Adventures Of Atom Smith

So hectic lately… Tonight was the Finale of America’s Next Producer. Gwen Uszuko, Denver local won tonight. I worked on the project which was under NDA at the time which was the final part of the competition. It actually turned out somewhat badly. It was Gwen’s first time directing, and there were a lot of issues, and the schedule was unfortunate, terrible, and necessary. Even so, Gwen’s mini pitch pilot, called Playboy in Sin City was enough for her to Win. She’ll be on her way to LA in about a month to go and make a shot at being a noteworthy producer. Naturally, I’m hoping desperately that she doesn’t meet anybody out there, and calls me up needing a hand with something terribly important. i just got back from the sort of after Premiere/Wrap party. I didn’t get shown much in the episode. We were all expecting more behind the scenes making of stuff, but they only had a few minutes. The few minutes they had, they did talk about the fucking turtle who shat on everything, so you did get a bit of the gist of what production was like. I expected they’d show the trials and tribbulations of assembling the stripper pole in more detail…

Backing up a notch, Netherbeast Incorporated has its local Premiere in Boulder as part of the toofy Film Festivallast weekend:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0787495/

It grew out of this short:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0439728/

It has a bunch of big name people in it, and it is a fairly local production. Shot a state over, but with some local people, such as Moderately Famous Maiz Lucero. Since Maiz and I are friends, and we had just worked on Ink together, I was invited to tag along with the Producers for the after after party. Good guys. Also, a good movie. It’s not perfect, but given the problems encountered on Playboy in Sin city, I can sympathize. If you loved Wet Hot American Summer, or Bubba Ho Tep, you’ll like Netherbeast. In the unlikely even it makes it to theaters, you should watch it. I hope it does make it to theaters, and there is a chance it might, considering Dave Foley and Darrel Hammond are in it.

Backing up even further, the previous weekend, I was an Incubus in Ink. It will be a while before this film gets released, so I won’t go into specific details about how bloody miserable the costume was. I didn’t actually sign an NDA, but I guess it’s respectful to avoid spoilers until they get covered by the promotional material. One curious quirk of the film is that when I looked it up on IMDB a few days after I was done with my four days of shooting, I realised that the movie is something of a Mouth Off Reunion. I worked with Robert Markle while I was shooting, and Jen Fiskum and Leigh Ann Gould are both listed as having parts on IMDB, so at least four of us will turn out to have been in the movie, without any particular planning. Wacky. Maiz Lucero played Brave Incubus. He also had a speaking part. I’m referring to my incubus character as “violent incubus” in my resume, though he didn’t actually have a specific name, and was a nonspeaking part. I should wind up with a bit of (somewhat obscured) face time. Also, I got to do some fighting stunts, so I hope to be killed at least once or twice in the final cut.

The Internet just hunkles me some days. You see it there, a fine series of tubes, and then kersplow! All orderly and comprehensible, except that some parts of it defy common sense. So, I only actually have like two or three readers. Despite this, one of my posts has now generated comments from seven different people. I feel very slightly famous.

Neither of you probably remember this post:

http://www.forkforge.org/forkblog/?p=28

From back when I had talked to some production company in New York that wanted me to pay them to produce a pilot for a cooking program. They didn’t really have much interest in who I was or what i would actually do in the pilot. Consequently, I decided that they seemed slightly shady and blogged about it and considered the matter pretty much settled. I imagine that if I had spent all my money on making the pilot, it actually would have gotten made. I just wouldn’t have been able to sell it. They seemed a bit shady, but probably not stupid enough to do anything overtly illegal. (Like just stealing the money.) So, I didn’t feel any need to warn people about them or anything. I was just blogging about what had happened to me, like any self important public diarist might. But it’s the post that just won’t die. I just got another comment on it. I only have 18 actual comments in the whole history of my blog.

This is just about enough to convince me that I should use me incredibly crappy second hand webcam to shoot myself cooking dinner for a few nights, just so I can say I’ve done a cooking show and hope to get that post behind me. Of course, if I distribute a show about me cooking dinner, it’ll no longer be my private secret that I cook in my underpants…

I just find it weird that there is like a whole little community that considers that post important enough to comment on. They just hang out in that one ought-to-be-forgotten little spot on the Internet. It is a community that doesn’t even exist anywhere else.

Come one, come all to the Clean Comedy Contest. Seriously, everybody should come because part of my competition score comes from audience response, and I want to stack the deck as much as possible. Also, don’t laugh at anybody but me.

http://danmcgowan.com/CleanContest.html

5665 Olde Wadsworth, Arvada, CO. Show starts promptly at 7:00 pm. Well, maybe promptly. I don’t control these things.
Wednesday, the Festival Playhouse in Arvada. FREE! I’m up against Matt Baca, and I’ve seen some of his work before. He’ll probably kick my ass.

Also, I corresponded with the guys at thestream.tv — they used my cheesy animated open for the Weakly News, and I asked if they wanted me to do any other pieces, so they have asked me to do a couple of other little animated pieces that they can use.

Perseids are tonight. I’ll be in the middle of nowhere.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/08/09/12-things-you-need-to-watch-the-perseid-meteors-sunday-night/

I’ll be in the middle of nowhere so that I can be someplace dark enough to see magnitude seven stars. I looked this shit up on a night time illumination map, so it must be true. Peak is around midnight, so I’ll head out around 11:30 and stay there for a long time.

I moved my desk and and dresser into my new place today with my Dad’s house. He also scored me a kitchen table, so I finally have a place to eat. This suits me, as I like to eat.

