That fez was a gift from Gil Hova, like 12 years ago. You can’t tell, but it’s about to fall apart. Little, horrible bits of dry-rotted red felt were cascading out of the thing every time I bounced, getting in my eyes and turning my sweaty forehead into a gritty, bloody mess. I should probably toss it out. But it’s hard to throw away a fez.

What should I say about this episode? A lot of post production with the sound. A lot of time spent wiggling and jiggling the sounds. In the end, I’m not terribly happy with them, but you hit a point where you have to throw up your hands and say “Good enough.” Initially, I wanted Kranium to be building something, but the ratcheting noises I was doing just didn’t look right. (Noises didn’t look right? Yes. That’s what I said.) I settled on having him writing, which is not a foley I wish upon anyone with as spare and cheap a set-up as I have. As for Milton’s legs… let’s just try to retcon those out of our minds when I do finally manage a sound effect I truly like.

This episode also represents the last one of the pre-written scripts. 405 is conceptually finished, but the actual words are still… fluid? Is fluid a nice way of saying “I haven’t finished writing it yet”?  Fluid will have to do. I must admit, 405 is kicking me up and down the road with big, spiky boots. Largely because it’s a completely different kind of writing than I’m used to. Really, it’s the kind of thing I used to write decades ago, but those brainmeats are atrophied from disuse.

But anyway. Back to 404.

This was my favorite thing about making this episode:

I did first check to see if I could find an image in Google Image Search of a bear licking a kitten. But drawing it seemed somehow more betterer. And that’s when I remembered I owned a Wacom tablet. Sure, I use it exclusively rather than my crapped-out mouse. I just haven’t ever drawn anything with it before. Wasn’t absolutely sure where to start. Eventually, I’ll get to know Illustrator and do these drawings properly. For now, I just scribbled this in Photoshop in about five minutes (including color). It makes me giggle every time.

Speaking of my crapped-out mouse… okay. Back in episode 402, I discovered I had a need to cue up multiple video clips, one to start the episode with Milton watching it, one to be the weird gameshow countdown clock (that, okay, I didn’t need, because I’m not sure the joke actually works at all, although that is more the fault of my craptastic SFX job than the script, but anyhow I certainly couldn’t have predicted that as I was filming). Enter the wireless Logitech mouse.

This mouse has been with me for quite some time, and the rechargeable battery on it was about dead, meaning I’d have to charge it every four hours or so, which is no way to compute. The battery death led to the Wacom purchase eventually, and since then the mouse usually sits in its charging cradle for the rare occasion that I need to use a mouse for something (you can often see the mouse in the background of episodes shot in the main lab). Last season, I used it once to press play on a video clip before filming. For episode 402, I remembered that I could completely remap all of the buttons to different functions.

So I opened up VLC and made a playlist of the two videos I needed for the shoot. I remapped the left and right mouse buttons to flip back and forth between playlist items, and mapped the middle button to pause and play. I taped the mouse to the floor by my foot. So, while filming, I was able to start and stop the video playback with my toe, and skip to the track I needed, all without having to get up.

Except I would have to get up occasionally, if I let the last video finish playing, because then VLC would revert to neutral and I’d have to open up the videos again and resize the window to fit the lab monitor cut-out. But it did save a bunch of work, and meant I could cue up multiple videos during filming. Even if the edit meant I only actually needed one up at a time.

Sigh.

BUT I WAS TALKING ABOUT 404.

This script started out a lot longer, if you can believe it. I’m not used to having these characters have heavy moments. Kranium’s monologue is very much the thing that runs on repeat inside my head whenever I’m not creating things. Maybe minus the alien invasions. The sentiment is real, at any rate. It also touches upon my thoughts on the value of entertainment. It’s hard, sometimes, to justify wiggling dolls in the air in front of a video camera when the world is so filled with horrible things. I could be feeding the hungry, or cleaning oil off of pelicans, or building homes with Habitat, or protesting mountaintop removal in the coal industry. But frankly, I’m better at wiggling dolls in the air than I am at any of those things. And I may not have a huge audience, but presumably those of you watching this (many of whom ARE feeding the hungry, saving wildlife, building things, preserving things, protesting things) find some value in what I do. A five-minute respite from the heaviness and importance of the world and the work we do in it. Even if it’s just five silly minutes about a robot shouting a lot, if it makes someone’s day easier to handle, I have to believe that’s worth the time and effort I’m putting into it.

