Posts Tagged ashes
Live Super Hero Transmedia Performance on Thursday!
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Business of Web Series, Show News, Tights and Fights on December 7th, 2010
Hello! Scott, here.
The last couple of days have been both tiring and kinda impressive, if I do say so myself. We’ve been shooting, launching and promoting episodes, all at the same time!
But I wanted to jump on here and invite you all to our live Transmedia twitter performance this Thursday (December 9th) at 7:00 PM EST!
Our super hero characters will be acting out a short scene in their lives from 7:00 to 8:00. We try to do three every month, that means we’ll have a performance most Thursdays at the same time.
Please join us! You can read more about what’s going on in this Thursday’s performance here on our site!
Transmedia Storytelling Tools
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Business of Web Series on December 3rd, 2010
Hello everyone! Scott here!
Every day I say I’m going to post what we have learned and what bumps we have hit here on this blog. But every day I don’t get quite that far down my To-Do list.
And guess what!? We’re shooting tomorrow! Yep, we’re just that crazy that we’ve started round two of our production cycle in early December in Canada. Lucky for us, Toronto is barely Canada on the best of days so weather wise we should be okay.
So wish us luck, but what I wanted to talk a bit about today was the tools we are using to run our transmedia. We’ve been pushing hard to add more and more live transmedia experience to our show, whether twitter or Facebook or whatever. And what we have discovered is… it’s hard. 
And there aren’t many tools out there designed to do what we do – tell a story in real time using Social Media. And so through trial and error we are slowly figuring out what works for us. Here’s a list with some pros and cons…
TweetChat
http://tweetchat.com/room/tightsandfights
TweetChat takes your hashtag and uses it to make a chatroom that updates in real time. It’s pretty neat. We’re trying to use it for our live twitter performances. Sadly, the two times we have tried to make use of it, it hasn’t worked so well. The first time, all use of hashtags in Toronto didn’t work and we had to cancel our performance. The second time, it sucked in all the posts well enough, but it didn’t post them if you wrote them through the TweetChat. Very disappointing, but at least we kept going. We’re going to do some tests, but it still seems like the best way to have all the posts and a way for people to jump in all in one place.
HootSuite
Sure, I’m not cracking any secrets of the web by mentioning Hootsuite, but you what – Hootsuite is the only twitter client that doesn’t slow, stall or crash my computer.
The biggest problem is keeping an eye on our 16 twitter feeds, as well as 6 Facebook pages, 7 blogs, 8 YouTube channels and one website. It can be overwhelming. But let’s just stick to twitter for now. Hootsuite was doing well at first, even through I hadn’t quite figured out how to best organize it to see in a glance everything I need to see. But then they went to a paid model, so I went in search of a free client that replaced HootSuite. None of them did. To me, HootSuite’s killer feature is it’s easy to use scheduled tweets. And, oh yeah, it doesn’t crash.
I’ve gone back to the free version, which only allows you have 5 social networks. This limitation turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it led me to try having two accounts. Nothing has made my life easier than using the two accounts to organize all those feeds. Character feeds go into one account, all other feeds into the other. It means lots less clicking around in slow loading tabs to see who is interacting to whom, and who is saying what. But that’s not all I use…
Seesmic Desktop
Seesmic filled in for Hootsuite for a short time, and I fell in love with the one thing Hootsuite doesn’t have – having all your accounts updates dhow up in one column. So I can glance at it and see if anyone is talking to me (or my characters) and then I can dig into the individual account to talk back.
One of the smaller things I don’t like about it, there’s not much way to control what shows up in the constant visual twitter updates in the corner of my screen. Why can’t a twitter client realize there are some tweets I consider important and others I don’t need to know about?
The big drawback on Seesmic? Add too many columns and it drags your computer to a halt. Granted, some of the problems I thought I was having with it I traced to another program, so I’ll keep playing with it and if it turns out it wasn’t at all effecting my computer’s performance, I’ll let you know.
