 Hoi-hoi, you may be wondering why does he have a pair of headphones on? Well, today we are going to do a review of Mr. Clay's SCP short film 096. This came out, I want to say yesterday, day before yesterday, day before yesterday. And there's been a lot of buzz about it. I've watched it once. This is not a blind playthrough. Forgive the irony. But I have some thoughts and I want to give those thoughts now. I also want to watch it again and make sure that I have, this is my second viewing. I want to make sure that I actually still agree with my initial take, which is by the way, I'm going to make this point right now, it is a very good video. And if you haven't watched it yet, you should. This is not a substitute for you going over to Mr. Clay's channel. The link will be in the description. In fact, it'll be at the top of the description just so you don't miss it. To go over to his channel and watch the video. I'm going to have a smaller version of the video here for me to react to. Let's get started. I will say I was impressed very much. I was very impressed with the visual effects for this. I don't know what their budget was, but it couldn't have been super high. Clay Belly, a bell did a very, very good job with it. I think this is mostly, I mean, outside of the acting involved, obviously. This is mostly his thing. So and the two actors, James Fitzgerald and Stephanie Hap did a really very good job. I think this does a really good job of setting up the atmosphere we're going for here. I think there are a few negatives though to having something like this when okay. So the thing is, what's the target audience for this? Probably people who are already fans of FCP content, right? So then the idea is, you don't have to explain a lot. You can just show some pictures and people automatically will associate it with what they need to associate it with. And 096 is so well known. But I feel like there could be a little bit more done just a little bit to bring in people who aren't already fans of FCP content. This is a good transition by the way. And I think the earlier scenes, like they set the right tone. If you already know what the FCP foundation is, but if this is your very first video or very, very first interaction with it, maybe not the best. Again, very good. I'm just going to give you these little nitpicks here and there. I actually have somewhere around here, a ID tag looks exactly like that, that I picked off of Etsy. And I wonder if they got it from the exact same place. It looks exactly like that actually. I like this guy. I'm going to pause it right here, just so I can have a little bit of a discussion. Okay, so this woman is not being picked up by whatever microphones they have very well. I don't know if this was an intentional choice on their part or not. I wouldn't think so. But her volume is coming in much lower than I think it needs to be for this scene. Added to that is the fact that I'm sure whatever direction she was given was something along the lines of remain professional but passive. Or not maybe not passive, probably not passive, but like unemotional, right? No emotion in this. This is entirely professional. And she does a good job with that, but her tone is lower. So she's quieter in the scene. And I think maybe that's why she's not getting picked up by the microphone properly. He seems to be getting picked up perfectly well. So just a little nitpick. It's not a huge deal. There are a couple of areas where I probably will stop it and show you what I'm talking about a little bit more in detail. I also, she's a great actress. She's doing a great job here. Probably not the, I'm not going to say, I mean, like these are probably the best takes they had, but there's just something about her portrayal here that doesn't sit right with me. It just doesn't feel believable. I like a better way to put it. All right, we're going to talk about him in a little bit, but he comes in a little quiet too, actually. Background noise is loud. I'm going to bet there was really no way they could fix this in post outside of doing ADR. And that's expensive. Bringing your actors back in, having them watch the somewhat finished product and say, okay, I need you to re-record your lines into this microphone. And we're going to put it over the thing. And this happens a lot. You'll see it in movies. Every once in a while, it's very noticeable, but done well. You don't notice it in a couple places. I feel like they probably, they probably could have done that, but it wouldn't have been worth the cost and effort to do it because it's throughout the entire scene. So this is a little quieter that needs to be. The room tone is really loud. And I kind of think it's intentional here. I think it's an intentional choice to make this seem like a workspace, but still. You notice right there, I'll replay it again. Listen to her. See how that went really, really quiet? You almost couldn't, I mean, you crank up the volume, you can hear her fine, but you almost couldn't hear her there. That's, that's a problem. It's a tiny problem, but it's still a problem. He has less of a problem because most of the time he's leaned in and engaged with the scene. She's leaned back and she's talking in a more measured tone, which is the reason why the issue is not necessarily either actor. It's they're both doing what they're supposed to be doing here, but