Progress Report - VHS + TFW (Patreon)

It's been a few weeks since I've posted, so I figured I'd give y'all a little update on the two videos I'm working on, which I'll currently call VHS and TFW. There aren't any spoilers in this post or anything, beyond a few screenshots of scripts and screencaps of the VHS filming. 

To set this up, here are the two things I really wanted to do in VHS:

1. I wanted it to be shot on a VHS (surprise), and then I would film the VHS being played on a CRT TV as the final video.
2. I wanted it to revolve around one long take that gets repeated multiple times

Here are the problems with these two things:

1. I normally don't think too much about how I'm going to shoot a video until the day of the shoot. But in this case, the VHS Camcorder doesn't have a functioning viewfinder, so I actually had to plan out each of the shots and try them multiple times before shooting the real take.
2. I normally shoot my videos in small bursts because it's easier to memorize a few lines of dialogue at a time. This video would require me to memorize not just the words, but the way I'm moving and how I'm saying those words.

Basically, these problems all boil down to the same thing:

I want to be lazy, but this video says "no."

To add to the complexity, I couldn't shoot this video in order because I wanted my appearance to change in certain scenes. So I wrote the script and color coded each of the "scenes" by the appearance I needed. And then I compiled the outline of the script (kind of backwards, but sometimes that's how my writing works) and color coded it as well. And then I color coded the shot list.

I love to color code things.

I spent a good chunk of last week just rehearsing the central scene because it needed to be exactly the same every time (this will make more sense when the video comes out), and also because I was waiting on an extremely important, 100% necessary prop that I was buying for this video. This is the prop:

It is an oversized sweatshirt that says "BITMUS PARK 1994 5K FUN RUN." This has no deeper meaning and isn't referenced in the video in any way.

I had it express shipped to me because I thought it was extremely crucial to wear in the video.

I have only some regrets about doing that. But mostly I think it was the right choice. Here's how it looks in context:

Almost unreadable. A real fine purchase.

Anyway, Karen and I filmed the video on Saturday, and I'm EXTREMELY PUMPED with how it's turning out. I still have to do the final filming of the VHS playing on the CRT TV, but that will hopefully happen soon. I've also been recording the process of making this video because it's a bit weirder than what I normally do, so I'll upload a full BTS VHS process video when it gets published.

BUT IT PROBABLY WON'T BE IN FEBRUARY. Because I want to try and make TFW and get it up as my February video. This is mostly because I want to give VHS a lot of extra time in the edit to make it as good as possible, and also because I'd rather make another goofy/ridiculous video before I end up posting another video in the genre of surrealarthouseyhorrorthatisntveryapproachable.

So this week I'm gonna work very hard on TFW, and then I'll probably have more updates about that one in the coming weeks!

Happy February,
BDG