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January 30, 2003
AYUMDS
And I have to get ready for the AYUMDS auditions this weekend. If you haven't already signed up for the auditions, why not?
I have plenty of work to do for the show. I work with Megan Pedersen, who produces the Playground's Directors Series and at lunch when she mentioned that it looked like the first DS show of 2003 was going to fall through because of the director's other projects and that the Playground was getting a donated video projector, I threw out that there was this movie dubbing show I've always wanted to do, and since The Neutrino Project was closing (it's not), I'd have plenty of time to direct it.
Next thing I know, Megan got the board to approve the show, we've got auditions scheduled, and now I have to do the damn thing.
Last night I spent a bunch of time on-line buying copies of re-dubbed movies. For example, I reference Woody Allen's What's Up Tiger Lily a lot in relation to this show, but I realized that I didn't own a copy to be able to show anyone what I was talking about.
Here are some good things: I've been thinking about this show for awhile and I've got plenty of ideas about how I want it to work. Megan -- it'll be nice to work with a producer that's not me (or Shaun). This show's gonna be just plain fun -- that's a plus.
Posted by Fuzzy at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)
Extension Blues
If you hate to read me complaining about how much work it is to have a show that people want to see, just skip this entry.
Tensions are a little high around the FuzzyCo offices today. Shaun called me up with some legitimate and constructive criticisms of the extension press release and I kinda bit his head off. We both have a lot to get done in the next few days to make sure that people know about the extension, since we are moving days, times, and theaters (that's Fridays at 8 in February at the ImprovOlympic).
All the papers called Shaun on Tuesday morning to confirm that we were closing. "Yup," he said, none of the negotiations I so coyly alluded to having produced any results. And then IO called on Tuesday afternoon with an offer of the four Fridays in February. Shaun and I debated the pros (IO's a great theater in a fun neighborhood) and cons (it's still cold, we're going to have problems with cast and crew prior committments (including Shaun and I being out of town the 14th)) and decided to go for it.
So now we have to call all the papers back, and I have to make a new press release (done), design and order new postcards (done), design a new poster (not done), figure out who can do which show and who can replace them and so on and so forth (not done). Oh, and find a Digital-8 camera to borrow for this weekend and figure out what we're doing for cameras for the new run.
Hey, here's a non-complainy thing. I paused in the middle of writing this to write an email to the cast about the extension (I figured I owed it to them to give them the information before I gave it to the world) and I finished up a long message of duties and reponsibilities with "You are all the bestest mostest funnest people." Which I included in the message under a generic "say something nice" principle, but then I surprised myself by realizing that it's true. I watched last week's show again last night and it was, you know, good. And I took a moment to remember just now that I had fun doing it. And that's why I do all this stuff that makes me crazy, to be able to do this fun thing with these fun people.
Posted by Fuzzy at 04:45 PM
January 29, 2003
Extension!
We're extending the Neutrino Project! We're moving to the ImprovOlympic (corner of Clark and Addison), Fridays at 8 PM in February.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:26 AM
January 28, 2003
"Juggling"
Hey, look at me! I'm on screen!
Which is to say... at this week's Neutrino Project, Andy Eninger (Sybil, Chicago Comedy Company, GayCo, Hungarian film school grad) sat in as a videographer, so I sat out. And Jennifer S. is in England and Elizabeth was ill, which takes us down to 8 actors, which is do-able, but it's nice to have a group of three for variety, so I sat back in as an actor. Which was pure selfishness -- I haven't rehearsed improv on camera, the other videographers would love to do the same, etc. etc. So I took a big, deep "I'm the [co-]producer and I've worked really hard on this show and I want to" breath and put myself on the schedule.
As for my personal performance, all I can say is that no one looked at me after the show and sadly shook their head, so it must not have gone too badly.
As for the entire show (suggestion "Juggling"), Greg and Rachel, who get to see the whole show from the booth, said "best show ever". I captured the footage Sunday and I agree it was very good.
Posted by Fuzzy at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2003
100% Sold Out
We're now officially 100% sold out for the last two weeks of The Neutrino Project. We do release reservations at 10:15 on the night of show, so if you can brave the cold you can try to get in. As far as I know, we're not doing reservations for the February 1 midnight show, so that'll just be first-come-and-freeze-first-in. Did I mention that was my birthday weekend? As I mention every year, I don't like cake. I like pie and cookies and cheesecake and ice cream. Just not cake. Not that I'm saying that bringing a pie to the show would get you in.
