the days are just packed

     This week in DarkTriforceFilms, we finally got off our tushies and started getting busy. After weeks of various writers meetings and sitting on top of multiple scripts, schedules finally lined up and we've begun filming and working on multiple videos! But before that, let me apologize for the gap in Report updates, but not a lot happened other than work on a top secret project (which we'll soon announce... but for now just get ready for some.. breakfast..) and so I decided to not post until we had some actual cogs moving in the DarkTriforceMachine.
     On the subject of what was happening between the gap, most recently on our channel the full set from the first official show for Charles' and I's band Tales From Summer Camp was just uploaded, featuring 7 original songs! The band has been another little project we've been working on for a little over a year now, and it's been tons of fun. Super proud of our set, and it was nice to have some representation for the band on our channel since other than our own personal social medias, it hasn't been talked about much. I will say though, editing that video was a nightmare! Having not edited in a little it was a bit of a warm up for me, but premiere just wanted to give me issue after issue, the most reoccurring of which being exporting with random sections of audio missing. After 5 exports and multiple hours, I got it up however - and I'm sitting with my fingers crossed hoping that doesn't happen when exporting our future sketches.
     And now to cover what's been going on the last few days, we've begun filming and working on 2 new videos (with one more on the way that we'll be working on tomorrow!) - with a variety of the DarkTriforceCrew between each of them. The one most likely to come out first is Narrator, which I've talked about a few times in the other installments of the DarkTriforceReport.

      For those just joining us, this is the second time we've filmed Narrator, originally this video was supposed to be made in 2019, when the script was written, but it fell to the wayside up until last year in 2021 when we first had brought it back up and talked about filming it, but with 2021 being a bit of sabbatical year for us, it got pushed back even further to April of 2022 - when we finally got together and filmed it for the first time. To paraphrase, we ended up changing the setting of the video in that version, shooting at an airport parking garage in the cold weather, which ended up making us rush through shooting and change a lot of how the video was framed. Along with us forgetting or not having a tripod or a specific lens, the video that came out ended up being one I wasn't happy with and I decided to shelve it once more until we got some better weather.
​     Finally this weekend we got that weather and went out to our town park for some beautiful scenery and dragged this video out of development hell. It's a short one, so it didn't take too long to film - and it was nice to get out with the skeleton crew that was just myself, Kip, and Woody. I'm much happier with this version of the video already, having not even sat down to edit it yet, the shots look so much better and I'm so excited to have the final version done! Kip was super excited and down to help with this video even despite the fact we had already done it once before, as well as Woody who deserves many props for making the shots in this video look as pretty as they do! Many thanks to both of them!
     But that's not the only video that we've been working on this week, in fact we have a normal length DarkTriforceFilms video on the way that was written mostly by a Mr. Charles Hufferd and Woody Hamilton named The New Logan!

     As with most DarkTriforceFilms videos, the concept for this video was made a while ago, although this is a relatively quick turnaround in comparison to Narrator (and the video we'll be filming on Sunday) - back in March of this year I took a trip to Spain to visit my girlfriend Kristina who was studying abroad. In light of the news, Charles and Woody had the idea to write and film an entire video about replacing me while I was gone, but due to the various schedules of our crew members, the video only ended up happening well after my trip. After going through script edits at the office, we finally began filming!
     The video has been a lot of fun to make so far, featuring some new faces in the form of Ashley, who's joined the crew to help out in both this video and future ones hopefully, as well as picking from other parts of the expansive DarkTriforceFilms roster. Considering the subject matter of the video, unlike most of our other videos, I'm barely in this one! And that's been a nice change of pace, getting to stay behind the camera more or less and focus more on how I want the shots to look and finally getting a chance to **attempt** to truly learn how our camera works beyond focusing and hitting record. 
     This will also be the first official video to be partially filmed at the new DarkTriforceStudio, a large part of it takes place in the conference room and it's super cool to have the space to film in! Woody and I had talked earlier this year about how we wanted more diverse locations for our videos to take place in and the office itself offers a lot of different backdrops for that, and between this video, Narrator, and the multiple locations that The Year Without DarkTriforceFilms took place in, we seem to be meeting that want. 
     We still have a few more scenes and straggling shots to get done for The New Logan, so this is still a bit further down the pipeline than Narrator is - we're getting used to shooting around the chaotic nature of our entire crew's schedules with everyone's various jobs outside of DarkTriforceFilms (I know, I know - why would we need anything other than this?), and so getting used to having to film videos over multiple days more akin to something like Buddy Cops 3 instead of cramming it all into one day which was how most of our older videos were made. 
     And a big thank you and shoutout to everyone who's been involved with this one! Charles and Woody did a great job with the script and general planning for the video, and with our other cameos from Cayley and possibly even the world famous Ty "Tymoso" Morris, and of course Ashley who has been very accepting and cooperative with the "relaxed" style that we shoot our videos in. Hope to show you all more soon!

     Ok, now to wrap up this extra long edition of the DarkTriforceReport, which I guess is deserved after the few weeks gone from it - I'll leave you with updates on what's to come after this week! Obviously you'll be seeing Narrator and The New Logan up on the channel soon - but tomorrow we'll be filming another video that was stuck in production hell for a long time, and even longer when you consider that it's a remake of a video that originally came out in 2014! That's right, we're remaking the lost DarkTriforceFilms classic Dead Man's Hill! The video got taken down from YouTube after a weird and annoying battle with the copyright police considering the songs used in the video, and now lives here on the website in the Classic DarkTriforceFilms Section. After finding this out, I sat down and rewrote the entire video to be more like a modern one of our videos, however this was back in 2020! And due to the little craze sweeping the world at the time, it got pushed and pushed up until now. I'll have more to say about it next week!
     And finally, to shed a little more light on the little tease from the top of this report, consider this an official announcement - The Buddy Cops franchise is getting an official spinoff webseries! We've had our heads down working on this for a while now, and are gearing up to enter production! We're nailing down some final loose ends like scheduling and casting, but I'll leave you with the title of the spin off: BACON.
     With that, we've reached the end of the DarkTriforceReport and stuffed it back into the box from which it came. Lots of exciting stuff coming soon, and I'm super happy to be back in the swing of things! I gotta get going and remember to charge the camera batteries now, so until next time - this is Logan signing off!