November 3, 2006
Part V is here!
Well, no sooner had I posted Part V yesterday than I got taken out by a nasty stomach virus that had me wishing I was dead for most of the day, so I didn’t get a chance to post a blog entry about it. Here’s one now, that you can use as a fresh discussion thread if you like. I’ll post more later when I’m feeling better.
Published by Paul 11:26 AM PST ◊ Permalink ◊ 10 Comments »
October 26, 2006
Part IV: Democracy Threatens
We continue our long, hard slog today with Part IV of The War of the Words: The Story of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, the historic five-part documentary series about those brave homefront conservatives who fought the battle of opinion during the war in Iraq. Thus far, we’ve seen them beat the drums for war, cheerlead the invasion, and fume as everything gradually turned to shit. Now, in Part IV, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders face their greatest challenge yet: a presidential election.
Watch Part IV: “Democracy Threatens” (6:48)
I’ve also uploaded Part III to YouTube, joining Parts I and II:
Part IV comes to YouTube in about a week.
Credit Where Credit Is Due: TWOTW wouldn’t be possible without the invaluable vocal contributions of a great bunch of folks, including a couple of professionals as well as a few talented amateurs.
Associate Producer Brendan Power supplies a number of voices throughout the series, including Glenn Reynolds, John Hinderaker, and Robert Novak. If you’re reading this right now, it’s probably due to the efforts of Brendan, who’s worked valiantly to promote the project and raise awareness of it around the Internt.
Andrew Sullivan, Jeff Goldstein, “Captain” Ed Morrissey, and a few others are brought to you by Turner Watson, whom you can hear every weekday morning on 98.9 The Bear, the number 1 rock station in Fort Wayne, Indiana—and who happens to be an old high school buddy of mine, who graciously agreed to donate his considerable talent to this project when I contacted him about it.
The two “historians” are performed by Sebastian Helm—yes, he’s really German—and my good friend Cat Kenney, who acts and teaches drama in Cleveland, Ohio. Cat also steals the show as Ann Coulter. My sister, Vanessa Henry, appears as Kathryn Jean Lopez and Michelle Malkin. Corbett Cummins, whom I met through Craigslist when casting parts, does a lot of voices, including Jeff Jarvis, Adam Yoshida, and Steven Den Beste.
I perform four voices myself. The narrator is my attempt at a deep-voiced PBS announcer type, aided by a moderate decibel boost of the bass frequencies to create a more sonorous effect. Wingnut boy wonder Ben Shapiro is me with the “Chipmunks” vocal effect applied. James Lileks is very loosely based on a dimly-remembered performance by the actor James Whitmore. Jonah Goldberg is basically just my regular unprocessed voice. I’m not sure why I decided to go that way. Maybe because Jonah and I kinda look like each other:
Thanks for watching, feel free to discuss it below, and check back here in one week for the finale.
Published by Paul 9:58 AM PST ◊ Permalink ◊ 4 Comments »
October 25, 2006
Catching Up
I’ve been out of touch for a while, chilluns, but that’s just because I’ve been putting so much effort into post-production on part IV so it looks as good as can be when I premiere it for you tomorrow at this very Web site. I’ve also uploaded part II to YouTube:
I’ll try to upload Part III some time within the next few days, if YouTube cooperates. The code to embed Part II in your own pages is: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6aJe3UnT0BQ"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6aJe3UnT0BQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Some brief points:
- Thanks to Eric Alterman, all the people I’ve thanked before, and all the people I’ve overlooked. And welcome Farkists and Metafilterists. And welcome Tennesseeans on the right and on the left. Hola, Volunteer Staters! Vote Ford!
- The issue hasn’t shown up on newsstands here yet, but I’m reliably informed that TWOTW is mentioned on page 38 of the November 2 issue of Rolling Stone. Where’s Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show when you need them? I’ll be buying five copies for my mother as soon as it shows up at the grocery store.
- As more parts debut, more people are getting annoyed that they have to sit through the intro each time. Yes, it is annoying, but it serves a valuable purpose: the main clip downloads to your computer in the background as the intro plays, so you don’t have to sit around waiting for it. When I get the opportunity I intend to implement a “fast forward” button that will appear onscreen as soon as the main clip has loaded sufficiently, so you can bail out of the intro early.
Check back in less than 24 for Part IV!
Published by Paul 9:24 AM PST ◊ Permalink ◊ No Comments »
October 19, 2006
Part III!
