OTHER: RUBBED (limited digital series)

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btaren

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Hi all - long time lurker - learned a lot from various users here over the past year and half and am very appreciative of the community. Last year I wrote/shot/edited a 5 episode digital series and am just getting around to releasing it online - a big part of the project was getting the most out of a limited budget - the main goal was to tell one story but make each episode feel extremely distinct in form & content, in an attempt to minimize the shortcomings that come with a micro budget (limited locations, actors, effects, etc).

So far no episodes are up, but I've put a couple of teaser trailers on YouTube over the past few days and am hoping for some honest feedback on them - without knowing the series logline, do you find these too vague? Are they too long/too short? Do you feel like you have a sense of a tone, or do these just seem like random disjointed vignettes? I've never "released" something online, don't have any sort of marketing background, so I'm really interested in hearing any thoughts/impressions...

Planning on updating this thread with way more info and the episodes as they're released (will be one a week for 5 straight weeks), but seeing as the above are questions best answered with no other knowledge, wanted to start here - all feedback welcome, and thanks for any of your time spent with it!

Teaser 1 (0:33): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwYFOWl2XQs

Teaser 2 (0:45): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWqHHbbIH5g
 
Last edited:
Episode 1 is up:


This series was the last thing I shot on my Canon 60D - it really showed its limitations as we were going along. This first episode was a lot of trial and error, and I think it shows - from script to final edit it's definitely the most changed/cut - also was trying out a variety of lenses - ultimately it was a great learning experience and helped us vastly improve our production value moving forward, but it was definitely our weakest episode all around.

Some small production notes:
- Moving shots were all done on a GlideCam (Devin Graham)
- Audio ran through a Juicedlink pre-amp - had a bunch of issues monitoring sound with the 60D (not a surprise) - we ended up upgrading microphones after episode 2 because even with the pre-amp, the sound wasn't coming out great
- Shot this with 3 people behind the camera - one on camera, one with the boom, one as a general PA
- The "special effect" of the magic is done classic "I Dream of Genie"- style - on the clap everybody froze and we'd change things, camera still rolling, then when everything was ready we'd launch the glitter and have the scene resume - this was a tonal choice we tested (also cheap)
- Glued the bottom half of a rubber balloon to a toilet paper roll to create a mini-cannon to launch the glitter - we had a few kinds of glitter - every kind but the circular would get caught when we tried to launch it
- Original cut of this episode was around 9 1/2 minutes

Happy to answer any questions - appreciate anyone taking the time to watch - will be releasing one episode a week for 5 consecutive weeks, and that's the whole series
 
Episode 2 now live:


This episode was primarily organized around a non-linear flashback structure, both to distinguish itself from the "pilot" and so we could easily include a bunch of comedy montages. 90% of the flashbacks can be pieced together into one story, but it's not a necessity to do to follow the episode. The other 10% were more random things added to drive home a point & be funny - I think if I were to rewrite this episode I would try to figure out how to make all the flashbacks different segments of one event to try to make piecing together that narrative easier/more attractive/obvious. I would say this episode tries the hardest to be funny of the 5 we made - it at least got the most number of laughs when we've screened it (although the biggest laugh came from Ep 3).

Some productions notes:
- Shot all of the flashback stuff in one evening, and all of the surrounding story in one day
- Jake (the guest star) did an absurd amount of background humor in this episode that is easily missed - well worth just watching his character if you're a fan of that kind of humor
- The hardest bit to film was the repetitive glitter gag - lots of moving people and parts to get all of it in one take - we had 3 decent takes after trying 9-10 times - the light changes spoil it a bit, I'm sure someone more experienced in color correction/post could make those less obvious...
- On the glidecam for the moving shots again
- Our composer prepared the music to precisely mimic the Christina Aguilera song "Genie in a Bottle" - it's not her track - I think he nailed it
- Had to try to ADR (using that term lightly) one bit of dialogue from a shot that included our guest star (as we couldn't reshoot) - sound issues definitely continued this episode - the post-sound guy did his best with our attempt to rerecord - luckily it goes by pretty quickly...

Happy to answer any questions - thanks to anyone watching or reading!
 

The goal of this episode was to double down on the character's issues & was also interested in trying to have them deal with some of the more subtle forms of racism in a way that was funny but not disrespectful to anyone. Pretty happy with the balance we struck. One of my biggest self-criticisms of the series is that Kevin speaks about his issues more than we're shown them, so I could see doing a better job of depicting what he eventually talks to Eugene about in this episode.

