CageMatch 6-28-07

Another night, another CageMatch. This week's challenging team called themselves "Threadless". I was really stuck for a way to translate that team name into a dramatic video. What can you do with "Threadless"? Well, the only thing it sparked in me was the Three Fates of Greek mythology, so I went with that. Only problem is, there's quite a dearth of Fates imagery out there on the web. Really only one painting that I could barely find a usable size of, a sculpture which horribly Eurocized, and a sand sculpture. So I ended up using the first painting and the sand figures, and then filmed my own segments of the Town Manager's Executive Assistant toying around with some thread. Those filmed segments turned out great, and I sepia-toned and mirrored them to give the impression that it was more than one person. Oh, and I finally figured out how to bring images from Photoshop with transparency to Final Cut. (Turns out the trick is to save them as a 24-bit PNG.)

The logo for Threadless was a challenge as well. My immediate thought was to use empty spools, but someone else said they thought needles would be more immediately recognizable. So off I went in a search of a good high-res closeup of the eye of a needle. Harder than it sounds, but eventually I found one. I also got some needles off of a stock photo site, and used them in the background as well as a flying needle that slashes a picture in two late in the video.

The musical intro this week (the part that you hear during the initial DSI identity logo) is my most obscure reference ever. Any ideas?

The video is here.
The Threadless logo is here.

As for the show itself, both teams did quite well. Remi was great as Evil Billionaire Troy Sterling in his second outing. He came up with a great angle about Scott Sullivan being late on a house payment, and Sterling buying the mortgage out from under him, offering to bet the house against the hosting job in CageMatch. It was a rough crowd, but a good number of people got into it and laughed along. (And Sterling once again bet on the wrong team, so he got his house back. Yay!)

Sunset Crow

I stumbled across this video this morning via one of the zillion blogs I follow. It's amusing for a number of reasons.

1. It's by Mike Nesmith, a former Monkee who tried to tried to have an arty solo career. He's generally seen as a pioneer in the music video business, as his videotape Elephant Parts is regarded as the first music video product on the market. Here, Nesmith sounds like he's trying to do something in the Frank Zappa vein.
   
2. The video is remarkably dated, and has all sorts of classic 70s/80s images, like video mirroring, four-wheel skates, and backgrounds of trash bags with fans blowing over them.
3. The song is the basis of a legendary running gag between myself and my friend Ray. We had our own lyrics for the chorus, which make no sense to anyone but ourselves, but which I immortalize here for posterity:

Lucy and Ramona, and Sunset Crow
People on the street, trying to go for po
People on the street, going pretty slow
Lucy and Ramona, and their buddy Sunset Crow

I thank you.

Living Like Millionaires

So we had this sort of employee appreciation thingamajig at work last week. I usually skip those sorts of things, because I'm horribly antisocial and laden down with depression, but at this particular event, there was free barbecue, so I went to get a takeout plate. While I was there trying to figure out how to get my free food, I filled out a little ticket for door prizes. I never win anything, but what the hey, right? So I get my meal and depart.

Later, back at work, the Town Attorney shows up with a box and informs me that I was a winner--of some mangy-looking plants. Woohah. So I quickly give them away to people who will not kill them with neglect, as I would. Then they inform me that there were wrestling tickets as one of the prizes, but that I didn't win them, Gordon the British Guy From Planning did. Well, that's cool. I'm not too big on going to WWE shows anyway.

Ten minutes later, Gordon calls me up, says he has no idea what pro wrestling is all about, and asks if I would accompany him to the show and explain what's going on. Cool, I'm always up for a free show and camaraderie as long as I don't have to navigate the parking lot of the RBC Center. So on Sunday, off we go to see a house show of WWE Raw. Well, when we get there, we discover that we don't just have free tickets, no, we have our own luxury suite. A lovely young woman in a red jacket leads us past all the dregs of society in their rasslin t-shirts and their beer guts, and ushers into our private box with leather chairs and our own bathroom. We feel like kings.

Then while we're there, my phone buzzes, and it's a message from Matt Hardy letting me know that he's left two ringside tickets for us at Guest Services. So we let our lovely red-jacketed hostess know that we've decided to take different accomodations for our sporting enjoyment, and move down to front-row center at ringside. Matt and Jeff's father, Gilbert, is there, and people are recognizing him from a recent newspaper article and taking pictures with him, which I found hilarious. I walked over and sat in the seat next to him, and he turned to look at me as if I were another autograph seeker, then jumped and smiled when he realized it was me. I've always gotten along well with Gilbert, and soon he was rattling off dirty jokes as quick as he could.

Back in my seat, I was explaining how the sport works to my friend Gordon and pointing out the different wrestlers and what they were doing. A little while into the show, this big guy comes along with his stripper girlfriend and plops down into a seat next to me, taking up more room than he really should to show off how tough he was. I didn't know who he was, but recognized from his body type and the way he moved that he was a wrestler. So all night, he's jostling for space and acting tough, and we never spoke. Then after Matt and Jeff's match, they run around the ring slapping hands with everybody, including him. When they see me, they give me a big hug and we exchange a few words. After that, the tough wrestler guy says, "Hey! How do you know the Hardys?" I explain I worked with them for about six or seven years as an announcer, commentator, costume maker, publicist, etc, etc. in the early days. Heh. He gave me more room after that. My friend Gordon was amused.

