NWPAS 2013 - Seminar with Steve Wiebe

hello it's pretty loud alright well welcome um thanks for coming out supporting the event it's a first time down in Tacoma for the event I believe is that true yeah so I was barely got here I had left work about 3:45 and ran down i-5 and to Scott here just in time so thanks for coming out on a Friday and what basically the format I don't have anything necessarily prepared a PowerPoint or anything I'm not going to lecture about Donkey Kong or anything but I want to kind of update if you've been following anything about the current Donkey Kong status I'll just kind of go through what's happened since the film how many of you have seen the king of Kong I'm assuming most of you have seen if you're here okay so anyways if has anyone followed the recent happenings with the doc young world raise your hand if you've been keeping up on the current status of the record No all right well there has been a few changes on the leader board and I've kind of been debating if I want to go into the garage again and and go for the record you know it's kind of a tempting situation the problem is when I get in there I tend to stay in there for a really long time and the family doesn't really like that so this summer I'm gonna be out of school in another two weeks so I'm kind of contemplating whether I want to go for the record like really dive into it again there has been these Kong off events have you heard of these Kong off events that they've been advertising okay there's these events they've they're on the third one next in this coming November will be the third Kong off and since the film there's been several people that have gotten interested in Donkey Kong as you can imagine that's kind of taking the forefront of most of the video game games that are out there so there's a Gavin Ava Hank Chen this guy's got the record now he's at a 1 million hundred and thirty nine thousand so he's a plastic surgeon in New York and he has a little documentary out called doctor Kong if it's like a 15 minute short documentary but this guy's a great guy I've met him several times at these Kong offs and he's just a phenomenal player so I'm glad to be competing against the likes of Hank Chen and then there's been some few other guys come out on the scene it how many of you have played MAME a lot like were you on the computer you're doing ok that's these main players have been playing Donkey Kong with the keyboard and a couple of them were at the Kong off and they've had problems adjusting to the joystick but there's been one players names last names of Wilms who won the Kong off last year and he he got 1 million hundred thousand and he just recently started playing with the controls on the on the with the joystick and he was just a main player so it's I didn't think it would be that difficult to transition from the keyboard to the joystick another player being sega leo he was another great player and he's had he had more problems transitioning but this Wilms player that won the kong off just was able to go in the public i would think that the first time you play in public you'd be a little nervous I remember I was at San Diego comic-con and I was up in this booth and I was like first time since the movie came out and I was just shaking I remember my hands I was trying to hit the jump button it was just like my hand was just like totally just vibrating and I was so nervous so I was this guy was just calm cool and he doesn't say a lot he's kind of like an introvert and he's like just an amazing player he's a chess player too so he's kind of got the mind behind the game too so this this world of Donkey Kong has taken off bigger than I would ever have imagined it would have been the one thing I wanted to mention is if any time you have a question if I say something or if you have an idea that you want to talk about there's the microphone right there come on up and just interrupt me I'm not I'm not here to again lecture you and and give you my ideas I want to hear from you what you want to hear about so that's always an opportunity of the open mic there yes oh yeah go ahead and go up to the microphone and I hear I heard you but I think they want to be able to hear it for the Billy Mitchell if you remember Billy yeah he still plays so what the Kong off we've been at the two Kong officer was one in Denver and then there was go there was one in New Jersey so he's been at both of them and we haven't necessarily been head-to-head where it's just me and him playing so we've been among several competitors but he still plays I imagine if he had time as well he could dive into the game but he's a busy man with his restaurant and and all that but yeah we interact at these Kong offs also outside the Donkey Kong world I've been kind of blessed with some cameo appearances and some films if you've seen Four Christmases raise your hand four Christmases anybody seen that maybe Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon okay so I was in the little appearance in that movie because of the King a convent Vince Vaughn loved the movie so he wanted Seth Gordon who was the director of the king of Kong to direct this movie fault called Four Christmases so this was back in 2008 just like a year after the movie or documentary came out so I'm in a scene there where I'm playing on the Wii Donkey Kong on the Wii and I'm watching the big screen and my wife Kristen Chenoweth comes in and hands me the baby and I don't take my eyes off the screen I kind of grab the baby and I keep playing so that it's kind of fun to have these little appearances in these movies but that's outside of the world of Donkey Kong so basically this life has just taken off since the movie came out I've had some other things happen I've had a drum solo if you've heard of the band My Chemical Romance anybody hear them okay that they had a song called teenagers I think it was and I was gonna play that song with them they had just emailed me so when the movie came out I'll just get random emails from you know musicians and they'd go on the tour bus you know and they'd be watching videos and a couple of them would seat King a Kong it was contact me so I met them down at Portland in the ballroom if you've been to the ballroom there's this floor that's like a trampoline if you've ever been down in Portland and this these guys are their fans are just crazy I mean when they went on the stage the whole fan base was just jumping up and down like this floor was like a trampoline I thought it was gonna cave in so I got a chance to do a drum solo that was a few years ago so these things that have been coming up are just crazy I never thought would have come out of playing a video game if you imagine and when I first went into the garage I had no intent of having any of this happen I was trying to just try to get a record posted like I mentioned in the movie on a on a database that I hadn't seen up on Twin Galaxies I just ran into it on the website one day so everything just kind of went from there what else I can tell you is there's another show coming up have you seen this promotional bit about the goats like a show called the Goldbergs and they advertise it's about this 80s family and it's like the Wonder Years if you've seen the Wonder Years it was a show back in the 80s late early 90s and it's basically the Wonder Years in the 80s so I'm a hamburger stand if you've been to Dick's you know how they work at the hamburger stand they have the hats on and so I'm up at the hamburger stand and and one of the actors the old the grandpa in the family is driving as Corvette up to the burger stand with his kids and he has a senior moment and he kind of loses track of areas and he plows right in to the furniture the patio furniture in front of the burger stand and I'm up there and I haven't said anything in any of the movies yet they've been and I've been in Horrible Bosses and I was briefly in there if you have to pause the video to see me it's like we're so quick but anyways I was asked to say something and so the man the grandpa says yeah chicken nuggets anybody and I turned him I go