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aforrestofstuff · 4 years

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What type of kid do you think the OPM characters were at school? I know not all of them went to school, but what if....

Thanks for the request anon! I’ve basically just written a handy-dandy little high school au for y’all lmfao.

OPM Characters in High School

Tornado of Terror: Absolutely 0 respect for authority. She’s tiny, but she can fucking fight and everyone knows it. For that reason, she’s feared and avoided at all costs. She often feels lonely because of this and finds it hard to make new friends, but she’d rather go through high school suffering alone before she dare let anyone get close.

Silverfang: Tries to recruit his peers into this little club he’s made where he tries to teach martial arts but the only kid that joins is this little shit named Charanko that doesn’t really care at all about what’s being taught. He’s really reliable in group projects and is overall a good student, albeit a little wise beyond his years.

Atomic Samurai: The kid that drinks alcohol under the bleachers during transition periods. He fails almost every class except one. However, in that one class, he is an absolute genius. His talents are few and niche but he really soars when given the chance to embrace his full potential. He’s really dogmatic and almost rude at times, but he’s managed to get himself a small group of friends that are keen on following him ‘till the end.

Child Emperor: Prodigy student. Straight A’s, extracurriculars, extra credit, you name it. He aces it all. Everyone wants to get a peek at his homework and he obliges kindly almost all of the time out of pure politeness. He’s also in marching band because he gets a thrill out of dooting a trumpet (is that an instrument in band? I can’t fucking remember). Overall, he’s very well-liked, although not respected. People kind of walk all over him because they know he’s all-too-eager to lend a helping hand.

Metal Knight: Polar opposite to Child Emperor. He’s a prodigy student as well, but he will NEVER lend a helping hand to anyone. If you’re paired with him in a group project, he’ll just brush you off and do the whole thing himself because he doesn’t trust anyone else with his grade. Teachers get pissed off at him because he’s always correcting them during class. He pushes people around and treats his peers as if they were lesser than him based solely on their intelligence, and thus doesn’t have many (if any) friends.

King: Doesn’t study at all but still gets A’s somehow. He’s got the teachers fooled thinking he’s some sort of prodigy kid, when really he just finds ways to copy off of other people’s work. He’s got a PSP under the table at all times during lectures and sits alone during lunch. People think he’s mysterious and cool but he’s really just an anxious kid trying to get by.

Zombieman: The cool, mysterious kid that skips class and smokes outside. The teachers don’t mind him because he doesn’t cause any trouble. He’s only got a handful of friends, one of those being Child Emperor (whom he’s really close to) and people think he’s just trying to cheese himself out of a failing grade by copying off of CE when he’s really fine all on his own. He’s surprisingly smart and quick-witted, just not in the way that report cards show. Still though, he passes with solid Bs and Cs.

Drive Knight: Set the school on fire once. Blackmailed a principal on the basis that they were having an affair and threatened to release this information unless they extended lunch period. Studies hard and gets good grades only to compete with Metal Knight. Their rivalry is well-known in school and everyone thinks it’s just a joke but Drive Knight is dead serious.

Pig God: The lunch ladies have second servings ready the minute he walks into the cafeteria because they know he eats like a horse. He doesn’t say shit in class and is overall just really quiet and shy. People bully him because he’s the fat kid with no social skills, but he’s really nice to the few friends that he has. Teachers either pity him or join the bullies in picking on him. It’s kind of sad.

Superalloy Darkshine: Football jock. He’s a little dumb but he’s actually the sweetest person ever. People often try to take advantage of him because he’s always ready to help, but he’s got a lot of friends that warn him when that happens. He’s overall just the most supportive, warm-hearted, social butterfly in school and he brightens up every room he walks in to. Nobody dislikes him. The coaches all put their faith in him during the season and he always delivers with winning scores (I don’t know shit about football lol).

Watchdog Man: Does absolutely buttfuck nothing in school. He only does the bare minimum. Like, he’s so close to flunking out that he’s among the bottom 1% in the student body. Still, somehow, he always pulls through just before finals and comes out with a barely passing grade. Every. Single. Year. He has no friends, doesn’t talk to anyone, and never raises his hand in class. People wonder if he’s actually a student or a ghost that wandered in.

Flashy Flash: Track star. Fastest kid this side of the fuckin continent. He put the school on the map by winning so many championships. He’s ridiculously handsome and has a lot of secret admirers too, but he ignores all of that to focus on sports. Even the teachers kiss his ass because he’s kind of a legend. Although everyone wants to be his friend, however, he’s actually quite the loner. He spends his down time during school hours running on the track or sitting alone to read a good book.

Genos: Teacher’s pet. Absolute ass-kisser. He tries his absolute best to study and never wastes a single second not having his nose in a textbook but still only manages to get Bs. It frustrates the living hell out of him. He’s adopted a lot of unhealthy ways to stay awake during the school day because he spends all night going above and beyond on homework, like drinking a full pot of coffee or smuggling energy drinks into class. He follows Saitama around because he wants to learn the secret to getting good grades without actually trying.

Metal Bat: He’s intimidating and mean-looking. Upon first glance, you might think he was a bully but it’s actually the other way around. He doesn’t tolerate bullshit like that while he’s in the vicinity and is not afraid to cuss anyone out should they ever pick on another student, teachers included. He’s been reprimanded so many times for that exact reason and has gotten a plaque in the principal’s office for breaking the district record. He’s a pretty shit student, but it’s not because he’s dumb. He’s actually pretty witty, but due to his terrible dyslexia and devotion to his little sister, his grades have suffered.

Tanktop Master: Best friends with Superalloy. Together, they carry the football scene for the entire school. He’s a bit smarter and quieter, but he’s just as nice. He aces all of his classes and is the sole reason Superalloy isn’t failing because he allows this dumbass to copy his work. He has a crazy amount of secret admirers but disregards them to hang out with his homies on the football team instead (and he always wears tanktops to school lol).

Puri-Puri Prisoner: Theater kid with such a drastic flair for the dramatic that people have actually gotten hurt trying to act out his ridiculous ideas. He’s super huge for his age and people often mistake him as a teacher. He’s one of those kids that have a full-grown beard at age 17 and he doesn’t quite know how to take care of it or shave properly yet so it’s kind of gross and patchy. Also, he’s the resident gay kid. It’s embarrassing.

Amai Mask: Also a theater kid but he’s way better at it. On top of that, he’s a choir star. Whenever there’s an opening for a solo, it always goes to him. There’s an ongoing conspiracy that all of his teachers pick him as favorite despite him being a bit of a dick at times but it’s still up in the air. He’s ridiculously attractive and has an outrageous amount of secret admirers, but he actually makes an effort to humor them and “entertain the crowd”. He’s still single, however, and devotes all of his time to mastering his craft in the ✨fine arts✨ (and singing. Idk if that counts as a ✨fine art✨ but whatever).

Iaian: Kamikaze’s best friend. They do everything together. He’s a bit of a doormat, though. He’s always seen carrying Kami’s books or doing his homework. Despite all that, he still manages to maintain an A-B average. He’s very studious and studies hard while participating in sports, despite only having one arm. The other kids would bully him for it but nobody wants to be known as the dick that picks on a disabled person (and rightfully so. Shit’s fucked up). He’s pretty quiet, serious, and mostly keeps to himself. Teachers always trust him to turn his work in on time and set an example for the rest of the class.

Okamaitachi: Another one of Kami’s best friends. She doesn’t fall for his bullshit though. She’s always seen in ridiculously fashionable outfits and holds a separate bag just to carry her extra change of clothes (in addition to her gym outfit). She always looks her best and does her best, super high energy 24/7. She’s a social butterfly and makes friends easily, especially while doing theater. She’s not as exceptional as Amai Mask, but she’s still talented in her own right.

Bushidrill: Yet another best friend of Kami’s. He also doesn’t fall for his bullshit. Bushi is another one of those kids that has a full beard at age 17, but he actually knows how to take care of it. He’s weirdly wise beyond his years and is everyone’s go-to for advice when they find themselves in a bad situation. He drinks illegally as well but keeps it a secret because he’s not an idiot (unlike Kami). Overall, he just keeps to himself and minds his own damn business despite knowing everyone’s drama.

Fubuki: Networking queen. She was voted “most likely to be a CEO” in the school yearbook. She’s head of the student body and negotiates like a pro. She’ll organize events and get good grades all while still managing to find the time to hang out with her friends outside of school. She’s always go go go 24/7. Nobody knows her and Tatsu are sisters, though. She doesn’t go out of her way to keep it a secret, but she would feel pretty terrible if people found out because she doesn’t want to be compared with anyone else.

Saitama: Does buttfuck nothing in class and never studies but still gets As anyways because he remembers all of the material effortlessly. I’ve said this before in a previous hc, but he was one of those insanely gifted kids that never developed a work ethic because he’s never had to struggle to get by academic-wise. He minds his own damn business and stays out of everyone’s shit but still manages to get caught up in a ton of drama somehow. He shares his lunches with Genos because Genos often forgets to eat. Fubuki has tries to recruit him into student government but he refuses each time. All in all, just an average kid that is always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mumen Rider: Studies hard, is a teacher’s pet, and gets perfect grades. His mom packs him really nice, healthy lunches and she leaves little love notes in there so he knows he’s got a good family waiting for him back home. The reason for that being, he gets bullied a lot. There’s no real reason why. He’s a nice kid and there’s nothing wrong with him, but a lot of his peers see him as an easy target because he’s scrawny and wimpy. He does have a handful of friends though. One of those being Saitama, who stands up to those bullies on behalf of Mumen.

Sonic: Wild card. He’s also on the track team and it’s just as good as Flash. They’re rivals and everyone knows it. He and Flash were childhood best friends until they drifted apart sometime before junior high, only to meet again while doing sports at the beginning of freshman year. Coaches often pit them against each other because it’s fun to watch the top two go at it. Academic-wise, he sucks. He’s the dumbest motherfucker in all of his classes and manages to get by solely because he uses his status as track star to get everyone to let him copy their work.

Garou: Another wild card. Teachers absolutely hate him. He’s loud-mouthed, awkward, and doesn’t really fit in. He has a lot of interests and wishes to get into some extracurriculars or clubs but he’s too worried about getting bullied. Like Mumen, there’s nothing really wrong with him. He’s not a dick for no reason, but people just see him as an easy target somehow and decide to pick on him relentlessly. He and Silverfang were once friends, but Silverfang betrayed him sometime before the start of the new year. His grades are atrocious because he can’t focus during class. Someone help this boy.

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inferentialdistance · 3 years

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The Pixar example is particularly ridiculous, because if you’ve ever seen a 3D artist at work, it is far more similar to what a 2D artist does in Paint Shop Pro than what a programmer does in Microsoft Visual Studios. A huge amount of effort has gone into the design of 3D art tools to minimize the amount of math/programming the user needs to do to get the image from their head into the screen.

Yeah, you could draw a picture by specifying pixel color in a program, pixel-by-pixel, one pixel per line. That would technically be both drawing and programming, at the same time. No, that doesn’t make drawing and programming the same thing, nor does it mean they should be taught in the same class, nor does it mean it should be taught by the same faculty.

The thing about programming is that you can do almost anything in code if you’re willing to put in sufficiently stupid amounts of time and effort. That doesn’t mean that everything is Computer Science, it just means that a hell of a lot of things are Turing computable.

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spicyfloaty · 3 years

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Give & Take | Chapter 3

pairing: kacchako

genre: slowburn/fluff

words: 2.7k

summary: Ochako's grades are slipping. Bakugo is dangerously nearing suspension, or worse, expulsion. A certain twist of fate pairs them together for tutoring sessions. He teaches her math. She keeps him from getting suspended. A simple exchange, but what if this only brings them closer than necessary?

header credits: @alexbenedetto

[READ ON AO3]

Chapter Two

Chapter Three: Emotional Whiplash Courtesy of Shoto Todoroki

Ochako’s lunch looked less appetizing despite the fact that she got her favorite meal and weirdly enough, the same could also be said about today’s breakfast. She couldn’t help but lose her appetite thanks to the stampede of thoughts clouding her mind, twisting her stomach in knots that could intimidate a senior girl scout. She might as well be sporting a flashing neon sign that read, I have a tutoring session with Bakugo Katsuki later. Help.

Her train of thought comes to an abrupt halt, only to go full throttle, bringing her back to the events that took place yesterday. It was bad enough that she fell asleep in class, it was another thing to be woken up by the one person she wanted to desperately avoid at all costs. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure of what happened after that, but the clearest images she could conjure in her head were warm hands and the indisputable figure of Bakugo’s back facing her as he walked out of the classroom. Ochako wants to give herself the benefit of the doubt and believe that she didn’t do anything stupid in between the gaps in her memory other than Bakugo being the one to wake her from her slumber.

Her mind wanders to this morning, Ochako didn’t miss the indiscriminate glances Bakugo occasionally threw her way within the cluster of their classmates coming together in their dorm’s common room before they make their way to class. She pushed aside the little voices that whispered ridiculous assumptions behind the sudden attention she was getting from him, instead, she reasons that Bakugo was most likely just thinking along the same lines as her, their upcoming session, that is. His thoughts might not be as all-consuming as hers, but she couldn’t think of any other reason why he’d even bother giving her the time of day.

A hand makes its way in front of her face, waving up and down, “Are you all right, Uraraka?” She realizes that she had been staring at her lunch tray for a concerning amount of minutes, “Is there something wrong with your lunch?”

Iida has a worried look etched on his face, she notices Todoroki and Deku also wearing the same expression, “Oh no, I’m fine! I was just caught up in my own head, that’s all,” She says with a dismissive wave. She instantly regrets not leaving out the last part of her sentence when she sees Iida’s eyebrows knit together, “Oh? Is everything okay?”

As much as Iida’s overwhelming concern warmed her heart, Ochako would much rather not have Bakugo as the table’s next topic of discussion, “Yes, I promise it’s not a big deal.” She manages to give her friend one last reassuring smile before trying to change the topic, “You were saying something about today’s hero training activity? I heard that All Might’s planning on having us disarm bombs again.”

