But that's not fair, not when a lot of really interesting and fun things did happen in 2016, primarily the amount of collaboration I got to participate in that completely knocked 2015 out of the park. And, ultimately, I got a fair few projects under my belt in addition to winding up with a new job for this new year. But we all know I don't talk about my RLJ on here, so screw it - let's get to the projects. I'm just going to bullet point these things, because why the heck not. I'm late enough as it is, anyway! Maybe I'll add some pictures. People like pictures, right?
Where am I? Okay, here we go.
Happy 2017! I was very dressed up for how often I died during the Oregon Trail card game... Minus my socks, anyway.
- Alright, first things first - I did not finish my second novel. However, I finished editing the 42nd draft of my second novel, and my Ideal Readers tore through it in the best possible way, letting me know what was working and what needs some more polishing up before I hand it over to the lovely Michele for the final examination. I'm working on those revisions slowly, partially because I have the time (Michele's going to Europe) and because I've long passed the point where I'm completely sick of this stupid book. Be done, already!
- In addition to that (and NaNoWriMo, which I completed with time to spare for once) I wrote six different scripts this year, and I have solid ideas for 6 more. Two of them were filmed ("Faer Play" and "That's a Wrap!"), three of them require far away friends to come closer, and the remaining script needs additional elements, like snow and the creation of a particular kind of puppet. In the meantime, I need to really get on two of the unwritten scripts, because one is for Valentine's Day and the other is for April Fool's. The others need to be thought over a little longer. I don't really make scripts based on immediate need; if an idea pops into my brain, I write it out. It's kind of strange, because I can't write short stories to save my life. Really brief, bizarre little films, though? I'm on it. However, biggest news -
- Dad and I wrote a script together! We didn't even plan it - I was complaining about a common movie trope and suggested a better alternative, he thought it was a great idea and started spitballing scenarios, and before I knew it we'd planned and plotted all through dinner, and exactly two people know what I'm talking about because I already messaged them and told them to fix the problem of time and space so they can be in the same location as Dad and me so we can make this movie, dammit.
- Dad also created a completely new and original score to "The House", the short film that Tina, Maryna and I made in the summer of 2015! Previously, it had just been a voice-over (my voice, recorded on my phone inside of a closet). When I decided I was going to shift my short films to a new Youtube channel to separate them from the spate of podcasts, I realized this would be a good time to consider revising "The House", so to speak. I strategically mentioned this to my father, and next thing I knew, we were side by side in front of the keyboard, me requesting extremely specific things such as "can you make that higher?" and "like that, but kind of different, you know?" Finally he made the sensible decision to kick me out of the room, and about a day later he had a score for me. I used the very first - and only - file he recorded. It sounds great, and makes "The House" just that much more atmospheric and eerie. My dad's a genius, guys!
- Alright, let's do more films! "Faer Play" was filmed in July and released in, uh, not July, because it took me a hundred years to edit. It's the most technically ambitious (and lengthy) film I've done so far. It's not perfect, but I'm really proud of it.
- It took three days to film, one of those days being myself and my father running around with a snake puppet - Lucinda - in the forest preserve. I wasn't really prepared to be the puppeteer for that film, but when needs must you just go ahead and stick a giant, full body snake over your head to go for the gold. Or silver. Or bronze. Or crazy weirdo joggers.
Going over the script while Dave sunbathes/rots in the background.
- Speaking of crazy weirdo joggers, remember the crazy weirdo cyclist? THAT'S DAD!
- As for that puppet I mentioned, Lucinda really is that big. She was also made out of fabric and fleece, which was really stupid because, again, we were filming in July. But her mouth is so large that you need two hands just to make her talk, and I was so concentrated on making her move properly that I forgot to do her voice. I had to re-dub the whole thing in post production. Dad and I spent an extra day in the forest preserve with re-shoots and trying to make it really look like she was eating Dave. Dad is the one who succeeded in the end! He also let me roll him into some weeds while Lucinda was over his head, so that was nice of him.
Directly before I pushed him into a bunch of weeds.
