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Episode 366: Brent Bowen, HomegrownB_DUB

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·30m 41s·analyzed·Jul 7, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Simpsons VFX artist Brent Bowen discusses pinball passion, animation career, and potential role in pinball game design.

Summary

Jeff Teolis (host of Pinball Profile) interviews Brent Bowen (HomegrownB_DUB), a CGI/visual effects artist who worked on The Simpsons movie and other major films, and is also a passionate pinball enthusiast and streamer. Brent discusses his journey from discovering pinball as a child to becoming a professional animator, his philosophy on pinball versus video games, and his interest in potentially contributing animation and visual effects to future pinball machines. The conversation explores the intersection of his professional animation expertise with his love of pinball.

Key Claims

  • Brent Bowen worked on The Simpsons movie, including the crowd scene that required so much rendering it caused a power outage at the studio

    high confidence · Brent describes being part of the team that created CGI elements for The Simpsons movie, specifically the crowd/mob scene, working under Kevin Van Hook at Forum Visual Effects

  • Brent was brought on to The Simpsons production after submitting a pencil test with a baby shoe in the envelope with a note 'I'm just trying to get my foot in the door'

    high confidence · Brent recounts mailing physical baby shoe with his test submission to differentiate himself from other applicants

  • Jack Danger significantly elevated Brent's pinball play through streaming, teaching, and interactive engagement during 2020-2021

    high confidence · Brent credits Jack Danger with improving his gameplay and mentions watching him extensively during the pandemic

  • Brent has a Simpsons Pinball Party machine that he refuses to sell and plays for the story/modes rather than competitive stacking strategies

    high confidence · Brent states 'I'll never ever sell my Simpsons pinball party' and contrasts his play style with competitive tournament approaches

  • Brent purchased Goldeneye (007) pinball in 2004 for $900 and received unpaid internship training from a local tech who spent 4+ hours teaching him machine maintenance

    high confidence · Brent details his first machine purchase and the tech who went above and beyond in training without additional charge

  • The IFPA has over 100,000 unique players in its competitive pinball history

    high confidence · Jeff states this statistic during discussion of competitive pinball growth

  • Jack Danger allowed his animation team to use whatever medium they wanted (After Effects, paper scanned in, etc.) for Foo Fighters pinball animations

    medium confidence · Brent mentions discussing this approach with Jack Danger at Northwest Pinball

  • Brent scored 7 billion points on a Deadpool pinball machine and posted it to YouTube

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm just trying to get my foot in the door.”

    Brent Bowen @ ~22:00 — The creative method Brent used to stand out when applying for internship at The Simpsons—literally mailing a baby shoe with his application to physically demonstrate the phrase; this became his defining story about breaking into the industry

  • “No one ball is going to ever be the same. It's never going to be the same. Maybe it is, but I'd never notice it. And that's what I loved about it... It's you versus gravity, right? In physics, it's fresh every time you plunge.”

    Brent Bowen @ ~61:00 — Core philosophy on why pinball captivates him vs. video games—the unpredictability and physics-based nature make each game unique, contrasting with the memorizable patterns of arcade games

  • “In an uncontrollable world, when I turn on this game, I'm home. It's my meditation.”

    Brent Bowen @ ~85:00 — Expresses pinball as a form of mental escape and grounding; emotional connection to the hobby as therapeutic

  • “You're the smartest customer I've ever had... I can't tell you how many times I've got paid $200 to put in a AA battery.”

    Local tech in L.A. @ ~18:00 — Illustrates the approach Brent took to purchasing his first machine—paying the tech for training rather than just repair, showing forward-thinking problem-solving

  • “They lit up the whole thing and we put the power out at the studio from all the computers rendering that scene.”

    Brent Bowen @ ~35:00 — Details the intensity of rendering the crowd scene for The Simpsons movie; illustrates the computational demands of high-quality CGI animation in the early 2000s

  • “He's doing it. You know, he's doing it. And, yeah, I hope to be a part of that one day for sure.”

    Brent Bowen @ ~68:00 — Expresses desire to contribute animation and visual effects work to pinball games, inspired by Jack Danger's work on Foo Fighters

  • “You've got the resume, no question about it... you've got the talent, and hopefully maybe that can lead into something.”