Finally, this shifts the attention away from her, “Ah, yes, I’m looking forward to surpassing my record from the previous one!” Iida replies, Ochako exhales a breath of relief, thankful that her thoughts about Bakugo led her quick thinking to the subject of bombs.

“All Might also mentioned that today’s bombs would be more difficult to disarm,” Deku chimes in, “It’s most likely because he decided to have us use real ones this time instead of the simulated ones we used last time!”

Ochako takes in the sparkle of enthusiasm in Deku’s eyes and the overflowing amount of admiration in his voice, the mention of All Might never fails to elicit that kind of reaction from his biggest fan. She almost smiles fondly at the thought if not for the heavy feeling that spreads across her chest. Her mind drifts to a distant memory of the sleepless nights she used to share with him, heavy eyelids, phone pressed against one ear as she listens to Deku rattle on and on about the new limited edition All Might figurine he bought that day.

Oh, how she wished things were still like that.

“Do you think he’ll have us perform in pairs again?” Iida’s question plops additional weight on her chest, I certainly hope not.

Todoroki lifts his attention from his soba and places it on Deku and Ochako, “If that were the case, I’m confident that Midoriya and Uraraka would finish in record time just like before.” Ochako instinctively glances at Deku and he follows suit, but they look away just as quickly. If there was one thing that this conversation did not need, it was the awkwardness that already plagued Deku and Ochako’s relationship. It also didn’t need the dreadful silence that immediately follows, occupying their table as if it were a fifth person sitting alongside them.

Iida looked as if he’d much rather be anywhere than to be seated between her and Deku while Ochako tried her very best not to make a face that screamed she’d rather not be in this table at all. Todoroki, as usual, is clueless about the new atmosphere he had brought down upon the table, he takes another bite out of the soba that reminded Ochako of her own legs, had she not been sitting down right now, it would’ve been an impossible task for her to stand upright.

“Yeah,” Deku says softly, “I’m sure we would.”

A part of Ochako thanked him for breaking the painful silence gripping both of their necks, the other part of her sank in a vicious pool of guilt. Deku had always been the one making a conscious effort in trying to patch up the relationship that had both of them speechless around one another and even if they had something to say, it wouldn’t make it past the confines of your regular greeting or anything school related, on the field or within the classroom.

An image of Deku’s text from last night flashes in her mind, it had no more than 10 words, but it was the most they had ever spoken to one another after what happened last year. Hey, are you okay? You don’t usually sleep in class. Once again, it was Deku who takes the first step. She wished she had more to say than just I’m okay, but she had nothing. What’s worse is that she lied, of course she wasn’t okay, but would she really admit that to anyone, let alone him?

Ochako would have sunk deeper into guilt if it weren’t for Todoroki once again speaking up to point out something she had almost forgotten about.

“Uraraka, Mr. Aizawa called you in his office the other day,” he begins, putting his chopsticks down. Ochako feels her breath hitch at the unexpected mention of her meeting with Aizawa, the weight of her guilt suddenly exploding into confetti inside her gut the minute her thoughts fly back to Bakugo like persistent flies on a moldy sandwich. She was going to get whiplash because of all the shifts in emotion this clueless, soba-loving boy was inflicting upon her.

Todoroki’s gaze focuses on her, “Bakugo was also summoned not long before, are these two events related in some way?” he asks as if it were the 17th century and he was a king questioning his subjects. She thought that she had already escaped every possibility of talking about Bakugo but here it comes barging into the conversation like the metric ton wrecking ball that it was.

She knew that if she told them the entirety of her conversation with Aizawa, she’d only make her friends worry about her more than they already should. She even has yet to tell them about the part time job she took about a month ago at a small cafe in a nearby town to help cover her father’s medical expenses, not to mention the huge decline in income for their family’s business. The times when she had to book it to the train station the minute their last period ends were often explained to curious classmates as extra martial arts lessons with Gunhead, not that she has anything to show for it since she was probably washing cutlery during that time rather than learning how to do a proper axe kick with a pro hero.

She decides to keep her answer brief so as to not give anything away, “I’m gonna be having tutoring sessions with Bakugo from now on.” Thinking about it in her head, the idea never really struck her as something peculiar, but hearing it from her own voice for the first time with her closest friends as her audience, she realizes how weird it actually sounded.

To her surprise, Deku is the first to react, “Kacchan?” The way he said it didn’t sound like he disagreed with the idea, he just sounded genuinely surprised.

“That’s...unusual” Todoroki points out. It’s not like Ochako could deny that, the last person anybody would consider to be capable of helping someone understand what a definite integral was would be Bakugo.

“Well,” Iida interjects, “as um unusual as the idea may be, I believe it would be a wonderful opportunity for you, Uraraka.” Ochako wanted to hug the boosters out of Iida right then and there, but he wasn’t finished yet, “But was there...,” he trails off for a while.

“...Another option?” Shoto finishes.

“Well, Iida and Momo are already helping Kaminari, Jirou, and Mina, while Deku--,” she pauses. For a moment, she had forgotten that Deku was sitting one seat apart from her, and now he was learning about how she had considered being tutored by him instead. “uh Deku...was already busy training with All Might.” Her eyes dart to anywhere except for Deku’s direction.

“What about me?” Todoroki offers, “I’d be more than willing to tutor you.”

Ochako considers this for a short while before remembering how much it was necessary for Bakugo to be the one who tutors her, “No! I mean--I appreciate it, really I do, but,” Her eyes quickly dart to Bakugo’s table before focusing on Todoroki once more, “I’m okay with this.”

Todoroki studies her for another second or two before replying, “I see,” he picks up his chopsticks and points them towards her, “If you’ve already set your mind to it, then I will no longer push the idea.” He punctuates his sentence with a slurp of soba.

“Bakugo is a consistent top student, yes, though he can be a bit--,” Iida clears his throat, “ill-mannered and quite...loud.” He turns to Ochako, the same concerned expression taking over his face once more, “Are you sure about this?”

This makes her think. Bakugo surely wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around nor was he someone she was over the moon to be learning one on one from. Despite this, she was at least 95% sure about her decision since she believed that everybody can learn a thing or two from anybody, even from a piece of work such as Bakugo Katsuki and as if to read her mind, “Kacchan can be difficult to get along with, but I think that there’s a lot Uraraka can learn from him.” Deku adds, “I don’t think his attitude should overshadow the fact that he’s an amazing person, and maybe someone who could be just as amazing as a mentor.”

It’s been almost two years since Ochako had first met Deku, but it still never fails to amaze her whenever he praises Bakugo like this. She’s heard stories from when Deku and Bakugo were still in middle school, but they would always be told in a way where it would never be truly complete. Then again, it was Deku she was hearing it from. Ochako doesn’t think she would ever truly come to understand how tough those times must have been on him, but even that won’t stop Deku from listing all the things about Bakugo that he deemed amazing.

It was this sentiment from Deku that gave her the strength she needed to face Deku head on with a small smile, “Yeah.”

The boys eventually tangent to a conversation about Present Mic’s lecture when Ochako’s gaze finds its way to Bakugo’s table once again. Bakugo had Kirishima’s arm hooked around his neck and a deep scowl on his face that made her wonder how Kirishima was still alive and breathing, moreover, how his arm was still attached to his body. Despite this though, she somehow already knew the answer. Bakugo was someone who could blast your head off if you looked at him the wrong way, but at the same time he was also the kind of person who would push a friend to their limits no matter how much they tell themselves that they can’t do it. He’d be the type of person who would take absolutely no shit from anyone because he'd be too busy being the best version of himself he could be.

Bakugo’s scowl morphs into a grin in response to Mina hitting Kaminari upside the head and it sends a flutter to 3 different parts of her stomach. It’s probably the lack of food in her stomach right now, she should really get to eating.

Watching the captivating dynamic of the neighboring table, Ochako can’t help but wonder if he was asked the same question as her by his friends. Had he told them about her? What did they have to say, nevermind, what did he have to say?

She doesn't realize that she’s been staring for too long when Bakugo looks over to actually catch her staring. Ochako doesn’t know what possessed her to decide not to look the other way, but she doesn’t. Bakugo narrows his eyes as if to say The hell are you lookin’ at? and before her heart could leap out of her chest and yell at her to look away, she finally does. She lets out a heavy breath, not knowing she was holding hers the whole time.

---

The day goes by as it usually does, the only notable thing about it being the bomb disarming activity they had during hero training. Fortunately, All Might didn’t throw them into pairs again, this time grouping the class into teams of 4, her teammates being Iida, Momo, and Tokoyami. The reason for the increase of allies was due to the presence of civilians/dummies they had to evacuate while simultaneously having to disarm the bomb.

Iida stayed true to his word and beat his previous record, Ochako didn’t have much time to celebrate because she was already running to the nearest dumpster to hurl her guts out. Bakugo’s team however had the best time out of everyone, not that anyone was surprised by this, but the way he did it was what stuck with her the most.

Normally, a team’s initial strategy would be to evacuate the civilians first before dealing with the bomb itself, it’s that or the team would split up to tend to the civilians while another faction disarms the bomb. Bakugo’s strategy was to just simply allocate all manpower to disarm the bomb right off the bat and when accused of not cooperating with his team to get the other part of the job done he says, “Why would I waste my time evacuating civilians when I could just disarm the damn thing so no one would even need to be evacuated, fucking morons.”

His statement didn’t sit well with most of the class, but Ochako knew that Bakugo didn’t just do that for the sake of being selfish and arrogant, he did what he knew was the best option to take and no one could have seen it that way except for Bakugo.

Ochako’s thoughts subside and her attention returns to the sound of her footsteps bouncing off the empty halls of UA as she made her way to the room indicated on the schedule clutched in her hand, Mr. Aizawa had already made arrangements to allot an empty classroom for them to study in. She turns a corner and she spots Bakugo on his phone leaning against the doorway, already there waiting for her. The faint glow of the setting sun paints the hallway a soft shade of orange, wisps of Bakugo’s hair form shadows on the sharp features of his face. He looked at peace. Bakugo looks up at her, blood-red eyes holding her in place. Ochako could have sworn he had some kind of hidden quirk that paralyzed people dead on their tracks.

“Took you long enough.”

#kacchako #kacchako fic #kacchako fanfiction #kacchako fluff #kacchako slowburn #kacchako week 2020 #kacchako week #bakuraka #bakuraka week #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugo #bakugo x uraraka #ao3 #ao3 kacchako #mha ochako #urakara ochako #bnha #bnha fanfiction #mha

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tygerbug · 5 years

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Do you have any advice for aspiring filmmakers without an actual cast and crew and (as of right now) no ability to get a formal education? Tips on what to practice or challenges so when I actually start involving people, I'll have a decent grasp on what I'm doing?

This is a big topic to discuss. I’m gonna write a long one here and reminisce a bit about movies I made a long time ago. Hope you’re into that sort of thing.

Shoot some footage on your own, record some sound and learn how to edit! I was on a Mac so I used the now very outdated Final Cut Pro 7 for many years. Adobe Premiere Pro is more standard. I used that when I started out, and I use it more now, along with After Effects. I originally trained on an ancient version of Avid as well.

Try to get a single friend to help you! That will help. But you can also do animation, or film yourself, or film scenery, or voiceover. There’s plenty you can do on your own.

I started in the 90s, when camera technology was terrible. The cameras now are amazing! The economy is not. I started to have trouble making movies because I need to pay bills! It’s a cliche but people’s phones are better than anything we had then.

Currently I have a Panasonic Lumix G7 DSLR which shoots 4K, and cost maybe $450. I used to know every feature of my camcorders and be in complete control, but I honestly don’t understand this one as well as I should. It’s nice though.

Before that, in 2007, I had a Panasonic MiniDV camcorder which must have cost $4500 or so. I was still using it for some things until recently, when it started eating my tapes.

I have a Sennheiser cardioid XLR mic (from 2007), and a Tascam audio recorder hooked up to it (from 2019). Maybe $150 altogether. I’ve somehow had the same microphone stand since 1993, maybe longer.

I also have a Parrot teleprompter mirror, for when I need to record web videos and read text off a screen.

We bought a heavy expensive tripod in 2007 and I found it difficult to use. I probably broke the damn thing. It wasn’t working well. I was used to much lighter, cheaper tripods, and kept using my old one. Then I ended up buying two tripods cheaply. I think both were Goodwill finds!

I still have an enormous greenscreen setup we bought in 2007, very wrinkly now and rarely used.

With the old MiniDV cameras (or before that Hi8, 8mm and VHS) you needed a lot of light to get any kind of decent picture. I’d buy a $20 shop light from Home Depot and point it at the wall. It was very hard light, but bouncing it off something would diffuse it and light up the room. It was also very yellow and we’d put a blue theatrical gel over it to change that. It was also very hot and would make the room tough to film in! We also had little clamp lights with regular light bulbs in them as needed. You can get that stuff at Home Depot or similar for cheap.

Cameras today are a lot better, and even if the footage is grainy you can noise reduce in post with plugins like Neatvideo. You’ll want to be more subtle with your lighting than I had to be back then. But a lot of times you’ll still want a powerful light that will light up the room in a clean-looking way. Even then I’d often work with cinematographers for a more subtle feel. They would put diffusion material over the lights, or black foil to concentrate a more powerful light into a single beam. It’s worth experimenting.

I guess I’ll get very personal with this and talk about my whole history, because I’m like that.

I started out making movies as a kid in the 90s. I started out doing little animations on my own, which grew into a 90-minute sketch comedy feature (I was 15-17). I attempted to involve my friends from high school, but it was hard to get them to commit and show up, so a lot of that film was just me doing animation and puppets to fill the gaps. Once I premiered it, everyone got very excited at what I had accomplished without much help and wanted to be involved. I worked with them to figure out what they were interested in filming, and they contributed to the scripts and concepts and production.

