#is 20 hours enough time for me to finish a script. film a video. find all the clips and materials I need for it. edit it all together.

[anothermonikan]

'In 33 hours this will all be over, whether you do it good or not you wont have to worry about it anymore, cmon Andy, you got this! You got this!' <<< trying to do their last assignment

[metalgearkong]

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Review

12/20/19  ** Spoilers

Directed by JJ Abrams (Lucasfilm / Disney)

Among the current social media and the 24 hour advertisement cycle, if you wanted, its possible to piece together much of the plot of this movie, or any big blockbuster these days. Its for this reason I avoided every single piece of media about Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker before I saw it. Even when bombarded with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TV ads, and movie previews, I successfully dodged all snippets of the movie in order to be as surprised as possible once I sat down to see it. That night was tonight, and it’s felt like a long and arduous two years since The Last Jedi. Once again I have deeply mixed feelings about a new Star Wars movie, but I enjoyed myself more in The Rise of the Skywalker than I did in The Last Jedi, but not necessarily for shakesperian reasons.

The fans were worried about how The Rise of Skywalker would turn out, and as release day approached, reviews were already negative. I accidentally saw a Rottentomatoes critics score in the mid 20′s, and several videos were already uploaded to YouTube giving away that broad opinion of this film. This concerned me, as even critics liked The Last Jedi, which is one of my least favorite Star Wars movies. I let all of the negativity brush off me like a blaster bolt on Beskar armor. I went into The Rise of Skywalker rooting for it and looking to find every positive it could bring being the ninth main installment of the Star Wars saga. I was also ready for this trilogy to be over so everyone whining online could move on and obsess over something else. In an odd, semi-genuine, and semi-ironic way, I had tons of fun in The Rise of Skywalker, even acknowledging its horribly messy and rushed script.

Each of these Star Wars movies to me is like how a new chapter in the Bible would feel for a Christian, and the theater is my house of worship. The series’ trademark title blasted onto the screen among roaring trumpets, and I was ready. My auditorium applauded as the Star Wars logo shrunk to the background and the opening crawl appeared at the bottom of the screen. Seeing a new Star Wars movie in the theaters is always a holiday for me. Each film is a new addition to the lore of my favorite movie universe of all time, pulling from years as a kid before I can even remember the first time I saw it (thank you parents). This movie had me grinning from ear to ear, bringing out that inner child in me that Star Wars always used to do, something The Force Awakens partially did, and what The Last Jedi failed to do completely.

JJ Abrams continues his pension for fast paced scenes, but somehow still containing a ton of charm. We finally get to see Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), Chewie (Joonas Suotamo), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) all working together on the same mission. The characters have a ton of charisma between them, and it inspires me to think of the potential for them having been together more often in this trilogy. I enjoyed their quips and didn’t think it got out of control or relied too much on bathos. The first half of this movie moves like a racetrack, as our heroes move from one location to another pursued by the First Order enough to almost make me dizzy. This would turn out to be a running issue with the movie, and if JJ Abrams and the editor would have let each scene go a little slower and last a little longer, it would have been more appreciated.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is the Supreme Leader of the First Order, having murdered and usurped Snoke (Andy Serkis) in the last film, and is on a personal quest to track down what may be the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). The movie opens on this note, and having none of it spoiled ahead of time for me, found it to be intriguing and exciting. The Emperor is one of the best and most fleshed out characters in Star Wars, and I was curious to learn how he resurrected. Unfortunately the movie barely gives an explanation and we are simply left with the spectacle of what I call Necro Palpatine. However we do have it explained that Snoke was a mere puppet of Palpatine in some capacity, but we aren’t told to what extent, or any other kind of logical backstory. It both answers and raises more questions simultaneously, about both dark lords.

The Rise of Skywalker also goes out of its way in several places to help explain some of the more controversial elements of the prior film, and I appreciated it as a fan of the series who felt toyed with in The Last Jedi. It’s obviously a wink wink to the audience, but I’d much rather have it than not. Greatest of all was Luke (Mark Hamill) being redeemed, as he admitted he was not only wrong to go hide on the island, but toss his father’s lightsaber over his shoulder. The movie also tries to shoe-in more explanation of what Luke was doing after his Jedi Academy was destroyed, which included trying to find the Sith Wayfinder along with Lando Carissian (Billy Dee Williams). It’s not a great explanation of why Luke disappeared, and I wish this was clearly the plan from the beginning of the trilogy. The Wayfinder is basically a key to get to Exegol where Palpatine is hiding. It becomes Rey (Daisy Ridley) and her friend’s mission to find the Wayfinder, through various means and mcguffins. 

John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra returns one final time scoring a Star Wars movie. I heard a dozen of his old tracks throughout the film and I had fun naming as many as I could. For how much I love his leitmotifs and listen to his music ad noaseam, whether its giving me an emotional rush during a run or driving on the highway, I couldn’t recall any new music heard in this film. The first thing I did when I got home from the movie was try to download the soundtrack from Spotify but it wasn’t available yet. I still give this movie a big thumbs up for its soundtrack because although it isn’t new, the way Williams’ music is used and where it’s placed gave me goosebumps every time. Hearing Rey’s theme in just the right moments made me happy, and identifying other leitmotifs and variations of them were great to hear.

The acting all around was excellent for a Star Wars movie. Daisy Ridley as Rey is as great as she’s ever been, and the same goes to Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. All the side characters and comic relief did a good job as well. The banter between Finn, Poe, and C-3PO was a treat as well. Tony Daniels continues to be one of my favorite actors in all of Star Wars for conveying as much personality as he does without facial expressions and very limited movement. McDiarmid as Necro Palpatine gets very little screen time, but he’s hamming it up as the evil Emperor he’s always been, and I loved every second of it. I also deeply appreciate that the movie seemed to rely on puppets again, and one of the stand out side characters was a tiny engineer named Babu Frik (Shirley Henderson) who should have had more time in the movie.

The only “yikes” moment I felt was any time we saw Leia. It’s such a tragedy that Carrie Fisher passed away so unexpectedly, and least of all not able to finish this Star Wars trilogy. I listened to her audiobook The Princess Diarist and she seemed so excited, yet nervous, to be yet again the role that made her famous, and to complete episodes 7, 8, and 9. Her face seems to be animated on a stand-in actress, and her only lines were from old footage that was never used in Episode VII or VIII. This means Leia has very little to say in this movie, and probably had a lot less to do in the plot than she deserved to. The CGI simply wasn’t convincing for me and is the only aspect of the movie that put a lump in my throat for all the wrong reasons. On the flip side, Han Solo’s cameo was a terrific scene that also had me teary-eyed. It was a great call back to The Force Awakens, and served a purpose for Kylo Ren’s character. Harrison Ford did a perfect job, and it was just the sort of scene I didn’t know I wanted.

While much The Rise of Skywalker feels hastily cobbled together, and relies on way too many conveniences for the plot to keep moving, I found it to be a very satisfying time. You know that feeling when you’re extremely tired and almost feel drunk, and everything seems hilarious and flippant? That’s how I felt during this entire thing. I could see ridiculous script elements that either contradict or ruin lore left and right, but I think something inside me was just so happy to finally get this trilogy over with. I let the fan service envelop me even if it didn’t make sense or feel justified. Yes Rey is still a Mary Sue, yes we still got an underwhelming lightsaber duel (that she wins), yes there are too many characters, yes the plot and details can be nonsensical, yes this movie needed way more time to bake in the oven. But unlike a Jedi’s weapon, this movie may not be elegant, but it is a cathartic and satisfying experience, which is all I every hoped it would be. Now can we all take a breath and move on?

6/10

[getoutofthisplace]

Dear Gus,

Today is my 37th birthday. What follows is the detailed account I posted to Facebook of how I spent the day, but I left out the part where after my meeting and before we started filming, I ducked into the conference room to see the Fayetteville engineers being introduced to the tinker kit the North Little Rock engineers opened up yesterday.

I wake up at the Courtyard Marriott in Fayetteville. It is dark. I reach for the bedside table and feel around for my phone, which lights up. My background image pictures Gus sitting in Liz’s lap. He looks older in the photo than he is in real life. Liz looks as beautiful as she is in real life. It’s 4:45am on the dot because that’s when Gus has been waking me up lately. It takes me a while to go back to sleep, but I think I finally crash at 5:30, and wake up to my alarm at 6:45. While I shower, I listen to The Cure Radio on my phone, which stops suddenly. I peek through the clear shower curtain to see that Liz is calling me. The music comes back when she hangs up. I dry off and call her back.

“Happy birthday!” she says. And then we talk about the sleep we got and didn’t get the night before. We talk about what Gus ate in the previous 24 hours. And while we talk I stare at myself in the mirror, trying to identify the differences in my body at 37 years old versus when I was in my 20s. I don’t remember my body from my 20s anymore. I try to convince myself I look exactly the same.

“Have a good day,” Liz says, “I love you.”

I get dressed and make my way downstairs to cash in my breakfast voucher for toast, bacon, fruit, and two eggs.

“How would you like your eggs cooked?” the woman behind the counter asks.

“Over-medium.” I used to ask for my eggs to be cooked over-easy, but it occurred to me last year that I have probably been ordering them that way out of habit for decades. I actually like my eggs cooked over-medium. The fascinating thing about this change in my egg order is that it hasn’t affected any change in the way my eggs are actually cooked. It turns out, most people in the kitchen don’t know how to make eggs over-medium. All of those egg orders never actually mattered, it seems. I was always going to get the same eggs, no matter the order.

I sit with Bryan Stafford and eat my breakfast while he drinks his coffee and we discuss an email we earlier that will likely mean we will soon head to Dallas to do what it is that we do. We work for a 100-year-old engineering firm that—among other things—pays us to make short videos. I write them, Bryan films them, and we direct them together. We’re a good team.

We drive over to the office and I make my rounds to say hello to the people I know and like in our Fayetteville office while Bryan unloads gear. I find an empty office and respond to emails. I run a quarterly conference call between the company’s 26 offices. Sometimes I worry that people are saying “Guy’s call is terrible. I dread it every quarter.” But I feel like if people are saying that, there is someone else close that will say, “At least he keeps it short.” On the call yesterday, though, I got worried the call would unravel when a lot of people wanted to spend time ribbing the guy in our Huntsville, Alabama office about the Clemson game. I am kind of proud of myself for steering the ship beyond that quickly.

I have another call at 10:45 about Bryan and I having to go to Dallas. We solidify our plans. After the call, Bryan and I don’t say anything to each other, and it occurs to me that we are both texting our respective wives about our impending absence.

“Liz isn’t going to like this,” I say.

“Yeah, my wife and I are sending our youngest to college and it looks like she’s going to get a little me-time in her first week with an empty nest.”

But in the end, our wives are very tolerant of our work's demands. They know who they married and how we operate.

“This is a really nice chair,” I say to Bryan. “I wish my chair in North Little Rock was this comfortable.” And then we stand up. We have a busy day.

While Bryan starts setting up for our afternoon video shoot, I take the elevator down to my truck. I need to dress our CEO up like a 15-year-old for the video. The night before, I picked him up a flat-billed Fayettechill hat, but I need to find him some kind of bright-colored jacket to complete his ensemble.

“Do you have any more of these in the back?” I ask a purple-haired girl at Hot Topic at the mall. “I need a medium, if you have it.” The jacket in question is covered in loud colors and Japanese logographs and appears to reference Dragonball Z. But when the girl comes back, she tells me they don’t have any more.

I find a store called The Geek Realms that looks like it will be gone in three weeks. Nothing is organized. “Hello,” a voice says from an unidentified place. I look around but don’t see anyone, so I simply respond loudly to a neverending rack of stickers in the middle of the store—“Hello.” I gravitate toward a clothing rack of hoodies. I find one that is an outer space print that says “I’m a dreamer” across the chest. I can’t decide if that one is better than the one that has a giant white lion’s face across the front. I buy them both.

I have 45 minutes to grab lunch before I’m due back to the office for another meeting. I want sushi. I go to Kobe, a Japanese place across the street from my hotel and bypass the line at the host stand to sit at the bar. I order the chirashi bowl and a water, and I try to order food to-go for Bryan and Laura, but the server says I can order it when I’m halfway finished with my meal. I am in a hurry and want to order it immediately so I don’t have to wait later, but I don’t insist. I don't want to be an asshole. I trust the server knows what she’s doing.

The chirashi is really good. I order Bryan the teriyaki chicken and Laura a chicken avocado salad. I pay my tab and finish my meal. The to-go orders aren’t ready yet. I have to wait. I am going to be late to my meeting with the three most powerful leaders at my place of employment. The server tells me the kitchen got slammed and so things are taking longer than normal. I make a mental note to insist that I order when I want to the next time I’m in this situation. If this were a major restaurant chain, I would start preparing my email to them.

I beat two of the three executives to my meeting, even though I'm a few minutes late. The meeting goes well, but it runs long and I worry our video shoot is going to run long. I worry we won’t be able to finish tonight and I’ll have to spend another night in Fayetteville. But we eventually start filming and it is fun to see the script I wrote come to life.

Everyone has to fight the urge to laugh on camera because we are doing something fun and funny. Our CEO is wearing the white lion hoodie. These are the days when I love my job.

We wrap up around 4:30pm. I sit down to my laptop and respond to emails while Bryan starts packing up gear. Our CEO usually leaves the costume items I buy for him, but after he changes clothes this time, he doubles back to grab the hat, the outer space shirt, and the white lion hoodie. It makes me laugh to think that he liked those clothes, that he might one day wear them in the future. Also, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to keep that hoodie.

I say goodbye to Bryan, who will stay in Fayetteville another night to accompany his son to orientation at the university in the morning. I take the elevator down to my truck and head toward the interstate back to North Little Rock.

Liz calls. She has just picked up Gus from school. I can hear him in the background. She was worried I’d be late, but for the past month we’ve been sharing our locations with each other via our phones. She checked it and was relieved to see my little dot is on the road home. She asks if she should plan on me being home for dinner, but I tell her I’ll grab something on the way.