Entities

Brent BowenpersonJeff TeolispersonJack DangerpersonKevin Van HookpersonThe SimpsonsmediaSimpsons Pinball PartygameGoldeneye (007)

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Twitch streaming of pinball gameplay becoming avenue for skill development and community mentorship; Jack Danger's streaming credited with elevating player performance

    medium · Brent credits Jack Danger's streams and responsive engagement (answering DMs, teaching on streams) with significantly improving his gameplay during pandemic period

  • ?

    community_signal: Washington State pinball community has active competitive and casual scenes; identified as strong hub for tournament play and player development

    medium · References to Icebox location, Northwest Pinball Show, local players like Matt, multiple mentions of active league play and events in the region

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pinball animation potential largely untapped; current LCD implementation mostly limited to film clips/concert footage rather than original CGI created for pinball themes

    medium · Brent and Jeff discuss how LCD screens haven't yet enabled unique original animation tailored to pinball gameplay; Jack Danger cited as exception creating standout work

  • $

    market_signal: Jack Danger establishing himself as key figure in modernizing pinball animation; creating template for animation-forward game design that professional artists find inspiring

    high · Multiple references to Jack's animation work on Foo Fighters and Jurassic Park; Brent credits him with elevating gameplay; discussion of Jack's collaborative animation approach

  • $

    market_signal: IFPA competitive pinball ecosystem has grown to 100,000+ unique players historically; indicates sustained growth and legitimacy of organized tournament scene

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.092

0:00
It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Deols. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com, all your past episodes, subscriptions, and more. We're on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And if you'd like to show your support, boy, that would be nice. You can do that on patreon.com slash pinball profile. Like good people like Rodney C, Lua W, Mark T, GME Law. Thank you very much for your support. Much appreciated. So I was watching Twitch the other day and I came across Homegrown B-Dub and he was playing Elvira House of Horrors. And I was like, okay, let me watch this. And we were having a little chat back and forth. And I was very interested to hear more about the person behind the pinball machine. That was Brent Bowen, and he joins us now on Pinball Profile. Hey, Brent, how are you? Hey, how's it going, Jeff? Thank you very much for coming on. We were chatting on Friday, and we've never met. I've seen your stream a few times, so it wasn't like I just came across it. But this time, the chat had me interested. You were playing, again, of our House of Horrors, and you were talking about, some people say it's a really easy game, and I typed in, it might be easy, but it's still fun. And you kind of said, yeah, yeah, it is too. You've been streaming for a little bit. We're going to get into your background. But like all of us here on Pinball Profile, we all love the sport. We all love the hobby. How did you get into this? Oh, God. It dates back when I was a kid. I had a little pizzeria shop. I saw an older teenager. I was probably 11. And I saw him trapping up and post-passing and hitting shots. And I'm like, what? You can do this?
1:53
And he trapped up. And just like the movie, the man who saved pinball, he's like, you know, hey, take over. And he gave me his ball and wow, off I went. And that was my, that was the start. Isn't that true? I've heard other people say that because the natural reaction, especially when you're first playing pinball, see the ball, hit the ball, flip immediately, flip all the time. And that's not the case because control is really everything. And you learned that at such a young age and realized, wow, there's more to it than just maybe perhaps luck. Right. but I didn't even know the half of it or the quarter of it or the tenth of it. I knew nothing. I owned a machine. My first machine I owned was 007 in 2006. I bought it for $900, can you believe it or not? Goldeneye? Goldeneye, yeah. And I had it, and I just loved it. I played it, played it. I've had a pinball machine ever since in my house since 2006. I then bought Lord of the Rings in 2000. I'm sorry, I bought Goldeneye in 2004, and I got Lord of the Rings in 2006. I've had that. I still have it. Yeah, your collection seemed very nice. You were showing us in the background, of course, we mentioned the Elvira House of Horrors, but you grew up in Washington State. There's a lot of pinball around there. So not only were you probably seeing different opportunities, but a lot of good players there too. Oh, man. Yes. I want to join a league. They're at Icebox. Yeah. I'm slipping on his name right now, but he was in the paper. Yeah, there's a lot of pinball here. I'm very blessed. Not quite in my area. Was it Raymond Davidson? No, I want to say it's Matt. He was at Northwest Pinball Show. He was like the newest up and coming, but he's also not a younger gentleman. But he's kind of newer in that pinball world there. So at Icebox there in Seattle, if you visit that area or that pinball place, they have that very expensive 007 there. So nice of them to allow the public to play that machine. I think that's Jermaine Marial who put that in there. I was talking to him at District 82, and he's an operator in that area, and he told me he put it there. And I'm like, wow, that's an expensive machine. He's like, yeah, let people play it. It's fun. Oh, they have it right next to the cashier, and you cannot nudge it, which is fine with me. I still get to play it, you know? Yeah. Well, that's nice. Yeah. Now, you jumped into it pretty early. A lot of people, myself included, didn't know you could really buy pinball machines. When I found out people had home collections, I thought, oh, maybe that's one, certainly not more than one. And then I went to a league and saw several. I was very timid to buy my first machine because, yeah, okay, I have the money to buy it. It's a used machine. It's not going to break the bank by any means. I don't know what to do if I have to fix it. Were you ever worried about that? You know, that leads me to my next story. So when I bought Goldeneye, a couple of the poppers didn't work, and that was about it. Everything else was in really good condition. And I called the guy in L.A., the local tech. He was $100 to show up and $100 an hour after that. I was like, look, I'm going to give you $300 to come out here and just give me training for those two hours on how to repair and fix pinball machines. And he looked at me when he showed up at my house with his toolbox and he goes, you're the smartest customer I've ever had.

