Blessing or Curse: Behind the Scenes of the Youtube Victory

July 15, 2009: One crazy day! The day actually began at 9:00 the night before, as the clock reached midnight on the east coast, and the winner was announced. That's when the world became a very surreal place.. then a very dark place for the next 24 hours.

As most of you know, the kids and I decided to enter a Harry Potter contest on Youtube. It all started out so simple: one day I was surfing around my typical list of Harry Potter websites as I was sucked into the hype surrounding the release of the 6th film. On one of the sites I saw an ad for a video contest, the kind of thing that typically gets my attention as I enjoy the creative challenge. This one was simple: create a 90 second video explaining a Harry Potter style magical potion, how to make it and then demonstrate what effects it had. The only problem, the contest deadline for entries was that night at midnight. We had very little time to put this together.

I quickly grabbed Amanda and Little Calvin (Tyler was in Colorado visiting the grandparents for the week) and we began to brainstorm possible ideas. As I had been working on editing my mom's documentary, and had been neck deep in listening to stories of my Uncle's cruel pranks on my mom as a kid, suddenly a story popped to mind. At one point in time, while my mom was getting ready for a date, my uncle and a buddy snuck into the bathroom, and slipped out all her clothes, towels, bath mats, etc. leaving her stranded in the bathroom. Then, with her stuck, they delivered her diary to her waiting date, so that he could read everything she had written about him. This story has always been a favorite growing up, and suddenly we had a direction for our video... just done in a magical way.

We decided to create a video that would have much the same effect: it combines a bunch of random ingredients that when drunk, would magically give the drinker the power to "zap" things in and out. Little Calvin would make the potion, then in an attempt to humiliate his sister prior to her first date, would zap the towels, bath mats and shower curtains out of the bathroom. Then, taking his prank to the next level (as is normal for me), he would zap his sisters date into the house, then into the bathroom. This seemed really funny to us in our little naive world. I never really considered how the rest of the world may interpret this little stunt. In my mind.. if the video could have continued, the very next scene would have shown the poor, embarrassed young kid bailing out of the bathroom door.

When it came time to film this particular scene that night, we had a problem. In my original vision of this I pictured finding some obviously young kid starring in the "date" role. He'd get zapped in all dressed up in a shirt and tie, holding a corsage and looking all nervous, and then get zapped in the bathroom. Seeing the fear and awkwardness of the young, scared and obviously inexperienced kid, would create the awkward comedy that I was going for. But this particular night.. there were no teenagers to be found.. anywhere. All the kids from church were at scout camp that week, and the neighbors were all gone. Little Calvin and I even rode around the neighborhood on our bikes trying to find a teenager... ANY teenager. But none could be found. In desperation to get something in place so I could at least get the timing down, we decided to film me in the role, until we could find someone, then I'd just swap out the shot. But before we knew it, the midnight deadline was upon us, and not thinking about the public perception we uploaded our contest entry and called it good. The video made us laugh, and that's all that counted. Besides.. I figured with all the competition, this would never go anywhere.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the video got some attention, receiving maybe a few hundred hits from people watching and voting on their favorites. We just had to wait until July 15th to find out who won. And the prize was very simple: the winning video was to be featured on the home page of YouTube. Nothing big. We did the video for fun, not because the prize seemed all that great.

Now we are back to July 14th, 9 PM pacific, as I logged into Youtube only to see Little Calvin featured on the front. How cool! We had won and I was excited.

Now.. quick side note... a few years ago I saw a commercial which made me smile.. I don't even remember the company that it was for. But it showed a group of web developers launching their new website. Soon after hitting the launch button they received 10 orders and they all cheered. Suddenly it was 50 orders, then 100 orders and they all went ballistic in happiness for finding success. But then the numbers kept climbing.. 1,000 orders, 10,000 orders, 50,000 orders, 125,000 orders.. and suddenly all that excitement was swept away and was replaced by horror as everyone realized that they now had to fulfill all these orders. They wanted success.. but when it came on suddenly, somewhere a line was crossed from "cool" to "fear". That about sums up the next 24 hours for me.

By midnight.. just 3 hours in, Little Calvin's video had over 8,000 views, doubling any other video I had ever posted. And suddenly I started feeling a little.. uncomfortable... It was like 8,000 people were staring at my kid, and peering into my living room. Then I realized there was a whole other level to this. I checked my e-mail only to find my in-box absolutely flooded with e-mails, coming in at almost 3 every minute. About 90% of the comments were very positive and encouraging.

"Cute video."

"This kids a winner!"

"Ohhh. how cute!"

"You totally made me laugh!"

On and on.. but mixed in with these comments, I found something I never expected.. HATE. THREATS. PROFANITY. People were saying ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE, SICKENING things about my child. I couldn't believe it. This was simply a kid who had entered a contest to show his love for the Harry Potter characters, movies and books that he loves, and people were saying far worse things than I ever thought I would be reading. I suddenly found myself sick to my stomach.. what had I just done?

By the time I woke up the next morning, after a very light sleep, over 90,000 people had watched the video and my in-box was overflowing. Again.. mostly positive comments, but many were filled with hate, vulgarity and even threats against us for putting our child on Youtube, for subjecting him to witchcraft, and even to forcing him to drink glass shards. PEOPLE ACTUALLY THOUGHT IT WAS REAL! Hasn't anyone heard of movie making?! Yes, and the Harry Potter characters actually fly on brooms and cast spells. Good Grief.

That's when I realized that my little naive idea, was being perceived in a way that I never intended in my rush to get it finished and uploaded.

"What a sick kid! He zaps some old fat creep into his sisters bathroom to rape her!"

WHAT!? NO NO NO NO NO! That is so not what I was thinking!! But the hate mail continued to pour in. I never dreamed people would read sexual innuendos into our video, they would look at it as promoting homosexuality (I'm totally not kidding), violence, sexual molestation, racism (not kidding there either) and child abuse.

