Wednesday 4 November 2009

Behind the Scenes at E14

Hard as it is to believe, Emotionally Fourteen is now over a year old. We’ve seen the site go from strength to strength, actually maintain a steady series of updates and get shitloads of DVDs and books to give away to its lucky readers. And things don’t look to be stopping anytime soon. Robert Wade and I, the founders, are still here – but we’ve been joined by two new reviewers, Blake Harmer (Asian Cinema Specialist) and Charlie Barnes (TV Specialist).

So, for our birthday week, I thought I’d show you, our faithful readers, what goes on behind the scenes at E14.

E14 runs on a 24 hour system. An article goes online every day except Sunday at 10am, on the dot. From that moment on, it’s yet another madcap rush to get the next one ready on time. So here, it is, A Day In The Life of E14.

10:00am
Brad arrives at the office. He makes a pot of coffee, and a batch of thermite. He boots up the computer.

10:15am
Rob arrives at the office. He begins sorting the post into three piles: bills, review copies, and hate mail.

10:20am
Brad finishes checking his FaceBook and starts work.

10:30am
Charlie arrives and watches an episode of Fringe.

10:58am
Blake arrives at the office. Brad told him he’s supposed to be there at 11:00am, so it’s nice he always makes his deadlines.

11:00am
With the work load distributed, everyone gets down to it. Brad reads a book, Blake plays on his PS3, Charlie watches an episode of Fringe and Rob brainstorms ideas for his features this week.

11:05am
Rob pitches his ideas for features – all of which are about video games.

11:35am
With only an hour and twenty five minutes left to go until lunch, the writers decide to waste some time by clicking randomly around on YouTube. Despite heavy competition from a little girl describing the plot of Star Wars, and The Wanky Shit Demon; the Zero Wing Bohemian Rhapsody remains a team favourite.

12:00pm
The writers break for lunch. Productivity is unusually high as Rob has two articles on video games half-completed, Blake has looked through his review pile, Charlie has watched three episodes of Fringe and Brad has got his tongue caught in the stapler.

12:10pm
Rob talks about how useful Twitter could be. No-one listens to him.

1:00pm
Returning from lunch, everyone tries to get on with their workload. Rob chats with Blake about video games, whilst Brad threatens them with anime underground fighting movies directed by Uwe Boll unless they get their arses in gear. Charlie watches an episode of Fringe.

1:30pm
Work stops for an Arkham Horror break.

4:45pm
With the day more or less completely gone, and the world destroyed by Azathoth, the gang finally knuckle down to actually getting some work done. Blake grinds his way through Tekken 6, Rob writes his article on One Trick Ponies In Video Games, Brad desperately tries to squeeze more comedic mileage out of his tired Star Wars gags, and Charlie watches an episode of Fringe.

5:30pm
Blake gets bored and decides to go home. He promises to have his reviews in by the 11:00pm deadline.

6:00pm
Brad and Rob get together to record the latest installment of Dickass DM. To do this, they use a highly sophisticated piece of equipment referred to as “The Holodeck”. Once Brad has programmed in the game, Rob actually battles through the various monsters and adventures we have come to know and love, often risking life, limb and sanity. Once this is done, Brad types it up in script format, to make it look like they actually played a gamebook over MSN Messenger.

7:00pm
Rob has photoshopped a picture of Pyramidhead in a Subway uniform. It’s not actually relevant to his article in any way, but he’s so proud of it, that he’s determined to fit it in somehow.

7:30pm
Brad has finished his article on the time that he spent an afternoon working as chauffeur for Jardis, Queen of Narnia, or some other such meandering, surrealist bollocks, and sits down with his review pile. Blake and Rob have already helped themselves to all of the good stuff, so he sits down with a copy of the Bill Cosby and Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Goats on a Boat.

8:00pm
Charlie has watched eight episodes of Fringe, and so calls it a night.

8:30pm
Brad finally gets his and Rob’s articles programmed in and ready to go. All that remains now for him to do is track the site stats, plug it on Facebook and Twitter, and have an aneurysm.

