There will be a few
entries this year that deal solely with the events of
1999 and what they mean 5 years later. 1999 was an
astounding year for me. To this day I can't believe I
put my life's savings (and then some) into this crazy
idea of 4tvs with zero assurances. When I bought the
TVs in December of 1998 I didn't even know if it would
technically work, but I knew that by buying them - I
would make it work. It's a bummer I wasn't doing this
site at the time, 'cause I'd love to hear how I felt
during the first half of 1999. I did document
everything after May of 1999, but have unfortunately
lost it in the great "harddrive crashes" of '03. When
I save up some cash ('round $450), I'll be sending one
to a harddrive recovery company and hopefully will be
able to complete the negative entries. For now, the
day that was January 23rd, 1999…
How do you
describe what it feels like to know you're doing
something that no one has ever done before? I felt
like a pioneer. I still do in some respects, but then
it was really raw because there was no assurance that
it would work. We were "hoping" everything stayed
synced. I was able to work out the "audio script"
(what I followed in my earpiece to stay in sync) and
the rest was up to the production company I was
working with ABOT. At the time I was at the complete
mercy of ABOT. They designed the poor man's video wall
processor that allowed us to split the signal into 4
corners for $2000 as opposed to $10,000. They also
edited all the sets for $500 per each 15 minute pop.
And they also had the free-lance camera guy that shot
everything with a DV cam which was mandatory because
we needed the timecode to be exact. So that first
shoot oozed anticipation. We had no idea what the
final product would be. Man, to live that moment
again…
Of course
Marty Moose and Jessica were along for the ride.
Jessica and I had been living together since October
of '98 and Moose had been my roommate just prior to
that. We had been talking about the idea for several
weeks and everyone was pretty curious to see how it
would all come together. Thankfully Marty had the
wherewithal to take these pictures because it's the
only documentation that exists other than the sets
themselves. Come to think of it, Marty always had that
camera ready within the walls of CD101. Might've had
something to do with a certain radio show I
did…..hmmm.
Anyway, decided to
shoot 2 sets per shoot, which was actually quite a lot.
At 15 minutes per set, times 4, that's 2 hours of
finished product with no mistakes. Needless to say it was
a long night. It was also my first taste of performing
under extreme technical difficulties. It's not that
things were breaking down, but it's very, very difficult
to perform/sing/react to basically a metronome. Acting is
a feeling, not a robotic movement. So being forced into
laughing for 2.5 seconds, saying your line within the
next 3.7 seconds, then hitting the opening note in
t-minus 12.8 seconds and counting…oh, and be
natural. Heh. I rehearsed my ass off so it went pretty
smoothly - but it's a harrowing amount of concentration
to hide in your face with a camera zoomed in on
you.
And that's a side of
4tvs a lot of people never understood. Because of the
thousands each shoot was costing, there could be no "test
runs". What I taped that first night had to be played in
the bars, had to make money, had to work. So needless to
say the first two sets weren't filled with intricately
timed dialogue. Just the 3 songs per set, mild
interaction and alotta prayers. It was obvious even at
that first shoot that different characters and
backgrounds in each TV would be awesome, but I would
render thousands of dollars worth of sets obsolete if I
tried to develop characters in the middle, because it
would make the generic sets worthless (like they are
now). It was a catch-22 for sure, but later in the year I
found a few ways around it once I started making the sets
myself.
When the night was
over, we were all left with that looooong wait. Had it
been me, I would've had the set rendering that night, and
wouldn't have slept - but again at the mercy of the
production company nearly 2 weeks passed. But that
moment…
Jess and
I were sitting in their little production
room in Worthington, Ohio. They wanted to
show us the first minute of "Eleanor Rigby"
they had rendered. I honestly almost cried.
It's a moment with Jessica I'll never forget.
I remember vividly thinking: "Oh my GOD, it
worked". It worked. It actually worked. And I
was friggin' on-key. I must've asked them to
replay those 60
seconds
a dozen times. It made me feel like
Superman...and it's so completely commonplace
now. I could recreate that in about 20
minutes.
Of course the
following shoots after that I got more and more
adventurous. From having one guy come out with a
mustache and tie-dyed shirt with the other TVs making
fun of him to using green screens and different
backgrounds. Eventually the dialogue became the focus
and the "real music" took a backseat to the parody
songs from Star Wars Blew. It was an obvious evolution
that lead me to LA. It remained stagnant for all of
2000 until I was made aware of the whole "one-man
show" concept. No longer needing to fill 2-3
hours like a band, I could concentrate on making one
30 minute show. That allowed the creativity to go to a
completely different level...
...but it all started
on one anxious night 5 years ago. The long and winding
road continues.