By the end of the 24 hours on Youtube's home page, I was counting down the minutes until it was removed and things could finally calm down a bit. The video was getting close to clearing 200,000 views, numbers so far beyond what I was expecting, it was nuts. I spent several hours that night attempting to carefully go through over 1200 comments, deleting all the offensive ones, so that if Little Calvin ever looked through the comments he wouldn't freak out. People have a right to not like the video, that is totally fine and in our free country they can disagree or not understand the video. I left those comments there. But for those that got out of hand, or used foul language, I exercised my rights as the video owner to delete their comments and block them from making future ones. If they can exercise their freedoms, so can I.

Now, a week and a half later, views have slowed dramatically. We will soon cross the 200,000 threshold, which is still so weird to me. It was just so bizarre to read all these comments. The good news... as a struggling filmmaker, trying to find ways of getting eyeballs on my work.. suddenly having my Youtube channel pounded for a day, was great. Not only did our Harry Potter video get slammed, but all my videos as well. I went from 2 subscribers to almost 150 overnight, thus giving me more chances at exposure for my films. It just felt very odd, like having 200,000 people peering in my living room, and being critical of what they saw all at once.

Was the prize a help, or a hindrance? A blessing or a curse? Did I just do something to help my career, or expose my kids to the scum of the world? I haven't fully sorted my feelings out yet. But what a wild and crazy day, one that I will not soon forget!

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Side note: Last week I was doing some late night channel surfing to wind down for the day and came across the intro for "The Soup" on the E! network. Suddenly Joel McHale, the host, starts taking about clips of Harry Potter fans making videos of potions and I literally yelled "NOOOOOOO!" at my TV. It was weird enough to wrap my head around 200,000 Youtube views, but having my child on "The Soup" was just too much. Luckily, He was referring to something else. For a second I feared this could get even more out of control, but it didn't go there.

We Won!

Quick note!

I just found out that we won the Harry Potter Youtube potions video contest. Our winning video is being used to help promote the opening of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and will be featured on the home page of Youtube ONLY ON Wednesday, July 15th. Just go to Youtube, and watch the big Harry Potter banner across the top of the screen.. and sure enough, there is Little Calvin, plotting revenge on his sister.

More information, on the video and "what the heck we were thinking" coming soon!

2 Months of Insanity

Time to take a breath! Time to come back to the real world, step away from the camera and video editing software for a moment. Time to finally post a blog update.

Most regular readers of the blog know that May and June can be some of the crazier months for me, what with so many video projects hitting at once. As it's been a while since I have posted, let me do a quick recap. Over the last 2 months, here's what's been on the schedule:

1. Filming the Colorado documentary: I already posted on the filming process and a quick trailer for the upcoming film, which is finally starting the editing phase this week.

2. The "Sound of Music" performance DVDs: To help finance my Mom's documentary film, and since I was there anyway, I offered to film my mom's last musical, not as part of the documentary film, but for the performance, for people to buy to remember the actual play. A simple guy would just pop a camera on a tripod, press record, and burn out the results to disk. But me being me, I don't do things the easy way. I had to film all three nights from multiple camera angles and then put together a "performance" not from one night, but taking the best from all 3 nights and combining them into one. That translates into big workloads, and a fast turnaround as we promised to have finished DVDs delivered to them prior to their graduation just 2 weeks after the performance.

3. Marist Senior Tribute: A HUGE project for me, taking a ton of time. This is a special tribute DVD developed for the graduating class of Marist High School. There is an interesting story for me to tell in conjunction with this project, but I will save that for when I can post bits of the video online, whereas now, that could hurt DVD sales. So for now, suffice it to say that the project took a lot of time over the last 3 months, but the huge order of DVDs was dropped off yesterday.. and I can finally breath again.

4. Territorial Elementary: Each year my wife and I work together to document the year for Little Calvin's class and their growth. From classroom activities, to assemblies, to field trips, it all gets combined into one DVD for the parents. Since all the schools end at the same time, the deadlines for this disk are usually the same as for the Marist videos, making for one hellish, sleep deprived week! But we get it done somehow. Luckily, Dawn does a majority of the editing and assembly for these, but it still requires clean up, special introductions, and sound mixing from me.

5. Marist Graduation: Although its for the same school and related to the graduating class, it's a completely different project: filming the graduation ceremony (requiring multiple cameras and a lot of coordination) and then editing and producing the DVDs.

6. Camp Wilani DVDs: Every other year, Little Calvin's school, and I mean the ENTIRE school spends a week at a local summer camp for outdoor school. The experience is very rewarding for the kids (even when freak, intense, severe storms cause the evacuation of camp one day) and of course that means that our cameras are rolling, filming the week. This project has a FAST turn around, as the camp is held shortly before the end of school, and the disks must be produced in time to get them to parents before summer break starts. Again, my wife works a lot of hours keeping up on the editing, and I work the other details. I'd say we make a very good team!

7. Business projects: In my free time (ha!) I also produced a video for a local engineering firm to use to help sell one of their high tech products. Due to the specifics on the contract and the proprietary nature of the shoot, I can't go into details, but.. suffice it to say it was a fun shoot, and interesting video to put together as a break from looking at high school or elementary school students.

8. "The Great Pine Cone War": Finally, in a bit of insanity, I somehow agreed to help our local scout troop earn their cinematography merit badge. I joined them on an overnight camp-out to direct them in the filming of their movie, necessary for earning the badge. Sure, it was a lot of fun returning to my boy scout roots and spending a day chasing teenagers through the forest with a camera in hand, dousing them with fake blood, as well as a number of creative ideas. I also worked with them to get the film edited.

So there.. 8 big projects in 2 months. Anyone wondering why I have grossly neglected my blog, Facebook postings, and e-mails? There you go! Now it's time to enjoy my summer.. oh wait.. I have more to edit! And since I have no shortage of work to be done, anyone guess what I proposed to Little Calvin as something that might be fun to do this summer? Yup.. video production! Every day! For his blog we are doing a video diary of "almost" every day of his summer vacation, requiring nightly editing sessions together. So far we've made our own episode of Wipeout, survived the death of his beloved first pet, and had fun coming up with new ways to present each day. You can see the episodes here, and remember we are attempting to post each week day, so check back frequently.