We shot four more comedy features in the first half of that year, before I left for college (USC Film School in Los Angeles, 1999), often with a big cast and in all kinds of locations. I was also writing a satirical musical play at the time, and was starting to try to be a screenwriter (I eventually wrote about twelve unproduced screenplays). The main feature we shot that summer was a 2-hr parody of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace which would have been my first “real” screenplay, and which was based partly on the ideas of others in my friend group. There was some improv to the comedy. We also shot a 5-hour improv piece which was a comedy-drama (and then cut down to feature length) and which aged better.

I came back the next summer and shot two more similar features (which were in the same style as the Phantom Menace spoof and the improv piece respectively). I also ended up collaborating with other filmmakers on some stuff, which I ended up regretting due to the people involved. And I made student films, and a big, overlong drama feature while I was in college called Gods of Los Angeles (which took about three years). Later in 2007-9 (ages 25-28 or so) I directed Shamelessly She-Hulk, a superhero feature which is on Youtube. I also did more animation, and some quick, low effort webseries and web video stuff on my own, and I continue to do so. I’m currently working on some Unannounced Projects.

I often think that moving to Los Angeles and attending USC Film School was a mistake. It’s an easy town to get lost in and just sort of fade away and disappear, even before the economy crashed and things got a lot more expensive over the past 20 years. At any rate, my film education at USC was similar to my film education outside of it- The teachers would just tell us to pick up a camera and go, and do our best with it. It wasn’t very formal. What film school did provide was an audience- Your fellow students would all give notes tearing your student films apart, and I had to get a lot better very fast to keep up and deliver quality filmmaking.

So my advice is that you don’t really need a formal education in film to make movies, at least if you’re starting out and doing your own stuff. What you really need is to be young and have a certain amount of financial support on your side. Once I got older and had to work and pay my own rent during an economic recession, it was a lot harder to make films. If you’re still living with your parents, great! Or if you’re in an okay financial situation, great! Use whatever resources you’ve got.

Mainly you need free time, and people to help you. There’s a lot you can do on your own. As I said, my early experiments as a kid filmmaker were pretty much done on my own, and I sometimes had to create scenes on my own for every movie that followed. I might do a quick pickup shot, or re-record some voiceover. Making movies on your own isn’t an ideal way to work, of course, but a lot of people on Youtube are doing it!

I learned a lot about filmmaking by simply doing it. I’d made something like twelve features by the time I was out of college. Nothing I would still want to watch today, but I learned a ton by doing them. I expected I’d become a Hollywood filmmaker, but making that happen takes money and resources and connections I didn’t have (and still don’t). People don’t want to admit it, but it takes money to get noticed at all in Los Angeles. And when you’re older and need to pay bills, time is also money, so it’s very hard to find the time to work on projects unless you have some money in your bank account. If you have money and time in Los Angeles, you can go to more events, meet more people, pay to enter your scripts into contests and things, and there’s not much of a chance you’ll get noticed by doing that either. But money and time allow you to make more art and try again.

At any rate, if you’re just starting out and learning, there’s plenty you can do on your own, but ideally you want to have a partner who is just as interested as you are, at least during the shooting. I have often spent years editing feature film footage on my own. WhoSprites, Shamelessly She-Hulk, The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut and Gods of Los Angeles all took years to edit. But the actual shooting of She-Hulk and Gods of Los Angeles and all my earlier features was usually done very quickly.

If you’re young and working with friends and collaborators to create a feature, like I did many times in my teens and twenties, there’s a certain momentum which is key, and very easy to lose. You can get a group of young people together to film a feature for a week or a month, and they’ll work very hard. All the features I ever shot were like that, where I had one or two main collaborators who were there every day for a week or a month or a few months, and we just worked and worked and worked, while other people came in and out.

The movie I did in college, Gods of Los Angeles, I flew my friend Dave in to star in it. That was summer 2002 and we had maybe a month to shoot with him, as well as do a road trip to South Dakota for an amateur film festival where we shot some other stuff as well. We worked on the movie every day. Other actors would come and go but I only had Dave as an actor for that period. Sometimes we were sleeping on the floor at a friend’s place before filming there - we were all over town. Dave lost weight in the desert on the road trip. But we had that momentum to get as much of the film done as we could. It was this ridiculous long script, like four hours worth of story. We ran out of time and I ended up cutting a whole act out and shooting a rewritten ending the morning Dave had to get on the plane back to Connecticut.

We had that momentum to work and get the feature done. We were young and in college, and it was summer. We had no bills to pay. We had free time. We shot most of the feature during that month. We worked around every other actor’s schedule but Dave and I were there every day.

After that, and when the school year began again, production was a lot slower. Trying to get any actor to show up for a shoot was tough. We went months inbetween shoots and it took a long time to finish the last few scenes.

I did notice I’d gotten a lot better as a filmmaker during that shoot. We had filmed Dave’s stuff during this crazed rush, and all the later stuff I was able to shoot in a much more controlled way. No-budget filmmaking, in my experience, is always a disaster. Everything goes wrong and you prove your worth as a filmmaker by rolling with it and still getting the scene done even if you don’t have that actor or that location or whatnot.

You learn a lot by just doing it, as a filmmaker, and it helps to be young and without bills to pay. If you have one good collaborator who is willing to really join you on this journey for awhile, for a week or a month or parts of a few months, you have a movie. All of my movies were like that.

Los Angeles never agreed with me, physically or in any way. I moved to Los Angeles 20 years ago, and left ten years later. I spent that whole first ten years wanting to leave. I knew immediately when I stepped off the plane that I’d made a big mistake. I did leave, for five and a half years, and then ended up back here. I had big dreams, but everyone in this business has big dreams. I expected Hollywood, but it felt more like tripping and falling into a white-walled room which locks behind you and sinks down into the ocean, and nothing else happened for twenty years.

So I’d often leave Los Angeles for awhile to make a movie with friends elsewhere. I went back to Connecticut one summer, and I went to the Midwest twice (a mistake), and roadtripped to South Dakota. I had just unsuccessfully tried to move back to Connecticut one Christmas in 2006, and ended up in some shitty apartment with two people who were trying to kill each other. Pretty typical for my Los Angeles experiences. It’s just a dangerous town when you don’t have money. You always feel like a criminal, and I can no longer count the situations I lived through where my life was threatened. That was almost a constant.

I needed to get out of there, and someone I’d met while doing stand-up comedy called me. He had a rich mother, and he was bored and wanted to learn how to make a horror film. For the hell of it I’d written this script about Marvel’s She-Hulk character. I’d written it in a week. My scripts usually took a year but this was an easy write. He read it, and he decided we should film that script.

I did warn him that it was a fanfilm, so we could never really make money from it, or release it on video, or show it at festivals, especially back then. I don’t think he fully understood that until we were four months into production and had shot most of the film, at which point he shut things down.

But for four months we worked together every day. Our She-Hulk actress came in pretty much every day for a few weeks to film on greenscreen. A lot of times we were shooting one actor at a time because of scheduling, and we pretty much shot the whole thing in that apartment in Santa Monica. I’d put sticky paper up to turn the walls green or black. We just kept at it, getting through a huge amount of material every day. It’s not great to shoot a big superhero feature one actor at a time. That was tricky to edit together later. But working with one actor, or two actors, at a time, is very controllable. You’re not wasting anyone’s time. You don’t have scenes where one of the actors doesn’t have much to do. They’re always working. Sometimes we had a bunch of people onset at once, and sometimes that was more chaotic. It did mean we had more people to work the lights and sound and effects. It can be tricky to get Los Angeles actors to commit to this sort of thing. You’re never sure who you can really rely on and who is going to flake out on you. We ended up shooting with fewer actors and less crew, and doing our best with it.

And when you’re not paying people, sometimes actors will quit on you. We lost one of our two lead actresses on She-Hulk, and by the time I’d recast her months later we didn’t even have money anymore, or most of the original actors. I was shooting on my own for no money. We had auditioned 400 people for the film. It was a huge, long process where I called in anyone in Los Angeles who would work for no money. But some of my first choices didn’t want to actually do the film in the end. I got my first choice for She-Hulk, and got the best people for the parts. But I recall that original actress saying she’d rather be waitressing and making money.

It was always easier to find great actresses who weren’t working. Finding guys who were any good was always tougher. On my college movie Gods of Los Angeles in 2002, I kept losing the male actors I originally cast in every single part, after a day of filming. They weren’t willing to spend that much time on such a ramshackle, no-budget feature where I was learning as I went. The women were all cast from the start, and stayed put.

I shouldn't admit this, but on both Gods of Los Angeles and Shamelessly She-Hulk I eventually had to cut scenes and edit around some male actors, who hadn't quite completed their entire parts, but had come close.The people who stayed, stayed because they believed in the project. We didn't have much money, but I was always a good dialogue writer, and was writing very meaty parts that actors enjoyed playing, even under the circumstances. And the circumstances were messy. (Screenplay structure was more of a weak point, though I got better at that too in my unproduced work.)

She-Hulk was a big role - she had tons of dialogue to get through - and we often shot her alone. We just kept working, and we had that momentum, and we wrapped her part in a couple weeks. Finishing the rest of the film later was a slower process.

But it’s about working within people’s schedules. That gets harder the older you get, because people have bills to pay and things to do.

On She-Hulk, one older actor usually had a beard for other roles. I wanted him to shave it for the part. One day he told me he’d shaved his beard and would want me to shoot his whole part in the next three days or so. We were already booked up for those days with lots of shooting with other actors. But we brought him in at night, and shot most of his part alone. Or in the morning, when he was already starting to grow the beard back.

I once shot a comedy feature in a week, where we all became horribly sick and injured in a dozen different ways. The director was depressed and not in the mood, and in retrospect was bullying me the whole time I knew him. It was horrible, but we still shot the feature in a week.

The Phantom Menace parody was filmed over a month or two, as was the one we did the next year. In both cases I was working every day with Dave, and other people would come in and out depending on their availability. So we had that momentum.

We also found time to shoot a comedy/drama improv feature. I had two collaborators on that first one, and we rehearsed for a couple of weeks while shooting the other movie, then shot the whole damn thing in one night. We tried to do it again the next year but everyone was too tired. We hadn’t really had a break, and Dave had barely slept all month.

Looking at the footage from those (summer 2000) movies later was a turning point for me. I was a dumb kid of about nineteen making dumb movies on low quality video cameras, but I was also a perfectionist. And I lost my temper a lot on that shoot, while trying to get my friends to take the shoot seriously and get the footage I needed.

As a director, if you lose your temper you’ve lost control of your film. You’ve lost the respect of those around you. It’s not going to get them to take you seriously. A director needs to be the nicest guy onset. You’ve got to make people comfortable, and feel like their contributions are valued. They should feel safe, and comfortable enough to give their best work to you. You need to earn their respect. If you have the right collaborators, they will do brilliant work for you, if you let them be themselves.

I was tough, as a director. I would shoot a lot of takes, until I knew I’d gotten the footage I needed in the edit. With enough preparation, four takes should be enough, but it’s not unusual for me to see 16 takes in the edit for more complex scenes. We wouldn’t do a ton of rehearsing. We’d shoot and fix problems on the fly.

I wouldn’t lose my temper. I’d just ask them to do it again, until we had a version where nothing went wrong technically, or with the performance. If an actor isn’t playing the scene right, it’s usually a bad idea to tell them how to read the line. It’s unprofessional but it’s also not how actors work. Fixing the exterior performance is phony. They need to feel and understand the scene inwardly. If they’re not playing the scene right, you haven’t explained it right, and you need to talk to them for a bit about what their character is feeling.

Or maybe it’s just a dumb scene and the actor isn’t feeling it. While looking back at the She-Hulk movie, there are a few lines which make me cringe, which I wish I’d rewritten. Easy jokes, which border on offensive or vulgar and don’t suit the character or the film.

I was looking at the raw footage from one of those scenes recently. I knew the line was bad at the time, and clearly I feel awkward directing the actress to say it. I ask if she can say it with a little more feeling, since she was playing it off very flatly, as if embarrassed of the line. She said “No, because it’s a stupid line!” The footage cuts off there. She wasn’t wrong. We should have rewritten the line, and she gave the best performance she could under the circumstances, because she needed to communicate that her character was embarrassed of the line too.

When I was making movies in college, I was still embarrassed that I’d lost my temper during the shoot in summer 2000. I was trying to be nicer as a director while still pushing hard enough to get the shot. I overcorrected. I have wavy hair which gets unmanageable unless it’s cut very short. I would let my hair grow longer than that, and I’d really look like a mess. A scruffy kid with glasses and mad scientist hair, wearing a red windbreaker jacket and scuffed-up jeans. I looked like a slob! I thought it helped the actors relax and not have to take things as seriously. I grew up in Connecticut as this gifted overachiever, always pushing very hard and being very intense about things. In California I was learning to slow down, and calm down, and go with the flow. I think it helped me, but I went with the flow so much that nothing ever happened in my career for twenty years!

But some of that was just that I wasn’t presenting a serious image to the world. I was presenting the image of a guy who really hated himself. I thought of myself as a clown. I felt bad that I was making my actors work so hard and do so many takes, and I thought I had to be the guy onset who was making things seem much more relaxed and casual, but also pushing them very hard to do brilliant performances and shoot a lot of takes. I should have loved myself more, enough to clean myself up and look professional onset. My appearance was at odds with the high-level filmmaking I wanted to do, because my self-esteem and self-image wasn’t there.

As a creative in Los Angeles, at least to an extent, you are who you pretend to be. The industry is full of pretenders. The industry is biased toward people with money and connections, but people with money and connections are also just more presentable. I had very high standards for the filmmaking I was doing, but I looked and acted like a weird kid! It’s amazing that anyone took me seriously enough to work with me. To an extent I had trouble making friends and felt very isolated, especially among people who really wanted to work in the industry. My friends tended to be people who didn’t fit in either, and who wanted to leave Los Angeles at the first opportunity. I took myself very seriously as an artist, but a lot of people at USC took me at face value instead, and seemed to hate me instantly! Young people can be very cruel. Well, all people can be very cruel.