because she's supposed to be passive or at least unemotional and kind of leaned back and like this. And he's leaned in and, you know, aggressive and like, he's getting picked up by the microphone a little bit better often, but just right here, where he leans back, you'll see here and get a lot quieter. I also feel like maybe some of my earlier thoughts, my earlier thoughts was that she wasn't exactly doing a very good job here of like, she was doing a good job. Let's not put it that way, but it was, it could be better. She could have read the lines a little bit better. I think part of the problem is just, I can't hear her properly. I think she's putting just the right, she's doing it well. I just can't hear her as well as I can hear him right there. Really quiet. You must be more specific doctor. I'm going to stop mentioning, I'm going to stop mentioning the sound problems, but they are, they're throughout the entire thing. I'm going to stop mentioning them, but they're not going to stop. I might, might pause it a couple more times on particularly bad areas. I think there's one towards the end of this scene that actually stuck out to me. Right there again. Unfortunately, it's a little too late for could have been this doctor. That part, it's enhanced by the fact that they're now playing a little bit of music. The sound balance is off because they have to keep this, they, like I said, they have to keep what they have here. And if they crank it up any higher, that background tone, that room noise, is going to overpower anything they do. So they probably can't crank their volumes up anymore. A little overacting there. Wouldn't have probably gone to that take if I could have avoided it. All right. Now they were done with that scene. I think it was solid acting from both sides, probably a couple places where it could have been better. I think their direction was probably pretty solid. Generally, you have to guess sort of in what the direction was because you never know. Maybe the actors just made a choice that worked. We're moving on now into a different scene. So we're going to go ahead and just completely change our focus here. I will say this is an adapted screenplay for lack of a better way. This is, I mean, clearly it's an adapted screenplay, but it's almost directly adapted from a SCP-096 log. And the, I should say, lack of quality. It's not a bad, really written thing, but it's on the SCP Wiki. It's not a badly written thing for the SCP Wiki. The SCP Wiki's quality standards are not particularly high, especially with the earlier works. So while it's good enough for the Wiki, it's not really very good if you compare it to a professional work. And I feel like this is let down by trying to adapt something that is so mediocre in the first place. Part of that's contributing to a pacing problem in this. It's very slow. We haven't seen any real action at all, and we're almost five minutes into it. One thing I'll tell you about voice acting, and I think the voice acting here is fine. When I do it, I like to think unless the director tells you otherwise, or the voice director tells you otherwise, or you're, you know, like the main character of a thing, your job is to basically remain unseen. And I know you're your voice actor, of course your job is to remain unseen, but you shouldn't be noticeable. You're just there to help continue. Like if you're doing a little bit like this, your job is not to be like, oh, I'm here. I'm doing your job is to be as neutral as possible. You just go unseen, be unnoticeable. Nothing special is happening. Just be a person in the scene. And that's it. And these people do a really good job of that. I think the Vulcan voice acting is somewhere. And I haven't the first time around I didn't, I couldn't spot him in it, which is probably a good sign for his ability. Well, it's the Vulcan of course he's great. Also, I can't tell if this is computer animation or actual physical acting. It looks to me like it's computer animation. But I don't know for sure. First time around I wasn't sure and I'm still not sure. That line right there, that line read would not have used that. That right there, it should hold, right? That one's fine. I'm being so nitpicky here. Dude, that doesn't sound believable to me. I would have used a different line reading. Here we go. All right. Now that she's leaning in, her voice is a lot easier to hear. The microphone is almost certainly sitting right above the middle of the table. I would bet they have like maybe one, they probably should have had two, one towards him and one towards her. I could be wrong, maybe they did have two, and if that's the case, they should have been positioned better. This is a dumb plot point. Little slight mispronunciation of janitorial there, probably deserved a second take. I'll replay it for you. Is that a little awkward there? Just a little. Okay. You know what? I'll wait until this plot point comes up again. I particularly like this sequence and what's interesting about it is that it's essentially all computer animated or, I doubt very much of it's practical, but it still does a very good job with the SCP here. That's Vulcan. Okay. That maintained vector guy. That was Vulcan. Okay. I spotted him finally. Also, we're going to have to talk about the 096 scream at some point, but we're not. It sounds right here. He sounds like screaming Jimmy