Cameron Esposito Turns Bryan Bowden Into Frankenstein

The comedy video should be online by tomorrow night. Nothing like watching one of your best comedy pals turn your boyfriend into a monster (with the help of a cute baby and a cute dog). Yeah, I have a lot of editing to do. In the meantime, a few snaps:

Blewtenanny Highlight Reel

Are we tired of my stand up showcase clips yet? I'm just obsessed with editing. Somebody stop me! Here's another one, the highlight reel from the first Blewtenanny, featuring Bryan Bowden, Neil Arsenty, Fuzzy Gerdes, Mike Wiley, and Ken Barnard.

Bryan Bowden Hosts Blewt!'s "Blewtenanny" Stand Up Showcase

Oh yeah (I always forget to mention when I post my own videos), I shot, edited, and wrote the music for this clip. I need more practice with the tripod, and the camera in general, but the editing is pretty decent.

Bryan wanted some more stand up fun in his life and his Blewt friends gave him the go-ahead for a montly showcase. The first one went smashingly well, and I'm sure it will only get better. I'll post more clips as I edit them.

"Things Aren't What They Seemed" by Elizabeth McQuern

Click to listen:

Sometimes when I can't sleep, I make music to soothe myself. I have a lot of big, overwhelming things on my mind right now, and last night I grabbed my Mac and zoned out for awhile.

I pulled bits from a conversation Bryan and I had about music the day before and put it together in a loose but more complex structure than I've never attempted. I have no idea what sort of classification it would fall under: outsider music? Found music? Weird crap? I had actually forgotten that I'd made this until I opened up iTunes just now and found it at the top of my playlist.

I don't know what's up with me and music lately, except that I can't stop thinking about it and composing it, and I think all of these creative expressions are going to come together in one big project very soon. I'm at the muse's whim right now, and she knows it.

More Terrible Music!!

Bryan and I were goofing around online last night. Our friend Fuzzy Gerdes blogged about a game in which random Wiki and Flickr entries determine the name of your band, and the title of your album, and that album's cover image.

We decided to play, too, and take it one step further...read more about it and listen to the song over on the Nerds blog. WOO!

"Your Sunday Best" at Schubas Last Night

Highlights from this week's "Your Sunday Best," stand-up showcase (filmed and edited by me), featuring Prescott Tolk, Dan Telfer, Victor Marinier, Kristin Carney, Michael Palascak, and C.J. Sullivan:

The Off The Street Club Thanksgiving Dinner

Here's a two minute video I did for work. I guess this constitutes one of my first professional filmmaking projects.

The Off The Street Club Thanksgiving Dinner was on November 23, 2007. I let the kids run around with my camera and take footage and pictures, and then I put this together. The evening was as fun as it looks -- having dinner and hanging out with the kids. The Boy and Girl of the Year Awards were also given out that night, and each winner was adorable in their own way.

From the Club's website:

"The Off the Street Club is Chicago's oldest club for boys and girls, serving the children of the city's most dangerous neighborhood, the West Side. Since its inception in 1900, the Club has been supported mainly by the generous members of Chicago's advertising community. With no government funding, the Club relies on the willing spirits, able bodies, and inspiring generosity of people who know that it is a short trip from poverty to prosperity if children are reached at an early age."

Not Kidding Around Anymore

I don't know what's gotten into me all of the sudden -- fruitful conversations with new friends? Tackling terrifying new challenges and walking away unscathed (see theater-related posts here and here)? Inspired by the example of other brave friends? -- but I'm in this very "I can do anything and I'm going to go for what I want, and if the first try doesn't work, then next one will" mode.

So here I come, get out of my way.

I was banging my head all day yesterday...and last night...and this morning, teaching myself all the stuff I needed to know in order to produce the film of Prescott's Improv set. Lots of phone calls to Canon technical support. Lots of phone calls to Apple tech support. Lots of being caught in the Nerd's Bermuda Triangle of Radio Shack, Best Buy, and coffee places. Lots of trial and lots of errors, but I figured out everything I needed to know.

The final cut of Prescott's set is too long to post online at the moment but here's a sample clip I put together, because in the middle of all of this technical dickery I realized I could and should be doing this sort of thing for other people as well. Want a nicely shot and edited clip of yourself doing a killer set? I can probably help you out there.

