VG Theory Productions

Time flies, or something like that. It was a fairly hectic semester, let me tell you. Anyway, a new year, a new decade, and hopefully a few new shorts from Film Group this time around.

Between Physical Science, US History, Intro to Philosophy, Creative Writing, and, well, WORK, I am finding myself to be rather busy as hell. Even as I type, I am listening to a lecture from my Philosophy instructor, which makes typing kind of tricky, ironically enough. We’ve had a few film group meetings so far this semester, and it seems as though everyone will be working on some rather interesting projects. My own project, “The Wynter Project”, is currently on the back burner, but we will get to it as other films are completed, so that’s cool. Goodness knows I could use the time to finish up the script.

Just a quick update on my landlady: she’s still a bitch.

There is a small possibility of an experimental fake news podcast, depending on whether or not my employers(the college) approve of it or not. I honestly don’t know what to think about this. Working for the college has proven to me, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I HATE Bureaucracy and Political Correctness. These elements of our fucked up society are both dehumanizing and decidedly bland, and when I found my studio for real, these will have no place in my business. I would very much like to follow the early Atari methodology, in that the employees work hard because they love the work, not because they’re being forced to do it. Fuck 9-5, fuck suits and ties, as long as you make multimedia magic, as long as you maintain respect for the studio and for the contracts, you are your own boss.

Well, anyway, it’s a nice dream, a nice change from the sterility of my current phase of life.

Description: The Carl Jr. features bumbling pitchmen in an infomercial trying to sell a “terra-freakin-tastic” GPS device called the Carl Jr., named by one of the pitchmen, Carl Carlson, after himself in one of his many fits of pretention. His unwilling partner, John Smith, has a knack for consistently failing miserably to keep Carl’s exaggerations and exclamations in check. Do ‘you’ know the running man?

Backstory: I’ve typed this up once before, to no avail, so forgive me if the quality suffers this time around. It’s 2 in the morning and I just couldn’t be bothered, so that’s that. The Carl Jr. is a project created during my 2009 Spring Video Production II class at National Park Community College. During our brainstorming sessions at the beginning of the semester, this was the only consistent idea to come about, but not due to any particular drive or effort.

The Carl Jr. had no single director. Presumably, this is obvious. It did end up having some writers, though the writing came in late to the game, as it were, and were the result of a quick rapid-fire back and forth between Phillip Ruff and myself, Ricky Coulter. We projected this new script onto the wall for use as a teleprompter, set up a green screen and a desk, and started reading.

The initial concept behind the Carl Jr. was that it was to be a relatively short commercial selling an as-yet unnamed GPS device that was supposed to stereotypically match it’s user’s personality type; that is to say, it was supposed to exaggerate these stereotypical qualities to ludicrous levels. If the user is black, the GPS personality would become a gangsta rapper-type. If the user was a dim-witted blonde with an insatiable urge to shop and little else rattling around in her brain, the GPS personality became, oh, I don’t know, an effeminate gay man with a taste for fabrics.

See, the biggest problem with this project was a serious lack of direction. Not even the idea’s originator wanted anything to do with the decision making process, and half of the group, myself included, was much more interested in working on “To Each Their Own Ending”, an ultimately unfinish-able Phillip Ruff masterpiece. So by the middle of the semester, we had a few particularly unfunny testimonials and little else. The idea was then for moi, the volunteer for any voice acting or narration that goes on at that school, to write up some dialogue to tie everything together into a commercial and, oh yeah, make these unfunny clips funny. Oi.

Phillip and I became quickly determined to salvage this project, and so the decision came to make the commercial into an infomercial, and, well, the rest is in the video. I would argue that the majority of the editing and post-production was done by myself, though I’m not trying to puff up my ego: merely that I did plenty of work to save the project. I’ll say this, everyone that ‘worked’ on the project ‘worked’ on it, if you know what I mean.

Credits: Woohoo, this time, the video features actual credits, so that’s a nifty bonus.

Be sure to wait until the end for my VG Theory Productions(www.vgtheory.com) splash(or ‘that piece of vanity’ as Juan Balderas calls it).

