Stan 18 production stills

An episode like "The Defenders Of Stan - ep. 16," the one with the four guys playing cards and telling stories, has a LOT of actors and locations, which meant that each little bit would take up less screen time because there were so many other little bits that we had to cram into five minutes. So when we're on shoots like this, often times driving to a location for the sake of something that will only have 10 seconds of screen time, we get our coverage and then have a little bit of time to take photos and do alternate takes, etc., because we get into a "well we drove all the way here, might as well have some fun" mentality.

But when we shoot an episode like "The Defenders Of Stan - ep. 18," we're shooting in less locations but for a lot longer time. And when that happens, we end up making people hang around for a lot longer. And when that happens, we get into a "let's get our coverage and let these people go home" mentality, during which we often forget about things like making sure we take production stills or making sure we have all of the dialogue in close-up. you know, trivial stuff like that.

so we're really grateful when other people, often times extras who are just waiting around out--of the kindness of their hearts--for us to get to their bit, snap some photos for us.

so here, without further ado, are the few photos we have from "The Defenders Of Stan - Ep 18: Two Men and a Super-Baby???"



Meredith, the super-stud that he is, showing off his studliness and probably acting as a lighting stand-in. Tickets to the gun-show: $14.99. get 'em while they're hot. Photo by Josh Gross.


Running through a scene while Captain Ultra's face blurs off. Another one of Josh's famous "photos of the viewfinder while we see what's IN the viewfinder in the background" shots.


Stan and Captain Ultra get some heavy news.

Stan is really excited about a floating logo.


And the following are cell-phone pictures taken by Amanda Crelia. They're tiny, but between NO production stills and TINY production stills, i'll take what i can get.


Across the street after Stan hops out of his car.


Super-Sean reliving the glory days from high school.

Now, i've mentioned before, THE BiG HONKIN' is a three man crew. here's a great example of this: Meredith running camera, Austin on camera, and Hunter in a very uncomfortable costume being boom-operator outside and in public.


And another example, Austin is running sound for our super-lawyer to serve Captain Ultra.

"blog, blog, blog!"

okey dokey.

really quickly:

"THE DEFENDERS OF STAN" episode 17 was shot in one day, i believe, with a few reshoots spilling into a second. it was all in one location, so there weren't many exciting things to take photos of, or props to build.

because of that, i only have a small handful of production stills.

SO, here they be.



this was the basic setup for the whole shoot. we got a fun LED light panel earlier, and got to really use it here, to sort of mimic the cool-tinted light that comes off of a computer monitor when someone is on their webcam.

Stan receives a traffic ticket for being a douchebag. this is actually MY traffic ticket...for being a douchebag.


two of my favorite bits, together at last: the fake Stan beard (originally from episode 12...we had to dig through a lot of boxes to find it), and the Stan blog mask.


Ultra-Stan, Stan-Stan, Stan-on-a-stick.

AAAAAAAAAND, below, you can download and make your very own Stan mask!

Seriously...do it. print it. make a video blog and post it as a response to episode 17...that would be awesome.




i'll have episode 18 stuff up soon.

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STAN 16 production stills part 3

to finish up our production stills for this episode (before we move into props, pre-visualization, etc.), we have a BIG ol' entry. so let's get right into it.


It's pretty simple. Cop wants photo with Captain Ultra. Captain Ultra wants $20. Cop gives Ultra $20, so the two take a picture. I love that we actually took pictures while we shot. If i'd just paid twenty bucks for this, i'd be a little bummed.



now, to give you an idea of just how many takes we do of stuff, this is a little slideshow of all of the photos we took while shooting. man, that's like 240 bucks worth! i love the one where he missed Captain Ultra completely.

This is us setting up for the beginning of the satellite sequence. it's always fun to block half the traffic on a street, with no permit, while cars full of people yelling "superman!" at you drive by.

here we are white balancing, or checking focus or something. the mic isn't even up yet, so i can't imagine this is during shooting just yet. as i said previously, it's hard to shoot with just three people sometime. it's even harder when two of us are in costume (meredith lent his looking and clapping talents to this scene). so sometimes little things like, oh i dunno say AUDIO, gets neglected til the last second.


Our second pregnant super-lady of this episode! it's that time of the year i suppose...



Holy Rugby Vest and Super Pimp! Notice the greenscreen leaning against the car.


