The Making of John Wick Pinball

Stern Pinball·video·12m 5s·analyzed·Oct 11, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Stern's official John Wick Pinball production diary showcasing design innovation, Hollywood collaboration, and Keanu Reeves approval.

Summary

Stern Pinball's official production documentary on John Wick Pinball reveals the design process from concept through launch. The game features innovative mechanics including a motorized car toy with four progression multiballs, an action video player syncing film clips to player actions, and expression lighting mimicking the films' neon noir aesthetic. Key contributors include designer Elliot Eisman, musician Charlie Benante (Anthrax), and actor Ian McShane, with Keanu Reeves himself playing the game at Comic-Con.

Key Claims

John Wick Pinball uses an innovative 'action video player' that syncs film sequences to player progress, with video clips catching up to gameplay in real-time
high confidence · Designer discusses creating new video player technology where 'the movie clips will be playing from beginning to end and basically catch up with the player's progress'
The motorized car toy can perform a fishtail movement and was previously untested at that speed, presenting reliability challenges
high confidence · Designer states: 'I really wanted to make it look like it was doing a fishtail. We had never done anything that fast before. It was really challenging making it reliable'
Charlie Benante (Anthrax drummer) composed the John Wick Pinball soundtrack in collaboration with Andy Lagas
high confidence · Benante directly discusses meeting in 2022 to create soundtrack and watching films for inspiration
Keanu Reeves attended San Diego Comic-Con, played the John Wick Pinball machine at the Stern booth, and enjoyed the game
high confidence · Designer recounts: 'Sure enough, Keanu shows up and starts playing the game and hanging out' and 'from what I hear, he's a huge pinball fan'
A physical prop from Lions Gate's John Wick was scanned and recreated in 3D for the game (the marker)
high confidence · Designer states: 'Lions Gate sent us a prop from John Wick that we were able to scan and recreate in 3D to put on the game'

Notable Quotes

“At the end of the day, a pinball machine experience is only going to be about three minutes, so in that three minutes you need to deliver a high energy, high intensity experience for the player.”
Designer (possibly Elliot Eisman or collaborator) @ Early discussion — Core design philosophy for John Wick's fast-action two-flipper layout
“I wanted to make the player feel like they were signing a deal with the devil. Actions have consequences.”
Designer @ Marker/ball save mechanic discussion — Thematic design intent behind the blood oath rule integration
“Music and lighting, they sell the moment you're trying to capture. You can have a bash toy that just you hit it and it'll be exciting for a little bit, but if it has the sound and the lighting right behind it, it's just such a bigger moment than you ever expected.”
Designer @ Audio/lighting discussion — Production philosophy emphasizing multimedia integration in game design
“Every game that I've worked on up until this point has always had that magic moment where you go from whitewood to art to then now speech and sound, where the—I like to call it the game kind of comes to life.”
Designer @ Final reflection — Designer's perspective on the transformation from prototype to finished product
“So for him [Keanu Reeves] to be playing the John Wick game at Comic-Con, it was just like, 'Can this thing get any better?'”
Designer @ Comic-Con appearance discussion — Emotional climax of production journey with franchise star endorsement

Entities

Elliot Eismanperson Charlie Benanteperson Ian McShaneperson Keanu Reevesperson George Gomezperson Andy LagaspersonJohn Wick Pinballgame

Signals

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content_signal: Keanu Reeves appeared at Comic-Con, played John Wick Pinball publicly, and reportedly approved the game; industry knowledge of his pinball fandom leveraged
high · Designer recounts Keanu playing at booth and states: 'from what I hear, he's a huge pinball fan' and expresses joy that 'he enjoyed the game'
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community_signal: Limited edition vinyl soundtrack announced as Comic-Con exclusive with designer presence for signings, creating scarcity and fan engagement opportunity
high · Designer states: 'And we are doing a limited edition vinyl John Wick pinball soundtrack available only at Comic-Con. I will be there signing the soundtrack too'
?
design_philosophy: Fast-action two-flipper design emphasizing 3-minute high-intensity gameplay experience as core design principle
high · Designer explicitly states: 'At the end of the day, a pinball machine experience is only going to be about three minutes, so in that three minutes you need to deliver a high energy, high intensity experience'
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licensing_signal: Extensive IP collaboration with Lions Gate including physical prop provision (marker) and likely scene licensing for film clip recreation
high · Designer explains: 'Lions Gate sent us a prop from John Wick that we were able to scan and recreate in 3D to put on the game'
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community_signal: First-time full designer (Elliot Eisman) bringing mechanical engineering background to game design role with clear artistic vision
high · Collaborator describes: 'Elliot was coming from a mechanical engineering background' and 'Elliot's got his own style. He had a pretty clear vision of how he wanted certain aspects of it to function'