- "Faer Play" was my first time dragging Dave into all this madness, and now he's going to be stuck doing them forever. He played said weirdo jogger, and man did he kill that role. It's probably one of my favorite things I've ever shot, simply because I can't watch it without laughing (and thanks to the magic of editing, I've watched it A LOT). He also proceeded to flip off the camera the entire time he was dead on screen, something I didn't even realize until I was editing the damn film.
Thanks, Dave.
- Maggie joined me again for her second role, and she was just as amazing as the Grass Faerie as she was when she played the unfortunate co-worker in 2015's "Anger Management". She let me shove her around a forest preserve with good cheer and humor, and she's just adorable, guys. Why isn't she in all the things? Oh right - in real life, she legit saves babies. I'm not even kidding. But she's stuck being in everything I ever make, so too bad, Maggie!
Maaaaaggie!!
- Speaking of getting stuck, Michele actually saved my whole artistic vision (again - not even kidding) by agreeing to be my Water Faerie. Unfortunately, she regretted it almost immediately given that she didn't really realize how far into the preserve we were going, had red berries spit onto her white jacket by a squirrel, and basically was mentally and emotionally scarred by me and the entire process. However, she's amazing and dry as Water Faerie, and for some reason she's still speaking to me (and has even told me she'd be in another of my films, provided it's not a) outside, or b) longer than 4 hours. I find these requirements reasonable).
This was her expression for most of the shoot.
- I also finally got to work with Ramona, who is fucking amazing and knocked the role of the Tree Faerie way out of the park (check out her Facebook and Instagram - she's a burlesque dancer and does all kinds of other dance and performance, too). Her delivery is hilarious, and there were several times I was glad we were experimenting with using an overhead microphone because I can hear myself trying not to laugh on the actual camera recording.
I still can't believe I didn't take a picture while she was up in the tree... I need an on-set photographer.
- She also legit climbed all the way up into a tree for me. How do you repay that kind of thing? Answer - by taking over her house for Christmas and making her the recipient of a very peculiar Christmas present!
- "That's a Wrap!" was filmed on December 10 in almost exactly 4 hours. We really did invade Ramona's house, and we used her street to send out Maggie with a machete. That was... interesting. I have a video of Maggie waving at a car with said machete, so really we're probably lucky we didn't all wind up arrested. Either way though, it was a lot of fun to film, and it presented its own challenges.
- For Dave's head, I decided I wanted to use a prosthetic to make it look like he really was headless in the box. I'd been conniving for awhile how I could drag more people into this nonsense with me, and I managed to successfully trick my old friend Liz (you call her Elisabeth - I call her Liz because we met the first day of high school in biology class) into helping me out. She was amazing - we had a "meeting" about it at Steak n' Shake, she said "Give me a little while", and proceeded to make a legit prosthetic in 24 hours. She even came with us to filming and applied it herself, using makeup and other things I can only assume to be sorcery to make Dave really look like a head in a box. It was so amazing - she's fantastic, guys!
Ta daaah!
- My initial goal for making this film was to put together a quick and dirty Christmas horror film (all my horror winds up being kind of sarcastic. What a shock) that would be easy to film and edit together. Naturally, I also decided to go completely insane and only use originally recorded music for this (i.e. stuff made just for this film, not things I found puttering around Free Music Archive, like I did for "Faer Play"). I had no idea what I was getting into for this, only that I wanted to try and involve more friends of mine who otherwise, due to distance, wouldn't be able to participate.
- The first idea I had was for a slow, slightly creepy rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". I asked my friend Natassa (who is amazing and has a Swedish blog because, you know, she lives in Sweden) to perform it for me. She has a beautiful voice, and is so good at providing those long, drawn out notes that really make the song sound beautiful, but also just a little bit creepy. She's also a total perfectionist - she sent me nine different versions of her singing, which was so sweet and amazing and VERY DIFFICULT BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL REALLY DAMN GOOD. We talked through the different recordings and ideas behind them, and I wound up selecting one of her slower files. This song was also the first time I recorded my own backing music for anything, and while I was initially freaked out by the idea and tried to make Dad do it, it actually was so easy to just play along with Nat's voice. I wanted to do her justice, dammit!
