Hello Interwebs! Welcome to TPM’s January news update. Multiple announcements and stories feature this month, so read on to see those…
Pre-Production Projects
Some exciting news for our long-time fans: our team discussed ways we can FINALLY finish our Planet of the Beavers story. I must warn you up front: it won’t be the grand ending we’d always envisioned. The TPM crew doesn’t have much time to film together anymore, and Justin isn’t enthused with the idea of acting again, so whatever we do will be short and efficient.
To be clear: we haven’t finalized any plans for this ending yet. We’re just tossing around ideas at the moment. But I hope we’ll be able to do it, and that we can get it to you before another 5 years passes…
This month I wrote two drafts for my script: The Truth-Bomber Exposes Ross Poutine, President of Canada and began a second draft of Group Therapy for Movie Quoters. The former releases on Youtube today, and the later will come out sometime next month (or within the next few months, depending on my preference)!
Production Projects
Last week I took an evening to film TPM’s latest sketch: The Truth-Bomber Exposes Ross Poutine, President of Canada. I’ll explain the background of the film in my next TPM Analysis article and focus today’s stories on my production process.
I purchased a new green screen a few months back, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to test it out! Everything about the process was foreign to me. I’ve acted in front of green screens before, though I’ve never built a rig from scratch. The green screens on which I’ve previously worked maintained adequate lighting setups. So I had to play around with my soft-lights to see what looked best. If the ultimate green screening product in this video appears amateur, that’s because it was… I’m shocked it didn’t turn out horribly considering!
Another challenge concerned the “studio” in which I filmed. The only area of my house with appropriate space for a shoot like this is my guest-room. But even then I had to contend with a giant bed in the middle of the floor! There was no way for me to move it before my shoot, so I stuck my camera off to its side and hoped for the best. I also had to find room for my teleprompter (a computer monitor) and find a way to balance it somewhere near the camera.
Not much about the shoot itself was noteworthy. I messed up my lines a lot, as usual. I also tried to be a big ol’ perfectionist (once again, as usual). The most fun part was switching between my various characters and making them distinctive. Ross Poutine was probably my favourite to play, if only because I got to mock Justin Trudeau some… But my favourite moment of the evening was a blooper where I pretended to be J. Jonah Jameson and accidentally nailed an impression of J.K Simmons.
Post-Production
Ross Poutine was the only post-production project of January. And that was WAY more difficult than I expected. Going in, I was sure keying the green screen would consume most of my time. But I did FAR more work in photoshop than I initially anticipated (the Truth-Bomber logo, the photo of me shaking hands with Vladimir Putin, the PNN logo, the podium). At least I’m sharpening my skills in different programs.
Graphic Novels
Matteo, always the lover of fresh ideas, developed deeper lore for Tales of Sesom and Skog fantasy stories. He also had a few fun ideas for The Guild of Gallantry, most notably for his character The Fly.
Other
-Ontario closed movie theatres for the better part of this month due to Covid-19 (yes, that’s unfortunately still a thing). It’s for this reason I focused primarily on TV reviews lately. Fine with me! I tend to like series more than movies on the whole anyway.
-Earlier this month, I began to script Planet of the Beavers: The Video Game. I had the vaguest ideas of what this thing would be, but it’s already shaping up as a fun variation on our story. So, you can begin the campaign as Alex, Doc, or Gorn. But each character begins with different roles, and they are awarded unique decisions within the story. Even simple choices may spiral out to alter the whole game!
You might return to the game many times over and have it be unique each play-through. Right now Alexander has about 7 distinct endings all on his own. And that’s just what I came up with after plotting a few chapters. He could even end up with more! I imagine Doc and Gorn will have a similar number of endings to Alex.
I’m only at the initial treatment stage right now: plotting out game mechanics, plus jotting down the major character choices and how they effect the plot. But I’m having fun writing this thing! I aim to chip away at this project whenever I get the chance.
-Finally, TPM plans to start up a podcast! I and my friend from University, Ryan Walker, will host. We aim to record our first episode in a few weeks time (about The Book of Boba Fett). As of yet, I’m not sure how frequently the podcast will release or where you may find it other than TPM’s Youtube Channel.
This has been TPM’s January 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
