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Poster for the Youtube hit, "Street Fighter High: The Musical"

Today’s blog is written by Cat! Jennifer Chang, writer/producer of “Street Fighter High: The Musical.”

One of the most refreshing things I learned from Blake was that there is no shame in writing solely with the goal to entertain. I loved how he saw entertainment as a public service and recognized that a movie that made many people happy probably did far more good for the world than most self-proclaimed “art pieces” ever could.

My first screenplay was a rambling 260-page monstrosity, weighed down with long pages of “deep” dialogue and laden with depressing biographical details I now realize the public could never really care about. It was only after I got schooled at a Beat Sheet Workshop in early 2009 that I focused on writing with an audience in mind — and from that new mentality came an experiment called “Street Fighter High.”

In a nutshell, the 10-page script was a lighthearted parody that re-imagined the characters from Capcom’s bestselling “Street Fighter” video games in an angsty “Dawson’s Creek”-style teen drama.

It was silly.

It had low production values.

It was made for FUN.

I was going to be happy if it made even a few hundred people laugh.

But to my surprise, when it was released on the web, it blew up. After being picked up by just about every major gaming site, today it totals around 600,000 hits across Youtube, break.com, and numerous other video aggregators.

The fan response was overwhelmingly positive, and quite unexpectedly, I was receiving emails from actual agents and managers who wanted to see more. I realized soon after that I had to release a sequel… only this time, it needed to be professional. And on the heels of the announcement of the sequel came even more surprises: some big names in entertainment wanted in, and I sure as heck was not going to deny them!

We released the 2-part sequel: “Street Fighter High: The Musical,” on September 7th.

Featured in it are famous voice actors Reuben Langdon (the voice of “Ken” from Street Fighter IV and the voice actor and motion-capture artist for Dante in the popular “Devil May Cry” video game series), Matthew Mercer (who will be the voice of “Tygra” in the much-anticipated relaunch of the “Thundercats” cartoon), and Michael T. Coleman (who voiced “Cody” in the latest Street Fighter Game), as well as reality televisions stars Faye Mata and Justin Wong, who can currently be seen on SyFy’s “WCG Ultimate Gamer.”

In less than three days, the two new videos together have topped 110,000 hits on Youtube, with dozens of gaming sites already reporting on its success. And though limited resources made it so that the finished product doesn’t necessarily have all the polish of a big Hollywood production, I’m proud to say that the fans seem to find the 20-minute short film entertaining.

Of course, “Street Fighter High: The Musical” is dedicated to the memory of Blake Snyder.

Watch Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTCutUi2kaY

Watch Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyW9lCVvsvM

Read News Coverage of “Street Fighter High: The Musical”…

on Techland - Time, Inc.

on The Escapist Magazine

on Capcom-Unity