I end up at a place called Crosswoods just off the interstate in Clarksville. The restaurant’s website showcased bright photos and referenced the chef by name, but when I got there, it looked like a strip club from the outside. Inside, there are pool tables and two men at the bar, one of whom is wearing orange camouflage. I sit down at the bar beside the video crack machine and the puffy-faced 22-year-old dude behind the bar says, “Can I help you?” in a way that suggests he gained his hospitality industry training while pouring concrete for the new local motel.

Before I arrived, I planned to order a salad, but upon seeing the place, I feel like the "chef" is probably best suited to prepare meat and potatoes, so I order a steak with twice baked potatoes. For my second side, I ask the puffy-faced kid what he likes, to which he replies, “The green beans are pretty good,” so I go with that.

Duke and Wake Forest are on the television. The man in the camouflage hat asks me who my team is, and I tell him the Little Rock Trojans. The man said his dad had graduated from UALR, but he likes the Razorbacks. “Everybody does,” I say. The man lived in North Little Rock a long time ago, but then he moved to Pope County, and now he’s been in Johnson County for 22 or 23 years. He looks at the puffy-faced kid who is handing him another Busch can--unopened, strangely--and the man in camouflage says, “Long enough to want to leave, but too long to actually do it, you know. Nothing to do here.” I nod in some kind of false solidarity.

I pay my bill and walk out. No one says anything to me. I finish disc 10 of 13 of my audiobook of Watership Down just as I roll into the Shell station in Park Hill, a couple of miles from my house. It is just after 8pm and I can barely keep my eyes open. I go to bed before 9pm these days.

When I pull into the driveway, I turn the truck off and sit in silence for a few seconds. I am tired. I walk in the front door, my dog Suki meets me immediately and gyrates with excitement. The house is quiet, Liz has already put Gus to bed. She’s on the couch studying. I let Suki out the back door and kiss Liz. “Happy birthday,” she tells me again. I unpack my bag and brush my teeth.

“Are you going to bed?” Liz asks.

“I think so,” I say. And I walk to our bedroom, lie down in bed, make a couple of moves in the Open Face Chinese Poker game I play for a quarter a point against my cousin John and my friend Barrett, and I fall asleep quickly. This is who I am at 37 years old.

Dad

Fayetteville, Arkansas. 1.8.2019 - 1.46pm.

[pweterparker]

A lover's game is never fair

You can find pt2 here: https://pweterparker.tumblr.com/post/173225623512/a-lovera-game-is-never-fair-pt-2-a-week-passed♥️

What's the worst emotion a human being can feel?

Definitely love I think as I see them together.

Kaya thought it would be fun to got to a pub and relax. For the past month we have been filming TDC, it has been quite stressful but absolutely incredible. I was given the amazing opportunity of participating in this films and gained a new family, I felt so lucky.

But of course there had to be a downside, like falling in love with one of your cast mates.

you were sure that everybody knew this already after all you were pretty close. Watching Thomas and Isabella made them want you to hate them both, still you couldn't; it made you feel so guilty because they didn't do anything bad to you.

- I'm too sober for this shit.- I said as I downed the shot watching Thomas & Isabella being all lovey dovey on each other.

- Hey, how are you feeling?- said kaya with peety in her eyes.

- Stop looking at me like that, it makes me wanna punch you.- I said drinking more

- Wow! Easy there tiger, I think you've had enough alcohol- she said trying to take the glass out of my hand.

- I'm jus fine. Besides I'm having fun just like you wanted.

- No you're not, you're just mopping around like some little shit looking at Thomas with puppy eyes. Come on! have some fun, forget about him.

- I'm trying- I said winning.- is not easy you know.

- Just go out there and kiss a random guy. hell; have sex with him, anything that gets him out of your mind.

- I'll try .- I said not very convincingly, finishing my margarita.

How many hours had passed, and how did I got into a cab I wondered. My head hurt like hell and my vision was blurred... then I blacked out.

I woke in a hotel room, in my hotel room. How did I get here? And someone was trying to take my clothes off, somebody was trying to rape me!

- Y/n stop! I'm trying to take of your blouse- kaya said laughing

- What? Why?- I said shilling the light of my eyes.

- Because it's covered in puke.-

When Kaya was done cleaning me because I was too drunk to it myself she tucked me into bed. She was my best friend, like a big sister to me. Always looking after me.

My emotions where all over the place and I started crying

- Honey why are you crying? Kaya said

- I don't know what I would do without you.- I said sniffing

- You'd be lost- she smiled

- Thank you - and I yawned; suddenly I felt very tired.

- Get some sleep, tomorrow's going to be a long day.- she said and turned off the light of my bedroom.

I felt like shit, and the alarm did nothing but make my headache 10 times worse. I turned off my alarm and saw an aspiring and a water bottle in the night table beside my bed. I thanked Kaya in my head for leaving them there.

Once I was ready I got out of the hotel with black sunglasses, black sweater, jeans and tennis. I took a cab for the studio.

My headache had calm down a little but it was still there and I was not in my best mood.

The only thing I wanted to do was spend all the day sleeping. God how I hate drinking. Damn you Thomas. I blame you for this.

- Y/n you're late- said Wes as soon as he saw me.

- I'm so sorry, it won't happen again.-

- Go get changed, you have a scene in 20 minutes.

- Right away- I headed to my trailer.

On my way there I bumped into Isabella.

- oh, hey Y/n have you seen Thomas.- she asked me.

- No, sorry. just got here.- I said. He must be doing a scene or in his trailer I said.

- Thank you, I'll look for him in his trailer.- and she said goodbye

I was almost inside my trailer when someone spoke to me.

- Hangovers can be a bitch.- he said smiling at me.

- Tell me about it - I said to Thomas. Staring at him through my glasses.

- How you feeling.- he walked closer to me.

- Like shit.- I said turning around opening the door of my trailer and getting inside.- Your girlfriend is looking for you, she is in your trailer. You should go with her- I said as I was just about to close the door.

- I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong?- he asked me

Thomas and I were very close friends and it was very rare of me to be rude but lately trying to be his best friend and pretend the feelings that I have for him don't exist it's starting to get really hard.

Hungover me wasn't a very nice me.

- You didn't do anything wrong Thomas. Just go- I said starting to lose me cool.

- You know you can tell me anything.- and he touched my hand.

Damn if him touching my hand makes my heart race this fast, I wonder how fast my heart would beat if he did other things

Thoughts like this made me mad at myself. I never asked for this but him being all sweet and kind to me made me feel like he was cheating on Isabella.

I know it's just how he is, but I can't help it.

- I'm fine Thomas.- I said harshly and I moved my hand out of his and closed the door on his face

Night came finally and I was laying down in my bed reading my script trying to memorize my lines. Usually me and Thomas would rehearse our lines together, it help us concentrate. But I couldn't do that right know, I kind off treated him like shit today.

I hated me in this moment, normally I was good at controlling my emotions, I managed to do it all this time, but it's like some switch had been turned on in me since Isabella came here to be with Thomas.

I couldn't stand it and it made me mad at myself. And to think that I had to bear another week.

Unable to concentrate i leaved my script on the night table and just stared at the ceiling, until there was a nock on my door.

- Going.- I said.

- Hey Y/n, I made dinner at my room, do you want to join us.- Dylan asked me.

- Yeah sure just let me get changed.- I said and retrieved into my room.

Dinner with all the cast mates made me feel better. I think it had to do with Thomas and Isabella not being there. We joke, talked and played video games.

I was on my way to my room when I heard some giggles, I looked out from the corridor into the pool and saw them there

It was Thomas and Isabella, he was hugging her from behind and she was smiling so bright.

And my broke into a millions pieces, I realized that they would never be a someday, not for me.

As much as I loved Thomas I had to understand that he would never leave Isabella. He loves her so much and it make me envy her.

To him I would always be that friend, the one that gives advice and comfort.

I had lost this war, but I should have known that the heart always win. No matter how hard I tried to resist, the outcome was inevitable.

With tears rolling down my cheeks I tucked myself into bed and closed my eyes

Should I post part 2?

[ailithnight]

Heyo! Another fic for ya’ll. This one was inspired by two other posts. This by @all-da-fandoms and this one from @pirate-patton. Been working on this for a while now. Felt like Virgil’s Birthday would be a good day to drop this on you.

Title: Gifts from the Dark Side Words: 2945 CW: Angst. Lots of angst. Mostly angst. Kind of teeters on the edge of a panic attack but never actually becomes one. Some self-deprecation. Tell me if I need to add anything.

Tags: @moose-squirrel05, @didsomeonesayprince, @readeatfightlove13

They appeared every year without fail, for as long as the three sides could remember. Patton, Roman, and even Logan had long since stopped trying to stay awake to see where they came from. It had taken a lot of the mind to shrug it off as one of the idiosyncrasies of the mindscape. Of course, just as Thomas had, the sides had long since stopped believing in Santa Claus. Yet every year, without fail, 3 mysterious presents would appear under the tree without so much as a tag to say who its for or who its from. It was obvious to tell based on the wrapping whose was whose. Patton’s was always wrapped in light blue paper with the same print of puppies and kittens in Santa hats. Logan’s was sleek, blue and black in a plaid pattern, methodically wrapped. Roman’s always came wrapped in a shimmering gold paper that could easily be mistaken for polished metal, each time with a bright red ribbon tied around it in a perfect bow. Every year, the gifts inside were different, but no less thought out than all the years prior.

In years past, Patton had received a coloring kit, a light blue apron with white embroidery saying ‘My Cooking is Eggcellent,’ a photo album with a picture a day from that year, and even the Heart’s infamous cat onesie had been gifted by “Santa” last year. Logan’s onesie had also come from the mysterious gifts that year and years before had provided him with an astronomically correct poster of the constellations of both the northern and southern hemispheres, plenty of books of poetry and other literary works, and one year a scale model of a space shuttle in a bottle. The play on words there was not lost on the logical side. Roman had not been gifted a onesie last year, a fact that was a slightly sore subject to the creative one. But he had received a wonderful painting of a fantasy kingdom where a princely looking figure stood atop his castle, bravely facing a massive dragon. Before, he had been gifted the collective works of William Shakespeare and one year a massive, three-foot pen designed to look like a sword. Logan had taken pleasure in teaching the Prince of the old saying “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

The presents appeared every year without fail. In turn, there would always be cookies and milk left out and space left under the tree for the anticipated gifts. Those three would be left for last and after each recipient opened his, and in some cases regained enough composure from giddy glee, they would speak aloud, thanking Santa for the generous and thoughtful gifts. For more than 20 years, this was tradition. But around year 27, something changed.

Just a little longer. I just have to stay awake a little longer. Everyone should be asleep within the hour. Then I can drop them off and fall asleep. Just a little…bit…longer. Virgil stared dully at the computer screen, not even seeing the Tumblr posts he was scrolling past. He was dead tired after the last week and a half. First, Roman had approached him saying he was going to be in a video and Virgil had dared to have hope. It was instantly dashed when he had been showed the script. The script that portrayed him as a villain Thomas had to defeat. And of course, who better to help than Roman, Creativity, The Prince. And sure, the script was all like things he had said and done before, but he’d never been this heavy handed with it. Still, Virgil had played his role, the same role he had been playing for years now, and tried not to let the knowledge that there would now be 2 million more people in the world knowing of and hating him hurt. He didn’t really succeed with that. But that’s okay. That’s his job. Anxiety.

Between filming and editing and posting the video on the 19th and monitoring its reception and trying not to let all the “thank you for helping me with my anxiety” and “anxiety sucks, I’m sorry you have to suffer it too” leave stinging gashes in his heart, Virgil had hardly found the chance to finish his projects in time. Logan’s had been easy. The book all about Native American constellations had arrived weeks ago. Even Patton’s stuffed kitten, matching his onesie, had been completed a week ago. But Roman’s had taken a lot of work. The Prince had sulked after not getting a onesie last year, but Virgil just couldn’t seem to find the right one. Finally, he had settled for painting him something and he would learn to sew and make Roman the perfect onesie this year. The pjs closely resembled Roman’s normal garb, from the shirt and sash to the boot slippers and even a stuffed crown sewn onto the hood. Virgil was immensely proud of that creation, despite having only finished it a few short hours ago. Now it was carefully wrapped in the traditional gold wrapping, sitting by his door with the other two gifts, and waiting for the moment the others would go to bed so Virgil could sneak them downstairs.

While waiting and nearly drugged by exhaustion, Virgil’s mind wandered over the Christmas’s past. He could remember sneaking down every year, starting since before any of them could read or write, hence the lack of name tags. Despite never inviting him to join in the festivities, Patton always hung a stocking for him and filled it with little treats. Someone, Roman probably, would always top it off with those chocolate coal nuggets and one year, when the Prince had discovered his summoning prowess, actually coal nuggets. Patton had told him off for that when he discovered the black powder on the white fur, so it hadn’t been real again. Still, it was a harsh reminder each year that even though Patton was too kind to give him nothing, Virgil was still naughty and naught people got coal for Christmas. But Virgil would always ignore the stockings. He’d come down later to claim it before the treats were simply stolen from him. Instead, Virgil would set up the presents first, taking extra care to arrange them in just the right way. Then he would turn to the cookies and milk.

As much as he may want to just eat them all, seeing as they were the only Christmas cookies he got, Virgil would restrain himself. He drank half the milk and ate two and a half of the five cookies. While he reveled in the sugary sweet, he’d let himself pretend, for just a moment, that they weren’t for an imaginary Santa. He let himself imagine that the treat had been left as a thank you specifically for him. For three minutes every year, early in the morning on Christmas Day, Virgil let himself believe that the other’s appreciated his efforts, that they cared about him, maybe even loved him. But inevitable, someone would shift in their sleep upstairs and the illusion would be broken. This wasn’t for him. This was for Santa. And even if Santa was fake, even if for all intents and purposes Virgil was Santa, it just wasn’t the same. At the end of the day, his companions still cared more for a fairy tail than their real, living counter-part. The cookies would become bitter on Virgil’s tongue, the milk would spoil in his stomach. With heavy heart and light footsteps, Virgil would sneak back to his room. He’d close the door and climb in bed and try not to cry (loudly) as he fell asleep.

