STBD Shoot at Light-Up Night This Friday

Several of the STBD cast members will be on-hand for a live, semi-improvised shoot during Light-Up Night this Friday in downtown Pittsburgh. Rumor has it that veteran podcaster C.C. Chapman might be in town from Boston that night and making an STBD cameo appearance as well.

If you'll be downtown for light-up night, keep your eyes open for Caroline, Tabitha and the rest of the STBD cast! Say hello (and buy us hot drinks - it'll be about 35 degrees that night)!

STBD Shoot Tonight: Extras Welcome!

If any STBD fans are interested, we'll be shooting a few scenes at the Gallery Crawl in downtown Pittsburgh tonight. Interested in stopping down? Email me (jkownacki at somethingtobedesired dawt com), or just look for the guy with the camera.

Yes, I'm sure there will only be one...

Location Is Everything: 5 Tips for Location Filming

Since anyone can pick up a camera and start shooting web video today, it's increasingly important to find an edge that helps distinguish you from your competition -- which is everyone ELSE with a camera.

At STBD, one of our assets is location -- both the city itself (which is highly cinematic) and our recurring cluster of unusual indoor locations (the WANT FM radio station, the Affogato cafe, etc.).

When you're considering filming in a location, here are 5 questions to keep in mind:

1. How "Available" Is This Location?

A lot of small business owners are keen on supporting social media in exchange for some extra exposure (and the cachet that comes from knowing the cool, cutting edge media makers). But not everyone wants to make this a weekly proposition.

Treat every opportunity as if it will be a one-time thing. If you (and the location owner) have a positive experience, THEN you can discuss the possibility of a recurring arrangement. But don't plan on having 24 hour access to a location, write a number of scripts under that presumption... and then destroy your relationship with the location owner on the first day.

2. How Flexible / Creative Can You Be in the Location?

One reason we love filming in Affogato is because it offers so many options for plot / character situations. ANYONE could be in Affogato for ANY reason at ANY time of day. And, as a "public" location, it enables us to introduce new characters and cameo appearances with little need for justification or planning (since every cafe has random customers).

Conversely, when we've filmed in Torque Denim or Pavement Shoes, we've had a limited window for filming (usually an hour before they open), and we've had to work around their employees / interns, which creates an additional logistical challenge. Is that challenge worth it? Depends on what you can achieve within those limitations...

(Side note: Versatility in a location is underrated. We filmed the "Caroline Meets Lloyd" episode in a utilitarian space in the South Side Works that happened to be serving as a makeshift art gallery at the time. That same week, we realized we needed to re-shoot part of the "Caroline and Rich at the elevator" sequence from the first episode of Season Four... but we no longer had access to the original location. Fortunately the "art gallery" had generic white walls -- similar to the elevator location -- so we faked the re-shoot there instead. [Whew.])

3. How Often Do You NEED This Location?

Just because you CAN film in a location on a regular basis doesn't mean you NEED to -- or that you SHOULD.

One of the easiest places to film is a cast or crew member's apartment. It's usually available on short notice AND at all hours of the day (or night) -- but how interesting is it to a viewer? As often as web video producers resort to their own apartments as a backdrop, yours is going to need to be particularly amazing to stand out from the crowd.

On the other hand, if you DID have recurring access to an unusual space -- a deli, a factory, an antique store -- COULD you find a way to make that a more integral part of your story? Unique is good, but well-utilized uniqueness is better.

4. What Noise Issues Are Involved?

Fans, coolers, traffic, overhead lighting, nearby humans -- all of these things (and more) can create audio nightmares. How much can you turn off / turn down / tune out?

At Affogato, we turn off the coolers, but the fridge in back cannot be shut off. Thus, we have to strip that hum out in post. The cappuccino machine also "cycles," and occasionally "clicks" during a line of dialogue. By and large, we leave that in because it sounds natural, given the location. (Plus, it's too much work to re-record dialogue to avoid "clicks," though we have done it on occasion...)