Taking off, or landing. I can't keep track.


When i land, our Super Pimp is holding one headshot, and our Super Pregnant Lady Part II is holding another. i'm not sure which is which. But they sure do make Captain Ultra look even douchier than ever.


I'm gonna go on a rant here: Kinko's really needs to calibrate their frakkin monitors! Seriously. I opened these up on one of the design stations because kinko's charges you extra if they open anything besides a pdf behind the front counter (they can only print on thicker stock papers from behind the counter). So i go to convert it to a pdf, and suddenly i look at them and go "man. these are really terrible looking. they're so lacking contrast! i guess i was tired when i put these together. better fix the color." so i do. and i hand them to the guy and he prints them out, and they look TERRIBLE. they look borderline two-toned (like JUST black, white, and maybe ONE shade of grey). so i have to go back, fix them, and have the guy REprint them. in the end, it would have been cheaper to just incur the non-pdf fee than the ordeal and time wasted. thanks kinkos.


The epiphany. The life-changing event. A nudie pen.


Faster than a speeding bullet.


Speaking of being dressed up like idiots: It's funny. If you do it alone, you feel ridiculous. If you do it in a group, you feel like you can take on the world. That's probably why so many superheroes in ridiculous costumes work in teams. They're crazy solo, but together they just look like they're having a good time.


Stan's "date" in the park. This is another one of those "oh crap, i forgot to take a picture while we were in the actual location doing actual shooting," mostly because i was too busy worried about angles and timing for all of the impending doom that would befall this unknowing super lady, so i quickly thought "let's run outside and snap one against some green leaves and stuff so it kind of LOOKS like we took it during the shoot." though there wasn't a house in the park. I'll fix it in post.

coming soon: previs, props, and anything else i have the time and energy to scrape together.

any requests?

STAN 16 production stills part 2

for me, production stills break into three categories:
1. stills taken WHILE shooting
2. stills taken before/after shooting (usually to highlight art direction, costume design, something slightly impressive that people might want to take a closer look at)
3. stills taken before/after shooting meant to look like they were taken WHILE shooting.

i wonder which category these fall into.

i'll go over playing poker, abiding by Capital City rules. 1. each player must have at least 8 cards in his hand at all times: even bathroom breaks.


2. third hands are a plus: helpful for snacking, scratching, and hiding cards under the table.


3. extra points awarded for showing off mad jug-band skills during a game.


4. the key to victory is a stern, solemn poker face. also, for whatever reason, you play counter-clockwise.


5. posing is a must.


6. if you lose all of your money, other types of chips can be substituted for poker chips in lightning rounds. oh yes. in Capital City, there are lightning rounds.


7. write a script, then play out the game in a totally scripted way so that everyone knows how much they will be losing that night.

hopefully this has been helpful in getting you up to speed on playing with CC's "finest"

more stills, etc. coming soon.

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STAN 16 production stills part 1

hello, internet. at last, we meet again.

well, internet, my old nemesis. i have a few things to show you. for starters, i'll dazzle you with a slew of production stills. that's right, internet! you may have underestimated me, but we actually took photos this time! then, i'm going to pummel you with props pictures! and then, when you've already had enough, i might even do an effects breakdown, show some of our 3d pre-vis work, and maybe even a deleted scene or two. who the heck knows, i'm feeling nuts.

you still wanna rumble with me, internet?

fine. i mess you up.


as you can tell, blue face paint isnt the easiest thing to use, nor is it the most enjoyable thing to smear all over yourself. we usually try to do as little as possible, often times only painting half of a face, etc., based on the shot. (note the back of the neck). but we realized that this wasn't gonna work after all, so here our lovely makeup artist is ready to apply more liquid crib death.


this was a ROUGH shoot, trying desperately to cram all of the flashback into 3 hours of shooting. and usually, it's a little easier when you have all three of us there. but it was Meredith's birthday that day, so it was just Austin and I running around like chickens with no heads to do an extra person's amount of work. luckily for us, all of our actors are real pro's, and we love them.


Our cobalt pimp, in action. (it's a lot easier to pick up a chick if you're already married to her, apparently).


