Welcome to Foley Fridays “Karaoke”. Much like you going out with friends to sing sloppily otop hit pop songs once a month my friends and I will take a scene from a movie, remove all of the dialogue/sound effects (foley) and sloppily record our own live. No editing or mixing involved! No bouncing ball required!
Robocop is THE movie of the 80’s. Before you get too upset I’m not saying it was the best film of the 80’s – it’s just the one that best encapsulates everything the 80’s was about: the music, the fashion, the politics and the excess – everything is celebrated while simultaneously being satirized. It’s safe to say I love Robocop.
There is one person I know, however, that loves it more than me and that’s Kire Paputts who said yes to doing this with me before I’d even got the words out of my mouth. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Mr. Paputts is a member of Made By Other People and that we met while in film school at Ryerson University. He’s a pretty fantastic director who has garnered a lot of press for his film Animal Control and is just about to finish another, Rainbow Connection. When he’s not doing that he’s playing with his aptly named band The Dildoniks in a Uhaul truck somewhere.
With both of us being disturbingly enamored with the movie the hardest part was picking a scene to do. We settled on the one above. I tried everything I could to avoid smashing actual glass in my apartment but in the end we got glass everywhere. Originally I had planned to bang two bricks together to make the firing of the gun – but Kire thought hitting a plastic case with a hammer would sound better – and it did. One thing we didn’t get on video was us using a drill to make the mechanical whirring of Robo’s joints as he moved – but enough about that, at this point you’ve read three paragraphs – just play the fucking thing (and if you already did play it again!). Your move, creep.
I was doing some “iTunes cleaning” the other day, and I noticed a bunch of unnamed files. I had a listen, and realized I had found a shit load of awesome hip hop tracks that I made with an old roommate, Devon Ferguson. I had forgotten about how great these tracks were, so I decided to revisit the Logic files, clean up the mixes, and finally share them with the world.
3 or 4 years ago when I lived with Devo, we would often end up getting drunk and making rap songs for fun. I had a Korg ESX-1 Drum Machine (the best drum machine of all time) and Devo had a surprising good flow and set of freestyle skills. He was also amazing at writing great hooks like “Yea, Im ballin on a budget/most girls hate it, but I just love it” His lyrics were clever, humourous, and could create hilarious images in your head “we can go to ikea/thats not a bad idea/50 cent hot dogs coke and a pop/combo it up and your saving a lot/and you will never see this coming/but I collect your bottles after we’re done fucking”
We gave our selves the names “Joe Bugsy and Muffin man”, recorded about 10-15 songs, and even played a show. The “show” was a night to remember. It was a calm, amateur, open mic night at a Kensington bar called the supermarket. After a couple of hours of lame amateur/singer songwriters strumming their acoustic guitars, Joe Bugsy and I walked up on stage in full blown character, not giving a fuck. I plugged my drum machine into the PA, bugsy ripped the mic off the stand and begin play. The crowd was loving it, and people were blown away. It was like the wu-tang clan interrupting a Sarah Mclachlan concert. It unexpected, random but very interesting and full of energy. However, we did manage to severly piss off the old sound guy. He clearly did not like hip hop.
Joe Bugsy with his new friends, 2012
Unfortunately, Devo had to move to Vancouver to persue his career in Acting. He is still rapping, in fact, he is creating a tv pilot called “Rapping in Connecticut” but its more of a purely comedic approach. Anyway, I am very happy with our lil group and very proud of the songs we have made. I think if he decided not to move out west, we could of been better then LMFAO. In retrospect, even though I didn’t take it too seriously at the time, it was some of the most fun creating music I have ever had – and isn’t that the way creating music should be?
Here are a few of my favourites to listen / download if you like.
The face Mitch makes when I post something after Foley Friday
After spending all my Rainbow Connection Arts Council money on Hash and Casino Rama, I needed to find a way to finish the film. I turned to IndieGoGo because I’d seen how much money Bill had raised for I Spyders (something like $3000). Bill, if I’m wrong please correct me.
As a side note: I might be waiting on Bill’s reply for a while. I don’t think he reads this blog anymore.
I got asked this question the other day…
Jen Kassabian: “Why did you pick IndieGoGo over Kickstarter?”
Kire Paputts: “Mind your own fucking business.”
Just joking. I told her I chose IndieGoGo over KickStarter because with IndieGoGo you have the option of Flexible funding. This means that you keep whatever you raise, minus IndieGoGo operation fees. With Kickstarter, you have to raise your entire goal or you don’t get dick. I learned this from Bill. I also had this discussion with a friend the other day and he convinced me that Kickstarter wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. His point was that with Kickstarter, people know where their money’s going. The idea with Kickstarter’s Fixed funding is that if people give you money then they know, for the most part, that the project will get completed, because when you sign up with Kickstarter you are saying that you need this much money to accomplish a certain project. With IndieGoGo’s Flexible funding there’s less certainty. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s an example…
Other IndieGoGo campaigns
Say someone needs $10,000 to finish a short film about a teenager with Down syndrome who has a fascination with rainbows. Say that person only makes $3,000. That person gets $3,000 but he still needs another $7,000. How’s he suppose to finish the film? What if that person isn’t able to raise the other $7,000? What happens then? Well, depending on the person, that particular project may never get finished and that person is now $3,000 richer.
As a side note: The key part of the last paragraph is depending on the person…I’m not that person.
