Confessions of a Bad Director

Even though OCL has his own website now, maybe he'd like to use this thread for whatever purpose he so desires. If we're lucky he'll talk about production, upload images, and host videos of production and whatnot, or simply just discuss it in a more private place where everyone is a videomaker.

To kick it off:

-Oneclipleft, my buddy DAB. {The Cooch Smooch} looks and sounds a lot like you. It's likely that he is %98 genetically equal to you {In respects of human to human differences, not species to species differences, because that would make him an ape.} He could pass for a younger brother or relative. If you ever wanted to have that old cliché of the awkward/evil relative from out of town, or just a normal guy that could be your twin, or the cooch smooch himself in your video, I can grant you that resource.

Please keep us updated, it's lonely in this forum...

Hey all,

I know I haven't been to these forums in forever-times, but I did want to eventually address my most secret project ever in history (mostly because I haven't ever talked about it). I'm hoping to shoot a mock-reality show like The Office about a machinima director (yours truly) who wants to be successful but can't quite pull it off. He thinks his work is terrible, as do all his friends, but the public thinks he's pretty okay. I would hopefully release this show on Machinima's channel, but I have some setbacks. My main setbacks on this project are 1) a decent video camera and 2) actors, in that I have neither and have no way of getting them at the moment. Also, I'm pretty unfamiliar with shooting live-action stuff (you all saw how the one-man rapture thing turned out, hehe), so the project is sort of looming over me like some impossible challenge. That said, I feel overwhelmingly under-prepared to tackle such a project, so it has been placed on hold. Me and Dulvluspa shot some footage for it awhile back down in Orlando, and I have half of that footage, but I haven't worked with it yet unfortunately. In any case, that footage would be used for episode 4 or 5 or something like that anyway and so might not be the best starting point for me as I tend to work sequentially.

Anyway! I just thought I'd throw that down and see if anyone had any thoughts one way or the other. Peace!

You mentioned uploading to Machinima so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aTEbqBqP8Q
What is your opinion on the accuracy of this video?

How many views d'you think you'd get with the fact that Machinima's capitalized itself? Some of your vids have a lot of views, though... So I dunno. Your best bet may be to play along and figure out how to get Machinima to feature and sponsor your video series in particular. So you could do this pro-like and always have 3 to 5 episodes already made before uploading a new one. Getting cameos would be essential and relatively easy. i.e. Get Blue Xephos involved some way. I sure hope you get yourself some actors.

And how many references to the gaming/internet world would there be?

The video is unfortunately pretty accurate. While some of the videos I submit to Machinima stand out and do well for some reason (my average is a bit higher than normal for them), there's really only room for 2-3 super popular series on their channel at a time because they upload like 15+ videos per day (whether they're good or not). While I haven't yet tried to run a series on their channel, running a series does seem to be the only way to catch people's attention, but even then it doesn't always work. The 5 Weapons Free videos I did didn't seem to pick up much steam, for example, but a few of my videos took off for seemingly no reason. Here's my theory:

To be successful on Machinima's channel, you MUST:
1. Use video games that are classics or extremely popular at that moment
2. Make sure all your characters' voices sound like college frat boys (see Sonic for Hire)
3. Keep the video short (unless you're one of the current super popular series)
4. Do the same thing all the time (usually a series)
5. Last, and also least, make sure the video isn't complete crap (but it doesn't have to be very good either)

To answer your viewcount question, I have no idea how a live-action mock reality show would do on their channel. Historically, live-action stuff doesn't do very well so it's hard to say. What I'm doing right now is following the above steps with a new Skyrim (step 1) series (step 4). I'm gonna write 10 episodes at about 2 minutes each (step 3). I'm hoping to get a really awesome and popular voice actor to help me out, but I haven't heard back from him quite yet (step 2). With any luck, it'll stand out from the crowd and it'll do really well. Or not. Again, it's hard to say.

I'd really like to do the CBD series, but I don't think it's the right time for me to attempt it yet. I feel a little too under-equipped, under-staffed, and under-experienced to really pull it off like I want to. But maybe sometime before long I can get it going.