It's a theme that I've been writing about in YouTube Rejects (I finish cutting the last episode TODAY!!!) and certainly I theme that I effectively dedicate this blog to.

Creativity.  The act of creating.  Writing.  Videos.  Music.  Art.  YouTube.

Lately, however, I have been fortunate to really understand and embrace the other aspect of creativity ... and that is community.  When people talk about YouTube, nine out of ten times they're talking about the YouTube community.  And as I stated in an earlier post, I truly believe that the community exists (or at least SHOULD exist) to support the creative works.

But let's remove YouTube from the equation.  I do that everyday.  Yes, YouTube is one of the cornerstones of my online activities, but this website and blog IS NOT YouTube.  Over on the right I've put a new set of links to some of my favorite personal blogs and sites.  For people like Obsquatch and Heather, they put as much of themselves into their writing (or more) as they do in their videos.  Their personal blogs ARE NOT YouTube.

But they are, fundamentally, cornerstones of this community.  Maybe not the YouTube community at large, but MY community and MY circle ... and the ideas and concepts they encompass are the ideas and concepts that are the cornerstone of said YouTube community.

I bring all of this up because Middlebrook posted a surprisingly heartfelt plea to the people within our YouTube circle.  What happened?  Where are you?  Are you so bereft of ideas that you're incapable of posting a video every now and then?  (only he said that last part WAY nicer ... like I said, it was heartfelt.)

This is why we need the community (yeah, even you, Obs): it represents the audience.  But it's an audience of peers ... creative minds who are also producing innovative (or at least interesting content).  And most importantly:

Creativity feeds on creativity.

I know every time I see a good movie, I leave the theater thinking, "Damn, how can I make something like that?"  Some of the most touching and poignant moments in The Beanie Boy Show or Talking Heads (and the literal drive to make these internet shows in the first place) has come from a perpetual love for some truly amazing television shows from Sports Night to Boston Legal all the way to Psych.  And I end up sitting down at my computer thinking, "Damn, how can I make something like that?"

When I finally saw WALL-E (which should have won Best Picture ... or at least been nominated ... it should have also won best screenplay) I walked away thinking about Charlie Chaplin films and how the greatest cinematic moments are achieved with no words at all ... and how could I come up with a way to write a silent film screenplay for modern times?  The answer, although I've never actually attempted the projected, was a simple love story set on against the background of an alien invasion wherein the alien's first wave of attack is unleashing a virus that renders humans incapable of speech.  Suddenly, our main characters literally have no words to express their love for each other on their way to certain death.

Creativity feeds creativity.

If the beast in your mind isn't being fed by the people in your circle or your community or your youtube subscriptions ... ask yourself this: are you doing anything to feed their beasts?

Do I have nothing to write about on here?  What's up with that?  Should I start posting the book I've been writing for the website?  Would anybody be interested in reading that drivel?  Or would you rather read something even more drivelly, along the lines of "Another Alternative"?  (think about that title for a second and you'll get what I'm getting at.)

Once again, Talking Heads misses its deadline.  Interestingly, this being our final episode, it occurs to me that for a project this small (inasmuch as that it was only four episodes) it would have been appropriate to produce all four episodes BEFORE we started posting them.

Of course, had I done that, I would have put off the mountain of fame that came with each episode's release (he said with a sarcastic waggle of his eyebrows).

The episode about two-thirds done, and it's probably the best two-thirds of a video I have ever seen.  Hopefully, we won't be more than a week late.  No, I can guarantee we won't be more than a week late.  Unless Victor wants to post early, you'll be able to see the last episode of Talking Heads: YouTube Rejects next Monday.

In the coming weeks, I plan to do a recap on those numbers I mentioned at the start of this whole project and put together a little summary of how this show played.

As one project wraps up, however, it is important to look forward to future projects.  As I did this past December, I plan to take a little "hiatus over the month of March so that I can focus on some writing.  In no specific order, my to-do list includes:

- Finish writing the second TH miniseries
- Finish drafting The Brotherhood of the Royal Blue Headband series
- Write a brand-spanking new series (which will hopefully be another Victor-produced project) called "Sex Kittens".