Some production notes:

- Finally upgraded our mic in between shooting episodes 2 & 3 - we used the Sennheiser MKE 600 for this and the next two episodes - a noticeable step up
- Shot this episode in one evening and one afternoon, other than needing to reshoot final scene because we unfortunately lost the audio for it
- Was probably the least complicated episode from a production standpoint, no really difficult set ups - the hardest thing to do was circle the characters with the Glidecam and knew that’d be within a montage so wasn’t worried if there were iffy moments. Did 3 takes with each character going around them 3 times - a bit of a workout but very happy with the floating effect the Glidecam provides
- the struggle at the door was done practically in the same manner as all of the other moments Eugene (the genie) uses “magic” - used some strategic blocking & practice to hide our glitter cannon - did about 4 takes of this and had 2 solid choices
- 2nd hardest episode to edit of the series - mostly issues with finding the right timing and circling in on the right amount of tension/release with the racism & humor
- Music is all original - composer made his own versions of the recognizable songs - he really did an amazing job and also sung the words to the song playing over the first montage
- biggest single laugh of the series during screenings was that first montage in this episode
- This ended up being the shortest episode of the series - it was written that way as well, there were probably 4-5 lines cut from the shooting script but otherwise came together as it was on the page
- One of the reasons we wrote the cat into the series was so we wouldn’t have to worry if he wandered into or was in the background of a shot and we didn’t notice - got a kick out of unexpectedly finding him on the chair while Eugene rips his vest open in the first montage

Appreciate anyone watching or reading!
 

This episode was a beast from start to finish. The idea was to amplify the decision Kevin & Eugene make at the end of episode 3 and see how it plays out for them. Formally I wanted to do something pretty non-traditional - Eugene is still stuck in the same space we've been in for the first 3 episodes so it felt like a necessity to break this up, get Kevin out of the apartment, and make what was going on inside the apartment kind of unique. I also wanted to establish and play with this sense of community around Kevin & Eugene to widen their world (ergo the "streaming" viewers) and create a bit of a radio show/War of the Worlds-inspired vibe (sans aliens).

Production notes:
- the apartment party scene was the first multi-camera shoot we'd ever done - we had 4 cameras (all Canon dslrs) going at all times: 1 on the wide of the room, 1 a close-up of Eugene, and the other 2 looking out into the audience at opposite angles. We shot the apartment monologue in 6 chunks, and we repped each chunk 3 times. The actor playing Eugene crushed the monologue performances - there's probably 33% more dialogue that was written for him that he performed live but had to be cut for time. All of this was done in one night - I'd say we had the extras there for 2.5-3 hours which was right around when people were getting antsy...
- Kevin's night out was shot on the dji osmo - had never used it before and went in knowing it wasn't great in lowlight, but we shot in 4k and felt the stylistic contrast between the osmo/canons would help carry its shortcomings
- the remixed version of the theme song was done by a friend who produces beats - thought he did a great job especially given the limited time - it's one of two pieces of music in the whole series not done by our composer - the other is the classical music (public domain) used for the opening montage
- the alternate title sequence was all done on the glidecam and sped up in post
- Editing this episode was a challenge - I think the first cut was somewhere around 18 minutes - Eugene's narration needed a lot of cuts to make it a tolerable length - had written in a few bits in there like the bathroom just to keep the monologue from becoming too monotonous and inject some extra humor, which helped
- this is the longest episode of the series, but consensus at the screenings we did was that it was the best/most effective - I think because it pays off some of things set up in previous episodes that were more said and less seen, and here it leans in the other direction

Thanks for watching and/or reading!
 
I checked out ep 1. Cute. NO real criticisms. . .it feels well done. . .those guys are good, edit etc. etc. is good too. Yes you are right there are some production value issues but overall nothing anyone who wasn't one of us (i.e. working in the industry) would notice or care about. Good work.
 
Josh Bass said:
I checked out ep 1. Cute. NO real criticisms. . .it feels well done. . .those guys are good, edit etc. etc. is good too. Yes you are right there are some production value issues but overall nothing anyone who wasn't one of us (i.e. working in the industry) would notice or care about. Good work.
Click to expand...

Thanks Josh - appreciate you taking the time to watch and the kind words!
 

This is the last episode of the series - thanks for checking it out!

Production Notes:
- the fight scene took a lot of time and rehearsal even though we knew exactly what shots we wanted to get and how it would be edited (had done a detailed storyboard ahead of time) - everyone was very game without having a ton of experience shooting a fight - it just took a lot longer than we thought it would…
- shot the fight on a shoulder rig - also was one of the few times we didn’t shoot at 24p - bumped up to 30p to capture the movement a little sharper (would’ve gone higher if had the capability)
- Beyond the fight this was a very straightforward episode to shoot from a production sense - mostly just conversations and a little bit of movement
- definitely firing on all cylinders from a production stand point by this (the final) episode - we had maybe 2 people behind the camera for the entirety of the shoot, and I think we got the best and most consistent results from our equipment
- shot the episode over two days - one afternoon & evening, and one morning & afternoon
- We shot this after episode 3, and shot episode 4 last (because that one has a unique set up)

Happy to answer any questions - it's onto the next project for me in the meantime...
 
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