Greetings From Not-Hollywood

You're all enjoying the weekend I hope! Now, a word about the totally unrelated video: it sent everyone in our class laughing.

I was enrolled in two very different classes that semester, Advanced Video Production and Field Video Production. This wasn't made for Advanced Video Production. Hopefully the guys who made it don't mind if I post it. It was a relief at the time to sit through something made out of plain fun compared to the art house fare from the advanced production class (though they were still quite good, and all made with considerable skill). The point, in a poetic Sullivan's Travels sorta way, is that people laughed.

We got a B. Is it me, or did my hair look like Anton Chigurh?

So to anyone who saw our recent two-part episodes, what do you all think of them? It was a prototype of sorts, designed to gauge whether not we were being too convoluted (and ambitious) with the filmmaking topics. Weighing the pros and cons, the pro is that this is perhaps the most hands-on demonstration we can attempt at the moment--to discuss storytelling techniques as we employ them. To those who found it to be too convoluted, worry not, for the next episode will be a more straightforward affair.

If we attempt another one these multi-parters, it'll likely be Sustaining a Narrative. So we'd love to hear all your input on the recent two-part "prototypes" before we push forward.

Sorting, cutting, and mixing 270 different clips is...fun.

Checking on Twitter, I see that Sean and Rootclip have now entered the final chapter of The Alien. It certainly has been a unique run so far, with perhaps the most disparate attempts for each chapter; so varied is each entry that the story could qualify for an anthology of sorts. Some look at this as a disappointment. I find it rather risky and refreshing. Sean made the unusual, off-beat story in an attempt to coax that unused, unspent, and otherwise most creative part of the brain into wakefulness. Personally, it's a shame that users have bent the focus of the story from its female protagonist, back to Rootclip's default masculinity. But not even that mindset could shake away the sense of variety at play. My favorite? "Jim's Been Drinking Again." The plotting is ho-hum, but the pacing, editing, and audio are accomplished in spades.

So here's looking forward to Rootclip's next story, the latest evidence of which was alluded to in this now two-day-old Tweet: Back to script writing. This next story on Rootclip is going to be a good one! Yes, Rootclip, I eyeball your Twitter with the profound yearning of an infant for Mother's milk.

In a broad summation of events, Sean has been trying to meet with several local actors and actresses. You know, networking; and, perhaps, a little passive casting for his "Late Morning," I suspect. Offhand, he assures me that the Lessons are not only prepped to be shot soon (meaning more sleepless nights), but that they'll also blow your mind away. Not precisely in those words, mind you. I believe he muttered something softly like "Pretty good."

As for Drew, school and work has been keeping him busy (Take Zer0 is, after all, our full-time job alongside our other full-time jobs). He'll likely make an appearance in future episodes, preferably ones in the very near future. He tells me he pitched his "Father Time" web series to somebody connected up-on-high in the television industry.

Speaking of television, props to John in the forums for introducing me to Garth Marenghi's "Darkplace," a British TV show that spoofs sci-fi/horror shows of the 80s. A shame it was canceled. If the title sequence doesn't convince you that this show is genius...then you probably don't like a lot of things, I guess.

Well, anyway, have a great weekend everybody!