“But WHY?!?” Virgil jerked into consciousness at the sudden exclamation heard from the creative side. Confused, he peeled his face off of his keyboard, rubbing at the indents left on his cheek from the pressing plastic. He distantly heard a muffled conversation as bleary eyes tried to see and a tired mind worked to figure out where he was. As he looked around, his eyes landed on the colorful stack still sitting by his door. His eyes widened and horrified panic filled his veins as Virgil realized his mistake.

“I fell asleep. I fell asleep! HOW IN THE HELL COULD I FALL ASLEEP!?!” He whispered to himself. Virgil tried to breathe through his fear, not really wanting to have Thomas start the day with a panic attack. With great difficulty, he managed to put a lid on his own terror. “Okay. Okay. I can fix this. I can… fuck how do I fix this? I can’t. I screwed up. I’m a failure. Pointless, pathetic, No. Stop. Not helpful. Just. Breathe. Think.” Virgil continued to fight off his panic. After a few moments of calm breathing, an idea occurred to Virgil. A wonderful, beautiful idea. He concentrated on Thomas, sensing the hosts current placement. He was still in his bedroom, searching for something warm and festive to wear. A wry smile appeared on Virgil’s face. He scrambled out of his chair on over to the gifts. He grabbed the three boxes and sank out of his room, appearing in his new place on the stairs. He marched over to Thomas’s tree were a small group of presents sat addressed to various friends and family members. Virgil carefully cleared a space under the tree and added the gifts to the mix. He stepped back to inspect his placing, pleased by the way his custom wrapping seemed to shine out of the amalgamation of festive paper. He was about to leave when a thought struck him and he nearly facepalmed himself. “How would they know they’re here? How would Thomas know who they belong to?” He groaned. After a moment of deliberation, he darted into Thomas’s kitchen, finding the nearly empty pack of tags and a pen. He went back to the gifts, slightly upset about having to mar his wrapping with the gaudy stickers, but it was necessary now since I fucked up. He hastily scrawled names on the tags. Or, titles really, seeing as Thomas didn’t know their names yet and Virgil wasn’t looking to screw up any worse today. Once he was done, he stepped back again to appreciate his work. For half a moment, his hand reached towards the table where the cookies and milk would usually sit. Realizing his mistake, he scolded himself. “Stupid. Whatever. Now they’ll never know. They’ll never know…” Virgil quickly sank out, oblivious to the eyes that had been watching him from the top of the stairs.

Thomas had no idea what to make of the situation. Coming downstairs to find one of his sides there without him was strange in and of itself. For that side to be his Anxiety was even weirder. He had noticed the spike of anxious energy that had hit him 15 minutes ago, but it had vanished and he’d dismissed it. Then, for Anxiety to be messing with the Christmas presents was absolutely baffling. Surely, he wouldn’t be so bitter as to try and ruin the gifts he had gotten for his friends? Thomas was about to call down, questioning the dark figure when he abruptly stood. Thomas froze, watching him a little longer. Anxiety nodded to himself. He seemed to reach to grab something off the table, but stopped mid-way. “Stupid.” The bitterness there made Thomas wary and once again he almost called down. “Whatever.” Thomas was once more paused. “Now they’ll never know. They’ll never know…” The defeated tone was the last thing Thomas would have anticipated from his malicious, cocky Anxiety. He watched the side sink away and only once he was gone did Thomas come down the stairs and inspect the tree. The three new gifts were impossible to miss. He glanced at them, noting the names on the labels. Logic. Creativity. Morality. His other three sides. Gifts for his other three sides. From, Anxiety? That didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Thomas decided to summon the three.

“Creativity, Morality, Logic!” He called, the summoned sides appearing in their normal spots. Thomas didn’t miss the tear tacks on Morality’s face, the confusion on Logic’s, or the anger on Princey’s. He gestured to the three boxes. “Know anything about this?” Morality gasped.

“Our Santa gifts!” He wiped his eyes, tears drying instantly. “Why are they out here?”

“Santa gifts?” Thomas queried. Logic cleared his throat.

“I can explain, Thomas. We celebrate Christmas just as you do. Each year, on Christmas day, we have come to find a gift for each of us in that exact wrapping, sans labels, under our tree. We have all agreed they do not come from one of us, so it has been chalked up to the strangeness that comes of living in a mind. It is possible that, within the mind at least, Santa is real enough for the subconscious to generate these presents each year.”

“Oh. But, I saw Anxiety-”

“Aha!” Princey shouted, startling the other three. “I bet this has been some cruel prank on his part!” Morality frowned.

“Do you really think he would…?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. He has been sulking an awful lot since the video. He probably wanted some sense of revenge for being bested.” Morality still looked uncertain and Thomas wasn’t too sure himself. Even though nothing else made sense in his mind, this still didn’t seem right.

“I don’t know, Princey. Don’t you think you might be jump-”

“ANXIETY!” The Prince roared, the summoned side suddenly appearing on the staircase, stumbling slightly at the sudden teleportation.

“JESUS Princey! The hell is wrong with you! I could have been asleep. What would you have done if you dropped me unconscious down the stairs?” Probably laugh at you, Virgil.

“Did you put these out here?” Roman gestured to the gifts and Virgil felt his throat close up.

“Wh-” He had to clear his throat around the forming lump. “What makes you say that?”

“Thomas saw you.” Virgil looked at the host, who was just watching the situation unfold. Virgil dropped his head, shame at having been caught, fear at having his weakness preyed upon, and maybe just a tiny bit of hope that if they knew it was him all along, they might actually warm up to him.

“I- yeah. I did it.”

“I knew it! You stole them!” Virgil looked up startled and suddenly there was a sword pointed at his throat, a seething Prince on the other end. He tried not to imagine that blade piercing his neck, pretending he wouldn’t be at least a little relieved to die. “What else did you do? Did you tamper with them?” Virgil didn’t know how to respond. It took a moment for the word’s meaning to sink in. He thinks I stole them. THEY think I stole them. They haven’t realized…Virgil refused to feel wounded, despite the ever-present hollow ache in his heart spazzing painfully. No. This is good. They don’t know. They think I’m just being a dick, but how is that any different than normal? Virgil forced a sneer on his features, convincing seeing as it’s the same one he always used.

“Why don’t you open them up and find out? Unless you’re scared.” He taunted. The thought of actually being able to see their reactions to his gifts was definitely not a motivator to his statement at all. Certainly not. Nope. Not at all. (Yes.) Roman’s seething intensified. He pressed the blade closer to Virgil’s neck, making the anxious one shudder, whether in fear or anticipation, he himself knew not.

“If this is a trap, I’ll run you through.” He ground out. None of the others said a word. Virgil took this to mean their agreement to Roman’s threat and Virgil once more shuddered. Roman held his gaze as he reached down to pick up the gold gift. The sword vanished from his hands, but Virgil was well aware that he could summon it back in half a heartbeat. The ribbon was removed, then the wrapped, and finally the box opened. When nothing sprang out, Roman glanced inside. Virgil felt a tiny sliver of pride when he saw the way Roman’s eyes lit up looking in the box. He quelled it quickly, not wanting to reveal himself after all this trouble. Roman’s eyes came back to Virgil’s, squinting suspiciously.

“There, not a trap. Can I go now?”

“If it wasn’t a trap, why didn’t you say so in the first place, Kiddo?” Virgil turned to Patton, noticing the shocked silence that seemed to cover Logan and Thomas.

“Would he have believed me if I did?” Virgil caught from the corner of his eye the way Roman’s grip tightened on the gift. “Now, if we’re done wasting each other’s time, I’m going back to my room.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t stolen them in the first place.” Roman grumbled. Virgil sent him a wry smirk.

“My mistake. Next year, I’ll leave your presents alone. Maybe I’ll just incinerate the tree instead.” Before anyone could respond to that, Virgil sunk out. The second he was back in his room, he collapsed on his bed. The computer had hardly made for a very restful sleeping place. Virgil was still tired and now with the familiar Christmas day heartbreak setting in, he wanted nothing more than to hide under the covers until the sun went away. And if that meant that by the time he went back to the commons, his stocking had been emptied… well, that was just part of the consequence for screwing up. It wouldn’t happen next year.

[usashirtstoday]

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THAT REGARD NEXT IS A COMMENTARY ON WHAT THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS IN THE WAY OF ANOTHER ARTICLE 9 COMMENTARIES ON THE COMMUNIST PARTY SO WE THOUGHT BOTH THESE ARTICLES KINDA GO HAND IN HAND BUT IT REALLY HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT COMMUNIST PARTY IS ALL ABOUT ESPECIALLY TODAY IN THEIR PRESENT SITUATION NEXT TO ANOTHER VIDEO FROM THE EPOCH TIMES AND DECLASSIFIED AND THIS IS ON THE CHINESE PROPAGANDA OUTLET PAID MILLIONS TO THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NOW ALL OF THESE PAPERS HAVE SUFFERED SEVERELY WITH THEM THEIR AUDIENCE AND AND BASICALLY VIEWERSHIP AND GOING WAY WAY DOWN AND SO THE ONLY WAY SOME OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS CAN EXIST IS THAT GUY HAVE SUPPORT FROM OUTSIDE MONEY SO ON DEFTLY THE CHINESE HAVE BEEN PART OF KIND OF

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A Day In The Life Of Rae Johnston, Trailblazing TV Journalist And Organisation Super-Woman!

A Day In The Life Of Rae Johnston, Trailblazing TV Journalist And Organisation Super-Woman!

A Day In The Life

Sasha Gattermayr

SBS and NITV’s first science and tech editor, Rae Johnston. Photo – Alisha Gore.

‘I used to be a terrible morning person, but now I love it. It’s so peaceful,’ says Rae. Photo – Alisha Gore.

Rae has been working from home recently, and spends the first hour of the day clearing her inbox. At 9am the NITV team has an editorial meeting where everyone pitches their stories for the next 24 hours. Photo – Alisha Gore.

Once she’s gone on air or pre-recorded from the TV studio, Rae heads into the voice-over or radio booth to record a podcast episode or promo voice-overs. Photo – Alisha Gore.

Rae has just finished Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener, an acclaimed memoir about the author’s experiences as a woman working in a tech startup in Silicon Valley. Photo – Alisha Gore.

Rae Johnston is an incessantly curious person. She has a system-minded brain and a constant thirst for knowledge, the perfect combo for a groundbreaking journalist at the top of her game. She is also a lifelong gamer and self-confessed geek, two passions that primed her for success in her first TV gig – a role as a video game TV presenter. This was the start of her windy, non-traditional route to journalism, one that involved no formal study and a LOT of on-the-spot learning.

‘I went through so much hate and harassment online during my early career, as one of the few female video game journalists in the country (and the world) that I’m pretty much indestructible at this point,’ she says. ‘There is very little about my own life that I keep private – I believe that by sharing the ups and downs in my life it helps break down the idea you have to be “perfect” on social media.’

Now, she’s at NITV and SBS, as the network’s first Science and Technology editor, a role which sees her producing content for television, podcasts and digital channels, as well as hosting tech and science-related panels and events around the country.

‘I love creating processes and efficient ways of working,’ says Rae, identifying herself as a ‘routine person’. ‘That’s always the biggest challenge of helping to create a new role – figuring out how it will work within the existing business – but it’s also my favourite part. Present me a problem, I’ll find five solutions and categorise them by effectiveness, resources required, and time needed to implement them.’

She’s not kidding. The big reveal during our interview (which is a surprise to no one once you’ve seen Rae’s credentials) is that she’s a fastidiously organised person. Between uninstalling social media desktop apps, scheduling her workdays down to 30-minute increments, and some pretty serious spreadsheets I would love to get my hands on for my own life admin purposes, Rae has some of the most impressive productivity hacks going around.

But when it comes down to it, for Rae everything rests on the four ‘wells’: well-rested, well-fed, well-caffeinated and well-organised. I’m obsessed with that mantra.

FIRST THING

I set my alarm for 5am every weekday. On Saturdays I let myself wake up naturally, but it’s usually no later than 7am whether I like it or not. On Sundays, I’m up early again to get ready for a hike.

On weekdays, the first thing I do is throw on my activewear and head to the gym. I like to do classes, whatever is happening, to mix it up. It’s usually a combination of yoga, boxing, and reformer pilates. On Saturdays, I grab a coffee with my husband and son and take our dog to the park. On Sundays I pack my hiking backpack with a thermos of tea and head off to a National Park for the day.

I used to be a terrible morning person, but now I love it. It’s so peaceful.

MORNING

Most days I work from home all day. If I’m hosting an event, or have a filming day in the studio I’ll drive. I bought a car for the first time this year, after 20 years of receiving not-worth-trading-in-hand-me-downs from family. I love driving.

I get back from the gym about 7am. I’ll pop my headphones in and catch up on news podcasts while I do some housework and have a coffee, then at 8am my workday begins.

I like to spend the first hour of the day clearing my inbox, then at 9am the NITV team has an editorial meeting where we all pitch our stories for the day. I could be writing an article for online, producing a TV news segment, scripting an explainer for our current affairs program, or preparing for a podcast episode. Working across all platforms means I have so much flexibility with where stories get to go.

For the rest of the morning, I’m usually making TV and radio appearances as well as chasing and conducting interviews on Zoom for my upcoming stories. It’s my peak research time.

I’ve been getting better at having breakfast every day. Working from home means I can cook something decent to eat while I’m doing my research.

LUNCHTIME

I break for lunch at 12pm every day, and try to eat in the sun as well. I’m following the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet at the moment – it makes me feel better, and gives me more energy.

AFTERNOON

If it’s a studio day, I’ll drive to the SBS/NITV studios after lunch. There I’ll usually head straight into hair and makeup, where I edit my scripts from my phone.

Once I’ve gone on air or pre-recorded from the TV studio, I’ll head into the voice-over or radio booth to record a podcast episode or promo voice-overs.

Then I like to clear my inbox again. Some days, I can get through all my emails.

My final task of the workday is to sort out my schedule for the following day. My life basically looks like a game of Tetris in a Google Calendar.