As you can no doubt tell, I’ve had a slow night and, thus, have been sprucing up the place a bit, though not with 100 percent success. This new theme(Pixel) is pretty nifty, although I think it needs a few tweaks. I also went through and pruned all the spambots from the forum, updated the forum software, and am in the process of installing new themes.

Well, no new content to post, as of yet, but we’ll see what happens on that front…

Tangled Threads is a work-in-progress short film I am directing. It’s about the chance encounter of an almost lifeless Croatian exchange student named Zvonimir and a borderline manic-depressive-suicidal American student named Gwen. It’s been in production since some time in January, I think, and it was supposed to be finished in time for our film festival this year. That didn’t happen, so work continues on the film.

Zvonimir, played by Ricky Coulter

Gwen, played by Cassie Henderson

The script was written in a hurry, under the assumption that the movie would be completed in time for the festival. Casablanca it ain’t, as you can probably imagine. It’s not exactly a bad script, but I think there are some pacing issues, which I am attempting to rectify somewhat with my latest updates to the script. As of right now, all of the dialogue scenes(i/e: essential shots) are basically taken care of. What’s left are some establishing shots, as well as a montage of some sort. I’m anxious to try a particular shot where we see a flurry of Gwens on the screen at the same time(without using a green screen). Well, it’s artsy in my head, at least.

Oh, we’re also currently lacking voice overs and music composition, but I do have an ending theme secured, and possibly an intro as well. Many, many thanks go to Stemage for letting me use this great music.

Unfortunately, it seems like it’s impossible for me to write stuff that isn’t inherently sappy or cheesy, but hey, at least I coupled it with implications of violence and destruction! More to come…hopefully…

Definitely needs more options…

So I wonder how to perk up visitor numbers on this site. I’m definitely busy as of late, which seems pretty bizarre for me, but there must be some way I can make this place interesting for people to read. Seeing as how the podcast is most probably dead(hah, as if it wasn’t obvious from the start), perhaps I should change the focus of the site to suit the studio in general, or something like that. Who knows?

My plans as of right now are as follows:

Resume studies during the upcoming fall and spring semesters,

(hopefully)Transfer to Temple University’s Japan campus for another two years of studies pursuing a communications major,

Find a job and get my own place in Japan somewhere,

Hopefully finish a book by then.

At the present, I am working for NPCC producing promotional videos and radio ads, which is fun in it’s own right. Definitely a job I don’t mind waking up for. It’s a very short gig, though, which is unfortunate but expected. Once it’s all said and done, I have to figure out what would be the most efficient and helpful use of the money I will have earned. One obvious option is to stick the money back for use in Japan, because I do know I will need that and more to survive over there. Another option is trying to get wheels, but it’s just not all that feesible to get a vehicle, even a motorcycle(which I really want), for around a grand. Which is unfortunate but expected.

I’m not sure if a lot of people really understand why I want to risk it all to stay in Japan for two years. I mean, yeah, i’m still attending school, furthering my education as it were, but why Japan? It’s a difficult question to answer. Or perhaps it is more simple but complex. Part of the answer is simply that it’s far enough from the place of my birth that I might just be able to feel as though I was able to get away. That might sound silly to all you normal people out there, but the notion of living here my whole life is a harsh vision that I would desperately like to set aside. Hot Springs isn’t all that bad a place to stay for a while, I guess, but it just feels like a holding pattern of sorts…like a place to die, rather than live.

One major part of the reason is just simply that I want to start my life over. The hand I have been dealt isn’t the worst, but I want something different. I want to sort of forget who I am now, who I was, and become someone else. Life is far too short to live dissatisfied, and that’s exactly what i’m doing now. It’s depressing. It might be somewhat naive to think that “if I can just make it to Japan, everything will work out”, but compared to the alternatives lying in front of me, i’m willing to take my chances with the unknown.

Ah well, that’s a good enough update for the moment. Don’t expect too many too often, but who can say what the future might hold?

Footage from the first day of shooting on my short film, “Tangled Threads”. It was a short scene, but we had a pretty interesting time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgYFJQpVFXM
Thanks to Phillip Ruff for compiling and editing the footage.

Yep, it’s been a while. Finally, I have some new content to share with you, whomever you be. What follows are clips from my fall 2008 Video Production class. Enjoy.