medium confidence · Brent mentions this achievement and that he live-streamed it and posted it on YouTube

  • Current LCD/screen technology in pinball mostly features film clips or concert footage rather than original CGI content created for the theme

    medium confidence · Brent and Jeff discuss the untapped potential for original visual effects animation in modern pinball screens

  • Kevin Van Hook, director at Forum Visual Effects, was a seven-movie deal filmmaker with SyFy and also a comic book artist for DC Comics

    medium confidence · Brent describes Van Hook's background and how he was discovered while working late at the studio

    • Jeff Teolis @ ~76:00 — Host validates Brent's potential contribution to pinball game design and encourages networking with industry figures

  • “I don't know. I'm so competitive and weird that way. But that could work. I need to just try.”

    Brent Bowen @ ~81:00 — Brent acknowledges his internal conflict about competitive pinball; hints he might be open to trying tournament play despite his hesitation

    • game
    HomegrownB_DUBorganization/stream
    Forum Visual Effectscompany
    Foo Fightersgame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Deadpoolgame
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    IFPAorganization
    Iceboxlocation
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Northwest Pinball Showevent
    Deadflipcompany
    Pinsidewebsite/community
    Washington State pinball communitylocation/community

    high · Jeff states 'IFPA went over 100,000 unique players that have played competitive pinball in their history'

  • ?

    community_signal: Brent Bowen's background as professional CGI/VFX artist positions him uniquely to contribute original animation work to pinball LCD screens; indicates potential pipeline for professional animators entering pinball game design

    high · Brent's extensive resume (Simpsons, Rush Hour 3, Law & Order, etc.) combined with expressed desire to contribute to pinball and discussions of untapped animation potential in modern machines

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jack Danger's transition from Deadflip to full-time Stern pinball designer indicates growing investment in animation-forward design at major manufacturer

    high · Jeff notes Jack recently joined Stern, is stepping back from Deadflip role, has designed two recent games (Jurassic Park, Foo Fighters) with animation emphasis

  • ?

    product_strategy: Simpsons Pinball Party differentiated by unique voice callouts recorded by original actors and comprehensive mode design reflecting show narrative rather than competitive stacking strategies

    medium · Brent discusses how SPP features unique callouts, theme-related modes, and story elements that contrast with competitive tournament play approaches

  • ?

    technology_signal: Potential convergence of professional animation expertise (CGI/VFX artists) with pinball game design; modern LCD screens enable new creative possibilities previously impossible

    medium · Discussion of how LCD enabled more opportunities than DMD; Brent's professional expertise and interest in contributing; Jack Danger already executing this model

