And now... the production staff!

Believe it or not, this is not a one-person operation. Anymore. I have enough people involved in enough of my video-making process that I can call them my production team now, and we're all cool with that.

So here's a video introduction to them, as well as to my two main characters who I play on-camera. There's no rhyme or reason to the organization of this video, it's just clips of my main staff that I had and stuck them together with some still shots and commentary.

It's like... part weird documentary, part home movies montage, part music video... But hey, the real point is... this is a look into what it's like makin' movies with Ven, and a brief introduction to some of the people who help me do it. Not all of their work has been featured here yet... in fact, my resident composer, Thursday, was just recruited about 48 hours ago... and some of them ended up unfortunately being sort of UNDER-represented... particularly Mouse, who has been my camera assistant, editor, inspiration, and overall support since the beginning... but whether you've seen their work or not, they've all contributed in some major way and will continue to do s in the future.

Yes, even the 3-year-old.

There are a few other people who aren't part of my production team but are still worthy of mention. I'm going to try to do a second video to give them some recognition, too. I have no idea how soon this will end up happening, but it's on my list of things to try.

"The Impossible Dream"

I have far too much fun doing these.



Here we revisit the Somaturge in singing form. Fun fact: I actually recorded myself in full costume singing this song all the way through THREE TIMES thinking I would stick clips in between the art... but I have so damn much art saved, it was totally unnecessary and would have sort of defeated the point of the video.

I think I've decided to call these fan art things "DeviantArtists' Alley." Because I am completely shameless in my willingness to rip off more popular video makers' series titles. *cough* *http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/aalley*

Anyway, this is me singing as the Somaturge. Because I love doing his voice. This was more challenging than I'd thought it would be -- if for no other reason than because I am singing at the lowest end of my range that I can sing in and still be doing this voice. In fact it took me several takes to get it right because it's really difficult to make this character sound loud, much less belt a note and hold it. I think I managed, though. :3

New Microphone Get! ~ Fan Art Fan Video here!

audio-technica AT2020 USB microphone.

And then I discovered Broadway Karaoke tracks.

And then history was made.

Yes, this is me singing. The only alteration done to this track was some kind of filter I apparently unintentionally had on while recording. It made my voice all echoy. It sounded good, so I kept it, and claim the bragging rights of having done this in one take.

And for my next act...

I had planned that my next review would be the super-spectacular Vegas spectacle EFX.

My plans for that review are quite epic, but I've decided to postpone it while the newest member of Team Somaturgy works out the kinks in her magic wand. Which is to say... I have a special effects person! We're spending a few hours every evening together now working together on some basic practice stuff so I can get a feel for what kind of effects I can realistically write into my script and expect the two of us to be able to edit it sometime before next Easter.

One of these days, very soon, I really ought to post an intro to my whole production team. Yes.

Anyhow, EFX is being postponed and instead my second review will be on Brent Spiner's Dreamland.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I still can't figure out how to use film clips I haven't filmed myself and I want to play with trains. *cough*

And before anyone says "Dreamland wasn't ever intended to be performed onstage! It's not a showtunes album!" ...it's a Broadway performer using songs as a vehicle to tell a story. It is therefor a musical. Also this is my show and I reserve the right to define "showtunes" however I dang well please. ;)

Helter & Skelter's Bubblegum Boogiedown Showtunes Show Episode 1: GOYA

2 weekends of filming (largely because I am busy and prone to disorganization during the week, and have only REALLY late nights to use to film anything)... 10 hours of editing... 20 minutes of finished film...

This... is episode 1.

Click To Play

I do apologize for the abysmal sound quality that persists for most of the first 2/3 of my bits in the boiler room. I had no idea the camera mic was picking up that weird background noise (which I couldn't even hear), and I couldn't speak louder than I was because literally about 15 feet to my right, albeit on the other side of a wall, was a sleeping 3-year-old.

...yeah, there are a number of technical problems with this video. I do see a lot of them and consider them learning experiences which I will probably have figured out how to fix by the next episode. But hey, if you want to point out what I did wrong, please do. I don't see EVERYTHING. ;)


Coming soon:
~Episode 2... subject undetermined as of yet
~An interview with Helter and Skelter, conducted by her loveliness Mouse La Jabraille
~Skelter Goes Grocery Shopping (if any of this footage turns out to be usable, I haven't had a chance to even look yet)

Vlog: Filming for new series, introducing Skelter...

