I just want to say while he's doing that, guys, when John Youssi my card, I am playing pinball while drinking a beer, and I think that perfectly sums up our film for anyone who has seen it. And in that fashion, hold on one second, guys. Are we doing it? Oh, you're doing it. We're doing it. Cool. Okay. So. Now, this movie, Token Taverns, is about arcade bars. It's about pinball. It's about classic arcade cabinet machines in an arcade environment. However, it's also a bar movie. So in perfect fashion, we're going to start this panel off proper and have our beer fast or breakfast, whatever. It's early enough, guys. So I want to cheers Ralph for being here. I want to cheers Walter. Is he here? Is he meditating? Okay, there he is. I want to cheers you, and I want to cheer all you guys, because I truly made this movie for the community, and I'm super excited to be here and to show it tomorrow, because showing it for you guys is like the perfect dream. So cheers to you guys. Cheers, Bob. Cheers. All right, I don't know if anybody else is drinking on our panels, but we are here take this round Yeah, so um so has everyone seen the movie or Okay, all right So if you haven't seen it this is that's good then because we're gonna tee you up and play the trailer for everybody Bob and I did a similar session like this at southern fried gaming expo in Atlanta So but I think the room is gonna be we're gonna have a bigger audience here, which is awesome awesome uh but the reaction was great it was cool for me because i have a small role in the movie and uh it was neat to see uh because i've worked with bob and known bob for a while now but it was neat to see like actually collectors and people that are really into this uh and their reaction to the movie so here's the trailer and then we'll talk a little bit about the movie the bar arcade has always kind of been a thing there are a huge number of arcade bars popping up all over the country. It's this new meeting ground for people. They're doing gangbuster business. We've been busy. We've been trying to keep beer stocked. It's nuts. Being able to experience this piece of our childhood, the whole nostalgia aspects of it, they just go so well together. Come on in, play the games. Have a beer, have whiskey, my preference whiskey. But when I walked into my first arcade bar, I was just like almost in tears. I'm like, oh my god, someone gets me. You get to do something that you love and share it with a community that's incredibly supportive. 90s hip-hop, beers and video games. You're doing good work. You can't have a business like this and not be passionate about it. Play the game with the owner of this place and he can destroy you. I might leave that in the yet review. Hi, Stormy. Only in 2020, Stormy Daniels is coming to reboot. Donald Trump's favorite character in Mario Kart was told. I'm triggered. I'm leaving. I was like, oh my God, this guy's got wrestling too in this place. if you want to play like maybe we'll wager like tonight's tab on it sweating the connection that goes beyond the physical game if it wasn't for this place i wouldn't be who i am today i never thought it would become a spot where people love it as much as they do we're just a friendly neighborhood arcade bar token taverns Ed Boon shakalaka All right, guys. That gives you a little taste of what the movie is like. I'm not sure how much information you guys know. I'll give you a little bit of information. We'll keep it kind of short today, give you guys really time for Q&A because I'd love to hear any questions you might have. but the movie really centers on three arcade bars that I followed over two years and followed their story and what it does is it tells this parallel story that anybody that owns an arcade bar or has been in an arcade bar can relate to. So there's that component. And then there's the component of people like Walter, Tim Kiddsrow, Billy Mitchell, some of these people from arcade history and who are in the scene now, Retro Ralph here as well, to kind of chime in on arcade bars as a whole. So it's kind of mixing those two ideas, the idea of a complete story and these kind of people who are, I would say, experts in the field who are kind of commenting on arcades as a whole. What are they? What is the future? Pinball. Pinball is, there's a section of pinball with these guys. And we also have our own little 80s section about the explosion of arcades and the downfall and how that kind of leads to arcade bars. I started this film not really knowing exactly what I was going to do specifically, and that's how, this is my third film. And that's kind of how I always start. I start with an idea and then I grab a camera and I start filming. and the story will present itself and and that kind of go from there. And and, you know, I did plan to go all around the nation. If anyone's wondering, like, why didn't you come here? Why didn't you go there? Well, I definitely intended to. But we had this thing called COVID-19 that happened. And I got I