I used to do stand-up and improv as an idiot character called Radio Man. When I’d perform him live on campus, people would treat me like I actually was this ridiculous character. I was thrown offstage by security several times! Maybe I should have pretended to be cool!

I feel like that was partly my problem with networking and trying to make friends in the industry and get work that way. This is an oversimplification, but I felt like the mindset in Los Angeles was very different. Not better or worse than New York and Connecticut, but upside-down. New Yorkers can be gruff until they get to know you, and they’re more open with how they’re really feeling. People in Los Angeles tend to wear a mask at first. They want to smile and seem pleasant and impress people in a non threatening way, and it’s a front. You find out what they’re really like later, if they like you. You see their dark side. I’m generalizing of course, but I was never a very social person, and this was all backward from what I was used to. People were being very guarded and false when I was trying to be open and truthful, and vice versa even! I was zigging, they were zagging. I felt like people hated me immediately wherever I went! Or at least couldn’t figure me out and weren’t impressed. I wasn’t great at putting up a front and impressing people. And in Los Angeles it’s hard to impress people anyway. You’re talking to creators, who are all boasting about what they’re doing as a multi hyphenate. At that point I’d made a bunch of features as a writer/director/editor, but I was still a dumb kid with few resources and no connections.

Youtube has changed everything, but it’s also not a filmmaker’s medium. Most of the people who are getting successful on Youtube are doing video essays as themselves, straight to the camera. People aren’t really getting known for making short films and features like we used to do. I still remaster material from the 2007 She-Hulk production for Youtube, and it feels very out of place with everything else that Youtube is.

That can be a positive, I suppose. It’s not a big deal for a filmmaker to record themselves doing video essays and reactions, and Contrapoints for example has stepped up that game with her colored lighting and aesthetics, bring a feature-film quality to Youtube.

I’d like to think there’s room for lots of different kinds of content on Youtube, and as a small creator it’s unfortunately very hard to get seen, so you might as well create what you like, and what really matters to you. The algorithm seems to push certain kinds of content (including some gross political content which is definitely helping cause the end of the world). The algorithm is also impossible to predict.

I had barely touched my main Youtube channel in eight years until recently. That was a mistake. I was sort of grandfathered in as an older channel, and once I put up new content in 2018, sometimes the algorithm would smile on me and give me millions of views. But it’s impossible to predict. One or two popular videos and the rest go thud.

I considered that a channel for the She-Hulk movie and my Doctor Who animations, and other filmmakery stuff. But I’d stopped editing that film, and was doing some very dumb web videos on my own instead for awhile, which I uploaded on another channel. I started other channels for my film restoration work. I hadn’t considered Youtube as a career. It was simply an outlet for the various things I was doing.

If I was starting a new channel now, I wouldn’t be getting the views I get on the old channel. It’s probably best to do everything in one place, do it well and make it easy to find.

As for the other stuff, the filmmaker stuff - actually learning how to make a film - just do it. You’ll learn as you go.

In my high school movies, these early comedies, I barely knew where to put the camera at all. At first I was shooting long wide shots, then some closeups. All very basic stuff. I was leaning heavily on the dialogue. Without dialogue I didn’t have a movie. There were only a few sequences I storyboarded or even shot a lot of angles for. Usually it was when we were parodying an existing movie, and recreating their shots. That was always fun- recreating a famous big-budget Hollywood movie on a budget of zero, and making it work somehow.

I learned a little more each time for sure, but in film school we had to do these little short films with no dialogue. I was leaning on the same style I’d had in my high school comedies. My first couple of shorts had the same goofy feel. One of them used pop culture references instead of having characters and story. And without dialogue that didn’t work. It was about some friends of mine as an action-hero fighting team (and not a very impressive one). It was pretty dumb.

This was for a class (in 2001) which originally shot on 8mm film, so it had to be silent. We were shooting on MiniDV instead, so we could have shot dialogue, but that’s not what the class was about.

I couldn’t use any of the tricks I’d had in my comedies. I had to tell a story without dialogue- something that people could take seriously. I didn’t even know how to get a performance out of someone without dialogue, which became immediately apparent. I couldn’t use any of my strengths, and that was great because I had to learn quickly.

My third short was vastly better. It really told a story without words. I shot a few more like that later, including four on 16mm film.

These were all supposed to be 5 minutes. I think short three was 16 minutes.

My fourth and fifth student-film shorts actually had heavy dialogue, but I was still learning very fast and challenging myself to do something different.

I scripted the fourth short without dialogue. It was about a dying cartoonist, and was intended as a very personal, serious drama. Writing it without dialogue forced me to come up with visual ideas to keep it interesting. I then rewrote it with dialogue but kept most of those ideas. I’d already been writing serious screenplays for awhile but this was my first serious film- a big step for a goofy kid like me! It was 18 minutes long.

As I recall, I got in trouble for using dialogue so heavily, and my grade was taken down a few notches. That happened a lot at USC, always on the films I was most proud of!

My fifth was an animated adaptation of the Terry Pratchett novel, MORT. It was crazy over-ambitious for a five-minute short at the end of the semester. I’d written a 45-minute script, and I had to shoot it in a weekend and edit it in about as long. I got my friends together and we recorded the voices in one long night. I played Death and I certainly sounded like Death by that point. For the animation I made some clay figures with drawn cutout faces, in real-world locations. It was nothing fancy, but I really did shoot it in a weekend, and made it work in the edit as best I could. I was new to Avid and digital editing generally. I released a 25-minute animated film, having cut out anything I didn’t absolutely need to tell the story.

I was proud. I’m sure I got in trouble for it! I wasn’t alone either- Someone else in the class had shot a dialogue-heavy adaptation of The Catcher In the Rye.

In another class, when shooting on 16mm film, the films really did have to be 5 minutes long, and not a second longer. We only got one or two takes because film stock was limited, and you really had to tell the story visually.

Due to shenanigans I was forced to take the class twice, and did better work the second time. With a partner I shot a fantasy film The Journey of Truesong (with thrift-store costumes), and a time-travel musical with CGI and splitscreen effects, all done in-camera. We also got in trouble for both, because both involved dialogue and were against the rules. We’d made the most exciting films in the class, and got punished for it. That sort of thing happened a lot.

I remember on The Journey of Truesong, our actress was vegan, and I didn’t know. I’d brought ham sandwiches for lunch. She was too polite to say anything and starved the whole shoot. When we opened up the fruit (and I think trail mix) her eyes went wide and she chowed down. Ask your actors about food restrictions and make sure you have a way to feed them! We were in Griffith Park, miles from anywhere!

A few years later I filmed a scene for She-Hulk, again in Griffith Park, with four actors. They were supposed to barbecue hamburgers in the scene itself, so I bought a grill and figured that would be our meal for the day as well. I wanted to wrap an actor playing a bad guy so he could go home, so we shot his scenes first. The sun was going down by the time we grilled the hamburgers. The scene was grainy since we were losing the light, and getting the grill running was taking time. The actors had to get a little silly and improv around it, and I reshot some of it later in a different location (obviously so). By that point the hamburgers and other food had been sitting out in the sun for hours and were absolutely inedible. Everyone was starving!

Today you could maybe use a food delivery app. Maybe not, because we were still in the park in a very remote location. It was a disaster of planning on my part, and I think an actor quit after that. When you have no budget, going out on location means going out on a limb and hoping it works. In this case I wasn’t able to feed my cast. The actresses rolled with it and forgave me. An actor didn’t.

Food is very important, and easy to overlook! If you’re shooting in your own home, or a very controllable location, you can keep food in the fridge. On location in the park, in the heat, the food had a very limited shelf life, and so did the actors.

If we weren’t out in the middle of nowhere, we might all drive to a fast food restaurant to eat. That can take up hours in the middle of a shoot if you’re not careful. Having enough food onset certainly helps.

I had very high standards for the sort of actors I’d cast. In high school I was just casting friends, but I grew out of that. Even so, I think that someone who will really stick with you and is willing to put in the work with you is just as important as raw talent. If someone can’t act, maybe they can run the camera, or hold the microphone, or just generally help out onset and with the production. They can drive around, get the food, set things up that need to be set up. They can be an extra, or a costumed character. There’s so much that needs to be done, and no-budget shoots immediately become a trashfire of problems because it’s hard to get it all done in time. Things will always go wrong, and you prove yourself by how you deal with all of that.

I know that got very personal, and very long.

But I hope that helps!

#long post

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Mortal Kombat and Bloodsport: The Strange Connection That Changed Gaming

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As we eagerly anticipate the release of the latest Mortal Kombat movie, many find themselves looking back on Mortal Kombat’s 1995 big-screen debut. While that film has its charms and its fans (myself included), the movie has rightfully been criticized over the years for lacking many of the best qualities of the game as well as many of the best elements of the martial arts movies that clearly inspired it.

Of course, the relationship between Mortal Kombat and martial arts films has always been close. Not only did the game utilize a then-revolutionary form of motion capturing that gave it a standout cinematic look, but many aspects of the title were practically taken directly from some of the best and biggest martial arts movies of that era.

As the years go on, though, it becomes more and more clear that no martial arts movie impacted the development of Mortal Kombat more than Bloodsport. Maybe you’ve heard that MK was inspired by that beloved movie, but a deeper look at the relationship between Bloodsport and Mortal Kombat reveals the many ways both big and small that the two would go on to change gaming forever.

Bloodsport: The Crown Jewel of Absurd ‘80s Martial Arts Movies

While the 1970s is rightfully remembered as the decade when America became obsessed with martial arts (due in no small part to the influence of Bruce Lee’s legendary films), it really wasn’t until the 1980s that you saw major and minor studios compete to see who could produce the biggest martial arts blockbuster.

Of course, many of the martial arts movies of that decade were different from what came before. They had bigger budgets, were usually more violent, and, maybe most importantly, they generally catered more to Western audiences. Yes, the ‘80s is the decade that Jackie Chan and other Asian martial artists did some of their best work, but as more and more Western studios got in on the action, we saw the rise of a new kind of martial arts movie that more closely resembled the over-the-top violent action films popularized by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That also meant the rise of a new kind of martial arts star who was typically either from America or played American characters in what we can now see was an effort to capitalize on the idea of American exceptionalism that was especially popular during the Reagan era. If you’re looking for some notable examples of that trend, I’d suggest checking out Best of the Best, Above the Law, and, naturally, American Ninja.

In many ways, though, 1988’s Bloodsport is the pinnacle of that time in martial arts movies.

Bloodsport co-writer Sheldon Lettich says he came up with the idea for the film while talking to a martial artist named Frank Dux. Among other things, Dux claimed to be a former undercover CIA operative who once participated in an underground martial arts tournament known as “Kumite” in order to take down the criminal organization that ran it. Dux also claimed he was the first American to ever win the tournament.

To be frank, Dux was full of shit and, despite the fact that Bloodsport bills itself as a story inspired by true events, Lettich knew it. Still, the idea of an American martial artist winning a global underground tournament featuring the world’s greatest fighters was too good to pass up.

Indeed, the absurdity of that premise is a big part of what makes the whole thing work. While Dux’s story was almost certainly “inspired” by the plot of Enter the Dragon, Bloodsport wisely veers away from that classic in ways that take advantage of the best (or at least most loveable) elements of that era.

The smoke-filled back room that hosts many of Bloodsport‘s key fights is far removed from the tropical paradise of Enter the Dragon, but it captures that vibe of an ‘80s pro wrestling arena where the stale air is punctured by the screams of a bloodthirsty crowd. Whereas many early martial arts movies were designed to showcase the speed of their leads, the deliberate, slower strikes in Bloodsport perfectly compliment the absurd sound effects they resulted in which suggested that every punch was breaking bones. It’s a ridiculous idea tempered by a surprising amount of raw violence. In a nutshell, it’s a snapshot of what made so many great ‘80s action movies work.

What really made Bloodsport special, though, was the work of Jean-Claude Van Damme. It’s hard to call the young Van Damme’s performance “good” in any traditional sense of the word, but considering that he was cast in the role to be a good looking young martial artist with charisma to burn, it’s also hard to say he didn’t do exactly what he was asked to and then some.

More important than JCVD’s movie-star looks were his martial arts abilities. I don’t know how Van Damme’s real-life martial arts experience stacked up against the best competitors of that era, but what I can tell you is that Van Damme came across as the real deal at a time when many studios were still casting the biggest bodies and teaching them to be action stars later. By comparison, Van Damme was lean, flexible, and not only capable of selling us on the idea that he could kick ass but genuinely also capable of kicking many asses.

Bloodsport was a box office success that would certainly go on to become a genre cult classic, but its most lasting impact has to be the way it introduced so many of us to Jean-Claude Van Damme. Indeed, the attention the movie brought to Van Damme was about to also make waves in the video game industry.

Midway to Hollywood: “Bring Me Jean-Claude Van Damme!”

Much like the tales of Frank Dux, the stories of the early days of Mortal Kombat’s development are sometimes twisted by legend. However, nearly all versions of the story come back to Jean-Claude Van Damme in one way or another.

Mortal Kombat‘s origins can be traced back to co-creators John Tobias and Ed Boon’s desire to make a fighting game featuring ninjas that would also allow them to utilize the kind of large character designs they emphasized in previous works.

Unfortunately, the initial pitch for that project was rejected by Midway for the simple reason that there seemed to be some doubt regarding the commercial viability of an arcade fighting game. Remember that this was all done before Street Fighter 2 really took over arcades, cemented itself as a game-changer, and inspired studios everywhere to start go all-in on the genre.

Instead, Midway decided to pursue an action game starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The details of this part of the story sometimes get fuzzy, but it seems they specifically hoped to develop a game based on Van Damme’s Universal Soldier film. At the very least, the idea of adapting the mega star’s latest movie into a game must have seemed like a much more surefire hit than an unlicensed fighting title.