Since we're all sold out, people keep asking if we're going to extend. Of course we'd love to. We can't extend in the same time slot at WNEP, because of . Which I'm sure is going to be a great show, but still, damn Dirty Bible Stories. We can't extend at WNEP in any other time slot because of all the other shows at WNEP. Damn other shows.
So that takes us to other theaters. Which means negotiations and negotiations. Which is what Shaun does all day at work, so he handles the majority of that for FuzzyCo. And I'd love to tell you all about who we're talking to about what and when, but that tends to jinx negotiations. So I can't. At this point, it doesn't look like we're going to be extended right away -- which the cast won't mind -- they've already indicated that they won't mind taking the coldest weeks of the year off.
Oh, and someone used the phrase "Fat cash" in an email to me about the show. Indeed, despite my early pessimism about making money on the show (based on the money I've lost on pretty much every other show I've produced) we're going to make a profit on the show. Which, as we promised the cast and crew, will go to the cast and crew. It's a FuzzyCo rule that everyone gets paid, even if we lose money. (We paid people $2.50 a show for the two preview Neutrino Projects. Not much, but it came straight out of my pocket.) This time, happily, I don't have to shell out my own cash to make that happen.
Wow. I wrote that last paragraph and then Shaun called -- some loaned equipment suddenly fell through for this weekend. It looks like we're going to have to go buy stuff tomorrow morning. We're not going to take that cost out of the show profits, that wouldn't be fair to the cast, but it turns a break-even show back into an expensive proposition. Poop.
Posted by Fuzzy at 04:33 PM
RadioHead
Yes, that was me on WBEZ this morning. Soon it will be on their Audio On-Demand page for Eight Forty-Eight. Fast-forward the audio to 1 hour and 4 minutes in.
P.S. It's "Himmerick" (it sounded to me like Steve Edwards said "Immerick") and my last name is pronounced Grrrr-diss, not Grrrr-deez. Just FYI.
Posted by Fuzzy at 02:54 PM
January 23, 2003
AYUMDS
Auditions have been announced for the As Yet Untitled Movie Dubbing Show. This is a show I'll be directing as part of the Playground's Directors Series. The show will feature "live improvisation over a variety of pre-existing projected movies. A cast of six improvisers will provide the improvised dialogue and sound effects accompanied by a live band which will create an original improvised score, thus transforming the film into an entirely new viewing experience." (Megan Pedersen wrote that. She's smart.)
If you're reading the Neutrino Project journal only, entries about the AYUMDS will be on the FuzzyCo mainpage and on the AYUMDS-specific archive.
Posted by Fuzzy at 02:18 PM
240% Sold Out
One of the great things about renting from WNEP is that they handle reservations through their voice mail system. Don Hall was feeling a little under the weather this week and didn't check the voice mail for a couple days, though. We have 160 reservations for this Saturday. The theater seats about 65. We're 240% sold out! Shades of The Producers, only in reverse, or something.
So... if you want to see the show, you can either camp-out in the dangerous wind chill (we release all reservations at 10:15), or make your reservation now for next week (February 1). Next week we have two shows -- the regular show at 10:30 and then an encore midnight show. At midnight we won't actually be DOING the show, the cast and crew will be sitting in the theater watching the show and yelling and drinking. Because of the yelling and drinking, that show is only $5. Make your reservations now! Quickly! Act without thinking! 773-296-1100!
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:46 PM
January 22, 2003
A Face for Radio
There will be a piece on The Neutrino Project on WBEZ's (91.5 FM) Eight Forty-Eight on Friday (Jan 17) Wednesday (Jan 22) Friday (Jan 24) between 10:00 am and 11:00 am.
Can I just take a moment to bite the hand that's feeding me and note that Eight Forty-Eight is a bad name for a great radio program? Every single person that I've tried to tell about the program says, "OK, 8:48 am on Friday." WBEZ is located at 848 East Grand, which is where the name comes from, which is clever, and yet... not.
UPDATE (1/22): Confusingly, they used a clip of my voice at 9:30 but then they ran out of time and never played the piece. Justin (Kaufmann of Schadenfruede, as well as WBEZ) assures me it will run this Friday (1/24) in the 10 o'clock hour.
