Introducing the Ultimate Badasses
Added 2017-01-12 18:35:49 +0000 UTCHere's the new video! It's a big showcase for the DJI Ronin-M gymbal stabilizer that I got with the funding from YouTube NextUp. So if you were thinking, "When did he suddenly get a steadicam," this is why.
The background for this one is that I, like many of us, have grown immensely tired of the overuse of certain songs in movies and TV. Particularly "Sympathy for the Devil," which has become a spectaculaly lazy way to signal to the audience "Hey, this character is a badass who doesn't play by the rules." Its indefensible use in Suicide Squad (which has probably the laziest and most expensive soundtrack in film history) was the breaking point for me, so I decided something had to be done about it.
The original plan, up until last weekend, was to use "Sympathy for the Devil" repeatedly in the video, for the introduction of each character. Then while editing it became clear that it was more repetitive than funny, so I realized we had to reconfigure things. This went through a lot of changes in editing. As in, we were still adding lines to the voicever at 7pm last night. I think it works beter now. I hope so.
(This is why it helps to write scripts first, something we did not do for this video)
My favorite thing about this is the ridiculous characters everyone created. I just brought a ton of costume items and props to the shoot, then had everyone figure out their own character. That's how we ended up with such instant classics as Swift Conniption and Laser Susan. I would love to bring them back at some point, even if there will probably be zero demand for it.
Next week there's a new video essay.