Oh, and if you turn off coolers, refrigerators, etc., PLEASE turn them back on when you're finished...

5. What Crowd Issues Are Involved?

If you're shooting while a location is open, you may have to film around employees, customers or the general public. These people will not always be quiet while you're filming. If you can't silence the masses, can you make use of their idle chatter?

If you intend to leave the public in your shots, you'll want to have them sign a release form allowing you to use their image / voice in your production. You can also hang up a sign or two (in a WELL-TRAFFICKED area) that states, "Anyone entering these premises during filming MAY appear in the finished production," which implies consent on the part of those who may wander through.

******

Locations can help your production seem larger and more interesting than a simple "indoor apartment" shoot -- but only if the locations are utilized properly. Don't make more work for yourself than you ALREADY have when producing web video: be smart about your locations, and let THEM work for YOU.

Dearly Beloved: How STBD Got Invited to a Wedding

For our final episode of the season, we at STBD were invited to attend the wedding reception of one of our biggest fans. He suggested that we'd be able to film anything we wanted to within the confines of the PPG Aquarium, where the reception was being held. All he asked in return was a small amount of footage of the reception itself.

This posed an unusual challenge: How could we explain, story-wise, a reason for multiple characters to be attending at a wedding? (And, more practically, how would we explain ourselves to the wedding guests?)

Backfiring Backstory

Originally, we'd intended to orchestrate the event as a full Vanity Press situation -- perhaps one of the authors or an ex-employee was getting married, which would explain the existence of Tabitha, Liz, Caroline, Rich, etc., being there. But when we were asked to keep our head count to 3 or less, we realized we'd have to scale back our idea.

At the same time, we had a continuity issue to deal with from Episode 29: The sequence with Alexxxis and Tim at Torque Denim was moved later in the episode than originally intended, which created a problem -- what was the favor Alexxxis asks Tim in the last scene?

Thus, thanks to a suggestion from Rick Hertzig (Glenn), we concocted an impossibly (and unnecessarily) complex conceit to enable Caroline, Dierdre and Glenn to essentially crash the wedding. We'd intended for Trent Wolfred (aka "the guy who got shot in the bathroom") to make his return at the wedding as well, so we squeaked him in as -- what else? -- the wedding videographer.

All we had to do was maintain a low profile, keep out of people's ways and shoot what we needed to shoot and no one would ever need to know what we were actually doing there.

Open Bar

So we arrive at the Pittsburgh Zoo, which is where the Aquarium is housed, and join the tram-load of guests being shuttled from the entrance to the reception. Since there are five of us, Rick ends up sitting alone. A fellow wedding guest plops down beside him and, feeling gregarious, introduces himself as the father of so-and-so.

Rick nods obligingly.

"And how do you know the bride and groom?" the guy asks Rick.

"Um..."

One bumpy tram ride (and awkward explanation) later, we're no longer anonymous. Thankfully, the guest appears to chalk our presence up to the eccentricity of the happy couple and totters about his business.

We slip into the Aquarium, explore the space and realize two very important things:

1. There are dozens of opportunities for beautiful shots here.

2. Almost none of them will work because the audio is trash.

Being an aquarium, there's a whole lot of running and falling water EVERYWHERE. This is not a quiet process, especially as it cascades off the walls of the interior, creating a white noise echo. EVERYWHERE.

Fortunately, Trent and Ann find the penguin area, which is shared by another large fish tank. Due to the acoustic arrangement, this is essentially the only "quiet" area in the building, despite the echo. This became the host locale for both their scene and an unused sequence with Glenn, Dierdre and Rob Sharp (egad!), whose cameo appearance remains (mercifully) on the virtual cutting room floor.

After the After-Party

Once we were sure we'd filmed everything we needed (or as sure as we could be, since the shot list was accidentally left in the car, which was a full tram ride away), we attempted to wrap things up in the elevator back to the top floor. As you might guess, trying to film dialogue in an elevator at a wedding reception is bound to not go smoothly. Thus, we retreated to the escalators at the zoo entrance, where -- in three takes, involving several escalator round-trips -- we nailed the final scene.