So that's the latest from the Calvin household. Now that the "strict deadline" projects have been completed I will be able to return to more regular updates, Growing Up Calvin features and crazy family stories and adventures.

Now, I can finally scratch "update blog" off the "to do" list... Back to the video editing..

"Last Week" Trailer Released

Just a quick note today...

You read about my crazy week filming my latest documentary in my previous post, but now I am releasing the trailer for the film. Traditionally, the film is completed FIRST, then a trailer produced, but in order to take advantage of a marketing opportunity, I had to switch those around for this one. So, it may be a bit early, but at least you will be able to get a visual look at my week and the film yet to come. Enjoy!

Telling the Story.. Regardless

Two years ago, I was sitting in a middle school gym, watching my daughter performing in her choir concert. This was a special occasion. Her choir teacher had been teaching choir at the school for the past 30 years and was now getting ready to retire. This was his final performance of his long career. As I watched this whole event unfold, with tears, with flowers, with standing ovations and many hugs, I wondered what it must feel like for him. Was he relieved it was all over? Was he sad to see it all go? He had obviously made a huge difference in the lives of thousands of students.. but what kind of things were going through his head as he had prepared that week for his last show?

The filmmaker in me was very intrigued by this, and as I drove home I thought ahead to my own mother's retirement just two years later in 2009. Her story was similar.. teacher for the last 40 years. She took over the schools speech and debate team in the early nineties and turned it into the most dominating speech program in the state for ten years, with teams of 75 students. She had taken over the drama program, staging elaborate spring musicals each year. But she had done all this with the philosophy of "teach the student, not the subject" that had made her one of the most popular teachers in the high school for years. So that begged the question from me.. what would it feel like for her as she prepared for and performed her final musical of her career? Suddenly I had a story that I felt could make for an interesting and inspiring documentary film and I began to make my travel plans.

And so, last Saturday I flew to Colorado with all my film gear, ready to document the week leading up to this final performance at the high school I had graduated from YEARS ago (returning there after all these years was a bizarre experience in and of itself..) The musical was "The Sound of Music" my mom's all time favorite that she had saved for her final year. The week's schedule was packed filming all the rehearsals and the interaction between the kids as well as driving around the state interviewing former students, friends, colleagues, the cast, everyone that I could track down to give insight into the story.

This whole experience was a bit different for me. In my past sports related films, the typical "emotional" moments came when the key player on the team is injured at the end of the season and the rest of the team must figure out how to pull together to play and win without them. But this story was a very different beast as it had a much more in depth emotional story to go along with it. Most of these kids and teachers had been involved in the random school hostage crisis and the in-school killing of one of their classmates, Emily Keyes, 3 years ago (read about it here). The girl that was killed was one of my Mom's speech students and several of the lead cast members in the play had been the hostages. There was still a lot these people were dealing with from that event, causing some very emotional interviews. I certainly was not used to watching both men and women break down in tears on camera and I left many of the interviews just feeling emotionally exhausted. While that killing was not a HUGE part of the story, it was still an important part that had to be told as my Mom was one of the instrumental people that day, in helping rally the students together to cope, and in pulling the community back together with her speech at the funeral.

So I had my job... I had to document the events of the week.. regardless of how they unfolded. My goal with the project was to be realistic, not some reality show type of story where events are exaggerated to create more drama. I just wanted to tell the story of what my mother had done and the difference she had made. I wanted to visually see what she went through.. the stress, the emotional swings, and the chaos that has made the final week of prep before the spring musical become dubbed "Hell week". I was worried everything would go smoothly and I would be left without a compelling story to tell.. turns out.. I had nothing to fear.

It started first thing Monday morning with a freak snow storm, sending my mom into a panic that school (and her biggest rehearsal of the week) would be canceled.

Luckily all arrived at school, but that rehearsal was so lousy, it about sent my mom over the edge and she doubted this play would come together on time.

Then there was the truly wacky, unexpected events of the week... the two kids that attempted (for whatever reason) to crawl up into the air ducts above the auditorium (I think they were trying to ditch class) only to have one almost fall through the ceiling, as it gave away under their weight. Luckily, he caught himself and got out, preventing a potential deadly fall to the concrete auditorium floor three stories below. (the poor students who were alarmed watching his leg suddenly come bursting through the ceiling in a crash, were rather upset, however..). Then there was the cast member that was standing between two cars on a sloped driveway. When one of the cars accidently rolled backwards, she was pinned between the two cars, causing quite a bit of damage to her legs making her unable to perform. Soon I had to wonder if every time the phone rang I needed to start filming, as we never knew what to expect next.

Stress and anxiety filled the cast as everyone prepared for opening night. A week's worth of rough rehearsals was weighing heavily and no one knew if they could pull it off. But to their credit, the Thursday night opening show went off without a hitch, leaving everyone excited and ready to do it all over again for the next 2 nights.

By the time Saturday night came along.. I was very pleased with myself. I knew I had the story, now captured on camera, that I had been looking for. I had captured the events of the week, the thoughts of the students and others through their interviews, I had the emotions.. from sheer happiness and pride to the emotional breakdowns of saying goodbyes.. and I had the emotional element from showing how everyone had recovered from the Emily Keyes tragedy. It was a good story and I knew that all I had to do was get the last few shots.. odds and ends of the cast, and the standing ovations and community accolades my mom was sure to receive at the end of the night. And so I set off early to the high school to get all the cameras prepped and in place to film what I needed for the night.

Shortly after I arrived and 90 minutes before show time.. the "call" came in. Saturday afternoon, one of the students from the high school.. one my Mom's speech team members, and very active member of her drama department, had been killed in a head-on car accident on the highway west of the school (news reports here). No one saw this one coming.. no one was prepared for this pain. Suddenly I found myself in an odd spot. My job was to document the events of the week.. regardless of what they might be, and so I quickly grabbed the camera and began to film what was happening, but filming these poor students who I had come to enjoy so much over the past week, as they walked through the door looking confused as to what was going on around them, then hearing the news that their friend was dead, then collapsing in their own grief and sobs.. part of me felt really creepy and uncomfortable and intrusive filming this.