And this clip is just the first try at this sort of thing. I'd never used the tripod before, and I know I'll get smoother with it, and get snappier with the editing, and learn to get better sound, and write better music, too.

I repeat: here I come, get out of my way.

(Oh, and check it: "Bella Rossa Productions.")

It's Coming...Are You Ready?

Okay, I don't know quite how to explain this video, which is unlike anything I've done before. It's based on some dreams I've had recently (I know, my dreams...) about airplanes and time travel. Yes, I'm a sci-fi nerd and kind of a weirdo. I'm also an airline kid (my dad and several other family members were pilots) and I'm under a lot of stress, and flight patterns have always flickered through my subconscious at night. I also realized a few weeks ago that flights from the north and south take a westerly turn across the lake right by my neighborhood all night, and there's a blinking white highway of incoming airplanes over my building all night long. (You can see airplanes soaring over buildings at the end of the video...I know, I have a crappy camera.)

A strange poem and some music were flitting around my head last night as I tried to sleep. It seems like no matter how busy my brain is during the day, and how hard I try to stomp down reflective thoughts about The Big Picture and What Life's All About, they are running through the universe that is my mind all night, with a groovy little music soundtrack. Anyway, it's less than two minutes long, so if you're already here, give it a look and lemme know what you think.

Winner of the Bad Music Contest - NO ONE

Well, thanks for listening and voting, everyone. But it seems that between the 4 to 4 votes and the swing votes going "undecided," we have no true winner in the First Official Sloan and Elizabeth Bad Music Contest. Here's the final tally:

Votes for "Cheese Purse of Freedom" -
1 Nick
2 Shan
3 Anonymous
4 Keef

Votes for "The Gerbil Klaxon Terrible Music Project" -
1 Anonymous
2 Luis
3 Dan Telfer
4 Mercy

Undecided weenie butts -
1 KDuck
2 Grant Miller
3 Chancelucky

But fear not! The creation of terrible, horrible art will not end here. Because of your indecision, Sloan and I have decided to enter round two of this tragic competition, and either 1. Remix each other's crappy songs, or 2. Make videos for each other's crappy songs. Stay tuned.

Baby gerbil photo from Cute Overload.

Halloween Post #4

I'm beat. Work is going great.

Last night's Halloween show at Chicago Underground Comedy was AWESOME. And, Vocalo, the new offshoot of Chicago Public Radio, wants me to contribute content. Here's what I've done so far. It's a six minute audio clip about last night's show. It includes stage performances, interviews, that darned catchy jingle I wrote for ChUC, and it's a lot of fun. ChUC is taking over the radio, one joke at a time!

Click here to listen.

Compression Rate High: 3 Years of Chicago Underground Comedy Awesomeness in 64 Seconds

A prototype of a promotional ChUC video. Do you have 64 seconds? Click here and get a glimpse of what's so damn cool about Chicago Underground Comedy. Photos by the greatest fangirls in the world. Editing and weird music by me.

Rough Edit - ChUC Teaser Clip

A prototype of a promotional ChUC video. Do you have 66 seconds? Click here and get a glimpse of what's so damn cool about Chicago Underground Comedy. Photos by the greatest fangirls in the world. Editing and weird music by me.

(EDIT: this is version THREE. As my co-producer Dan pointed out, I had the address wrong. Duh. And then there were some issues with the credits. Whatevs.)




(EDIT AGAIN: I deleted the earlier versions. Check out the final video here.)

Great Caribbean Basin End of Summer Party

My brother threw his increasingly larger-scale End of Summer party despite the inclement weather. Lots of my friends were MIA. Didn't show up because you thought a little thing like a thunderstorm would stop us from celebrating? Wrong. My brother directs events on an Olympic scale, people. It was an amazing outdoor party under tents, with a live DJ, an unbelievable assortment of food and drink, little kids splashing through puddles, and fire-eaters as entertainment. Real Cuban mojitos, New Orleans jambalaya, Filipino wedding cake, and more.

Here's a two minute video I made. I wrote the music, too - it's a little mish-mashy but fun, sort of like the mix of cultures and food and music at the party. Sort of like my family, which we sometimes say is like one big living Benetton billboard -- except our sweaters aren't that nice.