    • 5:12
    That's funny. He's like, I can't tell you how many times I've got paid $200 to put in a AA battery. Oh, boy. So he looked at me, and he was just, just by that comment, he's like, I like this guy. And he sat there with me for over four hours, didn't charge me, showed me everything about maintaining a pinball machine. What did he teach you? Spill the guts. Save me some bucks.
    5:37
    He taught me everything. I mean, mainly hardware stuff. I'm still really slow on the electrical side of things. My buddy Jeff at Spokane Pinball, he's the main distributor here at Stern in eastern Washington. He's kind of taken me under his wing the last year and upped me a little bit on that level. But, yeah, he was just teaching me about the parts, soldering tips, what to mainly look at when a pinball machine breaks. It's never really the coils. It's very rare that that would go out. It's usually a loose solder joint or a wire that's loose. And, you know, it just kind of went through the manual with me, like how to take apart and reassemble a popper and just kind of maintenance type things. And, man, I never call them back again. I feel bad. So zero fear now. Zero fear. I just rebuilt, oddly enough. I bought a Simpsons pinball party, party pinball. I always get it wrong. I bought it used out of a shop in Florida. It had been sitting in an abandoned arcade, and I have completely refurbished this game, or I'm still in the process of doing it. So that brings us to why you're on this program, because you were talking about The Simpsons, and it's not just a fan thing like myself. It's been my favorite show for over 30 years, and obsessed with it. I'll never ever sell my Simpsons pinball party. and you and I kind of agreed, but you took it one step further. You actually work on The Simpsons. You are and went to school to become a CGI and visual effects artist, and you've worked on so many different titles, but we were talking about you being on The Simpsons. You can't see it right now, but I'm bowing to you right now.
    7:24
    Seriously, that's a big, big deal. That's pretty exciting. So, okay, how does this happen? Oh, my God. that it kind of rolls into my name my Twitch channel there which doesn make sense for pinball but you know I wanted to be a creator you know my whole life I had ideas I wanted to be a writer I wanted to create a cartoon And Simpsons the same with me growing up was just the best You couldn't get better. The Simpsons was the best. And if you wanted to be the best, I figured you had to work for the best. So I left at 18, and I went to Houston. I got a two-year degree there. And in Houston, I went after I graduated out of Associates in Arts and Animation. I called the Simpsons up and I said, hey, I want to work for you. How do I do that? And they're like, well, you got to take a test. And they sent me a pencil test, which is a big packet of paper. And it's basically like doing a couple of layout scenes. I said, well, send me a background test and a character test. I'll do it. And I did it and I turned it in. They're like, you know what? The directors loved it. You can handle this job. But unfortunately, we just don't have an opening right now. However, they said, if you want to intern for us, you can do it. I said, sweet. And how I got my foot in the door, I was literally getting a foot in the door. In order for me to get noticed for that internship on top of the pencil test, I called the lady and I mailed a baby shoe. I went to Target and bought these baby shoes. And I put one of the shoes in the envelope with my test. And I put a note on the shoe and I said, I'm just trying to get my foot in the door. Awesome. And that separated me from the back. It does. It's the little things, isn't it? Right. And they brought me on as an intern. They were like, you have to go back to school. I was like, yeah, that's fine. I'll get my bachelor's. And I started getting my bachelor's in San Monica there. And I worked for the King of the Hill. I interned for the whole building. They were doing X-Men Evolution at the time, King of the Hill, The Simpsons. And I was working full-time as an intern, unpaid intern at the time. They don't do that anymore. But I was, yeah, well, I went to school. And once I graduated, well, I didn't get the job. Really? You have been in the industry for a while. So was that when you went into movies? Correct. Yeah, that was the thing. My worst skill as a visual effects or anybody in school was After Effects artwork for visual effects on movies. And yet the first job I got was in After Effects visual effects on movies. Isn't that funny? I remember being in school and not giving a crap about things like English. and also from the radio side, from sales, and even telling the teachers, look, I'll get 60 and then I'm done. I'm not handing anything else in. I'm just focusing on other things, some stupid cockiness that I had. Right, me too. I later taught an English course at college for four years, and then I've been in sales for the last, oh, I don't know, 25. So you should really not pigeonhole yourself when you're a young person in school. My advice to other people, and I think you'd agree, Brent, But that's so funny that you're doing this and you talk about some of