The news on the forefront is that Blacktop Lore is, as promised, being taken up a notch. Not only are plans still moving forward to launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for promotions, but also a young filmmaker named Tom Lewis has signed up to be involved in Blacktop Lore for the long haul (the first 12 episodes at least), and with the workload split two ways there’s a lot more room to push more quality into the show per episode. You will see the result of this come Episode 3!

The story is moving forward and we’re already through most of episode 3 and plans to shoot episode 4 are well underway. Granted you won’t be seeing any of this for a couple of weeks because we still have to launch the crowdfunding campaign which is taking its toll on us to piece together… We’re artists, not salesmen, but we are doing what we can to give you folks something worth getting behind.

Also, as a result of Wasted Wine’s contribution to episode 2 (the featured song “Ghetto Blast”) it looks like Magnolia Hideout will have some dealings with them soon in the way of some aberrant music videos. We already shot a live show for them and the outcome was pretty wicked, but the violins and tops hats make it kind of hard to shoot uninteresting video with these guys…. Check it out below:

In episode 1 Will Henry did get a chance to mention a few weeks before that he wanted to play a Jekyll and Hyde type character, and the props we had on hand decided for us what the story would surround, but the overall progression of the story and the way it began was all planned ahead of time.

With Episode 2 however, Moses and I sat down 2 weeks ago and discussed what he would like to delve into as an actor after I told him where the story had just left off (making him privy to some backstory that no one else hip to just yet). Just the same, before we shot episode 1 I got a chance to talk to Stephanie about what she wanted to do. When we finally got up to shoot it there was no script, just some character background for both actors. I was directing, but when we shot episode 2 we were all Filmmakers. Everybody threw in and we all put the story together through discussion and practice. Altogether, that’s nerve-wracking for me. I like to have control of my stories, I like to piece it together slowly with lots of thought & self exploration. But this is all about getting out of your comfort zone as an artist. We certainly put Stephanie through the ringer a number of times, and through a window for no really good reason (Stephanie on Twitter) and I think those who knows Moses strictly through Projekt Lotus will see a side of him they didn’t know existed. So I hope that this episode comes out entertaining and solid nonetheless, which is what editing is all about!

We came out with about an hour and a half of footage, and I’m just getting started on the first cut now and looking towards episode 3 in the meantime. I feel that some of the kinks of this experiment are getting worked out and it will just continue to improve.

Feedback, comments and sharing are more vital than ever for this project to survive. So hopefully the three of us put something together to get you guys talking. :^J

Just FYI, part of this process is also figuring out the scheduling of production and release. In other words, I will be premiering episode 2 soon, if not this week then it’ll be next week. Stay tuned!

Get updates from these internet locales:
Magnolia Hideout Facebook, Blacktop Lore Official Site, #BlacktopLore on twitter

There were ups and downs, my computer broke, scheduling issues, and some unfortunate shots that didn’t make the cut, but the experiment is thus far a success and further proof of the wonder of collaboration. The upcoming episode features the talents & assistance of :

Coty Galloway, Will Henry, Bridget Brennan, Stephanie Ibbotson, Chris Wilson, Alex Wroten, Jake Xingu, Matt Morgan of Red Against Green, and me, Timi.

Everybody pitched in here and there, some in more ways or with more time, but the outcome is great. This first episode had a lot of story to set up and the second will have to bear the burden of more setup as well. I’m kinda setting up the border of the puzzle before I start filling it in with a bunch of seemingly random looking pieces. Those pieces will be shaped and painted by other artists; the ones from episode 1, ones who are already signed on and some are people I haven’t even met yet.

Just for kicks, I’ll throw a few screenshots up here. See you Thursday!

LINKS: COTY GALLOWAY, ALEX WROTEN, JAKE XINGU, RED AGAINST GREEN

the week before was a few birthdays and some shortscape traversing in the south east. But oh how that is all TMI in the least offensive sense. The new is naturally all about Blacktop Lore. There’s been some interest from local and abroad talent in the series, and there’s been some issues engaging the first gear’s revolution largely because this first episode is going to be different from the rest in that a lot of props and locations have to be thrown at it in order to kick off a robust story. So its been like making a full on short film with the time budget of a quick 5 minute flick. The subsequent episodes will surround single props and rarely more than 2 actors. Be that as it may, the show must go on. So high or hell-water, we are shooting episode 1 on Thursday and should have it on your computer screens sometime next week. Along with it will be more details about how the show will unfold both technically and story-wise.

