noclip
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We Made a Half-Life 2 Documentary for Valve
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 18:35:20 +0000 UTCYOUTUBE LINK: https://youtu.be/YCjNT9qGjh4
Hey folks,
You know I don't tend to do posts about Secret Tape (our for-hire alter ego) on here but I know there's a lot of Half-Life fans on here, and we posted about last year's doc, so forgive me!
I talk about it a bunch in this month's Patron Show (going up tomorrow) but the crew spent a large amount of the past six weeks producing this documentary. We filmed 35 people in various cities in both West Coast US and Europe. We hunted down lawyers and voice actors and people we didn't get last year. All to create a 2 hour documentary that might be our finest work yet.
I know some of you are more online that others so I wanted to give you a heads up.
Massive thanks to Joey Fameli for filming so much of this with me, Olle Enqvist for going to Paris and boarding Gabe's boat, to Frank Howley for insane amounts of gameplay, to Jeremy for helping to film the local interviews and doing a bunch of color work, and Dan Silverstone for his awesome motion graphics.
And thanks to all of you for helping us build a documentary crew so well respected and well known that Valve came knocking, twice!
Last year I did a Thanksgiving Video about producing the HL1 documentary and I think this year I'm gonna do a full blown patron-exclusive director commentary so keep your eyes peeled for that.
If you have any questions about the documentary shoot them in the comments here and I'll happily answer the ones I can. Otherwise see you in the Patron Show tomorrow!
Danny
Comments
Hunter Holmstrom (Vub)
This is awesome, Half life is one of the legendary games to still hold up today.
Andrew Ettensohn
I agree Danny, this is probably the best doc you guys have produced to date. I hope other major studios see the work done here and look to Secret Tape for their own documentaries!
Devon Buckley
I.. I should probably *play* Half Life 2 before I watch this huh 😅 What's worse is I've owned all the games, including Black Mesa for years now and just.. haven't got round to it. I guess now, at the 20th anniversary, is as good a time as any! Okay I typed this and then thought "dude this is a 20 year old game you've probably already seen most of anyway, you can watch the doc AND you should play the game" lmao
Noclip
Appreciate it, will fix
Noclip
We didn't have time to drive back so I'll be flying up some time in December to grab our equipment and drive home. I wanna visit some of Eastern Washington this time when I do. See those red rocks for myself! It was dark the last time I did it sadly
Noclip
hehe yup. I wanted folks to be even more surprised as I was when he did it.
Noclip
It absolutely did not, except that it probably inspired the entire game because Ricochet is life.
Will Bryceson
Congrats, the entire doc just exudes quality, care and attention. I hope the shots signing the poster at the end was for you (and a huge paycheck 😅)
Ross
Yeah yeah yeah, this! I know you've mentioned some fans feel weird about the secret tape stuff (I don't at all), but I feel just having a YouTube account or a link list of "secret tape projects we're proud of" would be great as you guys develop more projects over time
MoonBright
Re: the people you asked about ricochet, Do you think making that game had any direct impact on hl2?
TheOtherWes
Some clips from the ending of episode 2 are shown. So pretty spoilery for both plot and gameplay
Zack McCoy
How spoilery is the doc? I haven’t actually played part 2 yet and I am holding out for the RTX version being worked on.
Jordan Cohen
Halfway through watching and I'm absolutely loving it. Congrats on both landing this, and totally nailing it! I'm sure the answer is yes considering when the person's name showed up, but was the "surprise reveal" around 29:30 into the doc intentional? Chills!
Riccardo Margiotta
Oh man, that seemed to come of nowhere and gave me a little chill! Had to immediately rewind to listen to it again. And I'd totally forgotten he also voiced Barney, hearing the two back to back is amazing.
Bavo Debraekeleer
Haven't seen it yet, but when the video appeared on my YouTube feed I went straight to the end to check if it was you guys! 😆
Connor McNamara
Arguably the most important question - did you remember to bring your lights home from Valve this time? Or is this why they were there for so long? 😛
CaseyD
Correction for you: captions list the person who made the distributed build system as "Mike Desalt" - his name is Mike Dussault. He went on to work at SpaceX after Valve.
Noclip
Yea I'm gonna update the site soon. But otherwise probably my social media. or the Secret Tape twitter https://twitter.com/findSecretTape
Noclip
Yea there are so many moments where I was just giggling to myself with joy. When Mike did the voice my mouth was agape, haha.
Noclip
Oh wow, that's a tough one. So many things. I think how different it is from other studios in terms of it's size and ethos. People are very smart there, and self motivated. I honestly felt very comfortable there, like it's a place you can be creatively autonomous and still work with other people. I've always hated rigid management structures. I think I'd do well working in a place structured like Valve. It makes me happy about the way we collaborate at Noclip.
Noclip
None! We did ask but didn't have enough time to chat him down.
Graham Walker
What was the most interesting thing you learned about valve/ half life from this process?
Riccardo Margiotta
Always seemed suspicious you kept leaving your gear over there. 😄 It's a magnificent doc, it just flew by and I'd happily have watched another two hours. I'm still in disbelief at how much they shared - I'd have paid good money to see your reaction when they first showed off the ice gun!
Kevin Young
When I saw the runtime on Friday evening I was screaming with joy. Already watched it twice! Incredible work y’all
Jazz Jackrabbit
Any idea who the Korean intern was and where they ended up?
Alxa
Funny to get this mail WHILE I'm watching the doc... Looking forward to the commentary.
Mathijs
Congrats! I bet it feels very validating to have a company like Valve coming to you for both documentaries. I sincerly hope they paid a lot of money to keep all the other projects going and keep Noclip stable and financially healthy for 2025 :D
Dan
Always happy to hear more about the Crew's work! I noticed https://www.secrettape.video/ seems to be pretty sparse; where's the best place for us to find these projects if we don't catch the announcements here or stay up on the Discord?
scodiak
Already watched it and loved it. Thank you so much.