Click To Play

The Somaturge reports following the first filming session for the new series, "Helter & Skelter's Bubblegum Boogiedown Showtunes Show," a review series covering... what else... musical theatre.

This video introduces Skelter, the snarky co-host who usually works with Helter. You don't get to meet Helter until the review is finished, but here's an idea of how the chicken "talks" to the audience. I do use him a lot more in the review videos. Here he's just been kidnapped nd helf hostage by that puppet-building psycho, the Somaturge. Not that that stops him from snarking every chance he gets.

Making the Character: REVIEWERS!

But first, A VIDEO!

Click To Play

Ain't she just the sweetest thing?

Right, to the point. My script for the first episode of my review series has been as finalized as it's going to get in written form and is really, TRULY ready to start filming. I know I've been saying that elseqwhere for like... 4 or 5 days... but now I actually mean it due to having had some valuable insight from a beta reader and rewriting the beginning and the end. And here is why.

Initially, when I decided to review musicals, my reviewer was basically a less evil version of the Somaturge. Then I found a chicken puppet so it was the Somaturge and a chicken puppet. I wrote the script to incorporate humor wherever I could think of a place to make a joke, but incorporating the chicken was awkward and had a lot of potential to just look... tacky and pointless. The jokes were pretty funny, I thought, but I wasn't sure how to put them on film, since dubbing in a voice recording is still something I'm working on being able to do more seamlessly.

So after doing little bits of tweaking and not making it much better, I finally devoted a good solid half hour to doing nothing but just THINKING about it while I did other shit I didn't have to think about at all, and I figured it out.

First, my character, Helter, is not going to be just me trying to act as the Somaturge in a less intimidating way. Helter's just a completely different character. Different voice and everything. I came up with this idea that this golden feather pin I'd been wearing in my hat could be a prop -- this feather is what lets the chicken talk, but only to the audience. He talks in subtitles, which I, as Helter, can't read. I only read his body language and view him as a sort of adorably psychotic pet.

Okay, so... why do I have this feather? Where the fuck did I get it?

That's when I started breaking down boundaries of reality. Christ, I have a camera and apart from reviewing real musicals, there's no reason why I should limit their existence to this world. So... Helter, I decided, is not this guy's real name. I crossed out my original intro in the script and shortened it down to just a few lines where I casually mention that I'm a former adventurer recently returned from a successful quest, which is where I got this feather, and now I'm in witness protection, as a precautionary measure. The chicken, speaking in subtitles, turns out to be sort of a sinister character who immediately outs me by "yelling" my character's real name to the audience -- Helden Griffin -- and making a vague and sinister reference to an evil entity who is still alive and coming for me.

A Daedra.

Like... from Elder Scrolls games.

So my schtick now, rather than being something vague and just weird for the sake of being weird, is that I'm actually a video game PC who stole a magical artifact from a Daedric god (which one will be revealed in time... MUAHAHAHAHAHA...), and then escaped into the "real" world where I'm hiding from the pissed-off god and making videos because I'm kind of bored. This schtick might make more "sense" if I reviewed video games, but I think it is FUNNIER to have ae escaped video game character reviewing SHOWTUNES.

I don't know much about what the artifact I stole does, I just took it because stealing magical artifacts is kind of just something TES-universe adventurers... do. A lot. I will eventually assign SOME power to it that Helter knows about and explain why he thought it was something worth stealing, but allowing the chicken to talk to the audience is its primary relevant function at the moment.

So now... Helter is a complete 180-degree shift from the Somaturge, who is a sociopathic magical mad scientist with messianic delusions. When the Somaturge gets riled up, he does so very quietly, and then people die. A lot. When Helter gets riled up, there's no subtlety about it. He'll scream at you to shut the fuck up or sing praises about things he likes and it's a bit hammy but not so much so that it stops him from getting right back to the point. He also doesn't take himself too seriously, and will tease and dance and be a bit of a clown sometimes. This is very in keeping with his role as a supposed "hero" but of dubious heroicness. We know he did something epic -- stealing an enchanted thingy from a god -- but he doesn't come across as a typically honorable knight sort of hero. He's enthusiastic and self-assured, but every so often we'll get to see that even the chicken can intimidate him when he wants to. In fact, he's basically the chicken's bitch without realizing it.

...this is going to be a fun series to develop. Because it IS still mostly about the reviews, but now it's coming from a character with a lot of potential for additional epicness.