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"There is only one rule for content, and that is: 'What do you genuinely enjoy making?'" |
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Freddie Wong, often known as "freddiew", is an American filmmaker, musician, and web director best known for his action shorts. His combination of fast paced action, comedy, and great special effects have made him the sixth most subscribed channel on YouTube. Freddie first began gaining popularity as a Guitar Hero player, and after college with the help of his friend Brandon Laatsch moved on to making weekly webshorts. Expect action, lots of bullets, nods to video games, and some truly bizarre and imaginative concepts augmented by excellent FX.
His main Youtube channel can be found here, with another for behind-the-scenes films. And look here for a brief summary of all his work in 2011.
He is also running his own full fledged web series called Video Game High School, which will air on his channel beginning on May 17, 2012.
Examples of Freddie Wong include:
- Actor Allusion: Along with the short's homage to Cowboys and Aliens, another allusion is Jon Favreau riding a flying truck that folds into a suitcase.
- Air Vent Passageway: Duct Hunt.
- All Chinese People Know Kung Fu/Positive Discrimination: Discussed and invoked in Kung-Fooled.
- And Now for Something Completely Different: Crossfire and Big Blue Ball Machine. On the former Freddie even had to add an annotation responding to people complaining about the lack of guns.
- Artistic License - Astronomy: Played for laughs in Epic VFX Time where Freddie and Harley summons dozens of planets in the sky because it looks cool.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Freddie and Shenae Grimes in Gun Size Matters.
- Berserk Button: In Don't F With My Cream, two robbers knock over an ice cream parlor as Freddie is outside enjoying some ice cream.[1] He does nothing to stop them until one of them decides to knock over his ice cream for no reason. It does not end well for the robbers.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted pretty well, actually. Unless it's for laughs, like in Minecraft Massacre.
- Camera Abuse: Played for Laughs in Epic VFX Time.
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Harley: "Feels like you're there! More camera shake! MORE Camera shake! Too much camera shake!" |
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- Cloning Blues: Implied to have happened in Halloween Massacre.
- Concealment Equals Cover: Lampshaded in the video description to Chrono Trigger: Short Action Scene: "The stairs and pallet are made wood from the holly tree, the strongest material known to man. That should clear things up!"
- Cliché Storm: Beach Justice is meant to be this.
- Cool Car: Jon Favreau's truck, which flies and can shrink into a suitcase.
- Crossover: With EPICMEALTIME, Smosh, Wong Fu Productions, and Ray William Johnson.
- Defied Trope: In Skyrim Badass, one of the Mooks during Freddie's rampage tries to put an arrow in his knee as per the famous meme. Ain't happenin', pal.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Gun Size Matters. Three words: 360 No Scope.
- Dude, Not Funny: The in-universe reaction in "Executive Command" by the Secretary of Defense to Freddie's antics.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: "Sir, as of 0140 this morning, Operation: EXPLOSION CANNONZ, that's "cannons" with a "Z", is a go."
- Failure Is the Only Option: The ending of Cereal Killer is interactive, allowing the viewer to pick which cereal Freddie should eat. But because the milk was bad, both of them cause him to throw up.
- Flipping the Bird: Freddy at the end of Real Life UFO Sighting! and The Prince in Man vs. Katamari.
- Freud Was Right: Why Gun Size Matters.
- Also everywhere in Jedi A-Holes.
- Gambit Pileup: Everyone is trying to pass themselves off as an amazing fighter in Kung-Fooled.
- General Failure: General Johnson in Executive Command.
- Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: Harley Morenstein summons a "lesbian makeout scene in the sky!" No one can see it because of all the planets in the way.
- Gone Horribly Right: An Inconvenient Truth: The future has motion control video games. "Except it sucks!!"
- Gosh Dang It to Heck: Swearing is pretty rare in any of Freddie Wong's videos. The few times it does occur, in Kung-Fooled and Epic VFX Time, it's bleeped out.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: Exaggerated in Splinter Cell: Lightbulb Assassin. Justified if you've ever played Splinter Cell.
- Gun Fu: Freddie has a penchant for this in his action shorts, with the most prominent examples being Time Crisis with Andy Whitfield and Alarmageddon, though with rare exception, he primarily uses one gun.
- Guns Akimbo: Directly referenced and invoked in "Executive Command".
- The "boss" from Time Crisis uses two submachine guns.
- Freddie uses two AK-47s in Don't F With My Cream to blast the hell out of two robbers who, well...
- Gun Struggle: Whose gun is it anyway?
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Milk Man: World's Worst Superhero.
- The Hero Dies: Medal of Honor Cat, Flower Warfare, Duct Hunt, Halloween Massacre (sort of), and The Golf War.
- Hollywood Hacking: All Freddie has to do to hack the computer in Bodycount is hold down the "X" key.
- Rapid typing hacking was also his speciality in his cameo appearance on Chuck.
- Hollywood Silencer: Oddly both averted and played straight. The silenced gun makes a reasonably loud sound, but the guards are clearly the most idiotic guards alive.