barbecue or honey mustard so that was my big one line that I've had delivered in my in my acting career so far so you have a question yeah I actually have a question as a as a filmmaker myself I'm curious of your behind-the-scenes experiences being in all those movies I'd love to hear you talk about everything from flying down there arriving on set how you were treated just kind of your impression of being a part of some big productions yeah just any interesting stories yeah so the first the time I was on the for Christmas is said I was there for a month I had to get clearance from the school district to leave and get a long-term sub so I was told I was staying in as at Cary Grant's place in Cal in Hollywood he had this place and I was basically living in his place it was not obviously his now but I was staying at this place for about three weeks to four weeks that they rented that a car rented for me I'd Drive to the set and back and they I mean I felt like I didn't belong at the in the Hollywood scene but these actors were really cool and oh Reese Witherspoon Kristin Chenoweth Vince Vaughn they didn't act like I didn't belong so they they were very kind generous had a blast and like I remember when I left the scene I mean when they they do the clothes and when you're when you're done this is a I forget what they call that a clothes I'm losing the name of that when they're wrap thank you this is a wrap for Steve and I got like up an applause from all these actors there was like several actors that had won Oscars and we're just great actors so they were just treating me like I was at any old actor that very respectful once one time I was I'm not too up under the People magazine and I was sitting there it was in the break between the scenes and John trying to think it was Voight Angelica Jolie's dad what's his name is that right okay I'm losing I'm losing all the names of these actors but so I'm in the middle talking to him and he's holding up one of the babies that was used in the scene because we had a couple young children so I turned to him do you have any children and he didn't listen II didn't hear me if you know they were estranged he hadn't talked to Angelica Angelina I'm sorry Julie for several I don't know how many years it was but he didn't he was like from here to the wall I mean definitely I thought he would have heard me but he didn't respond and I thought maybe I shouldn't ask him again but I didn't know anything about his relationship with Angelina so that was kind of an interesting little thing that happened behind the scenes but so I got up next time I am on a Hollywood set I better read People magazine was my wife told me you know I got to know these things when you're gonna be hanging out with these people so that was this little story that I had but but it was just a blast being out on the scene with you know hanging out with these actors anything else yeah if you wanted to could you live off your celebrity since the movie or do you have to keep your day job I'm a teacher school teacher I teach at Redmond High School and yeah I can't afford to quit my day job yet so I yeah I'm not at that sass um but you know these cameo appearances are coming up with Seth Gordon being the a Hollywood director now he's established himself so he has always made an effort to get me in these little cameo appearances I was actually an identity thief if you've seen that one there was a scene that I wasn't visible from the front but you see the back of my head and I'd even realize that I thought I was going to be in the shot where you see my face but so we had a bunch of people go to the theater and I'm waiting over this is the scene where I'm gonna be and because I was in the gym where if you remember the movie where Jason Bateman is running past the security and sneaks into the where that business Jim is and he has to sneak in and and get some records so I was the person that was walking before him into the gym and I had turned I was honest on the camera I remember I was told to turn and look funny because there was some activity going on with that was trying to turn to distract the security guard but all you see in the movie I mean I'm not complaining but all you see is my my back of my head as I go into the gymnasium or the the locker room door so that was a kind of funny that I took all these people out family and friends and I thought I was going to be staged center stage on the on the big screen it's a little humbling but it was this funny but yeah I don't have a long-term no agent yet so I'm still working slaving away teaching this last year a possible follow-up from king of Kong but how about something like just a comment area but do you have enough of material that you could do a commentary on that movie oh this like in the PES like movies playing I could comment yeah I haven't been approached or thought about that I could offer some behind the scenes stuff so if we're will the one in the fun spot where Brian Q is going upstairs running talking with Billy on the phone I had no idea what was happening most of the movie I thought I was aware of what was happening but in that situation I knew he was doing something with when I was playing in the game he was watching me and there he was doing whatever but I had no clue when I first saw the movie when I saw him going up making phone calls I was just blown away I was going wow I didn't know that was happening so I could be yeah so that would be a good idea to have me just comment on what's happening through the movie I don't know if they would release it maybe a 25 year re-release with me talking about about what happened behind the scenes that'd be kind of cool good idea what else do you want me to hear what do you want to hear about guys there we go we got another yet another question as impossible like for beginning Donkey Kong players can you give some techniques or basic tips yeah at the last year's pinball show I was I did a DK 101 I'm was anyone in that sitting ok so I was basically going oh there's the scene I mean that's funny that he's able to pull that up so you see I'm I'm looking intently at the screen and my baby daughter or son is coming to sit on my lap and I could care less so that's but um okay what was your question I kind of forgot already Oh tips okay yeah so basically what I suggest when you're on the barrel screen is you know we get the bottom hammer now with all these point pressing techniques that we've been developing I would just go right up to the the top as fast as possible and without having the actual game here if I had an arcade I could kind of show you better but if you just picture the the game and if you noticed on the during the Donkey Kong when I did the the the white screen or the the grease pencil how I showed how the the barrels could be manipulated like if I move towards a ladder it would go down the ladder so that's a technique that's really important if you want to become really good at the game because you can't just allow the randomness of the barrels to to this HUF it's kind of like if you're playing baseball of a ground ball comes at you you just don't sit there and hope but good hop comes out you got to play the ball so that's basically that a skill that you need to get down as manipulating the barrels and then the pattern for the rivet screen there's definitely a pattern that I could easily show somebody the idea that I was gonna do was come up with a DVD tutorial would anyone if I show of hands if that's something you think would be of interest to anybody like if I came out with a DVD tutorial because that's what I was gonna do like have a nice just break it down into the basics and commentate and there's slow motion things and have it produced really nice that was the idea but I can never get a really quality videocamera if anyone has any suggestions on how I could get a nice quality I don't want to look like it's some grainy you know bad video if you have any ideas at all how I could get a nice camera and yeah that's one way if I could do it yeah that's true I could just do a computer version of it would it look it look