I usually have a big afternoon slump after recording – being on-air fills me with so much adrenaline, once it leaves my body I just want to nap. I usually have a piece of fruit and a cup of tea to give me a boost at around 4pm.

EVENING

I officially finish at 6pm, but sometimes I have radio or TV appearances in the evening. I find it hard to get any writing work done once the sun sets. I’m great in daylight hours, but as soon as it gets dark, my brain turns to mush.

Myself, my husband and my son take turns to cook – it’s great. If I’m cooking, I’m usually roasting a chicken or making a big pot of soup. My son is the burger specialist, and my husband loves to smoke meat, it’s amazing.

I love to knit while we watch a movie at nighttime. My nan taught me to knit when I was little, and I recently picked it back up again. It’s something to do with my hands that isn’t mindlessly scrolling through Instagram.

I do one of two things to switch off – I hike, and I play video games. Both force me to focus on one thing, don’t allow me to multitask, and show me new and wonderful places with friends and family.

LAST THING

I’m usually in bed by 9:30pm. I’ll start to wind down at 8:30pm with a hot shower, my skincare routine, some comfy PJs, a herbal tea and a book. I’ve started journaling recently, too.

I have clinical depression, and getting enough sleep every night helps me manage it. If I have a bad night, it can throw me off for a week. Sleep is very important to me, and I need a lot of it.

‘If it’s a studio day, I’ll drive to the SBS/NITV studios after lunch. There I’ll usually head straight into hair and makeup, where I edit my scripts from my phone,’ Rae explains. Photo – Alisha Gore.

Flooded with so much adrenaline after being on air, Rae usually experiences a classic 4pm slump. She usualy has a piece of fruit and a cup of tea to keep her going. Photo supplied courtesy of SBS.

Rae officially finishes at 6pm, but sometimes she slots in radio or TV appearances in the evening. Photo supplied courtesy of SBS.

Right now I’m listening to, watching, and reading…

I can never listen to, watch or read just one thing at a time.

So right now I’m listening to a few podcasts: Curtain by Amy McQuire and Martin Hodgson, the Wall Street Journal Tech Briefing and Shameless are my current regulars.

While in isolation I’ve been re-watching Parks and Recreation – I needed something comforting. I’ve also been watching Doom Patrol, an incredible comic series adaptation with Brendan Fraser.

I just finished reading Anna Weiner’s Uncanny Valley, a memoir of her experiences in the early days of Silicon Valley. I’m currently reading Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia, a collection of stories written by some of my NITV colleagues and edited by fellow Wiradjuri woman Anita Heiss. It really highlights the diversity of experience we have.

I get my best work done when…

I’m well-rested, well-fed, well-caffeinated and well-organised. 

My productivity tool/tip is… 

I’d be lost without my calendars. I have a year-to-a-view spreadsheet that I use to block out big event hosting days, and I use the weekly view on my digital calendar to schedule my workdays in 30-minute increments. It sounds like a lot, but it works for me, and keeps me on track.

I’ve uninstalled Twitter and Facebook from my phone, and only access them on desktop during work hours. I also set limits on Instagram so I don’t waste time scrolling.

A philosophy I live and work by is… 

It used to be “never hope harder than you work”, and then I experienced burnout. Now it’s more along the lines of “do what you can, with what you have, where you are”. Everyone is “winging” it. Your best is always good enough. 

Something I’ve learned the hard way is… 

The importance of scheduling in down-time as well as work. I’m still learning where my limits are, and sometimes overextend myself, but I’m getting better.

Keep up with Rae’s fast-paced life on Instagram!

[lenaysworld]

Progress Report #9: Filming Ends & Footage is Analyzed!

This week, I made a bunch of progress on my senior project! 

First, filming officially ended on Saturday, November 9! The 40-day experiment is officially done, and I have amassed over two hours of footage to prove it! 

A screenshot of the playlist dedicated to my experiment, fully populated with the 40 days of footage!

After filming completed, I immediately finished up compiling and exporting my full-length compilation film. I then went ahead and uploaded it onto my playlist. 

A screenshot of my full-length film posted onto my YouTube playlist. 

I then dived into the analysis portion of my project. First I watched the full-length feature in its entirety from start to finish. As I watched the film, I jotted down notes on anything I qualitatively observed (common concepts discussed, observations, realizations, transformations, etc.). After watching the film and jotting down my notes, I then filled out the General Observations/Content Messages section of my analysis document. Below is what I noted down onto the doc:

Frequently Discussed Concepts/Phrases/Topics: 

School/Homework/Grades/Professors

Anxiety/Worry/Depression/Overwhelmed Feeling/Stress

Living a life that is unfulfilling to me/not aligned with my dreams/personal happiness

“I am not looking forward to this day” (Feelings of Dread, Not Wanting To Live)

Feelings of Self-Doubt

Attempts to stay positive, but negativity trumping in the end

“I need help”/”I am sick” 

“I am tired”

Money

Transformation(s) Over Time: 

The entire experiment, overall, remained relatively stagnant (I didn’t get more positive or negative over time). For the most part, I remained the same (exhibiting extreme anxiety, mixed with depression) over the course of the 40 days. However, there were some realizations that arose over the course of the 40 days: 

1) I realized that where I am in my life currently is not where I want to be. Throughout the course of the 40 days, I constantly explained that I felt like I was living a life that was unfulfilling/not making me happy or making me grow. I explained that school made me feel this way primarily (partaking in homework and activities for school is what I found the most unfulfilling, while going to work was fun and fulfilling). 

2) I realized that I am mentally ill  (a true realization that I am sick and need help). Throughout the entire experiment, I constantly harp on the negative aspects of my life and cannot focus on the positive. Almost every clip, I stated that I was anxious or worried or overwhelmed or feeling down, and even when I did feel positive, I still mentioned that there were thoughts in the back of my mind that were negative. I also exhibited extreme amounts of self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence which fed into the anxiety and depression I experienced throughout the course of the 40 days. 

1:00:00 - I realize that this is a bad part of my life and I am not doing well mentally/internally

25:20  - I realize that my anxiety is fueling my depression (the extreme anxiety I experience causes me to desire to not live through the day, which makes me sad because I am constantly “wishing my life away”)

48:30 - I realize how severe my anxiety is (“I am constantly living in fear, which is what makes living through this semester so hard”)

1:57 - “I am sick” 

2:00 - “Something within me needs to change” 

3) I realized that I am obsessive over school, and how my obsession with getting good grades and pleasing my professors is the root of most (if not all) of my unhappiness

53:35 - I become aware of my obsession, and I realize it is unhealthy

4) I realized that it is not that I am whiny or lazy, just that the school environment does not foster my happiness/creativity/emotional well-being

1:00:39 - I realize that I am fine at work (in fact, I enjoy working and wish I could do more of that). It is school that is the problem. 

1:18 - I realize that I generally feel better on the weekends because I do not need to be in the school environment (I can work and spend time with my loved ones, which are both activities that foster my spirit and well-being)

5) I realized that this whole project was, in a way, a cry for help

1:20 - I express my frustrations with the fact that my professors aren’t asking me if I’m okay, even though they are watching the videos. I feel like I am screaming for help but they are not hearing my cries

1:32 - I actually admit that the project was a cry for help and that I was surprised that people (i.e., professors) were getting offended by the project, as it wasn’t about them)

Other Patterns/Observations: 

1) Sometimes I didn’t overtly explain what was making me feel a certain way/I would go out on a tangent (the “check-ins” took on the form of a stream of consciousness/”emotional spewing” style of speaking/explaining, like a journal entry but on film broadcast to the rest of the world)

2) Throughout the entire experiment, school directly caused me to experience lower moods. Almost all of the times I explained I felt worried, anxious, low, overwhelmed, or stressed, it was because of school. 

3) This project is a glimpse into a highly depressed person’s life. It is a window into what chronic anxiety and depression look like in an individual.

4) This project is a commentary on the university system and how it is a flawed system (“the grade” matters more than the welfare of the student, the professors do not reach out when a student is exhibiting dangerous behavior, it is a normal experience for a student to lose their sanity for the sake of a good grade). 

5) Throughout the experiment, I constantly tried to stay positive, but ultimately always failed and fell back into my depressive state. The experiment depicts a constant struggle between someone who is trying to get better on their own but who is failing. 

1:09 - “I’m trying to stay fucking positive” 

1:40 - I realize that in the foreground of my mind, I am positive, but in the background, the negative thoughts linger

After filling out that section of my analysis doc, I then moved onto the next section: Audience Outreach/Engagement Analytics. For this, I used the YouTube Analytics tool, as well as some minor calculations I did on my own (simple addition of total likes, comments, views, etc.) 

A screenshot of the YouTube Analytics tool.

Below are my findings regarding audience engagement/outreach throughout the course of the experiment: 

Watch Time (Past 28 Days): 561 minutes

Views (Past 28 Days): 487 

Subscriber Change (Past 28 Days): +7

Top Videos (Watch Time Within Past 28 Days): 

10.27.19 (73 mins watched) 

10.18.19 (38 mins watched) 

10.1.19 (23 mins watched) 

Top Videos (Views): 

10.27.19 (125 views)

10.1.19 (68 views) 

10.7.19 (46 views)

Total Amount of Video Likes: 37

Total Amount of Video Dislikes: 0 

Total Amount of Video Comments: 9 

Total Amount of Video Views: 647

Impressions: >3.0 k people

Next up, I transcribed my full-length feature using the YouTube Auto-Captioning tool and fed it into the text analysis tool on Utility.org to analyze common words/phrases that were said throughout the 40 days. Below were my findings:

Frequently Said Word(s): 

I/I’m (~1000 occurrences)

Feel/feeling (~160 occurrences)

Class (46 occurrences) 

Homework (44 occurrences) 

Sick (40 occurrences)

Work (39 occurrences)

Frequently Stated Emotion(s): 

Anxious (17 occurrences) 

Worried (15 occurrences)

Bad (27 occurrences)

Positive (23 occurrences) [NOTE: this is more than likely because I commonly said, “I want to keep positive”, not necessarily “I am feeling positive”]

Frequently Said Phrase(s): 

“I don’t know” 

“I feel like”

“I don’t want”/”Don’t want to”

“I’m trying my best”/”trying my best”

“Not really looking forward”

“I got a lot done today”

“I have so much homework to do”

“It’s going to be good”/”Going to be a good day”

Keep in mind, I had to parse through a lot of words that were frequently said that were not significant enough to include in this analysis (”fluff” words like really, like, so, etc.). I included only the words and phrases that I felt were specific/informative enough to shed light on this experiment and what it uncovered (so, in a way, this data is kind of biased). 

Finally, I transcribed the full-length compilation again using VideoGrep and created some supercuts of common words/phrases. I will note that the transcription tool on VideoGrep seemed kind of off, so I am sure the supercuts I created only depict some of the occurrences of the words/phrases (not all). However, I wanted to create some supercuts just for fun and possibly to use bits and pieces of for my documentation video. It was more of a supplemental exploration than a substantial piece of analysis! Below are the supercuts I made and posted onto my YouTube channel playlist: 

“Anxious” Supercut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRj7C1R6ywo

“Homework” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS-bLptG6NE

“School” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLCsb9ssYM

“Stressed” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN0rCdjSOkg

“Stressful” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASBW9yopCYE

“Worried” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOBGJwNGqcE

“Worry” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypIGuD3SKJc

Overall, I made a ton of progress this week in terms of analyzing all the footage that was taken throughout the course of the 40 days and making sense of it all! Now, I will be moving forward with finalizing the script for my documentation video and getting that made! 

Here is the link to my analysis doc if you’d like to take a looksie: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_RqEf_Qp3M0Yq2ATBbePwaE5RPgm-M1l2Ht0_wDNPYU/edit?usp=sharing

Until next week :) 

[40countdown]

This is it! The Final Episode! The Last Installment! The Swan Song of the Blog! I’m 40 as hell already! (01-14-18)

Original Goals 

Looking back at the goals I laid out in the first post for this blog… I didn’t do bad.

Body Goals:

My weight is where is should be.. Weigh in 158.5  

The 2 inches off the waist didn’t happen. Ha! The waist is as trashy as it was but probably no worse.. since I never measured with tape I have to judge based on which pants I can or can not button and how uncomfortable it is to put a sock on.. which still tends to fluctuate after a few good or bad weeks.. but I’d say I’m right about where I started.

(this is from today at the gym when I registered for a thing... :D) 

The elbow miraculously healed.. the pain is gone but last week I noticed it was radiating heat like a nuclear reactor so.. I might wanna get it checked out.. or maybe I just have a hot laser in my elbow from the spider bite. #superpowers

We all know that I pissed away any chance of being “11 months smoke free” a long time ago, but I recommitted to ruining that goal this past week during vacation/birthday celebrations when I torched 2 full packs of Marlboro Reds. I really do think the 2 Tough Mudders I’ve signed up for will help keep me from reaching for the reds in my weaker moments.

Blood pressure has not been checked but I’d be surprised if it’s great after the birthday week vacation I’ve had of all night bars and all day food closing out with a delicious “brisket burnt ends” sandwich from The Joint.

Career Goals:

Documentary is not finished, but it is much closer and I’m more fired up about it than ever! This one is gonna hit like a Bruce Lee kick, y’all. I aim to complete and submit to festivals by the end of March and that is still absolutely manageable with my much lighter spring semester schedule.

Longer term job offer.. I got that since I got the full time job offer this past August which I’ve accepted. I also did get accepted to an MFA Screenwriting program, but I declined to go in favor of the job and the chance to actually finish the film.

Feature film script.. I know exactly what I want to write next but.. that goal seems insanely over ambitious looking back.. I definitely assumed everything would go much faster with the doc than it did, but.. I’ll say now that by this time next year I fully expect to have achieved that goal. Can’t wait to write again!

Heart/Mind Goals:

I aimed at 7000 minutes and 20mins/day average.. The phone won’t tell me how many minutes unless I sit and add up each day.. but it does say 21 mins/day avg for the year, which is crazy! I touched on what I feel like I get out of meditation a few times earlier so I won’t yammer on rewording the same thoughts, but it feels good to know I’ve been able to take a small step in the direction I think is good for me. I want to do much longer sits this year.

