Category Archives: documentary

Documentary: Progress

I wasn’t going to write about this yet. I have a marketing plan that still needs to be approved by the financier, but I just want to tell people and this is a nice place to do it. Editing on the documentary is going REALLY well and it’s coming together better than expected. I watched the latest cut with Zeke last night and my compliments to him as the piece is engaging and informative. We’ve seen this footage a lot, so to be able to watch and re-watch and still be engaged by it is a good sign. Th picture above is his editing board, where he uses 3×5 cards with scene descriptions to help lay out the plan.

I’m really excited for the film’s release. When it’s finished and ready I’m gonna’ bug the hell out of all of you to watch it.

See you next time!

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Filed under documentary, filmmaking

I, Literally, Saw A Meat Sack… And Joss Whedon

I have been powering away at a new blog for a few weeks now.  It’s still cookin’, I’m working on my endings since then tend to peter out at the end, but it’s not done so in the mean time I thought it might be a good idea to tell you about other things.  Things like what I saw today while shooting the documentary. We can ignore the fact that I ran into Stan Lee in the parking garage (even though it was frickin’ cool!) because what I saw today was pretty gross and shouldn’t be remembered in the same brain cells.

As you probably already know we’re working on a documentary about plastic surgery and a part of that is filming surgeries. Today we got to see two of the original breast implants from 1983 removed from a woman.

1983!

Twenty-four years!

From what we were told today, and later saw, those old implants were never designed to last that long.  They were intended to be placed for ten years and then replaced – like tires.  At least that’s what we were told. The scary part is that both implants had burst.

That’s bad.

It was kinda’ ok though because her body had formed scar tissue, called encapsulation, around the implant completely containing the leaking silicone.

Except that encapsulation is bad too.

Her body has been fighting the implants and trying to heal for almost thirty years!

When the doctor removed the scar tissue it looked like really thick placenta filled with sand, crumbled egg shells and cottage cheese.  It was awful.  The implant had discolored and the silicone looked like baby poop or diarrhea.

It is relieving to know that modern implants are built to outlive the person they’re in because this was a very unfortunate sight to see.

On a happier note, new “3 Minutes with Curtis & Dean!”

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under 3 minutes with curtis and dean, documentary, new media, plastic surgery, rant, update, video, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs

Experiments in Story Telling

There’s a lot going on in my life right now, so much that it is hard to catch my breath and see exactly what is going on.  It reminds me of a Lionel Richie interview when he talked about all the things that were going on in the 80’s.  He said he didn’t really get to enjoy what he was doing because he was always spending his time either getting to an event to perform or running from a place he just performed at.  The last six months or so have felt like that for me too, although I haven’t been singing “Dancing on the Ceiling” to crowds of tens of thousands of people.  It’s wake up, rush, probably shoot, rush, teach, rush, sit, sleep. Not the most glamorous schedule in the world.  Better than digging a ditch, but not glamorous.

Today we caught a break, though.  Our interview for the documentary went very well and ended a few minutes early and I got some bonus “sit” time.  I thought about what we’ve actually been doing and it occurred to me that, as much as I keep complaining that I’m not exercising my creativity, I’ve actually been experimenting with a few different ways of story telling and some of it might turn out pretty cool!

For the doc we’ve got three very different looks that we’re combining together:

  • An HD Cam for the glossy operating room, doctor’s office interviews.
  • A high caliber standard def cam to capture the natural look of our interview subjects.
  • A Flip HD Cam for the “P.O.V.” shots from Rene and I.

And even though it feels like this is all getting tossed together by the seat of our pants I really think this doc is coming together.

The Wiggy Webs stuff, even though it is woefully stuck in edit hell, has me really excited!  With the commentary pieces, satire and straight up schtick it’s the most exciting outlet that we haven’t taken full advantage of yet.  I’m re-affirming my efforts to get that stuff up – seeing as how I’m four months behind.  I’m ashamed of myself.

Cheerleaders Must Die! – A long time back & forth between turn around and production, but still Zeke is making great script alterations and there’s a wave of support growing under it and that’s awesome.

And, on the geek front, our D&D game is evolving for the better.  My buddy Dean was added to the group about a year ago and since then he has challenged some of my ideas about how to play.  I now feel like we are just building a fantasy story and I’m planning my participation to help contribute to that.  I don’t feel like I can explain that very well here, but the important detail is that even this game is a version of storytelling and it is getting better as I work.

They say work breeds more work and I’m noticing it even if it isn’t directly involved in the kind of work that pays me I’m still getting paid in satisfaction.

Brain is turning to toothpaste so I’ll…

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under cheerleaders must die, documentary, dungeons and dragons, making movies, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs

Blog Writing When I Should Be Searching & Star Wars

I have a headache, I’ve lost a log book and I can’t find a printout that I need to read.
Instead of doing anything about those things I’m writing a blog, not because I’m particularly inspired but because I can’t think of another place to look for these things.  We had a bit of a leak in the office and in the rush to place tarps to keep everything dry I remember seeing the log book and the print out.  I moved them to keep them safe and I forgot where I put them.  I’ve been looking most of the afternoon and I’m at a point of frustration where I’m too tired to tear the house apart and I’m hoping that they will just magically appear.

So far they haven’t.

It is possible that I threw out the print out.  I can live with that, but I want to know what happened to the log book!

Well this is a boring rant kind of a blog so here’s a link to an article about going a year without Star Wars that I think is great and important for creatives of my generation to read: A Year Without Star Wars

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, documentary, making movies, rant, star wars