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Nate's Skate video News 17th September, 2004
Version 3 of Nate's Skate video is finally complete! And I gotta say, it's probably my best work to date. It's simply... well, I think it's pretty amazing for something that I made... I think it might even be the final version from me! I think I'm THAT satisfied with it! I'm going to try to find a way to put up a teaser video for it soon. Maybe even the full thing. Maybe even all 3 versions of it! Since I've got some money now, I might try to buy some proper webspace so I can start hosting videos. I'm sure a few of you are interested in seeing in motion what was once little teeeny stills on this site :] --- And in other news, I might not have to go to Jakarta after all! Hurray for me! 12th August, 2004 Wow! Lots of new stuff rolling in! Recently I've gotten the task of doing this corporate video for an investment firm. And they're going to be flying me all around South East Asia to videotape these offices and shopping malls. Not only that, but they're going to pay me to do so! My first paying video work! And what am I going to spend my first paycheck on? None other than a new super-editing rig! One that will allow me to real-time edit anything! Once I get that, I'll of course have to work on this corporate viddy, but I'll also being work on the third version of Nate's Skate video. I've also got another offer to do a promotional video for a group of Entertainers for Hire, so that'll be pretty cool too. And then I've got two works of my own that I really just wanna bang out before concentrating on Celebs: a little surprise short film that I'm going to send to some film competitions; and The Fifth Place, the sequel to the Fourth Place. Oh, and I should be able to play Galaxies without any lag from now on! Speaking of lag, why is Dreamweaver pausing for a bit every now and then? That's really disconcerting :( 25th May, 2004 The 3rd draft of B-List Celebs is complete! I'm really really happy with this draft, because I think it's just a hell of a lot better than the previous 2 drafts. The feedback I've gotten for it is pretty positive so far, and I might post it up on the site once I'm happier with it. That done, I'm going to take a break from working on it for a while, and I might look into some other shit to do. Like writing the 2nd episode of Celebs, or starting that short story that I was going to do. Or play Star Wars Galaxies. 17th May, 2004 I finished the first draft of Nate's skate video! It's looking pretty sick right now, and both Nate and I are very excited about it. Unfortunately, I'm missing some key footage and his new stuff, so I might hold off on finishing and releasing it until I get a hold of the stuff. In the meantime, if anyone else needs someone to help them edit a tightly made skate video or music video, please do feel free to email me at kimble@deadpan-entertainment.com --- I'm also working on the 3 Guards video... most recently I edited a short 6 minute video of Exercise Pegasus. I got to ride around in some attack boat, and a sick heli-insertion via those whacky Super-Pumas. I really have to figure out a way to release my videos on the net... I should look into buying webspace or something. 7th April, 2004 I'm now officially the video guy making the video for my Battalion. So now instead of running around jungles with an assault rifle, I'll now be running around videotaping guys running in jungles with assault rifles. After all the videos I've made of us running around in silly action sequences with plastic guns in a carpark or my apartment ... I'll now have the chance to direct a platoon of elite soldiers in a silly action sequence with real guns in a real army camp! Sick :] So that's what I'll be working on for the next few months, as well as writing B List Celebs, and editing a teaser video of Nate's Skate Video. 16th February, 2004 I just got ESPN Football for my X-Box... so all production will cease temporarily while I try to win the Superbowl with one of the most brilliant but unconsistent teams in the NFL. 14th December, 2003 As I'll be re-entering the military on Thursday, I think that'll more or less mean that all Deadpan productions will be suspended until... well, probably until I'm out of the army again. Which will be in June. So look out for new stuff heading your way after June. In the meantime, relive the splendor of our old shit by purchasing your very own Deadpan DVD set! Email me at deadpan_ent@yahoo.com and place your orders. 12th December, 2003 This is an update with no words. Nobody can read the missing... They just look at the text and the text and the text and say... hey man, I know where you're coming from. (Yeah, bullshit!) Furniture has no say in life. Was made to be used by people. How many times you have felt like a bookcase in a living room gathering dust? Full of thought already written. (how about now?) (This update is dedicated to Goh Maehashi, hahahah!) 