Elliptical/Sauna.. 

I’m sure I also averaged 20/mins in the sauna for the year but the elliptical I walked away from in favor of shorter runs on the treadmill so.. I sorta traded that and my phone doesn’t track the treadmill so.. you’ll have to take my word that I feel I probably did also get that average. I was in the gym a LOT this year. Ha!

Fed My Head:

I aimed at 12 audiobooks and I did 17. I would love to do even more but editing requires the focus of all the faculties I possess.

I certainly however did not “read more than 10 books.” I read chunks of a lot of books mostly relating to preparing film syllabi and keeping my head in the film problem solving space. But I just finished of Year of Magical Thinking, given to me by my dad after my friend Palma died. It’s a tough read b/c of what the author went through, and not at all what I expected from the title, but I would recommend it for anyone who cares about people :)  

A Very Special THANK YOU to Scott McCarthy 

Owner of Balance Strength and Fitness Center www.balancefitnesstraining.com

Scott voluntarily gave me a 4 day workout routine. He tailored it to my situation, a slowly healing elbow and someone who can’t spend 3 hours in the gym everyday.. and while my food and beer habits probably prevented me from losing the belly flab, I definitely gained noticeable muscle in my arms, chest and legs. So, I’m certainly stronger than I’ve ever been and in a pretty well rounded way. Without Scott’s workout plan I’m sure that I would’ve waffled from one thing to the next w/o seeing any results, but with it, I had just the right amount of workout 4 days a week and I was able to push myself each time I walked into the gym. And it was great to know that I had a map from someone who looks like the Incredible Hulk and has been training people for 20 years. He just moved into a new place and upgraded the gym that he owns. He also knows a ton about nutrition and will happily call bullshit on a lot of fads that come through, but he’ll tell you exactly why it’s bullshit. Much Respect! Scott! I owe you some video work, brother! Let’s coordinate and we’ll put some cool spots together for the gym. If you (dear reader) are in the Delaware area and want to get real about training stop reading this and drive directly to his gym… unless it’s really late. Then just go FIRST THING TOMORROW!

Final Thoughts..

I want to thank every single person who read this thing even once and especially those of you who shot me a little word of encouragement or a book suggestion along the way privately or publicly. I truly do believe as an experiment it was successful even if all the goals weren’t met b/c I did have the idea of being held accountable for my actions in mind probably more than you’d imagine. And while it didn’t keep every cheeseburger or cigarette out of my face, it did get me to meditate on weeks where I might not have at all. And the fact that I mediated a few times or ate healthier a few times to be able to report that I had done so doesn’t make me feel like I’m somehow a fake. I was as honest as I could be about everything I did and in the case of food, exercise and mediation in service of the audience.. I still get the benefit of each thing even if it isn’t coming from some pure unpolluted source of willpower. I think there’s a bit of horseshit in most ideas that swirl around purity anyway, so.. I’m good with using the blog in the way that I did.

I’m also glad to be done. Ha! I’m happy that I stuck with it for the full year, but.. I’m looking forward to returning to keeping my shameful failures quiet like everyone else online. When I get time I will probably go back and read through the entire year and there’s a chance I might gain some personal insights from that, so I look forward to doing that. And after a borderline belligerent 10 days in New Orleans to celebrate the fact that I’m still standing at 40, I’m also looking forward to getting back to regular exercise (which I did none of in Nola even tho I brought the running shoes :D) as well as returning to eating more like an athlete in training than an idiot with a death wish. I did yoga Thursday and got back in the gym for the first full workout of the new year today - one week after getting back from vacation.

Goals for 2019:

Heart/Mind

Some kind of dinner with people once or twice a month Keep a daily food and exercise journal Mediate 30mins/day Listen to 20 Books Read 5 Books

Career

Get the film sold at a festival Finish a feature screenplay and get lead cast attached  

Body

Zero Cigarettes Lose most of the belly flab - I just signed up for an 8 week fitness challenge at my gym :) Maintain Gym routine (4-6 days/week weights, 2-3 mile runs 1-2 days/week) Keep doing yoga once a week Keep an eye on Blood Pressure

Food

Take probiotic stomach supplements for a year.  Beef no more than once a week (taper down to once a month by end of year) Quit fast food. AKA - quit being gross, AKA quit using my organs as an industrial sludge filter    

Eat more good for your gut stuff in general (straight copying my cousin on his cabbage soup/quinoa moves)  

Booze

Alcohol limited to dinner with friends and 1 glass of wine with dinner (I did this wine w/ dinner thing for a stretch of time in the past. It worked and I like it). Not drinking makes it a lot easier to quit smoking as well - I once quit both for 9 months.. I did the one glass of wine/night all last week. It worked. And I’m cutting beer completely for the next 8 weeks so as to get fucking shredded to maximum and win $750 from this god damn fitness challenge.

I think a big part of why some people find it hard to finish writing books.. or anything is b/c they don’t feel like the end is good enough.. and maybe this end is lacking. I put off writing it for a couple weeks b/c I wanted to make it special in some way.. I wanted it to feel like an amazing ending.. but done is better than perfect and I am now done. I love y’all! I really do! Thanks for all the support!

And remember.. “when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up.. then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.” - (fictional character) Josey Wales  

Get Mean in 2019 ;)

[rp-sephiroth]

Is the FF7 remake now making the Compilation non-canon?? My friend gave me these news and I don't know if it's genuine information.

(continues:) My friend hates this possibility. She loves Crisis Core, and having that become non-canon brings several concerns.

Thank you for your question! 

A quick google search earned me no confirmation of this statement. But as a writer of FF7 fanfic writer/Sephiroth-roleplayer/Leiden university student of literature, I shall do my best to give you and educated and conclusive answer instead.

TL;DR: It’s unavoidable, and will have far-reaching implications for fandom community, but it will be OK and below’s why.

What is canon?This definition of canon from here is what I will be using in this post: 

Canon - a term borrowed from the Catholic Church, meaning ‘established truth’.  The definition of ‘canon’ is a bit vague, but is usually understood to mean the body of works upon which a fandom is based, and any information contained therein.  This is sometimes extended to include information in guidebooks, interviews, and other such sources.  Also used to refer to information from different versions of a story: for example, the school uniforms in Harry Potter ‘book-canon’ are different from those in ‘movie-canon’. 

It is a way for the creators to indicate “this is the set of in-game truths and rules we are working with.” It’s a way to keep the rules that govern the world consistent. In Final Fantasy VII, one can either regard just the OG (original game) as canon, or the entire compilation as canon.

What happens if canon is made invalid?   This happened to the StarWars fandom. Around the first 6 films were novels, lego, books, fanarts, and fanfictions. This franchise is incredibly interesting because it does not make canon top-down (from the creators to the plebs), but also accepts work from fans (bottom-up). 

An example: anyone could write a StarWars book, as long as they stuck so guidelines set by the official creators and had it checked for approval. Anyone could be a stormtrooper, as long as you used the exact right plastic moulds and sent pictures of the finished product to the official people who approved it. (My first boyfriend did this for his cosplay.)

Anyway, the novels continued the storyline after film six (I believe all the main characters had children). But when LucasFilms and Disney embarked on making the 7th film, they decided to throw all that worldbuilding (universe-building) away. Why did they throw it away? Because for legal reasons authors cannot read fan-fictions and this post explains why (link).     In short: if the script writers of film 7 were to base film 7 on an any canon work, a fan could claim “I wrote a fanfic about exactly this” and face huge legal charges. Even/Especially a franchise that has a very agreeable bottom-up treatment of canon and fandom culture, has to watch out. Rey from film 7 is a completely new character, with her own timeline.

THUS THERE IS A BIG CHANCE THE CANON OF THE COMPILATION OF FINAL FANTASY 7 WILL BE DECLARED INVALID.

In the past, how has FF7 fandom dealt with canon vs new canon? A long time ago, the Original Game (OG) was the 'mothership’. Sephiroth was portrayed as evil. To give him any sign of niceness in fanfiction was considered out-of-character and greatly discouraged.Then FFVII Cisis Core came out, and certain fans rioted against the game’s portrayal of a kind, awkward Sephiroth.

For the Final Fantasy VII Remake to be identical to the Original Game with updated graphics would be impossible. Such a game would not sell. There will be changes in the game mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics, and narrative to make the game contemporary. I feel two ways about those changes: frightened and joyous.

How does it relate to online FF7 fandom communities?Now our 'canon’ 'mothership’ is the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Our current fandom community is built around what we have learnt of the compilation. Because FF7 is so big, it’s impossible to know everything about the story and characters and mechanics. People specialise, and draw on each other’s experience. 

My area of specialisation is Sephiroth, with in-depth knowledge of his scenes in Advent Children Complete, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, Kingdom Hearts, and Original Game. I’m still learning about his Dissidia, Ehrgeitz, and other versions. This knowledge of this character and interpretation of this character gives me social merit in roleplay communities. It’s said if you put 1000 hours of work into learning something, you are an expert. I’ve been writing Sephiroth on and off since I was 14. I’m 26 now. In my niche, I am an expert. Fans ask me questions about Sephiroth because they trust me to provide a plausible answer that conflicts least with canon.

But if/when the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII will be declared invalid, social status based on the no-longer-canon Compilation will be rendered useless. This means that when I make a statement on Remake-Sephiroth, all my arguments based on experience of (years!) of development of my Sephiroth will be useless. Scary.

This will upset the social structures of the communities. Experts are no longer expert. With the release of the first episode/chapter of the Remake, new fans and old fans start learning at the same time about the 'new’ canon. They will have the same chance to become expert. The one fan who will put in enough hours, will get most social status, will be crowned expert. 

Old groups of friends may stick together. New groups will form. New sub-communities rise. Some fans will riot against new information, as they did insisting that Crisis Core Sephiroth couldn’t be kind/awkward/friendly. More about attitudes and a ‘desired attitude’ later.

How can FF7 fans and roleplayers negotiate with old canon and new canon to find a position which they are comfortable with?The use of the word headcanon will go through a shift. 'Headcanon’ will no longer be a combination of traits/habits one puts on the character like a sticker (my trademark headcanon is that my Sephiroth puts his hair in a braid/my belief that Sephiroth follows the Jenova Omega Theory). Instead, the word 'headcanon’ will return to its old meaning: “In my head, this set of rules is canon.” The word 'headcanon’ will then refer to a set of metaphysical choices on how the FF7 world and characters function as a framework.

My friend @askcrv2 solved this question ingeniously. I’m taking a detour into the Vocaloid fandom: she writes a singing android robot. With robots, there are new versions every few years. The voice bank is updated. New songs. New merchandise… - and thus new canons. Nowadays version 4 is common. She writes version 2. She had her robot hide in a warehouse to avoid the garbage pile. This way, she can both stick to her old canons, but also in the new versions, her old version is still valid. Her robot complements new canon. Compliments to the writer!

The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII is fun, and I love it.It is not perfect. There are glaring inconsistencies. These plot holes could be changed in the Remake. But it’s not wrong to love the Final Fantasy VII from 1997 and style your preferences to that version.

IF/WHEN it’s made invalid… How do we as fans continue?When the Original Game and/or the Compilation as a whole be declared invalid, it will hurt. I will have to renegotiate my attitude towards Sephiroth as a character, and to the story as a whole, and find back my position in a new community. 

This game has kept me captivated for many years, so I have high hopes for the future product. I expect that the managers/teams/designers of the company have improved with 20 years more of experience. The Remake is being re-made from scratch. I have respect for the game team’s hard work and sacrifices. I imagine that every change in the  ’new canon’ will be a thoroughly-debated decision. The promotional video (link) of the Remake reveals the attitude the game-makers would like to see in the fans:

The reunion at hand may bring joy, it may bring fear, but let us embrace whatever it brings. For they are coming back. 

And that’s best of all. After 20 years, FF7 will be coming back. It’s not the fandom’s job anymore to re-create the world. The original creators will tell our favourite story back to us, and we can sit back… until we start making new fanworks!

Let’s embrace whatever it brings. 

Let’s make fantastic fanworks, and build warm communities.

The canon of the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 will never be a forgotten memory. The Compilation will live on, inside us. I hope this post sufficiently answers your question. Tell your friend not to worry.

– rp-Sephiroth.

[lancecarr]

The Best Editing Workflow For Cutting Hours Of Interview Footage Into Short Docs & Promo Videos

While my focus as a filmmaker has always been narrative work, I’ve spent many weeks and months editing interviews for documentaries and corporate promo videos over the years. The process can be incredibly challenging, but there are some simple fundamentals that can speed you up in the editing room without sacrificing your final product.

The principles I’ve outlined below can apply to virtually any project that involves interviews. It doesn’t matter if you’re working on a feature length documentary, a short film or even a promotional video – it always comes down to crafting a great story through creative problem solving and strategic editing.

The same could be said about narrative editing, but the workflow takes an entirely different shape. With narrative, shooting ratios are typically much lower and you are almost always following a script that can serve as a blueprint.

With interview driven projects, you’re often faced with the task of cutting down a mountain of interview footage. In some cases, you may be working with 10+ hours of interview footage for a video that is only intended to be a few minutes, which is what I want to focus on today.

While it’s always good practice to limit your shooting ratio so you down bog yourself (or your editor) down when it comes time for post. But in scenarios where it’s unavoidable and your source material is simply overwhelming, here’s what to do –

WATCH RAW FOOTAGE AT 2X SPEED

With a deadline looming over you, you need to conserve as much of your precious time as possible for the creative edit. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply play your source material back at 2x speed (or in some cases even 3x).

That said, this should really only be done at the very beginning of your process, when you’re simply watching your footage back.

As with any project, your first step should always involve watching every frame of your footage to know what you’re working with. You want to do this before you start pulling clips or building out an edit. The 30,000 foot view is so important.

But if you’re working on a project with a tight turnaround and a couple dozen hours of interview material, watching every frame in real time can sometimes be counterproductive. Rather than skip this step entirely (as so many filmmakers do), simply increase your playback speed to watch everything. Even a 20 hour project can be watched in a single day using that method.