Yet this was what the story had turned into... So I had to. Suddenly this whole, documentary filmmaker role took on a different meaning from what I had experienced in the past. Sure, you want a compelling, emotional story to tell.. but watching people have to suffer and grieve.. just isn't a fun experience. I never thought even for a second that someone would die in the process of my little film!!

Soon, my mom gathered the cast in the auditorium, everyone one of them sobbing almost uncontrollably. The decision had to be made.. go on and perform the final show, or cancel it and reschedule it for another night. Although she feared the backlash from public school parents, she pulled the cast together and offered a prayer, asking for comfort to them and to the family. All the students seemed to want to be a part of it and felt bonded together from the experience. Soon the decision was made to go on with the show, knowing that so many people had traveled a long way to witness that "final show" of my mom's career. They decided to dedicate the play to Kjersti. Her schedule had not allowed her to be in the musical, but she was still a part of the drama department and friends with all the cast, even having been there the previous night to watch the show, and the cast felt it appropriate to go on for her.

By show time, most had found a way to dig deep, to turn off the tears (most just barely) and go on stage and that nights performance turned out.. brilliantly. They all did fantastic in their roles. Even the poor sophomore lead playing the Captain, who had been scared to death to kiss a girl on stage, took the opportunity to "just go for it" to the amazement of the cast!

The school principal even stated afterward that he had never been prouder of a group of kids as this one, to go on with a stellar performance so quickly after getting such shocking news. But a moment I will never forget came at the very end of the show. I don't know who had the idea or how it circulated, but just after the final curtain call, the cast all lined up in the front of the stage, held hands and sang an impromptu acapella version of the song "My favorite things" from the musical.

"When the dogs bite, when the bees sting, when I'm feeling sad. I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad," came their unified voices. Everyone knew what that meant, what they had all been through and overcome, and there wasn't a dry eye in the audience.

And so Sunday morning as I packed up my gear and got on my plane, I knew I suddenly had a story much bigger than I had ever expected. I was completely exhausted and ready to sleep for days. But now it's time to put this all together, to tell the story of my Mom, the effect she has had and one that will adequately honor both Emily and Kjersti.. two students whose lives ended up cut much too short.

It was a fun, insightful, busy, exhausting, emotional week, but having the opportunity to tell this story, regardless of how it all turned out, I feel will be very rewarding. Now.. on to the editing booth...

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Update: Here's a more in-depth article, addressing both the death and the decision to go ahead with the musical performance, even after the cast had just been notified.

Growing Up Calvin: The Fireball

It's time for another episode of "Growing Up Calvin", although this time, I am fast forwarding through time, when I was a bit older. Lets just say I was in high school. (If you are wondering what this "growing up" thing is all about, click here to read what this whole series is about, so you'll be up to speed.)

Like always, the story begins with "One day when I was bored..." This particular story takes place at a time of celebration. My friends and I had just finished our final day of school before spring break was to begin. I was very happy to have time away from home as we were getting ready to spend spring break driving over to Utah to spend time with my Grandmother and Aunt in Provo. But there was a small gap of time in between when the bus dropped us off and when my mom would be home to make us start packing to leave the following morning. What to do... what to do... Sadly, the solution came with one of my secret favorite activities: lighting things on fire. I was a huge pyromaniac, legend for what I was crazy enough to do with fire and explosives. Good thing I grew up back in the 80's where none of this stuff was considered a "warning sign". In today's world I would have been arrested long before this little episode.

My friend Alan was visiting and it didn't take us long to come up with an evil plan. It all started out so simply.. We decided we wanted to play with fire... you know, like when you take a little black powder, scoop it into a pile and light it up so you can see that little fireball jump into the air. We wanted to do that... just bigger.

We began by digging a hole in the driveway. Yes, you read the correctly. Back in these days, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, we didn't yet have paved roads or driveways. So it was nice and easy to dig holes, and just make sure they were filled in by the time my Dad got home, so as not to raise questions. It didn't have to be deep, just a few inches down to be safe (safety... ha ha!), and to make room for our... ingredients.

With that done, it was time to raid my Dad's explosives storage, the one he never dreamed would be used this way. First things first, we filled the hole with, not one, but two full cans of gun powder, the more the merrier, right? But that didn't seem like a lot, so suddenly our brains vanished. We added everything we could find that had the potential of burning... Anything that had the "WARNING: FLAMABLE" label on it was fair game from the garage.. paint remover, paint thinner, flares from the back of the car, fireworks from my secret stash in my bedroom, a few bullets from my Dad's ammo case (that one really gets me today.. man, were we stupid). All of this stuff went into the hole, all mixed up like a giant stew. Then to top it all off, we grabbed the spare gas can, and added enough gasoline to the hole to turn this whole concoction into thin mud. Yes, a black powder, gasoline, bullet mud.

Now we had to have a way to ignite this thing and turned to the gasoline as the simple solution. We just drew a line with the gas from the hole, back into the garage, so that we could hide out behind the car. (Yet another thing in retrospect that makes me shake my head... It never dawned on me that the line of gasoline burning INSDIE the garage, next to a vehicle could be an issue.. luckily this wasn't an issue that day)

The plan was now all in place, 20 yards away was our mud pit, and there we were, matches in hand ready to light off our little explosion to revel in the wall of flames. I struck the match, set it to the ground and watched in awe as things were about to get really exciting. The end result? Let me just say...

It was amazing! Wall of fire to the sky!!!! Fireworks erupting, noises everywhere from the fireworks.. flames in different colors thanks to things like the flares.. it was brilliant.