5th December, 2003 The DVDs are completed, and are now selling like... stuff that sells well. Orders are coming in, and Dave is churning out those babies as quickly as he can. We had a slight technical issue with the construction of the boxes (apparently we're not as crafty as we are proficient in mouse-clicking) so now the Deadpan DVD Boxed Set is now renamed the Deadpan DVD Set. And the DVD's come in an attractive blue plastic bag, the very same ones you bag groceries with! --- Now that we've relocated our base of operations to Singapore, the Untitled Mesker Music Video and the secret surprise movie has been shelved indefinitely, and production will be concentrated on B-List Celebs. Speaking of which, should anyone wish to be a part of this video, please let me know cos I'm on the prowl for actors! Nate's non-X-treme totally dope skate video is erm... well... since Nate's over there and I'm over here, well... not too much can be done but I'm going to use what footage I have to compile another teaser video or something. 16th November, 2003 Work on the DVD covers are going smoothly... we've almost got them all done now... and they look purty sick :] Remember, if you wanna order one of these limited edition boxed sets, email me at deadpan_ent@yahoo.com and say "Yes I want 4 DVD's worth of quirky shit!" --- And last Friday, I went to videotape Nate doing a boneless off a ledge over a curb gap at this office building. We were freaking out a little because we didn't think we'd have that many attempts before some office drone would knock on the window to tell us to fuck off... and Nate's still fresh from his injury and not skating at 100%. So imagine our surprise when he goes over and lands the very first attempt he made! "First try; no warm up, bitch!" --- By the way, somebody at uni from my Multimedia class recognize the weird naked asian guy (scroll down to the 1st September entry for an image; I could've just put in a link here, but I got lazy... but obviously not lazy enough to write all this shit instead) when he went through my site. Last year someone recognized the Nice & Decent guys from SkiVe, so maybe someday a person will stumble across my site and recognize who the ugly penis guy is. 9th November, 2003 Yesterday Nate, Simon and Dave came over and we recorded some director & crew commentary for the upcoming special DVD releases of the Deadpan videos. Progress on the DVDs are going well, and Dave has shown me some really nice designs for DVD cover art and CD stickers. So far, we're thinking of releasing 4 DVD's: One for the PMS trilogy (PMS, UGR and Bad Karma); one for "Amy"; one for The Fourth Place; and one containing the other shorter videos (Foot-Skating, Ass Wide Shut, Sportsfucking, Dark Test, etc). Each will come with the regular DVD assortment of features such as scene selection and cast/crew commentaries. I'll have more shit up when I know more. In the meantime, pre-order your copy! 6th November, 2003 Dave's just completed work on a copy of The Fourth Place on DVD! DVD!!! As in, that shiny disc that comes with special features and scene selection!!! And later this weekend, we're going to get together to record commentaries for all of the videos, which will then be released as a Special Limited Edition Boxed Set!!! So Dave wants to know if anyone out there would be interested in acquiring one of these boxed sets, because we'll only make one for each of us unless we get some orders from you guys. So if you want one, please let us know by emailing me or by dropping a line in the Forum or something, okay? More news on this as it happens... 4th November, 2003 Deadpan Entertainment's first official videogame is now completed! Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you:
Click on the picture above to start the game! It'll look like a plain black screen, but with any luck the game will load up soon enough. It's a Shockwave game, so if you haven't already please download the latest Macromedia Shockwave Player here. Important hint: I put some psuedo ice-physics on Fiona to simulate skating on ice, so controlling her will take some getting used to. I find it's usually much easier to TAP the arrow keys rapidly instead of holding them down to move her around the ice. In case you're all wondering who Fiona is, she's a real life hockey goalie from uni who was kind enough to lend her likeness to my game. The first thing I thought when I was designing the game was that most major sports games always have a cover-athlete to promote the game. This year, ESPN Football has Warren Sapp, ESPN Hockey has Jeremy Roenick... so I needed one too. So when Corinne told me that Fiona was okay with it, I was ecstatic. Games with cover-athletes are always better than those without :] Oh, and don't forget to post your high scores in the Forum. My current high score is 61... but that was a fluke! 22nd October, 2003 Now that Nate's skating again, we went out today and got a couple of new tricks in a carpark in my apartment block. Of course, we couldn't get into the carpark because I didn't live there, so we had to sit suspiciously outside the carpark until a car would come out so we could sneak in through the garage door before it closed. Once inside, we found what we were looking for: road barriers! And in the privacy of a private carpark, with nice smooth ground to skate on. And within 10 tries, Nate found his groove back and landed a smooth barrier hop: the first video-trick since his injury!