Barnes from that video, where he's up in the sky going, ah, that's what he sounds like right here. Hear that? This is very good. I really like the way this is done. And there's an, I think it's this part of the scene, except for that. First of all, that wasn't ineffective. Okay. Two things. First of all, and second of all, it wasn't ineffective. You did slow him down. Maybe you should just keep doing that so that the SCP foundation can get set up further down range. You can see exactly which direction he's going. Just, you know, there's a high, you learn later, there's a highway a little bit further down. Clear that highway. Make sure it stays clear. I'm saying not the best line rate right there. The fire. Hold on. It doesn't sound like it's along with that scene. Amazing special effects. Also, you just slowed him down again. Now this part I really like. Okay. You're building up tension here on a creature. And if people know about it, which there's not enough, I don't think there's enough setup to let you know exactly how this creature works. I think, well, maybe it is. I mean, you can't see his face. There's, there's a lot here and there that does a lot to show in no tell. I think they maybe could have done a better job with that a little early on. But for where it is, if you already know what 096 does, that look back right there, that look back right there really helps like sell the tension of this moment. Because not only is he looking back to see what happened, right? But there's a possibility he saw its face when he did that. Again, that's a lie. That's a fucking lie. You slowed him down. They're just like, all right, well, all we did was slow him down. That's not an effect. That sounds like an effect to me. Let's see if they could have solved this problem. That line for when and not if, but when probably should have had him redo that. He's really quiet here, which is fine if the microphone is picking her up better. So I'm not entirely sure the way this character is being played, the word asshole works. It sticks out, right? He seems like a very upper crust kind of guy using the word asshole there. It just doesn't work for me for this character. Also, pay attention. He knows he's being watched right now. This is important later. Okay. They're using, I'm almost sure, they're using the audio from the actual scene in the voiceover here. And with the additional noises, the voice and everything, I'm going to continuously talk about this because it's the biggest problem with this movie. They should have probably just recorded regular voiceover for this. Like right there. I don't even know what she said. Lived on a small farm. What? I got nothing. And then there's that stupid fucking scream again, which undercuts all of the, all of the tension. This is a good scene too, by the way. Can I make a suggestion here? And this is just from my own experience of what, well, not even experience. This is just my own suggestion from like how I would do this. Um, don't show him at all. Like at all. Like the above, like really far above when the aircraft was good. But you're dealing with a monster that can't be seen, right? Well, this is the issue though. In order to, for some of this plot to work, you have to see, you have to have him visually on screen, but we'll get to that later. Although you don't need to, there are other ways you're going to work your way around that by showing him like a picture of him being completely scra- completely scrambled, not just his face, but completely scrambled on the scramble gear. I think if you'd done it that way and not shown his physical form, this would have had a lot more attention to it. But once you see him, and also hear that stupid fucking scream, no offense, it loses a lot of the tension. What is the point of this interview is what I really want to know? Like, what story point does it drive home? I want to go into detail about why I don't like that, but I don't really think it's kind of a nitpick. Like her delivery of that, everything about that I didn't like. The writing, the delivery, his response to it worked pretty good, I guess, so that's not everything. And then just, let's move on. Here's the problem. They're having her portray someone who is cold and emotionless here, but every once in a while, she has emotion come through in what she says, but she doesn't actually change her tone of voice, which is, I would think it'd be a directing thing. So I mean, but it's, again, these above shots are really good. And again, the scramble gear, if I said, if they change it so it didn't just cover the face, but cover the whole body, then it would be quite an interesting thing, I think. And to be fair, nothing about this really tells you, that's the other thing. If you don't know 096 already, then you don't know why it just scrambles the face and not the whole body, or why the guy that saw it running across the thing wasn't killed. Probably could have shifted the scramble gear stuff earlier, because you do see scramble gear in, no, you don't. I don't think you do anyway. But you could have put scramble gear on those first two guys that died, just as like a precautionary measure, and then had it fail for them. Well, this does move pretty fast though. I don't know, I'm like on the fly trying to think of how to fix this plot. There's some work that needs to be done to it, but I don't think