shot about a third of the film and then that's what COVID kind of came into play. And so then I pivoted and and really kind of hunkered down, for lack of a better word, and stuck to Tampa because there was no other option. And because of that, I feel like it was a happy accident in the filmmaking side of things because I really invested time with these people. So what you get is you really get a movie story that's a documentary, but in my way, I try to play it as much as like a narrative film that you would watch So you get to know these characters you get to know the barflies the people who are playing There multiple pinball tournaments in the movie Pinball is a huge factor in the movie as well. But while we're seeing this, we're also talking about community, and I think that's probably the biggest factor, right? Yeah, I think that was the thing that I was most excited for. I got into pinball only about three years ago, but it was interesting because, you know, at that time I was like, wow, these things are super expensive. Like I'm not going to buy a pinball. I was like, what? Like, like I thought, I was like six grand. Like at the time, I think it was like stranger things that just came out and it was like six grand. And I was like, that's, that can't be six grand. That just can't be the right price, right? Maybe that's like the super ultra premium one, but then come to find out, or the limited edition, I guess, uh, come to find out. I'm like, wow, where can I like go play these things? So someone's like, Oh, have you ever checked out this website? They'll tell you where there's barcade locations. And like, I had gone to arcade bars, but I didn't really seek out like the ones that had pinball machines. And I started to kind of like, oh, wow, there's like some really cool places. And the thing that I think hit me about the movie the most and what you captured in it is, is there's really cool communities that are built at these places. And they become more than just about the games. Like people, they repeat go there, they see their friends that like, if you look electric bats here in the audience, like they do pinball tournaments all the time. There's people that become really good friends. And so like, it's that you do, it really does build a sense of community and it comes out in the movie. And you know, there's, there's the unfortunate part is that when, that I think it actually made the movie better, but when, um, when COVID happened, it's like, you're seeing the effect on not only the businesses, like how they survived, but how the people were affected by the fact that they're this piece of the community, this thing that made them so happy that they could get joy from was like ripped away from them. Yeah. So, yeah, that's kind of. And, you know, I think what it did, if if there were if if COVID wasn't a part of this, let's say I filmed it three or four years ago. Well, first off, arcade bars wouldn't be as big, but the it really brought emotional weight to it. So, yes, these communities were there and John Youssi it. But when when they're not allowed to be around each other and they're not allowed to play pinball and there are no pinball tournaments, the community expressed how much they missed that. And I think there's definitely a thing that we all can relate to is sometimes you don't know what you have until it's gone. And also I think this resonates in the film as well is how much it's important to play games of any kind. You know, like, yes, in the whole scheme of things, like, how important is that? But to your soul and to, you know, to yourself and kind of to keep moving forward, games are part of everybody's life in some sort of way. and I think that that kind of showed yeah I mean it was a joy to film I mean I will tell you the film when John Youssi it I feel like it's got a nice polished look I've been doing this for a long time but behind the camera it was myself and my wife and we kind of I filmed that little camera back there that's what I'm filming with with little mics and we kind of disappear in the background so you really kind of feel like you're hanging out at the bar and I'll say probably 85-90% of this movie is inside an arcade bar. Very little is even outside of the walls of an arcade bar and it definitely kind of merges that line between arcade and Cheers. If you haven't heard it, our tagline is where everybody knows your game and that's really true about this film. The conversations you'll hear at the bar are really fun conversations that you won't hear anywhere else except for an arcade bar. Talk about the new game or pinball or maybe D&D, but they're still sharing it over a craft beer in front of a bar. It's like being here. It's like when you're at Expo, you know that you can talk about all the geeky stuff. If you talk to maybe your friends outside of your circle or at work, they're like, yeah, cool, I don't know anything about what you're saying. So you're like, oh, man, the solenoid broke. They're like, cool, what? What