- "This is a sneaking mission where I infiltrated a Deaf Person's Warehouse."
- Special focus is also given to removing a silencer so Freddie's gunshot will be heard in Claymores.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Usually averted, as his bad guys' accuracy is about on par with Freddie's when they shoot. Key word being "when."
- Sometimes it's justified by the short taking place within a video game.
- Jerkass: The Jedi A-Holes, who use lightsabers and the Force to do jerkass things For the Lulz.
- Though their antics in the sequel (such as throwing a car with someone in it very far away, deflecting blaster bolts without a care about who those bolts hit, and giving lightsabers to two kids and cheering them on as they battle and taking bets until both of them die) may be the point where the two cross the line.
- The Lancer: Brandon Laatsch, Freddie's co-director.
- Leap and Fire: Andy Whitfield does a textbook-perfect shootdodge early on in Time Crisis.
- Meganekko: Nicole Wyland's Moonchild in the Flower Warfare series.
- Me's a Crowd: Big Blue Ball Machine, Guitar Army, and Halloween Massacre.
- Mind Screw: Big Blue Ball Machine.
- Mood Whiplash: Home Alone appears to be a goofy video about a kid and his traps to befuddle robbers. The last trap sets off a shotgun.
- Mooks
- More Dakka: Epic VFX Time
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Harley: Raining guns! |
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- Mundane Made Awesome: The Golf War
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The backstory of Beach Justice, which is meant to be a 88 minute Made for TV movie.
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Freddie: "Due to spontaneous hard drive combustion, only the last two minutes could be salvaged. We chose not to back up the original master drive, for some reason." |
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- Ocular Gushers: Used hilariously in the end of Gun Size Matters.
- One-Man Army: Freddie usually fulfills this on a daily basis, but Executive Command invokes this, but here Freddie is an Idiot Hero who gleefully commits war crimes.
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Secretary of Defense: Where's the rest of his team? |
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- One Bullet Left: Beach Justice.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Inverted in Duct Hunt. A mook gets shot twice in the foot and drops dead.
- Parody: Freddie's Power Hour to Kanye West's famous "Power" video. In his words, "Kanye West's vision through the lens of party dudes."
- Play the Game Skip the Story: Exactly what Freddie does in Bodycount, skipping through the entire Opening Monologue so just he can get to shooting bad guys.
- He does the same thing in Skyrim Badass, stabbing any person who dares to ask him for help.
- Pink Mist: Commonly seen in the death of Mooks. Freddie has written on his blog that the mist is made from taping red chalk being clapped into the air.
- Pin Pulling Teeth: Jimmy Wong pulls this off in Light Warfare.
- Pluto Is Expendable: In Epic VFX Time.
- Promoted Fanboy: Worked with Jon Favreau, Kevin Pollak, and Andy Whitfield, filmed on the set of Iron Man, guest starred on an episode of Chuck, and has made commercials for McDonald's, Samsung, and Battlefield.
- He's also promoted several fanboys himself, such when two of the kids from Kids React To got a part in Jedi A-Holes.
- Rocket Jump: The Rocket Jump.
- Reference Overdosed: Freddie LOVES video games, so expect so see many video game nods.
- Duct Hunt references Duck Hunt, of course, but the ending also parodies Metal Gear Solid's Game Over scream.
- As Freddie dies in Flower Warfare, he witnesses a double rainbow...
- Thanksception, obviously.
- Subverted in Chrono Trigger: Short Action Scene, which has absolutely nothing to do with Chrono Trigger.
- Skyrim Badass is one big one to the epic fifth Elder Scrolls game. Freddie even defies the old "arrow to the knee" meme by catching said arrow.
- Refuge in Cool: The entire point of Epic VFX Time.
- Scary Black Man: Invoked in Kung-Fooled.
- Slasher Smile: Freddie at the end of Halloween Massacre.
- Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: They fall very much on silliness side, even with all the gunfire, blood, and explosions.
- Especially because of all the gunfire, blood, and explosions.
- Sophisticated As Hell: General Johnson is fond of these. "Sir, with all due respect, shut your mouth." "That's because you're a noob, sir."
- Stealth Based Mission: Subverted in Bodycount.
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This is a stealth mission, leave no survivors. |
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- Time Stop: Done in both Chrono Trigger: Short Action Scene and Time Freeze Shootout.
- Trigger Happy: YES.
- Trolls: Freddie and Ray William Johnson go after a bunch of these with a hammer and a shotgun in Troll Massacre.
- Up to Eleven: Epic VFX Time
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Freddie: Get to the choppa! |
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- Unnecessary Combat Roll: Freddie does one for laughs in Bodycount.
- Waterfall Puke: The end of Cereal Killer.
- This is also Milkman's superpower.
- A Worldwide Punomenon: Time Crisis and Duct Hunt have jokes of the Asian variety.
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Time Crisis, Score Screen: Agent Whitfield, Asian Wong |
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