Recognizing an opportunity, Tobias and the rest of the four-person team that would go on to make Mortal Kombat decided to see if they could get Van Damme interested in the idea of starring in their martial arts game. Boon recalls that they even went so far as to send Van Damme a concept demo for that project by capturing a still of the actor from Bloodsport, cropping out the background, and replacing it with their own assets. There have even been reports that they were prepared to name their game Van Damme as the ultimate showcase of the star.

The idea fell through, and there seem to be some contradictory reports regarding exactly what happened. Boon once said that he’d heard Van Damme already had a deal in place with Sega that would conflict with their offer, but, as Boon notes, Sega clearly never released that game. If such a deal ever was in place, it seems nothing ever came from it. It’s also been said that Van Damme was too busy to model for the game’s digitized animations or was otherwise simply uninterested.

The entire Van Damme/Midway deal ending up falling apart, but there was a silver lining. Now given the time to properly recognize that the fighting genre was blowing up in arcades, Midway told Tobias, Boon, and the rest of the team to go ahead and work on their martial arts game, Van Damme be damned.

While Van Damme was technically out of the picture, the team at Midway were hardly ready to give up entirely on their idea of a fighting game inspired by Bloodsport

Movies

Mortal Kombat: An Ode to Johnny Cage and His $500 Sunglasses

By David Crow

Games

Mortal Kombat Timeline: Story Explained

By Gavin Jasper

Mortal Kombat: A Bloodsport by Any Other Name

Mortal Kombat went by a lot of names in its earliest days (the most popular candidate in the early days was reportedly “Kumite“), but one thing that remained the same throughout much of the project’s development was the commitment to making it the anti-Street Fighter. Or, as Ed Boon once put it, to make it the “MTV version of Street Fighter.”

The logic was hard to argue against. If Street Fighter 2 was the best at what it did, then this game should be the exact opposite of it in every single way possible

What’s impressive are the ways the small MK team distinguished their project. They used digitized captures of actors, which is particularly impressive when you consider that they weren’t even working with green screens. They just filmed some actors (mostly people they knew with martial arts experience) performing moves against a concrete wall and then manually removed the real-life backgrounds. It wasn’t too far removed from the techniques they used to construct a demo of their idea for Jean-Claude Van Damme

Of course, you can’t talk about MK without eventually talking about the blood. The game’s use of gore was certainly intended to catch people’s attention, which it absolutely did. While the MK team didn’t quite anticipate how the combination of digitized actors and extreme gore would put MK at the center of an emerging debate about video game violence, they rightfully predicted that the game’s violence was one of those things that people would force people to stop and look when they walked by and saw the game in action.

What’s really funny, though, is how those two qualities helped MK capture the feel of Bloodsport in ways that seemed both intentional and perhaps happily accidental. Yes, MK’s origins prove that it was clearly inspired by Bloodsport, but the ways in which MK most meaningfully mimics Bloodsport often aren’t talked about enough.

In Bloodsport and MK, you have this martial arts adventure that feels both wonderfully dingy and strangely fantastical. Just as Bloodsport told the unbelievable story of a global tournament featuring larger than life participants but tempered it with visceral combat the likes of which no human could survive, MK combined sorcery and mythological creatures with decapitations and punishing uppercuts in a way that shouldn’t have worked but proved to be too enjoyable to at least not be fascinated with.

Even the “awkward” animations you sometimes have to suffer through as a result of MK‘s motion capture process captured the spirit of Bloodsport and the ways that it replaced the smooth moves of someone like Bruce Lee with a more impactful MMA-esque style complimented by moments of absurd athleticism. It’s almost certainly also no coincidence that the average MK combatant’s most athletic move was a sweep kick. After all, a famous Hollywood legend says JCVD was offered the Bloodsport role after showing off his kicks to a producer.

Of course, when it comes to any discussion about MK and Bloodsport’s relationship, we certainly don’t have to rely on possible coincidences and speculation. Not only was an early version of MK literally ripped from Bloodsport, but as it turns out, JCVD did end up appearing in the game…

Johnny Cage: Jean-Claude Van Darn

If you step back and look at it, Mortal Kombat is basically the Super Smash Bros. for action stars of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Kano was a callback to The Terminator, Sonya Blade was seemingly based on the eternally underrated Cynthia Rothrock, Raiden was clearly inspired by Big Trouble in Little China (as was Shang Tsung), and Liu Kang was almost certainly a Bruce Lee substitute.

Then you have Johnny Cage. As a cocky movie star whose martial arts skills are largely based on his flexibility, it’s always been easy enough to suggest that Johnny Cage is a non-licensed nod to Jean-Claude Van Damme. Actually, many think that Johnny Cage is a bit of a mean-spirited parody of JCVD meant to mock him for turning the game down.

The truth is a little more complicated than that. Johnny Cage actually started as a character named Michael Grimm who was described as the “current box office champion and star of such movies as Dragon’s Fist, Dragon’s Fist II, and the award-winning Sudden Violence.” While his character model was reportedly also influenced by Iron Fist’s Daniel Rand, it seems that he was initially meant as a kind of broad substitute for the Western martial arts stars that took over the scene in the 1980s.

But yes, Johnny Cage is absolutely meant to be a parody of JCVD. I suppose where people lose the thread a bit is in the insinuation that he’s a jab at the star rather than an homage. While MK’s developers have said that Johnny Cage’s iconic “splits into a low blow” was absolutely a way to poke fun at JCVD and a scene from Bloodsport, it feels a little disingenuous to suggest the team was feeling bitter about not being able to put JCVD in their game and wanted to suggest that he was this star that was somehow too good for them.

What’s kind of funny, though, is that the rise, fall, and rise of Johnny Cage isn’t too dissimilar from what happened to JCVD. Van Damme was riding high in the early ‘90s on the back of films like Bloodsport, but a series of flops and some personal problems put his career in jeopardy later on. Similarly, Johnny Cage debuted as the prototypical Hollywood star but would fall from grace in the years that followed. He wasn’t even featured in Mortal Kombat 3 for the simple reason that he was the least selected character in MK 2.

Yet, over time, many people came to appreciate characters like Johnny Cage and actors like JCVD largely because they represented this golden age of absurd martial arts movies that weren’t always great (and were certainly usually a little problematic) but were ridiculous in a way that became much easier to love when weighed against increasingly self-serious genre works.

In his own way, Johnny Cage not only represents JCVD but the magic of a movie like Bloodsport and how such a silly little film could change everything because of (and not in spite of) its ridiculousness.

There’s another world in which JCVD became the digitized star of what would become Mortal Kombat, but due to a series of incredible circumstances, we don’t just need to project that reality on Johnny Cage to envision what that game might have looked like.

Bloodsport: The First Great Video Game Movie?

While it’s certainly funny enough that Jean-Claude Van Damme would go on to star in the Street Fighter movie after turning down what would become the first Mortal Kombat game, the cherry on the top of that story has to be the release of 1995’s Street Fighter: The Movie (the game).

That adaptation of the Street Fighter film bizarrely abandoned the design style of the Street Fighter games the movie was based on and was instead modeled after Mortal Kombat in an attempt to give Capcom a fighting game that could more directly compete with Midway’s runaway hit series. It failed spectacularly, but it did feature a digitized version of Guile as portrayed by JCVD in the Street Fighter movie. Van Damme even lent his moves for the game’s motion capture process.

Roughly four years after passing up the opportunity to star in Mortal Kombat (or Van Damme, as it would have likely been known), Van Damme ends up starring in a Mortal Kombat rip-off carrying the Street Fighter name. Call it a missed opportunity if you want, but to me, the bigger takeaway is that Van Damme may have missed the chance to recognize that he, Bloodsport, and Mortal Kombat were destined to be together long before the development of MK ever started.

See, there’s a scene in Bloodsport where Frank Dux and his new friend Ray play the 1984 arcade game Karate Champ. As one of the first successful arcade fighting games featuring multiplayer, Karate Champ would later be recognized as one of the fundamental pieces of the genre. John Tobias even said that Karate Champ was more of an influence on Mortal Kombat than Street Fighter was.

What gets me most about that scene, though, is the trash talk. Ray asks Frank “Aren’t you a little young for full contact?” Frank counters by asking, “Aren’t you a little old for video games?” They settle by playing another round.

It’s a simple sequence that’s hard not to look back on as an early indication that the popularity of films like Bloodsport would directly influence of new era of fighting games defined by competitiveness, arcade trash talk, and advancing technology that would inspire fans and developers to replicate the feel of being at the Kumite or, in our world, in a movie like Bloodsport.

In the same way that Mortal Kombat is basically an unofficial Bloodsport game, maybe it’s time to look back at Bloodsport as a kind of unofficial video game movie. After all, it may have debuted at the end of a strange kind of golden era for Hollywood martial arts films, but it was just the beginning of the golden age of fighting games.

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thisislizheather · 5 years

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February Feats

So happy that February flew by this year, although with no snow in New York it felt a little sacrilegious. I think this has been the least snow I’ve ever experienced in a winter in my life and it feels awful. There’s still a few weeks left of the season, so I guess that could change but I mean snow in March? Give me a break. Here’s what went down this month.

NATHAN DID THE TONIGHT SHOW! And it was amazing. So crazy proud. I got to go with him to 30 Rock and everyone was so nice and it was incredible.

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I rewatched As Good As It Gets and what a terrible movie! No way in hell would Helen Hunt get together with Jack Nicholson. C’mon.

I started watching The Haunting of Hill House and I don’t think I’ll continue. Reasons? 1. I don’t think I like horror shows. Movies? Sure, that’s a fun time with an end date of a few hours. 2. What awful parents would keep their millions of children in a house like that? 3. Maybe it was a bad idea to start this in February, when it’s nowhere near spooky season, that might be my fault.

Saw Happy Death Day 2U with Nathan on Valentine’s Day because I wanted to see something and WOOF, what a nightmare of a movie. I knew it would be terrible, but it still shocked me.

Read Ellie Kemper’s latest book.

Finally caught up to the end of season four on Broad City and goddam is that a perfect show. Excited to start season five soon.

I rebought Essie’s Apricot Cuticle Oil because I used to love it and then finished it and forgot about it. It’s such a great product but you do have to use it at least semi-daily to see a real difference in your cuticles.

Went to Charlie Palmer Steak for a Restaurant Week lunch and even though the environment is kind of stuffy, the food was really good. I love when pasta is offered as an appetizer, it’s always the perfect amount. The tagliatelle was really good and the steak sandwich was great (if not a little too bread-y). That sandwich is also the “official sandwich of Madison Square Garden” which everyone tells you a thousand times upon entering the restaurant, so that’s something too, I guess?

CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS SHOW TO COME OUT mainly because of how amazing the book is. Airs March 15!

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Love that Trader Joe’s keeps putting out new candle scents. The Lemon Cookie one is fantastic.

Loved the Big Mouth Valentine’s Day special. Obviously over the moon pleased that the lady bug was in it.

So I tried Ree Drummond’s Caesar salad dressing recipe and I wasn’t a huge fan of her dressing itself (Teigen’s dressing is better but of course it is because of the mayo), BUT I loved the way she does her croutons. They turn out really crunchy on the outside, but still super soft on the inside, it’s genius and I’ll include how to do it below.

Ree Drummond’s Croutons recipe: Slice the (French or ciabatta) bread into thick slices and cut them into 1-inch cubes. Throw them onto a baking sheet. Heat some olive oil in a small saucepan or skillet over low heat. Crush-but don't chop-the garlic and add them to the oil. Use a spoon to move the garlic around in the pan. After 3 to 5 minutes, turn off the heat and remove the garlic from the pan. Slowly drizzle the olive oil over the bread cubes. Mix together with your hands, and then sprinkle lightly with salt. Toss and cook in the pan until golden brown and crisp. Add a little butter for more flavor.

Honestly, those croutons were so good that I had a few leftover that I put in a pappardelle tomato pasta the next day and… whoa. Have you ever put croutons in a pasta before? Holy fuck was it good. The crunch factor in an otherwise texture-less dish was unbelievable. How is this not a thing that everyone is doing? We all need to wake the fuck up.

I also made Ina Garten’s cauliflower toast and my god, IT WAS AMAZING.

A new bar opened in my neighborhood called The Huntress, so we went and it’s pretty good! It’s mostly a wings places and they were really tasty (and that’s coming from someone who does not enjoy wings - the bones are too tiny and gross and no thanks), but these were really good. They also have poutine (!) on the menu, and even though the gravy is much too salty, the beautifully authentic curds were appreciated.

I always forget about the one bottle of Tom Ford nail polish I have, but it lasts me a full week whenever I wear it. I mean, the price is stupid, but it does last a decent amount of time.

Have you heard of the site or the book Desserts For Two? Pretty self-explanatory, but it’s created by a woman who makes recipes specifically for two people. I tried her chocolate cake recipe for Valentine’s Day and it was delicious. The cake was so good, but I really didn’t care for her frosting, if you do try this one definitely find a better icing recipe online or better yet just buy the premade one they sell at grocery stores. Or even just top it with Nutella. Fuck, I’m hungry now.

Watched all of Difficult People and I mean… SUCH a great show, which everyone obviously knows by now, it just took me awhile to finally get there and see it. Other than it being a great show, I was completely in awe of Julie Klausner’s wardrobe. I wanted everything she wore.

This Lemon, Bacon, Kale, Cauliflower pasta blew my face off, I made it three days in a row.

I rewatched a lot of the last season (spoilers ahead) of Dawson’s Creek (does it sound like a don’t have a job? I do! I just don’t work very hard) and when Jen dies and then Grams says to her, “I’ll see you soon, child. Soon.” I fucking sobbed. BUCKETS. My god. I mean, see for yourself. (And if your reaction isn’t quite as strong as mine… look inside yourself, maybe.)

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I have wanted to try this Serious Eats potato recipe forever so I did and it just didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. Some of the potatoes turned out the way they were supposed to, but you’re really supposed to do this technique with a real oven and not a tiny convection one like I have. The few that came out the way they were supposed to were really good and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, but the effort involved in this recipe was too next-level. Maybe as a Thanksgiving recipe it’d make sense?