So. On to 405, where Milton will put on a puppet show of his own. It should be up at the normal time. Provided I can get it built. And filmed. Before then. Yikes.

If it turns out well, I’ll be taking Milton’s puppet show to Scotland with me. More on that next week.

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I’ll let you in on a little secret, since you actually follow this rather sad little blog:

This isn’t actually the last episode of Jigsaw.

Yeah, I know. Shocker. If June hadn’t decided to heat up to Dave’s Syndrome levels early on, I would have had this episode up and posted just before heading off for the O’Neill Puppetry Conference, meaning it would have been sitting up for two or three weeks, alone, lingering and sad, making people wonder about the actual future of the show. Part of me wants to milk the suspense. The rest of me wants to actually get work done.

So we’re rocking the Thursday slot again for Season Four. It’s been so long since there was a regular Jigsaw season, I don’t even remember what day of the week was normal. But I’m pretty sure there were Thursdays involved at some point in the past, so that’s what I’m going with.

In the meantime, I don’t think it’s severe spoilerism to tell you that Season Four will be the full 20 episodes you may have come to expect. The first five episodes are already completely scripted, and the back fifteen are outlined. You’ll get at least the first five a week at a time. There may, or may not, be a lull between 405 and 406; I’m heading to Edinburgh Fringe for the month of August, so it will depend on how many episodes I manage to get in the can before I need to get on a plane. No matter what, episodes will resume production in September, and the season will finish up before Xmas. There are no plans yet for another Xmas special, but we all know how much I adore Xmas, so odds are decent enough.

Although episode 401 isn’t the last episode, I am allowing for the possibility that this may be the final season. Or at least, the final season of the show in its current form. To be honest, the puppets aren’t in great shape, and I’ll need to get with some serious builders in order to figure out how to reproduce them in a sturdier form. Kranium, while not terribly hard to rebuild, will involve some financial investment to make him out of better (lighter) parts. Lump, well, I need to find the right fur and deconstruct the existing puppet somehow. For a rather shapeless puppet, Lump is surprisingly specific in his look. It could take some time.

Milton, of course, is in fine shape. Some cosmetic blemishes, but the puppet is a few years younger than the rest. Should Dr. K and Lump have to take an extended medical leave, Milton will be on hand to entertain in one way or another. But all of this is very far in the future, and nothing is set in stone by any means. The season has only begun, after all.

Next Thursday will see episode 402, tentatively titled “That’s My Lump”. I just wrapped the edit on one video sequence that makes me giggle rather unexpectedly. And I’m staring at Lump’s costume right now, wondering what twist of fate brought all of the elements into my possession without even having to think, let alone actively look for them. There’s just one incredibly tricky thing I haven’t sussed yet, but I’ve got some ideas. I’m hoping I don’t have to learn green screen in order to do it. All these years without resorting to chromakey, it would seem like cheating to start now.

Anyway. Welcome back. All seven of you.

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I was just going to have an episode suddenly appear next Thursday, but when I saw this video:

…I knew Kranium had to respond.

So yeah. New season starts next week. Yay.

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The following is transcribed from a print-out left rather casually on top of a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor. One can only guess its intended recipients have all stepped over or around it over the course of the day. Much of the text was hastily marked out, but we’re fairly sure we have been able to reconstruct the entirety of the note here for the official record.

Gentlemen of the Lab,
–by which I mean Milton, Lump, Frank, and Regibor, should you all find the distinction of “gentleman” to be as spuriously applied to you as I–

I had cause to contemplate a chronometric device today in the course of my studies. Drat, I should start earlier. Transcription start again.

Before I attempt to detail the results of a seemingly casual observation I undertook this afternoon, I must first recount the situation I found myself in upon waking this morning. As you all well know, my robotic spider legs require recharging from time to time, and I often find it convenient to park myself over the wireless charging station just before bedtime and simultaneously gather a few REM cycles. Well, last I recall, I had done this last night after clearing up the mess left from our Jigsaw π experiment. So you can imagine my surprise and confusion upon waking, finding myself lying on my side underneath a workbench in the lab, covered in maple syrup and — no, actually, I think I’ll leave that bit out. Transcription, delete the previous sentence.

