The Nintendo Boy Project

Do you ever read blogs and think to yourself "Who the heck reads this?". I can also safely say that Nintendo Boy will read this and say "Hey, that's not true! I 100% of the people who visit the site will read this!" And you, Nintendo boy, would be correct! You are the only one who will read this, and you will also have been the only one who will have realized this has been posted. The Ironic truth is that the more popular the site is doing, the less it gets read. This may seem like a problem to you Nintendo Boy, but I have two easy methods to improve your situation! They are:

1) The drastic method would be to make it so no one ever reads anything ever anymore. The solution would be to make video blogs from now on. But to be realistic about it, nothing over 5 minutes gets watched, we all know that; using the same point, if it takes more than 5 minutes to read, no one will read it. That brings us to point 2.

2) No one ever reads blog posts from head to toe ever, not the long ones anyway. Instead, just give a spark notes version that people will want to read. Face it, us Americans are big and lazy slobs. We also like shiny things like watches... But thats beside the point. So instead of having a post like the one I just wrote, spark note it and highlight/underline/make in a different color the most important things. For example... this post could be reedited as follows:

"Do you ever read blogs and think to yourself "Who the heck reads this?". I can also safely say that Nintendo Boy will read this and say "Hey, that's not true! I 100% of the people who visit the site will read this!" And you, Nintendo boy, would be correct! You are the only one who will read this, and you will also have been the only one who will have realized this has been posted. The Ironic truth is that the more popular the site is doing, the less it gets read. This may seem like a problem to you Nintendo Boy, but I have two easy methods to improve your situation! They are:

1) The drastic method would be to make it so no one ever reads anything ever anymore. The solution would be to make video blogs from now on. But to be realistic about it, nothing over 5 minutes gets watched, we all know that; using the same point, if it takes more than 5 minutes to read, no one will read it. That brings us to point 2.

2) No one ever reads blog posts from head to toe ever, not the long ones anyway. Instead, just give a spark notes version that people will want to read. Face it, us Americans are big and lazy slobs. We also like shiny things like watches... But thats beside the point. So instead of having a post like the one I just wrote, spark note it and highlight/underline/make in a different color the most important things. For example... this post could be reedited as follows:"

See, now this site will become slightly more popular because I didn't make people read a LONG boring post. This is Andrew once again saying Stay Classy internet!

Okay, so right off the bat, I know this is going to be a long post (but I'll do my best to keep it short) because I want to take a look back at the past year. I think this is good for a number of reasons, but it's a secret for now (err yeah I have no idea why I'm doing this honestly). I'll do my best to cover what so far has been our best year for the site, and give justice to the videos in a somewhat laid back blog post that hopefully won't be TOO long. So, with that being said, let's take a look back on how 2009 was a spicyyy fun year for us, video-wise! (yes, I only said 'spicy' so I could justify my image choice for today...haha!)

Let's begin. 2009. Our best year yet... but really things didn't get rolling until the summer... sooo, our best half-year yet? After Rock Band Documentary at the very end of 2008, we took a long hiatus... and not by choice either, it's just the way it happened. I received a veryyyyy nice Sony HD Handycam as a high school graduation present from from my parents mid-May, and it caused me to blog with excitement! With the summer, there's a lot of people busy with different things, so we weren't able to get together until early June. From there, we created Hiatus, an appropriate name, we thought. Not the best video ever, but it was definitely a start!

The team and I (mostly me) were so excited about the new top-notch HD quality for YouTube viewing but we didn't realize how subpar the video was. It was too long, really random, and you could tell we were just showing off the camera. We were so young then, tear. After this, we spent a lot of time planning but never got anything done. This was also during the time that the site had no activity and sparked a scare of closing the site. After much thought, we decided to keep going. We jumped off the hype of the closing of the site with The End, a sort of fictional extension to real events on the site. This was again, really random, and I was really only in love with the ending of The End (ha), where I show off my editing skills... one of my favorite NB moments for sure! This took place right at the end of July, almost making a release date of August 1st because of editing problems. Then we realized that it was August and Josh and I were heading to college, and Andrew to finish his senior year.

About a week later, we did not disappoint with perhaps one of my favorite videos of the three NintendoBoy guys (really, this is one where we are all together and in scenes, so..fun, haha), Wishful Thinking. I love this video because of the various colorful different kinds of settings that took place over the three-and-a-half minute video, and I think it was a legit video. The only problem I had with it was the Rock Band Documentary reference, which was my idea actually, but Andrew was against it because some people (really, a lot actually) wouldn't get it... I wish I had taken his advice but we really didn't have any else of an idea for a replacement sketch. xD Oh well, nevertheless, it was a great video and was a perfect farewell video as we left for college just days after it was released.