the afterworks. You mentioned to me off air about being a bumper. What's a bumper and fender? What is that? I call it the bumper and fender shop of the visual effects world. That was our company. We were called Forum Visual Effects. A man by Kevin Van Hook, he's a filmmaker there in Hollywood. He had a seven-movie deal with SyFy. He was also a comic book artist for DC. He saw potential in me. I was sitting there at 2 in the morning working as an intern on these storyboards for, I forget what it was called at the time. It was a kid's show. They looked like some sort of veggie. I don't remember. It was popular, but it slipped my mind. But I was there at 2 in the morning, and he came in with all these higher-up colleagues. And he came into the office, and I'm sitting there scanning these storyboards and getting them in the PDFs. And he looked, and he's like, what are you doing here? It's 2 a.m. I'm like, well, you need this done by the morning, right? Wow. And he's like, you know what? Come meet me tomorrow. I said, okay. So I met him in this place. He put me in this random location in L.A., and I walked out there, and we're out in the desert, and I'm, like, seeing rocks and cliffs. He's walking through everything, and, you know, he asked me about me, and he just kind of gets to know me, and he liked me. And he's like, you know what? You know, I want to offer you a job. I'm like, sweet. And I accepted the job to be one of his kind of understudies there. And when he, I'm like, well, why are we out here? And he's like, well, you know what? You're standing in the Batcave right now. And I'm like, what? He literally, I got my first job in Hollywood in the Adam West Batcave. Oh, my God. That is so cool. He was scouting for a location, and he brought me out there scouting for his next movie. And, yeah, it was pretty cool. I was pretty geeked.
    12:12
    Well, there's been a lot of movies and things like Sex and the City, The Feature, Rush Hour 3, Hairspray, Speed Racer. You've done work on Law and Order. The Simpsons movie, which, again, being with The Simpsons, and we talked about Simpsons Pinball Party, when that movie came out, first of all, please, God, let them have another one because it was so well done, and it took The Simpsons to a whole new level. Everyone always talks about the first nine seasons or so, and then things kind of went away. Well, when that Simpsons movie came back, a couple things happened. The writing was spectacular, and the animation changed. like there are all of a sudden shadows on faces of the Simpsons and things like that. And it just, you can see how the CGI came into effect with the movie and stuff. And it's kind of continued on the television show. I can only imagine what it was like in the early days. We're talking 90s to animate a show like that, where it has to be from a technological standpoint so much easier nowadays. Well, see, that's the thing. And that's kind of where I fit into this whole story. when that movie kicked off that forum visual effects company that I talked about were the kind of lead handlers of that CGI type deal that's where we first built Homer's car in a 3D you know surface area they also had the Futurama guys at Rough Draft working they split a lot of the jobs up where I excelled that's why I'm solo I have one understudy under me now his name's Kyle But I was solely alone on The Simpsons doing this. And what I excelled at, again, was bringing 3D into a 2D world without anybody noticing.
    13:49
    I mean, I noticed it just seeing a still of the characters, but certainly when that mob scene happens in The Simpsons movie. Oh, God, that's triggering.
    13:59
    You never saw that on the television show. No, that was done by just a tiny little group of us and a bunch of render farms. And boy, lordy, did they rewrite that end joke at the end of that crowd so many times that we actually put the power out at the studio from all the computers rendering that scene. It pays off because it's spectacular, too. And I think now you can see it on Disney+, which is funny because there's a scene where Bart's on a train and he puts something on his head and he looks like Mickey Mouse and he's like, I work for an evil corporation.
    14:35
    Whoops, they haven't cut that out because Disney now owns Fox. I got to say this. I hope I can. I mean, I don't see the harm in it, but I wish people could have seen the first cut of that movie. Really? There were so many cuts of that movie, and I had always hoped and dreamed that they were going to do a behind the scenes. I'm hoping maybe they're going to do it at some point because they had multiple cuts to that movie. I mean, David Silverman, James Brooks. I worked on the trailer at Fox with these guys. Richard Sakai. Talk about dedication and hardworking people. These guys didn't sleep. You know, if we were there at 3 a.m., they were there at 3 a.m. They were watching everyone's dailies. They worked and worked. I mean these guys are incredible And to work with these guys I mean you can get any better These are the best These guys are the best You can hear my passion You can hear Brent passion when we talk about The Simpsons as it translates to pinball Again, with The Simpsons pinball party, the reason it