The benefit of doing so is twofold.

First off, you know instinctively what you have (and what you don’t), so when it comes time to pull selects you can make decisions with more confidence.

But it also helps highlight really great footage by allowing it to cut through the noise. If a clip jumps out at you at 2x or 3x speed, you know it’s good. And those are the ONLY kind of clips you should be looking for when narrowing down dozens of hours of material.

BE RUTHLESS WITH SELECTS

Once you’ve watched everything at least once, you can start your playback/review process again from the top, this time actually pulling aside selects as you go. Depending on how much source material you have, you may want/need to keep playing back at 2x or 3x even in this phase.

Many editors start with this step and skip over the previous phase (watching the material without pulling clips), which is never a good idea. It may save you a couple minutes up front, but can create major issues down the road if you haven’t pulled the right material.

At the same time, you truly have to be ruthless with your picks. If you’re working on a short film, promo video or corporate spot, you probably only have 2 or 3 minutes to tell your story. That means 99.9% of your source material isn’t going to be used. Remember that going in so you aren’t too precious with your choices.

If a clip doesn’t immediately grab you, stand out from the others, or provide new insight, leave it on the cutting room floor. Some editors will pull far too many clips and then overwhelm themselves in the edit later on. They would always be better served editing using their instincts, and pulling aside only the best of the best material.

PRIORITIZE OPENING & CLOSING STATEMENTS

Even once you hand-pick all of your best clips, chances are you’ll still have tons of trimming to do. Maybe you’ve cut 20 hours of source material down to 1 hour of selects – it’s a great start, but not even close to the 3 minute target you may be after (as an example).

So the next logical step is to make more selects from the clips you’ve already pulled aside. This time though, you’re going to be looking for different criteria.

What I’ve found most helpful in this stage is to look for clips that offer one of the following 3 criteria:

A great introductory statement

A great closing statement

A concise explanation of the video’s throughliune

These three items will make up 90% of what you use in the final edit. Most of the interviews you’ve recorded will get really into the weeds on details that are probably not important for your final product.

Perhaps in the case of a feature length doc, you may need some of that material. But for shorter edits – which is what we’re talking about here – all you need are the absolute essentials. So avoid pulling aside clips that are too wordy or would require you to create too many “frankenbite” edits.

Ultimately, you’ll be left with a fraction of the selects that you once had. If you started at an hour, now you’re probably down to 10 or 15 minutes.

GROUP SELECTS INTO CATEGORIES

Before you eliminate any more clips, I always recommend grouping your selects. In most cases, this will simply take the form of: beginning, middle & end.

In other words, any clip that might work for the intro should go in the “beginning” section of your timeline. Any clip that sums up the thesis really well should probably go in the “end” cluster of clips. Just start loosely pairing things together, not worrying if they cut together perfectly, but simply seeing how your material looks in context when properly organized.

Depending on your project, you may want to group clips in a different way. Let’s say your project follows a week in the life of your interview subject, maybe you’ll organize the clips by: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.

There’s almost always going to be a section or two that will have too much material, and grouping your clips like this will help you identify those issues. Then, you can start eliminating extra clips from sections that already have an abundance of choice, and narrow your selections down further.

CUT YOUR STORY USING AUDIO

Finally, you can start to actually edit your material by selecting the very best clips from the groupings of clips you’ve created in the previous step.

Don’t worry too much about visuals at this point. If someone is looking off-camera, or there’s an issue with the background – you can figure it out later. For now, you’re just trying to tell the story as best you can with the audio. As long as the dialogue track plays cohesively when you review it, you’ll be able to shape a great finished piece.

So go through all of your final selects and start at the top. Find the very best intro clip and drop it into your timeline. Depending on which clip you choose, that will dictate which clip comes next, and so on. 

Follow this process until you get to the end of your selects, and you’ll be left with a timeline that includes only the best clips that are most complimentary to each other.

If your runtime is still a bit long, you can always go through one more time and trim soundbites down further or eliminate clips entirely. But this phase should go quite quickly as all of the heavy lifting and creative problem solving has been done. 

ADD B-ROLL & MUSIC

If you’ve followed all the steps above, you should be left with a short timeline of only your best clips, each placed in the perfect order.

Now all that’s left to do is finish the rest of the video! But seriously, that’s the easy part. Drop in a music track, add some spaces and pauses for breathing room, and drop b-roll on top that corresponds with each talking point.

Most of us spend the vast majority of our time in this phase, when we should really be spending the least amount of time here. It’s not that it’s unimportant by any stretch, but it shouldn’t take long if you’ve laid the foundation by building out a great structure and story.

Putting in time up front to pull the best clips you can possibly find and pairing them in a strategic way is 90% of the battle. That’s your story right there… Everything else is just the skin that goes on top of it.

Keep in mind, every project is different and some films (especially long format documentaries) may be best served with a different workflow. But for those of us in need of cutting hours upon hours of interview footage down to short videos under a deadline, I can’t recommend this workflow enough.

For more content like this, be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

The post The Best Editing Workflow For Cutting Hours Of Interview Footage Into Short Docs & Promo Videos appeared first on Noam Kroll.

http://noamkroll.com/the-best-editing-workflow-for-cutting-hours-of-interview-footage-into-short-docs-promo-videos/

[guidetoenjoy-blog]

Fine Bros. Entertainment is building its YouTube empire, one 'react' video at a time

New Post has been published on https://entertainmentguideto.com/must-see/fine-bros-entertainment-is-building-its-youtube-empire-one-react-video-at-a-time/

Fine Bros. Entertainment is building its YouTube empire, one 'react' video at a time

Staffers at Fine Bros. Entertainment post with the Diamond Play button.

Image: fine bros entertainment

BURBANK, California How do you react to poor fan reaction?

That was the question that Benny and Rafi Fine, the brothers known for their popular YouTube channels, had to ask themselves in January after many of their viewers became angered over their (now defunct) initiative.

The duo’s goal was to give creators worldwide access to 11 of their company’s various shows and trademarks, including their franchise of “react” videos (in which groups of people, including kids, teens and adults, react to various topics). But many argued the “React” brand is not the Fine Brothers’ to license and viewed it as an attempt to claim profits over every “reaction” video out there. It only took five days before the pair apologized and discontinued the program.

Now it’s been eight months since the drama and Benny and Rafi have moved on, with hopes that their fans have too. The new challenge they face is getting their audience to trust and care about them again.

For the Fines, that means refocusing on doing what they do best: Making and distributing content.

“Our intentions were not what people thought they were. It was a very simple plan from our regard: A cool new initiative that wasn’t going to do anything bad to anyone,” Rafi said in a recent interview with Mashable at the Fine Brothers Entertainment office in Burbank. “People still think we’re trying to do something bad.”

“It was what it was,” Benny added. “There’s not much you can do about the reality when those things happen, beyond trying to look through clouds of it, find out what’s the essence of this, realize, learn from it. We learned this is not something we should be doing let’s just move on from on it and go back to what we had been doing. We’re fully and totally refocusing.”

Making moves

Benny and Rafi, who grew up in Brooklyn, have a typical brotherly rapport.

At 33, Rafi, the youngest, is slightly more hipster and mellow. He is often seen sporting a beanie. Meanwhile, Benny, 35, speed talks his way through conversations, with Rafi either interrupting or finishing his sentences.

The duo has been making online content since 2004, before YouTube even launched. They were instrumental in the success of Maker Studios, now owned by Disney.

Now, Fine Brothers Entertainmentn functions as a full-fledged media company, studio and network.

The company produces 10 serialized shows every week for over 20 million YouTube subscribers, as well as other digital platforms and linear television.

That includes scripted, non-scripted, animated, sketch, interactive, and, of course, the react videos.

The company’s videos getnearly 150 million views each month, and their channels overall have more than 5 billion lifetime video views.There are now about 55 people working at FBE full-time, who produce an average 12 videos per week.

Over the last year, the Fines have made a handful of big hires, including Brandie Tucker,who produced Big Brother and Hell’s Kitchen, and Andrea Kinloch, who previously worked for AOL Original Video and Warner Bros.

“It’s definitely been a year of building out a team we can grow on top of and scale in a much easier and faster way,” Rafi said. “With so many new platforms, we have to innovate how to make content on such a mass scale. On top of it, we’re also making TV shows and features and everything.”

Now, they are in the process of expanding their offices, by adding another floor with tons more studio space.

The Burbank office space (of which they inhabit three floors of) is not the average studio set-up.

For starters, the office is sort semi-hidden: there’s no sign outside the building indicating that it’s FBE’s headquarters (so fans don’t crowd outside, FBE execs said).

The first thing guests are greeted with at the reception area is a table filled with books written by YouTubers and snacks. Lots of snacks.

The bright blue walls are decked out with Fine Bros Entertainment memorabilia, including a few boards which people who have participated in “React” videos sign. They also proudly display some of their many awards, including a Webby, a Streamy Award and a Daytime Emmy.

Before expansion, there were just two sets utilized by all staffers, with a white board outlining the daily filming schedule for each space. With the added floorspace, employees will be adding areas for filming.

Much of the third floor will remain dedicated to the post-production team, which holes up in areas. (One of the editing suites is appropriately nicknamed “the lair.”)

Image: saba hamedy/mashable

Upping the slate

To the average Hollywood honcho, it’s hard to explain what exactly FBE is. That’s where Kinloch, Tucker and Matt Labate VP of Channels, Strategy and Audience, come in.

Tucker comes from the TV development world, where she produced TV series such as Big Brother, Hells Kitchen, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and the upcoming show on MTV Epic Win!.

Her goal is to build a bridge with traditional Hollywood outlets.

Luckily, FBE has already built itself in Hollywood enough to have brand recognition. The company has been behind TruTV show Six Degrees of Everything, Nickelodeon’s ReactToThat (made in partnership with Nick Canon) and ABC Family’s Superfan Suite for its hit show Pretty Little Liars.

“Fine Bros Entertainment knows fandom better than anyone,” Tucker told Mashable. “We know how to tap into what people obsess over. And that’s valuable.”

Kinloch, meanwhile, is responsible for making deals with brands and licensing content (including to international TV networks and education partners).

The hope is that people see FBE for what it is: A nontraditional entertainment company capable of doing traditional material while still tapping in to digital audiences.

“We’re not necessarily the influencer but we’re not traditional media,” Rafi said. “We’re very much a hybrid. We find ourselves in that middle ground.”

Another company that has mastered this hybrid is Rooster Teeth.

The Austin-based production company, behind hits such asRed vs. Blue, was founded in 2003 by YouTubers Matt Hullum and Burnie Burns and then acquired by digital entertainment company Fullscreen in 2014.

Since then, the company has amassed more than 20 million subscribers to its YouTube Network, as well as 3 million unique monthly visitors to its RoosterTeeth.com hub and 1.8 million registered community members.

FBE has always been working on expanding its slate, but ove the last year the focus was to delve into more long-form projects.

So in January, it came as no surprise when one of FBE’s projects was announced as part of YouTube Red’s first line-up of originals

SING IT!, a half-hour sitcom that provides a satirical take on singing competition shows, was made in partnership with traditional studio Mandeville Films.

The 10-episode show is a workplace comedy about a singing competition show (a la American Idol or The Voice).

It features a mix of traditional and digital stars including Mircea Monroe (Hart of Dixie) Missi Pyle (Gone Girl), Debby Ryan (Disney Channels Jessie) and Mark Sullivan (Guest of a Nation). It also includes actual singing competition alumni, including Ace Young and Diana DeGarmo (the married couple that competed onAmerican Idol) andLeah Lewis (The Voice Season Four). Guest stars include Sasha Pieterse (Pretty Little Liars), YouTube stars Sam Tsui, Todrick Hall and Tim DeLaGhetto.

WithSing It!, YouTube Red viewers could actually vote for which fictional contestant they want to win ahead of the final episode. Contestants were then eliminated based on who viewers pick, giving an immersive element to the digital show.

FBE also just relaunched the animated series Emo Dad. The entire season is on Fullscreen’s SVOD service already but episodes also become available weekly on YouTube.

“There’s kind of a trifecta of things always going on at our company,” Benny said. “There’s the digital side of things, which is just as big as it’s ever been and growing on month-to-month basis. At the same time, opportunities with shows like Sing It! are leading to other things and now we are starting to move toward more long-form scripted [content]. The brand integration side is the third wing.”

Up next? “Soo many things,” Benny said.

Among the new projects: The company’s first feature film, titled F*&% the Prom.

Day 3 of the movie! Overnight w/ @MGortat @daniellemcam @Joel_Courtney @cameronpalatas #TextMeWhenItsOver #FTheProm pic.twitter.com/GWiLIiyAdw

thefinebros (@thefinebros) April 3, 2016

Plus, Fine Brothers Entertainment will have a new addition to its growing react franchise called “CELEBS React,” which will launch later this year.

FBE partnered with Fullscreen for the show, which will live on the Fullscreen’s SVOD platform and the FBE channel.

The overall goal is to “extend olive branches” to as many distribution outlets and create quality content, the Fine brothers said.

But even as FBE continues to grow both in terms of content and company size Benny and Rafi emphasize they want to remain connected with their fans and the digital world.

They end every Wednesday all-hands meeting with two traditions.

The first, reading a round-up of notes from the office’s “good shit” box, where employees can submit compliments about each other. For example, one employee wrote a note praising another for “slaying” in a recent video shoot.

Then, the Fine brothers read a fan letter. On this particular day, Benny chose one that was written out on a typewriter.

Benny read an excerpt aloud:

“I’ve been struggling with depression, but your shows mean so much to me. They introduced me to a whole world of pop culture.”

The entire room applauded.

Read more: http://mashable.com/

[obwcmp]

First Year Done

2018 is pretty much done! As is my first year of CMP. It’s crazy to think that there’s only two years left... I’ll be sure to make the most of them! With this post i’ll be going through the final stretch at the end of semester 2, and looking at a bunch of photos i found recently which date back to April this year. In my previous post I said i’d hopefully post something after the 25th. Well... here we are a month and a half later. On to it!