might look like it's not the right version I don't know that's an idea though and then I know they have these joysticks that you can plug in is that true they can plug into your computer so I could at least use it a real joystick so that's on my agenda as to come up with like you said get some tips down there the next thing that you want to be able to do is get past the third elevators which you know a lot of people get to that eighty to ninety thousand mark and then can never go higher because of the third elevator so I'm out on the DVD I'd be showing you really how to break down that screen and get by that that elevator screen so I think that's one of my goals is to get a DVD done to show you how how to conquer the game or like when you do official tournament player or whatever what kind of levels are there on the game and what is the setting on the game when you play in those type of official settings and then also if you go just go to an arcade and play the game is there a way for you to easily detect what the level is on and then adapt your playing based on you know how the game works differently I remember when I was a kid sometimes I play one that was on an easy level and you could go up the ladder and touch the crossbar and then the barrels wouldn't hit you for example yeah good question so there is only one for the current game and when it first came out there was this version where you could if you climb up a ladder and just hang your hand on the girder the barrels would never come down so that was like the first Japanese version which had like two boards and what I was like a different kind of board system but since then may they must have realized that this this was too easy so they changed the program so that now if you go up on a ladder most likely the barrel will come down so there's only one version yet the older version not accepted by the if you try to do it world record so yeah there's it's not like pac-man where sometimes you have a faster pac-man or a slower pacman game so correct yeah so the most current version the one that I have I remember vaguely playing the one where you could go up and hang your hand on the let on the ladder but the ones nowadays you don't find that the old version ever know of have you ever had any good encounters with came out you get new kids every year coming in and have they seen the movie they talked to you about it yes good question so I do have kids that heard of the movie or seen something on TV for instance there was on Comcast did anyone see Len Leonard Maltin die get his right name right that he was talking about the documentary and I was watching Comcast trying to find it they and I never saw that segment where he would talk about it so kids would come in hey I saw you on Comcast kids I didn't even know they weren't in my class and then a lot every year I do make an effort to show the kids the documentary just you know around the chris i or winter break time I will put that in it's only an 85 minute movie so we'll take two days right before winter break and we'll play it and that gives the kids that appreciation of you know not the teacher side of me but you know the gaming side which kind of relates to all the kids you know they could see a young at heart teacher who can relate to what they do exactly is there any way after this seminar we get you to play some Donkey Kong yeah I can go over there after the seminar and I can show you how to just do some basics if there's a game set up yeah I'll definitely do that yeah anything you want to know about the film about Donkey Kong about philosophy of life and a question about in the end of the film when the other guy who submitted the video they had the obvious errors where was like patched together videos I mean how would you make that how to make you feel when they submitted his scores being official when it was just completely a mess of a video it was so yeah well at the time I was there I wasn't allowed to view the video because I was playing during the viewing of it and when I went over and it shows us in the movie where I asked Brian can I see the video and he goes out nope it's a one view one game showing one showing only or whatever he said and then I so I never saw it at that point but when I watched a documentary afterwards it was the scrambled a little bit and I've had tapes like that where I've been really scared to death because I invest two and half hours I remember after I finish a game it you know I'd be done at midnight some of these World Records took place long after the kids were in bed and I'd be viewing the whole thing on VHS back when we submitted VHS and I would watch it for two and half hours just praying that there was no glitch on it and on one of mine it wasn't like that shakiness but it was one little like glint something like a blip where Mario was walking along and I thought that was gonna not count count against my right now I'm like disqualify my record so so I was I was surprised when they would accept that but I didn't think he would falsify a tape but I thought they should probably find a better version and they did eventually I heard that they took it down and and then eventually they did verify like the original that was like some copy or something you sent in but yeah I know Walter regrets you know doing that at the time so I was with Walter actually I see him a lot at these events I was at the Denver Comic Con just last week so if you ever get a chance of Denver it's a great go to it's a great town so I was with Walter and he would mentioned that he would just he had never entered a score because I had gotten the nine hundred eighty five thousand like the night before and that's the first time when he went into the the backroom and entered on the computer he said he had never entered a score round on the spot so that's why he felt like maybe Billy if he had a score right there he should do the same for Billy's but looking back he realizes that the you know the tape wasn't wasn't the best version he should have probably waited yes like so you mentioned if you were to get serious you'd have to go back into the garage like God do you not play it all casually at the moment or and if you would play a game like what what do you expect that you would score today yeah that's a good question so I I can you know out of four games I usually can get to the kill screen if I'm if I'm pressing it makes it more risky so a lot of these live events I haven't you know I'm I don't want to go out there and I get five hundred thousand because the public doesn't understand that when you're trying to get a world record it you know that you're not going to succeed most of most likely you're gonna get really low scores so I've kind of had the way do I do I do I get a go for the world record or do I kind of sit back and you know put up a respectable score so that's kind of a dilemma live but if I'm in my garage I can sit there and restart the game because if you are trying to get a world record you just restart it if you have a bad start but who wants to watch me get to like the third elevators and then start again I mean to be able to burn out for people to watch somebody restart and restart so I I do have the the skill there's the point pressing techniques that will allow you to get in the million 100,000 so I can I'm able to do that if I go in the garage you know and devote eight hours of time every day like I think most of these Donkey Kong players today if you told them you must break the world record and you're not going to come out of your room until you do they're gonna probably be able to do it because we are all pretty at the same level of skills just a matter who wants to devote their life you know not your whole life but a majority of your time is it that important to get the world record and if it is then you're going to be driven to do so so that's where I'm kind of weighing it do I need to to go back and it'd be cool to get the record again but how much do I want to compromise my family time and you know my kids are getting old my daughter's gonna graduate in two years and she'll be out of the