Warren’s quest for meaning takes him to Holy Land USA, an abandoned religious theme park. Featuring music by Kiss Inc and Aphrodite’s Child.
Polyester Dreams Episode 5: Warren the Crusader
February 22nd, 2009Ron Mael > Adolf Hitler
February 18th, 2009Episode 4 Production Notes
February 18th, 2009The idea for the music video involved going down to Brighton Beach and just wandering around, seeing what would happen. Yes, I know the featured song is in Hungarian and Brighton Beach is a Russian neighborhood, but you work with what you have.
At one point I was standing in front of a store pretending to read some Russian tabloid when a man sweating vodka approached. “Do you speak Russian?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then what the FUCK are you DOING here?”
Soon we became chummy and he introduced himself as Igor. I joined him on some kind of quest to find a bootleg DVD about Chechnya.
He found it, then we hugged tenderly and parted ways.
As for the bar scene… Duff’s was kind enough to let me shoot there on a Sunday afternoon. However, there was a very noisy refrigeration unit which screwed up all dialogue near the bar. I had to use SoundSoap to get rid of the background noise, but it couldn’t fully do it and the vocals sounded tinny. Still, SoundSoap is the best option for noise removal I have used.
Another problem. Despite the two lights I had, all of my shots were really dark. I spent a couple hours fooling around with the video filters in Final Cut Pro with no luck. Brightness, contrast all of it just made things more terrible.
But eventually I stumbled upon a magical solution. Go to Video Filters, then Image Control, then drag over the Levels filter onto your clip. All I did was turn the Gamma setting down to about 0.84 or 0.79 and it made the scene brighter without any loss of contrast, tint or any such side effects.
Danger Tally:
5. Seriously bruised from doing that fall from the bar over and over again.
6. Sore throat for the next day or two. Amy Van Doran was really choking me in the those scenes. She later told me that in the heat of the moment (Asia!), she channeled all of her frustration with men onto my poor neck.
Polyester Dreams Episode 4: Mister Alkohol
February 14th, 2009
Intent on finding a life with meaning, Warren tries to quit drinking. Featuring music by Koncz Zsuzsa.
Progcast #2
February 10th, 2009In which Warren gets a call from President Obama and recommends Exuma.
Special Thanks to Dallas Coyle, Annie Weinstock and Elly Jonez.
Tastes like sweet butter
February 5th, 2009A few months ago, the series finale of The Shield reminded me of a band I haven’t thought about in some time: Concrete Blonde. I had never before heard the song used over the final credits, “… Long Time Ago.” As far as this-oughta-show-my-ex songs go, it’s pretty damn good. But it’s no Waltz #2.
Concrete Blonde was a little before my time. That is, when I was listening to early 90s chick rock (Babes in Toyland, L7, Hole), Concrete Blonde had already come and gone. And back then, chick rock was sort of its own genre because since the birth of punk, there weren’t that many major players (Bikini Kill, X-Ray Spex, etc.). And no, The Runaways don’t count, they were part of the glam/punk transition.
I am fond of the band, especially their self-titled album from 1986. And who can forget “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)“? I sure as hell can’t.
Compressing for YouTube
February 4th, 2009Does anyone know how to properly compress video for YouTube? I have tried so many different ways, high quality, iPod quality, tweaking all kinds of settings.
The videos look fine after compression, but once they are uploaded onto YouTube they look like a gorilla vomited on Jesus.
Ken Stone’s advice about using Compressor looked to be the best, but I tried it and still came up with the same worn down pixely sucktastic videos.
The Webby Awards… Seriously guys?
February 3rd, 2009When I finished editing the bulk of Season One, I considered entering the show to be in the running for a Webby Award. I was unsure about my 
chances, considering how there’s a lot of great stuff out there with bigger budgets and better production values. My favorite webisode series, You Suck At Photoshop, took home at least two Webbys in 2008.
I went to the site and discovered that it costs$225 to put a show in the running. I thought I was seeing things. Seriously? That was almost half my budget for the entire first season.
Does not Web 2.0 pride itself on its open access, egalitarian nature? And are we not a generation of people told we could do or be whatever we wanted, only to find out that this was only true when we weren’t at our day jobs?
Okay, David Bowie is involved with the organization that runs the Awards, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. In my book, you write an album like Hunky Dory, you get a free pass. For murder or whatever debauchery floats your boat. But still. $225?
I think a better bet would be to enter the Streamy Awards next year.
Soul Song Lyrics
February 2nd, 2009To make Episode 3 a little more coherent, I’m posting the lyrics to “Soul Song” by Saturnalia off their 1969 album Magical Love.
You, our rat brothers
And you, our rat sisters
And White God helps only, the cats, the cats
Saturnalia - Magical Love
Rat brothers, wake up, wake up sisters
When the night ?????, the cats, in the dark
With diamond eyes
In search of street litter, of street litter
And enter, enter, the world of cats
Eat the white cat rats, ??????
The Devil, our Chocolate Lord
Shall bless, he shall bless your appetites
He was the equal of the Milk God once
Yeah, he was the equal of the Milk God once
You, our rat brothers and you, our rat sisters
And White God helps only the cats, the cats
Only the cats, only the cats, yeah, the cats
You are rats, You are rats etc.
Episode 3 Production Notes
February 2nd, 2009This was the first episode I ever shot. I didn’t have any lights, so I shot during the day and admittedly it looks pretty atrocious. Someone told me I should put subtitles of the song lyrics in the video, because they are crucial to understanding the video and they’re hard to hear. Didn’t end up doing that.
The cat in the video went on to be my roommate for about nine months. Then he got a book deal and took off for greener pastures. He liked wheatgrass.
Danger Tally:
None.
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