Now to a few other.. issues we had not even considered. First, we had just finished a rather dry winter. Not much snow and things were nice and dry.. key word there, dry. Second, this was not a calm day, it was actually rather gusty outside. So there we were for that split second rejoicing that our plan had worked, our fire ball reaching to the sky. But that excitement turned quickly to panic, as a wind gust picked up that wall of fire, and set it back down just over the driveways edge, into the dry brush of the yard. As you can imagine, it quickly ignited, spreading fire all over the place. It became instantly obvious that if we didn't put this out, the fire would quickly spread.. up the giant trees, to neighboring homes... this could get bad.

I lunged for the fire extinguisher, as Alan ran for the hose. Meanwhile, all my poor sister could hear as she was down in her room packing, was the two of us running around upstairs in a panic. I am sure she was rolling her eyes as she came up the stairs to see what the commotion was about. At this point we had used up the extinguisher, the hose wasn't long enough to reach around the house, and so we were lugging tubs of water in and out of the kitchen at a high rate of speed.

She immediately joined the fire fighting effort, and eventually (thank goodness before we had to call the fire department) we got the fire out, just was it was reaching the tree bases. Upon surveying the scene, a nice portion of my Dad's precious land, was black and torched.. and I knew that I was dead meat, yet very lucky as it could have been so much worse.

Amazing for me, a little ray of light shown down on me that day, or rather... dark. By the time my folks got home that night, it had already gotten dark, therefor no need to confess anything... heck, what they couldn't see couldn't hurt them, right. And we (My Mom, sister and I) left early the next morning for Utah, before it was light. And as my Dad was working long hours that year, he left in the wee hours of the morning for his job, and got home late at night. It wasn't until 6 days later that I saw my mom, talking on the phone to my Dad, get a puzzled look on her face, suddenly look at me, and said "Ummmm, your Father has a question for you..."

Gulp.

Amazingly all I heard was "would you like to explain to me why my yard is all black?" To which I simply replied "No... I'd rather not.. trust me, you probably don't want to know." He agreed he didn't want to know. I think it helped that we were a state away for several more days, so that by the time we got home, he no longer had the urge to kill me.

Now.. to the part of the story where I tend to get the hardest time from people: Most people hear this and say "so what.. you were in 7th, or 8th grade? A Freshman?" Nope.... I was a senior." Yup, I lit my little fireball 2 months prior to graduation.

Sadly, this was not the last of my pyromaniac experiences, they do continue on, but those are stories for different times. But, this is one I especially shake my head on now that I have learned better. We were so stupid.. it could have been so much worse... I guess it's all a part of growing up Calvin.

By the way.. the bullets in our little mixture.... we never found a single trace of them. They vanished, not even the casings to be found. Yikes!

The "My Eyes.. My Burning Eyes!" Dilemma

One of the many things that I do to help bring in some money while I continue my search for a new job is media conversion. What that means is this: a lot of people have many great family memories, filmed long ago, that are stored on old VHS tapes, 8mm camcorder tapes, or other media formats. In this day and age, it not only does them no good, but risks that footage as old tapes wear down. So, people bring their old tapes to me and I convert their media to a digital format, either putting their videos onto DVD or providing them with the digital format, that they can now edit in their own software.

For the most part, doing this for people has been pretty straight forward, and rarely are there issues... until today. A friend of mine contacted me and told me they needed some old 8mm tapes converted from a bunch of footage shot in the early nineties. They then handed me a pile of tapes, admitting that they had no clue what all was on them and asked me to convert them so it could be edited into something useful.

This afternoon I took the first of these tapes and began to convert it over, as it can be a lengthy process, while I was watching the afternoon session of general conference, no less. Now... keep in mind.. I don't sit there and watch other people's video footage as it converts. By default, I do have to look over every few minutes, long enough to make sure that the transfer is still taking place, the quality is ok, and that there have not been any funky computer or software crashes, but other than that, I pretty much tune it out... its none of my business.

But today.. again.. while watching General Conference, I happened to glance over at my monitor, only to see my friend... um.... well... how do I put this.. let's just say "doing something on videotape that I don't think they expected to have leave their bedroom...." Yes.. my eyes boinged out of my head for a brief moment as I franticly tried to turn my monitor off.. still seeing WAAAAAAYYYY more than I ever thought I would of this person...... Not too many people can claim to have watched general conference and..... that... simultaneously.

But that leaves me to the question I have been pondering the rest of the night... what do I do now? Do I just give my friend the tapes back and the digital version and pretend like nothing happened.. and wonder how long it will take them to realize the reality of what they gave me to convert, potentially leading to some seriously awkward future conversations? Do I hand the tapes back with a warning to preview the tapes for potentially embarrassing footage before handing them over? Do I delete the embarrassing footage, hoping they don't realize it was there and will never miss it, thus taking away the chances for the "awkward discussion"? Or is that part of what they were intending for me to convert, looking forward to using it and not ashamed of having people see it?

Right now I seem to be leaning towards just handing it all back to them, and then let them learn their own lesson about previewing tapes first. But I know that the next time we talk... there could be some awkward questions.. things I'd really like to avoid. That way I did my job, I didn't make judgements for another person based on my own morales. But still..

So I pose the dilema to you.. what would you do? I welcome any comments and you can even take the poll on the right... Ah my crazy life. I guess it's fun never knowing what you'll see next, even if it could be a bit, shocking.

Series Finale

I am always intrigued by watching how my favorite TV shows end. You know.. all the popular shows have to end somehow, and you get the big marketing push to watch the final episode.. the "series finale". So how do they conclude these popular characters and situations? Some of my favorites include the Seinfeld characters getting sent to jail, the gang from Cheers faking everyone out that big events will happen, but then nothing worked out and the day ended just like any other, or my all time favorite.. Newhart, where the main character realized the whole show had been some crazy dream, as he awoke in his bedroom from his previous sitcom. But the most common send off seems to be when the characters move on to a new place and you get that stereotypical final shot of the door closing to the empty house or apartment, representing the show, that is now being left behind forever.

