Amy's Prank

It's new video time!  We spent around an hour shooting this last weekend, and I put it together this weekend.  It's about Amy, and the tricks she plays on her neighborhood. It so happens that we have all the right props (literally, props) to be entered into the YouTube Project: Direct 2009 contest.  I imagine that for any number of reasons, this isn't quite the kind of video they're looking for, but there's something that seems very silly to me about a direct-to-youtube video with a credited Director of Photography and three Key Grips, so maybe it should be.

If it turns out that it is, then I assure you, you'll hear about it when the voting starts.   (Judges narrow down the contestants who are then voted on by the Internets)  Until then, I recommend you watch it anywhere else.

• Vimeo - For best quality
• Funny or Die - if you like it, you can vote it 'funny' here.
• UCBComedy - Everyone in this has UCB ties!  And sweatshirts! 
• YouTube - Because I thought it'd be fun to enter a contest

It's a little bit heartbreaking to spend time adjusting colors and finessing a video just to have the YouTube automatic video ruining system add its own 'washed out' color settings and a light blur over top of everything.  It's almost enough to understand why 1) most internet videos look terrible 2) people don't bother with white balancing or microphones.  I mean, macroblocking? Really?  Even in 'high-quality' mode?  It's a series of stills, for pete's sake. (EDIT: I'm told that there's a longer wait for the site to process things into high-quality playback mode, and that it ought to look better sooner or later)

Anyway, I hope you like it, and that you get the film nerd joke in the middle.  It was fun to do, and I'd shoot this style again sometime.  Now if you'll excuse me, I actually finished something, and a little bit of sunshine is in order.  (I was going to go for an irony-free closing here, but I stumped the MTV site)