are you even talking about? So it's cool. It does have that sense of you're around people. You get to hear a lot of those conversations. sort of you you do kind of get the sense that you're at the arcade bar which is really cool um i don't know i love i love the my favorite part of the movie or my favorite like feeling from the movie is the community part because that's why you're here at expo and i think that's why people go to these arcade bars i mean of course people go to drink beer and a lot of them have sort of rallied around the idea of having like craft beers or really good drinks and cocktails but the community part i think is so huge and it's it's definitely captured of the movie. Yeah. And, you know, let's just talk about, we are at Pinball Expo. So let's just center this into a little bit of pinball talk here. We filmed the movie from kind of the end of 2019 to almost the beginning of 2022. And a lot of that was because of COVID because don't get me wrong guys, this is not a COVID movie. Like the first third of the movie, we're just getting to know people and then, and then you'll get a hurdle from COVID. And I kept, I even stopped filming for a bit and waited so that we could kind of come out the other side but in that period of time you guys are going to get to kind of look back on some things in pinball i mean there's there are very integral scenes to the movie that in the background center around the fact that uh turtles came out or avengers came out or godzilla when they had the first stern insider connect and oh wow they're thousand dollars more now like these are scenes in in the movie um which I think will be cool for you guys to kind of like think back on that and seeing it from their perspective, which is kind of cool. And there's a lot of Easter eggs in the movie as well. And a lot of cool, I like the lineup. I've seen the movie a thousand times now, so many times on Blu-ray and VHS, that I now like look at the machines and I'm like really proud of some of the machines that are just in the background, like the older pens. I'll give you guys a little tidbit about how I fell into pinball was through this movie. I was in the community I went to an arcade bar I didn play pinball I played arcade games Well when we started hey give me some time here I had just started going there but I had the idea to do the movie through my love of craft beer because I started going to these places instead of craft beer bars when I travel It became my new thing. I used to go to craft beer bars, the local thing to do, and then these popped up and it gave me the local craft beer and then the games. So that's why I decided to make a movie that I could make a video game or arcade type movie and then also a beer movie at the same time that was the original idea so while i was filming and covid happened i couldn't film anything and you'll see this in the movie everything shut down they start renting out machines and i can't film anything and i can't do anything and i don't know what to do when i can't work so i had the idea of i'm going to rent machine from one of the bars that parquet that we film at and he didn't want to film with me at the time because of COVID, like you can't even be around me, right? Everybody's skittish. So I rented a last action hero and I said, well, he's coming to my house. I'm going to film. I can film all I want. And it's very well covered because I already had three cameras in my house, just so eager to film. And you'll see him roll that last action hero into my house. And that was the machine that really set it off for me. Me and my wife stayed up till 1, 1.30 every night, drink a beer, play Last Action Hero, and that's been it for me. I'm on my fourth pinball machine. It's in my edit desk. Avenger is right next to it. And I'm hooked. That's all me and my wife do now. So that was kind of this film brought me into the pinball community, and I'm here to stay now. So that's just a little. And, Ralph, you kind of fell in around the same time too, right? Yeah, and everyone, it was at an expo. Well, where it kind of really snowballed was at my first expo. It was the first expo, I think, back from COVID. And everyone kept saying, especially my buddy Arcade Hollywood, he was like, they multiply. Be careful. They multiply. And I'm like, they're too expensive to multiply. And then I found myself like selling anything that wasn't nailed down in my house to get a pinball machine. But it's just, I don't know that. And I'm a traditional video game guy. So it was just, I think it's the variability of it and how like even though it's the same game, it's always kind of different. I just, I fell in love with it. I love it, and I love that there's so much pop culture inside pinball. Like you go through the decades, and you're like, wow, they've captured all these cool moments that maybe a movie you liked or a musician. You know, Elton John right there. It's like, I don't know. It's just a cool – I don't know how I wasn't in it