Making Dumb Movies

[zourtney]

As Nick mentioned elsewhere, I think we should make a few dumb, super-short movies. I kind of have an urge to play with video equipment.

My first suggestion: create a short clip to slap on the end of stuff we upload to the Randomland YouTube channel (which is stagnating, by the way).

Have any suggestions / ideas?

[Nick]

I like your "Oh noes! The steering wheel came off!" idea. That could be a nice 15 second short or clip to add to the end of things. And then we will have an excuse to make/get miniatures and blow them up for special effects!

[zourtney]

Blow stuff up?!  Yes!

[zourtney]

We should make "oh noes! The streering wheel came off". What's everyone doing this weekend? Is Francine sittable?

[Nick]

She is sittable. But the suburban actually has the wheel off at the moment. And yes, we should do stuff cooler them me mowing the lawn this weekend.

[zourtney]

The Suburban would be excellent then! It'd only take a few minutes. I've been wanting to play with video editing lately...amongst other things

[zourtney]

I was thinking along the lines of the following. Make amendments and substitutions as you see fit. After all, I'm not very creative.

scene 0 (afterthought...therefore 0):
    exterior shot of the vehicle driving...wherever

scene 1:

• two or so people riding around in the Suburban, looking cheesily happy, bouncing along
• have the driver turning the steering wheel slightly, pretending to drive
  
• have someone outside rustling the bushes for an extra cheesy "see, we're totally moving" effect
• overlay some elevator music later

scene 2:

• hmmm, there seems to be a little bit of play in the steering wheel (disconcerted look, but tries to shrug it off)
• passengers do not notice

scene 3:

• the steering wheel wobbles and pops off
• driver holds it up
• Driver mutters under his breath, "oh noes, the steering wheel popped off!"

scene 4:

• AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! (driver)
• AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! (passengers)

The End.

[Nick]

I like! We can get the shots of the passengers in the vehicle 'while driving' while actually driving. The only scene that needs the vehicle stationary is the AAAAAAAHHH! scene and perhaps the wobbly wheel scene. I was thinking of towing it.... but that won't work unless its on a trailer.   I guess we keep the outside rather out of focus or shoot low enough that you just see the sky. Or just make it look like all you see is sky. Or we can play with CG and a green screen!

[zourtney]

I was under the impression it is not drivable at the moment. Is it? Or is that what the towing is for? Either way, it can be a fun experiment in "film"

[Nick]

It is not drivable. We would have to shoot things out of order. Shooting the steering wheel pop-off before the driving. It needs put back together to drive it... but we have to have it taken apart to pop things off. So shoot one scene, fix it, then shoot the driving scenes.

[zourtney]

Did you fix the electrical issues (or whatever) it was having? That'd be a good project, getting that thing to live again!

[Nick]

I never found a short or broken wire. Also it hasn't had a problem since I dismantled the steering column. Not that its been used much in that condition.

[zourtney]

Ok, as many know, we did a little dry run this afternoon. I was very entertained by watching Nick play with the steering wheel pop off. It makes me laugh, even now

Apparently, we do need abut more of a plan if we are ever to make any sort of video....that, or I could take the classic approach: shoot lots of dumb video and mishmash it together on a computer in the middle of the night when creativity peaks and objectivity drops.

Better yet: combine the two -- a plan and late night editing. All that to say that suggestions are welcomed and needed.

[zourtney]

Apparently this thread was not updated with the latest stupidity of ourn. I took one of the better videos of Nick being a goofball, spent twenty minutes learning how to do a green-screen effect, and came up with this horrible...uh, "concept art."

[YouTube link to OH NO! The steering wheel popped off!]
Don't bother watching it again, if you've already seen it.

Upon first glance, it's not that bad. But trust me, it is bad. The "green screen" was the shrubbery outside the car. With $7.68 of fabric and a different color shirt, we could make it a lot better without sacrificing that homevideo cheese.


Footnote: I can post the original videos if anyone is interested. I actually only looked through 3 or 4 of them before I moving on to the editing fun.

[Nick]

That was fun
If we do a better run then I would definatly want copies of the 'source'
I think it sounds fun. We should do some other videos in the future. Green screen, go karts and a macro video of an angry spider. Or something with legos... and brad narating .