I have the solution in my mind. Yeah, that's definitely evolving. I keep saying I'm gonna stop talking about the sound, but god damn it. It keeps coming up. It ruins the scene. It doesn't ruin the scene. I think this is a very well done thing. And for the budget that they had, ADR wasn't probably an option, and redoing this whole scene probably wasn't an option. The day after and they were like, oh, this sound is not as good as I'd like it to be. Bad. Okay. There are a few places here where you could tighten this up, take out parts to make the pacing better. This is one of them. This has been scratched out by hand. Who did this cut over to the thing happening? Not tell me what's about to happen and then show me the thing that happened. That's a little too clever by half. That's the thing where you're like, I'm gonna, I can't get you. And it's one of those things is like, I can't give up this line, right? You think you get this? Yeah, that's one of those lines where you're like, you write it and you're like, oh, I've got to leave this in. You shouldn't have left that in. Change the way he reads his who how part to be a little bit more final than just go to this. Although I think this is actually paced poorly too. I think you could do a better job with it. Maybe. I don't know. You could probably start right here. Everything before this, all the way up to that line I mentioned could be gone. Maybe so you'd have to set up that scene there part up where he's putting the bag on a little bit better, but that's about it. He said it. He said the thing. Remember, he knows he's being watched. He knows he's still on camera. He knows all of that. And yet, sorry, it's just a little writing thing that bothered me. Also, can I make a point here? Alexey being dead or not dead, this reveal here at the end, which by the way, spoiler alert, it doesn't do anything. Is he? Because he just admitted basically that he had done something deliberately if they were even slightly suspicious, which they are. This part. I can only guess that this is supposed to be like a sequel hook, because this is like a huge plot point to drop at the end of your thing that doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't mean anything. Either that it was included as part of like an earlier draft. And it was just kind of left in because they liked it. And it was still seemed kind of clever because it's a twist, but it's a twist with no setup. That means nothing. So and that's the thing. We'll let the credits play through. They're not too long and you should be able to see who did all this work. Jesse D'Artrey. There's the Vulcan. Oh, and who adapted the screenplay? Yeah, Dr. Dan. I don't blame them for the writing on this. I think the original work was so inferior of a product. That's not anyone's fault that the adaption would be less than like as the writing was a little bit subpar for it. You got to work with what you got, I guess. People know it. How did my kick start? How much was the Kickstarter for this actually? Hold on. This is a... Okay, this is just Kickstarter stuff. A dark math production. How much was it actually? 20,000. That's pretty good for a small film actually. Anyway, the actors were great for this. The story was as good as I think it could have been considering the source material. Just in general, I was... I think this is the future right here, this kind of stuff. Kickstarted small films like this that done by people like Mr. Clay who are incredibly talented, using people from the community, using people that they know who are outside of the community to make something amazing, like just amazing in general. Let's take these off. But as for my video, let's go ahead and end it here. Thank you very much for watching, and if you haven't seen this on your own, please go over to Mr. Clay's channel and watch it there. It is, like I said, it's the future of SCP content, I think. Small little films like this, maybe one day building up to something a bit bigger, maybe a couple million dollars. We'll get thrown at a fan film at some point to be run by semi-professional or indie filmmakers, and we'll get something really like a full-length film that's high quality, because if they can create a 20-minute film that's like that, then sky's the limit, especially on $20,000. Thank you very much for watching. Scroll down and hit the subscribe button for me, and while you're over watching the thing on Dr. Clay's channel, subscribe to him. He's got lots of cool stuff. Then head on over to my Patreon at patreon.com forward slash decimarian and pledge at any level like everybody here on the screen already has. Hold on real quick. We'll load up that here on Patreon, and we'll take a look and see. Well, I've got new $40 backers, I believe. Let's take a look here. So, I have a new backer called probably a wizard and definitely not a scientist who has pledged $40, along with Manuel Noltorp, as always, who has pledged $40 per month to support this channel. Without you guys, this wouldn't be possible, so thank you very much. It's actually really cool. $40 a month. It's amazing to me that these people are willing to help pay for the channel like this. It's just such a stunning thing to know, for sure. These guys are my rock, you know? It's amazing. It's nice to know that I'm not alone out here, and neither are you. And I'll see you all again on Tuesday.