Since we were all busy with school, it really hurt the site as we didn't have new content to push out, except for the occasional blog post here and there. That's why it was awesome when I planned a comeback in October with a friend who was visiting me at school. It was almost November when I released probably my favorite video to date, Hardly Working, just because of how well it was done and really the emphasis on legit comedy: ADD... but honestly I don't really act like that, HAHA. Ironically, I had to do little-to-no editing (except for the trimming the beginning/endings for when I start/stop the camera), yet this was a favorite and I've received great feedback on it! It was a sad because it was the first video I'd done without my NB team, but it spawned the idea of a "Special Guests" series where I can invite interested people to particiapte in the project and help it grow and become more successful!

Winding down to the end of the year, we got together over Thanksgiving break and filmed Facebook Fans, but many problems with editing arose and I wasn't able to release it until perhaps two weeks later, which I was unhappy about, but ah what can you do? But, it was a special video because it was our first try at pop culture, and I really like (and still do) the idea of it, so I might turn it into a series, so don't be surprised if you see a "FBF 2," etc... it's all ideas for now! Coming back to school for about a last regular week and a week of finals, we headed back home again and meet very frequently, thanks to the help of Ellie for driving the crew around as well as Josh for letting us come to his house at the most craziest times.

I had the idea to use the entire winter break to create a two-part suspense episode to end the year and we managed to do it in what I called Takeover (I ended up not liking the name... it seemed like a good idea at the time but then I was like... eh)! Yeah, it wasn't perfect, but it was a lot of fun to make, and it made me want to explore more different types of genres instead of just sketchy comedy. But don't worry, we're not getting carried away just yet. Despite it being my idea to create a two-part video, with the ending of the story in Takeover Part 2, I had reservations about how both videos might not be seen, etc... but oh well, I guess it worked out since I did received a good amount of feedback on facebook on both videos.

WELL. THERE IT IS. 2009 in a very small nutshell, and really only talking about the videos... ha. Hmm, it seems as though I made a big deal about the success of this year at the beginning of this post, but as I write it all down, it's not THAT great. HA, just kidding, that's kinda depressing. But really though, it was DEF a fun year and a great site to the further fueling of this project. We have sooo many things planned for 2010, and I'd like to make it known that not only will we be improving our films a lot in many different ways, the site is getting moved up to the top of the list. I mean, it's the most important thing or you wouldn't be reading this! It has so much potential, and I will be doing some heavy re-constructing and organizing of the site, so I will update you when things change and blah blah. A sneak peak for the site is a re-vamp of the forums. It's the best app ever and we never use it! So look out for that soon, as well as more videos! Perhaps maybe with a theme song or ending chime? Hmm. I guess you'll just have to stick around and find out!

Thanks for reading, and thank you for supporting us. We're nothing without you.

Hey nintendoboy fans! I never ever thought I would be writing a blog post for nintendoboy.com (much less be in a video xD), but here I am! So, I am happy to inform you that part two to Takeover is up today! I had TONS of fun making this little set of videos with everybody, but I honestly had no idea that the making of these videos involved so much time! I mean, when you're watching nintendoboy videos, they are only three minutes long so you're probably thinking, "HAHA! What a funny nintendoboy video, I bet that took no time at all!" ... Okay, so you probably weren't thinking that at all (except for the HAHA part, right?), in fact, you probably haven't thought at all about how long it takes to film and edit a video. Well neither did I until recently! First there has to be a plan of some sort of what the video is supposed to be about. And for the first time EVER (I'm pretty sure...), someone -Jeffrey Vega- actually wrote out a rough sketch before filming *GASP*! I know, I know, it's crazy... Second, you actually have to film the scenes in the video (Who would have thought?). You would not believe how many times it takes for one scene to be filmed sometimes! Luckily, there is a lot of laughing and silliness involved when this happens, so I think everyone secretly enjoys the 117th take... As for editing, I still don't really know that much about the mechanics of it. But I do know that Jeff does ALL the editing, and that it takes hours and hours, and that he does an awesome job  and probably doesn't get the credit he deserves here because who thinks about the editing of a video while you are watching it? Usually no one. But now perhaps you will!