Topics

Game design innovationprimaryMechanical engineering and playfield designprimaryVideo integration and softwareprimarySoundtrack and audio designprimaryFilm-to-pinball adaptation and IP licensingprimaryExpression lighting and visual designsecondaryInsider Connected networked featuressecondaryCelebrity endorsement and Comic-Con launchsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.88)— Consistently enthusiastic and celebratory tone throughout production documentary; designers express satisfaction with outcomes, pride in innovation, and joy at Keanu Reeves' involvement and approval. No negative commentary or design regrets expressed.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

when I heard we were working on John Wick I was very excited because I was a huge fan of the movies looking at the films Was Not only was a fantastically choreographed action film and K Reeves is just amazing in those but also that world that they created let's do the game started out with Tim Elliot and myself and Tim Elliot was coming from a mechanical engineering background I was wanting to make change from mechanical engineering to game design um it just felt like it was a natural progression for me we got down to the basics like you start every pinball machine you start with the drawing you start with Concepts you start with the themes what are the cool Maxs what can we draw what's like iconic about John wi can just kind of add that into the Playfield I think El it's got his own style he had a pretty clear vision of how he wanted certain aspects of it to function I knew all along I wanted to do a tw- flipper game so I wanted to try to make that as fast action as possible so like I knew laying up the ramps and all this stuff had to be quick at the end of the day a pinball machine experience is only going to be about 3 minutes so in that 3 minutes you need to deliver a high energy high intensity experience for the player the first thing that struck me was the Continental as their main base of operations I want I knew I wanted to put that in the game the main concern was getting this this Continental sculpt to look appropriate but not dominating but not minuscule we put some cool lighting inside there with flash lamps so you could see more action inside the Continental it was really cool to start from your sketching that you did and then get it to the point where you can shoot it out and try out all the geometry that you just laid down and you learn a bunch of stuff like on this right side I really want to massage this area to make it a little bit more forgiving it's all kind of one big puzzle where like you adjust one piece here and it affects several pieces down over here around an areas but that just is a lot of areas to change and update and so yeah it's a big snowball sometimes we really loved all the dance club scenes from all the movies they're always fighting in some kind of club with people she wanted to convey that action in a pinball context the car and the dance club were two things that from day one everybody thought should be part of the game it's iconic in the movies and we could do interesting things with it this actually started as an upper Playfield so we wanted to have some sort of combat area where you know you have close quarters i' would have a a sort of an exit that would feed it this way and I tried several different iterations of whatever to make it kind of cool then I'm like H it's not as dynamic as what I'd like it to be so I'm like okay let's sink it down so we can shoot straight into it the pop bumper is a little bit unique a lot of those captive balls don't have that in it and Tim Elliot was looking for a lot of action in that area there's a lot of driving sequences in the John Wick films and he's often driving these muscle cars from the 7s he seems to be a connoisseur so we actually have a physical sculpted car and so like this is our basic blocky stuff right now you'll be able to hit it and then certain number of hits It'll like actually drive forward I really wanted to make it look like it was doing a fish tail we had never done anything that fast before it was really challenged making it reliable so that it wasn't burning out Motors or system components or whatever we centered it all around there's one car but there's four multi balls that you can progress to in just the one car mechanism and each one represents a different driving sequence from each movie one of my goals really was taking this cool carmech and trying to use it as much as possible during gameplay so like for example there's a scene in the movie I really enjoy enjoyed where Wick gets hit he climbs out of the car and he's like hiding behind it and then defeating bad guys so during that multiball you reach a point where the car kind of drives out like that and you have to bash it a few times some of the clips from the movie we recreated that in 3D George Gomez created a version of the car for the Playfield so we actually took that ex model and created a digital version and recreated the taxic cab Chase watching the John Wick films I liked how they had this let o marker that they would open up we had this uh sculpt on the Playfield from Tim Elliot and the team that would open up and show fingerprints inside so we decided to bring that in and Lion's gate sent us a prop from John Wick that we were able to scan and recreate in 3D to put on the game the marker wound up turning into the ball save rule where if you activate the marker and drain down one of the outlane drains you get your ball back but then you're stuck in a Blood Oath and then now you have to fulfill an obligation in return in order to free yourself from the Blood Oath I wanted to make the