So you can imagine my surprise and confusion upon waking, finding myself not in the charging dock but under a workbench in the lab. I likely don’t have to tell you my first thought was of shenanigans, that one or more of you were pulling some sort of hilarious jape to blow off steam following our difficult month of videos. Indeed, I myself had contemplated substituting hydrogen for helium in our planned celebratory event as a mischievous joke — imagine the subtle difference in the buoyancy of the balloons! But soon I ruled out pranksterism, as it was then I caught sight of the surveillance feed from outside the building.

Doubtful I have to tell you gentlemen that there appears to be a great deal of snow sitting outside these walls. Snow that, by Feynman, I swear wasn’t there when I went to sleep.

It was, of course, at this point that I had cause to seek out and examine the lab’s chronometric devices in some detail. At first this brought merely confusion, as the date clearly read “February Third”. In several different languages. I was momentarily terrified that the completion of the Jigsaw π experiment had been a horrible dream and that we would have to undertake the daily video project all over again. Granted, this thought gave some comfort, for I also recalled a very vivid dream about pancakes, and thought that this might explain the maple syr– dammit. Transcription, delete that last sentence as well. Mustn’t talk about the maple syrup. It’s not as embarrassing as the feathers, but– DAMMIT. Transcription, delete THOSE two sentences, please. Must remember the recording. Okay.

But though the thought of having dreamt the entirety of Jigsaw π was disturbing, it was nowhere near as alarming as the moment when I noticed the year. Brace yourselves, gentlemen, for if you have not yet discovered this, I promise it will come as quite a shock. The year is currently 2010. 2010! I, for one, found this very upsetting, and was determined to find all of you to aid me in undertaking a grand experiment to uncover the manner by which we were delivered eleven months into the future.

Here I fell over, as my spider legs, sensing low battery, ejected me rudely and ran off to recharge. Rather undignified. It’s cold here, on the floor. When constructing this new lab, I really should have put in underfloor heating elements. I seem to recall seeing them on an old episode of This Old House. Something to keep in mind for the next time we renovate. Transcription, file the previous sentences regarding underfloor heating under Kranium’s personal notes, and remove them from this memo document.

So, gentlemen of the lab, I put it to you that we have been asleep for eleven months. To think of all the technological advancements we have missed in that time. The cultural events. The political developments. To think, we weren’t even here when the year changed from 2009 to 2010. It must have been horrid; not being around to correct the misapprehension that we were entering a new decade, countless websites and magazines must have published “Best of the Decade” lists. We could have stopped it, gentlemen. But alas, Lord Somnus had other plans for us.

Getting to the point, gentlemen, I propose that we set about the purpose of discovering what happened to us. Was it some horrible accident? Some toxic fumes leaked from the sublevels? Perhaps an old experiment come to haunt us? Or some other outside force? Gentlemen, we cannot even be certain of our safety until we have clearly assessed the forces behind our Rip Van Winkle activities. We must gather together and set our minds to this discovery, by whatever means — oh, my legs have come back. You certainly took your sweet time. Transcription pause. I really must reprogram you to let me down more gently in case of emergency recharge. Better yet, I should just place a passive induction station under this spot near the lab monitor. Help me up, front right leg, just bend there — hrmph — get the — hurgk — must have put on weight while I was asleep, it’s a bit — no, there we go — okay. Well, at least now I can review the transcription –

Dammit, transcription, I told you to pause. PAUSE, I said. No, stop — stop taking down these — dammit, Milton is the only one who can get this damn program to work correctly. Milton! Right, if I could find Milton, I wouldn’t need the blasted note. TRANSCRIPTION, PRINT NOTE. I’ll just hand-correct the — PRINT MEMO. PRINT. PRINT NOW. PLEASE. Dammit. MILTON! COME FIX THIS TRANSCRIBER PRINT

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YES.

The challenge was to create a new mini-episode of Jigsaw every weekday in the month of February. Today is the final day.

Monday through Friday. 5 episodes a week. 20 episodes total.

Not only did I succeed, but I managed to get all but one of them up before the end of normal East Coast business hours. Only two of them were posted after 2pm EST. And both of those were lengthy renders.

Wish list for season 4?

• MORE RAM. Or perhaps a new computer altogether.
• A better lighting kit. So the lamp doesn’t surge halfway through a take, exposing camera tricks.
• Mic that actually feeds into the computer, for voice over work that doesn’t sound crappy. This may require item 1b.

Comments? Thoughts? What would you like to see in the next season (keeping in mind that I have no idea when that season will be, apart from “at least three months from now”)?

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