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CIN, Shorts and Favorites

(If you're looking for my professional video portfolio, this isn't it. Unless you're filming Jackass 7. )

About These Clips:

Most (actually, all, as of now) of these clips date back to highschool unless otherwise noted, which is why most are ridiculously sophomoric. I can't help but cringe while watching most of these.

CIN for those who don't know, stands for "Chatfield Information Network," which was the "morning announcements" broadcast daily for all at Chatfield Senior High to enjoy.

Anytime a clip references CIN, you'll know why. Just pretend you're sitting in third hour, with 30 other students, and these interrupt your education. I'm in the class too. I'm the one burying my face in my folded arms pretending I'm not the one up on the screen making a fool of myself infront of thousands of my peers.

Still, it's impressive that these were all made in 1999-2001, with no budget at all, on a Power Mac G3 with iMovie 1.0 and Adobe AfterEffects, with no formal instruction.

Special thanks of course go out to my partners in crime: Kevin Best, Lucas Madsen, Spencer Smith, and Greg Walker. The rest of you should have tried harder.

PART ONE: THE GOOD OLD DAYS

	"The Kevin Dancing Video" Circa 1999 The clip that launched a thousand videos. This was filmed spontaneously one afternoon with the help of Kevin Best and our mutual friend: "Jack." This cult classic remains a valid reminder that highschool students have too much free time, and that Kevin is a remarkable dancer. Strangely enough, this could be considered my first foray into the realm of video editing...
	"CIN: The Beverage " Circa 1999 Another one of the first clips ever to be aired. When these were made I wasn't in video class. I'd pass them off to Lucas, who was, and he would get them aired. I still enjoy watching this one. It was an early exploration of the medium of video, speed-ups, slowdowns, reversals and overlays. The softdrink was delicious too. I think it was actually a fruitopia with the label torn off. Voice Overs: Lucas Madsen & Me
	"Twins" Circa 1999 So many of these early videos began on a whim. A loooong time ago, maybe even in middle school, I took a photograph with myself sitting in various positions on a couch, then photoshopped it to make it look like there were five or six of me. This was the natural thing to try in the realm of video. Still amusing. (To me, at least).
	"sdrawkcaB " Circa 2000 This is one of my favorites. The whole thing was done in one take, then reversed. Looking back, I wish I would have exploited this idea further and had done an insanely long scene taking the lessons of this one as a starting point. In those days, most of these were thought-up and done in an afternoon, and when they were done, they were done. Dang.
( Coming Soon. )	"Everyday. " Circa 1999 Before CIN, we would all just run around like devils harassing normies by being obnoxious, then edit it and throw it sequentially onto tape. This was the beginning of the "film," a scene which, as a young adult, I thought was the funniest thing in the whole world: myself slamming my face into furniture in front of people. Now that I'm older... well... it's still sort of funny... although I have to lower my head in shame and wonder if that was really me...
	"Banned!" Circa 2000 Ahh... being a jack ass was so much fun... This was in the days BEFORE jackass, Tom Green, and all the other idiots to follow. Not like it's a stroke of brilliance to hide a camera and act mildly retarded in public. This was one of the few that snuck by and made it on CIN. Special thanks to Kevin for letting me throttle him with a plastic bat in public. The woman freaking out at the end ensure the 5/5 Hilarity Status.
	"Boing. " Circa 2000 Everyone remembers those obnoxious Nike commercials with the shoes that "boinged," ... er... "bung"? what's the verb for boing, past-tense? Anyway, yeah... I'm pretty sure anyone wearing boingy shoes would get the bung beat out of them in a short amount of time.
	"School Day: The Game " Circa 2000 This was goofy, just a way to play with Adobe After Effects. A lot of inside jokes pertinent to Chatfield SH. No soda off the tiles, Barb, the evil parking lot attendant who gave tickets like there was no tomorrow.... ah yes... let's go back there....
	"Gone in 60 Minutes " Circa 2000 This is pretty embarrassing to watch. Anytime you try to imitate Nicholas Cage you're going to look like a moron. This spoof was supposed to end with us "Boosting" a cow. There was only one place around Littleton where we could find cows. We were pretty sure it was the type of place where we could get shot. So, no cows. Bummer.

PART TWO: THE MIDDLE YEARS

First semester senior year, I think... at this point, I was enrolled in video class, and was helping to teach it. I picked out and set up a number of Macs for the school, as well as a few MiniDV cameras, and was spending more time than ever infornt of a final cut timeline. The best was still to come, however.