I watched the Versace series on Netflix and holy heavenly fuck, it’s a bad one. I only lasted about three episodes before I just couldn’t go any further. SO terrible.

Had a slice at Scarr’s in the Lower East Side and it was very decent, definitely one of the most solid pepperoni slices in that area. UPDATE: Definitely don’t go late at night, they’ve been sitting around all day and they suuuuuuck right before closing.

I now know how to make a steak at home and there’s no turning back now. I’ve been forever intimidated by cooking steak at home because it seemed like such a hard thing to do properly. (I did it once a few years ago and, like, tripled the amount of cream sauce I put on top and felt so sick I didn’t ever want to do it again.) But I did it on two separate occasions this month and I think I’m maybe kind of a pro at it now? This Tasty video helped so much. The only tip I can offer is to use normal salt and not the course kosher salt that I did on steak #1, that baby was inedible because of that course salt. Oh! And for the sauce that you obviously have to serve your steak with, it’s best to grind your own peppercorns in a spice grinder. I don’t know why, but I feel like this was the most important step. I have a lot of steak thoughts. I’ll stop.

I tried the tacos at Empellon Al Pastor in the East Village and while they were pretty good, I found them slightly on the expensive side for a place on Avenue A. We can all calm down a bit.

I visited Sweet Moment in Chinatown for a latte and it was a pretty cute experience even if the service was a little salty. If we’re being real, people only come here because Instagram exists, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The cream art choco latte that I had was ridiculous good, which makes sense because I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s just melted chocolate in a cup.

I visited the Glossier flagship store again because I was in the neighborhood and I (finally) tried out their Boy Brow. And let’s get this straight, I tried it on even though I already had other eyebrow products on (ColourPop’s Brow Boss Pencil as well as a little Milani Easybrow) which was maybe a dumb idea, but I didn’t want to wipe my eyebrows off and try the Glossier one incase it sucked and then had to walk around the rest of the day looking like a psychopath. SO, that being said, here’s what it looked like using all three products.

They look pretty full, right? I kind of think too full. I don’t know, maybe I’m a maniac. I should’ve done a before and after photo, not just an after. I just don’t see the big deal about their products. I feel like every item Glossier sells is something you need to use in combination with something else so it’ll actually look like something’s working. In conclusion, I have no idea if this is a good product or not and that’s really irritating, even to me.

Chrissy Teigen just announced that she’s gonna start her own website with new recipes! Amazing news!

I ate the pepperoni slice at Mama’s Too on the Upper West Side and all the good reviews about it ain’t lying. Crazy good slices. Might even be better than Prince Street Pizza.

I tried the mini Thickening Spray from Bumble & Bumble in my continued attempt at hair domination (and may I suggest that you always buy the mini size of any new hair product you’re trying? It makes so much more sense and is much cheaper) and it worked out well! I’ve only used it once but I think it’s a good product, next time I’ll definitely try it on my roots as well to see what it can really do. UPDATE: Definitely don’t spray it on your roots, it works much better if you use it sparsely on the rest of your hair when damp.

I saw Waitress on Broadway and just wow. I haven’t been to a show in years and I forgot how much fun they are. This one was absolutely no exception. I went because a friend of mine that I met at the restaurant is in it, so I went to see her and not only was she phenomenal (Jessie Hooker-Bailey), the entire show was incredible. Joey McIntyre was great. Also? They had these mini pies for sale at intermission (genius) and the Salted Caramel Chocolate Pie is literally reason enough to go see this show. I need that recipe and I need it badly.

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I finally ate at Sardi’s (which is something I’ve wanted to do for years) and sat at (in my opinion) the best corner booth under Dr. Ruth. And while I wish I had more to gush about, I… don’t. Ugh! I really think I just ordered bad. I only got the steak tartare and it was probably the most disappointing one I’ve ever had, which sucks considering it was also the most expensive. I knew I should’ve ordered the crab cake. That being said, I will definitely return mainly because the service was so impeccable that you’d have to return. Everyone was crazy nice and accommodating and pleasant, this one is just my fault I think. Also, I need to stop ordering streak tartare. I’ve already found the place that makes it the best (The Dutch) so why the hell am I still looking? I feel like a happily married man who can’t stop looking for something better to come along. STOP!

HELLO BEST MONTH OF THE YEAR, MARCH!

#February Feats #monthly post #this is liz heather #Liz Heather #pizza NYC

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akirotempest · 5 years

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My Favorite Anime’s of 2018

So if I haven’t explained by now, I don’t really have the time to make a youtube video for this like last year which sucks because I would actually put effort into it and make it funny ect. And also considering that winter season as started might as well do it now. So instead of a well put together video, you get a blog post on an almost dead site yay! So incase you were curious on my list for whatever reason, my top 10 favorite anime’s of 2018!

Number 10 - Overlord Season 2&3

It had been about 2 and a half years since Overlord’s first season aired back in the summer of 2015. And it certainly leave an impression on the Isekai genre as a whole. Fast forward to Winter 2018 and damn, the amount of Isekai animes increased almost ten fold with their being at least 1-3 every season. Overlord would have its work cut of for it so really stand apart from the rest. And for the most part, it did. It expanded on the world by giving more characters screen time than in the past and seeing how they handle certain situations without Lord Ains and helping to set up a new season. Season II was well worth the wait. If you could get past the first 3-4 episodes of build up that is. The second half felt more interesting and just better written the the first half with could be a drag to watch. It was pretty surprising to hear at the end of the season that season 3 would be airing in the summer, just 4 months later. But unlike season II, season 3 to me was mostly a bore. It had its moments here and there and certainly gave a few more characters a little bit of a spot light and attention, however, the cgi has some of the worst of the series and of the year as whole. I’d say as bad as Berserk’s remake cgi which is considered to be some of the worst all time. Even though season 3 was mostly a miss, I’m still game to see more of these characters and see their eventual conquest of the world.

Number 9 - My Hero Academia Season 3

How far My Hero Academia has come since its debut in Shonen Jump back in 2014. Right as Naruto had ended its 15 year long run, My Hero, unknown to most at the time, would take the torch shortly after and run with it. Since then its become arguably the second biggest if not the biggest anime in North America only behind Dragon Ball Super (DBS Broly will make sure of that). Two very successful season’s, a movie screen all across NA. So much so that an extra week of screenings were added. 2018 was certainly a great year for the My Hero franchise as a whole. Season 3 continues right where Season 2 left off as the first half see’s students from classes 1-A and 1-B going on a field trip to an training camp to help hone their powers even more. However, the newly formed League of Villains launch an attack on the camp grounds with their own objective. The climax of the first half see’s All Might face off against his greatest enemy, All for One. With the final moments of the battle being some of the most memorable in not only shonen history, but of all anime. The second half seeing the students trying to go for their hero licenses which will enable them to use their quirks for heroic purposes without needed a pro hero with them. While the final results are a shock, the second half just can’t compare with the first. The final episode of the season is definitely worth the wait. Not only does it wrap up this portion of the story, but sets up the now highly anticipated season 4. Without spoiling it, shit’s about to get fucking real.

Number 8 - How Not to Summon A Demon Lord

Now... with all the stuff I post and talk about, one might think that Ecchi anime would be my favorite type of anime. Surprise! It isn’t. So when I saw this I was turned off by it think it would be another High School DXD type of deal. Because that went so well this year. But when I sat down to watch it I was surprised that I found myself binging the entire show with 2 episodes yet to air. The story follows a video game otaku shut in whom one day gets teleported to another world. Where haven’t we heard that opening before?! But to his surprise, he’s not himself, but as his avatar from the game he played, which he was an OP Demon Lord. The two girls that summoned him argue over who gets to keep him as in this world, the summoned one is enslaved by those whom summoned it. However unknown to all 3, when one of the girls trys to command him, a spell he casted on himself reflects the magic back and now he has enslaved both girls. We’re still here for the plot right? The show then follows them trying to undo to find a way to undo the spell. To me, it had the SAO affect where the plot might of been dull, but the characters worked well off each other. Especially where the main character is OP, he doesn’t know what the hell is going on half the time as even though he’s a demon lord, he doesn't mean to be. If you’re a fan of the Isekai genre and want to wash away the taste of last years, In Another World With My Smartphone, then I defiantly recommend giving this one a try.

Number 7 - Skilled Teaser Tagaki-San

This ones a bit of an odd one. The plot is a girl named Tagaki teases her classmate Nishikata. Although he one day vows to get back at her, he fails every single time. The whole anime is essentially a bunch of shorts like in the original manga. It was something adorable and sometime to just watch to pass the time with. Nothing that made you think too hard or was made out to be more than what it is. Although toward the end of the series; a bit of story does come into play with an ending that certainly left those whom watched all the way til the end wanting more.

Number 6 - That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

This would defiantly be in my top 5 best anime of the year and just narrowly missed the top 5 of my favorites. Slime is about a man whom gets stabbed and passes. But wouldn’t you know it... He gets teleported to another world yay!!! However he is reincarnated as a slime. Which in most another world animes (except for Konosuba), slime’s tend to be weakest creatures in the world. This little slime however, gets granted with a very OP move that he exploits to it’s fullest. Without giving to much away, the story revolves around him and his adventure in this new mysterious world along with the companies along the way. 13 episodes and I haven’t gotten tired of discovering more of the world and its races. I want to know what happens next because the characters once again, make the show a memorable one.

Number 5 - Laid Back Camp

Alright the top 5! What did I enjoy more than My Hero and Slime?! An anime about 5 girls that go camping. That’s it. That’s the whole show. Although I will admit, this show isn’t for everyone as, it can get rather boring. With that being said, this has got to be one of the most comfiest anime’s of all time. A show where you can just turn on and shut your mind off from everything going on in the world. The art of some of these shots has got to be some of the best animation of the year. Some of the best moments are when the characters see a lake, a mountain, the sky at its most beautiful moments just before and after the sun rises. All locations visited in the anime are locations in real life where the crew drew inspiration from and recreated it. Seeing the characters react makes the viewer feel as if you’re right there with them experiencing it for the first time. A no pun indented, laid back anime that makes you appreciate the world we live in just a little more.

Number 4 - Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai

This one in all honesty is extremely hard to explain the plot of. At first glance one might think, oh where we go, another harem. And even though it almost instigated a war of who is best waifu of the series, it became so much more. Most people who have seen this agree that it pretty much will become an instant classic and on most people’s list, anime of the year. The story follows Sakuta Azusagawa as he one day finds a girl dressed in a bunny suit in a library. However, he seems to be the only one to notice her as no one else bats an eye. The girl who’s name is Mai finds it to be intriguing as well. Calling this Adolescence or Puberty Syndrome, Sakuta decides to figure out what exactly is going on. Along the way, he forms a friendship with Mai and helps another’s who suffer from the syndrome. The basic summary does not do the show justice, but I still highly recommend it to anyone.

Number 3 - A Place Further Than the Universe

This is one show that really hits home on a multitude of levels. The story is very quite simple. Four girls who travel to Antarctica. That’s about it. How can that simple plot be relatable is the slightest? I’m pretty sure we’ve all at some point or another day dream of completing our goals in life, our plans our ambitions, that you’ll one day get to. One day, not today because of school, work, responsibilities, not feeling up to it, money being an issue. But one day you’ll get to it. Maybe. It’ll turn to days, weeks, months, years even before you even think about doing it. And before you know it. You’re youth is gone, and won’t be able to do the things you once dreams of doing. Maybe all you needed was that one sign or push to get you moving. This is where the main character comes Mari comes in. She has plans and goals she wants to achieve, but the fear of the unknown and anxiety have always held her back. It all changes when she one days meets a girl named Shirase, whom is the complete oppose of her. She will not let anyone or anything stop her from achieving her dream of reaching Antarctica and searching for her mother. Her mother disappeared 3 years ago and has been trying to fund her way there ever since, despite everyone around her ridiculing her for it. Inspired by this Mari takes that step that she’s been needing and joins Shirase. This attracts two other characters whom have their own reasons for joining for they have also been looking for that push. The rest of the show is them bonding and having experiences they would of never had. The second to last episode is where things really hit the fan. The outcome was known already, but now she’s able to move on and live her life. It was made more special that the journey was made with friends. Reminding us that some experiences, are best experienced with those you love and care for. To not be afraid of the unknown, to take the step toward your dreams instead of them remaining dreams.

Number 2 - Sword Art Online: Alicization

What the fuck?! Sword Art? Is actually good? What the fuck is going on?! Even though Sword Art is one of my all time favorite series, I will admit, most of it is horrible. Alicization pretty much makes up for most of the bad. We once again follow Kirito as he’s trapped in this new world after being stabbed with a syringe and goes into a coma. Stupid way to get him in there but regardless, this is where the story takes off. Without giving anything away, if you’ve ever been a fan of Sword Art I highly recommend giving this a try.Because what’s better than one Kirito? Two Kirito’s! With one being blonde.

Number 1 - Darling in The Franxx

Well, we’ve come to this. My favorite anime of the year, Darling in the Franxx!! It had everything, character development to where each character actually something to offer, ever changing story that left us wanting more, amazing mecha fights and action, a romance that was fleshed out and very well written. Arguably the best anime of 2018. These 15 episodes were simply amazing. Because the series ended at episode 15. Because nothing else happened after. There totally weren’t 8 more episodes.... That completely fucked this series. Studio Trigger literally had no idea where to take the show and it became a cluster fuck. What was a shoe in for anime of the year became one of the most disappointing anime’s of all time. I could probably make a whole video on why it is...... BECAUSE FUCK STUDIO TRIGGER, AND FUCK YOUR SPACE BATTLES. at least we had SSSS. Gridman.. heard that was okay..