His thirst for conquering skate tricks unquenched, Nate then proceeded to try to 50-50 grind a fucking long ramp-curb. Unfortunately, disaster struck and Nate fell over backwards during a bail and broke his fall with the back of his head. The resulting thud echoed through the carpark, and Nate was down for the count. So we decided to call it a day, and went back upstairs to try something less dangerous: hand-boarding! Since Drakey wasn't using it at the time, we decided to test out his deck and see what we could do with it. Nate managed to land a varial double-flip over a double phonebook gap and a nose-grind flip-out on his deck, while I managed to do this:
A sketchy heel-flip over Kimble's head It's amazing how much fun you can have with a cheap hand-board from Toys R Us. 19th October, 2003 I got a phone call from Nate today, and all I heard from his end were clunking and clacking noises. Yep! Everybody's favorite skater boy is skating again, and he's landing kickflips and shove-its as if he never fucked his ankle up. I hope this doesn't mean I have to drag my ass out of bed to be at Cannon Park at 8am on a Saturday morning again. 1st October, 2003 Currently there's not much going on with the Skate video because of certain technical issues regarding my computer's video output. --- But in other news, Aaron and I are currently in the process of developing a new character for the Deadpan universe... a demon named Gloom. He used to be called Dieter the Demon, but we think Gloom sounds a bit better. I had some sketches of him before, but now with Aaron's help he'll be totally revamped. --- The third draft of Small Time Celebs is taking a while to churn out, but I've recruited Simon to help me rewrite it so that it's funnier and less dialogue-driven. 1st September, 2003 I was capturing old footage onto computer with Nate recently, and I found some nifty bits of footage on the tape. Firstly, there was some footage of me nearly destroying my ankle trying to focus a skateboard into itty bitty bits.
I miss my purple shoes. Phew! Luckily I recovered from that and didn't end up rolling my ankle and being stuck on crutches. Bad shit always happens at that Green Roof location... urgh. Anyway, then while going through another one of Nate's tapes, I found this rather disturbing image:
What the fuck? Honestly? I have no idea what the fuck this is doing on a tape that should contain nothing but skate footage. I mean, the last thing I expected to see was a naked asian guy looking at himself in the mirror while... okay, I'm not sure what he's doing exactly with his other hand, but it sure as hell doesn't look appetizing. Not since the Ugly Penis Goth guy have I seen such a gross image. What did I do in a past life that necessitates me being exposed to so many images of ugly naked guys now? 20th August, 2003
For some reason this reminds me of Stacie Orrico's face. Wey hey! The doctor and physio has said that Nate's pretty lucky because his ankle pretty much twisted as far as any ankle would twist without actually fracturing. But still, the medical experts have said that he won't recover fully for about 6-8 weeks. Today, only after one session of physiotherapy, Nate has declared that he will start skating again in 4 weeks. After all, what do doctors know? They're not skaters, right? And anybody that's not a skater isn't anybody, right? Besides... the only thing funnier than watching Nate limp around on crutches for 6-8 weeks is watching Nate roll around in a wheelchair for 6-8 months because he snapped his ankle trying to prove the physio guys wrong. But in the meantime, he's still haunted by stairs. The 5-stair set in St. Mary's sprained his ankle, and now every set of stairs in Sydney has joined forces to continue making Nate's life a living hell. Here's an example in UNSW:
"Stairs... why'd it have to be stairs? I HATE STAIRS!" 15th August, 2003 WARNING: The following update contains images that some may find disturbing (and/or amusing). Viewer discretion is advised. This morning Nate and I set out to the city in search of adventure and excitement. Instead, we found some rural fire fighters parked in the middle of the 3-3-3 set at Martin Place, and a whole shitload of ricey tourists at St. Mary's. Ricey tourists who insisted on standing in front of Nate and blocking his run.
"HEY! You bitches wanna get the fuck out of my way?" However, the presence of tourists spelt more trouble for us than just a delay in our shooting. People watching us tends to make Nate very nervous... and when he gets nervous, he fucks up. And sometimes... just sometimes... he fucks up pretty badly. Today was one of those days.
Anyway, it was pretty bad. I had to help Nate carry his stuff while he hobbled to the train station. And I gotta say, there's nothing quite as funny as watching someone hobble while using a skateboard as a crutch. Now he's got an x-ray done, and luckily there's no major damage apart from some chip somewhere... I'll post the x-rays up when I can. So for about 6-8 weeks... there won't be any new skating action. But we'll edit what we've got in the meantime, and I'll leave you with an amusing image of Nate fishing his skateboard out of the water.
Sometimes it's more like surfing than skating. 12th August, 2003 Today, we got shit done in St. Mary's. It took less than ten attempts before Nate landed his run (ollie 5-stair, 360-flip, kickflip, noseslide) and all in all it was a pretty successful day. Well, mainly because lately I've been fucking up the camera-work (which pisses Nate off immensely... it's like: "WHAT? I just nearly killed myself trying to land this trick and you couldn't keep me in frame???") Oh we were ambushed by an old acquaintance today too. Hide your sisters and your daughters... because Marc's back!