before. I kind of feel I wish I could build a time machine and go back and experience some of the stuff I didn't. But I'm grateful that I'm in it now. And the movie kind of – the movie just spearheaded that even more because you do see a lot of – the movie is good, I think, if you're a casual person. And it's also good if you're like a collector or a hardcore pinhead too because you have a bunch of like – there are Easter eggs. Whether they were intentional or not, there's always something cool in there to see. So you guys will like it. I want to open this up for Q&A. But first off, for anyone who hasn't been by the booth or knows, for the first time ever – well, first off, we are on Amazon Prime. So if you guys scan that QR code, even for purposes of when you go home, we're streaming on Amazon now. For the first time ever, we have our Blu-rays. They literally just got printed last week. My distributor told me that these aren't going to be available on Amazon for 60 days. So I have my own duplication made, and we're selling them exclusive here to Expo. And I will tell you, yesterday I sold over half. And I also have about 18 VHSs that I made myself. They have FBI warnings. They have the Please Be Kind, Do Not Rewind sticker as well. It's just a cool little art piece. But I will tell you guys, if you're thinking about getting a Blu-ray, I would suggest you do it today. I don't see it last. By the time the screening comes, they should be gone. And it's just really exciting. I really pushed it out because I was like, you know, you guys are the target audience, as niche as it can be. So they're about $20 a piece. I have T-shirts as well. If any of you guys want to post when we leave, I've got some posters up here for you guys as well. But let's open up some questions, which you guys might have. Yes. I know this is too early to get into for you guys, but how often do you guys talk about doing token savage 2? Okay. I'll tell you exactly what the game plan is, and it goes kind of into that. Aside from Token Taverns, too, which is definitely a thought, but I think the way that I'm – okay, so first off, my day job that I do – this is my passion project, side hustle, but I do work in film and television and documentary – docuseries and reality TV. So where I'm pushing next is I'm going to repurpose the movie into a sizzle reel for Token Taverns, the series. and this for all you arcade bar owners really comes into play because in that sense it's like episode one might be phoenix and and it's you guys or it's you guys in another arcade bar that's in in the city uh the next one would be chicago and maybe just one or two bars and we kind of switch back and forth between those i used to produce a series called for mtv called true life and if you ever saw that they always have kind of two stories and you kind of go back and forth throughout the episode um so i have an idea for that and i do work in the field where i i work for i'm starting a show on monday where i can actually pitch that out to people so i'm thinking on that and even if that doesn't work out because i think what's great about that is that means i cannot pick two or three because i think it's important not to dilute it like if i had a ran around my last film insta I had like, it was about the music industry, I had like nine or ten artists and it was diluted and it just didn't have as much heart. I think you got to get to know the characters. So with a series, everybody gets a moment and if it does well, then we just continue to do it. You can always do another episode So that is the game plan My goal is to be able to show some of the people who I work with the success of Token Taverns and what myself and my wife have just done with just the two of us to see what would be possible with a real budget and a full crew and more than just sweat equity, which is that that's what this film is made with thousands of my hours and sweat equity. So, yeah, that's the game plan. And for you guys, too, you will see, like, Electric Bat included, that even though it is centered around three bars, even after COVID kind of opened up and I started traveling again, every time I stepped into an arcade bar, I shot footage and I used that B-roll in the movie. So you will see a lot of places, Electrobat included in the movie, for B-roll purposes, maybe not as story much, but every time somebody's talking about arcade bars in general, I call it generically, like Walter and these guys, then I use a different bar. I didn't use our main three. I just kept them with their stories. So you'll see a lot of little places there. It was interesting that that scene – there's a couple little moments if you've been to Electric Pad that are in the movie. But that was actually him and I just hanging out. Yeah. And he goes, I might try to – like you actually had the edit sort of done. The movie was done or one cut. Director's cut was done. Yeah. And that was like for six months before I delivered. And I just kept – I caught tinkering. I just kept adding and adding. I was in Phoenix working Super Bowl, and I linked up with Ralph, and we met at Electric Bat. So anytime I go into an arcade ball, I always have my camera. And so, yeah, we got footage. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, and that was, what, January, February, February. I think it was February. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, any more questions, guys? Nobody's going to ask why Stormy Daniels is in the movie? I mean, nobody's going to have a Billy question? I mean, come on, guys. Why is Stormy Daniels in the movie? I just said that because, you know, she's – I believe in the one strange cameo in every movie. Like, so I did a CrossFit movie for my first film called Functional Fitness, and it's got Jimmy Hart from wrestling in it. Really? Yeah, he's in a cameo. He was just – at least he kind of fell in your lap. But, yeah, Stormy Daniels, she comes around Tampa quite a bit. I have known her for a while, but she ended up coming to Reboot because her assistant, he came to us I took him there and he told her about it so she came to check the place out and so the funny thing about that is when that happened I just, I called George and that's the owner of Reboot and said hey listen, Stormy Daniels is going to come by your place and he's like, Stormy Daniels is going to come and he's like, he didn't want to believe me but then he was like, well the last time he called he told me Billy Mitchell was showing up and he came so I guess Stormy's coming and so but that's all i did i put a mic on him i put a mic on her and she walked through and he gave her like a little tour and you'll see in the movie it's just a fun little cameo by the way i did get some heat for the fact that in the opening credits you have her name right next to mine so like completely intentional friends of mine screenshotting it and sending it to my wife being like what is this movie about exactly i'm like cool so thanks for that but yeah she loved it But, yeah, you know, I mean, if someone like Stormy Daniels walks into your arcade bar and you film it, do you not put that on? I mean, do you not use that? Well, and there's some surprises in there about her. She might be a little bit more geeky than you'd think. I was surprised. There's some things in there that I was shocked by. Right. But, yeah, she's a nerd, I think. Yeah, and I will tell you, even though no one asked, I will tell you guys how Billy did come into the picture. is one of the bars we filmed at was called Glitch in Fort Lauderdale, and their kind of focus in there was indie games. And so the guy told me that Billy Mitchell actually comes there, and he live streams his Pac-Bans and stuff like that. So he kind of fell into the film through the bar, which was kind of cool. Is our time up? Awesome. Well, let me name all the YouTubers that I thought of before we got to Ralph. I wouldn't know that. No, we just need to get this out of here. No, Ralph was my first pick. Honestly, I'll finish this up real quick. Before I even came up with the idea for the film, I was into the home arcade scene, and I was watching Ralph's videos, and I wanted to kind of include home gaming as much as I could in something that's not about home gaming so including him plus he's super great on camera and he's got a radio voice i mean yeah i trust me i know i recognize the radio voice so yeah that's how how ralph and last thing me ralph did his interview remotely so he i wasn't even with him he filmed it himself and i interviewed him via facetime which is cool looking so to get that side profile shot that John Youssi, I am looking at him, but I'm looking at him on, like, my camera, my phone is right here, so, like, the shot looks like I'm talking to someone, but I'm really just, it's Bob's face on the phone, being like, yeah, that's good, Ralph. Yeah, and if you guys aren't tired of us, and you really need more of me and Ralph talking, which I know you do, definitely get the Blu-ray, because we do the director's commentary, and it's pretty awesome. We did it all in one take, and we did that remote as well, so that's, we're the director's commentary on the Blu-ray. If you were going to have a drinking game for the commentary, I don't know what it is. I say the word neat an awful lot. And my wife's like, what's up with you saying neat a lot? And I was like, I don't really say that word. I said neat like a million times. So you'll be wasted by the time. Thank you guys all for coming. The show, the movie is going to play at 7.15 tomorrow. So definitely come and see it because I will tell you there's no better way to watch it with a communal experience. in this group when we screened it Southern Fire Gaming, it just gets no better because everybody gets it. I do have my Blu-rays and stuff here. I'll be right outside the door if anybody wants to get anything here. Otherwise, I'll be back at the table if anybody wants to get anything today. Thank you guys so much for coming, man. Appreciate it.