The incidents of Marble League 2023

Hello everyone, it took some time until we share anything here, but WE ARE BACK!

First off we are starting today with some behind the scenes from ML23 and more specifically the incidents we encountered during the production of ML23.

The Funnel Endurance invader!

This arachnid showed up the other day scaring all the bees! But some of the most brave ones seized the insect and removed it from the stadium. Why? This Pholcus phalangioides (daddy long-legs spider), didn't have a ticket, like you all do! You see, bees like everyone, even the hornets, but a ticket is required inside the Superhive!

Remember that time when we saw the Marble League banner fall off the track? Well, that was NOT intentional. But we decided to put it in the video anyway! Normally, we film the events (heats, checking, next round, checking and so on), and after the event is filmed, we film the extra shots. These shots are panning around the stadium, maybe add specific shots, close-ups, fans cheering, and thumbnails shot candidates. It was one of the panning shots which you see actually in the video, where we saw the Marble League banner slowly falling off!

In the original video, Minos was panning the camera and when he noticed the fail occuring he said "oops", then Jelle turned around and started laughing at the falling banner. We didn't even realized the slight dislodge of that banner between heats. We just saw it falling off! That was hilarious and we added some shots with marbles fixing the structure, and in reality Piet (Jelle's dad) had the idea to attach a string behind the banner, and pull it back up. It's him who drags it up in the video!

However this was the highlight of our behind the scenes incidents, there are some others who REALLY made us wonder what to do!

That run in block pushing

Oh yes, block pushing has a little of a blunder in the beginning. In the first heat of the video where the Bumblebees broke the record, when the heat was done, we approached the track to collect the marbles and put them right back to the starting gate to continue with the filming. But before we touch them, Jelle shouted "Wait wait wait!" And jumped with enthusiasm to the Bumblebees result and said "we almost missed the new record!" We were stunned by this, and wondered, have we made the track more steep compared to other years? Would the previous records be obliterated by the next heats?

As it turned out it was only a coincidence as we checked the structure and it was like in the previous years! The rest of the heats didn't break any records, even though got close in some occasions, but then at the very last one, the Midnight Wisps got the new record for themselves and we were again stunned as we said "this will feel forced in the video", like we chose to put the MNW breaking the record on the final heat. It was pure chance that this happened!

In the image above you see the way we treat the track before filming. We first test the bias, inclination and the track's integrity, then we vacuum-clean it before the shooting!

We will be sharing more frequently on, with lots of stuff to show you! Stay tuned!