will never leave my house is because of everything they put in there. There is so much. The easy thing to notice, wow, that's impressive. The call-outs, they're unique to the pinball machine. The actors actually did different call-outs for that. The modes are certainly very theme-related. Is it the most smooth game in the world? Is it flow like something like Hellfire House of Horrors? Probably not. It may be a little bit clunky to some, but it is unique. And what I like playing, for someone who's a competition player, people, when they see it in a competition, they do the same thing over and over again. Stack it. They hit the garage. They go up to the couch. Do it again. Maybe hit a right orbit. Start a mode. Do it over and over again. Get the jackpots going. Yeah, that's great, but it doesn't give you the story. I want to get my auto shots. I want to get comic book guy. I want to get all the hurry ups because it's fun. I want to get the wizard mode. I know. I don't want to do that. I streamed it one night. I'm still having troubles with it. They're working on my boards. He promised to have it back to me next month. He's had them since January. I went and slap saved the game one night and just everything went fritz. But yeah, you're right. I don't want to do that. That's why I guess I'm not a tourney guy because I play for the love of it. I don't play for the points. It's funny because when I have seen Simpsons in a tournament, I'm like, oh, I don't play it tournament style. I play it for fun. When most of my pinball playing is in tournaments, I have to go, wait a second, how do I do this again? Because I totally play it differently and have so much fun doing that. And you were talking about getting into pinball. And at a young age, you know, certainly video games were popular, whether it's home or whether it's in an actual arcade. but you have a big philosophy and almost a difference when it comes to gaming versus pinball and why pinball rises to the top. Right. I just remember playing, you know, old, say, I don't know, the Ninja Turtle games, right? And you'd get a boss, and they'd have the repeat pattern, and I guess my hyperactive OCD brain would just notice it right away, and I'd just, oh, this is just on repeat. So if I stand in this corner, I can just defeat the boss, and over and over and over again, And I just got bored. I'm like, well, what's the point of this? Because once you memorize the algorithm, you're just like, well, why am I here? But that's why pinball, I love, love pinball. Maybe because it's the way I think, the way my brain works. But no one ball is going to ever be the same. It's never going to be the same. Maybe it is, but I'd never notice it. And that's what I loved about it. I can hit, I can plunge the ball, I can shoot it up in that game. And guess what? It's not something you're going to memorize. Sure, you get better. You learn how the ball backspins and pops. You can use the machine in certain posts to your advantage. But to me, I'm never going to be a professional at it. I am trying, but I don't know. I just love it. It's you versus gravity, right? In physics, it's fresh every time you plunge. And we've evolved a long ways, but I still think there's a big jump to be had in pinball because when we went to LCD screens, it gave us a lot of opportunities. We saw with the DMDs, we saw maybe some video modes that were obviously created. We saw some dot matrix things that they tried to animate, whatever the theme was. But with LCD, all we were really seeing, if they have the assets, is maybe it's film clips or maybe it's concert footage and really not seeing anything unique or certainly original that would be for that theme. Do you think there's room for someone like yourself, visual effects, CGI, for something to be done on the video screen, especially since we have that nice display? Oh, yes. And look at Jack Danger. He's a prime example of that. You sound like Duffman there for a second. Oh, yeah.
    19:24
    Yes, that's kind of why I started this journey in a lot of ways was, you know, The Simpsons ain't going to run forever. I want it to, you know, and maybe it will. The show is still, it's like we're in the top ratings right now again. The writers full circled back in the newer episodes, they're phenomenal. Like, I don't know if anybody watched the Fargo episode with Ned Flanders. Like, I worked on that in the pandemic, and all rendered here were at the computer I'm looking at right now. And it was just, like, I'm like, wow. They, like, blew my mind. That was like, I was like, they're the Simpsons. Here they go. They just keep tearing down walls and keep proving themselves as why they are still around. Just back to The Simpsons. So very young age, doing stand-up comedy. We would talk with other comics about the great shows, and this is early 90s. And it wasn't Seinfeld we talked about. It was The Simpsons because they could pack more jokes in per minute than any other show. And you want a different setting? No problem. We're in Winnipeg for this episode. We're going to Australia. Whatever you want. And you want characters? you don't have to pay a cast because The Simpsons has 100 at their disposal. And, you know, not just like D players. We're talking whether