VG Theory Productions

A behind the scenes look at the writing process of an Early Birds episode.

Jack and Dave discuss movies…

Vega has a bit of a problem…

The classic showdown…with a twist.

Vega discovers THE best thing on the information superhighway.

Vega’s acting stranger than normal for some reason…

Directed by: Ricky Coulter –
Vega: Pete Hess –
The Bad: J. Phillip Ruff –

Crazy improv antics.

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.

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).

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…