Showing posts with label csi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label csi. Show all posts

Saturday, November 6, 2010

From the Audience

You know what? Even if I don't win the contest, I've gotten some great exposure from this. I've gotten more comments and emails in the past week than I've gotten from the last three months before that. Most of them aren't worth sifting through, but let's pick out some relevant ones, shall we?

These revives share a few points with Zero Punctuation and works as well even thou the visuals could defiantly be experimented with a bit.
--The66Monkey 

 Just modify the visual style; it's too similar to Bob's or Yahtzee's.
 --DrEmo

Good points made but need to change animation style. 
--nashty13 

I'm not going to get into the ZPish style either, but you may want to mix it up if they hire you.
--Mcoffey

Perhaps a little change in the presentation. 
--Mr. Omega 

How to put this politely... No. I will not change my presentation. I will not change the way I make these videos. Perhaps if Burn Notice had been my first review, I would, but three months in my style is pretty well established and changing it would not only be difficult, it would create a buffer period of crappy videos while I get my feet under me again. Sorry kids, but I ain't changing now.

And here's something that my harshest critics don't seem to take into account: How very difficult is it for someone to consistently rip off someone else? For those of you that don't know: Very. Once you become comfortable with a style, your own starts to leak in. It happens to everyone who imitates someone else. Hell, it happens to actors on TV shows all the time! On the long-running ones, there might be an episode with a less-strong-than-usual director, and a character or two might inflect or react minorly out of character. It's usually not the actors fault, it's just that there's only so long you can keep something compartmentalized.

And the point of that story was that even if I had started out as a Yahtzee rip-off, the fact that I've consistently produce Yahtzee-like work just means that our styles are similar anyway. So I won't change it. And if you ask again, I'll probably smirk at you.

Which you totally can't see, but trust me, I shall.

While overall I was impressed, my only concern is with regards to doing something like a weekly episode.  Currently, it's easy for both Bob Chipman and Ben Croshaw to review their respective media because there is always new content coming out during the year.  The question I pose is whether or not you would review new shows only, shows that have a couple seasons under their belt, or a mix up of both.  Typically the Escapist reviews "what's hot", so my personal curiosity begs me to ask you.
--Cody D.
I gotta say, I loved getting this email. It was polite and grammatically correct, and something about the formal tone just tickled me. Like those times I look at my life and say "I'm really happy that I've cleaned carpets today... I must be an adult." The idea that people can treat me and my work so seriously is massively entertaining and flattering at the same time.

To answer the actual question, though: I want to do primarily current shows, though I have, and will continue to do so, done dead shows. Most of the time these are relevant reviews, which means giving an opinion on something current, however sometimes I need to illustrate a point, or demonstrate some quality in TV, or there's something in the show that I've spoken on before and wanted to critique in a different environment.

Plus, according to my rules, I can review web serieses and miniseries, so I shouldn't lack for material. And shows that have been running for a while would need to be broken up according to how much I can watch in a given week, and, if I can manage it, by internal segmentation of the show.

And then there's the things that'd be marathons. Like if I ever have to review CSI. And someone's requested Law and Order. Things that have spin-offs will be done next to each other, hopefully in the order in which they were started so as to trace the evolution better.

So yeah. Run out of stuff to review? Probably not.

Monday, September 20, 2010

From the Audience

"Quick question: Are you ever going to review Leverage, or Burn Notice? I liked both of them, and it would be interesting to see your take." --ALuckyChance


I was and they've both been upped on the list now that it's been requested. In fact, once I'm done with SG:U, I'll do Burn Notice.


"Good review. You hit all the key points and were very entertaining. As for the show, I always preferred Psych, myself." --Super Toast


Thank you, I try, and now Psych's on the list as well. See this whole "getting comments" thing really cuts down on the need to come up with the shows for myself. And I get to put off CSI: Wherever for a little longer.


"I liked it. Also i like your voice lol. Don't know how to describe it though lol." --Tankichi


Okay, this one's more of a personal gripe of mine. "LOL." I don't have the words to express to you how much I hate LOL. It's a good abbreviation, and I do use it myself, but I use it... when I laugh out loud. Such a concept, I know, but it's been overused to the point that people seem to use it the way they would use a nervous chuckle in conversation. That is to say, involuntarily. And that usage just doesn't work very well at all in a written medium.


Last year someone actually said "LOL" to me. I was incredibly confused. Why would someone do that? Lawl is awkward to say, awkward to listen to, and it doesn't have any connotations when spoken. Now I'm not one of those "Text-speak is killing the English language!" nutbags, but I do have a problem with the new words that don't translate the medium of interaction. That is to say, abbreviated phrases should stay in a written medium.


On an entirely different note, I'm editing my edited schedule. I thought about how doing a video every two weeks would be boring as all get out, even with the store to get up and running, so I decided to go back to a video a week, BUT! I'm still going to take this week out so that I can start watching shows one week, and making the video the next week, while I'm watching the next show. I know this sounds just as bad as a video every week, but it's actually not. You see, I spend a lot of time not doing whatever it is I should be doing, and on this schedule I'll have something productive to do while I'm not doing what I should be. It's foolproof!