videos – protozoic

Here’s another short film shot on the Jazz DV151. It is about sending Fred a postcard. My shaky camera work aside, the film gives a better sense of the camera’s capabilities, especially in low light where the gain gets cranked up. I noticed at times that the camera has a mild sound sync loss. I would also note that about an hour into recording the footage, I finally had to switch the batteries (and I’d been using it a couple days prior also). The camera runs off of double A’s.

For interested parties, Megan will be posting the video on Melodic Insomniac also. She’ll probably have some different comments on it than I.

I bought the Jazz DV151 camera from Walmart for $20.00 yesterday. The camera has a flip out viewscreen and records AVI files onto SD cards (it can handle up to 2GB cards) at a 320 x 240 resolution. The image is pretty much what you would expect from a $20.00 camera, but I haven’t been able to stop playing with it. Check out the short movie below to see and hear the quality of the recording. I’m still trying to figure out if I can hook the camera up to my computer so I can double it as a web cam (when you connect the camera to a computer with the USB, it switches automatically to download mode). I posted a picture of the camera at the bottom of this post so interested parties can see what it looks like.

Turkey Breasts was shot over the winter holiday. In addition to featuring Thom, Tim, Brian, Megan, a turkey and other stuff, the film features the dirt road out by my parent’s place in Salisbury, MD. Over the years, the dirt road has appeared in a number of movies I’ve been involved with in one way or another. In the ones on Protozoic alone, it crops up in Operation: Red Chicken Disco Jesus (Redux), The Cave of Trouble in: Search for the Chupacabra, Spontaneous Combustion and The Bridge. For me, getting to return to the dirt road was one of my favorite parts about making this movie. It’s pretty cool to get old with your buddies and the places you grew up.

For interested parties, Tim has some production stills from the shoot that can be viewed here.

Hope you enjoy the film.

Dodo is an informative short film about the dodo bird. If you are doing a term paper, thesis, dissertation, science project or poster session, watch this film. You will learn BIG facts.

Note — Originally titled Dodo Bird Facts.

Roomba was filmed and scored by Megan Register. In the film, the Roomba cleans, must overcome ominous obstacles in the forms of walls and chair legs, and sweeps about in a robotic vacuum ballet. Be sure to visit Megan’s blog Melodic Insomniac.

I Can’t Wait to Hear Your Excuse is about a lame excuse.

The Rent is Due is another short melodica number. Like last week’s video, it features fish again.

Tagline: Flush Toilets, Not Fish is about toilets, fish and domestic responsibility.

Mike’s Comments: When we were kids, my cousins had two goldfish named Frank Ferdue (sic) and Doo-Doo Head. Tim and I were obsessed with the point as children. Through the years, we’ve continued to talk and laugh about it. It was funny on many levels. One, because our cousins named Frank Ferdue after a Maryland local celebrity. Secondly, that they changed the last name’s first letter to an “F”, creating a half-baked alliteration. Why didn’t they just call the fish Frank Perdue? Because that name was taken? Because they were mispronouncing “Perdue”?

No one will ever know the answer to those questions. However, if an answer is to be found, it is probably to be found in the second goldfish’s name, Doo-Doo Head. This was the whammy, and what made the amusing Frank Ferdue name comedy gold and Frank Ferdue and Doo-Doo Head the Smothers Brothers of fish-comedy.

In Flush Fish, Not Toilets, Jim Ferdue’s name is, of course, inspired by Frank Ferdue. (For those not from the Eastern Shore, Jim Perdue is the son of Frank Perdue and now runs the chicken empire.) There’s no Doo-Doo Head counterpart among the fish, mainly because there is no recreating a legend. There is, however, plenty of potty talk, so Doo-Doo Head lives on in spirit.

Megan’s Comments: I would like to point out that there was a very good reason why I told Mike to flush the toilet, and why I wasn’t going anywhere near it. It should also be known that although Mike walked offscreen with a ever-so-fake look of guilt plastered on his face, he did not flush the toilet for another 15 minutes after I spoke those words.