Beowulf Retold Rises

    This project began taking shape nearly a year ago, when my son in law, Walter, showed me some of his new brother in laws video work on his computer. The work that he showed me was very creative and perfectly suited to the website in which it had been created for. Though Brian is a young man his work showed artistic talent and skill. It appealed to me greatly. Following my son in laws suggestion I followed up on some other work that Brian Hobbs had created for websites and found myself getting more and more excited. Using Walter as a go between I asked him to broach Brian on the idea of helping me shoot a video of my program. Brian related that he would be interested.

   Then for a while we had dead air and then finally we connected. I visited him at his place one morning and we discussed what I was interested in doing. He seemed genuinely interested. I warned him that this could get involved and that I was seeking someone with a flair for artistic work. Despite my warnings we discussed terms and on a hand shake made a deal.

  This of course is a simplified version of events but it is the nuts and bolts of what happened. To be honest I really had no idea if he could pull this off and if I was throwing many into the wind or his pocket and to no avail. It is a chance you take when you can’t afford developing a product like this with someone that has a reputation for doing this kind of work. Brian did have a reputation that was for sure and all the work that I had seen was excellent BUT he had never done anything like this before ( and he may never do anything like this again after he is done with me- poor soul- but I hope that I am wrong.)

   Brian has done all the editing in his spare time. We finished shooting in May.  A few months ago he and his wife had the first child, a son. I am an old man these days, a grandpa (Dadoo to my grandkids) and I remember quite well what it is like raising my first child. Demanding just doesn’t even get close to it. So his work on this video has been slow but he has maintained his standard of excellence and is producing an awesome product. Probably better than I deserve.

   Today ( 09/07/2011) I received a link from Brian to Part 1 of the video, an essentially finished product that will require some tweaking. The link is a private set up allowing only myself to view this video. Besides my wife and one other person no one will see this video until the entire product is complete which will be a few months down the road. When the video is nearly complete I do plan to post the opening segment on youtube with a link to it from my site and to remove the first video that I filmed myself nearly 3 years ago.

  Until today I wasn’t sure what I was gonna get. I knew what hurdles Brian would have to jump to get this done. I knew of all the re-shoots we had done because of cracking voice or misread lines or mentally exhausted mouth and brain. I knew that we had to do two complete run through with each part so that we could move cameras (He only had 2 cameras to work with) and capture each performance from different angles.  I knew that when we filmed part one I was still fighting some kind of cold that had racked my voice and all day as we filmed I was chugging a vitamin drink and water to keep the voice stable. I knew that I was giving the boy a tall order.

   Well today I found that Brian Hobbs is a miracle worker. I was stunned at the quality of the editing. I cannot even imagine the work he put into this video to get the look that he came away with. I was literally stunned. And what I am seeing right now is a compressed version. Not what the actual final product would look like on say a TV.  Also he filmed this in HD so that the quality would be equal to the TV's on which it might be seen. 

    I know there are few folk out there who would love to see this. But you will have to wait a little while longer.I have learned my lesson about rushing into things from past experiences. It could be four to six months before the final product is available.

  As to my own performance in this video, I was pleasantly surprised at how well I came across. I sounded better than I expected and the look that I had created worked really well. But what I wanted was to come across with strength and power. I did not want a static shoot. I wanted the video to have a visceral feeling to it. I wanted it to be gutty and physical. I did not want my audience to be bored. I wanted them to be drawn in by my performance as if it were a live performance. I wanted them to walk into Hrothgar’s Hall, Herot. I wanted them to smell the blood and fear.

  There gonna.

  Beowulf Rises !!!