You should know I’m obsessed with videosongs.

The rules of videosonging are very simple:

1. What you see is what you hear

2. If you hear it, at some point you see it

If anything, I have broken the rules here because it’s not really quite a song. It is a piece of music, certainly, but not something you’ll be singing to yourself later (though if you are a drummer, you might end up with the beat in your ear for a few minutes). Still. The principle is sound.

And that’s it. I’m really happy I decided to spend a few hours last night working on this, because otherwise it wouldn’t have posted until probably 2am. As it is, I’m afforded a bit of time to actually enjoy Twelfth Night. And, you know, eat something. Which I haven’t really remembered to do today.

Thanks for watching. Hopefully I’ll keep up with this space a bit better. Though I’ve said that many, many times before.

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“Huh.”

“What?”

“It’s the new episode of Jigsaw.”

“What about it?”

“It’s… it’s like he didn’t spend nearly as much time on it or something.”

“What, so it’s fairly concise?”

“No, I mean — well, yes, actually. Maybe that’s it.”

Went back to work today. Had to film after. No time! No time!

Drumming tomorrow. I apologize in advance if it’s late.

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I forgot how long and hard split-screen stuff was.

Taping down the tripod so nothing moves. Fixing the focus. Locking everything down as tight as possible. Thinking all the blocking through in multiple dimensions. It’s a little hard to get everything set, especially when you’re like me and you refuse to bother with storyboarding.

On the other hand, when it comes to the actual filming, when everything is all finally crystalized, it often only takes one take. Three hours of planning, eight minutes of filming.

I’ve been really enjoying this project from the standpoint of bringing back things about the show that got lost somewhere (and by “somewhere,” read “in my attempt to create normal TV-style content and expand into realms I didn’t sincerely want to go”). There’s been a purposeful focus on old stand-by situations that haven’t been around as much in season four. Milton and Kranium banter (including the cry of “Mil-tooooooon” that helps me find Kranium’s voice before every shoot). Kranium talking on the phone. Lump listening to the radio. Toy theater (the first instance of which was all the way back in season one, and I didn’t even know it was called “Toy Theater” at the time). Somewhere along the way when planning season four, I forgot that I was more interested in characters than in a story that makes sense, or at least in a story that lasts longer than one episode. A focus on continuity makes it hard to keep myself entertained. Which might be seen as a failure, I suppose. But I’m okay with that.

Which isn’t to say that these things are the most popular elements of Jigsaw. Just the things I enjoy doing the most. Which has to count for something.

Where does this leave season four? No idea. After this I’ll probably take a few months off (due to producing/directing duties at work), finishing off season four on an irregular schedule starting maybe mid-March and going until early June. Unless, of course, I come up with a bunch of ideas, in which case I’ll just start filming. I’m not terribly concerned about keeping up a regular schedule with the rest of the season; rather, focusing on taking a decent amount of time to make each episode as good as it can be. I know I can do the regular schedule thing with pretty good success. Instead of stretching myself in the direction of mainstream TV, I should maybe just think about how I can increase the quality, and punch up the funny.

Pipers tomorrow. Drummers on Wednesday. Then, rest.

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Compressing the entirety of my thoughts on gender and race in media into four minutes is, of course, impossible. Certainly impossible to do in any sort of entertaining way. It’s just too complex an issue, and there are too many howevers. I hesitate to say it’s a complicated issue, because it’s more a large system of very simple issues, linked at odd angles.

I think the content of this episode serves as a somewhat fair summary of the beginning of my thoughts, if not on gender in media, at least gender on Jigsaw in particular. The issue of female characters has been on my mind for years, and I’m still not entirely sure how to address it long-term. The real question for me is not gender, but collaboration. If I’m going to bring anybody on-board as a regular or even irregular character (i.e. a puppeteer who actually voices their own puppet), it needs to be somebody with whom I can banter in the same manner as the existing cast do. These people exist, but it does take a bit of sacrifice to arrange it. It’s always been on my list of Things I Want. Just hasn’t happened yet.

In terms of technical aspects of this episode, this was the first time I’ve ever done a true two-camera shoot. Thanks to the fact that I brought the Flip home from work, I was able to cut back and forth (after the laborious process of synching the sound). Of course, I didn’t have the idea to treat it like a two-camera shoot until after I filmed, so the framing was a little odd. I decided not to care, since, well, there’s only so much Ninth Day of Xmas left in which to post a video. So.

Comments, as always, are encouraged.

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I’m not entirely sure what to tell you here.

I certainly have my concerns. While I don’t think I ever actually say or do anything explicitly in this episode that is inappropriate for younger viewers, I… well, it’s certainly implied. Heavily. It’s just plain dirty, there’s no way around it. I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to do this, whether I wanted to risk offending the parents of my younger viewers.

And then I thought, well, they stuck with me when I had Milton and, subsequently, his disembodied arm, go on a spree of debauchery. These Theoretical Parents haven’t gotten uptight about all the drinking. I give them product that is free of swearing and violence. They can deal with a little heavy innuendo. Or they can’t, and they’ll stop watching, though I can guarantee it’s nothing too far from what their kids are probably doing with their Barbie dolls.

At the end of the day, I just thought it was really funny. That has to be my motivation.

I did decide to cut the bawr-chikka-bou-bou music from the milking scenes. Though that may have been me forgetting I was going to do it in the first place.

So that’s that then. Two-thirds of the way through this very silly song. From here on in, they should get easier, because we’re no longer in the avian world. Which isn’t to say I actually have much of an idea for anything (lies; I have 12 sorted in my head), but I’m not as concerned with people dancing, leaping, or piping as I was with, oh, gold rings or swans.

Till tomorrow, fanclub.

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