My video host, blip.tv, have some really cool features for their users. One thing you can do is look at viewership stats second by second, to see where people tend to stop watching, or to see what bit people, upon rewatching, skip to. And sometime last year, I went through the videos and collected a rough list of “Things That Seem To Hurt Ratings.” The list included:
-songs
-long explanations of stuff
-title cards
-Milton shouting
So as you can see, I’m working my way through the list and putting everything in there.
This was a fun episode in terms of exploring some new camera set-ups, trying to use a few basic set pieces and create multiple spaces out of them. It wasn’t my initial thought going into season four, but it seems that this season I’m going to be trying to get away from my patented one-shot look. It’s been so long since I’ve thought in terms of multiple camera angles that I’m having to really think about how it all works. This is going to be more obvious in 404, where I needed to match turns and compose over the shoulder shots that didn’t distract and still have angles that allowed important action to be visible. You know, stuff filmmakers have to worry about. Anyway, it’s an interesting experiment.
One nice thing is, of course, I don’t have to try and get through three pages of dialogue without a mistake. I don’t know if my performances are getting better on the puppetry side of things yet, because I’m still getting used to the monitor. But by the end of the season, it’ll be interesting to look back and see if there has been any improvement.
My character voices are out of shape, though. That much is for true. They’re all slowly drifting back towards my voice, and it’s something I need to work on.
The other thing I really need is a double-jointed right arm. It can either be a transplant, or some bionic upgrade, but I’m finding with these weird camera angles that I’m not physically able to get all the movement I want out of both puppets. Yes, the answer would be to hire another puppeteer, and put the stage more than four feet off the ground. Sure. That would be the SMART way. But I’m too full of myself for that. Clearly.
And yes, I am strangely obsessed with Hell’s Kitchen. I hate the format, I hate the way reality shows twist all human interaction into a horrid middle school cafeteria incident, but Ramsay… there’s just something about Ramsay that I can’t deny. His passion for food and complete intolerance for incompetence is strangely comforting. Sometimes, when I can’t yell at all the idiots surrounding me for fear of social repercussions, it’s nice to let Gordon do it for me.