I started working on the IndieGoGo campaign page about a month ago. Klopko and myself spent an afternoon working on a little promotional video. We invited Dylan out and he gave us his thoughts on everything from working on Rainbow Connection to manscaping. I got the video down to just under 5 minutes. When I was researching other successful campaigns on IndieGoGo I quickly realized that the majority of them had videos under 3 minutes. I also realize that people’s attention span in fucking pathetic, but the video is what it is. I think it’s interesting and will keep the viewer watching. I’m not gonna cut it down for the sake of following a particular structure.
As a side note: Sticking to structure for the sake of structure, whether it be writing, editing, etc. is a totally separate blog entry in the future.
Mike Hurlbut at Parts and Labour
After a few video issues with Vimeo we finally launched yesterday. In the first hour we raised over $500…majority from friends, but still. It sits at $615 as I write this. So far the response has been positive. I think a big part of raising money is knowing the people/communities we’re trying to appeal too. For instance, I’m not marketing this campaign towards Ossington hipsters or Mike Pierro, I’m gonna reach out to local Down syndrome organizations, communities and other special needs organizations. I’ve already established a dialogue with a lot of these people when I was doing casting and many have been extremely supportive towards the project. Another reason I’m steering the campaign their way is that they have a better understanding and appreciation for the project and its cause. Many parents who have kids with special needs don’t need me to tell them that a film like this doesn’t happen that often.
Another thing to put some effort into is the perks people get when they donate. I probably could have come up with some better ones but they’re not bad. I think the key thing is to have a good variety or denominations. I have $1,000 option called The Executive but I don’t expect anybody to donate that much. I’m expecting to make most my funding on the $10 or $25 options. Both great options by the way.
Now that I’ve emailed everybody I’ve ever met with this campaign I’m trying to figure out other avenues to explore. I have a few ideas but I’ll share them on a later date. I think the most important thing to keep in mind when doing this type of stuff is that creating exposure for your project is just as important, if not more important, then raising funds. Raising $10,000 would be awesome, but the fact that people are learning about the film is more valuable. Getting back to I Spyders, I think Bill and Kyle did a really good job promoting the film before it was done. It was something that people talked about and looked forward too. The premiere was also packed.
We also launched the film’s website at the same time. I think it’s important to show that the project lives outside IndieGoGo because…
1: IndieGoGo doesn’t last forever and you need other outlets to further promote the film and keep up the little momentum you might have.
2: The more work you put into things like a website, Facebook and Twitter account, the more serious you look and the project looks. Hence, people are more willing to trust you with their money.
Use information at own risk!
The campaign’s gonna run for 45 days. I figured that’s enough time to accomplish everything. I’m gonna to update the campaign often. Vandewater’s gonna cut a trailer, so keep your eyes peeled for that. I’m also gonna add more pics and other interesting goodies.
As a side note: Keep in mind, everything I’ve written up to this point is shit I’ve pulled out of my ass. What the fuck do I know? This is all based on how I think good fundraising works. I maybe totally wrong. Maybe $615 is all I’ll make. I just checked again and it’s still $615. I could be doing another blog post in 45 days with my tail between my legs. If you’re stupid enough to trust a Macedonian then you get what you deserve. For other fundraising tips check out this video.
Now here’s where I get serious. How can you help?
1: Donate. If you feel like donating that’s great.
2: Create Awareness. Aside from raising money, I’m trying to create awareness for film. If you could pass this email and info on to others it would be greatly appreciated. Maybe they’ll donate.
Its undeniably spring and this week’s sound could be inspired by any number of spring related activities. Was it inspired by the wringing out a rag used to clean a car with in the hot spring sun or the wringing our of a wet article of clothing to be put on the line to dry in the hot spring sun? More likely it was inspired by the copious amounts of sweat I had to wring out of a handkerchief due to this unnatural (but welcomed) hot spring sun.
The actual action of wringing something out isn’t something you see on screen a lot. In fact most films try to skip the mundane tasks we do throughout the day and get to the heart of the story. That isn’t to say a scene can’t feature characters having a discussion while wiping down something with a wet cloth – but its not likely to happen. Something that is likely to happen is hearing the sound during a quiet moment in an action movie when the buxom babe of a love interest is cleaning the wounds of a hulking action star. Quietly dipping a cloth into some water, wringing it out before dabbing the “only a flesh wound” of the hero. They could also be in a jungle or hot locale so this female love interest is going to have to dip a cloth into some water, wring it out and dab her own body with it to cool down – and heat us up in the process. Odd that it’s mostly women on film that do the wringing (I’m kidding – it’s not odd, just typical of Hollywood).
When you see a man do some wringing its most likely for comedy sake. If a character is soaked either from having fallen/been pushed into a body of water then they will simply stand motionless for a moment, adjust their shirt – maybe their tie – and wring one very small portion of their wardrobe out before continuing on their way. Its possible a character has sweat a cartoonish amount and is now drenched. They could grab an edge of their shirt, wring it out and a literal flood of water would pour forth like the levees of the shirt have finally broken. Comedy!
That’s all for now – I’ll wring you later with more next week
Here’s a music video I edited for the Toronto electro/dance artist Farragoes. It was directed and produced by our good friend, the one and only, Aaron Kopff of Electric Train Productions.
This project was particularly fun for me because of how much I got to play with the footage and try out different effects. It was originally designed to be a really simple piece with just three shots, but when the middle section wasn’t as spectacular as had been hoped (mainly due to budgetary restraints) I started to layer on more and more video tracks to see what crazy images could be produced with really simple effects. The result is something I’m pretty please with.