Today.. I had my own Series Finale. Not on life, of course, but on my own adventures of the last 12 years. And I must say.. it felt very strange. Lots of hugs, lots of tears, lots of shock and unbelief as all my co-workers finished packing up their things, slowly trickling out of the building. As I watched my own office, slowly get condensed down to a vary large pile of boxes, too many memories came flooding back and I swear I had that typical TV montage playing in my head.. the "lets look back at our favorite moments from the last 12 seasons" video that let's you see just how far you have come.

I began my job at Monaco Coach Corporation in 1997. Then, I was finishing school and trying to find something part time to help pay the bills and get through college with some kind of real world experience. I spent quite awhile trying to find a good job, but found nothing that would work. I resigned myself to having to become a pizza delivery driver, when I suddenly had the inspiration to call the college career center and low and behold, on their phone line, I heard the perfect job description. I immediately faxed in my resume that Wednesday, Thursday I had my interview (inside the giant window lined boardroom that intimidated me to no end) and on Friday.. I had my first "real world professional" job.

As I said, I have continued to stay at the company since then. The company changed and went through many cycles causing a lot of my co-workers to move on, but the fact remained throughout: I REALLY liked what I did, and I REALLY liked my co-workers. My wife used to roll her eyes when I left the house each morning. I wasn't going to work.. I was going to play. I certainly enjoyed my weekends, but come Monday morning I didn't dread waking up, I looked forward to getting to the office and getting back to work. It was a fun job, and a great time.

Obviously I can't go into too many memories here.. This blog post would just last too long. But needless to say.. life for me was good at Monaco. I believed in the products and in traveling the country in luxurious RVs. I loved to travel to shows, to meet the owners, to hear their stories and adventures. I loved that we had a private jet, making the world such a small place.. where I could fly to meetings and back in a day (or to visit family for a weekend in Utah). And even when times were crazy.. I loved staying up for all-night photo shoots, tirelessly setting up trade show displays to wow people with my stuff. I didn't care if I worked extra hours on salary as I loved what I did and what all that hard work represented.

But in all this fun, I had to keep a solid fact in mind: If anything went wrong in the world.. one of the first things people would stop doing is making major purchases.. like $400,000 motorhomes, which could put us on a quick road to destruction. And every time I visited a dealership and looked out at the huge numbers of used RVs sitting there waiting for a buyer, I asked myself "how long can we keep building new ones at the high rate that we do, until the market is saturated?" Deep down.. I knew this would all come down.. at some point.

2008 was that point and one crazy year, as the economy began to slow, gas prices rocketed and the mortgage crisis began. It was the perfect storm in the RV industry: consumer confidence slipped, people who would normally buy coaches suddenly couldn't sell their old ones, nor could they sell their homes for any money. Potential new customers suddenly walked away from the idea, scared off by the fuel price surge. And then.. the credit markets dried up causing the banks to refuse to lend money for just about anything (and especially things they saw as luxury purchases). Suddenly we saw our Indiana plant shut down and many layoffs. But, again.. I loved my job and the challenge of marketing in these new conditions and so I stayed put.

In December, the company announced we'd all be getting an extended (unpaid) Christmas break, causing us a lot of panic. That break grew and grew, making us all wonder if we'd ever see the office again. But I was honestly surprised when the phone rang this morning and I heard the words.. "The company is laying off most of the work force.. you have to come in immediately, turn in your computer and clean out your office. There are no severance packages.. your insurance ends today and you lost any unused vacation time.. too bad" Suddenly.. my 12 years of fun.. came to a crashing halt. Yes, I had been on a break for the last 2 months, but most of me really believed that somehow we'd survive and come back strong. I missed my office and co-workers and just wanted my old routine back.

But instead.. today is our "Series Finale". We said our goodbyes.. we gave our hugs and then left what used to be our world behind for the big great open. Just like that cliched series ending, it finished with us walking out of that empty room so full of memories.. and shutting the door.

Today.. is a day to mourn. To mourn the job that I loved that I don't get to do anymore. To mourn the company that I really believed in that I have now watched, (like a plane doing a nose dive from 30,000 feet,) smashing into the ground and to mourn the people I don't get to see anymore on a daily basis. Its a tough pill to swallow. But today is it. I can't keep mourning. Tomorrow is, as the saying goes, the first day of the rest of my life... time to find my next big series and my next great adventure.

And so.. goodbye awesome job. Goodbye to my large cushy corner office with giant windows and comfy couch. Goodbye to jet-setting all over the country. Goodbye to great people with great talents, and great customers whom I will never forget. Goodbye to a great team of people over the years, to "Friday fun lunches," to laughing hysterically in meetings, to watching co-workers trip over chairs in the hallway. Goodbye to all my travel.. to Vegas, Orlando and California, my most frequent destinations.

It's been a great 12 years. The series is over.. now its time for my next adventure, however long it takes to find it.

The "Random List"

If you are a visitor to my Facebook page, this all may be old news. Below is one of those Facebook trends that work its way around. The point is for people to list 25 random facts about themselves and then tag others that they'd like to get a similar list from. Since I went through all the work to think through my list, I figure I might as well post it here too. So.. here are 25 totally random things from me, you never know what you might learn.

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1. While I enjoy lots of things, I really get obsessive about a few things 1. Star Wars (both the movies and collecting Galactic Heroes toys), 2. The music of U2 (even after all these years I can listen to all their stuff over and over, it takes up half my i-pod and I am obsessing over the new CD and possibility of a tour.) 3. Disney theme parks (and all things related to them) and 4. Calvin and Hobbes (although due to the series being over, there's nothing left for me to buy).

2. One of my all time favorite treats: butterscotch pudding, the cooked kind. You cook it and immediately pop it in the fridge.Give it a good 15 minutes so that there is a nice, thick pudding skin on top, yet it is still very hot in the middle. Eat the hot stuff first, pudding skin last: the perfect treat! (I have been told I am out of my mind for this... but I like it)

3. My senior year of high school, I played the role of Marcelus in the play "The Music Man". I had to both sing and dance on stage. While many old high school friends will remember this, anyone who knows me as an adult would never believe it.