Posted by Fuzzy at 04:13 PM | Comments (2)
January 21, 2003
"Butt Hair"
Sigh. "Butt Hair." Some days I wonder why we take suggestions at all. (Don't even get me started.) And I'm kicking myself over the ending -- it was very dark (lighting-wise, not in mood) and I figured out some things I should have done as soon as I handed the tape off to Dave to run back to the theater.
Also, it's my dream to someday own everything I need to do this show. This week, Adam Witt saved my bacon at the last minute with a loan of his very expensive video camera. So, yay for Adam.
Anyhoo, another sold out show. I don't think it's going to cut into our audience much to say that we're looking at extending. None of the upcoming shows at WNEP can be bumped, so we're talking with other theaters. Which will be a pain. Which is annoying of me, I'm sure, to be complaining about the troubles of dealing with a hit show.
Posted by Fuzzy at 04:00 PM
January 13, 2003
"Octopus"
As I mentioned below, we showed our FFFF short at the start of the show. People seemed to like it, and the show still clocked in at just under an hour, so I'm thinking of showing other cast-created shorts at TNP.
Saturday night was COLD. C-O-L-D. 18-degrees-4-with-wind-chill cold. The cast and crew went through half a case of HotHands hand warmer packs. So, my thanks to everyone in the audience for coming out, and triple thanks to the cast and crew for risking frostbite to do their outside scenes.
The suggestion was "Octopus", which put most of the cast in a sexual state of mind. Not that it takes much to put this cast in a sexual state of mind, it seems. Dan and Beth Andrea were squabbling step siblings who ended up making out and smoking dope in a van, Jennifer discovered that her new movie was actually a porno, and Scott and Jen were a couple-on-the-rocks trying, awkwardly, to spice things up in a sex-toy store. Nobody does awkward like Jen Ellison, so the sight of her reluctantly wearing a chain bra was priceless. And Shaun turned in a remarkably restrained performance as a sexuality workshop leader named "Raw".
Posted by Fuzzy at 05:03 PM
Note to Self: Check the Time
So Friday night, Dave Colan, Lance Hoffman and I headed over to Atomix Coffeeshop to pick up our Fast Forward Film Festival suggestion. This FFFF the suggestions were provided by Found Magazine, so every team got a color photocopy of two found photographs. Our team, Team #17, got a picture of a bearded man posing for a portrait and a polaroid of a Jack Daniel's bottle on top of a red car.
After an hour and a half of brain-storming, we decided that Dave looked enough like the man in the picture that he would play our hero -- Matt McGillicutty, Man of Action -- and that we would be making an entire cop movie in three minutes. And Lance had made the mistake of revealing that he could play the saxophone, so we knew we'd stick that in somewhere. We made a few phone calls to try to line up extra actors, of which only Andrea Swanson answered her phone, and set up a filming time of 8 in the morning. I went home, set my camera to recharge the battery and went to sleep.
Saturday morning, I woke Shaun up at 7:50. As much as I complain about Shaun, I love that I can wake him up after a late night of drinking, say "we're making a movie in 10 minutes and you're the villian" and know that he'll just say, as he did, "OK, I'll take a quick shower -- what do you need me to wear?"
Lance, Dave, and Andrea all showed up on time and we began to work out the choreography. I had decided that a) because of the tight schedule, I didn't want to do any editing and b) it would coolest if the whole cop movie took place in 3 real minutes (and in the 20 yards from my front hallway to the back gate of our parking lot) so I wanted to do the whole thing in one continuous shot. Because Lance was our only extra actor, he had to play the other 3 characters (plus himself with his sax), so we worked out all the moves to let him get off camera and change costumes.
We did a take for practice, without using any of our "special effects" and tried a take for real. We got all the way to the last thirty seconds of the take and my landlord drove up to the back gate, ruining the shot. We did another take where I accidently got Lance changing costumes on camera, and then finally a good take. And then we did one more for good measure. And it was wonderful.
And it was 9:30 and Andrea and Dave both had to leave to go to rehearsals. We didn't watch the tape (experienced film makers will recognize the ominous sounds of foreshadowing music playing in the background here) because there wasn't time to do another take anyway, and it was so cold we didn't want to go outside anymore, and from what I had seen through the viewfinder, the take was perfect.
I dropped those two off at their rehearsals and then Lance and I went looking for somewhere to record his sax solo for the film. All the theaters I have access to were being used, so I called Don Hall because he's a trumpet player and smart. He suggested that for a wind instrument, we just record in a bathroom for it's concert hall-like reverb. So we ended up back at my place.