But without a way to schedule tweets, it can never be the only twitter client I use.
But the one thing that is the biggest (and most surprising help) is…
Yoono
It’s main purpose is be a twitter client type interface for YouTube, IM, Facebook and others, including twitter. It doesn’t really do that very well, in my opinion. It is its secondary function that has turned my life around.
Since Google and YouTube is now one, every time I need to log into a character’s YouTube page, it logs me out of gmail, google docs, etc. And it is a pain to go through the five steps required to log in to YouTube from a different account. With Yoono in my Firefox browser, there’s a drop down menu that not only lets me switch between YouTube account with a single click – each tab can be logged into a Google/YouTube account of its own! I can be logged into my Gmail and multiple character’s YouTube pages simultaneously. I can’t stress enough how this has simplified my daily work flow.
The same thing works for twitter. Before, to be logged into multiple Twitter accounts at once, I needed to use multiple browsers and even multiple computers! Now, with Yoono’s Firefox extension, I can log in to different Twitter accounts in each tab.
It doesn’t work flawlessly. Sometimes it seems to get confused over which account I want it to use. And you must remember to switch back to the global profile before logging out. But those minor problems don’t even begin to stack up against the added ease that Yoono has given me.
Those are the big tools that I’m using to help navigate all the networks we’re using. My system is continuing to develop, so I’ll post more here if something big gets added to my arsenal.
Gotta go! We’re shooting at first light (short days in December!) and the club music from downstairs is getting louder. I can’t decided which of those are better reasons to go home.
The Joys and Perils of Going Live
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Business of Web Series on November 17th, 2010
Hey! Scott here with a short introduction!
This post comes courtesy of Elize Morgan, who is one of our two Transmedia Story Editors. We has just started our second Transmedia (social networking) performance on Twitter last night when we had a hiccup – our Twitter posts were posting, but not aggregating. And our back up plan didn’t work any better. So we had to abort the performance before we had even gotten started. On the bright side, we had some good sushi!
Here’s Elize’s take on writing without a net;
Image Credit: Fabio Rex Too
But when it comes to transmedia, going with the flow is often attempting to stop a tide of impeding doom the size of a tsunami – because something isn’t working. It’s akin to actors showing up and finding no set, no microphones, and well, no audience because in actual fact we’re in the middle of podunk nowheresville and this isn’t funny kids.
But in all seriousness, working transmedia means you have to be prepared to make things work in other ways. If things don’t work – don’t lie to your audience. Be able to throw up your hands and say, alright, we done messed up. But next week? Next week will be even better.
And deliver.
So be ready to deal with that twister in the middle of the story when absolutely nothing works – it happens, after all. People lose internet connections, get kicked out of a coffee shops, oh, and then your team gets murdered by ninjas mid-performance (well, maybe not the last one), but the thing is you keep on marching on.
After all – the joy of improv is sometimes that things break.
Switch to our New Site to Keep Watching!
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Latest News on November 16th, 2010
Hi, Scott here!
During our soft launch, we’ve been posting episodes for those of you who subscribed to our production blog here at Gopherx.net.
We thank you for watching (we really, really do!) but now that our official website has launch – pictures from the party are coming soon! – we will no longer be notifying you about each episode in this blog.
We’ll have lots of other goodies to share with you – as much as we can squeeze into our days and weeks to tell you about. So no need to cancel your subscription here.
But to continue receiving updates about each episode, go here…
http://www.tightsandfights.com/how-to/
The above link will take you to a page on our new site that all kinds of helpful hints to keep you on top of all the wacky super powered goings on.
There’s a new episode up today! If you just want to jump to the episode while you’re subscribing to our main website, here it is!
If Only the Internet Had the Answers…
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Latest News, Show News, Tights and Fights on November 12th, 2010
Robert Strovesco begins his search for Captain Euchre in the likeliest of places — The Internet.
