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
- Got together with Remi to shoot some video for the teaser video
- 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.
- Got together with Remi, bought some 1000 watt floodlights from Lowe's and a belt at the flea market.
- Out sick from work; spent most of the evening revising the Hall of Fame video.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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