From the perspective of an old news and political junkie (me), who loves the freedom the internet gives her to do weird comedy videos, I have a confession.

I just stayed up ALL NIGHT, guzzling caffeine, producing a very bad comedy video with the grandiose hope of being the next internet video sensation. I mean, come on, if a kid lighting his fart on fire can get a million views, there’s got to be hope for me!

So, here in the waning seconds of the presidential race of 2008, I present to you:

“Space Alien Celebrity News,” with hot intergalactic news anchor Fonda Lots-a-Titty. (Yes, I am being extremely crude.  Sex sells on You Tube, and everywhere else.)

This video is my contribution to the insanity that comes from melding politics and television.

As a longtime TV News field producer, who can aptly be described as a PBS girl in a MTV world, the current state of the American news media makes me crazy.

I HATE IT! I think most of you do too.

In my opinion, there is little, if any, REAL journalism going on in today’s corporate TV newsrooms. The viewing public is ill served by the superficial, biased garbage that passes for “news” on boob tubes across our land.

The effects of television on our political system have been drastic. Imagine Honest Abe showing up to the debate after rescuing the muddy pig. Good grief, the hairspray helmet heads on the TV news today would laugh him right out of the race!

Once TV came along, Richard Nixon dared to pop a few sweat beads and he had to exit stage left to make way for the handsome, well-composed hunk.

OK, fast forward to today. Huge, well-funded organizations (both political parties) are desperately trying, and usually succeeding in “controlling the message” via a lights, camera, action mentality.

Reality is irrelevant. Control the message via TV and you control the minds of the people, most of whom would rather be watching, One Life to Live.

So a soap opera is what they get. A well scripted, controlled story line that has been inspired by a mixture of Machiavelli’s, “The Prince,” and a Disney movie. The 24-hour news cycle and the bimbo talking heads who populate it thrive on the love of gossip.

It drives an old fashioned news junkie, political nerd like me so crazy, that I am inspired late at night to produce weird internet videos.

I have an excuse to do so. It’s my JOB, damn it.

Being self-employed rocks! (Except for that paycheck part.)

Now, onto how I created this video masterpiece.

This highly sophisticated video production (NOT) was achieved by me videotaping a close-up of me while I read a script that I had written a few hours earlier. I went through three version of the script before I was satisfied. I made sure to poke fun at all sides. Can’t be biased now, can I?   Who do I think I am?   Network News?

I propped my mini DV camera up on a card board box on top of my desk so I didn’t have to use a tripod. I had my computer screen directly behind the box so I could read the script off the monitor. The camera was about one foot in front of my mouth and I had it zoomed out on a wide shot.

I used one 100 watt light bulb pointed at the wall to diffuse the light. The light was clipped onto the desk.

I used the camera’s on-board microphone and had to speak very softly in order not to over modulate it. I made sure all background noise was turned off.

Being a neurotic perfectionist, I did about fifteen takes…ok, more like thirty, before I felt comfortable with my “acting.” How does a sex-pot alien TV anchor sound, anyway? Hell, I dunno. Had to experiment!

We made some eyeballs out of Tennis balls, pipe cleaners and fencing wire. I shot them in front of a red background and added them to the alien face using chroma key techniques. (Also called green screen, but I used red since the tennis balls were a greenish yellow.)

We ripped out the pipe cleaner eyelashes and used one of the eyes for a nose. The eyes and nose were all separate shots and I edited them individually as separate layers in FCE. This gave me more control over precisely how they were placed and their size.

I then captured my video into my computer video editing program via a firewire cable.

I matted out all of my face except my lips. I can not cut out the lips exactly with the software I have, (Final Cut Express) so I used an oval matte. I key framed the center point of the matte in order to follow my bopping head and isolate the lips. I tried to hold my head as steady as possible while video taping, but movement is magnified so much on a close up shot. It would have been easier to edit if I my original shot was closer on just my lips AND if I had not moved as much.

I then put the matted lips on top of a JPEG my daughter drew of the alien character, Fonda Lots-a-Titty. I had to block out the eyeballs she had drawn because I wanted to use the tennis balls, since I could make them move.

I intercut the drawing/lips composite with footage I shot off a real TV. I used my mini dv camera off a tripod for this and then captured the tape. Doing it that way is much easier than recording it directly off the air onto my computer hard drive.

Luckily, I live where there is plenty of horse hooey, you know the REAL stuff. So I videotaped the poop to use as a metaphoric commentary. The sun was setting so I got some great back lighting. Ah, the glistening poo-poo thrills a videophile like me!

The opening was made with a background generated by Live Type, the software titles and animation program bundled with Final Cut Express. I key framed a flying saucer Jpeg my daughter drew over the star background made by Live Type.

After editing the entire video together with some royalty free music, I converted it to an MPEG4 in FCE. Mpeg4 gives you a small file that uploads quickly.

I then uploaded it to Traffic Geyser, a paid service that sent my wonderful video creation all over the internet with minimum time. I have channels on multiple video sharing sites and Traffic Geyser sends to them all at once. Traffic Geyser also changes the file format and re submits the video a day later. All automatically. Traffic geyser is well worth the membership fee in time and frustration saved.

Then, the power of viral video (hopefully) will take over and get my weird comedy video, crazed, late-night creation in front of viewers all over the world.

Beats working for a living!

Producing weird videos for the internet is a tough job, but someone has to do it, so it might as well be me.

With this video, I hope that I have raised the level of sophistication of our political discourse above and beyond where it has sunk on mainstream news channels.

OK, not really. I’m just trying to be funny. Which is why I love the Internet. Talent, money, and a big corporate name aren’t necessarily what it takes to reach the masses today.

Nope! You just need a touch of craziness, balls the size of Jupiter, and the power of internet video.

Life is good!

Pass the video around and have a good chuckle! Then go vote.

Many thanks.

Lorraine Grula

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