it's Hank Azaria doing one of, I don't know, 15, 20 characters, Harry Shearer, Dan, all the cast just giving us multiple characters so they can animate it. You want it, they can create it. And that's where the stories keep coming fresh. And as you say, some 35, 36 years later, it's pretty impressive. But again, back to pinball, back to creating some things on the LCD screen. We haven't really seen it. You mentioned Jack Danger. He is an animator and very talented there. So maybe with his future games, we'll see more. I like what he did with Foo Fighters. I like the, I don't know if you even know if that was him or just the great Stern animation team. Oh, I know. I talked to Jack in 2020. I think it's Roswell where they're kind of running and it's almost like Scooby-Doo and like just great, great nods. And the animation's one of the best things about Foo Fighters. Right. I mean, Jack Danger. I got to say, I love him. Thank you, Jack. I started noticing him in 2019 because I've been in the pinball world, like I said, since 2004 when I owned a game. And I'd Google and try and find anything on pinball. And it was just crickets out there. I'm like, what the heck? Why isn't anybody, you know, where do I find stuff? Pinside, obviously. I've been on Pinside forever. But nothing. And then all of a sudden in 2019, I'm sitting there just before this pandemic, and this guy Jack comes up on these things. I'm like, who is this guy? And then this Cary Hardy guy pops up on, who is this guy? After all these years of nothing, they started to get into, I guess, that Google search algorithm. And so I went down the Jack Danger rabbit hole during 2020. And honestly, man, thank you, Jack. He elevated my game to a whole other level, like watching him play and him teaching and how interactive and how amazing he would be to answer a DM or answer you on his stream. and teach you. He was just, I got to say, he elevated my game. If you see me shake my machine as much as I shake it, I learned it.
    22:30
    Yeah, a lot of people think of him as a streamer and certainly a face for Deadflip for years. I'm thrilled that he's with Stern. I've loved both games he's did. I thought the Jurassic Park pin was spectacular, actually. Oh, really? Yeah, so I'm excited to see more of what he's doing. He's obviously stepping back from Deadflip and will be on there not as much as he once was, but I think he's in the right place and he's going to have a great career creating games. But yeah, full circle back to the animation part Yeah Real quick so I talked to him in 2020 and that when I found out he was an animator and he did that and I was like what I an animator I work for the Simpsons and da So we started talking and then to see him go from that day to making this beautiful Foo Fighters table that I'm so jealous I don't have. It's just incredible. And I gotta say, what he did with his animation teams, I talked to him at Northwest Pinball about it, he let the animators use whatever medium they wanted He said a lot of it was After Effects. A lot of it was on paper, scanned in old school. And when you go play that game, so going back to your LC, you know, the screens and the animations that we can add to pinball, he's there. You know, he's doing it. And, yeah, I hope to be a part of that one day for sure. Even Spooky, I talked to them at Texas Pinball Festival. I'm like, hey, hey, I'm here. I'm an animator. Hello.
    23:49
    Well, hopefully some of these people will hear this podcast as well and check out Brent Bowen for sure because you've got the resume, no question about it. You've won awards too, and that's not easy to do in this business. And right now I'm feeling for you because of the writer's strike. And, well, how does that affect someone who's in visual effects and CGI? Well, it affects everyone in the industry because everything shuts down. So hopefully that will get settled soon because, yeah, it's been too long, first of all. The writers are underpaid. Hopefully, for your sake and others, we see a resolution soon. Yeah, as of right now, it doesn't look like there's any, which is kind of sad. I hope so because, again, it's a trickle-down effect, but I am so proud of the riders for standing their ground because, again, every day they're not getting paid to do this. And, yeah, so, you know, they're just the face of, you know, a bigger problem that I see nowadays. So, you know, I support them wholeheartedly. And, you know, yeah, I will be unemployed at some point unless the writers get back to work. So, you know what, good for them. And they're only asking for what they've already had in the past just with the new technology that's out there. I don't know how you get into the pinball world. You've already used the baby shoe method in a resume, so you're going to have to go back to the drawing board for something else. But maybe it's through Jack Danger, maybe it's through some other people. But you've got the talent, and hopefully maybe that can lead into something. I talk to young people and people that are just getting into school for the first time, And I recently on this program had a young German girl. Her name's Amy Ziegenhagen, and she loves art and wants to get into art and animation in college. I think she's