Hello Interwebs! Welcome to TPM’s August news update. We’ve got a new short film in the making, a major podcast update, and some BTS on our latest sketch. Read on for the latest…
Pre-Production Projects
Justin’s recent trip to Buffer Festival Toronto re-inspired him to push TPM into more “legitimate” avenues of distribution. We aim to enter works into Buffer 2023’s major categories– including a short film (Praxor-5), a comedy sketch, and a short documentary (the later two yet to be determined).
To these ends– Justin accomplished a stunning amount of work on Praxor-5! He completed a script and shot-lists for P-5 in less than a month. Now he’s piecing together costumes, and location scouting.
My contributions to Praxor-5 are mostly advisory: I’ve helped Justin pare down his script, acted as his sounding-board, and offered some logistical input. But I’ll participate more overtly come our production. That, for the record, will hopefully be sometime this fall.
As for my August pre-production efforts: I wrote and produced a new sketch called “The Cleverest Comment On the Internet” (further discussed below).
Production Projects
I’ve been sick most of the last two weeks. So I’ve struggled to be productive. That’s why I put off writing “The Cleverest Comment On the Internet” till its release date…
I at least had the rough premise ready. And I instantly brainstormed the titled comment: “[This movie is] one of the movies ever made”. Ugh. I’ll admit I found the joke clever the first few times I saw it. Now I sigh or cringe each time I’m forced to scroll past this played-out bit– which is in most comment sections I frequent.
Funny story about my attire in this sketch: my bathrobe and pyjamas were just the clothes I wore that afternoon. I was still sick while I filmed, and had no desire to switch outfits. So that’s the look with which I stuck. It fit the vibe I wanted anyway.
Justin, Matteo, and I reunited for an evening in early August to shoot more Planet of the Beavers! Now that’s a name you’ve not heard in a long time. A long time.
Our goals were simple: perform a couple re-shoots, and complete a make-shift ending for this seemingly endless project. The fact that we filmed an ending at all shocks me, after all these years of pushing PoB to the back-burner. It can’t make up for the story we never got to tell, but you’ll at least get something better than a cliffhanger.
We unfortunately picked our shooting location’s busiest night of the year… But that’s not fully our fault seeing as we hadn’t all lived there since high school. We forgot when their yearly local celebration took place.
So traffic was bad, but we endured; Justin and I got eaten by mosquitoes, but we endured; and we said some emotional goodbyes to our characters, but we endured.
Post-Production Projects
We aim to release a feature-length version of Planet of the Beavers by Jun 10, 2023: the 8 year anniversary of the first video’s debut. Yes it’s been that long… This version of the film will be markedly different from what you’ve seen previously: it’ll feature tonnes of re-shoots, and over an hour of never-before-seen footage. So mark your calendars!
Podcast
Ryan and I filmed our “Bullet Train/ Prey” review, and our “Top 10 favourite films” episode in early August. The later was especially fun for us. ‘Cause who doesn’t love raving about things they love?
Good news for you: I’m finally getting the hang of audio editing. 19th time’s the charm? My per-episode turn-around is noticeably quicker, and the final product sounds (subjectively) better.
Close Up Episodes 20-21 (Light and Magic review, and a new segment called Leisure Lists) will premiere on the new Close Up With Ryan and Joe YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQnX41OxCqDJjzuJkkNDblg
I noticed a marked decline in TPM’s YouTube viewership since we started to post weekly podcast videos. That’s obviously not what most of our subscribers want to see. So it made strategic sense to separate Close Up to its own channel.
Graphic Novels
We accomplished the same in August as we did in July: Nadda.
Other
Justin and I recently discussed re-starting our T-shirt/ merchandise business (last in operation circa 2018). We’re still debating the logistics to bring this back. But I’d say it’s more a question of “how” than “if”.
This has been TPM’s August news. If you have any questions about what I’ve written today, or have something you’d like to see addressed more in-depth in next month’s update, let me know in the comments. Also, if you have any ideas for future articles, or any general questions, let me know that as well. Be sure to like this article on Facebook and share if you enjoyed!
Till next time,
Joe Morin
