Hurricane Katrina? More like Hurricane Tortilla!
Yes, this is what you think this is! This is an EXTREMELY EMBARRASSING video of me recreating the famous Hurricane Tortilla vine! I CRINGE each time I watch it!
Honestly, I think it’s pretty similar to the original vine! And I had a fun time trying to reenact this hilarious vine! I hope you get a laugh out of this video!
The Cereal Killer was created and debuted in 2006 with the film “Cereal Killer.” He wears a Scary Movie mask and wields a knife and a mace & chain. He lives only to make bad jokes and kill anyone in his way. Probably anyone not in his way too. Since 2006 he has been in three movies and will soon be in his forth and last film, Cereal Killer 4: The Final Chapter. He has also hosted nineteen episodes of my web series “Tales from the Whackbag.” This has been a very fun character for me to play over the last decade and many of his lines are ad-libbed. Before he is finished off for good I wanted to squeeze in one last project with him. I present to you, “Cereal Killer Chewbacca?”
The assignment was http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/reenact-a-viral-video/ worth 4 stars.
The assignment was to spoof a viral video. I was inspired to do this because I wanted to do one last thing with the Cereal Killer AND I think the Chewbacca Mom video is annoying as hell. So I figured I would do this and make fun of it. A masked killer wearing the mask of a killer? There has to be some kind of irony there! I did not add any visual effects and kept the sound FX to a minimum as the video I spoofed has no effects. If you have not seen the original video this is what I spoofed:
I shot the film with my Sony HD camcorder in 1080p. The camera was sitting on the dashboard of my Mustang. I just hit record and went. I had an idea of what I generally wanted to say but I felt ad-libbing was the way to go so it was unscripted like the original Chewbacca video. I edited everything in Windows Movie Maker. The very first shot is just a solid black picture for two seconds. I then clicked title to add my two title screens. I clicked add videos to bring in the video I shot. The start and end point can be edited under video tools. The sound FX were added by clicking the music button dropdown arrow and then clicking add music at current point.
The Freddy Krueger sound FX were taken from http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pc/sb/horror/freddy/3. It is a soundboard so I just used the record narration button to record the sound I played. Hit record, play the sound, stop button, trim the sound and adjust the volume if needed. The intro song and end credits song are covers both played by me. I played every instrument and recorded it in CoolEdit96 as usual. I did not record these for this project exclusively, both songs were recorded in 2014. I hope you get a laugh or two (or more) out of this video!
Here is the prompt for this assignment:
Take a viral video from the internet (let’s say with at least a million views) and reenact it. You can put your own twist on it or keep things simple. Either way there are thousands of videos to choose from.
The Work Itself
The Story Behind the Story
I picked to do this assignment because I think viral videos are a true phenomena on the internet. It’s amazing how only a certain pool of videos are chosen to be passed on to millions of people. I chose the viral video of the Baby Panda Sneezing because I think it’s adorable and always hilarious no matter how many times you watch it. I always wonder what makes a video go viral on the Internet. The only commonality between any viral video I have ever seen is that they invoke a strong emotion. Most of the time it is laughter that occurs and people always want to share something that is funny.
Narrating the Process
To start this assignment, I converted the original YouTube clip into .mp4 format using this website. I did this for two reasons. 1) I wanted people to have the chance to see the original before mine and 2) in order to take the sound from the original and place over my own video.
That leads me into my next step which was to place the .mp4 file in audacity in order to convert and export it as an .mp3 file. That way I would be able to place over top my own video in Windows Movie Maker.
Next, my roommate and I recorded the video outside. She was nice enough to play along and pretend to eat grass. While I pretended to sneeze.
Then I uploaded each video into Windows Movie Maker. I placed the audio file over top my own reenactment and made sure that they lined up. Then I placed a title and credits along with music from Free Music Archive.
Bat Dad is hilarious, and vine is the medium of our times, so why not pull from the best? Bat Dad just has fun with his kids and shares it with the world, and for that he has become a sensation. The best part is, it’s just so genuine. Vine is the medium of our times because in today’s world people expect their information bite sized and pungent. With the information overload offered by the internet, people have very short attention spans, so if you can pull your point off in just a few seconds, it’s much more likely to be received and appreciated. I tried to use several elements from the readings and watchings this week in my super short 10 second video. For instance, I’m framed a bit to the right. It’s a bit off putting to watch a video of a burly bearded man sitting on a commode, so I can use all the positive framing points I can get. Second, the pan shot of my girlfriend is really the joke. In the Bat Dad videos, the reactions are what makes them, not the comments themselves. Having her annoyed by my toilet etiquette is the real gem of the piece. Yes, I bought a Batman mask specifically for this.
For this Assignment, my friend Rose helped me out, and did a spot on reenactment of the Sittin’ On Tha Toilet video on YouTube. Gold. She sent it to. Didn’t even have to edit it–too good to be true–and I uploaded it to YouTube. The result:
When i saw the video assignment “Reenact A Viral Video” so many options popped up into my head, there was the Greatest Freakout Ever, Rhianna-Where Have you been (Tyrone Jones) and my friends even wanted to superglue cottonballs on me and so i could reenact Cottonball Puppy. But insisting on keeping some of my pride my friends and I decided to do Kitten Suddenly Falls Asleep. This one wasn’t very much fun to create due to a severe headache afterwards but here is my reenactment.
BUT FIRST the actual video:
Now my video. Enjoy.
As you can see in the video the last clip had nothing to do with the others. My friend who helped me, religiously plays Assassins Creed 3 and wanted to assassinate me on camera. If you don’t know what Assassins Creed 3 is watch this clip:
If you want to try this Video Assignment or check out other work from fellow students than click the following link:
Take a viral video from the internet (let’s say with at least a million views) and reenact it. You can put your own twist on it or keep things simple. Either way there are thousands of videos to choose from.