Anyways, now that you know a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes, I hope you enjoy part two even more now that you know how much time, effort, and TLC goes into these videos, along with the fact that the videos are being put up on a weekly basis currently. Whether they will be in the future weeks remains a mystery! I don't know of any videos in the near future, but hopefully I am wrong and there are more ideas to be filmed during the winter break! I would love love love to be involved in more videos now that I've experienced what its like once already (Wait, twice if you include part one... wait, thrice if you include the failed Halloween video!)! All right, well, go watch the video, LOL (literally), and comment on the video (here... or on youtube... or on facebook... or on all three! The choice is yours ). OH! And happy holidays!!!

 Click here to watch it in our video theater! |  Click here to watch it in HD on YouTube! |

 Click here to watch it on Facebook in case you would rather "Like" it than comment... haha!

~Got a funny story from ANY camp with no one to share it with? We all want to hear it!!! Just send in the story to thisonetime@nintendoboy.com with you name (optional) and a picture (also optional) and I will pick the best 5 and post them weekly! (Don't post them In the comments because I will most likely miss them!)~

This one time, at band camp...

... I wore a wedding dress to band rehearsal not realizing that it was a TOTAL mistake. Forget the dress, the MAKEUP was the worst.

-Joshua Indech

 ... the Euphonium skit was starting to get inappropriate... like Peter Fugate cross-dressing! So G rang the gong to stop the skit 50 times and the Euphoniums refused to stop the skit.

- Michelle C. Parkos

...  the year before my last I spent the night before the first rehearsal with instrumnets cleaning my horn, and then after breakfast I accidently left my case open and it fell out when I picked it up and the thrid valve got bent. D'OH!

-Richard Sponholz

... My 8th grade band camp (Encore) a few guys stole my bed and literally hid it in the closet which locked from the inside. I didn't realize this till late after free time. By the time I got my mattress out, I realized they also accidently broken one of the legs of my bed which I then had to pay $54 for.

-Andrew Shain

... someone tried to curl another girl's hair with one of those round brushes right before lights out one night and it got stuck in her hair and the chaperones were up for an extra hour untangling it from her hair.

-Christine 'Steen' Krause

~If you didn't see your story here, don't worry! We have plenty of time to post them, just send them in!~

I sit here, in front of my computer, with a smug look on my face. I have recently graduated from high school (Class of '09!), and it is now summer! And with summer, comes a lot of free time... free time that will not be wasted... because there is a project that needs feeding... the Nintendo Boy Project! This summer will be a milestone for me because I have something now that will enhance us in the ranks of those top films you see on YouTube... well, not really, but our videos are gonna be amazing! Gahhhh, I'm getting excited just thinking about it!! [:

HD. Two letters, yet so very powerful. I told you that I had recently graduated. My parents bought me a $600 Sony HD Handycam video recorder... to the say the least, it is quite aesthetically pleasing! This is the exact piece of equipment I've been dying for ever since I started making videos. We had the will, and there was a way, but we needed better mediums of making better quality films. Although what we had before wasn't so bad, don't you agree? Sooo yes... HD is now possible for my videos!! I'm so excited! But wow, it was not easy to get where I am now...

My adventure. Two words, yet so meaningless. Let me explain! Haha. I don't know what made it so difficult for me to figure it out, as I consider myself quite a wiz at these types of things. But not this time. Sony had me. Maybe it's because I'm NINTENDO BOY and not SONY BOY? Ehh, who knows. Haha, either way, I was determined to figure out how everything worked without reading the instructions. LAL, just kidding. I did read it... not much helped. After almost 3 days of working the super nice camera with amazing picture, and the Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platnium Premium Pro Pack (that's alotta P's), I have finally figured out how to best save the movie projects I work on when I edit. It's something like HDV 1080pi with some other letters and numbers that I can't remember. But after sooo many test uploads to YouTube (as well as test conversions to .mov for our new podcast), I finally got it. And our videos completely fit the YouTube widescreen player!!!! Yay! All the right settings. The perfect combination of behind-the-scene setups to have the finished video project very pleasing to watch. Nintendo Boy... from here on out.. will be in High-Definition, thanks to YouTube as well! :] Woot. Woot. lol. (:

I'm really excited about getting back into the swing of things. I doubt anyone is even reading this (well, I guess YOU are... thanks!!) since the site has been dead for almost half a year in terms of videos... and well, the rest of the site has had its share of cobwebs. Well, it's the summer now, so it's time to bring this back to life... and this time, in HD. My goal is to have a new video every week, more, if possible. I want to flood the video gallery with our pretty faces and witty lines... did I mention, which will be in HD?! Stay tuned for a new video at the end of the week... it's gonna be amazing!! I promise... stick around and watch this site come back aaaalllliivvvveeee!!!! (thumbs up)