house so I don't want to miss you know there's a lot of times I missed her growing up and then during the documentary question yeah the first question was the other games in Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong jr. which can it's kind of a sequel to Donkey Kong is the other game the first score I got on the world record database was the donkey kong jr. score and since the Donkey Kong has taken over my I was gonna try to maybe go back and try to get the Donkey Kong jr. record again I don't have it I'm like third or fourth on the list now but I've decided that if I'm gonna play anything the Donkey Kong record is the people that one that people care about so I'd focus any time that I'm gonna devote on video games would be on on Donkey Kong I didn't have aspirations to get the Popeye record but now I'm not even going to go there because of the time that it would take to get the Donkey Kong record the second part of the question if we remember every phrase that artists remind me what you asked you Oh pinball yeah this I do like pinball there was one game I remember playing at a pizza place it's called cyclone was one of my favorite ones and I hope they have one here just it was a cool that seemed like it wasn't like a some of those games pinball that could seem like it this has a magnet down the middle or or whatever but this one seemed like it was fair and it was I was able to score a decent I don't know if I was just getting luckier but I do enjoy pinball as well I just don't play a lot of it because I don't have access to one of my garage it's a little larger can't really fit many in my garage getting older I'm wondering you ever thought about are you mentoring anyone to follow in your footsteps or do any of your kids have any interest yeah well my son during the filming of it was playing a little bit because I was out in the you know playing a lot but since then he's only he gets he's into the the NBA games on like the Wii or the Xbox so he he plays more of the console games and he got to a point where he was he could get past the third elevators a little bit right around the seventy thousand range but he hasn't picked it up and I don't think he has much interest at this point maybe one day he'll put in the king of Kong and look back and go hey I'd like to do that as well maybe but I don't have anybody in particular than I'm grooming but I'd like to to get a DVD out there and have it I don't not worry about sharing secrets and I'd like to get people as many people involved and going for the record as possible you're in great with the questions keep them coming I don't have nothing else really the to mention except based off of your questions so anything you'd want to hear about future of answer anybody know if this was covered in the movie I'm just curious maybe you could mention again what what inspired you to get involved in this whole deal at the start anyway oh the yeah the donkey kong records so it I think it did mention about I was laid off at Boeing so I got to work at Boeing I was my dad worked there for years he retired there and I finally got on at Boeing and then two years if you're aware of the way Boeing works so higher than they'll lay off and then it'll hire again so I think they're in the middle of a layoff again so I'm happy little bit leery of going back there but um so when I was laid off I was thinking of something I could do to pick myself up that didn't involve relying on someone else to for this or that so I just knew that if I I was good at Donkey Kong so I remember just looking up the the high score and I remember in back in college I got to this screen that I didn't know what happened I was walking along I was on this 20 level 20 to the kill screen I didn't know what it was called back then and all Sun I just tumbled and I didn't know if my game had a glitch in it or if there was an invisible level where you cannot see barrels you just have to know okay there's a barrel jump then you can't see it so it was kind of confusing so at that point I wanted to get back to that screen again see what happened I was around I was right right and around the 950,000 range so it was actually a world record I didn't know about it back then and then the second time I got there happened again and I was just like okay looks like there's no way of passing this mark I was trying to get to a million I was really close at you know mid 900,000 and then I didn't play it for a while I just I think I sold I sold it the next couple years later I needed some money sold it to somebody and then when I got laid off a Boeing I was just thinking about you know that that score must have been somewhere high up in the high world Islands was a world record but I don't I don't think there was I thought it was some somewhere up in the high scores up so I was looking online dune galaxies wasn't around back when I was first getting the score so I didn't have any way of knowing what the score was but then I just happened to find them on the website and the record was Billy's at like nine hundred and eight hundred and seventy five thousand so I go okay there's something I can do and wouldn't take that much time to get back like riding a bicycle just play for a couple weeks get the record and you know be done with it so of course it was more controversy than I would have ever asked for what the film had to go into the basics of what the controversy was the first version of the film was like two hours long can you imagine sitting through two hours of just techno some people might follow the technological stuff behind it but most people would just go right over the head and then be falling asleep so the first version had the double Donkey Kong does anyone aware of the what a double Donkey Kong is there's the board that plays jr. and Donkey Kong so for the sake of saving space in my garage I looked up how to um this this website had this double Donkey Kong offer and it was a guy named Ascot braising 10 and I and I emailed him and said is this like does this change the play of the game and he said no he he wrote the code that would switch between the games so you switch between the games by hitting like the two player buttons together and he goes no it's all outside of the game nothing changes the only thing that's different is this sound when you're walking and Donkey Kong it sounds like jr. squeaking up the vines and I wasn't trying to pull a fast one by anybody when I was playing the double Donkey Kong oh I was trying to save space and want to have two cabinets didn't want to mess around with putting the board in and out so I submitted that score and they went in the original version they talked about the double Donkey Kong how it was different but somebody who screened the original documentary said hey this is just over my head I don't what is this double Donkey Kong stuff so they didn't include all that controversy so basically that's yeah so there's a lot more to be told behind what you see in that 85 minutes there's so much footage that there is there is definitely room if they were to take the rest of the footage and they could probably come up with more yeah release material just you talking about that reminds me of that scene in the movie where I guess you're not home and some of those guys the officials or the other guys want to inspect your machine it seems like your wife just lets a bit and tear apart your machine yeah so here's ya know the that scene um so here's the story behind that they I know in the movie they are saying they Brooks I think she'll Roy Shildt mr. awesome was saying they broke in you know they didn't break into my house of course I was out I was actually working that day and I came home and the garage door is open and I see two guys in there playing my game I thought well these guys think is this I can open arcade I hadn't you know like they to see a video game that go in and hey let's play this video game so I pulled up in my driveway and it was very kind of them they weren't mean or anything we're just talking and they introduced themselves and then they just wanted to see what my board was