8:45pm
Rob goes home to his loving wife, kids and dog in a little semi-detatched house, where his wife greets him with a freshly made shepherd’s pie and his children shower him with affection. Actually, he goes to the skip around the back of the office and crawls underneath a discarded duvet, in a vain attempt to pretend that he has a life outside of the website.

8:47pm
Brad makes no pretence that he has a life outside of this website.

9:00pm
Rob eats cold beans from a tin.

9:15pm
Blake finishes his article, but doesn’t e-mail it to Brad yet, because he feels like being a tool.

9:45pm
Brad finishes another mass-market paperback fantasy novel: the thinking man’s underground fighting movie.

10:00pm
Paul Selman comments on a niggling point of the day's article.

10:58pm
Blake e-mails in his article, as promised, before chuckling like a loon and rolling into bed.

11:00pm
Brad passes out.


Most websites don't make it past their first three weeks, let alone their first year, and we couldn't have done it without this site's many supporters. Amongst others we would like to thank:

2 Entertain, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 4Digital Asia, ADV Films, Anchor Bay Entertainment UK, Arrow Films, Beez Entertainment, Best Medicine, Big Vision Entertainment, Brain Damage Films, The Ceaseless Heckling of The AI of Infernal, Chang and Eng Bunker, Chaosium, Codemasters, Leonard Cohen's Strategic Initiative, Constable Robinson, Crazy Woolworths Customers, Dalen Books, Day Dreamer Interactive, Ronnie James Dio, Dorchester Publishing, DreamWorks Live Action, E1 Entertainment UK, Ecco the Fucking Dolphin, Electronic Arts, Entertainent In Video, Fabulous Films, Forks High School, Rutger Hauer, High Fliers Video Distribution, Highlander: The Animated Series, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, Iceberg Interactive, Icon Home Entertainment, In2Film, ITV DVD, Steve Jackson and Fighting Fantasy Books, John Murray (Publishers), Robert Kirkman, Lionsgate UK, Little Brown Book Group, Manga Entertainment, Marillion, The Mekon, Metrodome Distribution, Monster Films, Morrissey and His Smug Baby, MVM Entertainment, Nightshade Books, Not Being On Fire, Nouveaux Pictures, Optimum Home Entertainment, Orbit, Orcs, Orion Books, Palisades Tartan, Pan MacMillan, Paramount Home Entertainment, Sarah Jessica Parker's Vagina, Penguin, The People of Hokkaido, Piatkus Books, Playlogic, Popcap Games, Natalie Portman and her legal team, Quercus Books, Quirk Books, Random House, Revelation Films, Revolver Entertainment, Salvation Films, Simon & Schuster, Steve "Inventor of the Fleshlight" Shubin, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Spectrum Games, Sphere, Star Trek, Star Wars, Tecmo Koei, THQ, TNA Entertainment, Two Hour Wargames, Ubisoft, Video International, Waddingtons, Warner Home Video, Professor Heinz Wolf, and the Xenomorph with the Party-Blower.

And, of course, everyone who has ever read, commented on, or posted a link to this site. We wouldn't be here without you.

5 comments:

  1. Your timeline is all screwed up. How is 11.35am 'an hour and twenty minutes left to go until lunch' if lunch is at 12:00pm?

    I hope that's a niggling enough point for you... and, oh, look! Damned near as bang on 10:00pm as you could hope for!

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  2. Now my actual comment, rather than the comment I felt obliged to provide due to my mention above... (-blushes-)

    Congratulations on the anniversary, guys! It's been a blast reading and commenting!

    Oh, and if E14 was ACTUALLY run from an office in the manner indicated above, I might actually accept that writing position you keep offering me... Maybe one day, eh? ;)

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  3. Congrats lads. This fellow blogger knows what these little landmarks mean. ;)

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  4. Well done all of you, next step, podcasts...

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  5. great work guys :) as always.

    wow paul, youre a full time comment box regular.. isnt that a job position anyway? I mean, whenever i log onto E14.. i always spend a moment thinking.. "I wonder what Paul is disecting now...?"

    btw.. im sure Dio will be thrilled with his 'thanks'

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