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April 29, 2003
Kittyloaf
My friend Meat Kitten has a new site up called Kittyloaf.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:29 AM | Comments (2)
April 28, 2003
Fast Art
I've made a quick web page of links to information about what I'm calling "Fast Art" -- events where people make something artful under abnormal time constraints. I'd appreciate pointers to information about other events.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:20 PM
Math Invaders
Last night's Cinema 2.0 movie was Invasion, a rather odd sci-fi movie from Canada, starring Campbell Scott and Tom Everett Scott. (The first thing everyone says when Tom Everett Scott makes his first appearance on screen: "Hey, wasn't he in That Thing You Do?" The second thing everyone says: "Why is he kissing his sister like that?")
Invasion is something of a parody of '50s sci-fi movies and has lots of odd images and moments. The audience laughed all the way through (as they have for every Cinema 2.0) but fairly often they were laughing at something on screen, not at the cast's wit. The cast, understandably, felt a little slighted and would prefer to not to be outdone in wackiness by the movie itself. And it's very true that I think our best movie was last week's Harrad Experiment, which is a very plain movie (mostly just people talking) which gave the cast lots of room to create.
So, a lesson for the future (if there is a future for Cinema 2.0). But, and still, the audience was laughing.
The future, for now, for Cinema 2.0 is that next week is closing night. We've got a special treat in store. For now I'll just say "Robert Van Winkle". There'll be some sort of closing night party I'm sure.
Addendum:Two things I forgot to mention: when I went downstairs to warm up with the cast at 7:48 there were about 7 people in the house and so I made noises about "the house looks a little light, but I'm sure we'll have a great energy anyway, yadda, yadda, etc, etc". When we came upstairs at 8:02 or so, the house was pretty full, so the question was moot. I'm glad all those people showed up right on time.
And the suggestion for the night was "Mathematics." I had told the cast that I was going to get a completely random suggestion and that they should ignore it as quickly as possible. They got back at me by using math terms constantly and vigorously.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:14 PM
April 25, 2003
Subliminal
I just took the "Voice Your Choice" poll on the Fox Chicago site and it seems they are subliminally trying to encourage us to go after Iran.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:49 PM | Comments (1)
These are the people in my neighborhoodie
I found out about Neighborhoodies from an Onion ad back in November and I've been a proud owner of an "Uptown" hoodie since shortly thereafter.
So when I found out that Michael needed people to show up for a Fox News piece to promote Neighborhoodies in Chicago last night, I was happy to do so.
It turned out to be a combo piece on Neighborhoodies and Windy City Fieldhouse, who do "team building" exercises. So they divided us hoodie-wearers up by neighborhood (West Side vs. North Side) and had the WCF people run us through sack races and walking-on-a-pair-of-planks-with-ropes and so on. About 3/4 of us were improvisors, which was probably great for their piece because everyone was hamming it up. (The rest of the people seemed to be ad sales folks from the newspapers that Neighborhoodies advertises in.)
So at least a few seconds of me will be on The Bottom Line segment of Fox News Chicago, next Friday (May 2) at 9 pm. Uptown!
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:34 PM | Comments (1)
MSI Proposal done
If you've been in contact with me over the last few weeks, you've surely heard me complaining about the "proposal" I've been working on. This morning I finally got our proposal for the Museum of Science and Industry Live Performance Series finished and delivered, via the web, of course. I also made it into a web site, so the evaluation comittee could look at it online if they wanted.
I'd share it with you, but Shaun thinks you're all evil and black-hearted and will somehow steal all of our brilliant ideas before the presentation and interview we have with the evaluation committee on Wednesday.
So, I'm done complaining about the proposal. Now I can switch to complaining about the reel I need to put together for the presentation. And the work I'm doing for Fluke. And the video I need to edit for Versailles.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:38 PM | Comments (1)
April 22, 2003
Phoenix pictures
I've posted a gallery of pictures from our trip to the Phoenix Improv Festival. The Barrow Gang also has a gallery of pictures.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:14 PM
St. Louis
Bare has been invited to perform at the St. Louis Improv Festival on Friday, May 30. Look out, Missouri.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:58 AM
April 21, 2003
Best ever (yet)
Best. Cinema 2.0. Ever. (so far -- two weeks left)
Whew. That was some hot, hot Cinema 2.0 action.