Number 1 - Hinamatsuri

Where do I even begin with Hinamatsuri. I haven’t had this much fun with a comedy since Konosuba. The story is one day, a yakuza member named Nitta has something fall on his head. When he checks to see what hit it, he sees a girl inside this egg shaped box whom turns out has amazing psychic powers and is named Hina. He reluctantly takes her in. For being a comedy/ slice of life anime, this show has amazing character development . By the end of the show, most characters are almost new people by the end of it. The direction of this was handled extremely well and not rushed. It felt more fluid than forced which felt natural for these characters. I had a great time seeing all these different characters interact with one another. A few thing the series touches on are homeless, humanity, running way, acceptance, family, gambling, and money. Each character deals with one or more of these and explores them in depth. And makes one appreciate what we already have. If you’re a fan of comedy and slice of life, then I highly recommend watching.

Well there you have it. Surprised you’re still even here. But thanks for reading all the way through. I really appreciate it. Fuck Darling in the Franxx. 002 and Ichigo are best girls though...

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photomaniacs · 7 years

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7 Ways to Make Your Photos More Interesting http://ift.tt/2siI4CL

When I first started taking photos, I knew the importance of finding what “good” really looked like. I knew that there were a million people out there that claimed to be more successful than they were, and that my taste wasn’t refined enough and that I wasn’t experienced enough to know the difference between them and those that were truly great.

I found people at the top of the industry and read every article they wrote and watched every video or interview ever made about them. Then, when they mentioned someone they admired, I studied them too. Like a butterfly effect, I would break down and understand new artists and the most intricate shooting styles.

I committed it all to memory, taking what made sense to me and leaving behind the rest. After 7 years, I slowly started to gain an understanding of my own style — mashed up and molded from some of the most well-respected photographers, painters, and artists in the world.

In this article I would like to share some of those gold nuggets of information that resonated with me and that changed and continued to push my art forward in new and exciting ways. Some of these ideas you will have heard of and I will reiterate their importance, others might pique your interest enough to give them a try.

Lets dive in.

1. Location

It’s the oldest saying in the book; “Location, Location, Location!’

This is for good reason. Simply by making it a point to place yourself somewhere unique, you are bound to get better shots. I remember the first time I went to Iceland. You could pretty much point your camera in any direction and press the shutter and get 90% better photos than most anywhere else. It was ridiculous.

Not only does the location help you in terms of visual interest in the photo itself, but when you are seeing somewhere beautiful for the first time it tends to inspire you and thus get you into a more open-minded and creative mood. This will always be good news for the work you are about to create. Remember: it doesn’t have to be crazy expensive — just find somewhere that makes you excited the second you see it.

2. Learning to Use Strobes

It took me the majority of my photography career to learn this superpower. When I did, it changed everything. Imagine: the ability to use only the most beautiful quality of light to manipulate any way you see fit. The higher-end strobes can literally overpower the sun. The creative control this gives you is immense. You can now decide whether you want something more dramatic or more dreamy. You can manipulate the light in order to convey any feeling or emotion you want.

In the most simplistic terms, your camera is just a light capturing box. So feed it the best light and those photos will grow up big and strong.

3. Subject

Most of us have been there before. We’ve had a great idea and made the effort to put it together and then we get there and realize that the subject is just the wrong fit. For the type of photography I like to shoot, it’s not all about getting the most beautiful person. It’s about finding someone who fits the emotion I want to convey.

I believe it’s impossible to be a great photographer without incredible emotional intelligence and self-awareness. When you meet someone for the first time, you have to be able to gauge how they make you feel. What emotion do they draw out of you?

Sometimes it makes sense to work with a seasoned model like my friend Crystal below. It certainly can make your life easier if you have someone who fits the bill and has a variety of unique poses and looks in their arsenal.

Other times it makes more sense to take the time to work with someone who isn’t a pro. It can go a long way in creating something that feels a bit more relatable to the viewer.

Regardless of who it is, try your best to get as much time with your subjects/potential subjects as you can. The more comfortable and familiar you are with that person, the more connection that you have, the better your images will turn out.

4. The Haze Machine

For the longest time I couldn’t figure out what created that atmospheric and moody look in people’s images. Was it dry ice? Lots of candles? A fog machine?

In this photo, I even tried spraying Fabreze in front of the lens and inevitably onto my good buddy, Donard. (Stay fresh, buddy, stay fresh!)

Eventually I figured out that it was a Hazer making this magic look! These machines can go a long way in completely changing the way the light falls on your subject and ensure that your space doesn’t feel too stiff and manicured. It can convey mystery and drama and is fairly simple to use.

A haze machine is different from a fog machine in that it’s not as thick and white. This makes it much easier to shine lights through and gives the added benefit of being able to actually see your subject instead of making it look like something’s on fire (which the fog machine is great for).

5. Building a Set

As I became more interested in strobes, I started to dabble and understand the value of a good set. This could be as simple as getting a couple of plants and a backdrop, or as complicated as a full-on build in which you create walls, windows, and bring in furniture to mimic the idea you have in mind. Regardless, the ability to be able to control your surroundings can be a huge advantage in creating a balanced and consistent look in your image. In the industry, we call this “production value”.

6. Tones

“Gavin, where them tones at, bruh?”

My friends love to rag on me about my obsession with tonal equity in an image.

However, this obsession is for good reason and was such a key element to making my images have the style and feel that I had always wanted. In fact, just by using similar tonal values within your images, you are going a very long way in creating a consistent look.

But what are tones? In photography, tones can be referred to as either:

1. The overall lightness or darkness of an area of an image-similar to luminosity, or 2. The color of all or part of an image, usually in relation to its warmth or coolness

One of the best ways to start understanding what you like is to pay attention to films you love. It might be a movie set in a snowy area in which they use blue tones to really help you feel the cold, or it might be a beach day in which red and orange tones are used to warm up the scene.

Spend some time figuring out a combination that makes sense to you.

7. Understanding Your Audience

The truth is that at the end of the day, “interesting” is subjective. All of this is simply my opinion because it has been firstly what’s resonated with me and secondly, my audience. I’m not going to be the guy who sits here and tells you to create work only for other people, because I’m a strong believer in the importance of listening to your gut and making something that you are proud of.

On the other end of the coin, I’m also not going to sit here and pretend that other people’s opinions of your work are irrelevant, at least as a professional. That being said, if your goal is to also make something interesting to other people, then it would make sense to understand those people, yet the amount of photographers that do not is significant.

Where do you want to go with respect to your career? If you want to be a fashion photographer, what do people interested in fashion care about? What are some other interests that are typical of this subset of people? What is lacking in the marketplace? What kind of statement can you make with your imagery that would resonate?

As you move forward with your photography, reflect on some of these things and how they might be able to benefit you. Take the ones that make sense and ignore the rest. If you can cultivate the ability to continually audit yourself and be aware of where you want to go and the gaps that still exist, that will be half the battle won. As I said earlier, this process took place over 7 years, so be patient with yourself and your abilities, yet stay determined and you will come out on top.

About the author: Gavin Doran is a Brooklyn-based photographer best known for his cinematic portraiture and dynamic lifestyle imagery. You can find more of his work on his website or by following him on Facebook and Instagram. This post was also published here.

Go to Source Author: Gavin Doran If you’d like us to remove any content please send us a message here CHECK OUT THE TOP SELLING CAMERAS!

The post 7 Ways to Make Your Photos More Interesting appeared first on CameraFreaks.

June 27, 2017 at 08:00PM

#photo photography art camera cameras

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frangipanidownunder · 7 years

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As you wish

A slightly not safe for work fic for @leiascully‘s XF writing challenge: 2017.

There were New Year’s resolutions and then there were ridiculous pronouncements that were so far from being deliverable that even Fox Mulder’s altruistic willingness to believe in the amazing, the extraterrestrial, the wondrous and the romantic, was sorely tested.

“I swear to you, Mulder, that 2017 will be the year.”

He stroked a lazy circle with his fingers on the small of her back, bare where her top had separated from her panties in the night. It was still his spot, he was drawn to it as surely as a bee to nectar. His fingers brushed the elastic and he let his thumb linger under the band. She turned towards him and her lips spread into a lazy Saturday morning smile.

“Scully, we’ve been doing this for almost ten years and there is no way that you are ever going to be able to master the art.” His thumb dipped lower, hooking her underwear down as his hand caressed her ass, still perfect to him, despite her protestations that age and gravity were enemies too great to vanquish, despite her 10km jog each morning.

“You dare doubt me?” She rolled over and trapped his hand. He squeezed her cheek, enjoying its fleshy give. She giggled and lifted her pelvis up, trying to extract his hand. “Mulder, don’t start something you’re not prepared to finish.”

He nuzzled his mouth to her neck, nipping and kissing. “I’m always prepared to finish what I start, Scully. You should know that by now.”

Her arm extended towards to her bedside cabinet and she picked up her watch. “Well, you’ve got exactly, seven minutes to show me just how tenacious you are, or we might just miss our flight.” She pulled him closer and slipped her hand inside his boxers, caressing him with her expert touch.

“That’s probably five minutes longer than I need.”

After the trial, the break-out, the desperation of life on the run and the FBI’s begrudging forgiveness, they started a new tradition – a Christmas/New Year break. Somewhere warm. The holiday was a concerted effort to escape from fear, of the past and the future, that festered in the darkest corners of their lives; from guilt, over the fates of William, Emily, Melissa, Samantha, that nested in their hearts and souls. It was a temporary solution to the darkness that continued to shadow their lives.

During Mulder’s illness, and despite their separation, they still took their trip. Mulder woke each day during those times, with a lighter heart and a brighter outlook. Medically, Scully knew the effects of fresh air, sunshine and a change of pace were proven restoratives. Emotionally, her own heart pieced itself back together, albeit only for a few weeks, as her Mulder, her old Mulder, shone through. And now, since their return to the FBI, and their re-commitment to each other, the tradition would continue.

Their cabin over the water was glorious. It had a sunken living area, an outdoor shower room that looked over their private pool and barbecue deck. The bed was four-poster. The local seafood was delicious. The sun was warm without being uncomfortable. Scully’s skin freckled and Mulder teased her. Mulder’s skin darkened, bringing out a devilish gleam in his eyes.

“This is how I like my Mulder,” she said, propped up on her elbows on a sun lounger as he fed her mango. The sticky juice dripped down her chest.

“And this is how I like my Scully,” he replied, licking the trail between her breasts, enclosed in a bikini, a delicate shade of green. “Sweet and salty. My favourite combination.”

She sighed and let his tongue work its magic.

“The pros of a private cabin can never be underestimated.” He pulled the strings of her bikini bottom apart.

“The pros of a detailed knowledge of female anatomy can never be underestimated.” She just about managed to get the words out.

Mulder rolled his shoulders, raising his arms above his head, linking his hands and pushing them back. He lunged right then left, his tanned leg muscles flexing. His back was sheen with sweat. Scully admired him a moment longer before picking up her bucket and spade and joining him.

“Mulder, warming up to build a sandcastle is a little excessive.”

He turned and looked down at her, winking. “Have you ever thought that your lack of physical preparation is the very reason why you have never won this contest?”

She snorted. “It didn’t occur to me for a number of years that this was even a contest, Mulder. Your competitive nature has given you the edge. You probably spend days planning your design.”

“Try months, Scully.” His eyes flashed and he shot her a wicked grin, before picking up his bag of tools. “Are you ready?”

Her bright orange plastic spade and bucket set looked feeble and she shook her head. “No. But let’s get it over with.”

Mulder dug, shaped, surveyed, scratched his chin and hunkered down. Scully flipped buckets, placed shells, trod on her own turrets and giggled.

“Why do I get the impression that you aren’t taking this seriously, Agent Scully?”

“Why do I get the impression that you’re taking this too seriously, Agent Mulder?”

They stood back from their efforts and swiped their brows. Mulder’s Transylvanian castle, complete with gothic moat and bridge and bats carved into the tallest tower took up a fair amount of space. It dwarfed Scully’s smaller, traditional Scottish castle with lake and folly.

“Size isn’t everything,” she said, wiping beads of sweat from her upper lip and offering him a slow smile.

“You just keep telling yourself that, Scully.”

“Who’s the judge this year?”

“The young man who cleans the pool is coming by any minute now. And please don’t cry when he makes his decision.”

She poked out her tongue. “You’re such a pig.”

The man wandered around both designs and laughed. Scully was sure he thought they were just another pair of privileged, crazy Americans.

Mulder leant towards her ear. “I think he’s laughing at your tiny castle, Scully.”

She jabbed him in the ribs. “I think he’s on to you and your giant ego. He probably thinks you’re overcompensating for something.”

She giggled as Mulder frowned.

The man walked back towards them. “They are very good. I like them both.”

“You have to make a decision. There can only be one winner.” Mulder clasped his hands together and puffed out his chest.

Scully enjoyed the moment, but only for the aesthetics. “Are you getting worried, Agent Mulder?”

“Only for your pride and integrity, Agent Scully.”

The man went back for a final look and clapped his hands together. “I have chosen.”

Mulder grinned. Scully sighed.

“I like this one.” He pointed to Scully’s Scottish castle.

Scully grinned. Mulder sighed.

Scully turned on the shower and let the warm spray soak her. She smiled out at the deck where Mulder was prodding fish on the barbecue, his buttocks flexing with each movement.

“Next year I vote for a non-private cabin, Mulder.”

He turned to her revealing his full, naked glory. “You’re willing to share this view?”

She grabbed a towel and moved towards him, hot and heady already. “Hmm, maybe not. Don’t stop, the salad hasn’t been dressed yet.”

He frowned. “So bossy.”

“You love it.”

“I’ve always loved your assertive side. I can’t believe I didn’t think about this before.”

“Think about what?”

“Letting you win so that you could order me about. It’s a huge turn-on.”

She let her eyes shift southwards. “I can see that. But you didn’t let me win.”

He put down the tongs and gathered her up in an embrace, pushing her towel away. “I did too. I wanted to be at your beck and call for a change. Ten years of you serving me gets a little old.”

“I won fair and square, Mulder. Don’t deny it.”

He nuzzled her neck. “Tell me what you want me to do, Scully. I’m yours all night.”

She shivered. “You’re always mine, all night, Mulder. How is this even a prize?”