only 18 years old. So I said, well, do you want to go on to maybe do something in pinball? And her eyes just opened up. It would be great, yeah. So you never know. And having that passion, too, of knowing pinball, it's important, too. I mean, there are great artists out there, but there are only a handful of people that kind of understand what pinball art is. You know, having the passion and having the understanding of that probably bodes well for your brand. I hope so. Yeah, you know, that's kind of why I kind of niched over because, again, I just love Pendle. And, like he said it best in the movie, in an uncontrollable world, when I turn on this game, I'm home. It's my meditation. Like, if I could have the worst day ever, you know, say, really terrible, anything could happen to me, right? And I could come home and I can flip on a game. and I just, my brain's off. And it's just me and this ball. For however long, it gives me the luxury of holding it.
    26:25
    And, you know, life's better. And, you know, with everything going on in the world lately, pinball has been a gift. So, you know, I would love to contribute to it at any point in my career, if I can, moving forward. But, you know, right now, you know, I'm still with that dysfunctional family of 35 years. So, you know, bless them. and hopefully for many more years too. But you're right, especially in the last three years where pinball has really found its home for a lot of different people. The competitive scene has come back. I know that's not something you're into, but right now the IFPA went over 100,000 unique players that have played competitive pinball in their history. And it's something you haven't dabbled in. And I think I understand why. You're talking about, you know, when I come home, busy day, bad day, whatever it is, play pinball, you turn everything off, right? It's just about having fun. And some people, when they go into competitions, the pressure gets too much or it's hard to have fun or failure stands out more, whatever the case may be. I'll just tell you, for someone who you haven't done this yet, there's a point when it doesn't matter. You can have fun playing in competitions, especially there in Washington State where you are. There's so many great events there, but it doesn't really matter where you finish. Forget who you're playing. Just play the game itself. Have fun with the game. and forget about what everyone else is doing, you might have more fun doing that. But it does take time, and it's not for everyone. I understand that. Right, right. I mean, that's what they keep telling me. They're like, just go and have fun. But, like, I don't know.
    27:57
    I'm so competitive and weird that way. But that could work. I need to just try. You know, it's called just dabble. But, yeah, I don't know. I play the game because I love it and I have fun. You know, I've had a $7 billion Deadpool game. I actually just posted that on YouTube. but I live streamed it one night. 7 billion points I got on Deadpool. That's why I say you should give it a try because, yeah, you're competitive. That helps. And you're good. I've seen you on Homegrown B-Dub. So you mentioned that 7 bill on Deadpool, but you look like you're holding your own playing the other games. So maybe that's something. Maybe just get your foot wet and who knows. Listen, I liked pinball a lot when I was young. Competition took it to a whole new level. It's like that scene in New Jack City, you know? when they introduced crack. It was like that.
    28:47
    You know, I need a pinball coach. Jeff, can you be my pinball coach? You've got lots there in Washington State. My goodness, I need to come there to learn a little bit more because you're in the right place for sure. But anyway, I hope you have fun on Homegrown B-Dub. We can catch you on Twitch, and all your socials are there as well too. It's been fun to get to know you, and again, best of luck with that writer's strike. Hopefully that ends very soon, And maybe even by the time this airs, we look forward to your great animation, your visual effects. I'm very impressed. Oh, wow. Thank you. I just appreciate you having me here. I mean, I could talk pinball all day long. We'll have to get you back on. It's an easy thing to talk about. All right, Brent. All the best. And, again, check you out on Homegrown B-Dub on Twitch. Thanks very much. All right. Thanks, Jeff. Have a good night. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram at Pinball Profile. Email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And if you'd like to support on Patreon, that would be wonderful. Patreon.com slash pinballprofile. I'm Jeff Teolas. Monorail! I hear those things are awfully loud. It flies as softly as a cloud. Is there a chance the track could bend? Not on your life, my Hindu friend. What about us brain-dead slobs? You'll be given cushy jobs. Were you sent here by the taboo? No good, sir. I'm on the level. The ring came off my pudding can. Take my penknife, my good man. I swear it's Springfield's only choice. Throw up your hands and raise your voice. Morel! What's it called? Morel! Once again! Morel!
    30:25
    A matrix to all craft and broker. Sorry, Mom. The mother's spoken. Morel! Man, I don't... Don't!