4. My family is my sanity. My wife is my best friend. Simply curling up next to her for a movie or a game of Phase 10 is a great way to finish my day. I also love my kids and doing simple things with them. An ideal evening is just playing board or heated card games for hours. Now I just need my dog (a golden lab) and the fam will be complete. (Stupid small yard...)

5. I love pulling off a great practical joke. Whether its scaring Miki with giant spiders, or sending the song "ghostbusters" repeated constantly over the top of my boss's radio station (while he scratched his head in confusion), pulling off classic jokes can make my month.

6. My drink of choice: Mountain Dew (or Nectar of the Gods, as I like to put it). But it must be COOOLD. Keep it in the fridge, make it nice a cold, then put it in the freezer for 10 minutes prior to opening. Just before it starts to form ice crystals: totally perfect.

7. I get my most creative ideas when surrounded by hot water. Now if I only had a hot tub.. but the shower works too.

8. My life philosophy is simple: A good life is not about money or worldly standing, but about having a good attitude. I believe that even if you go through trials or hard times, life can still be a happy place if you keep a positive attitude. You could have the best life possible and still be miserable, if you have a bad attitude. It's all what you make it to be.

9. I wish I had learned to play the guitar as a kid.. It looks like something that would be lots of fun and I get excited watching my son learn to play.

10. I secretly like the TV show I-Carly. It's a cute show. (Just don't tell my wife.. she'll give me crap forever)

11. I seem to be be happiest when running around with a camera in hand. I don't care if it is a still camera, or a video camera. It's when I am creatively engaged that my mind just feels right.

12. I am fascinated by the power of mother nature. For the sake of my family and our safety, I count my blessings every day that I live in a state without much extreme weather, but I have to admit when I see news of giant hurricanes or tornados, part of me wishes I could experience the thing. I guess I'll just live vicariously through the "Storm Chasers" shows on the Discovery Channel.

13. Add the TV show "Lost" to my obsession list in answer #1. I love ripping every episode apart looking for little details, I can't wait to learn all the answers, yet dread the ending of the show as I wont want all the fun to end.

14. I am one of the few people on the planet that could win the world's biggest lottery prize and still not have enough money for my ultimate dream: building my own theme park. Unless someone is giving away 5 billion dollars... That doesn't mean I live my life unsatisfied.. it just means I dream big.

15. I love wearing my socks half way off and half way on. It's the most comfortable way to go..covered toes and bare heal. It's the perfect foot blend of warm and cold. It drives my wife crazy. Someone needs to make "half-socks". I'd buy them all.

16. My testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings me strength and power. To me it's fun being the odd man out while traveling on business, to be the one who's NOT drinking, sleeping with co-workers or looking up the local strip clubs. When I travel I find the closest local temple and catch a session, then enjoy all the bewildered looks from my drunk co-workers as I walk into the hotel lobby in my shirt and tie.

17. I think I can do way more than I can in reality. I look at obstacle course shows like "Wipeout" and think "no problem.. I could totally do that" and yet deep down I know I'd die in 2 seconds.

18. I watch the "making of" features of movies far more than the actual movie itself.

19. My favorite month is October.. the psychotic halloween decorations, the smell of fall, the colored leaves and fall sports season. It's a great time of year!

20. When I experience periods of stress in my life, I tend to dream I am visiting a Disney theme park. I have decided it's my brains way of going to a "safe, stress-free, happy place" to keep balance.

21. I love reading kids books and reading bed time stories to the kids. "Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type" and "Where the Wild Things Are" are two of my all time favorites.

22. I avoid conflict like the plague. I hate to argue. To me, it's just a waste of time as it is a heated exchange where no one really says what they mean, they just try to defend their positions and don't really listen to what the other person is saying. When people start to argue or fight, my primary goal is to get away from it as soon as possible.

23. I loved burned things: Especially cookies. And a roasted marshmallow, just isn't right unless its engulfed in flames.

24. And speaking of burned things: My ideal lunch is a Quiznos Chicken Carbonara sandwich, extra heavy sauce, no mushrooms, and double toasted (to the point where it almost catches fire)

25. Even as an adult.. I still love toys. They inspire creativity and imagination in me, two things I don't want to lose as I get older. Christmas and birthdays are not for practical things... they are for the "toys" we just can't justify during the rest of the year.

Movie Update: The Indy Trailer

Just a quick post tonight to announce that our little "boys summer project" is finally getting finished. Yes, I know.. only 6 months late. I technically completed editing the film just before Thanksgiving and we had a screening of it with friends just after Thanksgiving dinner. But based on the reaction that I got from showing it.. I wasn't satisfied with it yet, but didn't have the time to properly fix all the little details that bugged me.

Now that my work layoff has been extended a few more weeks, I finally have the time to go back in and make it right. So this last week, the cameras came back out, the microphones were pulled out of their cases and we went back to work, re-recording some dialogue, and filming a few tidbits to pop in. With those new elements in place, I am much more satisfied with the (almost) finished product. I just have a few more scenes to refine and it will be all done. But, finally getting all these tweaks completed did allow me to also have a version good enough that I felt comfortable cutting it all to pieces to make our official "trailer". You can watch it below, or you can visit the film's official website, now updated to include the trailer and poster. Visit it at www.swordofcumorah.com.

Very shortly, the site will be updated to include the full film, a behind the scenes video, and much more. Here's the trailer:

And just for extra kicks, in case you are wondering what the photo is at the top of this post, I am adding a quick "behind the scenes" video of some work Little Calvin and I did yesterday. I am augmenting the "head explosion" sequence with a few more exploding brains. Yes, I am a sick, sick man.. but the original version just wasn't gross enough.

Growing up Calvin: Want a Dollar?

In my last post, I hinted at a new feature coming to my blog. Now, it's time to get started and reveal my intentions. But before I jump right in, let me give you some background as to what it's all about.