First up is “The Most Original Script…Ever!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN7alKo12XI

Next up is “The Great Debate”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwmXwNrDbXI&feature=channel_page

Finally, we have my personal favorite, “The Magic Skull”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9_lGXfOd1Y&feature=channel_page
Feel free to leave comments, and I hope you enjoy me warez. Later.

Well, folks, that’s one I can cross off my list. No, I’m not kidding. At approximately 1:10 PM CST, right outside the local Department of Human Services facility, the bus passengers, along with moi, were told to evacuate the bus. Now, here’s the deal. When I got on the bus at the college just twenty minutes earlier, I noticed some smoke, but c’mon, I just figured it was excess exhaust or something. Passing Wal-Mart, it became obvious that it wasn’t just exhaust. A couple minutes later, we were pulling over and rushing off the bus.

Wasn’t exactly blazing, but the insulation was burning enough to cause quite a lot of smoke. IT, the bus company for Hot Springs, were quick to call in the cops and the fire department to take care of the situation.

Now for the funny part. Well, sort of funny. Funny, yet kind of sad. But still funny. Let me set the scene. The bus is parked on a stretch of pavement on a slight decline. The cops parked several feet in front of the bus, down the decline. For reasons unbeknownst to me, just a few minutes after we evacuated the bus, it started rolling down the hill and smacked into the cop car. A lot of things happened in the span of about 3 seconds. The bus driver jumped onto the moving bus as quickly as he could, y’know, to slam on the brakes. One of the cops, a rather large and possibly quite portly one, sprinted over to the cop car, opened the door, and was temporarily knocked unconscious as the bus hit the car. Reason being, the car shifted backwards and knocked the door into him. Right about that time, the bus driver stopped the bus, the cop kind of crumpled over and fell on his butt against the car, and people started rushing over to check on him.

He did end up being put on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance, but he seemed okay. Hopefully he didn’t break anything, or this will come off as pretty douchey.

At some point during the commotion, the bus driver gave each of us passengers an index card to fill out. It had the basics, name, address, phone number, etc. There was also a spot labeled “Remarks” that I was able to have some fun with. I believe I wrote something to the effect of:

My appreciation for an interesting bus ride.

Well, something like that. If they ever mention any of our names in the news, good lord, I hope they mention that quote.

Well, that was the interesting part of my day. Anybody else care to share any near death(hah) experiences?

Wow, it’s been some time since my last entry. Only really big news with me lately is that I gave in and signed up for college. It’s nothing fancy, just our local community college, but still, that’s something. Being the picky bastard I am, I had to opt for the Associate in Liberal Studies degree. Basically, this enables me to pick a whole lot more electives than any of the other degrees offered. It’s pretty cool. I’ll be taking web design and video production this fall, among some other somewhat more mundane stuff.

I would be curious to know what’s been up with the other hosts lately since I haven’t really communicated with them in a while. When we branched out, there was a lot of distance placed between us, even though three of the hosts still reside in the same city as far as I am aware. Just one of those little things in life that’s interesting. But…not very.

I tracked down a leaked copy of the Phantasy Star Portable demo for PSP(acronymic irony, har har). Aside from a glitch that basically renders multi-mode unplayable, it’s a pretty great conversion. The lobby system has been almost completely revamped. No longer do you run around the space station, going to shops or things like that in 3d. It’s all been streamlined into a 2d, menu-based interface. Now, I can see why Alfa Systems did this, and it does make sense for a portable system, but honestly, it doesn’t quite feel right. It doesn’t feel like Phantasy Star(not counting the earlier RPGs). The gameplay itself is spot on and the controls are pretty tight. One gripe is that the player is forced to use the analog nub for character movement. Again, I can understand why the developer did this, considering how every entry since the first Phantasy Star Online had analog movement, but what a hell of a cramp this can induce. No doubt this is offset by 5-15 minute missions rather than the, admittedly, somewhat grueling grind-fests of old. I’m not quite sure how to feel about that yet. Still, i’ll buy a copy if it ever comes stateside.

That’s good for now. Take care, folks.

Ricky Coulter
Writer, Gamer, Caveman.