So let’s say you own and operate your own video production company.  You may not be the biggest or the best, but in today’s new media you don’t have to be.  Rhett & Link are self-proclaimed “Internetainers”. They have created over 200 web videos to create a super web presence to show off their musical comedy filmmaking talents. They came to my attention as they teamed up with illustrator Billy Reid and Rush T-shirts to come up with this amazingly clever video.

It’s just like the Superbowl, we don’t mind being advertised to if we’re entertained. Check out the video below.

Sorry about the attention getting headlines, but I really would like to see this movie, and now I can… kinda.  I am big fan of the video game The Force Unleashed.  I liked it so much that I wanted to record every video and some of the gameplay and string it all together to make a movie (which is something that I actually did for the Star Wars Bounty Hunter game).

As I’ve been looking into these fan edits of movies, I came across a fan that had put together the scenes from the video game and made a DVD with chapters and intros and everything, but it’s in a PAL format.  I’ll have to figure something out so I can see how it looks.

The other thing that I really love about these fan edits it the DVD box art.  I’ve attached the image from the Force Unleashed movie and a different take on the original Star Wars movie.  You can explore this yourself over at FanEdit.org.

I really need to research this a bit more, but here’s what I know so far. After the release of the fan made version of Star Wars The Phantom Menace, (lovingly referred to as The Phantom Edit) there began to be more full movie and movie trailers being re-edited. Why edit the movie? Well, sometimes are memories of the movie experience are better than the movie, and sometimes simply because we think we could do better.

I saw a Facebook group dedicated to a guy calling himself Adywan who has re-edited Star Wars A New Hope. Incase you didn’t notice, I kinda love that movie, and think that it can stand the test of time, BUT, I was curious. I read a bit about how he re-edited scenes, added music, added planets and new special effects. Then I watched a bit of it and well, I liked it!

Here’s a YouTube Trailer for Star Wars: Revisited

Here’s a YouTube side by side comparison of the Attack on the Death Star

I wonder if Greedo shoots first in the cantina scene?

This wonderful 1949 recording is by Margaret Whiting And Johnny Mercer. It was released 3 months before the premiere of Neptune’s Daughter and the song reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on May 6, 1949, and lasted 19 weeks on the chart, peaking at number four.

In 2006, Capitol records released a 16-song expanded version of Dean Martin’s “Christmas With Dino” featuring a new duet with country music star Martina McBride. McBride recorded her part of the duet at the Capitol Recording studios where Dean Martin’s original version of the song was recorded in 1959. Tragically, Dean Martin died Christmas morning in 1995.

In another wonderful reversal of the role of the mouse and the wolf, Selma Blair & Rainn Wilson perform the song in a commercial for the Gap.

The duet was written by Frank Loesser Loesser in 1944 and premiered the song with his wife at their Navarro Hotel housewarming party. Then in 194 Loesser sold the song rights to MGM, which inserted the song into its 1949 motion picture, Neptune’s Daughter. The film featured two performances of the song: one by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams and the other by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. In the second version the roles of the mouse and the Wolf are reversed. These performances earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Ok I’m really writing this on Tuesday but I’m going to time travel and post it on Monday so that I can share a week’s worth of my favorite Christmas songs (oddly enough it gets lots of play time at Christmas, but the holiday is never mentioned in the song). The female voice in the song is called “The Mouse” and the male “The Wolf.” The lyrics consist of his attempts to convince her to stay with him at the end of a date; her indecisive protests reveal that although she feels obligated to go home, she is tempted to stay, partially because, as the title suggests, “it’s cold outside.”  I love it.  :D

 here’s a clip from the movie ELF

and from the movie’s soundtrack

In the first of what could be a video series, I share with all of you the treasure of a book that I found over the weekend.  I’m afraid that I didn’t actually read the book, I, well, I just looked at the pictures. I did a quick web search and found 19 copies on Amazon starting at $0.01, and this summary, “When a curious little fish leaves the safety of the family circle to find out what else is in the ocean, he learns an important lesson.” Published in 1995 by Little Simon Merchandise and authored by Carla Dijs.  Enjoy the video review below.

When I jump into making a new print I really LOVE to study out the characters, the location and the scene.  Shortly I’ll be making a video that describes the the depth of research and obsession that over took me when I was making my “Lost Shakespearian Ballads” prints.  Until then, let us bask in the art of Obsession as explained by Adam Savage from the Mythbusters.  This video comes from the Entertainment Gathering conference curated by MIT’s Michael Hawley and takes a broad look at entertainment, technology, and ideas.  It’s a pretty cool video, and I really relate to his process.