Lance wanted to watch the tape to see how long to make the solo. And the take was great. But it was 4 minutes long. FFFF films are supposed to be 3 minutes or less. Crap.
But there was nothing I could do. There was no time before the 5 pm deadline that all 5 people could meet up again. So I recorded Lance's sax solos and sat down to edit the film down to 3 minutes.
By chopping out a bunch of walking-from-point-a-to-b, and removing Lance's on-screen sax part altogether, and without any sort of title or credits, I was able to get it down to 3 minutes exactly. It was a shame, because with editing Lance's quick changes weren't as funny anymore, but we didn't know how strict they were about time, and I didn't want my first FFFF to get summarily ejected for going over time. Shaun drove the tape down to Atomix just before the deadline.
A few hours later, Shaun and I went over to Collaboraction's space for the FFFF showing. It was supposed to start at 8, and Sean U'Ren had even made a announcement at the suggestion-giving that the showing would start at 8:00 or 8:15. The first film was shown at 8:50. I'm not complaining, I'm just, you know, complaining. Because of the delay, and our 9:45 call time for The Neutrino Project, we were only to see the first 4 teams' films. So we have no idea how the edited film was received. We showed the uncut 4 minute version as an opening short at The Neutrino Project, and people loved that one, so I hope people liked the edited version.
Oh, and one of those 4 films was 3 and a half minutes long. So maybe we could have gotten away with an extra minute. Oh well.
I'm going to see about getting the short up on iFilm or somesuch. If anyone has any suggestions of their favorite internet short-film posting sites, let me know.
Posted by Fuzzy at 02:43 PM
January 10, 2003
And yet another review
Nick Green, in the Chicago Reader, says the show "crackles with possibility" and "unrestrained enthusiasm."
And the Chris Jones review was in the Tribune today, with a HUGE picture of Beth and Lillie, and a smaller, but still respectable, picture of Cesar, Jen, and Andrea. A big shout out (do people still do shout outs?) to Aaron Gang who took those great PR shots for us.
Posted by Fuzzy at 05:03 PM
January 09, 2003
Busy Weekend
I'll be making two movies this weekend, though fortunately one of them will only be three minutes long.
On Friday night, many of the Neutrino Project crew and I will be getting together to make a three-minute film for the Fast Forward Film Festival. That movie, and 29 others, will be shown at Collaboration (thanks, Lee) Collaboraction (2046 W Carroll) on Saturday night (Jan 11) at 8 PM. (We're not procrastinating, that's how the FFFF works.)
And Saturday night at 10:30 PM, we'll be doing The Neutrino Project as usual. This week we have a guest videographer -- Adam Witt of Schadenfreude will be sitting in with us. Adam did some great stuff in rehearsal, so I'm looking forward to seeing it on screen.
And Andy Eninger, who shot with us during the preview shows, will be sitting in on January 25. Andy has a cinematography degree from a Hungarian film school, and I'm not sure how you can get much better than that.
Unfortunately, someone sitting in means someone has to sit out, so Adam Devlin-Brown won't be shooting this week. But he came up with an excellent idea and he'll be shooting behind-the-scenes footage of how the show is put together. I did a full-featured DVD for Superpunk (deleted scene, commentary, sub-titles, easter eggs, etc.) and with all the supplemental materials I'm accumulating for the Neutrino Project, I'm starting to think about doing one for this show. I probably shouldn't have said that out-loud -- I still haven't finished dubbing peoples tapes from Sybilization.
Posted by Fuzzy at 02:36 PM | Comments (1)
An Instant Blast
I think this will appear in the Chicago Tribune tomorrow, but it's already up on Metromix -- Chris Jones called the show "a fresh, funny and remarkably inventive show", "an instant blast", and predicted that it "will become a big, deserving, late-night hit."
Posted by Fuzzy at 02:12 PM
January 08, 2003
Reviews
A lot of theater people don't read reviews, either not during the run of the show, or never at all. Not me. I love reviews -- good and bad. If nothing else, hey there's my name in print! And with FuzzyCo shows, I'm not just in the show, I'm a producer, so I have to read the reviews to pull out quotes like "this experiment [is] a success and a compelling first step in exploring the boundaries of improv" to put on posters and such. And that's just what Nina Metz said in New City in the first review of The Neutrino Project.
