This Scene Matters: A Director’s War Journal
- Oklahoma Ward
- May 6
- 8 min read
"No matter the setback, we push forward. Every shot, every edit, every hour — we don't retreat. We reload. TRYHARD COMPANY doesn’t stall. We advance."
Behind-the-scenes updates, production news, and indie filmmaking insights from TRYHARD COMPANY.
🕹️ TRYHARD PROTOCOL
"TRYHARD COMPANY has always demanded precision — this week, I sharpened the tools.
Dialing in a focused daily schedule, locking down a real production tracker, and organizing every moving part into a system I can see... it’s not about starting over — it’s about gaining speed. I’ve always been grinding forward, but now that motion is cleaner. Quieter. Sharper.
Each ticked box, each labeled folder, every blog locked in on time — it’s another weapon in the belt."
📑 TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Battle for Survival: TRYHARD COMPANY Update
Mission Briefing: Eyes Only - Sneak Peek
Code Red: Filmmaking - Director's Thoughts
Reconnaissance: Hidden Masterpieces - Cult Classics
Surveillance: Hidden Treasures - Underrated Series
Debriefing: The Mover and Shaker's Club - Meet the Game-Changers
Intelligence Gathering: The Vault - Past Highlights
Victory Report: Crawl or Die
🏆 CRAWL or DIE Spotlight
Before there was TRYHARD COMPANY — there was a single soldier, crawling through hell.
CRAWL or DIE wasn’t just the beginning of this universe... it was the spark that lit the fuse.
Nicole Alonso’s performance as TANK carved out a place in indie sci-fi horror that fans still talk about a decade later.
Gritty, claustrophobic, and brutal — this is where the legend began.
🔻 Tap below to experience the film that launched the TANK legacy.
⚔️ Battle for Survival: TRYHARD COMPANY Update
TRYHARD COMPANY Production Update
This week marked the beginning of the final push — and the system is now in place to carry it all the way through.
The editing schedule is locked. Daily targets are set. Checkboxes are being ticked. Each day now has a purpose and a pace, and the project is no longer something being juggled — it’s something being driven.
Even better?
This same structure is being translated to the TRYHARD COMMAND CENTER, where the entire production — from episodes to trailers — will be visually trackable in real time. No smoke.
No mystery.
Just raw progress.
🔻 Tap below to step into the war room and track the mission live.
Mission Briefing: Eyes Only
What’s Incoming
Each episode of TRYHARD COMPANY opens with a unique intro sequence — a love letter to the classic TV intros that raised me.
Growing up, there were shows where the intro alone made me want to live in that world. Sometimes more than the show itself. And that obsession stuck. That same fevered energy I bring to cutting trailers? It’s poured into the opening of every episode — each one built like a standalone title card from the golden age of gritty TV.
🗃️ Episode 1 INTRO will kick things off with a nod to a classic: The Rockford Files.
But this time, instead of a jaded PI… it’s a squad leader in the dirt with no way out.
Soon, inside the Command Center, you’ll be able to explore the influence behind each episode’s opening — but for now, consider this your first classified glimpse of what’s coming.
🔻 Watch the trailer below — your first mission briefing begins there.
Code Red: Filmmaking - Directors's Thoughts
Step into the mind of the director as we explore the creative process behind TRYHARD COMPANY, with personal reflections, insights, and inspirations.
💥 Let’s cut to the truth...
Even with the schedule locked, I’m still carrying every frame in my head.Some edits aren’t about time — they’re about timing.
This week, I kept coming back to a single cut. One that, on paper, is two seconds long — but it’s not landing yet. And I couldn’t walk away from it. That’s the part of filmmaking no one sees — it’s not about dragging a scene until it fits the runtime. It’s about chasing the feel that lives between two frames.
🎯 You’re not cutting footage — you’re trying to get back to a feeling you had before words ever got involved.
When I write a scene, it starts with a spark — an image in my head. But then I put it into words, and the vision becomes limited by text. Then comes the day we film it — and the location doesn’t match what lived in my mind. The space is smaller. The angle’s different. The actors move in ways you couldn’t plan. The lens changes everything.
So what do you do?
You adapt.
You move the pieces.
You try to feel your way back to that original spark.
Because filmmaking isn’t about getting exactly what was in your head — it’s about capturing what you felt when it first mattered. And sometimes, in the edit, a scene you thought was minor becomes vital to the emotional arc. And other times, that “big moment” you obsessed over? It just needs to move.
The story always tells you what it needs.
You just have to get quiet enough to hear it.
🎥 Reconnaissance: Hidden Masterpieces – Cult Films
🎞 Cult Classic Radar: Death Race 2000 (1975)
❤️ WHY I LOVE: Death Race 2000
I gotta tell you — this is one campy, gory, funny, bad-but-good, maybe even complexing movie.
Back in the day, you didn’t have endless streaming. We had HBO. That was the event. I had already rented hundreds of movies, burned through stacks of tapes — I was into movies.
Late one night, everyone was asleep… and this promo comes on:
Coming up next: Death Race 2000 David Carradine.
No mention of Stallone — back then, nobody knew who he was.
But I knew Carradine. I grew up on Kung Fu. He was a powerhouse.
So I gave it a shot.