So, even though I'm taking a hiatus, that doesn't mean there won't be videos.  I've been meaning to do some new vlogs, but the house has been crowded and it's been difficult to find any time to tape.  Also, my latest video was actually written by Obsquatch ... and he's already written a second epic for us to produce.  Hopefully, we can work out a deal where he might write future "mini" episodes of Talking Heads that will feature anybody and everybody on YouTube.

Is this an abrupt ending?

I don't like spamming people with videos on youtube.  You know?  That "share" feature right under a video on youtube?  Yeah, I really don't like to use that.

There are exceptions.  Last night being one of them.  People who know me know that I generally don't share my own videos ... I try and reserve that feature for sharing good videos produced by other people.

As you know, our third episode of TH:Youtube Rejects went live on Monday and with all of the praise there has been some distinct and vocal haters.

Which was not unexpected.  What was unexpected was that there wasn't more of them.

One of these angry people was youtube fancyrants who also goes by doodyhead or something equally silly like that.  You'd probably recognize him by the bag on his head.

At any rate, he did me the honor of making a video which not only featured my name but also my face.  Granted, it was, on the whole, a negative video, but like the smart people say: "There's no such thing as bad publicity!"

I shared this video for a couple of reasons:

1) The still he chose from my Dan&Dan video was particularly charming.  I'm quite the handsome sonofabitch and I want everyone to know it.

2) I just love it when other people fight my battles.  It gives a person WAY more credibility when other people start defending him.

Thanks, guys.

<3

Anybody with two halves of a brain (and it doesn't even have to be their own!) will appreciate this exchange that too place in the comments of fancyrants video:

krumbine:
I gave it 5 stars.

But then, I'm partial to any video that says my name.

fancyrants:
YOU!!!

I have only one question...

"WHY?"

krumbine:
Oh, that's easy: 42.

fancyrants:
ugh. you answer my serious question with a ridiculous answer? SURPRISE! SURPRISE! you even suck within comments. bro, seriously, do the internet a solid and step away from it.

krumbine:
A RIDICULOUS answer? WHAT?! Okay, first, your question was vague and anomalous. The fact that I was able to extrapolate any kind of meaning from it earns me the tiniest bit of cred. Secondly, 42 has to be the most meaningful answer known to man--nay, the UNIVERSE.

Pfft.

Yeah, that's right--you just got krumbined. Tissues for clean-up are issued at the door.

ThermostatAgreeable:
Man, I was just thinking about how Doody nailed it yet again, but then he got so badly krumbined.

There's no coming back from that.

Since my last post (which wasn't even legit since it was a repost of something I wrote last year ... and I have more to come! ;) we've posted the third episode of Talking Heads: YouTube Rejects; wrote, produced, and posted a new Narrator video ("The Hunger"); fielded handfuls of requests to get on Talking Heads; and dabbled with the notion of reviving the Beanie Boy Show.

Mostly, though, I've thought about the hot-button topic of the "YouTube Community".  I've briefly talked about it before ... but I highly doubt any of my viewers/readers today ever saw it ... much less remember it.

I find myself in an interesting position when considering the community that is YouTube.  Initially, I always though that YouTube was not (and should not be considered) a social-networking platform—the veritable foundation for any kind of "community", we can safely assume.  My argument was that we already had plenty of MySpaces and Facebooks and all of the other Friendster clones, so why do we need to manhandle YouTube into another social-networking platform?

YouTube, in my eyes, has always been a content delivery system.  Before YouTube, I had a website that I posted my videos to.  I would compress them into tiny little quicktime packages and load them directly to my servers.  It worked, but YouTube worked much better and enabled me to interact with my audience.  In short, it was a better way to deliver my videos to people who wanted to watch them.

That's why when you watch my videos (with VERY few exceptions) they don't seem like your standard fair YouTube video.  I don't produce videos to be part of a community ... I produce them because there's a story I wish to tell.  And yes, there's a difference.

