Nintendo Treehouse Live @ E3

July 07, 2014 / Rob Schultz

Last month, I was part of the crew that made Nintendo's Treehouse Live @ E3 happen. It was 25 hours of TV streaming live-to-web from the Nintendo booth on the show floor.

I was in the control room for the broadcast, also known as the edge of the stage. I programmed and piloted our little robot camera, I made graphics, I prepped media in our switcher (the Atem M series from Black Magic. Tip for working with those: If you bring an ethernet switch and make a little LAN, multiple computers can be in control of the switcher at the same time, allowing one op to do the actual switching while another one preps and loads graphics or adjusts sound), at the last minute I turned out to be running video playback from my laptop (tips on that in a minute), and most of all, I was responsible for engineering the signal flow through the booth that got all the stuff from the cameras and consoles piped out to the internet.

Underground Comedy is Go!

June 30, 2014 / Rob Schultz

For years, I've been tangentially involved in a documentary about the improv comedy scene in Los Angeles. In January we made a trailer for it, and now we're about to make the whole darn thing. We've got hundreds of hours of footage, and we want to bring you an interesting 90 minute feature film about what goes on in the black box theaters that are forging (a) tomorrow's big name comics and (b) tomorrow's accountants and waiters who did a fun thing in their 20s. Most people don't know about it, most people will never know about it, and even the folks that do might never get to see it because improv evaporates as soon as it's done, never to be seen again. Unless of course, someone is standing around with a camera crew documenting the whole thing.

Check out the trailer for Underground Comedy here and if you want to get a DVD in a couple years after we're done producing the movie and walking it around to festivals, or maybe a nice co-producer credit for your IMDB page, go have a look at the film's Kickstarter*, which is running for a mere 3 more weeks.

* Once upon a time, folks in film production probably compared notes on how they don't actually work so much with film anymore these days and isn't it a shame, why, I only ever worked on two projects in my life that shot on honest-to-goodness celluloid. Well that conversation is done, and everything's digital from here on out. The craft services table chit chat of the future is reminiscing about the days when films had investors. This is maybe my 5th crowdfunded movie.

categories / Commerce, Life, Movies, Work, video, via internets

The Curse of Oedipus!

June 23, 2014 / Rob Schultz

This week I'm back on set with Diani and Devine Meet the Apocalypse, which means lots of media production, and not much media consumption. Instead, check out this promo I edited for the Antaeus Theater Company for their upcoming production of The Curse of Oedipus.

The theater company shares a ton of great actors with the movie, and the promo was written & directed by Diani & Devine! All I did was edit, color, mix, and make some fun graphics for the totally real previous versions of the show, like the Klingon version in the thumbnail, starring noted Klingon actor Michael Dorn.

categories / video, Work, via internets, Life

#2,053: Edge of Tomorrow

June 16, 2014 / Rob Schultz

Godzilla (2014) - ★★★☆☆
I think this was probably a good example of a classic Godzilla movie, but I don't know how many times I've actually enjoyed a classic Godzilla movie. Certainly, I liked this more than Monsters, but I think it was a misstep to swap out the charismatic lead for a kind of bland sap-faced dude.

Non-Stop - ★★★½☆
I watched this on a crummy hotel TV, and it was perfect. Solid 90s flavored action with more plot than the trailer gives up. Kind of a preachy speech from one of the bad guys, but he's duly punished for it. Recommended, even if you have to watch it on a high quality screen of some sort.

Duck Soup - ★★☆☆☆
It played much better the first time I saw it, in a packed theater, than it did in my living room. Either way, it's not one of my favorite Marx Brothers movies. Too much a melange.

Edge of Tomorrow - ★★★★☆
I totally expected some kind of twisty turny part after an hour or so, based on what the trailers gave us, but it's not that kind of movie. It's the movie the trailers tell us it's going to be, and it does a great job of being that. Comedic parts, action parts, and the best representation of the meta-nature of being a video game hero, just like everyone says.