I didn't know what they were there for and they were just wanting to play the game check and see if it played like like the real Donkey Kong plays they thought I was this was after the double donkey kong score where you know they threw that out which was okay and then I went back and got a regular Donkey Kong and submitted scores on that which were never verified uh there was a lot of stuff that went on that that isn't shown in the documentary how many scores I sent in like three or four two or three more scores that were not verified ever so they were in there and I was told later that my wife was there when they first arrived and she said okay you're gonna wait here outside till Steve gets home which she said in the movie and then I guess after my wife went to work they my my mother-in-law was there just to watch the kids and she had actually given them a quarter to play the game she was trying to be nice which is cool and then they just eventually just either they asked well can we somehow just come in and we'll just sit in the garage and we'll just wait inside so she let him in and they never playing my game so it wasn't a like they hacked and I broke the garage door latch and got in so so they were there and just inspecting they wanted to see if this was a real legitimate game and in the course of doing so Roy Shildt which they said in the movie where he had sent me the game the board that was I was using and he got it from another arcade vendor which I was had worked with his name's Mike Mike's arcade and you ties it let you know legitimate vendor so um Roy had this bought it through him and in the return address had Roy's name on it so I had no idea that thing we had the Box up down on a shelf because I just kept the boxes sometimes you want to put it back in the box so they they saw that name on there and I remembered us thinking oh great now they're gonna think that I'm in cahoots with Roy and he's tampering the board and I'm now putting in you know some fraudulent scores and that's where it led you know and that's where I was thought I was dead in the water I mean I I wasn't cheating but I thought now they're attaching me to Roy I'm not going to be able to get it Renny score recognized and at that point my friend here's where the movie came in they weren't even filming up until at this point my friend and this appears in the king of Kong his name is Mike Thompson he's a guy that smokes a couple times in the in the course of the video I would always share with them all these stories like you know what's going on hey I got the world record and I you know just talk to him about it and then I'm when I told him about the the incident with the inspectors and he was like just blown away going wow this is getting you know way up there and in people going crazy over the videogame so he had known Seth he didn't know Seth Gordon but he knew at Cunningham the producer who I I knew of him because he ad was a football player at the University of Washington when I was going through school he was the center now he's about my size but he used to be like 300 some pounds so he knew IDI through another friend and then he told ed Cunningham about the story and they were finishing up this other documentary called New York doll I've ever anyone heard of New York dolls or it's a it's a punk band Arthur Kane it's a great documentary if you haven't seen it so they were finishing that looking for another something else to look to follow so that's where they picked up when they heard about when the people have come into my house to look at my garage or look at my game that's when the the the documentarians came on and were filming from that point on so a lot of the story they had to kind of do backstory with and then when you see me going into fun spot that's where they had started there they're filming at that point that's a little insight information killscreen earlier is there any kind of consensus on can you get by that are there people trying to get by it does anyone know what will happen if you do get by it yeah there were well I know I was talking with Billy at one point and this wasn't on the document document documentary but when I was sending in scores like I had two or three scores that were nearing a million I remember I got a call from Billy at one point when I got nine hundred ninety nine thousand five hundred I was so close to a million and he calls a ser been playing Donkey Kong and I was talking about some stuff and and and this is where he they thought I was cheating because I had mentioned okay if you've ever if you've played Donkey Kong you notice that the first four levels that Donkey Kong is throwing these laser missiles every once in a while that do not appear after level four I mean they he throws well well barrels after level four but they're not we're near there's nowhere near the the velocity of the barrels that are in the first four levels so I just mentioned that the Billy I go yeah it seems weird that this game is like easier once you get past level four and he was kind of quiet I remember and so maybe thought that I had a rigged version of the game and then we'd shared some other stories about the game and I think he mentioned that yeah about trying to get past the kill screen he noticed that when you jump and you're in midair that even if the timer is down or you know like on the rivet screen if you're in the mid area won't kill you midair it waits until you land so Billy was trying to figure out when is the Mario going to die and then at that point jump and then see if he can like jump over that little interval of time where it was was gonna kill him off but of course when he landed and it would just kill him Mario anyway so there's no way that we know of it's impossible the the program doesn't allow you to get past the level 20 to you but I mean I don't even think it would be it'd be interesting to see if how high we could get the score with because there's capabilities you can remove the bug I'm sure that programmers can do that now but part of the the cool aspect of the game is that you are trying to maximize points before the kill screen so that's it brings this whole new approach into the game versus just trying to survive but it'd be cool to see what the maximum score would be if we were able to get rid of the kill screen bug I'd be interested to see what that that high score would be wonderful would give you over 2 million that'd be interesting to see if that would happen yeah question what was a total budget for the production of the movie and was it a meet is that a movie that was made for TV only or is it ah Qi shown in theaters oh yeah okay the budget I'm not aware of the budget I know that they were barely getting by like they were they weren't no one made money like the director and the producer broke even after they sold it a new line and it did have a release once once it was bought by a new line I had made a few there was a few movie appearances I made at a couple of these film festivals like in the true-false Film Festival I went over to to the true-false and then went down to Austin Texas for the South by Southwest Film Festival and then it did have a short run in small theaters it wasn't like nowhere near the the large you know number of theaters that you would see for a blockbuster Hollywood movie but there was a limited release for like a three-month period in the theaters and I saw it that was it was down at the U district there was a there's a movie off of the University way there's a theater if you're familiar with the university way there's like a theater it run in there so there was and there was one down it there's a theater down here in Tacoma I can't remember the name of it that I don't know so there was one I remember coming down in Tacoma for a Q&A session when they showed it there so it did have a limited release but now since Netflix has been out people are seeing it more and more every day to stun Netflix or you know just those ways of seeing for all the old like retro footage of all the various players was that old footage I was just all obtained by Twin Galaxies or how did