More to the point, however, is the realization that YouTube is not exclusively a content delivery system OR a social-networking platform.  I believe that it STARTED as the former and eventually had the latter evolve out of it.

It is important to note, however, that the latter does NOT (nor will it) supplant the former.

There is, undoubtedly, a community on YouTube.  And this isn't a bad thing.  But we cannot forget WHY the community exists--which is to support the creative endeavors that utilize and depend on YouTube, the content delivery system.  The community cannot exist within a bubble and survive solely on itself--I repeat that we DO NOT need another Friendster clone.

Moreover, however, the community must not forsake its metaphorical birth-right: the creative content of YouTube.  It's a responsibility that everyone must shoulder ... from the people who produce the creative content, to the vloggers who make up the backbone of the YouTube community.

Is this a call to action?  Maybe.  Maybe I just want to see the discussion about community shift its focus.

In an effort to further cross-promote (or something like that) and offer up some of the "behind the scenes" details of The Beanie Boy Show, Episode 9 (which can be found here and here and here) ... here is the first part of the Holy Bible (but not really) project:

HOLY
BIBLE
(but not really)

-or- 

THE HOLY BABBLE


written by
BEANIE BOY
 


The following is a work of comedic fiction.

Much like the original.

 
BEANYISM
THE FOUNDING PRINCIPLES


**1**
Religion is ridiculous. Therefore, it's about time that we establish a ridiculous religion.


**2**
Religions like Christianity tell you how and what to think by threatening you with the promise of heaven and hell - thereby depriving free thought. Beanyism promotes thinking for yourself, challenging the status quo, and the never-ending pursuit of the contrary. Even at the expense of rationality, Beanyism insists that there is no spoon.


**3**
Humankind's greatest, innate ability is that of creationism. We possess inside ourselves the talent to form an idea and then to take that idea and manifest it into reality - music, lyric, image, sound, story, gadget.


**4**
The most abstract of Beanyism's founding principles is that of Serendipity. Human beings have an enormous capacity for connecting with others on many different levels - we merely have to open ourselves up to the possibility and the potential.

I love it when people criticize a video, because then it gives me something to blog about ;)

I was inspired yesterday to write a new episode of krumbinesBRAIN (it's been a while, hasn't it??).  The inspiration came from one of my original vision for my "personal vlog show" in that it was a great venue to do video responses.

It goes without saying that the whole schizophrenic, talking to yourself routine ISN'T original ... but it's safe to say that I do it fairly well.  Well, the other day, through Victor's channel, I discovered the DanAndDanFilms channel which does, basically, the same thing.

Only way, WAY better.

Go check it out--every video is a creative and technical achievement that every youtuber should aspire to.

Since DanAndDanFilms is a partner channel, not only was it a good subject to riff on, it was also a good opportunity to wrangle in a new subscriber or two.  So I wrote and produced a new episode of krumbinesBRAIN yesterday ("Krumbine vs Krumbine vs Dan vs Dan") and submitted it as a video response to Dan's latest.

This morning, I see a comment that, in short, criticizes my advertising of other youtubers.  It's not an angry or mean comment, and if that's what was intended, I sure didn't read it that way.  But it is a good observation and one that I'd like to address.

Gimmeabreakman does a fantastic job of recognizing other youtubers and has established a precedent for partners, who are already in the spotlight, to shoulder the responsibility of acknowledging other creative people on youtube.

And what's wrong with that?  One person responded in the comments that talking up other youtubers is what makes it a community.  I don't know about that, but if you recognize talent you have a responsibility to share it ... more so if you expect others to do the same for you.

However, I was not pimping out Dan's channel.  Yes, I was sharing it with my subscribers, those who haven't already seen it, because of the creative and technical achievements I mentioned earlier.  The simple fact is that I was inspired by Dan's channel and it made for great material for a new episode of krumbinesBRAIN.

And linking the channel in the sidebar?  Hell, that's just the right thing to do.

