Just completed a draft of a script for a promo/commentary video that Sanfauken needs to put together for a festival submission. We brainstormed on Saturday what we wanted to say. Man Fauken had a cool convention for shooting it, but my fear of gimmick overshadowing content squashed that. (Of course, now I second guess that…) . We shot a talking heads two shot of us sitting in our Sanfauken Sports chairs. Manfauken spent a great deal of time editing our ramblings together. I, Lady Fauken (though no fault of the editing efforts of Manfauken) was completely underwhelmed with the outcome.

First, as Manfauken agrees, the performances were lackluster at best. Subdued, laid back and borderline bashful does not work for promos. Not to say to go full on Sham Wow, but how about SOME enthusiasm for your project. For me, the importance of having text written out became quite clear. Another glaring issue for me was the complete lack of visual interest. While Man Fauken had yet to had footage or any of his super-awesome post work, any footage of us sitting screamed, “Nothing to see here folks, move it along.”

We had a bit of a discussion last night about how much time should be spent on something that may not even be seen by more than a couple of people, at best. Man Fauken wants to get it out the door and move on. I do agree with that, but because we do have the time to discover and learn from mistakes , and make a better end product, I wanted to give it a try. That may be douchey of me considering Man Fauken is Sr Sr Sr editor. In which case, he’s a saint putting up with a nightmare client such as myself. I do though, find it impossible to let something I’m not happy with go if there is any possible way to make it better. (Did I ever tell you about the time I completely re-shot, re-wrote, re-edited and walked 2 miles to the post office in 85 degrees to submit it my Impress These Apes audition dvd  in 100 minutes all by myself?) That was stressful and exhilarating. AND, made me realize that your first attempt/ is probably not going to be as good as you thought.

Which brings me back to the first draft thing. I like it. It’s a good starting point. But, I know that if I go back and read tomorrow, I’ll not like it as well. I may even think parts of it suck. I just shared it with Manfauken, so I look forward to his invaluable input. What I’ve noticed is that during re-writes I can tend to over-think and get away from a central point of view, so I have to remind myself to simplify and execute clearly. I also have to remind myself that performance wise, simplify does not mean low-energy.  I just need to find that sweet spot somewhere between Eeyore and Sham Wow.

I hope I don’t regret shutting down previous ideas for fear of gimmick. I’m a tad fearful of gimmick. In going back to that whole Impress these Apes thing. That submission got me into the finals. Which I feel I completely BLEW because I let a gimmick (although funny) completely overshadow (and sound pollute the now-defunct Lakeshore Theatre) my content because I didn’t trust it enough.

Gosh, look at all this learnin’ I’m doing for free. Hey Chicago College of the Performing Arts, can I have my 60k back?  No? Well, ‘fauk off then.

Manfauken here. That there is an adition I made to the sanfauken kitchen a month or so ago. Its a nice litle magnetic whiteboard with a ghosted grid as well as corkboard border. Its like a productivity-procrastinator’s dream.

Let it be known, Sanfauken is in it for the long haul. I’ve often said how our ambitions are large, as low budget as our production is at the moment. We’ve got our eyes well in the future, but you can’t live in the future.

So for now, we’ve got this fresh little whiteboard. Its a good spot for commitments and keeping ourself honest. Lately, I make a little current week calendar at te botom. If a week goes by with no Sanfauken stuff, then we know we’ve been slackin. Ultimately, several days worth of tasks a week is ideal. The top is for spitballing and unscheduled tasks, and I’m sure we’ll find a use for the magnets and corkboard. We’ll totally keep you posted.

Fahrt.

see?

See attached picture. We drew this whilst planning in a bar last week. Well, Man Fauken drew it as Lady Fauken waited patiently despite Man Fauken’s disregard. ‘Tis not much, but there shall be more to come. We had a quick shoot this past weekend, and have been all around waking up from our winter slumber. Hopefully our Sanfauken Sports coverage has kept you sated.

While we continue work on Episode 4: STRING , keep those Fauken eyes glued here for more behind the scenes, off color commentary, and the ugliest pictures of Lady Fauken we can muster. We know it’s a tantalizing promise, but we’ll deliver.

Simple. Accurate. To the point.

Go Huskies! Fauk off Duke.

In any event, this event was eventful. We ran into and spoke with two people that we know. Lady Fauken recognized a guy with dreadlocks from the lobby at Chicago Sketchfest.  Lastly, we spoke with Laura, one of the festival directors about submissions. See, what this organization does is help develop new television programming. They run various contests associated with different television/cable networks (Fox, IFC, MTV, etc) in search of new material that has development potential. It’s a cool organization and they were very nice people. I suppose the turn out was good, but what in the fresh hell was that beer? Ugh. Gah.

One of the aforementioned contest featured an animation category. We at Sanfauken feel that maybe we should just go ahead and submit. Why not? Our only quandary is do we submit all three episodes that are completed or do we just submit one? Our goal is to choose whatever best represents our “voice”. Our voice being;  juvenile, gross, silly, slyly cleaver and a tad demented.  Hey, we just do what makes us laugh and we do it with a LOT of word play.

In the end, we’ll have bothered to put our work out there.  If you don’t bother do to that, then why are you bothering to do the work at all?  It’s kind of  a pain in the ass….but we ‘faukin’ love it.

What we did not love: Hamper Sock Ale.

Do the work, show the work and then ‘fauk off!

Stay tuned and stay hungry!

Nice idea, isn’t it? That got me thinking of the saying, “Little strokes fell great oaks”. Sanfauken ‘s can relate more to the saying than the band. Lady Fauken hasn’t liked much of what they’ve done since their freshman effort and Manfauken may have never really cared for them at all. Back to the saying. Sanfauken’s have spent kept a diligent schedule the past three days tackling the multiple tasks, from the administrative to the creative, of episode 4, “String”. Sanfauken is pleased to say that a little stroking is going to go a long way in falling our great oak. We have a fauking deadline. Stay tuned, Fanfauken’s for updates on our progress!

Keep an eye out for the Little Strokes, playing a mail box near you!

Lady Fauken