And I think I watched the whole damn thing with my jaw on the floor. I had never seen anything like it.
I still haven’t.
It’s truly one of those so-bad-it’s-good movies — and I mean that in the best way.
I’ve seen thousands of films: silent films, black-and-whites, musicals, cartoons, you name it.
And I’ve probably forgotten 70% of them.
But this? This one? I’ve never forgotten.
Not once.
I don’t even know if I’d recommend it. Most people might say,
“Why am I watching this? This is horrible.”
But maybe that’s why it’s so good. Maybe the fact that it haunts me — decades later — says more than I can explain.
And that has to mean something… right?
📜 Summary: Directed by Paul Bartel and produced by Roger Corman, Death Race 2000 is a sci-fi action cult classic soaked in blood, satire, and twisted Americana. In a dystopian future where killing pedestrians scores points, drivers race across the country in weaponized cars — and society cheers them on.
It’s absurd, it’s brutal, and it hides sharp political commentary under its insane, rubber-burning surface.This is what happens when storytelling doesn’t ask permission — it just accelerates.
🧩 Two Interesting Facts about this Cult Kill-Machine:
The film was shot on a micro-budget but became one of New World Pictures’ biggest cult hits — and helped launch Stallone’s career.
Corman pushed for outrageous violence and dark humor, but Bartel snuck in anti-authoritarian messaging beneath the carnage.
🎭 Actor Spotlight: Sylvester Stallone plays Machine Gun Joe — loud, violent, and unhinged. It’s one of the rawest, most unfiltered performances of his early career. He’s not the hero — he’s a wrecking ball with no brakes.
🎬 Iconic Scene:The infamous “hospital euthanasia” kill — where Frankenstein (Carradine) swerves his death machine toward a line of elderly patients. It's horrifying. It's hilarious. It's why this movie became legend.
🗞️ What the Critics Say:
“A gleefully tasteless slice of satirical pulp.” — Time Out“The most perfect B-movie ever made.” — Quentin Tarantino“It’s Mad Max with a license to kill — and laugh.” — Dread Central
🎥 [Watch the Trailer]
📺 Surveillance: Hidden Treasures - Underrated Series
📣 Target this week: Baretta (1975–78)
☕ Pick up your coffee cups...
❤️ WHY I LOVE: BARETTA
I don’t know what it is about me — but I’m drawn to the raw ones.
The characters who don’t have superpowers, don’t clean up well, don’t play by the book.
They’re messy.
Flawed.
Human.
Baretta wasn’t the best-looking guy in the room. He didn’t dress sharp. He wasn’t the smartest. But he had lines — and you didn’t cross them. Didn’t matter if you were a friend, an enemy, or his own father — those lines meant something.
And I love characters like that.
That’s why Ripley is my favorite character of all time. She’s not the strongest in the room — but her will is. That’s why I love John McClane. He’s not bulletproof. He’s just relentless. And Baretta? He fits right in with them.
You give me a character who’s beat to hell but won’t stop?
That’s TRYHARD COMPANY.
That’s Tank.
That’s Ripley.
That’s Baretta.
...and that INTRO!
One of my ALL TIME FAVS!
📜 Summary: Before slick procedurals and prestige antiheroes, there was Baretta.
Played by Robert Blake, this unorthodox undercover cop roamed the streets with grit, humor, and unpredictability. He wasn’t clean-cut, he wasn’t polished — and that’s what made him unforgettable. With a cockatoo on his shoulder, a beat-up apartment, and street smarts for days, Baretta was a street poet with a badge.
This wasn’t about solving crimes neatly — it was about living in the mess.
🧩 Two Interesting Facts about this Cult Series:
The theme song — “Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow” — was sung by Sammy Davis Jr. and became iconic on its own.
The show tackled heavy topics for its time: poverty, mental illness, and moral ambiguity, all under the banner of prime-time drama.
🎭 Actor Spotlight: Robert Blake brought a level of unpredictability and vulnerability that made Baretta more than just a TV cop. He made him human — messy, principled, emotional, and absolutely magnetic on screen.
🎬 Iconic Element: The rules. Baretta had a set of hard street-code mantras he lived by — the most famous being:
“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
That line wasn’t just catchy — it became a generational warning.
Intelligence Gathering: The Vault
Take a trip down memory lane with us as we explore the archives of our past content, with forgotten gems and timeless insights.
Classified Files Pending...
TRYHARD Recruitment: Sign Up Now
🧠 JOIN THE TRYHARD COMPANY TEAM
We’re building this series from the ground up — no studio safety net, no big budget machine. Just passion, scars, and a relentless drive to make something real.
If you've made it this far — you're already part of it.
💥 Want to go deeper?
🔗 Visit TRYHARDseries.com
📣 Share this blog with someone who loves raw sci-fi
🧠 Follow us on socials and spread the word:#TRYHARDCompany | #TANKarmy | #IndieSciFiLives
🎥 The mission's underway. The team is growing.Let’s make this impossible thing happen — together.
Mission Accomplished... for now.
The briefing may be over, but the mission continues. Join the TRYHARD COMPANY team and stay tuned for more updates, insights, and behind-the-scenes information. Share your thoughts and join/follow us on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, twitter/x etc. - and we'll catch you every Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday...
Create fearlessly,
Oklahoma Ward
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