Welcome to Episode 16!
Another Episode featuring Scott Watkins as The Plumber. The Plumber knows he has to find Captain Euchre… maybe the internet can help?
Cousin Joey Sends His Regards!
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Latest News, Show News, Tights and Fights on November 10th, 2010
Robert Strovesco has a pleasant conservation with his Uncle Sal in an attempt to get his job back.
The Plumber tries to convince Uncle Sal to give him his job back. It doesn’t go so well.
Hope you’re enjoying watching the episodes! Do you have a favourite character yet?
History of the Writers’ Room – Part Two
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog on November 9th, 2010
I wrote the first part of this a long time ago, and I have been trying to get back to it ever since. Events have conspired to keep me busy – turns out a show won’t shoot/post and promote itself, but as tonight is the first punch up session for bump 2 (our second of third set f 60 episodes) I thought it was a good time to carve some time aside and jot down some memories. And no, I haven’t had time to dig up pictures!
In the last post, I talked about the people. Now let’s talk about the set up.
We mostly met in my “office” which is in the basement of a church nearby where I live. I bought tables and chairs from a retirement home, and Joel and I spent many hours scrubbing the cream corn off them. Once they were set up in my room, there was barely enough room to squeeze around the edge of the room to grab a snack or a coffee.
We bought ourselves a roll of craft paper and tacked it to the wall. We marked off four character streams – Evil Trojan Borscht, written by me, Fantabulous Gal, written by Melanie Hunter, The Plumber, written by the team of Scott Watkins and Adam Swimmer, and Major Faultline & Leopard Woman, written by Conor O’Hegarty and Chelsea Larkin. Then we made a grid by dividing the character streams into 15 parts. This was our Bump 1.
Then we just started tossing around ideas of what happens to each character. Well, that’s not entirely true. I had a general idea where each character was starting from, since they all picked up from the aftermath of Captain Euchre. The only one that did not start from a Captain Euchre plot point was Fantabulous Gal. It was Mel’s suggestion that Fantabulous Gal be DynaGal’s sidekick/personal assistant. I immediately said no. But then I started to think about it… and realized it added quite a bit to an otherwise murky character (at the time).
Each time we had an idea for an episode that made us laugh and moved the story forward, we wrote it on an index card and slotted it on the grid. We didn’t start at the beginning and come up with the story in order. We started with what we already knew we wanted to have happen and then filled in the blanks. It’s a technique that I use all the time – it really helps to find your story quickly, instead of getting stuck because you don’t know point two, or whatever.
In the first session, we had all 15 episodes for all 4 character streams up on the board. And so we all went away to write. The scripts came to Neil, who polished them and reworked them as needed, and then they came to me, where I did the same. Two weeks later, we all met again to go over the scripts and tried to figure out if they made any sense. We talked them through, and then we all went away to rewrite. Again, the scripts went to Neil, who rewrote them, and then to me.
Including the punch up room sessions, each script went through at least 7 revisions! That’s a lot of writing for something that was going to be semi-improvised anyway, but we want to do our best to give ourselves a solid foundation of story, character and humour… that they can then dive off of on the day of the shoot.
We did that same process – meet to discuss, write, rewrite, meet to discuss, write, rewrite twice more until we had scripts for all three bumps – 180 episodes! I’m trying to remember now how long it took – something like 5 or 6 months. And while we weren’t working on it everyday 9 to 5, each of us put in a lot of free time. And Joel, our script coordinator, put in many hours of additional work; formatting, organizing, writing synopses and keywords… Thanks Joel!
And now, about 2 years later, we’re finally going to camera. We’re already posted 15 episodes online! It’s weird, because I’ve known them for so long as theoretical things typed into a computer, it is a little hard t adjust and realize – no, that one’s actually done and out there for the audience!