player feel like they were signing a deal with the devil actions have consequences I've watched all four John Wick films many times I identified the the film clips we needed but I wanted to use the entire film sequences so in order to bring that that all together on a pinball machine I created a new type of video player that we call the action video player which is keeping track of the player progress and it's playing the scene in a way that's connected to the player's actions on the Playfield the movie clips will be playing from beginning to end and basically catch up with the players's progress so as you defeat three enemies you'll watch the display and you'll see John Wick defeat three enemies you feel like you're controlling it because it has a video game feel we just took inspiration by the film itself and what they're doing they do a lot of realism really grungy style and and I noticed there's a lot of macro shots being used so we have a coin that's flipping through and all that so we use blender for that to really get the good details of of that object that was a big thing when we went to the art direction we wanted to make it feel like it was from the movies John Wick doesn't speak too much but when he does we do have that speech from the movie like yeah I'm thinking on back there's another one Jonathan Ian McShan performed speech as his character Winston over in London Ian McShan came to the studio we had a great recording session and he just delivered immediately a great performance that works really well in the pinball machine feels so authentic to have Ian mcshain bring his talent to the game rules without them we live with the animal most back in 2022 Tim Elliot jod and I sat down with Charlie bante to talk about doing the soundtrack for a John Wick pinball machine Charlie said let me go watch the movies let me get my head around the property and I said sure I wrote pretty much most of the songs for Anthrax and with this I collaborated with Andy lagas my friend and partner we put this soundtrack together and we just busted our ass doing it because we wanted it to be great you know just like it's got to be great I gave him some notes on like you know watch this scene to get some inspiration I want you know the catacombs underground in Rome scene I want some music for that he definitely guided me towards a certain tone or a certain sound some songs were kind of in that what I call that kind of Swampy type of tone uh and then some were very dance techno is you know that cinematic sound a lot of the tones that are in the movie reflect the scene of the movie so if it's a fighting scene the music is really upbeat and stuff like that so that's exactly how we tried to capture it we had to watch cuz sometimes we'd get carried away and the song would end up being 6 minutes and it's like we got to cut this down and we are doing a limited edition vinyl John Wick pinball soundtrack available only at ComiCon I will be there signing the soundtrack too music and lighting they sell the moment you're trying to capture you can have a bash toy that just you hit it and it'll be exciting for a little bit but if it has the sound and the lighting right behind it it's just such a bigger moment than you ever expected one thing I really loved about the John Wick films is that the the colors really just set one location out from the next what we like to call neon Noir so I really wanted the expression lights on this game so we could mimic that dramatic lighting they do so every time you start a mode or every time you start a multiball they'll change different colors associated with the scene it kind of sets the mood of it with Insider connected things are always changing and evolving what we're doing for John Wick which we've never done before with Insider connected is we've introduced objective based contracts just like in the John Wick films you'll be issued exclusive contracts where it's a race to see who can be the first person to take on the administration's challenge so we're here at San Diego ComiCon at the stern Booth where they have John Wick pinballed and the props are really cool people checking them out behind the glass cases there they're from the movies so one of my favorite things to do is seeing people play the pinball machines that to illustrate it was really cool so we're at ComicCon and there was something in the air that keano was going to come by sure enough keano shows up and starts playing the game and and hanging and then started talking and everything and he enjoyed the game and from what I hear he's a huge pinball fan he could definitely play Pinball look at that so for him to be playing the John Wick game at ComicCon it was just like can this thing get any better every game that I've worked on up until this point has always had that magic moment where you go from Whitewood to Art to then Now speech and sound where the I like to call it the game kind of comes to life and then when you get there you're always like wow this is so much cooler than I ever expected it's badass it's fast it's cinematic I think this layout and the way the shots flow are are really Tim Elliot style if you're a fan of John Wick then it's a must to have this in your house or your office or your bathroom I don't care wherever you want to put it we get awesome animations we get awesome video clips from the game awesome sound effects driving music it all comes together to an action-packed pinball experience everything just feels like it should we used to be friends with keano he came to the Chicago show when we played and he was in a suit and he was in the pit just going nuts and it was always something that stuck out of my mind it's like wow nice dress man in the pit