He suckled a nipple. “Are you complaining, Scully?”

She was silent for a while. “Not yet.”

“Shall we eat first?” His tongue laved her breast.

“You can enjoy an appetizer, I’m not overly hungry yet.”

He picked her up and carried her to the bed. “As you wish.”

#xf writing challenge #xfwc prompt: 2017 #msr #txf fanfic #my fanfic

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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WHAT YOU TALK

I'm designing a new dialect of Lisp. It has a long way. This isn't true in all fields.1 The number of people you interact with is about right.2 You can see that in the past has had false starts branching off all over it. 06 and 1/1-n to see if it makes the company prey to a lawsuit. C, Java, Perl, Python, you notice an interesting pattern. Working at something as a day job doesn't mean doing it badly. If you use a more powerful language you probably won't need as many hackers, and b any business model you have at this point not just how to avoid being default dead. If startups are the first to go. They were like Nero or Commodus—evil in the way.

Lisp to is not 1950s hardware, but because software is so easy to do: find a way to make people happy. Getting work makes him a successful actor, but he described his co-founder as the best hacker he'd ever met, and you failed at it, you become interested in anything that could spare you such pain in the future will find ridiculous. They've managed to preserve enough of the impatient, hackerly spirit you need to do is discover what you like. Skyline Drive runs along the foothills to the west. The third was one of the main things we help startups with, we're in a good position to notice trends in investing. Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don't get enough of it.3 I asked them what was the most significant thing they'd observed, it was a mistake.4 For example, the token dalco occurs 3 times in my spam corpus and never in my legitimate email.

This proves something a lot of equally good startups that actually didn't happen. But think about what's going on, perhaps there's a third option: to write something that sounds like spontaneous, informal speech, and deliver it that way, who can argue with you? What you should not do is rebel.5 When did Microsoft die, and of what? Obviously the world sucked, so why bother?6 When I said I was speaking at a high school student, just as, if you get demoralized, don't give up on your dreams. The problem with American cars is bad design.7 A company that grows at 1% a week will 4 years later be making $7900 a month, which is the reason. Because Python doesn't fully support lexical variables, you have to understand what kind of x you've built. When I'm writing or hacking I spend as much time just thinking as I do actually typing.8 Programmers learn by doing, and b reach and serve all those people.

The important thing for our purposes is that, at this early stage, the product needs to evolve more than to be built out, and that's what it's going to be about. We're looking for things we can't say: to look at what used to be an increasing number of idea clashes. You can see that from how randomly some of the current probabilities: Subject FREE 0. Cluttered sites don't do well in demos, especially when they're projected onto a screen. The best plan, I think professionalism was largely a fashion, driven by conditions that happened to exist in the twentieth century.9 So don't assume a subject is really about. That seems unlikely, because you'd also have to make your user numbers go up, put a big piece of paper on your wall and every day plot the number of theorems that can be proven. It wouldn't be the first time, with misgivings.

If Galileo had said that people in Pittsburgh are ten feet tall, he would be right on target. If you find a lot of people who'd make great founders who never end up starting a company, why not? That's not a radical idea, by the standards of the desktop world. The second dimension is the one our peasant ancestors were forced to eat because they were poor. Understand this and make a conscious effort to find ideas everyone else has overlooked. And if you want to make large numbers of users love you than a large number of companies, and that assumption turns out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand over investors. The twentieth century. It would be a bummer to have another grim monoculture like we had in the 1990s. Patterns to be embroidered on tapestries were drawn on paper with ink wash. If you're really getting a constant number of new startups?10 Facebook got funded in the Valley.11 And since fundraising is one of the best in the business.

American cars continue to lose market share. Customers are used to being maltreated. Having gotten it down to 13 sentences, I asked myself which I'd choose if I could only keep one. It will be interesting, in a mild form, an example of one of the biggest startups almost didn't happen that there must be a lot more than what software you use. That doesn't mean 16. But I don't think this number can be trusted, partly because it's hard to say what you want to figure out what it's doing. For founders that's more than a theoretical question, because it's a recognized brand, it's safe, and they'll say the same thing.12

Nor is there anything new, except the names and places, in most news about things going wrong. Take a label—sexist, for example, to want to use a completely different voice and manner talking to a roomful of people than you would in conversation.13 Better to harass them with arrows from a distance. Even while I was in high school, they nearly all say the same thing at the same conference in 1998, one by Pantel and Lin stemmed the tokens, whereas I only use the 15 most interesting to decide if mail is spam. Third, I do it because it's good for the brain. Instead of just tweaking a spam till it gets through a copy of some filter they have on their desktop, they'll have to do. Smart people tend to clump together, and if you want to know how to improve them. Go out of your way to make people happy. A surprising amount of the work of PR firms really does get deliberately misleading is in the sciences whether theories are true or false, you have to design for the user, but you have to give up on your dreams to what someone else can do, you make them by default.

The outsourcing type are going to be about the 7 secrets of success?14 But the way the print media are competing against. There is already a company called Assurance Systems that will run your mail through Spamassassin and tell you whether it will get filtered out. Systematic is the last word on work, however. Nearly all investors, including all VCs I know, this is actually good news for investors, because it implies you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence. So just keep playing. And you might have trouble hiring programmers.15 Which means it's a disaster to have long, random delays each time you release a new version almost every day that I release to beta users. When you hear such labels being used, ask why.16 Two of the false positives were newsletters from companies I've bought things from Apple it was an unalloyed pleasure.

Notes

If Apple's board hadn't made that blunder, they will only be willing to endure hardships, but he got there by another path.

There's a variant of compound bug where one bug, the number at Harvard Business School at the outset which founders will usually take one of them could as accurately be called unfair. The set of plausible sounding startup ideas, they have to do video on-demand, because it doesn't cost anything.

My feeling with the guy who came to mind was one cause of accidents. Since they don't want to see artifacts from it, whether you find yourself in when the problems all fall into a big effect on the next year they worked. Microsoft, not just the raw gaps and anomalies.

To a kid most apples were a couple days, but except for money. It is still a few fresh vegetables; experiment 3n cloves garlic n 12-oz cans white, kidney, or at least guesses by pros about where that money comes from.

Did you know about it. But wide-area bandwidth increased more than linearly with its size.

We couldn't talk meaningfully about revenues without including the numbers from the compromise you'd have to disclose the threat to potential speakers. I didn't.

Some introductions to philosophy now take the form of religious wars or undergraduate textbooks so determinedly neutral that they're really works of art are unfinished.

And that is largely determined by successful businessmen and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. So how do they learn that nobody wants what they made much of a startup. If you want to either.

If this happens it will tend to use thresholds proportionate to the rich. Steven Hauser.

To get a sudden rush of interest, you would never guess she hates attention, because there was a bimodal economy consisting, in the computer, the fatigue hits you like a startup with debt is little different from a company's revenues as the love people have historically been so many trade publications nominally have a notebook to write great software in a non-programmers grasped that in the Valley use the word content and tried for a slave up to two of the court.

Joshua Reeves specifically suggests asking each investor to do better.

If he's bad at it, and VCs will offer you an asking price. Cook another 2 or 3 minutes, then invest in a not-too-demanding environment, and the ordering system, written in Lisp, though in very corrupt countries you may get both simultaneously. Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or butter n yellow onions other fresh vegetables to a super-angels gradually to erode.

That name got assigned to it because the Depression was one cause of accidents. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the distinction between matter and form if Aristotle hadn't written it? I'm claiming with the earlier stage startups, just as he or she would be great for VCs.

The Price of Inequality. It's a case of the other seed firms. Apparently the mall was not something big companies, summer 2010. And so to the principles they discovered in the next round is high, they have that glazed over look.

Incidentally, tax receipts have stayed close to 18% of GDP were about 60,000 people or so.

Wufoo was based in Tampa and they would probably a bad idea. I suspect five hundred would be lost in friction. In this essay. Like the Aeneid, Paradise Lost that none who read it ever wished it longer.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Max Roser, Paul Buchheit, Dan Giffin paper, several anonymous CS professors, and Emmett Shear for their feedback on these thoughts.

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ulyssessklein · 7 years

Text

The power of planning: how an indie music video that got 30+ million views in its first week took 1.5 years to make

An interview with Jensen Reed about his music video “Back to the 90s.”

Planning. It might not be necessary to make great music, but it certainly comes in handy when you’re trying to produce an entertaining music video.

And the video for Ben Giroux & Jensen Reed’s “Back to the 90s” is entertaining from start to finish, with crazy attention to detail, lots of extras, lookalikes, props, and locations to keep you looking and listening and laughing the whole time. The video took a loooooooooong time to plan and execute, but it was worth the wait. In its first week, “Back to the 90s” has been viewed more than 30 million times across YouTube and Facebook.

I’m really interested in the video production process — whether it’s no-budget, shot by a pro in an afternoon, or something more elaborate — so I asked Jensen Reed about what went into the video for “Back to the 90s.”

CR: Can you tell me about the timeline for the production? How long did each phase take?

JR: It took almost a year and a half from concept to finished video. Ben Giroux came to me with the idea of doing a music video that’s a celebration of all things 90s. We both were 90s kids and sensed a movement for 90s nostalgia, so we knew we were on to a solid idea.

A big part of the challenge was incorporating multiple genres into one song effectively. My production partner Christian Hand had the genius idea and I knew we had to figure out a way to execute it. I enlisted my buddy Jared Lee who is an amazing songwriter and artist to help us with the chorus and my man Dirty Hollywood who is pure rock n roll to work out the grunge bridge with us.

Our Cinematographer Zach Salsman absolutely crushed this shoot. Zach and I have worked together on a bunch of my music videos and his eye and talent behind the camera is unmatched.

We shot the video in two long production days. (Show in the video below):

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The key to knocking it out so efficiently was the pre-production process that lasted for months…locations, crew, cast, times, logistics etc. It was truly a massive production with over 100 people on set.

One thing that allowed for the shoot to go smoothly was the lyrics. Because we had so many specific 90s references, we knew exactly what shots we needed. Unlike most of my other music videos where we roll the entire song and do a bunch of performance takes, we only shot the snippets of the song in each setup we needed. This also made the original skeleton for the edit come together quickly because we knew which shot went where in the timeline.

Did you call in a lot of favors to get this video done?

There was an immense amount of talent involved in the project that donated their time and expertise or worked for us at a major discount. This was a team effort in every way imaginable.

I found the attention to detail super impressive. Can you talk about scouting locations, gathering props and costumes, finding lookalikes, and so forth?

Locking down an airplane hangar to re-create the vibe of the iconic Backstreet Boys video “I Want It That Way” was the biggest challenge. We found Whiteman airport outside of Los Angeles and the owner was open to cutting us a deal because he was a former film school student and understood the idea of a passion project. All of the locations and minutia involved in a shoot this big were handled masterfully by our Producers Jon Rosenbloom, Scott Thomas Reynolds, and Marc Barnes. They are masters of getting sh*t done!

We secured Bullock and Snow Casting to cast all of the roles and they knocked it out of the park! Every person they cast was incredible. They also got us the amazingly talent Alexander Arzu (who plays the kid we educated about how great the 90s were).

Our Art Department Melissa Lyon and Marissa Bergman took the production to another level with the ridiculous attention to detail in creating spaces covered with 90s paraphernalia. There are so many ‘Easter Eggs’ littered throughout the video for viewers to discover, which has led to many people watching the video over and over. And our Wardrobe Designer Chelsea Kutun found all of the iconic and memorable looks for everyone involved in the shoot.

What happened between the final edit and the launch? How did you prepare to promote the video?

Ben and I edited the video and got it to an almost final point before we enlisted Animators Doug Bresler, Ilana Schwartz, Tony Celano, and Zoran Gvojic to add their magic touch including NBA Jam, Ren & Stimpy, Doug, Celebrity Deathmatch etc. VFX by Jake Akuna was the final piece of post production that added more detail and interesting effects, upping the ante yet again.

We had a live release party in Los Angeles the day before we released the video. It turned out to be one of the most fun parties that any of our 300 guests had been to in a while. We encouraged everyone to dress in their best 90s gear. Jared and I performed a couple of our original songs and we then screened the video and performed “Back to the 90s” live.

We encouraged everyone in attendance to share the video at 10am on Monday, May 1st when it was released to get the ball rolling. It helped tremendously that many people in attendance have a lot of social influence because of their own creative pursuits. We didn’t hire a publicist. We just put it out to the world with the hopes of it being so good that people would instantly want to share and that’s what happened.

What are you most proud of about this video?

I’m most proud of the incredible team that Ben and I assembled to make this project a reality. It’s very rewarding to have so many working parts feel attached to your creative vision and hustle on your behalf. It’s a testament to working hard, respecting others and ultimately fostering a positive environment where everyone can thrive.

What would you do differently next time?

I have to say there isn’t anything we could’ve done better on this one. It’s as near perfect as it gets and 36 Million views speaks to that.

Any advice for an independent musician that’s just starting to think about shooting a music video on a limited budget?

My advice is to collaborate with others and when you find good creative relationships, go back to them again and again. Ben and I have a philosophy of less-is-more, meaning we aim to create a smaller number of projects with high production value versus a bunch of smaller ideas. This is the typical 15 year overnight success story. I have 16 other music videos and Ben has been a working actor for well over a decade, so there is a lot of hustle-equity built up behind the success of “Back to the 90s.”

One technical skill that I believe every musician should have is Video Editing. I’ve edited almost all of my videos. It’s a skill that came very easy to me because I know the story I want to tell and it’s similar to editing audio in Pro Tools. Cinematographers will be much more likely to work with you as an artist when you can handle the 50 hours of post production work it takes to pull select footage and assemble an edit. It also gives the artist creative control over the video and saves a bunch of money.

Check out more of Jensen Reed’s music videos at http://www.jensenreed.com/videos. More from Ben Giroux can be found at http://www.bengiroux.com.

The post The power of planning: how an indie music video that got 30+ million views in its first week took 1.5 years to make appeared first on DIY Musician Blog.

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