Capital City's newest LEAD anchor, Vicki Valiant. gosh, it seems like only episodes ago she was a field reporter. movin on up!


of any color, why would he paint himself green? the answer: because her dad is a racist, and he really wants to make a good impression.


so this is what it looks like when you take production stills after shooting one of the two scenes for that day, and between them an actress changes back into her clothes.


country love: Flamer and his baby mama on the vehicle of their first date. a sears tractor.


mmmmm. melted and charred whitmans sampler: sure to win over any angry, slightly violent, pregnant, hormonal super-ladies' heart.



so we have plenty more production stills coming soon. stay tuned, and maybe if you all bug us enough, we'll make Captain Ultra t-shirts.


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STAN 15 production stills part 2

once again, i'm here to share a few more production stills from The Defenders Of Stan ep14-"terrible twos."


every episode, we strive for doing something new, challenging ourselves in some way we havent before. this particular episode was a lesson in 1. writing and 2. subtle effects.

for the writing aspect, we decided early on that it would be fun to have the two Captain Ultra's relationship sour based on it's own merit: no outside influences. this meant that we have our title character, Stan, silent for about 75% of the episode. in fact, these are Stan's only lines:
1. "i'll get it in a minute."
2. "yeah, i said i'll get it in a minute!"
3. "i love you, Ted."
4. "shouldn't we take him apart?"
5. "great."

and for the effects aspect, we really strived to make an episode that is, at it's core, an effects episode that doesn't FEEL like an effects episode. in fact, there are 23 effects shots (two got cut for time), and really there are only a handful that FEEL like effects sequences...at least i hope that's the way it came off.

but sometimes, the most effective visuals are done in camera. like drawing balls on someones face.


as you can tell, i'm extremely exciting to be covered with ink. that and the fact that i had to sit in a box for 30 minutes almost dead still with my eyes open for good chunks of time didnt help (originally the shot at the end was going to be a dolly in, but this was changed to a progressive zoom in cut sequence for time and effect).


there's probably a reason that it looked like i hadn't slept in days. the basement scene was filmed days after the rest of the episode.


so, back to what i said: 20+ effects sequences. meredith was kind enough to do the majority of rotoscoping on 4 of those shots, and austin got in on two (he loves his vector painting, so rotoscoping made him unhappy...not that ANYONE is particularly happy to be rotoscoping), but i did the rest of the sequences...when you work, you get hungry. and when you work a LOT, you buy things that are easy to make...this is what i ate almost every night. YUM


when you rotoscope, you work a lot. and when you work a lot, you buy things that you THINK are easy to make until you realize way too late that you hit an extra "0" on the microwave timer, and the house fills with smoke. YUM.

i'm sure there are one or two more production stills floating around here or there, but i'm not sure how interesting they are. that and i'm not really sure that anyone actually READS this thing anyway.

STAN 15 production stills

hey folks, some production stills of The Defenders Of Stan ep 15: Terrible Twos.

we had a lot of fun working on this one, even though it was a lot of work. maybe i'll get into that later. who knows. anywhoot. lets see pictures!



here's our favorite anti-hero and his robot clone enjoying a nice, relaxing smoke after a long day of shooting. we shot for 4 days total i believe, which is relatively short for us. but they were LONG days.


going over some lines and timing before the couch shoot. austin was off getting ready to sit still for hours.


to sing, one needs to warm up their vocal chords and make sure your throat isn't dry. OBVIOUSLY, because of how freaking beautiful the song worked out*, diet soda is the beverage of choice for singers.

* i'm humoring myself here.


again, sharing a lighter. it's amazing how much a clone actually looks like the real deal.

i'll have a few more production stills soon, and will upload the video to youtube this week.

STAN 14 production stills

a lot of times, while we shoot, we get so wrapped up in the "get in, get what we need, get out and let our friends stop dressing like idiots" mentality that we forget to take a lot of production stills. this is especially true with The Defenders Of Stan episode 14. this shoot had us going all over the place, on top of the fact that we're working on other things at the same time.


Stan, in Captain Ultra's body, Captain Ultra in Stan's body, and Vicki Valiant on a date.


Stan's office buddies look about as thrilled to be listening to Captain Ultra as Stan is being related to him.


Captain Ultra in Stan's body, hits on a coworker. This was a scene from the alternate cut.


Setting up. Thanks to WIT for letting us rent their amazing camera again. this was our third ever time shooting on multiple cameras. it made for a faster shoot since we could do reverses at the same time, and we had time restraints in The Blue Moon Diner in charlottesville, Va.