	"Homecoming " Circa 2001 Embarrassment, thy name is: flirting with strange, sometimes over-the-hill women. This took a lot of balls when we first started doing it, after a while it got easier. I think this was due to brain cells ritualistically committing suicide. That hypothesis explains a lot... Special thanks to my wingman: kevin. Neither Lucas nor Brady could step up to the plate on this one.
	"The Ron Gabbert Story " Circa 2001 You'd really have to be in video class and know Ron Gabbert to appreciate how funny this is. Gabbert was also the baseball coach, and was as big a hard-ass as they come. He'd routinely make my life miserable by forcing me to re-edit everything I brought to him, this in the wake of Columbine, of course. Everything was either inappropriate, offensive or both. Now that I think about it, he was probably right. None the less, he messed with us a lot, and attempted to have me suspended twice. All in good fun. This was Lucas and my tribute to him. He was a great guy.
	"Boarding Short " Circa 2001 Spencer, Greg and I went to Vail. We took the camera. We built a kicker. We jibbed a railing. We dropped a cornice. We put it on CIN. We're such badasses, huh? We thought so... Guess what! I'm in the works on a new short riding/skiing video with my buddy Scribblez. It's in HD, and we're much better riders. More on that as it develops...
	"For Patrick " Circa 2001 Not everything is fun and games. In 2001, our good friend, Pat McKenstry, who I've known since kinder garden, died on his motorcycle while riding with his twin brother Ben. The whole world stopped suddenly for a lot of people. I was asked to put together a tribute to Pat for his funeral, which I humbly did. It was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do... sifting through hours of personal home-move footage only days after his death. He was an amazing rider, as this film can attest. He died young, in a style befitting his personality. Ride on, Patrick...
	"REC Sports " Circa 2001 Oh man... this cracks me up... I'm not sure Kevin and Spencer are comfortable with this being on the internet... One of the funniest things we ever did, though.... All the individuals mentioned were Chatfield students who were among the best in their respective sports. All except "Cedabaka," of course....

PART THREE: THE GOLDEN AGE OF CIN

The clips below were as good as it ever got. Second half of 1st semester and all of second brought about some great videos. Most, you may notice, are blatant, unapologetic rip-offs of something we thought was rad. This was largely due to the "That's rad, I wonder if I could do that" syndrome I had at the time. I now wish I had worked to come up with some original ideas. Furdie was original... the problem was everything was spontaneous, nothing was premeditated. I'd think: "I wonder if I could make Matrix-style text", and four hours later I was headlong into a parody...

	"The Fight Club Video " Circa 2001 Fight Club is the best movie of our time. It pushed the envelope of film making farther than anyone else had since starwars. So many, now conventional motifs were direct products of FightClub's edgy style. It had a profound influence on how I approach my video projects. This was my little tribute... There are lots of little tributes inside the major one. Try to collect them all!
	"Jedi Spotlight " Circa 2001 Every week there would be a "spotlight" on CIN. These usually consisted of some video student following a friend around the halls filming them, with a dubbed in voiceover talking about said-students interests and hobbies. Pretty lame... Lucas and I pulled a fast one on 'em all. The beginning looks like any other spotlight. Then our secret is revealed. Nowadays a starwars spoof isn't too shocking. Thanks a lot SWK.... There are lots of tools now available to make the job of "rotoscoping" in a lightsaber quick and easy. Back when I did this, I used Adobe AfterEffects to paint in the saber frame by frame, at 30 frames per second... At the time this was fairly amazing. It's still fun to watch.
	"The Matrix Spoof " Circa 2001 Blatant rip-off, anyone? As previously mentioned, this all started because I wanted to see if I could make matrix-style text scrolling. Before I knew it we had ripped off an entire scene from the matrix, even using the original audio track. I would like to point out the everything seen here was made from scratch, from the 3D intro to the matrix-style computer-innards. Not bad for a highschool kid in his parents basement with no formal training whatsoever... As soon as we put this on, everyone started bugging us: when will the next one be on??? We hadn't thought that far. Like I said, when something was done it was done. Grudgingly, we made parts II and III. No story line, no real point... just to get everyone off our backs. "Actors" : Lucas and Myself.
	"Don't Blink " Circa 2001 This was my first CIN feature after the christmas break, assuring all my adoring viewers that there was more to come. Yeah, by this time I was a little full of myself... or at least full of something... This was a montage of the previous semester's clips, along with some random footage of me jumping around like an idiot. This is one of my favorite clips of all time. BTW, the stunt at the end of me doing a misty flip off the pop machine in the commons landed me in the principals office, and almost got me suspended. I had to remove it from the feature that aired on CIN, but now it's back in for everyone to enjoy. Call this "the director's cut." Also note: if you pause this video during the single-frame images you'll see a lot of interesting, largely inapproprate stuff. Sneaky sneaky sneaky...
	"Matrix Part II " Circa 2001 What can I say? We did this over the course of two nights, with no prior planning, just making it up as we went. I like the first scene at the mall, the second part is hard for me to stomach. I'm such a dork. Aw... I made myself sad.... "Actors" : Lucas, Spencer and Myself.
	"Furdie" Circa 2001 This might be my favorite of all time. The idea started while at a party at a house with a screeching parakeet. I think me and Kocol spent a good deal of time questioning why anyone would ever want such a creature around in their house. That lead to thinking about the worst creature possible, and how one might market it. Furdie was the end result.
	"Matrix Part III " Circa 2001 Our solution to everyone bugging us: give them a cheesy kung fu scene with no plot or relevance, the last week of school. Nothing makes sense, nothing is wrapped up, but we got to do what we did best: run around like idiots. "Actors" : Lucas, Spencer and Myself.
	"Sesame Street " Circa 2001 At the time I never gave this much credit. We filmed it in the course of two hours and that was that. There's nothing to it. No special effects, no storyline, no acrobatics... yet, this video always gets laughs. Something about combining innocence, violence and cool costumes... go figure... "Actors" : BigBird: Spencer Smith & CookieMonster:Greg Walker