I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I had good reason: I was in the last sprint of a marathon.  But the work of an entire collective of creatives is now available on the internet.

BREVITYTV.COM is live!

For the first ten days it’s up, we’re posting a new presidential stump speech each day.  After that, the aim is to put a new sketch up every week, usually Mondays.  Don’t know if we’ll pull it off every week, but we do have a lot of material in various stages; so far so good.  Still a lot of work ahead, but this is a cool milestone.

Enjoy!

One of the BrevityTV writers just posted this blog entry over at our myspace page. It made me chuckle, so I thought I’d reprint it here.

10 Little-Known Facts about BrevityTV.com
Current mood: Ruling

1. BrevityTV.com has access to 29 letters. That’s three more than other Enlglish-utilizing sketch comedy groups.

2. BrevityTV.com has never eaten mud, not even for a dollar.

3. Our sketches can be used as a porridge magnet in times when porridge is scarce.

4. BrevityTV.com rocks out with our cocks in. Because we don’t want to end up on the sex-offender registry.

5. BrevityTV.com can turn into a hawk, but it rarely does. BrevityTV.com considers shapeshifting showy.

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I’ve been feeling this weird sensation in my lower left abdomen lately. Always happy to substitute a web site for consultation with a trained professional, I described my symptoms to WebMD. The closest match seems to be “Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” While I’m not impressed by the lack of details of why or what the condition actually is, I suppose it was comforting at least to know that someone (drug companies, I suspect?) has given my mild discomfort a name. And at last I can stop fearing I have tapeworms.

Unfortunately, there is not much listed in the way of treatment for IBS, and the only real suggestions were to reduce stress and avoid caffeine. So it’s sad to hear there’s nothing I can do about it. Believe me, if I could just make stress go away, I would. All this evening I had a strange sensation in my forehead where all the muscles were sore from a combination of tension and lack of sleep. I’ve ground away one side of rear left molars. I’ve tried using a mouth guard, but that just gives me something to chomp down on, and I’ve nearly chewed through it after a week.

All of which is strange, because I’m remarkably unstressed. Though it hasn’t launched yet, BrevityTV is humming along, starting to resemble the idea I had in my head when I started it. And when you get pretty shots like the one below from our shoot this morning, what’s to stress about?

When I leave my apartment in the morning, I will be taking with me food, contracts, a bunch of gear–all the normal videomaking necessities.

I also need to bring with me an 8-foot American flag and a twinkie.

Craigslist is just about the most useful tool an honest, hardworking producer of video shorts could have.  To make a project move, you have to surround yourself with other energetic talents, and craigslist is a wonderful way to write a few paragraphs about what you’re doing, and have some really cool (and some really freaky) individuals reply that they want to create together.

Obnoxious part?  Getting “flagged & removed.”  This is a worth-while process that craigs has in place, allowing the community to strike down ads if they are inappropriate or violate policy.  However, if you put a listing up in the “gigs” section that doesn’t pay, people tend to strike it down.  My ads are always well within the rules–in fact, you must click a radio button indicating that a job is unpaid, so users can search by that option, eliminating unpaid gigs if they desire–but there are craigs readers who have taken it upon themselves to create a culture of paid gigs.  Reading the discussion forum about this problem, one hears the various voices of wisdom shrug and say there’s not much to be done, that a few people just don’t want unpaid gigs to survive.

Of course I understand that I’m asking people with marketable skills to come work on my projects, and that in a way it’s insulting that there shouldn’t be money involved.  But I’m not being greedy; I absolutely cannot pay people.  I don’t know how to write an ad that says, “There are a lot of people out there who might exploit you or ask you to work on a project that sucks.  But I’m one of the good guys, honest.”  (Because that’s what the bad guys say, too, of course.)  Meanwhile, there are plenty, plenty, plenty of people who are happy to gain experience and build their portfolios by working unpaid projects.  The self-appointed craigslist police keep those people from meeting us good guys.

Anyone know any other good places I can recruit crew?  Ones with LESS than a 50% chance of my ad getting banned in the first 24 hours?

I keep searching for funny comedy out there on the net. It’s surprisingly few and far between. If you’re looking for humor beyond monkeys getting kicked in the nads*, a fuzzy scene stolen from a 1993 episode of SNL, or youtubes of boarding school kids lipsynching to someone else’s youtube, you’re gonna have to search. Short, scripted comedy seems like the non-porn PURPOSE for the internet, and yet…

Anyway, here’s some of my faves lately. Some are new, some just new to me. All are pretty impressive, in my book.

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