The movie this week was The Harrad Experiment, a 70s drama about "free love" and it's consequences. It's notable for being Don Johnson's first starring role, for lots of nudity (which was already edited out of the DVD version I have), and, of interest only to improv-history buffs, for an appearance by Ace Trucking Company, an improv group that included Fred Willard.
The suggestion was "History" which hovered around the show all night, but the main action hinged around an off-handed comment from Homer as "Professor Snodgrass" that a murder had been committed on campus. Don Johnson became an undercover cop who was toying with the affections of the woman pretending to be his wife.
Yay!s go to Ben and Todd for their tight, pointed playing, to Michael for the theme song ("The History of Your Life") which popped up at crucial moments, and Phillip and Andrea for the torturous relationship of "Don" and his "wife".
Like I said up top, only two weeks left for this funny, funny show. Next week: Canadian Sci-Fi.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:22 AM
Please note
Please note: if you ask me to help you with a video or sound editing project, please do the prep work that I ask you to do before you show up (log your takes, pick your shots, listen to the songs, whatever).
Three this week. Three! I swear, soon I'm gonna get mad enough to say something to someone's face.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:05 AM | Comments (0)
Why am I still up?
I usually wear my watch, but I forgot to wear it tonight for some reason. I ran tech for the Vidiocy short film contest tonight, and as I was leaving, everyone was thanking me for sticking it out until the end (which I had to do to take my equipment). I wasn't sure why until I got in the car and saw the clock there. It was 2:30 am!
My advice to the next round of Vidiocy contestants is to take the ten minute limit as a extreme limit, not as a goal. Thanks.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:00 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2003
"Hell-week comes to Frogtown"
I was in Phoenix over the weekend for a festival, but I made it back in time for Cinema 2.0 by flying out very early on Sunday morning. I had just enough time to dub the VCDs of the Harrad Experiment for next week and print off the screen breakdowns and do the character assignments and head over to the theater.
This week's movie was Hell Comes to Frogtown, a post-apopalyptic* movie starring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.
We had a few cast-members' parents in the audience and when I mentioned that in our re-show warm-up, Trish said "Oh no -- whenever I get warned to keep a show clean, I always get really dirty." That proved to be true for everyone, not just Trish. It was a dirty, dirty show. Of course, it's probably my fault for picking a movie that features Roddy Piper in a remote-control chastity belt.
I asked for a suggestion of a minor household problem and got "leaky pipes". That became the problem that led to the apocalypse that led to our movie. In a world without water, Roddy had the special ability to create water. From his, you know, thingy. Yeah, it was a little weird. Oh, and he was rushing a fraterity, also.
The show was very blue, and the voice work was a little sloppy, but in terms of creating a new plot for the movie that actually made a little bit of sense, this was one of our best efforts so far. And Trish singing snippets of Culture Club songs was bee-you-ti-FULL.
* When I was in school, the Purdue Exponent had a movie review that included this misspelling, and now whenever I say "apocalyptic", I think "apopalyptic" in my head (apopalyptic is a world after pop music, I suppose).
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:37 PM | Comments (2)
Phoenix
A strange, strange weekend.
Shaun and I went out to Phoenix Improv Festival this weekend. Ended up in a hot tub with Schadenfreude (who were in town for a different festival) at 5 am on Sunday morning.
Oh, and our show "blew the roof off" (just got that in an email from one of the Barrow Gang). So, good job us.
Special thanks to Jose for being the world's best tour guide, Travis for the beer, and Clif's dad for letting us crash in his hotel room.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:20 PM | Comments (2)
April 10, 2003
FuzzyCo profile
Shaun and I did an interview with Lucia Mauro a little while ago and I guess it has come out as a profile of FuzzyCo in the latest Performink. I've gotten several compliments already, but I haven't received my subscription yet, so I have no idea what's in the article. I'm sure I'll post a link here as soon as I can Here's the article -- relentless self-promotion is what I'm known for, after all.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:47 PM | Comments (1)
April 9, 2003
Early Trivia
This week I'll link to Megan's Cinema 2.0 movie trivia early, rather than waiting until we've already shown the movie to entice you with trivia, since that doesn't actually do any enticing.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:52 PM | Comments (1)
House Concert
I've been saying the phrase "house concert" a bunch lately, and most of the people I say it to say "house what?"
