You may recall that last August our little gang entered our first Austin 48 Hour Film Project. I may have written (vented?) about it in a behind-the-scenes post.
While we were able to turn-in a completed film, it wasn’t the film in its entirety. (If only we’d had 49 hours!) But today, thanks to our DP/Editor, Richard G. Bingham, II and our writer/actor Topping Haggerty, we give you the full video. Keep in mind this was all written, shot and edited (save the middle section which had to be scrapped to make the deadline) in 48 Hours. Also, note that no children were harmed despite accusations from a disgusting little HOA hobgoblin (who has since inspired an original song and sketch ideas – our little troll muse, as she were).
First a disclaimer: I’m typing this directly into WordPress, which means a couple of things: 1) I will doubtlessly not hit save, lose all my words, and then spend the rest of the day being mad at the Universe, because it’s constantly trying to provoke me, and 2) there will be even MORE misspellings, typos, bad grammar than you’ve come to expect, and I will spend hours – possibly months – revising this post and cleaning it up. As I’ve told people in the past: Do not read my posts for at least 24 hours after they’ve been posted. I’m the worst editor. Sure, I re-read before hitting post, but apparently I’m high when that happens because I usually find 30 more errors 8+ hours later. I think it’s because I unwittingly slip into alternate dimensions, but that hasn’t been officially proven, and my psychiatrist always makes the skeptical face while scribbling copious notes whenever I mention it. Doubter.
So, I finally created a teaser for the Dunes sketch after posting the Dunes actual sketch. It makes sense if you do things backwards like say Merlin. For the record, Merlin experiencing time backwards was really just a T.H. White devise and is not mentioned anywhere else, so for our purposes I’m referring to T.H. White’s Merlin. I’m glad we got that straightened up, too.
It came about like this (this is ACTUAL dialog – yessiree, I’m like a human digital recorder):
Me: Hey Richard, we never got around to creating that teaser.
Richard (Director of Photography/Sketch Writing Comedic Genius – look for his upcoming reality show on YouTube): Grasshopper (a reference to Kung Fu, Starring David Carradine – conceptualized by Bruce Lee who had his idea stolen by Warner Bros. ANYWAY) Grasshopper (he had to repeat, because your head was being filled with more fun facts about Kung Fu) AHEM! Grasshopper!
Me: Yes?
Richard: Didn’t you get movie editing software for Christmas?
Me: I’m confused.
Richard: It’s time, Grasshopper. Snatch the video from my hand and create the Dunes teaser. Then YOU will be the master or well, you’ll get your feet wet which is a great idea. I always encourage people to learn to edit their own videos so they get a feel… (there were more words here, but I was getting a “battery low” warning on my memory and had to take care of that by generally drooling and thinking about ponies. It helped push down the panic attack associated with me installing and playing with the video editing software.)
The prodding worked. Well, it took me a few weeks, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that yesterday I sat down and played and posted a video then I came back this morning and played around some more. The result is below. Note: if you saw the teaser on FB yesterday, this is newer – it has added words at the end, because well… it had to have that “Beth touch” added to it. This video was relatively simple, but it did allow me to play a bit. What you can’t see is that there were 4 tracks I manipulated, a transition in the front and then of course the end bits I still have more to learn, but overall it was a fun experiment. So next up, the plan is to create more shorts to get a better feel for editing and THEN I’ll go back to having real editors on any additional sketches we film, because really there are limits.
With that being said though, who wants to make some shorts? I promise to stop referring to you as “my little human guinea pigs” (maybe) if you volunteer. Ok, I’ll at least give up the cackling maniacally bit at the end – that’s really all I’m willing to commit to and I’m totally crediting you as the “little human guinea pigs”, which is a term of affection.
The Big Blue Mess 