Bad Ass Squares Part 3
December 14th, 2010 by Dylan
I had a great time recently being part of the filming of Bad Ass Squares Part 3. Compuware’s Uniface has created the Bad Ass Squares videos as a really fun way to promote their product for developing enterprise applications.
The company is Dutch, so all filming has been done in Amsterdam. The movies are inspired by the work of Tarantino, the famous director of Dutch decent. In 2009 we filmed the first movie, an inspired clone of the opening credits of Reservoir Dogs. I play the role of Nice Guy Eddie so I wear this hideous 1980s track suit and have glued on sideburns that border on Austin Powers. I think we spent about 12 hours and walked miles to get two minutes of useful footage.
As a result, I developed a huge respect for the process of film making and acting (and the need for a trailer during long breaks!). The people at vStream are amazing, and handled all of the directing, video recording, sets, and post-production work. They’re Irish and a lot of fun to work with, and they’ve also done some really interesting and innovative work in the 3-D space as well. After all, it isn’t every company that gets to haze the new employee by throwing them in the trunk of a 65 mustang and not get sued.
The second movie was also filmed in 2009, and has the same characters but in a made-up scene, where the Bad Ass Squares take the girl away from the non-Uniface developer. The lines are cheeky which makes them fun, and when we clear out the bar, I’m busy texting with two phones at once, because I’m that bad ass.
The term bad ass squares basically refers to the cool geek, and without introducing any spoilers or revealing my zen jedi master sideburn tricks, I’ll just say that we make a big comeback in part 3.
I don’t think I’d ever want to be involved with movie production on a regular basis, but as far as weekend diversions go, it was a lot of fun, especially because of the great people I got to work with from Uniface, vStream, and of course Hermione Way of Newspepper and The Next Web San Francisco. My friends and Dojo people might remember Hermione from our London Ajax event as well:
London Ajax JSMiniConf Event Report from the London Ajax User Group.
Ok, fine, if you’ve made it this far, obviously you know that Kill Bill inspired this movie. I have a few behind the scenes photos on flickr and there’s a nice set on the Uniface facebook account. The movie should be out in a month or three. And I still don’t have an answer to my question of “how do you green screen a green screen?”
[…] with the great people from Uniface and Hermione Way of Newspepper and The Next Web for iCU 2010 and Bad Ass Squares 3. Uniface was also nice enough to invite me to speak at their UK user group […]
Hey Dylan – great blog post! Thanks for all the memories – and reminding us that we had locked Andy int he boot of the Mustang – we nearly went out and hired a new guy to do some editing for us, which in these recessionary times would have been a terrible waste.
Always a pleasure working with yourself, Hermione and the Badass crew – a better humoured bunch of people I’ve never met. And with skills like Berry’s and his swords and the guys from his dojo (not yours!) combined with Theo’s classic cars and Ming’s multi-characterisations – you just can’t go wrong!
I hope we have the opportunity to work with everyone again – but in the we’ll catch up at the virtual premier and at ICU2011!
Niall
…by the way – you use a bluescreen to greenscreen a greenscreen.
But then how do you bluescreen a greenscreened bluescreen?
I’m glad you liked the post, and we’re definitely looking forward to the movie where you’ll made us look like pros again. Now that you’ve let Andy out of the boot, the real work can begin.
I’d definitely join Barry’s Dojo, and I hope to make it to Dublin in 2011 to promote my Dojo.
[…] may recall my post from a few months ago about taking part in the making of Bad Ass Squares 3. The movie is now […]