PRIDE BEFORE A FALL

I keep watching the latest Lost Footage. I've never done that before. Normally by the time I'm done editing, I know the episodes inside and out, and the last thing I want to do is watch them back even once. This one is different. 

I can't even put my finger on it, but part of it is pride. I feel, after gawd knows how many episodes, spanning several years, I've nailed a format that is completely its own thing. I would be happy to show this episode to anyone.  

When I started Found Footage I wanted to try to use horror tropes for comedy... build suspense/punctuate with a laugh. In this, it's trying to see if comedy can be used like music to make the person watching feel something. That meant a) having something to say, and b) not being overt with it - not spelling it out. It had to convey its message on an almost subliminal level, in the same way music does, leaving room for personal interpretation. 

I knew what I wanted to say in the old age sequence, but I struggled to find the road in... I couldn't find a comedic hook for it. I hit upon the idea of a man looking back at his life... but it wasn't until I could pair that with the tragedy of all his favourite memories being TV shows that it came together. 

I wanted to make something that made me feel how my favourite albums make me feel. I'm not a singer by any stretch of the imagination, so I had to use the visuals to do that. The opening couple of minutes were the last thing I added; I wanted something that would kind of foreshadow the end of the episode - something that wasn't funny, but was emotional. I actually got choked up a bit putting together the music and visuals...

 For me, one of the most significant parts of my life was letting my children go - letting them grow up and be their own person. I wanted to portray that before we got into the sillier stuff, and I wanted to start the episode quite gently... and the real message of the episode; that life is, really, a series of losses. 

That was another challenge for me; to let the work guide me, and the emotion guide me, and try not to worry about whether people would stick with it. There are sections that don't even try to be funny, some which are very slow - slower than I'd have previously risked - but I knew I needed to risk that if I wanted to achieve what I intended. Even knowing that some people wouldn't get it. 

The two sequences which took the longest to complete were Pie Vendors in the Night - I had a video from Fiverr, but I was never happy with it, and wasn't even sure whether I could use. Then just as an experiment I put the audio from it over the top of a piece of music I made in Garageband... and that's when it unlocked.

I also wanted something very visually striking early in the episode, and upbeat musically, to sort of set out the stall, to say; this is a step up. The editing took about a week, I think. And the refining it took about another week. I loved putting together the images in Photoshop, then animating them; really trying to go for that vaporwave vibe, but combine it with the absurd by making it all about pies. That's the kind of meta joke in there; that much work done on something so ridiculous. 

The Three Sistas song, because it's hand-drawn, was another sequence that took a lot of work. Likewise the Calculator Industry track; that was one of the first sections completed, and there I was really trying to push myself. Even then I think there's a gulf between it and Pie Vendors.

The hardest thing by far was finding the audio that I wanted to go over Chris JC's epic music for the finale. Trying to find just the right public domain audio was a challenge. Nothing quite fit until I stumbled upon a recording of a Buddhist meditation retreat, where attendees were asked to visualise the last moments of their life. 

It fit perfectly...  and said what I wanted the episode to say about life. Though even then I had to do some work on it - chopping up the words, moving them around, slowing down the tempo, adding some echo. No matter how many times I listen to the words and music together, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. 

Overall, it has been a ridiculous amount of work, but even if nobody watches it, it has been worth it to feel I've got something I can be proud of. I feel like I'm now working on stuff that's completely different to anything out there - and I feel I can say goodbye to any lingering Tim and Eric comparisons. I couldn't have done it if it weren't for Lockdown, work being slower this year, and not updating the website. All that gave me the space to challenge myself. Plus, because of your support, I was able to afford all the new plugins, loop packs, and software that went into making this. Please give it a watch if you can, even if you back me for the other videos, because you helped pay for it.

It's the end, for the foreseeable future, for the Xenoxxxverse. I never intended to return to it - Lost Footage just started as a way to offer something during Lockdown to those who'd enjoyed the original Found Footage.

Over the course of the series, its ties to the Xenoxxxverse have become more tenuous, and I realise that it's time to branch out to something that's along the same lines, but without the need for any continuity, or references, or rules.

I don't entirely know what that'll be yet, but I've learned so much putting together the last two episodes in particular, that I'm eager to start working on it. I know Chris JC is too. For a while, it might be shorter things - just a few minutes long. I know that stuff gets missed, because people don't want to commit to watching a whole episode... so it might work better like that. I still like the idea of a series, though - of branding something under an umbrella title. What that'll be I'm not yet sure, but consider this climax to Lost Footage the jumping off point.

Paul