My friends in the band Ruth Buzzy wanted to do a show for their Indiana friends who find it hard to make it up to Chicago for a late night show, so they decided to have an acoustic show in band member Matt's house at 8 pm on a Saturday. And they asked Bare to open up for them, to fill out the evening. Back when we started Crazy Monkeys our philosophy was "anytime, anywhere" and so we said "Sure".
And then Saturday, Shaun got stuck in San Diego. So I ended up doing the show by myself. I've done a solo show before, so that was no problem. I did a solo version of our current "Pagent of History" form. The 30 people there (and let me tell you that 30 people in a living room feels like a crowd) ate it up with spoons. So, yay! And Ruth Buzzy was really good. It was great to really hear a lot of their clever lyrics, which can be so hard in a bar. I still like to hear them rock out, but it was a cool evening.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:17 AM
April 8, 2003
"The Puce Anteater"
This week's Cinema 2.0 movie was The Green Hornet, with Bruce Lee as Kato. There was an upsurge in interest in Bruce Lee after his death and so the producers of the old Green Hornet TV show cobbled together several episodes with loose connecting material into a feature length movie. As before, Megan Pedersen assembled a mass of trivia about the movie.
I was super-tired Sunday, from the Party of the Century™ (as Trish was calling it), so I forgot to do the character assignments until the last minute. The character assignments? OK, here's your behind-the-scenes look at how much the cast does or doesn't know about the movie before-hand:
At each show, I give the cast members a VCD of the movie for the next week. They can watch them as much as they want (though I think most people are watching them once), with or without sound (I think the cast is split 50-50 on this). One cast member watches the movie carefully and does a breakdown of the scenes of the movie and which characters are in each one -- something like "5:00 - driving in the car - Green Hornet & Kato, 6:30 - kung fu fight - Kato, Bad Haircut, Blue Jacket". (One of the tricky aspects of doing the scene breakdown is coming up with names for the characters that make sense if you've only watched the movie with the sound off.) They then email that breakdown to me.
So then Saturday or Sunday (late!) I take that breakdown and assign characters to each cast member (both to keep big vs. small parts fair over the run, and to make sure that no one has to do a scene with themselves in the course of a show). I hand those assignments and copies of the scene breakdown to the actors when they get to the theater Sunday night, so they have time to ask questions like "which one was Bad Haircut?"
(I get kind of pre-emptively defensive about whether or not some decision I've made about a show makes people think it's "really improv". I don't think our prep work takes away our "improv cred". Discuss.)
So anyway, I got a suggestion of an animal ("anteater") and the movie gradually became about the quest of The Puce Anteater (and his Australian sidekick, Bricko) to get a bite to eat. What is it with these guys and food? Does the cast not eat dinner before they come to do the show? Discuss.
Trivia note: Phillip Mottaz has now played both Bruce and Brandon Lee. Creepy.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:30 AM | Comments (2)
April 4, 2003
Neutrino Project Updates
This last weekend I was in New York visiting a friend and I was going to go to see the Neutrino Video Project and I really, really intended to just watch it. I didn't even tell them I was coming, I just showed up at the theater. But then their celebrity guest for the week fell through and they asked if I wanted to jump in and I couldn't resist and I said yes. I felt weird about my performance, and I haven't seen the show yet, but a reliable source who has tells me that it was the "best ever." Also, I walked all the way around Central Park. Oh, not as part of the show, I just thought I'd mention it.
People (well, this one guy, anyway) are always asking me, "When are you going to do the Neutrino Project again?" Thursday, May 15, for sure, as part of the Chicago Improv Festival. And since we don't really need a stage, just somewhere to put the screen that people can see it, we've been looking at non-theater venues like bars and real movie theaters and so on, but nothing has panned out so far.
And, this is exciting, we've made it past the first round of a selection process to be part of a performance series at the Museum of Science and Industry this summer. They'd like the performances to be 15-minutes, so we've got to come up with something that's Neutrino Project-y, but really, really fast.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:49 AM | Comments (2)