WHAT TIME IS IT?...Coverage of Glenn on BreeFM

Glenn, live on BreeFM @11pm EST, Wednesday.

"If I had Jackson's physique I would never wear a shirt, quite frankly". ~ Glenn

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This story was being written live during the radio show and as such it may contain significant factual errors. Over time it will be cleaned up and should become more accurate.
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Glenn said he looking forward to the year being over because it marks a new chance to "begin over". To be more exact he is looking forward to finishing all the stuff he has to do before the end of they year.

The new video: "Ali Zarin": Tachyon is back as the co-star on Glenn's side of RE88. When he figured it out in his head he was excited and wanted to do it since summer. However, if Tachyon was going to be involved it had to feel right.

After March Glenn had to introduce Tachyon into RE88 in a new way. In the LG15 story Tachyon was a character with lots of answers. This had already been set up through OpAphid. Through the Nancy Drew puzzle Tachyon was able to put some information out there. Glenn had ideas on a secret society that worked well with LG15 so he pitched it to Miles, Greg, and Mesh. When you collaborate you have to reach a point where everyone is into it. There was talk at one time about Tachyon being more of a on screen "character".

This time last year Glenn was casting for Tachyon. It would be like Angel and Buffy where you had parallel stories within the same universe (ie LG15 and OpAphid with parallel stories). At the time they talked about a week long cross over between LG15 and OpAphid. It is hard when you have a character like Tachyon talking to the camera because it can sound forced.

The concept shifted when Glenn became more involved with writing LG15 and the opportunity arose for Tachyon to become a character within LG15. Glenn was excited about the direction but he was also scared. Miles and Greg followed OpAphid a little but not at the same level as the fans. Amanda followed it a lot as she does the other "fan videos".

After Human Ransom the concept changed again. He would like to apologise to Miles Beckett. Miles was right! Glenn now thinks Tachyon works much better as a character that is not seen. Miles saw the response to Human Ransom and was really impressed. The gambled on Glenn a lot. It was one of the biggest LG15 big productions.

If Jessica left the show and Tachyon was on camera then Tachyon would be a potential lead. Hence when Miles pointed out that Tachyon was better never seen Glenn was a bit bummed.

Glenn was also afraid of Tachyon being reduced to a "camera angle". The filming style always has to be related to the actual subject being shot.

It would have been hard to coordinate Tachyon in both LG15 and OpAhid, so the idea of having Tachyon as a character on the show would have helped. Tachyon has a personality. Its impressive what has been created without actually seeing the character.

If Tachyon was not seen on LG15 she would be reduced to giving out missions and camera angles.

With RE88 he had to find a way of preserving Tachyon as a character. The story Glenn wanted to tell did not change but the approach to telling the story changed. He did not want things like LG15 when things would happen to Bree and she would not talk about them. At times it seems like a lot of people would have been happier if "On The Run" had not happen. RE88 could have fallen into that situation. Don't set something out if its not going to be resolved.

Sarah is amazing. They tried to figure out how they could keep it on going. The style and schedule had to fit everyone. Glenn came up with the Aly Zarin idea. The RE88 name had been around as a name for the series and and an game meaning. If it was short term Tachyon would save the day and Rachel and Tachyon would go off together. It did not feel right. If it was going to be on going then he knew Aly Zarin would be Tachyon.

Aly is a huge presence in Rachel's life. The recent video pays off with the identity of Aly Zarin but it also had to be like a trailer and also "in story". The video gets you up to speed and lets you know what the premise is for what is to come.
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QUESTION: What genre is Glenn trying to "recreate". It is a totally different approach from LG15 and Glenn hopes that it resolves some of the problems.

ANSWER: A sitcom! (situation comedy) Its told through a vlog journal. You will get story arcs seen from Rachel's perspective. You will also see videos from Tachyon told from her perspective. You will get a complete story if you just watch the Rachel videos but you will get a completely different experience if you also watch the Tachyon videos. Each story arc will play out over 1-3 weeks. You will have 2-5 Rachel videos and 1-2 Tachyon videos in a story arc. You will get the misunderstandings of the sitcom by watching the Tachon videos.

Rachel can be unaware of things and thats much better from a narrative perspective. Tachyon has to figure out what is going on. In the Aly Zarin video we saw Tachyon get her assignment. Rachels and Tachyon have a relationship from being roommates but Rachel has her own agenda.

Think about how the single camera sitcom reinterpreted the genre. Glenn is reinterpreting it through the video blog. Its taking a premise thats tried and true and doing it in a way that is very natural (cf Arrested development).

Glenn does not think it works to post video blogs if you are on the run and in danger and that is part of the problem with LG15. Its about telling a story within the scope that works. Clara making a documentary makes sense. With Bree in the bedroom they never really explored the personal development. Glenn wants to tell the bigger picture story through the personal experience. He will then throw additional light on it using Tachyon showing how it fits into a much bigger picture.

This idea of reinterpreting the sitcom through the first person video blog is a really novel concept. Sitcom: it talks about things that are entertaining that people get into in their life.

This last video establishes that premise. There will be rants, humor and great big picture stuff. Tachyon will be a "character". She will be the co-star.
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1994 Glenn went to a New Media conference. He was talking to an older hippy who had produced all the Jellyfish records. Glenn thought Jellyfish had covered "Strawberry Fields Forever" by the Beatles but he was wrong.
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Glenn did not really want to do the voice in the "Ali Zarin" video but when he heard it he felt it worked. Tachyon loves to give Brother shit about things. Glenn has always been good about confirming things in game. However he would like to confirm that Brother is not married to OpAphid. We will be learning more about Brother's wife. Some of the other speculation is along the right lines. Also there was no puzzle at 50 seconds and the Rachel story is straight narrative.