You know, on the whole, I have to say that this was a pretty good weekend.  I came up about one video short of what I was planning and certainly fell short of the Talking Heads quota (I'm still short on some footage, which is actually a good thing because I've only cut the cold open).

But other than that, it was good weekend.

Which is really odd, considering the bad mojo that kicked the weekend off.  But I like to read into things and assume the worse.

First, for those of you who completely missed the boat on the title of the last post (which was no doubt all of you) ... it's a Sports Night reference.  It comes from the episode of the same name wherein the Three Dog Night song is misinterpreted as an omen of bad things to come.  Still in the dark?  Go buy it on DVD.  It's one of the best television shows ever and it's well worth the price of admission.

So aside from failing the regular weekly schedule for Talking Heads, I have two remaining episodes of the Beanie Boy Show left to post (which will be coming Monday and Tuesday), but the big news was The Narrator short.  Now, well after the production is done and over with, I find myself remembering some of the shots I had in my head when I initially came up with the concept ... shots that never made it to the actual video.

I guess that's what second episodes are for, huh?

Today just doesn't smell well.  Too much bad swirling around.  I'm still reeling from some of the news this morning and, honestly, waiting for the rest of it.  In the meantime, I offer you this:

In order to succeed, first you must fail.

Since I seem physically incapable of producing new videos outside of the Talking Heads series (truthfully, I envy Obsquatch and his freedom) I've continued to repost old videos.  Currently, I'm working on the Beanie Boy Show, reposting the very best of said show.

Beanie Boy started out as a "personal vlog show" ... well, as much of a personal vlog show as I'm capable of producing.  In short, it was me talking to the camera.  I had a couple of good original episodes ("Beanyism" for example) but on the whole, it was an unoriginal entry into the vlogosphere.

After seven episodes (the seventh being one of the better ones thanks largely in part to the addition of a cameraman) I took a little break from the show and then decided to bring it back, only ... different.

This is where I introduced the puppets.

I had done puppet-based productions before ... some of you might remember Junk Off the Newsroom Floor which had a run of five or so episodes.  Obsquatch reminded me of a video entitled "Playtime with Richard" which is located somewhere on the interwebular youtube networks although I would be hardpressed to actually tell you WHERE it is located.  At any rate, this particular video has little to do with me despite it being shot with my puppet, in my house, with my camera, and has my voice in it ... I repeat, it is NOT my video.  Credit goes elsewhere for that.

But we're talking about the Beanie Boy Show, here.

Episode 8 saw the introduction of Richard (who Beanie Boy was letting write some episodes), Doug (a homosexual necrophiliac, Republican, and wishes to take over the hosting duties of the Beanie Boy Show), and Zaphod Zombie--the puppet, as opposed to the real-life Zaphod Zombie in that OTHER internet show.  Zaphod is definitely one of my favorite characters (although Doug is probably the most well-developed and unique characters).

With the introduction of the puppet characters, I tried a different format for the show ... and quickly succumbed to an entirely different format all together.  The original idea was to open with a meaningful monologue and then let the puppet characters drag everything down into pointless insanity and yelling and screaming.

That worked for about two episodes.

I naturally started writing what turned out to be mini TV episodes, and the show began to revolve around Beanie Boy and the gang TRYING to produce an internet show in the aforementioned format.  The scripts started having a strong, unified look to them--inasmuch as that they had a cold open before the opening titles, and then two, short acts.  (Which is what I mean when I say that I started writing mini TV episodes.)

And of course, as soon as I really got good at producing this show, that's when I ran out of steam.  Effectively in the middle of an episode, too.

I've reposted five episodes currently.  The first few were the lead-up to the mini TV episodes and the last one that I posted ("Puberty") was when I really started into the new format.

What's exciting about reposting this show is that the first time around, I had a much smaller audience ... moreover, the audience I had probably wasn't even as vocal.  Granted, these reposts aren't exactly doing 13k views a piece (for that, you can check out Talking Heads on gimmeabreakman's channel) but they are performing a lot better than during their first and, more importantly, they're being received far better, too.

Thanks, guys.