you how did oh yeah that's a good question I somehow I wasn't involved with the filming or how they got it but yeah they were able to get some of those old footage of Walter day for instance and like of the time Life magazine I don't know how they got it maybe they just got it from Walter or some other person and it wasn't with the arcade scene back then here anything else inside stories if I think of anything behind the scenes wise if you ask questions I can maybe steer my memory up yeah yeah the developer his name escapes me I shouldn't know it by now so who developed knocking on my own the other is me remote I can't think of his name I should know it but he was in town I think he was on a few was at the Seattle Northwest pinball show but I know that I haven't met him yet or talk to him about it I don't think he speaks like fluent America but I'd like to meet him I know I think Billy's met him Billy went to Japan while back when he was like the arcade the gamer of the century back in 1999 I think it was so I think he met him but I haven't haven't met him I'd be cool to meet him though and and talked to I don't know if he didn't develop I don't think he wrote the code but he designed it he might have wrote in some of the code I the other questions yeah who was a driving force behind the movie actually liked the idea and then bringing it forward okay so my friend that I mentioned earlier that relayed the stories to Edie and Seth was kind of he's a Hollywood screenwriter he's written on if you've seen dragon fly with Kevin Costner you know or if you saw the show did anyone see john doe and it was on fox like i don't know these are dis old it's things he did he wrote the john doe which was a Fox series Fox cancels everything after a year so it didn't last long but it was a good show and he's so he's a screenwriter and he he knows a good story when he sees it so he knew the story he knew me and when they first started filming it they were wondering hate that so my friend's name is Mike and they're going hey Mike what this guy doesn't seem like he's very interesting Orson and he goes wait you this wait he'll when you get to know him more he'll he'll come out of his shell so Mike was kind of the guy pushing it and going hey this is gonna be a good story when at first they didn't think it was much there to view but yeah Mike Thompson's his name just curious if you've had any really good games but maybe you wish you were recording or trying to set a record but you didn't get it officially on tape or something have you had games like that um typically I refrain from trying to like go for our world right if I'm not gonna videotape it cuz I don't want to have that exactly happen where I'm like killing it and I go dang it why name is start the video so whenever I were just play it I would always you know if I'm gonna go for a serious run at the record I will always make record it for sure and the I got back from the Denver Comic Con I you know I was I got the lowest kill screen I think in history I was just trying to race it to the end I got like eight hundred thirty seven thousand something silly but it was a you know I wanted to get there for the the crowd that was assembled at the Comic Con it was cool and there's this guy named Richie Knuckles who's the guy who started this Conniff and I got on his shoulders and then there was a one Kong off the first one he put me on his shoulders and I wait I wait 30 more pounds and I do now so it's hard to believe that he was able to get me on his shoulders then so this time he's trying to get me on his shoulders and and he was struggling because he was trying to do me get me up on the shoulders from a squat position where you have to leg press me and that's a lot I mean I'm 200 I'm 195 so that's still a lot of weight to having to the leg press somebody so there's video of that on YouTube as well that and then he's he runs these Kong off events I kind of lost my train of thought where was I going with that anyone here somehow I got on Richie Knuckles I remember what I was yeah okay yeah so the long the short the long story to that is no so that what I was doing was I was going back to rich knuckles cuz when I got back from Denver I was that's where I got that little seed in my head like do I really I could I could get this record if I really want to get it I mean I'm not gonna say it's easy to get but so I went in the garage when I got back from Denver and I was playing it and I didn't it wasn't getting a world record score but I was I was playing really I was playing well enough that if I were to sit down and start recording I think you know if I were to sit in there for a while over the course of who knows I mean it can take up to a month to get these records sometimes so that's if I'm gonna start doing it I would definitely videotape every effort I would never just go in there and just play for you know casually and this hope you know I would always just record it so when the king of Kong you talk about these producers that made this movie my understanding is that they were involved in another project at the time and that they abandoned that project to do the king of Kong is it is that true and what was the project they were involved in and then also I've heard that there's going to be a screenplay for the king of Kong to make it into an actual motion picture and I'm wondering has there been any progress on that or has there been any casting in that area yeah so that I mentioned the New York Dolls documentary they were doing that one before they they were wrapping that up I believe they finished it the I think Edie maybe have had left and let Seth finish it but they had finished New York Dolls before they there may have been have been some overlap between the king of Kong and New York Dolls but I know they finished it up eventually and then the second part is there there is new New Line Cinema's bought the rights to the the movie version they were 13 and make a Hollywood the plan was to make a Hollywood version you know cast Billy and me as whoever whatever they I think there was mention of I always forget names the Iron Man actor whoever's Iron Man whose duties the yeah Robert Downey was maybe in one of the names brought up to play Billy and I think Jason Bateman's name came up for me at one time so this has been like five years so a lot of these movies that are bought by by Hollywood they can take up to 10 years to get done just because he need everything to line up all the actors that you want to have have to have be available at the right time the director has to to be available on the screenplay or this this the writing has to be there so they were having problems with their writing that didn't quite click for some reason they were they knew that they didn't want to screw it up because the you know because if you do a Hollywood version it may look so phony that you know because the documentary kind of looks like these guys real so they were worried that you know that makes men look the movie version might just look like a joke so that I think the latest idea was they were gonna have it be like a faux Doc like in the like if you see the office where it looks like it's a documentary of the documentary or something so that's the latest but they're still working on a script as far as I know they've had like three screenwriters come through and they're still trying to figure out the script that would then make it the best movie possible music you ever make another album that is a little more crunch more crunch ever untrim attires by the potty experience has he been potty trained efficiently now yes my son is officially five trained good question um so back with the music yeah came out with a second CD like a month and a half ago and it's a little heavier with eventually I yeah I want to start doing so like real guitars and more heavier stuff incorporating because the the problem is I have a limited budget so a lot of the the music I had to do was through MIDI and hiring musicians that are real guitarists take a lot of money and time so but eventually I do want to do one that's all just