1999: KRAZ News

Date of Creation: 1999

Synopsis: A group of mental patients produce a news broadcast for their sanitarium.

A Brief History: Another video project for high school video class, we were ordered to make an entire news broadcast with news, sports, weather, music, everything. Having little grasp of what it takes to make these kind of things, we tried anyway. As you can see, it was a marked failure.

Critical Analysis: When I started this blog and said "will post everything, no matter how bad", this is what was in my mind when I wrote that. It's awful. Although Matt Romano as Milton Grape was perhaps a saving grace. I suppose it does kind of have a monty pythonesque feel to it. And as embarrassing as it is for me to watch myself in, it's probably more embarrassing for Ryan in his star trek costume. Sorry Ryan!

1998: Clam Juice

Date of Creation : 1998

Synopsis: In attempt to corner the clam juice market, Willie's Clam Juice launches a campaign to target uncool teens.

A Brief History: This was probably the first video we did that was actually FOR a video production class. I had been dicking around with Ulead Videostudio Pro on my home computer, which allowed you to do some rotoscoping-type work. Unfortunately I had no idea about sizes and formats (I don't even know if there were really any standards back then, there was no firewire capture; I had to use an analog converter) and I had to edit it back deck to deck on some crappy, non-genlocked VCRs, so there's a ton of hilarious video artifacts.

Yes, clam juice is a real product and no, Matt didn't actually drink any, though I imagine it's hard to get that smell out of the container no matter how often you wash it.

The clam is actually a puppet on a black background with fishing line to move his top jaw. That abomination of a logo was actually a preset in Ulead.

My favorite part is probably the tripod in the last shot. There were three shots in the entire thing, really? We couldn't pay attention to something like that?

Critical Analysis: OH GOD THE PACING.

1997: The Monkey's Paw

Date of Creation: 1997 (maybe early 1998, I don't really remember)

Synopsis: Adapted from the W.W. Jacobs short story, this dramatic thriller explores the supernatural realm. When an old friend from a far away land visits the White family, he shares with them a mystery: the paw of a monkey that grants three wishes to it's holder.

A Brief History: I'm sure this was for some literature class, and I'm sure the girls in our group were probably annoyed with us trying to hit this one out of the park by making a crazy short movie instead of phoning it in, but nonetheless, here we are. My favorite moments are probably the fact that we are all obviously reading from our scripts (though Jenny's was cleverly hidden inside of some huge book), Joe's incredibly delayed reaction to me throwing the paw at the fire, and my thinking that I could easily play two different characters in a five minute movie if I just changed my sports jacket and nothing else. I believe we stole the score from Jurassic Park, though I may be wrong. It's so damn dark you can't really tell what's going on, but those almost completely black screens with video lines dancing all over them are  supposed to be the zombie son walking up to the house. OH, and zombie son was played by Donna, who was obviously a girl, so we gave her a hat. Because that's how you make girls into men in movies.

Critical Analysis: I'm getting bored with this portion of the description, as it's hard to do sarcastically without sounding legitimately condescending and full of myself, so this will probably be the last one. I will say that, from a film language terminology, this would be the first time I ever used intercutting to add suspense to a scene, so while we didn't know exactly what we were doing at the time, it's technically a big step in the right direction. Executed terribly, of course. I believe this was very close to the moment where I realized I was not exactly what you would call a "good" actor, though that didn't stop me from doing it anyway for years.

1997: Cooking With Ankit / Cooking with Beto and Cheko

Date of Creation: 1997

Synopsis: Culinary Wiz Ankit (Ankit Patel) displays his gastronomical prowess in this how-to video. His potato rolls are to die for.

A Brief History: I'm not even sure what class this was for, but suffice to say, we were supposed to make a cooking video. We stepped up from the video painter to microsoft powerpoint for our graphics this time, which we video taped off a computer monitor. I'm not sure why the James Bond intro. Ankit's head was set ablaze using a little bit of lighter fluid and the heat from stovetop coil. Did we need the lighter fluid? Probably not. But it's more fun that way. The commercials were from some videotape ankit had, and yes, they are authentic (indian?). And yes, they are by far the best part.

Critical Analysis: It's a how-to video. But it definitely should've won some sort of award for "most entertaining", "worst graphics, ever" and "highest level of VHS generational degradation". It probably wouldn't have looked any worse even if I took a magnet to it.




Date of Creation: 1997

Synopsis: Capitalizing off a proven formula for cooking shows, Beto and Cheko follow up "Cooking with Ankit" with a strikingly similar educational culinary show, in which the audience learns how to cook churros.