Oh, the punch up room is about to start! I gotta get going. Tonight we’re going to be working on scripts for Fantabulous Gal’s episodes #16-31! We’ll be shooting them in December, and they’ll start airing in February.
Thanks for reading this post! I hope that someday I’ll have a chance to add a part three and give you a little more detail about our Punch Up Rooms!
“Sexy Avenger!”
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Show News, Tights and Fights on November 8th, 2010
The Major worries that his inactivity might not be going over so well with his wife and, naturally, he resents her for it. No matter. With the sound advice of his former cellmate Tubsy for inspiration, Faultline devises a plan to rejoin Ronin Force and restore his respectability.
We haven’t heard too much from the Major – unless you have been following him on Twitter, that is!
Last Thursday we had our first live Twitter performance. We didn’t tell too many people about it, because we wanted to use it as something as a dry run. But it does explain why the Major is jacketless in this video!
When our new website launches on November 12, it’ll be easy to peek in and see all the various elements of the show. For now, if you want to see what went down with Leopard Woman and The Major, you can click here!
We’re still working out the bugs, so to read it in order you’ll have to scroll down until you see these posts…
It’s easiest if you look for posts from Tights and Fights. There’s less of them, so they stand out more.
We hope you enjoy today’s episode!
Exciting Annoucement Time!
Posted by ScottAlbert in Ashes Production Blog, Latest News, Tights and Fights on November 2nd, 2010
Hold your applause until the-- Nah, go ahead!
Hola, Scott here!
It’s been a while since I last posted any actual news here – there was a lot more time to do stuff like that before we started posting episodes! We hope that you’re enjoying them, we’re pretty exciting to be sharing them with you.
But actually, we’ve got a few announcements, and they are interrelated, so I thought that I might as well put them into this one post. So here goes!
Bump Two Filming starts in December!
That’s right. The sixty episodes that we have already shot, and are currently releasing online, only takes us a third of the way through the story. We have are moving ahead on production of the next sixty!
What can you expect from them? How about time travel, monkeys, ninjas, split personalities, Fantabulous Gal as a cleaning service mogul, an evil robot invasion of Leopardia – Leopard Woman’s kingdom in the middle of the planet, The Plumber goes undercover… and much much more!
We’re going into prep in November, just as we’re approaching our official launch on November 12. Busy, busy month – we hope you think it is worth it!
Okay, on to related exciting annoucement #2!
Table Read for Bump Two is tomorrow!
For the second time, we’re gathering all of our cast and key crew together to hear all the scripts from Bump Two out loud. This is a crucial testing ground for jokes and storylines – trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. What needs to be punched up and what needs to be left alone, even though the joke may not be fresh to you two years after you wrote it.
The table read is also a nice chance to have everyone gathered in one spot – one of the few times that this happens for our oversize, sprawling production.
We’ll let you know how it goes! And then it’s on to the punch up room sessions, where the scripts get rewritten (again) and many laughs spill out of the boardroom here at the Gopher Hole.
And speaking of writing, here’s related and exciting announcement #3!
Live Transmedia Performances Start This Week!
Some of you who follow our characters on twitter or YouTube have already noticed they have started chatting with each other, and the occasional ‘civilian.’ That’s what we call our ‘low intensity’ Transmedia activities – and we’re only just getting our feet wet with those. But this week, we’ll be doing our first, live Transmedia performance!
Because we’re thinking of this as a bit of a test run, I’m not going to give you any times or dates here. Rest assured, if you follow us on Twitter, you’ll get more info. (If you don’t – why not?) This first performance will be low key, and low stress, but as we get our sea legs you’ll be hearing a lot more about these performances – and you’ll see why we call this show the most Transmedia story ever told!
The real fun part of these performances is that you can join in! We’re looking to get our audience to be as involved with how the plot unfolds us the characters themselves. It’s like an improvised scene that anyone can be a part of! Exciting, no?
So that’s it for the announcements right now. But watch this space – there’ s plenty of surprises still to come!
