CageMatch 12/13/08

CageMatch time again. This happened last week, but I've been busy lately and forgot to blog about it. Here we go!

View video here first. Go now.

Now let's chat. The original idea for the video came from one Kit FitzSimons, who pointed out the lyrics in the Kate Perry song "Hot and Cold" and how they mirrored the up-and-down romance of the characters in Honkey Kong. Then Alyssa said she had a good idea for a video. I said, "sorry, but Kit already has an idea." "Let me tell you the idea anyway." She said she'd love to see something like the new Target commercial from Christina Aguilera. I took a look at it and loved the comic book-y Lichtenstein-y imagery, and decided we could combine both ideas into one.

This involved a lot of lugging lights and other equipment around for a video shoot at Alyssa's and one at Kit's. Unfortunately, my lighting skills are not up to the highest notch, and so the bluescreening I tried to do was a bit shoddy. I really need to get a real greenscreen and a crash course on lighting. Anyhoo, we had a lot of fun with Kyle and Alyssa being playful with each other and then hating each other. Highlights were the bit where Kyle throws the flowers at Alyssa from off-camera, and the impromptu bootydancin' bit. Banana Breakup was fun to film (as always). The fight scene amused me terribly, and the high-five bit made them look totally cool. I was happy that my coatrack idea worked okay. That amused me.

Back in The Studio, I drew up some comic panels in Photoshop and textured them with benday dots from a Lichtenstein painting. I also found some old comic book ads that I used for the opposing pages; you only see them for a moment, but I think they add to the feel of the video. If I had a bit more time and energy, I would've put some Adam West-esque "BAM!"s and "POW!"s in there, and maybe some explosions where Kyle and Alyssa are having the pointing war at the end, but I think it turned out generally okay.

Oh, forgot to mention that I wrote the entire voiceover script while attending my dad's Really Terrible Orchestra Of The Triangle concert earlier in the week. He provided colouring pages for people to amuse themselves with while the "bad" music was performed, and I took him at his word and scribbled down text while the music played, then rehearsed it during the reception afterwards while all the bigwigs hobnobbed and got drunk. Hah! (And I later noticed that I channelled the spirit of Jeremy Clarkson at the end there. Sweet.)

This was the first video in a long time that people wanted to watch again immediately after the show, so that felt good. We rescreened it both at the theater and back at Kit's place.

You can also see the comic book cover promo I made here, featuring the visages of Kyle, Alyssa, Kit, and Eitan. It's an adaptation from an old 1950s romance comic which you can see here. (Yes, I made Alyssa's cleavage more pronounced. Pervert.)