Here's the view from our luxury suite. (click to enlarge)

Gordon sitting in our leather luxury seats:

This is how much closer we got with the seats Matt got us:

Looking back at our box seats. (If you click on the picture, you can see the suite outlined).


All in all, Gordon and I were pretty amused at the chain of events of the evening.

CageMatch 6-14-07

Another episode of CageMatch has passed us by. Let's take a look.

First we have the promo video. Went for a good cheap sex joke in there. My voice is particularly thick in this week's video, as I've been sick all week. Did this one on Tuesday, when I was still mighty cough-y. Nothing special about this video, except the appropriate music and beginning sound.

Had to add another two screens to the Hall Of Fame video, as we had a new champ and I had forgotten to put Community Bike in the original. Every time I add somebody new, the pause for each screen grows shorter, so soon I'll need to come up with a different format.

Then we had the debut of Troy Sterling. This went over like gangbusters. Remi is great in the role. He was tip-top obnoxious. We had put about $100 into materials for the character, including a blinged-out watch, lapel pin, and horrible belt buckle; some stock video clips for the intro; and a 1000 watt halogen light grid for the bluescreening. For the intro video, Remi wanted to use The Gorillaz' "Feel Good Inc" as an entrance theme. I really like the song; it's quite infectious--but on it's own, it doesn't make for good entrance music. It's not thick enough, doesn't have that energy to make people sit up and take notice that something big is happening. So I mashed it up a little (in my crude way) adding some hits to each beat, using samples from Pink Floyd's "Money", MC Dollar Bill's "Living Lifestyles Of The Fresh 'N Fly", and a clip of cards being shuffled. Then I segued into ABBA's "Money Money Money", which turned out to be a good decision, as the audience really got into it and were clapping along. I let the "feel good" beats pop up a couple of times during the ABBA song, and might add more for next time; it seemed to work subtly.

We did a great opening bit involving Remi and Eitan Lees, where Troy Sterling bet $100 against "6 year old birthday boy" Eitan's giant lollipop, that Eitan couldn't bounce a ball 20 times in a row. This, of course, is a remake of the classic Million Dollar Man angle. I had to convince Remi to do this, telling him it was one of the most remembered bits in wrestling history, and would guarantee he got over as a heel immediately. Everybody played their part well, and it went over like gangbusters. It was so great, I put it up on YouTube.

Pictures are here.


For shits and giggles, let's look at the timeline for this week's presentation:

* Four weeks ago:

• Ordered bling paraphenalia off of eBay

* Three weeks ago

• Got together with Remi to shoot some video for the teaser video

* One week ago

• Spent most of the week at work (in between working) designing the "TroyBucks", fake money with Remi's scowling face on them, along with quotes like "I am important; you are just poor". These were for Troy Sterling to throw into the crowd during his entrance.

* Last Saturday

• Got together with Remi, bought some 1000 watt floodlights from Lowe's and a belt at the flea market.

* Monday

• Out sick from work; spent most of the evening revising the Hall of Fame video.

* Tuesday

• Out sick from work again. Spent the afternoon and evening Photoshopping photos of Elaine and the "girls are made of"/"boys are made of" pictures. Recorded the voiceover and music bits, and edited the promo video up to the tournament screen.

* Wednesday

• Back to work. At work, selected the Tory Sterling pix I wanted to use and Photoshopped those, taking out the backgrounds and meshing them with a money background I bought off the web. I added a few photo flares to the bling items as well. Tried to colour-correct them as best I could.
  
• Got home at five and leapt into finishing the promo video.
• Spent a looong time agonizing over the music for Troy Sterling, trying a number of different angles and experiments in Soundtrack. Finally changed the tempo of the two songs to a median 129 and mashed 'em together. Went through all the footage Remi and I shot on Sunday and digitized the clips I thought would work. Pulled them into Final Cut along with the stills and the backing music and spent a few hours editing it all together. Actually managed to get alpha channeling to work on the title graphic. Somehow managed to do all this in time to set up the show dvd and burn it while I slept. Got to bed about 1:00.

* Thursday

• Got together with Eitan and bought a Spongebob bouncy ball and an eyebrow pencil.
• Met with Remi and Eitan to discuss plans for the bits we were going to do. Got back to the theater and set up tech for Tommy, helped Remi with his wardrobe, and did Eitan's freckle makeup.
• Did the show.
• Went back home and digitized the beginning of the show, with Remi's entrance and the bit with Eitan. Mixed that down in a YouTube-friendly format, and mixed down the Troy entrance video and the promo video.

* Friday

• Got to work and uploaded the videos to YouTube and the pictures to Flickr. Went to the DSI Forums and typed up my "News From The Cage" report.
• Typed up this here blog report.

Oh, and I won a door prize at the Employee Appreciation Day. It was plants. I gave it away. A British guy upstairs won tickets to the WWE Raw show at the RBC this Sunday. He called me up and asked me to go with him. Sweet.