THIS IS AN INTERRUPTING ADVERTISEMENT FOR MY NEW TUMBLR
JUST RANDOM BITESIZE MINTS OF ENTERTAINMENT.
CLICK FOR SLIGHT LOLING

Those who’ve seen my work or even the films that have been made recently in Greenville will see some comfortingly familiar faces in episode 1 and you’ll also be witness to the birth of a cool story. Yes, I can throw no better adjectives out there for this story other than the very classic and reliable COOL. You all will enjoy it, and to those longtime natives to the area I can say y’all will enjoy it too.    :^D     <— letters and symbols are happy for us

I should also mention briefly that I’m still planning a short film later this year, possibly fall depending on many factor (mostly that I will slowly build a groundwork for it until the film is ready to be made) and in the meantime I believe I will be doing smaller short films, things unrelated to Blacktop Lore that are somewhere in between this fall’s production and Blacktop for production complexity. So keep an eye out for some brain paint as it will be dripping and splatting every which way very soon.

Nobody sees an underground spring
they don’t even feel it running
So they drink from the river with the elders
and sing about stuff they see
Don’t think twice – give to the tellers
and sing about stuff you see…

When the axe falls
it breaks the skin and
rips the bone up
Everybody cries
when the axe falls

But
You can look at the Weed
You can smile as he bleeds
Nobody thinks twice
just put some ice on it
Don’t complain please

The weed has felt so little pain
knows nothing of mistreating
Don’t believe him when he says
he’s got internal bleeding

Nobody thinks twice
they can see no bruises
Just put some ice on it
Don’t confuse us

Somebody reap
anyone but Christ
Don’t think twice
Reap me
and send me flying into Heaven’s flames

see title picture full at deviantart

I’ve always been an animator at heart, all the way back to focusing a bit too much attention on those little flip books you could make on the corners of any stickynote pad or school textbook to the days of Mario Paint where I spent alot of time making Mario-fied version of Star Trek movies. Course I broke a few camcorders experimenting with stop-motion in those days that followed the release of Nightmare Before Christmas.

Flash opened up a lot of creative opportunities for amateurs like myself and professionals like the insanely talented Adam Phillips of Bitey Castle [link]. I went to my partner in prime, Jimmy “The Bum” Brennan and we started making plans for some big animation projects, but I had to work out some kinks first; like How to make it with the flash thingie I don’t know it is what?

Salad Fingers & Homestar were my favorite online toons at the time, and still are. And back in those days it wasn’t such a concern of your content being stolen, because it hadn’t happened much… till I came along and downloaded all their flashes and stripped them like a sad bunch of unlocked cars on the west side. And then thereby Salad Fingers vs Homestar Runner (or Homestar Runner vs Salad Fingers) was then did get born.

This cartoon consists of their own actual flash graphics re-animated, and the actual voices from the cartoons spliced to suit our plot. If you’re clever you can find the episodes we took everything from.

Lookie here, it’s a flash cartoon with a play button! Remember thems?

Splicing the audio clips together was pretty time-consuming and filtering out the music or sounds playing behind the dialogue came with its own challenges. (I should also add that Salad Fingers never properly responds to anyone’s talking because he is, as always, only hearing static) But I kept animating it from beginning to end while my brother plugged away at giving me usable content. All in all this was a completed trip after about 4 weeks, including time away at our dayjobs. We have both used our lessons learned from this in individual and joint projects. Ever seen my animated Oingo Boingo music video? [YOUTUBE LINK] Speaking of Lessons Learned…

Lessons Learned- Well this was all an experiment so tons of lessons were learned. Flash in 24fps is a whole different world from 12fps. Don’t use jpegs. Animating is easy if you love it. It’s “homsar” not “homesar”. People have short attention spans on the internet (we got lots of complaints about the runtime when we released this) Not sure how much I will adhere to that lesson when I release Blacktop Lore.