As of writing this intro on the 16th of December it’s somewhat of a blur as to what happened in the last couple weeks of the semester. After my Folly Foley post a bunch of things changed in rapid succession. I got week long extensions for VFX and 3D Modelling, and Sound as I was running out of time and nothing was done. That week (week 12) I attended fewer classes than I had for the duration of the semester. Taylor had his week 12 set out in such a way that it was possible to skip on of his lectures which was a huge help. That Friday (19th of October) I felt somewhat down as it would’ve been great to have pretty much everything done by then, but I kept trudging on. 

In the days leading up to our group’s transmedia pitch I mostly worked on my other stuff but made sure to stay in contact with Paris and Hunter. We had a final meeting not long before the pitch, either in week 12 or 13, and settled on what we were going to do and then left it until the day of the pitch. They both wanted to use a script to be sure everything would fit in, but at the time I was against the idea almost entirely. In retrospect it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and they both did a fantastic job. All in all our pitch went super well, Kevin loved the ideas presented, provided good feedback (as usual), and we managed to score an A+. What a relief! 

I seem to remember that i finished SND at some point earlier than VFX or 3DM but i could be remembering that wrong. In fact as I type this I can remember standing in 1D12 alone in the dark playing through our movie soundtrack over the projector and loud speakers to make sure our levels weren’t fucked on the night before I was due to hand it in. In retrospect, my time management was completely fucked! But I got it to a point where I was satisfied with everything in the ProTools project. I cleaned it up, prepared a package, and had it on a USB ready for 11AM on Friday the 26th. I met up with Mereana and Paris, and we headed in to a mixing booth with Neil. He actually really liked it! Another massive relief. There were a couple of details we had put in that no other group had which made us feel good. There were some sounds which we just completely ran out of time to record, but I managed to keep all the sounds we used originating from our own recordings. Some of them sounded strange, but some worked really well and it was satisfying to listen through the completed product. I wrote up a big document with details on all the sounds the night before, and Neil responded to that later with fantastic feedback (as always) and suggested things we could do to improve it. The same thing happened with the Formative assessment, where he even created a new ProTools session with a little tweak he made to one of our sounds. He’s a fantastic teacher. Mereana and Paris were also the best teammates I could’ve had. I failed to show up to so many recording sessions and meetings (for Transmedia too) and they still persisted with me which was really cool of them. They were also great when it came to talking to Neil during our presentation, they made it easy which was the best. Same goes for Hunter and Paris again with Transmedia too. 

After the pitch and sound presentation, it was time to move on to completing VFX and 3D Modelling. I took a short break, then headed over to K3 and set up camp. As expected, K3 was busy as fuck! Many people were in there finishing their stuff, and it wasn’t just first years but some second and third years as well. I remember starting with VFX. It was the one I was finding the hardest at the time as the assessment was so vague, and as a result I hadn’t properly started something which was worthwhile. After a bunch of different prototypes I came up with the idea to create a similar effect to a move by Katara in ATLA where she stops the rain in it’s tracks, creating a dome of water, turning it into sharp ice shards and sending it careening towards a target. I didn’t get quite that far with it, but I ended up creating an interesting effect where a fractured object explodes, the pieces fly into the air but are stopped in their tracks, and then are thrown into the ground. Looking back, it would’ve been fun to expand on with some animation and cinematography but there was no way I could’ve done it all in one day of course! 

By the time I was ready to render I was actually running out of time. To my knowledge K3 closed at 1am so I started creating a manual render farm out of the now empty computers there. I set up 4 computers all running Arnold renders at once doing different portions of the video. It was awesome! To figure out a networked render was the dream but I had no time to figure it out at that moment. I managed to get down to 100 frames left before 11pm when the awesome security guy came along and politely told us that the labs actually close at 11pm and that we really should clear off before then. I stopped my renders just before 11pm, packed all my shit, and cleared off. I was sorta bummed but I wanted to keep going and get this sucker done otherwise it’d get in late. I set up my laptop that I’m writing this on in the coldest part of my room in such a way that allowed for plenty of airflow, and just let it whirr on while I fell asleep. 

By this point I had actually finished 3D Modelling, I ended up creating a hand painted, slightly low poly Toad from the Mario Bros. series. Unlike VFX, I had been working on this model previously so it was mostly creating maps, painting, and rendering while I simultaneously worked on VFX. We were using Quixel to paint and man that program is a pain in the arse! I used to be a staunch defender of it in light of Substance Painter but man at this point I’d go over to Substance any day, Ddo really got on my wick. I managed to complete it and hand it in on time, unlike VFX which I ended up handing in the next day. 

08:55MON22OCT2018: Work on Toad begins...

15:56FRI26OCT2018: The joys of xNormal’s 3D viewer

17:29FRI26OCT2018: The painting is done!

17:38FRI26OCT2018: Sadness from across the room

18:59FRI26OCT2018: A new legend is born from the mind of Marie...

It’s Toadd Howard!!!

Oh shit!!

20:12FRI26OCT2018: Rendering in progress

The last thing I did was write up my individual report for Transmedia on the 27th and... that’s it! First year was done. It felt strange at the time and for at least a month afterwards too. I felt completely devoid of purpose, for a while when hunting for holiday work I felt the same way. I was still hanging out with friends which was what saved me from feeling any worse than I already was. It took me a long while to figure this all out too, it was the end of November when I realised that I have a need to create things constantly otherwise I feel like garbage! I also had the daunting task of moving out the cube ahead of me after all of my uni work was done. I managed to land my new place on the 12th of November and moved in at the end of that week on the 18th. 

Always interesting to see just how much garbage accumulates over the course of a single year.

At some point around the 22nd or 23rd I went and hung about Hayden’s room at the Cube for an entire weekend. We ate junk food for 4 days straight and just sat around doing fucking nothing but playing games and watching shows. It was kinda fun to begin with but it was what finally made me realise that to get myself out of my slump I was in I just had to create and do something. Anything! So I hauled arse out of there and started to make some changes. I stopped looking at social media. It sounds so obvious typing it out but MAN it took a lot of time out of my day. YouTube especially had the potential to scoop hours out of my day. YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram were all huge time sinks which I removed from my daily schedule. Of course this filled my day with... nothing. Around this time I was lucky enough to come across Lisa Kogawa’s Time Management Stuff when my friend Lauren reblogged it. I decided to use her method to fill my day with a bunch of projects which would keep me creatively busy over the holiday period. 

I went on a spur of the moment trip of Auckland for a week to relax and help me recoup, then as soon as I got back I was into cleaning my Cube apartment. I still hadn’t cleaned anything despite moving all of my shit out and the lease ended on the 8th of December. So both the 7th and the 8th were busy days for me but I got it done in the end, I had held on to my room until the very end and it was sad to see it go. I had many good times there and it was the perfect introduction to Wellington, student life, and university as a whole. 

See you 2F ...

That pretty much brings us to the present, but there are a bunch of photos and videos i found on my phone which I wanted to share here.

10MAY: Digital Video Production in semester 1! My room briefly turned into a studio for our summative assessment. So many people ended up using the Cube for their DVP projects in semester 1 and to an extent those who took Film on Location in semester 2 continued to.

STUURRRRTTT for Computer Animation in semester 1! For context:

24JUN: One of many great views from the windows of 2F

In the process of uploading these photos and videos I actually found out there’s a ton of photos that predate April! It’s probably too many for this one post though, this is long enough! I’ll be waiting until Stream is updated with all of its new course pages to get writing on the impressions and anticipations post for semester one of year two, 2019!

[ganzeer-reviews]

EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS By Peter Biskind

o-o-o-o-o

When the two [John Wayne and Dennis Hopper] were working on True Grit, Wayne once flew his helicopter in from the minesweeper he kept at Newport Beach, landed on the Paramount lot, swaggered onto the soundstage with his .45 hanging from his belt, and bellowed, "Where's that pinko Hipper? That goddamn Eldridge Cleaver's out there at UCLA saying 'shit' and 'cocksucker' in front of my sweet daughters. I want that red motherfucker. Where is that commie hiding?"

Like the war between old gods and new in Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS, EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS chronicles the battle between Old Hollywood and New. Well into the 60's, Hollywood was still churning out the glamorous musicals and John Wayne Westerns that were popular in the 50's, but America was a different place that the big studio bosses didn't quite get or understand. Anti-War protests and the Civil Rights movement were taking hold. The already popular Nina Simone began addressing racial inequality in her songs, and Bob Dylan became the most popular singer/songwriter in the country, second possibly to The Beatles, who, even they –mere pop artists– couldn't avoid addressing the horrors of the Vietnam war. Television was new, and it was on TV that you could get a glimpse of people like Bob Dylan and The Beatles, who neither looked, sounded, or behaved like anyone on the silver screen. Television was also where you could see mad, groundbreaking ideas for the first time. Things like Star Trek and The Twilight Zone were miles ahead of any feature-length film starring John Wayne or Elizabeth Taylor. As the studios began to lose a lot of money, the control enacted over film-making was relinquished to smaller production outfits, which started giving directors full control over how they made movies. So radical were the results that first time filmmakers like Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorcese became stars almost overnight. And yes, you read that right. Dennis fucking Hopper. EASY RIDER is America's first biker movie, and thus spoke to Americans at the time in a way that no other film ever had. According to Biskind, it largely involved Hopper dicking around on set. The "set" being America's open roads. Nevertheless, it cost $501,000 to make, and brought $91.1 million in rentals. A huge, and very unexpected, return on investment. It won the First Work Award at the Cannes Film festival and was nominated for two Oscars, and Hopper was subsequently christened by LIFE magazine as "Hollywood's hottest director." It was 1969, and the gates of Hollywood finally swung open to welcome American counter-culture for the majority of the 70's. Arguably, the best decade in American film-making until Spielberg and Lucas showed up to introduce the formula for what would become the, ugh, summer blockbuster. The book is a treasure trove of "New Hollywood" history, and delves with great detail into some of the horrors, trials, and tribulations involved in making some of America's greatest films. Warren recommended it to me, after I had listened to this NPR interview with Coppola about the difficulties faced in making THE GODFATHER. And let me tell you, what is revealed in that interview is nothingcompared to what's in this here book. Not just in regards to Coppola, but pretty much every American filmmaker who rose to prominence in the 70's.

Paul [Schrader] made the call to his agent, Michael Hamilburg, said, "This is The Godfather meets Bruce Lee. It's gonna sell for sixty grand. You get a third of the money, I get a third, and Leonard [Schrader] gets a third."

Hamilburg gave them $5,000 on the spot. The brothers arrived in L.A. around Thanksgiving and rented a tiny apartment on Bicknell in Venice, a block from the beach, for $90 a month, which Hamilburg paid for. They took the bedroom doors off the hinges, stole some cinder blocks from a construction site, set up two desks, one in each bedroom, facing each other. The only other piece of furniture was a massive butcher block coffee table with wrought iron legs. They rented two electric typewriters, wrote three drafts in about eight weeks. They wrote around the clock, twenty, twenty-two hours a day, worked ten hours, slept one, very little food. Toward the end, around Christmas of '72, they were running out of money, even though they were spending less than a dollar a day, $7, $10 a week for food, stealing plastic envelopes of ketchup from restaurants, making tomato juice. "We sat down, took a good look at the script, and said to each other, 'We gotta write it one more time,'" recalls Leonard. "We were just wiped out, needed to find the energy to write one more draft. For us, the only surefire source of that big a jolt was guilt. We talked about, 'How we gonna get' – you didn't wanna go out and rob somebody – 'the guilt?' My brother said to me, 'We'll go to Vegas, lose our money, we'll feel so guilty, so pissed off, we'll come home and finish the script.'"

And sure enough, they did. And a couple paragraphs later:

Says Leonard, "There was an auction, sixteen bidders, it was the highest amount for original script ever sold at that point: $325,000."

The film that came out of it, THE YAKUZA, directed by Sydney Pollack, is... well, alright. But it did open the gateways for Paul Schrader who went on to write TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL, and eventually direct his own films, like HARDCORE and AMERIAN GIGOLO. But not before screwing his brother over.

When the dust settled, instead of an easy three-way split, The Yakuza money was split 40-40 between Paul and Hamilburg, with Leonard getting only 20 percent. "I wanted to have that sole screenwriting credit, so I made him take shared story credit," says Paul. Leonard looked the other way, pretended it hadn't happened.

Even though THE YAKUZA was originally Leonard's idea for a novel, before his brother convinced him to co-write it as a screenplay with him. Such personal stories aside, one can't help but see the overarching parallels between then and now. Like Old Hollywood back then, Hollywood today has been riding the wave of an old formula – the summer blockbuster – since well, the 80's really. Like Television in the 60's, the Internet has sprung up as the new media outlet through which one can experience things a little closer to today's equivalent of "counter-culture." The internet became home to some of Cory Doctorow's first novels, it is where the art of Molly Crabapple first saw the light, where live video was being broadcast from the heart of the Arab Spring, where people are Tumbling their homemade unairbrushed porn, where kids are producing microfiction using cell phones, and where you can hear Kim Boekbinder sing Pussy Grabs Back in response to Donald Trump. Again, there is a sense that big media outlets are stuck in their old ways, producing things that are far removed from the pulse of now. But if recent hits like MOONLIGHT and GET OUT are any indication, it seems like Hollywood may be catching up. MOONLIGHT is an honest portrayal of homosexuality in an African American community. GET OUT unapologetically tackles the horrors of racism by way of a popular genre film. One of them won the Oscar for best film, and the other is the highest grossing film by a writer/director in the history of American cinema. These are game-changers that tell us that the decade to come will be nothing short of a cultural revolution. And that excites me.

[Available on Amazon]

Ganzeer April 29, 2017

[zachwritesstuff]

Awesome Trevor: The Long and Winding Road

I’m very used to writing things about other people, products and properties. So this one is going to be a slightly weird one for me. It’s a story of hopeful imagination, and disappointment; Of long hours working to make things perfect, and never finding it; And going through version, formats, people, places and ideas just to keep an idea afloat. But, most importantly, it’s the story of Awesome Trevor, an idea that is eight years in the making, yet so far has not given any worthwhile fruit, no matter how hard we tried. In writing this out, I’m hoping to both show the trials and tribulation of taking an idea from concept to fruition, and how impossible it might seem sometimes. Idealism and inspiration can be a hell of a stimulant, while stalling and depression can be a hell of a… depressant. So maybe someone can get something interesting out of it, or at least find the whole saga entertaining, I don’t know. I should probably quit stalling and actually get to the point… It all started...