no MIDI just all raw like guitars and everything and and real drums because I have like the MIDI drums are on there but eventually yeah do like a real live sounding album like you're saying and my son as as what she brought up is he is is kind of now he's 13 years old he's grown up away a ways since then it's kind of I feel bad cuz he'll mention every once in a while he'll go you know he's worried about the public seeing him I was like I go hey that you were four year three or four years old you it wasn't you that was the bad person it was me I tried to tell him that but he he just gets so self he's worried that there's somebody out there is gonna be viewing it and laughing at him which I try to tell him he's kind of like my mother-in-law he he's really worried all the time hypochondriac worrywart you know all those elements that my mother-in-law has yeah so I try to calm his nerves about that yeah good question so I I wouldn't right now I would never just go out into the garage to play for fun but you know a lot of these events that have come up like at the Denver Comic Con I wasn't going for a world record so I was just playing just to get a kill screen so yeah I don't just go out there it's still enjoyable to play but I don't just go out in the garage and go hey I'm gonna go play Donkey Kong for fun so it's always got to be driven by a world-record score which I'm just so nervous to go into that world because if I do I'm so obsessive that I wouldn't stop playing until I got the record and it might just lead to just bad thing it's not like I'm not evil things but this self-destructive where I just stopped going to my job like where's mr. Wiebe oh he's not here today again yeah I got to be a teacher so I got so I got to be careful I'm really worried about like getting into the world again but it's on the edge in my mind I have one more question so that the score recently for those have been following it's changed hands with various different players I'm sure you've mentioned it hanxiang and there's some others yes name I forget is everybody basically have the same gameplay or are people implementing different techniques to to score points and I know I know you have a DVD out there where you show your gameplay in its entirety do you think people have pretty much copied that or are they doing it a different way I think the basics of getting the bottom hammer is there but I've seen other players that I'm not as risky as they are I've seen where they allow this fireball to be jumping around Mario versus I would just grab the hammer and kill the fireball which eliminates the risk but so I know there's people that are doing things a lot more risky and there's a couple other point pressing techniques that that I've learned since the video that I've put out on DVD so there are things that have been developed to get over a million 100,000 versus just breaking a million it takes more point pressing techniques now that I can do now and there it's it's so we're all kind of similar in in what we know gets points few people I've been watching do a little bit different things that that went in their gameplay but it's generally the same idea for the barrels the barrels is the one that you're gonna get your points on and that's where you got to maximize your points because it comes up on any level there's three barrel screens out of the six screens there's three barrels a pie factory elevator and a rivet screen that's six so the majority of them are the barrels where you want to maximize the points but yeah for the most part we're all in touch with you know the same fundamentals of point pressing I'm I'm still trying to figure out that hidden technique I don't know if there is one out there but I imagine if I found it it would be just made to the public next time I played a Kong off if I was doing it everyone would see oh there's another way of getting points so I imagine any new point pressing would be quickly caught by everybody in the in the hobby so I'm still looking for some counterfeit that is out there though do you play any other games besides Donkey Kong yeah what will be your other favorite video game from classic arcade game yeah the Donkey Kong jr. was the other one I had a high score on world-record score and then I did like like back in before Donkey Kong I discovered Donkey Kong I played pac-man I never got that greater score but I did know that I would go into the bookstores back in the day they would have the cheater books and I would just instead of buying him I should have bought one but I just looked at it and read through it and put it back on the shelf and took all the secrets but I did find the you know I was never at the status like perfect pac-man scores but I did like that game to start with Galaga is another I'm not very good with Galaga I enjoy playing that and there was another game jungle hunt and it was kind of like Donkey Kong where you kinda like a Tarzan character and you're jumping over things and swimming I was always thinking maybe go for that record I would but you know again I don't want to detract my from doc if I'm gonna spend time on video games I gotta focus on you know if it's gonna be Donkey Kong I gotta stick with that cuz I don't have a lot of time to devote to the games I've heard that on the rivet screen is it possible for you to jump over all those moving fireballs and have them fall into the gap of the rivet I've never actually seen that but I've heard it can be done and if can be done can you possibly just jump over it back and forth to get points to press points yeah so and when you're crossing a rivet there's that yellow rivet that when you cross it it removes the rivet so this is possible I've done it where if you time it right you jump over the rivet as the fireball is on the rivet and when the rivet is removed the fireball gets locked in that little gap and it just shakes back and forth so you wouldn't be able to jump it you know standing you know across ways but there is a way you could sit next to it and jump and if you've seen on the rivet screen where I go up by Donkey Kong and I jump in the air and move the joystick you could do that next to that fireball for a long time I guess that's that is maybe it would you know it'd be the same so I guess it wouldn't necessarily yeah I'd be the same mounted same time frame you'd be jumping up and down and getting the same number of points per minute or whatever it would be so that would be one way of getting more points but yeah so that would be one way so how did your wife rack to becoming a Donkey Kong Widow and then the next question is how is she reacting to your newfound fame after this documentary and your family I guess as a whole with this newfound fame good question so yeah she at the time I don't she didn't I don't remember her complaining too much when I was actually playing she would she would say you know have to go out after the kids are in bed and every once in a while I would like on the one tape that Derrick's had a messy diaper that was during the day I kind of cheated and played during the day and got caught didn't think that would ever end up on the big screen but I'm kind of getting tired here what was the lap your next part your question oh the newfound fame yeah so she hasn't complained much when she got to go to Rascal Flatts and we got to be seated like right in front of the stage and met Taylor Swift or she likes Taylor Swift this was like four years ago so a lot of these things that she's been able to be involved with the perks she hasn't complained too much you know I've got to meet Taylor Swift and hang out with the Rascal Flatts band and and go to a matchbox 20 was another concert we got to go to you but I'm yeah so and then nowadays she doesn't mind if it's occasionally I do events here and there be nice to have her come out to one or two and bring the kids out so I'm trying to get them to come if it works out where if I go to Denver so maybe at the next Kong off they could all come out and it's a good place to be anyway and they could well I'm playing town they couldn't visit or see the town one of the great