Didjano- This short is full of little snippets of fandom, Edward Scissorhands makes an appearance (him being the more innocent version of Salad Fingers in my mind). Score from Amelie, Eternal Sunshine & Fight Club are pretty easy to audio-spot. Bubs is reading an X-Men comic. There’s a rusty spoon in the King of Town’s kitchen, on the floor. The Woods Salad Fingers wanders through are a hybrid of Homestar & Salad Finger woods. The easiest bit of dialogue to splice together was also the most elaborate; when the Cheat reveals the plan to screw a picture of the Eiffel Tower to Homsar’s head. You can see the hand of Starfleet officer in the prop trunk along with several other items taken from the useful resources at cartoonsmart.com
The video on youtube is from a very bad videocapture program, hence the lingering body parts. (finally a good explanation for lingering body parts)  [YOUTUBE LINK]. Back in those days it took a lot of brainpower to get something 10mb on the web to share with people anonymously. Since neither Dave Firth or the Bros Chaps have come after me for making this video I guess its ok to come clean with it. Short of getting a letter from lawyers I would be really interested in their thoughts on it. I sent it to them both years ago but got no response.

Your Turn- I mentioned 3 awesome films that were represented here with their score. There’s a brief bit of score from another amazing film towards the beginning, did you catch it? Also did you spot another popular webtoon delivering some classic internet memetry?

My Own Nightmare

This is kind of a weird one for me because I don’t normally use other people’s loops but i did use this single loop of a muted guitar and the strings comes from a loop as well, but after processing them & chopping them up so much I just can’t even remember what the originals sounded like or where I got ‘em.

I know, bad form, but honestly the guys who made the loops did so about 15 years ago and while I’d love to send them a check for 20 cents, the larger picture here is that I actually don’t care. The rest of its all me except for the some of the backup percussion, I had some ice elves help me out with that back in the studio. All that hammer swingin’ gives them great rhythm.

это был кошмар в конце концов

Identify the quote in the song and win a free ounce of self-fulfillment!

The Story- This was, like any, a mostly fun shoot with some disagreements between shoots. The director, Vincent, gave me run of the PAs & acting cast most of the time and he had these really bright little rigs which we turned into spotlights by rapping tinfoil around them. So I got to really express myself even within the shape of his vision. We shot it in about 3 different locations, one of which was the production office for Charles Band’s Full Moon Features of Puppet Master & Evil Bong fame.
The office was in a loft building located in skid row, so it granted me the opportunity to see some cool props and later a pile of human crap on the sidewalk. Oh LA, you’re such a nutty place.

While waiting for the final product I was actually worried cuz this was the first time I shot something without being the editor as well. But it turned out fine. A couple of the scenes are over-processed for my taste, since I tend to shoot with the end coloring in mind, and I noticed some shots were reused which raises my eyebrow but nonetheless I’d give the editing a solid score of 90% but only because I am dissecting & overthinking it like crazy. I’m sure it plays fine for the viewer, plus there was a lot of story to fit in between images of pale people screaming and ripping up their guitars and I can understand alot of the choices that Daniel J. Pico made.

Lessons Learned- Always take your footage home with you, you can never have too many lights, LA is your first inconvenience & leg up when making a video there, DSLRs are kinda stupid for video (first time with the 60D) also… craft services are an easy way to waste money & be a DP on some other director’s set and learn from their stress factors ;^)

Didjano- The Dominatrix character was played by a very kind and spiritual girl (Leila Bamdad) who as it turns out is quite modest. The little girl in the beginning of the video, (Montana White) was among the 10 most talented & instinctive actors I’ve ever worked with. The drummer is quietly pretending to play while the PAs are moving the cymbals. The actor being whipped (Vinnie Coppola) was actually bound, gagged and lightly whipped for half an hour, tough fella!

Your Turn- I did not DP every scene, there were two (I think) scenes shot by Brad Porter after I left the project. The lighting and shooting styles are both pretty different from my stuff. Can you figure out which 2 scenes I didn’t shoot? Comment below!