Gee, I love lava lamps

Long, long ago, before I could drive, I was just a bored teenager looking for something to do when school wasn't in session. Unfortunately, my parents let me play with their old camcorder. Even more unfortunately, some of my old home movies showed up on Google Video somehow. The crazy thing is, I have NO IDEA how they got there. It says the videos were uploaded in 2004, but did Google Video even exist back then? Be warned, these next few videos will suck.

A lot.

Adult Swim Commercials

One of the first things I tried to do was re-create the old "AdultSwim" commercials on Cartoon Network using my video editing software. I took three stabs at it, but my first attempt was the best.

This one actually made the most sense of the three. There's a short story, a plot, and a conclusion. At the time, this was almost identical to the actual AdultSwim commercials.

My second attempt was just stupid. This was directly imitating an AdultSwim commercial I'd seem a couple days before, and the original sucked just as much as my remake.

This last one was just because I had some strange video of a friend from school making a funny face and I didn't know what else to do with it. Looking back, this one is also a pile of crap.

Action: The Movie

"Action: The Movie" was made in spite. I was bored over Christmas break one year and wanted someone to make a movie with me, but my family wouldn't help. I responded by putting them in the movie anyway. The plot is pretty basic -- the movie was designed to juxtapose the peace and quiet of downstairs where my family was watching TV with the chaos of the imaginary battle happening upstairs in my room. At the end, I call everyone out for not helping me. They even ignored me when I put the camera right in their freakin' faces! Oh well... I think this one turned out the best of all my movies.

Blueberry Jam

This was actually made before Action: The Movie, but its a little longer and more complicated, so I've saved the best for last.

Before you watch this, it is important that you understand a little bit of the background behind the formation of this movie. This was filmed in the summer of 2003 or 2004 when me and my twin sister (Sadie) were bored with nothing to do. We came up with a quick plot and grabbed some old costumes from her closet and this is what happened. I did the video editing and we took turns shooting and directing. When we originally recorded it, we didn't have any way to convert the video to PC, so all the editing was done by carefully rewinding and recording over the extra stuff (like walking to the camera and stopping it).

"Blueberry Jam" is hard to follow, so let me explain. It starts off with two title screens. We really didn't need two. What was I thinking when I added the second one? Anywho, the plot takes place in the town of "Blueberria," where everything is fine until the town gets suddenly attacked by giant oranges. Why oranges? Because that's all we could find to attack a town with. In that first shot, my sister is playing a Blueberrian citizen when she gets attacked by oranges. Before the oranges get there, I come in as her stunt double to take the hits. You can see our dog screwing up the shot in the background.

In the next shot, I'm in a giant blueberry suit (yes, we had that laying around in my sister's closet) and I'm supposed to suddenly see the giant oranges coming. Why do some Blueberrians look like people and other Blueberrians look like giant blueberries? I don't know.

The next scene is one of the few parts where one of us narrates the story. The drawing is supposed to be of the city of Blueberria, and those small grape things are Blueberries (aka, Blueberrians). I say, "All over Blueberria, pedestrians were getting plummeted by huge falling oranges with a fresh, fruity scent. (oranges drop, sister screams, quick cut) All over the city of Blueberria, there were few that remained after this horrible accident, it was so devastating." Then my sister starts playing the voice of the blueberry in front of the grave saying, "Aw, my poor children! Why did it half to be me?" I narrate, saying, "Poor Mrs. Blueberry lost all she had! Her two children were left alone; in their graves..."

Now the plot thickens! The scene cuts to outside again, where our heroine in disguise thinks aloud. "How can I help the Blueberrians with their problems? I'm only an ordinary civilian. I know!" (scene cuts, hat appears on her head signifying that she has transformed into a super hero. I know, its so obvious!) "I know! As captain... SADIE! Da da da daaaaa!"

Now it's Sadie's turn to narrate. "In the evil lair of the evil twin villains, Twin Swan and Twin Two Anna Haef (Twin One and Twin Two and a half, get it?), they are chuckling over the success of their sinister plot." The scene cuts to inside the bathroom where we discuss how well the plan is working and chuckle as the bad guys.

The last part doesn't get much better. With the mask on, Sadie is suppose to be the villain Twin Two Anna Haef. She's apparently waiting on her co-villain who is apparently late for something. She calls me some made up word (there is no actual script, remember?), something like "fargle-snot." This is actually pretty similar to a work she would have called me in real life at the time. She finds me and I'm dressed as a villain in a crazy robe. My beard (and earlier my hair) is actually a plastic hula-skirt. When we enter, we do a crazy dance thing (like from "West Side Story," which we watched on TV the week before) and accidentally bump into each other. I ask if she's ready to commit more "evil deeds" when suddenly we are stopped by Captain Sadie. A brief battle with bad editing ensues, and the evil duo is defeated by Captain Sadie's "invisible laser beams." Sadie has this great zinger after she defeats me where she says, "Swan down, Two Anna Haef to go!"

After the battle, you see me saying "I claim victory!" and doing a crazy dance dressed as Captain Sadie. I swear we weren't high, just bored. Finally, its over.

Man, that kind of sucked. Strangely enough, watching all those old movies has inspired me to try and make a new, better movie... Maybe sometime over Christmas Break I'll make a new one for the first time in 5 years...

~jw