things that made the movie amazing was the conflict between you and Billy Mitchell I know a lot of that done up more for the documentary I've unfortunately never seen both of you in the same place now when you do conventions and you're there together do you keep that little bit of antagonism going or do you actually be cordial no we're cordial so yeah he'll come up and we'll shake hands we don't and I mean I'm not through my decision or necessarily his but we don't seem to carry on conversations at length which I don't know if if he didn't want to talk to me that long or I mean I would be willing to sit down and talk to him but so it doesn't develop and do an ongoing conversation we'll say hi and that's basically it will shake hands but we're not trying to play up the the what you see on the yak you said it's it's hyped up - for the for the entertainment purposes exactly and people are who get bent out of shape about it or forgetting it's entertainment if it was just a his story his historical thing would be so boring who would ever even watch it so I mean you got exactly how to play up the elements that make it art I guess you would be a word for it and is there anywhere in Tacoma that you want to go that you haven't been to yet I'm gonna go to door keys door keys Roxanne I gotta go play that and set up a high score on Donkey Kong there so go to door keys yeah other questions how we doing on time Wow that's been an hour Wow I wish you guys my students would sit down like you guys sit down for an hour in ten minutes yeah I guess yes Roy um so I'm trying to things have long I forget that I've been doing this for like 13 years the documentary didn't start until like 2005 when they started filming but I've been you know the thought of things have happened that aren't even in the film so the Roy scenario somehow I do remember how this happened now so the double donkey kong score i submitted was turned in and it was verified by robert Merrik and somehow somebody else at Twin Galaxies noticed the sound I mentioned on the double Donkey Kong the sound of Mario is a squeaky sound and it's obviously a different sound and the regular marked Mario sound so I got a phone call or actually a first I had an email from Roy I didn't know Roy was and he was like said call me there do you know what they're planning to do with your record and I was like I don't know anything so I called them and he explained how he was mistreated and for his Missile Command score where they told his score and he was trying to ban with me to to go against the evil twin galaxies and save the world so he told me about the double Donkey Kong where they he asked what what game did you play and I go Donkey Kong he goes was it a double donkey Kanna I was going oh I didn't think that had anything but then when I thought about it for the purists sake yeah maybe yeah it's gonna not be counted it was a legitimate score now that if they want to classify it now as double Donkey Kong's score so that's how he first contacted me that you know your score is going to be disqualified because it was a double Donkey Kong and then from there he wanted to have me you know get her legit he helped me just get a board because I didn't have a real board yet and I ordered one and it came in and it was broken and that when I ordered a board on eBay it was busted it didn't work I plugged it in it didn't work and I couldn't get my money back the person who was selling it just fell off the face of the earth and I think there was about ten other customers that did and I saw some of the other items that were I mean I only paid like about a hundred bucks for it some people bought like two thousand dollar machine or something this guy just law I did get in touch to them eventually he said yeah I've been really sick and then he said clean off all the connectors like and then try it again I tried it didn't work so then I told the Roy I'm I can't get a board so that's when he got the Mike's arcade board who had actually contacted at one time about getting a board from Mike but so then that's where Roy came in and it was kind of like my little coach in the corner like come on you can get him come on which I wasn't trying to necessarily beat Billy I was just trying to get a high score and but Roy was kind of trying to seek like I mentioned in the movie about and seeking his revenge on Billy through through me start trying to get back at back at Twin Galaxies is having me be the instrument that is weak yeah the Nintendo I was not really approached but I did meet the people at the Redmond office and I had to or through their facilities and so they surprisingly they didn't really see an opportunity to promote I guess they figure Mario's as big as he's going to get anyways everyone you know knows Mario though so it doesn't really gonna help Nintendo having us push push Mario and Nintendo so I they didn't really pursue any endorsement deals with with the king of Kong but I did meet thing I haven't had a dinner at one point with the people at my Nintendo and they gave me a weave game and for free and stuff had some stuff given to me from them but that was I was about as far as it went yeah I read some very obscure article on the internet that said that you were scheduled to be on the TV show Survivor is that true or not true true there was one point I forgot about this okay so yeah good story so I was that's why I lost thirty pounds I had to go into the weight room and or go into the gym so anyway I was so I get these emails ever occasionally from artists or musicians but this one was from some people that were passing through I didn't know they were involved with with Survivor at the time but they were going down to the the final episode you know where they film and on the live studio and and reveal the winner so they were going down to that of that filming and I just mentioned that hey once they said they were going down there I said yeah I always thought maybe I would want to go on Survivor cuz my my wife had submitted a videotape years ago she would love the show and wanted to go and she she she submitted an application to go on and then I told him had I thought it'd be cool to go on so then I got a like a email a couple months later from these guys and they said yeah we were gonna talk to the person who the whoever is the person that is in charge of getting the the on the show and we'll get back to you then I got an email from the casting director I guess would be the rule of that person saying hey we want to fly you down to LA and we're gonna you know normally you have to do this in this submission process you get have to go up your way up the ladder but I just went right up to the top where I get interviewed with Mark Burnett and Probst this the show host so I'm down there interviewing and I was told like pack your bags you're gonna you're like on you're not on the show for sure but we think you know you're good good chance so I had my bags packed had to go and I bought all these show shirts and wardrobe they told me to get certain colors and certain types of clothes to bring down to the show then I shift them all the way to LA because I was they told me to do that and they go okay we'll get back to you in and verify if we're gonna be on the show and then they said we we decided that not not this time and but maybe next time which I don't think will be next time but then they called another week later and they said well we want you to be on amazing razor with Billy and I go well I'll do it I don't think Billy will do it with me then they go okay we'll call Billy and then Billy didn't want to do it for whatever reason he couldn't do it I think he had too much didn't have enough time like to go from waking his family but I almost was on Amazing Race too I guess let's look yeah they got my clothes back yeah sounds good there's the doing the Donkey Kong song right there well thank you very much everyone for coming out thanks to the questions

Channel: balliswild

Views: 12,469

Keywords: Steve Wiebe

Id: suVFiT5tLqs

Length: 72min 49sec (4369 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2013