Any information that Glenn includes in the series is worth researching and can be considered an alternative to the puzzles of past days. The problems with OpAphid came because of all the pressure on Glenn from the ARG elements. Rachel/Tachyon is NOT and ARG, but any of the characters could appear in the ARG side of RE88. If a puzzle does not work for the story then Glenn feels that it is disrespectful to force it on the story..

TERRIBLE IDEA: Glenn started to make a crossword puzzle that Tachyon could give to Brother.

A video can do a lot for a series and can be viewed by 100,000 people or more. The puzzles might only reach 25-200 people. The Nancy Drew puzzle was downloaded by less than 1000 people. This has to be approached as a business. The videos pay off best. They help build an audience. An ARG is only going to get a percentage of the main stream audience. There has to be a narrative that people can watch and understand.

Glenn loves to tell a story in the best way possible.

Jeromy wants to focus on the ARG and that's why he is going behind the curtain.

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Dispelling Myths:
Faceintheclouds: has nothing to do with RE88
LINC: any video that is not on the lofisyndicate account is not canon to RE88
Text based videos: are not part of RE88
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Lofisyndicate: Linc and the rest of us were all "cadets" in LoFiSyndicate.
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Glenn picks his visually best videos: "Remember Me", "Aly Zarin", "Human Random", "They Are Watching" videos...................

They Are Watching

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Glenn talks about a dilemma:

In every video there are things that get cut out. There are generally several elements in a video. The character tells a story (reveals something that is entertaining). They also talk about how it relates to the current plot. This ties in the relevance. There might also be more information on that character that helps with the back story.

Over time as Glenn has written video blogs things would always get cut out. For example in "How Dumb Am I? " the ordinal script was pretty long.

How Dumb Am I?


It was shot as 2 pages, but it was originally 4. Glenn was trying to explain a justification (back story) to Brees view of religion. He liked to see Jess get to that place where she could convey "Bree's betrayal."

In the videos it is Bree talking about facts and beliefs. It also referred to Jonas where she let her faith in a person override her judgement. In the original draft it was a bit clearer but in the crafting of the final video some things were left out.

In the extended version Bree would have started emotional but it would end with Jonas tied up. It was over the top. At the end we would find out she had taken Jonas hostage. The shorter edited version ended up as a Monday video with the rest of the week to explain what happened.

The video would have been 4-5min in its original length. You end up cutting stuff out.

When he went to cut "How Dumb Am I" everything was shot the same day so its hard to cut stuff out and re-position it.

So the question is: when you have good video and a good story can you split it into 2 videos.

Glenn has 2 ideas:

a) technically Tachyon could have full unedited Rachel video and could use it but it would have to be content that makes sense.

b) if Rachel posts a video that has the narrative part and it touches on one subject and its posted first. Then if there is a story she tells what if one or two days later Rachels goes "I was not going to post this before for reason xyz, but she now has a reason to post it. If she acknowledges that it was shot at the same time it might help.

Glenn likes option (b).

There are times when you cut out material where it is all or nothing. This is not just extra footage. This is special situations where you have a video that turns out too long but it has excellent material.

Glenn has been thinking about content delivery. He watched all the Rachel and LoFi videos on DVD. The pacing does not feel right for watching with a bowl of popcorn. When he tried to watch something long he never makes it to the end when it is something downloaded online.

If there was action going on then a longer video would be fine. But if its just someone talking a 7 min monologue is too long!

In some of the previous Rachel videos Glenn has spent up to a week cutting a video down. The pacing has to feel right and it might take 2-5 days to get that right. The pacing would be better if he splits the video so its either a matter of loosing a ton of stuff or putting out two videos.

Glenn commented that if we understand how the videos are put together we might better understand what it honestly takes to make this happen.

Conclusion: Glenn says that based on our feedback tonight he will try splitting the video in question and see how it works.
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Trivia: Titles in the new video were done in Adobe After Effects. Glenn learned 3-D animation during the summer. He was thinking about animating Tachyon but he abandoned the idea because of time considerations. By using key frames you can do some really exciting things.
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Glenn considered an online animated series called "TAAG" Glenn owns the domain "Teenangstadventuregang" so don't try to steal it!

The adventure of a group of teens that works at a Hot Topic like store that produce an online show that becomes highly successful The the series would follow the behind the scenes drama. The show would be a parody and would not be based on any real facts.

If anyone wants to work on a 3-D animation project contact Glenn.

Copyright 2007, Glenn Rubenstein 2007
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NOTES:
Off screen cameo coming out soon: Homage to our very own Zoey!
Guitar Hero: more details soon.
Bonus thank you for Xmas: Sarah's audition video will be posted on the RE88 account
Jeromy will be slinking back behind the curtain this week but Glenn not be.
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For an index of the stories from previous GlennFM shows go here: http://glennfmtoday.blogspot.com/

Send questions to [email protected]

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01:57:31 Loveline with Will Arnett - Drag Race Radio Spots
01:53:57 Nirvana - You Know You're Right
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00:55:02 MC Lars - The Roommate From Hell
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