Maggie's Tarantino moment.
- Next, I wanted something a bit more folksy and acoustic to contrast with the death of poor Dave - it was meant to be incongruous and kind of funny, and so when I was debating who to ask about guitar, I immediately thought of my friend Cindy (who is on the other side of the USA). When I asked her if she knew how to play "Deck the Halls", though, she replied with "No" and "Give me a minute." She then went off and taught herself the song in, like, 24 hours. It was amazing. Then, of course, she proceeded to be dissatisfied with every single recording she sent me because she ALSO is a perfectionist. Even after we settled on a version, she wound up sending me one last file after I showed her a rough version of the film because she felt she had a better way of ending the acoustic section. Fun fact - she was 100% right. That slow finger-picked exit from the song was what she added at the very last minute, and it was perfect.
We really, honestly did take over Ramona's house. These are all her real decorations!
- My final goal was to have a ridiculous singalong over the end credits, with everyone who participated in the film singing along. Dad recorded the piano for it (it's great), and then we all sang to it at the end of filming, with Cindy and Natassa sending in their own files so I could blend all the audio together. Naturally Natassa showed us all up, but it came out sounding very cheerful and happy - perfect for Dave's head in the box, and it was nice to include everyone in the end there! Well, almost everyone. Curses to Liz and Tina!
They didn't want to be in this picture, either.
- Speaking of Tina - while she wasn't able to be there for the filming of "Anger Management" in 2015, she was there for all the filming of 2016, which was infinitely preferable! I get a little spacey when I'm doing 14 things at a time, and all I really have to do is look at Tina and go "where am I?", and she remembers what I'm meant to be doing. She also did most of the microphone wielding for "Faer Play", which was appreciated. She also was the getaway driver for "That's a Wrap!", which we thankfully didn't wind up needing. Otherwise, we made a few more Bird Barfs and we also did a Books to Movies podcast, but one of the big problems was that Tina STOPPED READING, and also that I got a bit too busy to edit stuff, so that didn't help. We've been brewing some ideas for the new year, though - we'll see where they end up.
This is what literally every photo I try to take of Tina looks like.
- Alright, I know I literally just said I was going to skip over work stuff like always, but heck - this year I presented an academic paper for the first time in my life because Maryna makes people do crazy professional things (as opposed to me making people do entirely unprofessional things). It went fine, I think. I talked about empathy in gameplay. It was also an excuse to play Gone Home about 47 more times (I really love that game), so it was a win-win.
- I also discovered that I got some new positive reviews on Rate My Professor despite the fact that I was under the impression I was having a hard time connecting with my students this time around. Judging by that and the number of them who came up to me after finals to ask if I was sure I wasn't going to be teaching more classes, I guess I was wrong. I'm happy being wrong, but still - confusing.
- I did several new sewing projects. Jareth was probably my favorite of all the things I made, though the Cersei dress I made for Shae was a close second with the coolest fabric ever. But I also made Vanessa Ives, I made a few weird things that didn't work out, and I made a bunch of swimsuits. The best part of THAT, though, is that I got asked to do some completely custom suits for characters I didn't even know. That made it interesting, which I appreciated!
- I started a new series of drawings called Decaffiends, which are basically creepy looking ladies who want coffee. So, you know. GPOY.
- I made some comics, though nothing worth raving about. Specifically, I made a Kitty comic for the first time since probably high school, primarily to amuse a grand total of two people. Maybe I'll make more - we'll see.
- Everything else was a mashup of a bunch of different trial-and-error kinds of things. I made my own perfume for the first time. I made a bunch of little sculpy sculptures, some of which I never got around to baking in the oven. I reminded myself to knit and made some ugly things, like a really weird blanket. I read something like 56 books, not counting the random stuff I read online or re-read. I started a play. I started three other writing projects. Etc. etc. This bullet point feels wasteful to me, so let's get to what I consider to be the biggest element of 2016:
- My dad retired, so I showed up on his last day and dressed as him.
Happy Retirement, Dad! He actually thought I was dressed as Red Green at first. I can see it.
*coughs*
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