Good morning, patriots! It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another episode of The War of the Words: The Story of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, the historic 5-part documentary honoring the true heroes of the war in Iraq: the conservative bloggers, pundits, and commentators who’ve kept the home fires burning in the face of opposition from liberals and other traitors.
Part I, The Drums of War, examined the Keyboarders’ role in building support for the war. Part II, Mission Accomplished, covered their triumph and joy during the invasion of Iraq. Now, in Part III, we witness a dark period in the 101st Fighting Keyboarders’ struggle, as they learn that occupying a country is not the same thing as invading it.
Watch Part III: “Well, Not Accomplished Exactly, So Much As–Look, Just Shut Up, Okay?” (6:47)
When I was making Part III I wans’t sure how it was going to turn out, but I think overall it’s become my favorite of the five, due in no small part to the great voice work my actors gave me and how it meshed with the visuals. I hope you enjoy it. Watch through to the end and you might just catch a glimpse of a certain senator from Connecticut!
Published by Paul 9:04 AM PST ◊ Permalink ◊ 5 Comments »
October 16, 2006
Monday Update
Boy, what a weekend! Thanks to Charles Pierce at TAPPED, TomPaine.com, Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Shakespeare’s Sister, Firedoglake, Liberal Talk Radio, Waffle Ass, Justin Raimondo, Bushflash.com, History News Network, PHXnews, Jack Lail, everyone I thanked last time, and everyone I’ve missed. I’m slowly getting the blog page put together, as you can see; there are now links to the RSS feed and to my ActBlue page, where you can show some worthy candidates some folding green love.
I put up a YouTube version of part I:
I intend to post the YouTube version of each segment about a week after the Flash version, so feel free to watch it over there if that’s the way you roll. Share it around if you like, and tell folks where you got it.
Some short points:
- Yes, the sound quality sucks. All the JPEGs make each segment much larger than most Flash movies of equivalent size, so I’ve had to squeeze the audio down pretty aggressively to make the thing practical to stream (and affordable for me to serve). The sound quality in the YouTube version is a bit better, but don’t expect miracles.
- Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com wonders why Robert Novak, who opposed the invasion of Iraq, is shown briefly during the overview montage at the beginning of Part I. The reason for Novak’s inclusion in the montage will be made clear in Part III, which I’ll be posting this Thursday.
- A few commenters felt that the title of the documentary is somewhat disrespectful to the 101st Airborne Division, which President Eisenhower sent to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in 1957 and is home to some of the baddest soldiers the United States Army has to offer. The term “101st Fighting Keyboarders” was coined by TBogg in this post and is in widespread use among liberal blogs as a derisive term for chest-beating warbloggers who can’t actually be bothered to do any fighting themselves. The term is used ironically and no disrespect is intended (although, in a turn of events I couldn’t possibly make up, it has lately been appropriated by conservative blogger “Captain” Ed Morrissey as an appellation to wear with pride. If that seems disrespectful, consider discussing it with him over there).
- Coming in at number 4 on the list of the hosts accessing the site most frequently on Thursday: the U.S. House of Representatives. Hi guys! Good luck next month!
- Heh! Indeed. From Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds’ hometown newspaper, the Knoxville News Sentinel.
- My fantasy football team is all alone at the top of its league. That has nothing to do with anything here; I just think it’s pretty awesome.
Published by Paul 11:18 AM PST ◊ Permalink ◊ 2 Comments »
October 13, 2006
Welcome
I would have had this blog up earlier, but I didn’t expect the project to hit the big time as quickly as it did. Thanks to Atrios, Kos, TBogg, Crooks and Liars, Digby, The Carpetbagger Report, Peter Daou, The Agonist, Sadly, No!, and anyone else I’ve been so uncool as to overlook, for sending traffic my way. Super extra-special thanks to Brendan Power (“Glenn Reynolds,” “John Hinderaker,” “Stefan Sharkansky”) for getting the ball rolling on promoting the thing, self-promotion being something I’m singularly awful at. I promised Brendan an Associate Producer credit for his stellar promotional work, but now I’m thinking that “Minister of Information,” àla Public Enemy, might be a better title. What do you think?
Anyway, the blog is finally live and I have other stuff I need to do, so I’ll wrap things up for now. In the coming days I hope to revamp the Web site quite a bit and make it easier to get around, which will include refining the blog design and adding all the proper little blog doohickeys like a blogroll, archive link, RSS feed links, etc. And whatever you do, remember to come back on Thursday, October 19 for the debut of Part III.
Published by Paul 10:19 AM PST ◊ Permalink ◊ 37 Comments »