"Nate, if you see Pan, tell him I've been meaning to call him. Ladies and gentlemen, that's Marc for you. The same guy that introduced Owen and Rhiannon as his "good friends from uni" shortly before asking for their names again; the same guy that keeps telling all my friends that he's been meaning to call me to catch up only to walk right by without noticing me when we're in the same area; the guy that can't shut up about how he met Jada Pinkett-Smith and Billy Zane. --- The weekend before on the other hand... was a little bit sketchier. A lot sketchier... but I won't go into it much. Anyway, Mikey's attempts were interrupted a couple of times by totally clueless dumbasses standing in the middle of his run.
"HEY! You bitches wanna get the fuck out of my way?" Not only that, but the morning was cut short when some dumb bitch had to choose the payphone closest to us when there are 25 other payphones scattered around the area, AFTER we started doing our stuff there, and then she had the audacity to tell us to go away because she's on a long distance call to East Timor. Well we don't wanna be childish or anything... BUT WE GOT HERE FIRST, BITCH! (I was rather short-tempered that morning, and Nate and I were majorly pissed off with one another. Which could explain the angst) 3rd August, 2003 Yesterday was spent almost exclusively across the bridge in the Northlands. After an early start in Cannon Park (again; this time even earlier than the times before), we got a nice line down (Manual-nollie heel-manual the Cannon manual pad) before moseying over across the bridge into Nate's hood up North. Why the long travel? Because I'm trying to shoot a nice promo trailer sequence for him... you know, to increase public awareness, and boost interest and enthusiasm all around. So the decision was made to shoot it on the roof of some building in a field somewhere near his place. After a few hiccups (like our ladder being too short to reach the roof), we managed to clamber on top of it for a nice sunset shoot.
Damn that's scenic Anyway, we almost got everything done... but after a while some redneck shit-heel came along and ordered us down. I was like, "okay yeah whatever. Let me pack my stuff." but I didn't even get to finish my sentence before said shit-heel just yelled: "NO!" A few key shots were left unshot... but I hope to be able to figure out a way to get around them without needing to go back there again. --- While lounging at Nate's place, I was privy to some footage of Young Nathan learning to skate! Check it out... and see if you can actually recognize this ricey kid as the bad-ass stud-muffin that we all know and love.
Young Nate. 31st July, 2003 The second draft of Small Time Celebs was officially released. I think it's a large improvement over the first draft with the icky bits trimmed and a few more character scenes included. Thanks to all of you who read the first draft and gave me all the handy feedback, without which I wouldn't have been able to identify the crappy shit in the first one. So I've emailed the new draft to those of you I hope will wanna be involved in its production. Hope you can find the time to reread it or read it for the first time, and again throw me back some hints and tips on how to make it not suck. 30th July, 2003
2 big reasons to hate skaters Well, for the past couple of weekends we've been over in Cannon Park trying to get lines down for the skate video. Unfortunately, after the serenity of early morning, the place started getting INFESTED with little punk kids who are there all dressed up like their bullshit brit-pop heroes.
We headed back to Cook Phillip Water-fountain again, because Nate's decided that he really loves nosesliding that fountain, and after a few more attempts at the water slide we figured something out. I don't know why, but I think Nate's shitty Chaos deck is like some magical deck that's activated by water. Quite simply... it just works better when it's wet (Kinda like a certain part of the female anatomy). When it was dry, Nate was screwing everything up... and when he got water on it... he was nailing tre-flips and shit as easily as bitches in heat. Last weekend Nate and Mikey hit Hyde Park to get some tricks down, and now we've got more tricks ready for the video.
Oh, and today Nate and I went on a mission to find a road barrier... and here is the result:
Okay, guys and girls! A couple of days ago I completed the first draft of the Small Time Celebs script, after spending four whole days locked up in my apartment with only Drakey to keep me company. I'm quite happy with it, and I think it's got a lot of potential. Currently, it's doing it's circuit around the principal cast and other critics like my little sister (who wrote a mini-review of it in her blog), and during this time I'm just going to take just a little teeny break to catch my breath. When I get more detailed feedback aside from the regular "Oh yeah it's cool" comments, I'll head back into writing mode to come up with a more refined version. In the meantime, I'm going around scouting out potential actors who would like to be a part of this project... because you can't make a TV show if you don't have actors. Well, you can if you have either animatronic puppets, muppets, claymation figures like Gumby, or computer-generated aliens... but I have none of those. Well, I have Munky, Kimble and a dolphin named Newt... but I don't think the three of them will be sufficient to carry off a TV show about little league celebrities (I'm starting to think "Little League Celebrities" is a better name than "Small Time Celebs"). So if you're going to be around Singapore when I'm there in December and you wanna be a part of this, drop off an email or something. Otherwise, I'll just go around doing what I'm doing: shamelessly propositioning everyone I know... especially the really hot females :]
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