Part 1: The Movie

The year is 2010. Just barely out of high school, I was now in Community College, and not working, which was a dumb idea for many reasons. I had worked on independent, or more accurately, amateur, film projects a dozen times, both for class and simply because I wanted to. None of them were good. Despite the fact that I was an adult, I still was not a competent film maker (And some might say that I still am not). But I was young, and still had the delusions of being a big shot director someday. All I needed, I reasoned, was a big project to really pick things up and get a bit of a spotlight. I could continue making simple YouTube videos, but if I actually wanted to get anywhere, I needed to make something bigger.

So I had to make a feature film.

I talked to my regular cohort, Evan Greenhoe. I had known him for a few years at this point, having met when I was still in high school, and we had the same thirst for creating. While he was more of the on camera type, acting and performing music (he still is, but he was then too), I always felt more comfortable behind the scenes, writing and directing. We had talked over projects before, as we always loved making ideas and fleshing them out, and when I told him my desire to make a feature film, he almost instantly handed me the idea of Awesome Trevor.

He had come up with the idea with his girlfriend, Sarah, and had held onto the idea for a little while, never fully formed, but when we started talking about making bigger things, he figured it would be a fit. He had never really formed the idea too terribly deeply, beyond making it a video game inspired piece of a regular joe becoming a hero and saving the princess. We talked out the idea over several days, and eventually we had a strong base to work off of.

Now before I go any further, there is one important note I must add. Around this time, Scott Pilgrim vs The World had just come out. This is important because, in the beginning, Awesome Trevor was a rip off of that. In later years, we would change the story around to make it it’s own thing, but to start with, it was a story of a kind of loser dude going on a quest to save his ex girlfriend from a bunch of people from her past, one of which is even a weird ninja girl. It was a copy.

Now that we had our base, the next step was to write out this masterpiece of original fiction. This was no problem, as I had already written out a few feature length scripts before (all of them going unused, of course). While writing, though, I decided to change up the flow a bit: Instead of one movie, I would make it a six part series, and after all parts were released, I would edit them together as a movie! My genius knew no bounds…

So I got to writing this newly formatted script. I filled it with video game references, witty dialogue, and set it in local areas, so that it would be simpler to film. I introduced the amnesiac main character, Trevor; His tired roommate, Mark; The mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Mary; and the 4 mysterious bosses, Kevin Kurochi, Peyote Jones, Stephanie Connor and Samuel Tanner. The story was of Trevor, who woke up after a heavy night of drinking, to find his memories of a former girlfriend gone, and going on an adventure to get them back with the help of his quip filled roommate.

My wit, it burns....

    The scripts, well… They weren’t great. They weren’t bad for an untrained 20 year old, but I would like to think I’ve come a long way from when I wrote them. But the most important thing was, we had our scripts. Now started the pre-production.

We pretty much had our cast right off, as they were mostly friends of ours. I was going to play Samuel, who was a bouncer at a club with super strength; Evan was to play Mark, the plucky costar; Kevin (a samurai), Peyote (a drugged out metal guitarist) and Stephanie (a cloaked ninja) were going to be played by our friends Ken, Adolf and Amber respectively; And Mary, who appeared as herself in only one scene, was planned to be played by a woman named Amanda Alch. who I was going to school with at the time and was already an established actress (Bad Kids Go To Hell and Claws). It’s likely she doesn’t even remember agreeing to appear in it, which is probably for the best.

Our starring role went to a good friend of mine from high school named Kyle Mason. Then, he was a kid in his late teens with an interest in cosplay and video production. Nowadays, he is a professional cosplayer and video producer, so he’s not doing too shabby. It didn’t take much convincing to have him play the lead role, and we were off to the races!

A Readthrough of the script, which of course didn’t go through any editing

I had even asked a dude I had met in college named James to be our Director of Photography, as he had had more experience working on original projects and camera work. Our hearts were working faster than our minds, and we skipped over dozens of important steps (setting proper schedules, storyboarding, finding proper funding, etc) in our pursuit, instead focusing on marketing, finding places to film, and practicing our parts. We even had popular content producers Video Games Awesome plug our project on their show, despite the fact that there was not any actual substance behind anything we were doing.

Timestamp is at 9:24. A preview of what never comes...

The best way to sum this up is that is was an embarrassment to filmmaking. Had we actually started production as planned, everyone involved would probably hate each other, and the entire thing would be scrapped after about two episodes. I was saved by James cancelling his involvement, probably rightly sensing that this all was half assed, causing the production to fall behind and ultimately being cancelled due to people no longer being available.

And so the first part of this story ends with but a wisp of smoke that was our hope for a movie. Though we possibly dodged a bullet, I was still frustrated and disappointed by all of it, so I put the idea on hiatus and started working on other things. It would lay there for 3 years before it appeared again…

Part 2: The First Cartoon

2013. I was out of community college, and at the University of Texas. I didn’t fit in very well, and being farther away from home and friends made me a bit of a sad, lonely hermit. I knew several people at school, and though I would consider many of them friends now, back then, they were just classmates.

To occupy my time, I was doing side work for Frederator Studios, makers of such fine cartoons as Adventure Time, Fairly Odd Parents, and Chalkzone. I had become friendly with Fred Seibert, the founder of Frederator, after interviewing him a couple years prior, and he had let me make some videos for their YouTube Channel. While I was doing work there, they started up their Cartoon Hangover project, where people could pitch their own cartoons with relative ease, and if Frederator liked it, they would produce a full cartoon short.

This seemed like an amazing opportunity for both myself and Evan, who had experience with animation. I talked to him about it, and he was on board before I even finished explaining the whole thing to him. Like we always do, we started discussing ideas, and after long deliberations, we narrowed it down to three: Captain Amazo, the idiotic superhero; Metal Mania, which was about a metal bad traveling through space to be the biggest band in the galaxy; And, of course, Awesome Trevor, back from the dead.

Well, back from the dead is a slight misnomer. We had discussed the idea once more in between, thinking of bringing it back as a comic. We got far in our discussions, but never made any physical items to go with it, and soon it went back into its slumber.

Editing note: After reviewing the article, Evan has told me that he actually made a comic cover that he never showed me. The cover, unfortunately, has been lost to time.

Both of us were still feeling the sting from the failed mini-series/movie, and as we were now a little bit older, we decided to be a bit wiser as well. Not wise enough to not choose Awesome Trevor, mind you, but also hedging our bets by pitching two shows, the other being Captain Amazo. (Note: we did plan to pitch Metal Mania as well, but we never got around to finishing it).

So this process was pretty much a rinse and repeat. I went home and made a script, and from there, we began working on a pitch. This new script, while not a ton better than the originals, was still an improvement, and since we weren’t having to go through pre-production and big planning meetings, we were able to take stuff in stride. We kept the same general story, but decided to make stuff bigger and flashier, as we weren’t limited by the shackles of real life. We also changed around some of the character designs, as we wanted to have new actors play the characters.

I’m sure I thought of the shirt designs. I’m a comedy genius.

We kept the base designs of Mark and Trevor, but Samuel the Bouncer was changed to match the person we really wanted to play him, Seanbaby. Once Satisfied, we storyboarded everything out  and sent them in to Frederator, eagerly awaiting the approval so we can start again on our dream project.

I wrote in the dialogue myself, despite my awful handwriting.

As these are the first you are ever seeing of the characters or story, it’s needless to say that we were denied. The problem with it was that, whoops, we had sent a full storyboard, when in fact they wanted a beat board (like a storyboard, but using thumbnails instead of large images). He also noted that the end of this pitch was left as a “To Be Continued”, and that they were looking for standalone ideas instead of pitches for full series.

Part 3: The Second Cartoon

While again disappointed, this wasn’t a denial based on content, instead just the way it was presented. So we went back to the literal drawing board and reworked the idea into a standalone. It was at this point, in the first time since the idea was formed, that we decided to change the story up. While we kept the saving the girl idea (as to us, it felt like a very video-game thing), we made him more of a player-character like character, almost like an avatar battling in a game.

Looking back through the beat boards we made, they were lame. While I had grown as a writer, I focused way too much on trying to make something someone else would like, and wrote in a very cliched way. Instead of trying to introduce or establish characters, I made Mark and Trevor generic, and didn’t even give defined forms to the people they were fighting. The jokes were bad, the characters were one note, and for some reason I felt the need to physically write out the dialogue on the sheet, despite the fact that I have terrible handwriting.

Seriously, why did I feel the need to write in the dialogue?!

Evan tried his best to work with what he was given, but I feel that I dropped the ball on this one. And of course it showed when I sent it in and got a response from Eric Homan, who runs all the creative development at Frederator.

“Thanks, Zach, for the work and continued interest.

Unfortunately, "Awesome Trevor" is very far away from what we're looking for in our Cartoon Hangover shorts, in everything from character to story to tone.

I may have recommended this before, but I really suggest you take a look at our shorts as we begin to release them in a few weeks. I think they'll give a better indication of the types of cartoons for which we're looking.

Thanks, again.

-- Eric”

In everything from character to story to tone. That said what needed to be said. Even though I was sour at the time, with five years of hindsight, I realized that Eric was, as he often is, completely right about it, in more way than I could have thought. It was a slapdash job on an idea that was already starting to become kind of stale. We tried to change it up, but in trying to rush this idea to get it made (I checked, there was literally one month between the denial of the first pitch and sending in the second pitch), I did a poor job and let both of us down.

I of course blamed people like Eric, who was just telling me the truth, and situations like my school life, which was causing me anxiety and depression, but deep down I knew that I had done poorly. I had taken this idea, that wasn’t even mine originally, and basically ruined it to the point where we felt like we couldn’t do anything more with it. So at this point, I want to make two apologies. One to Eric, who was simply trying to help and harboured resentment towards for years, and one to Evan, who I kind put a lot of pressure on while we were working on these, and probably wasn’t the best person to work with. Um… My bad.

Part 4: The Past and Future

That last one was probably the last major wave we had in trying to produce Awesome Trevor. It pops up in conversations of ideas a lot, but nothing ever comes to fruition. The closest that ever came after the second cartoon debacle was another video game video series related idea I had. The idea was of an NPC in an open world game who breaks programming and tries to fight back against the player character, who repeatedly kills people for no reason. After discussing that idea for a while, we thought of attaching the Awesome Trevor name to it, as they were both vaguely video game related, and even started jotting down some story ideas. But, like many plans, this one faded away, and was soon in the vault, like the thousand other things we come up with…

And, well, that’s kind of the end. There might have been an expectation of some kind of twist or surprise announcement, but that’s not always how things go. At this point, Awesome Trevor is just an old idea, one that had stewed in our minds for years now. It comes up in conversations every few months, maybe trying out a cartoon pitch again, or doing it as a podcast series, but so far, nothing is set in stone. Hell, it’s possible that after this, a new vigor of interests might pop up inside of us, and the world is finally introduced to this plan that is now 8+ years in the making. You never really can tell.

The main reason I wanted to write this was to just put this all out there, and finally view something of it. Maybe I wanted people to finally see this thing that has been on my mind for a portion of my life. Maybe it’s a cautionary tale of not stepping back and taking the necessary steps to make something come to life properly. Or maybe it’s simply my plea of vanity, begging someone to tell me what I made was good. At this point, I can’t really tell. I just hope someone enjoyed it enough to get to the end.

And man, did it get kind of depressing at the end. Well, for those who made it here, here is your secret easter egg ending. Presented in full is the original draft to the Awesome Trevor Theme Song, produced by the extremely talented Evan Greenhoe. Thank you for reading!

[hannahhydedma-blog]

Expanded Project 2: Future Nostalgia (Further Development)

The development of this project was actually really fun. I know I spoke in my reflection on Expanded Project 1 that I got bogged down by the tediousness of that project, but here I found that I really liked the research and YouTube “deep dives” it took to find the perfect clips I used. I wound up using clips from 20 unique sources from a combined 4 hours of footage to create a mini faux-documentary. 

I began my looking at the wikipedia page about the timeline of major U.S. events since the year 2000. I also asked others on social media about the things they recall and major media they consumed and think will stand the test of time. I got several interesting responses containing dozens of films, TV series, and music. I couldn’t include them all, so I chose a couple from each category to include at the end of the documentary. 

This project required me to think critically about what I think will be remembered in the future. I began with the Y2K phenomenon, which I feel highlights how ridiculous people can be with widespread conspiracy theories and misunderstandings. I continued through the Bush/Gore Presidential election of 99/2000, 11 Sept 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, explosion of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003, legalisation of same sex marriage in the state of Massachusetts in 2004, Barack Obama elected in 2008, jumped to the campaigning and election of Trump in 2015-2016, the women’s march in 2017, and the discussion of the relationships between the U.S., China, Russia, and North Korea.  

As I mentioned in my last post, I recruited four other people (2 American women, 1 American man, and 1 Australian woman) to record my voiceover script. They each sent over several versions and I picked and chose from each recording which lines I liked. Some are more somber, some more upbeat and I matched them with the appropriate video. 

In broadcast news, we talk about ‘Show Don’t Tell,’ so my v.o. acts as links to guide the story through the video clips and time. 

If there’s any place to ‘toot my own horn’ so to speak, it’s on my own blog. This piece reminded me that I am actually a pretty good great editor. From cutting out .2 seconds of a clip to editing a word out of a middle of a sentence that I decided didn’t need to be there, everything is so smooth and cohesive. There is a story there, it makes sense, and there’s enough detail to give context to the ‘in-the-future’ lens you’re supposed to be viewing this from.

Sometimes as I was editing, I let out a triumphant ‘Yes!’ when I finished a particularly tricky edit, and I thought at several points that this might actually be what I want to do in the future... (Something to explore in the reflection post.)