Last week, I was brushing up on some titling and compositing in preparation for the 48 hour film festival in case I needed to do any of it. As it happens, I didn’t. But, I was watching some clips of the Weakly News at http://www.thestream.tv/ because it has Iliza, and I’m a fan of her. Anyhow, I made an animated version of the Weakly News show open because they use a still frame, and it was somehow more logically simple to be doing titling and time killing at once if they were somehow related. I made this: http://forkforge.org/files/weakly.mov

I hadn’t really intended anything to come of it, but I emailed it to the folks at thestream.tv, and they are going to use it to open the show tonight. I find this amusing. I may donate some other title sequences to the mini network so I can use it for bragging rights while looking for work. (“My work is on seven weekly programs… (that nobody watches…)”)

I got to see the student short I was in most recently. We shot it two weekends ago. I turned out decent. It’s first year student level work, but it was dramatically less terrible than most of the other things made by the class. Hint to the competition: the stage where they do the plays is not necessarily a good place to shoot your scene. Especially if you clearly have no idea how to use the lights.

The 48 hour film project never happened.

Well, time to watch the Weakly News…

We made a Western Musical.

My Shake Fu is strong. I have done tests keying green screens. I have done tests with blue screens. Like the karate kid waxing Miyagi’s car, I have done mask premultiplication on – mask premultiplication off. I have prepared node graphs for color correcting. I have tracked and I have corner pinned and I have rotoscoped. I have done all that I can do, really. And, it may all be for naught.

The 48 hour film project starts tonight. We will draw our genre and elements at 7:00 pm. Until then, I have no idea what kind of movie I’m working on, or what kind of character I’ll be playing, or if we’ll have any effects work, or what sort of effects I’ll need to do. So, I’m idle. It’s annoying. We are going to meet tonight by teleconference rather than in person to discuss, which means we won’t have any chance to shoot anything tonight.

The guys came today to take away the extra furniture in my apartment today. I can finish moving in next week. I need to do laundry.

Finally, I have Internet at my new place. I don’t even know where to begin.

The trip… Well, here is my usual vacation snapshots gallery. It’s pretty much all Massachussets. I’ll try to get ahold of more photos at a later date.

http://forkforge.org/forkgallery/v/virg_mass/

Lots of more subjects in the rest of the post…

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Well, I’m finally back in Boulder. I didn’t sleep last night, and the night before, I think was about three hours of sleep while camping in the Berkshires in Western Mass. (Clarksburg.) Will try to have some photos up in the near future. Started to put them up, but firefox started crashing and being evil, so I’m booted into a different partition from where I have the photos now, so I can’t upload them right now. I now need to be out of my apartment by the fifteenth. I have a gig tonight, and I’m still not really prepared, but I did write some material this morning on a 6:00 am flight. It seemed funny at the time while sleep deprived and somewhat exhausted. Maybe everybody else will bomb, too, and I’ll still have a chance. Going to visit a potential new living place tomorrow. I’ll try to fit in writing a trip review tomorrow as well…

Should probably shave.

So, I found out what the house being sold means. It means We are out of here by July 31st. I’m paniced. The universe has great comedic timing, but a dark sense of humor.

July 9th – you can check out http://www.comedyworks.com/ for more info about the competition, and you can call for reservations at 303.595.3637. There is a two item minimum – food or drink – when you are there. I still haven’t written all the material I’m going to be using, but look for jokes along the theme of, “it sure is funny when you find out you have to be out of your house 20 days after you get back from the trip you leave on that night…” I don’t know if I’ll have enough perspective to think it’s funny, but you can all come and laugh at me.

The Giggles and Grounds clean comedy competition – postponed. Ironically, the venue is being sold, so the organiser of the competition doesn’t have anywhere to hold it. I can sympathise with him far too well. Since the universe not only understands timing, but also the rule of threes, I expect something else will be inexplicably sold in the near future.

Banana.

It’s Tuesday afternoon, I just got home, and I left Sunday. Things have been busy.

NDA project – shooting has wrapped. I’m horribly sunburned. (When you start shooting at 3:00 am, sunblock may not occur to you as your very first concern…) We are all planning a TV watching party at some point when it is appropriate to do so.

Leaving town – 6:00 am flight tomorrow morning, I’ll be back July 9th. Don’t expect tons and tons from me until then.

48 Hour Film Festival – Starting to assemble a group. May be able to have everything in place by August to make a good project.

House was sold – The one I live in. Don’t know more yet. Have no idea what all this will wind up meaning. Lease expires July 31.

Standup – I am doing the “Comedy Works 2007 New Faces Contest” July 9th. Yes, the same day I return to the state. Yes, this is probably ill-advised. Aparently, I am allowed a guest list of 20, but nobody has actually mentioned comp tickets or discounts or anything. But, if you are one of the first 20 people to call Comedy Works and tell them you want to be on my guest list, you will be put onto it. Hopefully, you will feel forever proud of this accomplishment of having your name written down thereapon. It may serve no other purpose. It may also be that they are concerned about selling out, and my guest list is a block of 20 reserved tickets so that my friends are guaranteed to be able to reserve seats. Here is the information I have on it:

Please remember that you will receive a 20-person guest list that will be activated
TWO WEEKS prior to your appearance. Your guests must call the club during this
two-week period to make reservations. We will not take reservations prior to this
period. You may not make reservations for them; your guests must call the club.

Anyhow, it should be a fun night of standup, I’ll be competing against a bunch of other new guys, so at least one or two of us should fit your tastes in comedy. Here is the list of folks for the July 9th show:

July 9
Brady Quarterman
Curt Fletcher
Dave Westahl
Jim Hickox
Peter Cohen
Tim Aye
Vicki Edgar
Will Purdy
Will Rosecrans

Now, I just need to decide what the heck I am going to do for my slot… Oh, and if I am one of the top 3, I’ll get a spot in round two. I also have another gig scheduled for July as part of a Clean Comedy Competition. Check my Calendar’s performance schedule to know when all upcoming engagements will be taking place!