Coincidentally, this also happened to be the final evening of shooting for the season. After doubling back to Caroline & Dierdre's apartment to wrap things up with Leo, we headed out to a self-congratulatory celebration of our own -- a midnight breakfast at Ritter's Diner.

From champagne and wedding cake to black coffee and greasy home fries: STBD does it all in style.

(Should we mention that nearly every line of dialogue in this episode was improvised by the cast on the spot? Just thought you'd like to know...)

Pig Heart Saturday

I'm sitting in the Quiet Storm cafe, where Ann Turiano (aka Caroline) and Kevin Ford (aka Tom Simmons) from STBD are performing in a student film for a friend.

The sequence is fairly simple: Kevin's character realizes Ann's character no longer loves him, so he gets up and leaves.

The twist?

On his way out, he turns back and says, "I guess this is yours" -- AND TEARS OUT HIS HEART, leaving it (beating!) on the table.

Apparently, the Quiet Storm forgot they agreed to let this sequence be filmed here, so now the crew is trying to race through the shot while creatively hiding the ACTUAL PIG'S HEART (and "blood" tubes) from the Saturday brunchtime patrons... which include lots of kids.

I love independent film.

The WANT Problem

Longtime viewers remember an age not so long ago -- atcually, just last season -- when Something to Be Desired was still primarily about the DJs who worked at WANT FM. Some of them have asked where the radio station went this season, and why we're spending so much time focused on Vanity Press, Affogato, etc.

The answer is simple: we lost the location.

WANT was always filmed in the WQED radio station in Oakland. Through a stroke of good fortune, they were open to our original need for a location back in 2003 and they allowed us to utilize their facilities, few questions asked, for the next 3 years -- as long as we didn't disrupt anything.

Considering some of the scenes we were able to pull off on their premises -- including Caroline and Dean's love scene in the studio that kicks off Season Three, which was accidentally witnessed in progress by one of the WQED engineers -- we think we made great use of the opportunity without making life difficult for our hosts.

But then, without warning, we were informed one July afternoon that we would need to wrap up our filming and never return to the premises again. We attempted to discern what the problem was, or if there was anything we could do to smooth things over, but the powers-that-be were not interested in negotiation. We needed to leave and that was that.

And so WANT ceased to exist.

Ironically, we'd already begun filming in that direction, with the fictional station in danger of being shut down due to the bank taking it over. Our plan involved Todd rallying the troops and making a valiant stand against inevitability, and wrangling another year of life out of the station until an even bigger problem would have beset them, but that storyline got yanked out from underneath us before the season even aired.

(Incidentally, we never did find out why we were asked to leave. But considering new management was involved, it could have been any number of things which, under previous management, might never have been noticed but which drew attention to us now.

Informally, I suspect it had something to do with one of our actresses accidentally walking into a WQED board meeting while wearing a bustiere, but I suppose we'll never know for sure.)

Life After WQED

So, we did the next best thing we could do: we shifted focus to Vanity Press and Affogato while trying to find a new radio station location for WANT.

When those other leads failed to pan out either, we realized that WANT might never ride again. It seemed a disservice to our longtime fans -- and characters -- to have their unifying location written out so incidentally, so we left ourselves open to an act of serendipity that would enable us to resuscitate the concept in the immediate future.

Enter: Rich's wild idea of taking the station online.

On one hand, we lose the physicality of the location that made the radio element so convincing. On the other hand, we're now freed to tackle the bigger issue: how we, as people, communicate -- especially when it's semi-anonymous. And, considering traditional media are still reeling from the impact of the internet, it seemed only logical that WANT's next respite might come from a bunch of tubes.

How will this plotline return to the fore? Check back when new episodes resume on March 26 and we'll all find out.