being a curmudgeon. We remember the gems and tend to forget the thousands of really, really terrible NES games.

Magic Flashlights

Magic Flashlights from Mike Benson on Vimeo.

Sitting on a couch playing games is somewhat counter to the spirit of being outdoors and snowboarding. How do you balance time being physically active with playing video games and/or geeking out editing behind a computer?

Mike: I've honestly come to realize that being creative with my editing is my main passion. I love riding, but I'm not very good at it. But Casey is kind of the opposite of me in that sense so it works out.

Lastly, you've proved that creativity still exists in snowboarding. What advice do you have for those aspiring to enhance the progression of snowboard films and creative expression within them?

Casey: Don't be scared to be different, No matter how stupid you think you look, because after the video is done you will think to yourself that it was totally worth it. Like they say, "Think outside the box".

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