A Brief History: When Beto (Dan Gartner) and Cheko (Zach Metcalf) were given the assignment of creating a cooking segment for their (7th grade?) class, it was pretty obvious that the path of least resistance would be to parrot the already successful concept behind Cooking with Ankit, burnt hat, awful powerpoint and all. Especially exciting is the 26 second audio-only introduction. I was annoyed that Dan was stealing my burning chef's hat idea, so I made sure to put extra lighter fluid on there to ensure some hair singeing.

Critical Analysis: Lacking in originality but otherwise top notch work. And those churros were delicious.

1995: Smokey Butts Cigarettes

Date of Creation: 1995

Synopsis: Despite tightening federal regulations banning televised commercials for tobacco products, Smokey Butts Cigarettes continues to push the boundaries with their customer testimonials, this time featuring their number one customer, Bob "The Ashtray" Evans.

A Brief History: As an attempt to expose us 7th graders to the dangers of cigarette smoking that we were undoubtedly blissfully unaware of, if I remember correctly, we were tasked with creating a "realistic" advertising campaign for cigarettes, one in which the companies had to be honest about the effects. The result? Smokey Butts cigarettes.

The charming spokesperson in the fashionable double-breasted suit was played by fellow 7th grader Tim Burbach, and I played the questionably gay Bob Evans because apparently my voice had changed. I'm not exactly sure why I hacked up a bunch of water after my coughing fit, but I'm sure it got quite the laugh in class.

The hacking, wheezing cougher at the end was my dad, who hopefully had a cold at the time because jesus christ.

Critical Analysis: Obviously the commercial was ineffective, because I probably started smoking a pack a day like the next week. If anything, the commercial opened me up to the idea of that smooth, refreshing tobacco taste, so really I have my catholic grade school education to blame for my addictions. All of them. Pinpointing the nationality of my character, once again, proved to be difficult. I want to say Cajun maybe.

1992: ASH News Special Report: Too Much Rain

Date of creation: 1992

Synopsis: A farcical yet shocking predecessor to the great flood of 1993, Too Much Rain chronicles a brief interview between hard-hitting veteran news reporter Jeff Muddy and generic central american resident Nico Arocha.

A Brief History: As far as I know, this was quite literally the first documented video I ever made. It was for a 4th grade project on...something educational, but I'm not exactly sure what. Probably Hurricane Andrew/Felix/Henriette striking the mosquito coasts in 1992. i.e. Nicaragua if my cringe-inducing, pun-filled name is to be believed.

My dad ran our state of the art Sony 8mm video camera, while my mom stood on our deck and sprayed our umbrella with the hose. I made my titles with a toy I had called a Video painter (rev-depot.com/2011/08/26/v-tech-master-video-painter-v-tech-1994/), which I ran into the VCR and recorded the titles in-line. The b-roll was of my backyard during a particularly heavy rainstorm. If you squint really hard and imagine it as helicopter footage, it totally works.

Critical Analysis: Unencumbered by the concept of doing multiple takes, Nico Arocha was uninspired, stumbling through his lines and relying heavily on a non-regional central american accent to flavor his character. As Jeff Muddy, however, Jeff Geiss was the epitome of perfection, and in my opinion, robbed that year of a regional emmy for best news broadcaster.

Come Along and Ride on a Fantastic Voyage: The Introspective Nightmare That is the Cumulative Catalog of My Visual History

If there's two things Coolio and I have in common, it's that we both have a massive library of creative work that was the result of deep collaboration with hundreds of wonderful people throughout our lives.

The second thing, of course, is that we've both been blasting and laughing so long, that even our mamas think that our minds are gone.

The purpose of this blog, however, is to explore the first similarity. Every couple months, someone from my past gets in touch with me and asks about a project we had worked on. Whether I have a copy. If I could mail one to them.

I'm usually more than happy to oblige, but the harrowing combination of a hectic schedule, poor work ethic, and just general forgetfullness condemns their DVD to the dusty shelves of my office for months, completely out of mind. Meanwhile, they patiently wait, politely avoiding pushing the issue, likely due to their fear of my reputation as a horribly cruel individual with few emotions save for contempt.

My goal is to archive every piece of video or film that I have created or collaborated on, no matter how awful or terrible, and put it in the cloud, so to speak, so that anyone who might want a copy could simply download it digitally. This effectively eliminates me as the middleman, and makes it a lot easier for those looking for a dose of nostalgia to facilitate it.

For the most part, I'm going to do my best to post things chronologically, starting with the oldest stuff and moving forward, but their will undoubtedly be some crossover as I find things I thought I had lost.

So sit back and be patient; over the next couple months I'll hopefully have everything up, and at that point, if you don't see something I've forgotten, let me know! I'll try and find it!

One point of clarity: the only work I have a tremendous amount of access to is my own; however, I have made an effort to find everything available that Dan and Sean have been involved with as well, and I'll be posting that as well, it just may not be as comprehensive.

Chaotically Yours,

Nick