Posted by Fuzzy at 02:13 PM
Snaps from Opening Night
Opening night of The Neutrino Project, as the video camera saw it.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:18 AM
January 07, 2003
One Man Seen - more praise
Before the Chicago run, Andy previewed One Man Seen at the Toronto Improv Festival in August. That performance made Glenn Sumi's Top 10 Comedy Shows of 2002 in the Toronto NOW, calling it an "astonishing piece". (Fellow Chicagoans Bassprov made #4).
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:01 PM
January 06, 2003
One Man Seen
Lucia Mauro's Year in Review in the latest Performink included the FuzzyCo production One Man Seen as one of the "most inventive and empowering productions of 2002". Congrats to Andy, Gary, Heather, and Shaun.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:36 AM
January 05, 2003
"Surfing"
Yesterday, if I had had a chance to get the computer, I would have posted "My personal life is a shambles, I'm not eating right, I've lost 5 pounds in a week, I'm not sleeping, so I guess I'm ready for the show to open."
And open we did. The house was packed. The suggestion was "surfing".
A number of things went wrong, but I'm not sure how much the audience was aware. There was a mix-up where a tape was delivered, but Greg didn't know it was, so there was dead air while he looked around the booth with a flash light. And we got rather confused about how much time we had left when we were shooting the final group scene, which meant it was short and frenetic (I'll say frenetic since I'm not using word "chaos" about my own shows anymore). Both of these problems would have been avoided if Rachel had been there in her role as TimeMaster, but she and Phillip had to miss opening night to do Superpunk at Chicago Sketchfest.
What Rachel couldn't have helped was how slow the Digital8 player was to eject and inject tapes. The audience got to see quite a bit of my new spinning-N transition. We had thought about playing music during the transitions but decided not to because I thought they wouldn't be that long, but the silence is pretty painful. We'll fix that next week.
The exact moment the show was over, I felt... exhausted. Everybody was cheering and congratulating and so on and I was just stumbling around, tearing down our gear and trying not to fall over. The cast and crew all came over to my house and I set all the gear up again and I played the show for everyone. It was pretty good. There were a few moments of camera brilliance and people said funny things and there was an awkward breakup scene and Shaun ran around without his shirt on in the snow and Beth did the robot dance (in the show, not at my house).
So my "next" is clean up the house from the party, archive the show, reblank the tapes, figure out transition music, and do it all again next week.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:04 AM | Comments (2)
January 03, 2003
"Collapse"
Note to self: never use the words "chaos" or "collapse" when describing your own show to a journalist, because they will, you know, print that. Otherwise, a great article in today's Chicago Tribune.
And Film Threat put up an article that is basically our press release. (I'm not complaining about that -- I love when that happens -- I consider it a sign of a well-written press release. Besides, they used one of the make-out session pictures.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:21 AM
January 02, 2003
Not. Panicking.
Say, if anybody knows someone with a Digital8 video camera that they might loan/rent us, please let me know. The camera would sit safely in the theater for the show, not be slogged around the streets.
UPDATE: never mind. Thanks.
Posted by Fuzzy at 05:15 PM
Last Minutes
Happy New-trino Year!
The Tech/Dress on Monday went far better than I could have hoped, given all the technical problems we've been having in rehearsal. Our biggest technical glitch was a single tape that simply wouldn't play until Greg ejected and re-inserted it two or three times. But then it did, so problem solved. Hopefully. My ad-hoc, untested sound system worked fine ($20 computer speakers from MicroCenter!), I figured out a work around for a missing player, and even my lousy old 8mm camcorder worked fine.
And the acting... oh, I was so happy with the acting. Everyone had a great balance between interesting situations and emotional relationships between the characters in those situations. Even the fever-dream sequence between far-too-sick-to-leave-the-house-but-she-came-anyway-because-I-asked Jen Shepard and Phillip. If we do that same exact show on Saturday (hey, there's a thought... nah) I'd be very, very happy.
Now all I have to do is most of the things I had planned to get done last weekend. And a few more. I came up with a great idea for the pre-show on Monday (you know how they do trivia and ads before the movies? I'm going to do that) but it definitely falls into the category of "more work for me," and I have no one else to blame.
More pictures! We've got a cast photo and a gallery of publicity pictures (all taken by the inimitable Aaron Gang. If you're a news outlet and would like to print any of the latter pictures, contact me and I'll get you a high resolution copy.
Posted by Fuzzy at 04:36 PM