One of my kids favorite times seems to be "Dad story time" where I go into one of my crazy stories from my growing up years. Sometimes this happens in the car on long drives, sometimes at the dinner table. But quite often I get the "Come on Dad, tell us another story" pleading and I have to comply, assuming I can think of one on demand. I begin (typically with "One time when I was bored") and the kids grin and get enthralled. Then the story ends (typically with me saying something like "but now that I have told you that, don't EVER repeat that yourselves!!!!") and inevitably my daughter asks "Why don't you write these down?!". I have never had a good answer. And so, this year I am going to start to chronicle my crazy, very "Calvin like" stories from throughout my life. Yes, I still manage to have Calvin Stories as an adult.. some things you just don't outgrow... And I'll put them here, on my blog, for the world to see. These may be embarrassing, or just quite wacky, but at least it will be written down somewhere, for future generations to look back at me and say "Man, that guy was nuts!" Each time I post one of these stories, I'll post it under the feature name of "Growing Up Calvin" so you'll know what you are about to get into.

Now... a bit of a disclaimer here.. these stories are from my life. As such, they are entertaining to me and to my kids. To the rest of the world these stories may be a bit.. tame. I mean, I grew up in a very conservative, religious home. I never drank, or went to wild crazy parties. So none of these stories are about that kind of thing. Instead, like Calvin, I grew up as an awkward kid with a vivid imagination. I did things that made perfect sense to me in my own little world. But looking back on them as an adult, I just hang my head and think "What a goofy kid I was!" So these are my stories, entertaining to me, and possibly bland in comparison to most.

Sooo.. what to admit to first? It's an easy one for me. It's the story that seems to come out of my mother's mouth the most. I swear, you get a bunch of people together in a room and it takes my Mom about 30 seconds before she starts into one of my stories. And she normally starts with this one. And so I'll start my blogging confessions with this one as well. Here we go...

This story begins back when I was in first grade.. a little kid trying to make sense of the new big school and how to interact with others. At this point in my life I was going through a phase where one of my highest priorities in life was not my school work. It was not reading, or math (it never was math!!!). No, my goals were simple: Trying to see what secrets were held, underneath the little girls clothes.

Now this was not an easy goal. Most first grade girls don't just undress on command. Yes, even in the 70's, the girls in my class stayed very clothed. And so my friends and I had to come up with.. shall we say, a more creative approach to accomplish our mission. We tried hiding out in the bathrooms (And whoever in my school thought that co-ed bathrooms was a good idea was nuts... I don't know what they were thinking) but we always got caught. (The principle knew me QUITE well.) We tried all kinds of tricks, and never succeeded.

One day, one of my friends came up with a crazy plan: "We offer them money and a creative line and maybe they'll go for it." He had the perfect line. We'd just go up to the girls and say "Want a dollar? Pull down your pants and holler!". It was catchy. It was clever! But would it work?

And so we started our quest, going up to each of the girl's in our class and asking our question. We got a lot of disgusted looks. Shockingly, no one seemed interested. It was yet another great plan, destined to fail.

Now, a little side note: As much as I strived to make my goal, to get one of my class mates out of their clothes, I think I always considered it a mission impossible.. something that I could try, but in the back of my mind I knew I would never succeed at. It was just something fun to do. That's why I really had no clue what was happening, or how to react when I walked up to one of my classmates one day after reading class and popped off the line. "Want a Dollar? Pull down your pants and holler!" She thought for a second and then replied with the answer I wasn't expecting.. "Ok!" She then proceeded to whip off her pants.. (and underwear) right there in the hall, and start to scream.. just as I had asked for.

Suddenly this whole "little plan" seemed to not be such a good idea, as I can remember the experience as an almost out-of-body experience where I could see myself standing there in shock while a pantless girl stood next to me screaming. Suddenly she was done, and the next part of my little predicament came to light. She wanted her dollar. And I didn't have it, and she was miffed. This is when the teacher came to the scene. Yes, this became another "principal's office" day as I was dragged down and had to explain all of this: our goal, our little line, and the fact that someone actually did it and I couldn't pay up.

And so kids, please never use this line. Trust me.. it's not worth it. It causes lots of trouble at school, your Mom gets disturbing phone calls and it creates some very awkward moments in class the next day (although strangely enough, I don't ever remember the girl mad about her pants.. just mad about not getting her money...)

And THAT is the famous "dollar story", the first of long line of stories to come this year. And until next time.. DON'T EVER DO THAT YOURSELVES!!!

08 Out.. 09 In

Happy New Year from "The Cosmos!" It's now a bit past New Years, meaning it's likely everyone has already broken all their new years resolutions. But that's ok. We all do it.

It's been a busy year for me! A hectic schedule at the office, a record number of DVD's to produce covering a variety of subjects, and of course family commitments. As the kids get older they just get more involved, meaning busier afternoons and crazy schedules.

As is traditional, here is my yearly highlights video, just to give you a glimpse as to our life over the last 365 days. (Click here for last year's full explanation as to why I put these together)

So enjoy a look back at 2008 with "Calvin" and all the crew: (Quick tip: Click on the video to view it on YouTube, then click on "Watch in High Quality" and it'll look a lot better!)

Now, looking ahead to 2009, what's ahead? Who knows. What I do know is that I have some changes in store for my little corner of the blogging universe with some new content coming that should make everyone smile. I won't go into details today, but my kids have been urging me to start adding some specific content to my blog and it's time I listen. So in the coming weeks, look for a new, regular "column".

Also ahead for 2009 will be a trip to Colorado in April for a week-long film shoot that I am already prepping (bought my plane tickets yesterday) that will by an insanely busy, but very rewarding experience.

But before we get to any of that... there is one little piece of unfinished business from 2008 to tease you with. Little Calvin urged me to create a special website just for our little summer project. I finally caved in and am proud to announce that VERY SOON, www.swordofcumorah.com will launch and everyone following the making of our little summer flick can finally watch the finished product. I'm just finishing some final sound tweaks and it will be ready.

2008 was a great year! Now, bring on '09...