Royal Wedding
SF Classiques 011
08/11/09 16:38
A Brief (?) History of SF Productions--Part 11
1982 was a tumultuous year for SF--we graduated from high school, several members joined the team, and we all moved toward our college years.
The last point was a particular concern for me. Sure, it would it be difficult to get the team together to do more tapes, but the main issue was Eric's move to Annapolis and the military. I had no idea if and when I would see him again, and keep in mind I still had the crazy idea we could make a living doing this. How to keep doing SF stuff without, well, F?
I toyed with the idea of making Lynda a full partner (somewhere I have logos for "SFB" Productions), but it didn't feel right. Then it came to me on vacation in Maine, in a hotel pool. Incorporate SF as a "Bored" of Directors, with each member getting a VP position and supposed "stock" in the "company". I became President of SF, and Eric became Chairman of the Bored. Assigning VP positions would give everyone a sense of ownership in the team, and facilitate members stepping in to Eric's role. That was the idea, anyway--the reality ended up being far more messy. More on this later.
(I know what you're thinking--neurotic much?)
Anyway, we moved into more familiar material with a Star Trek parody (Star Trip II--The Revenge of Mr. Rourke). Trek had been a source of material previous to this, but now we had more people to take the roles, plus better recording equipment. Eric, Sharon, Steve, Saylor, and Mike (who officially became our "token black" member on this tape) joined in, along with new member Beth Guonjian (Pettit). Another refugee from show choir, Beth and I had known each other since elementary school, but I suspect she went along with it because of her friendship with Sharon. Beth went onto to getting her Master of Divinity degree at Harvard and a medical degree in Chicago--making her officially "The Reverend Doctor...". She also officiated at my wedding.
SF also tackled an general movie parody, masked as an ad for the "NBS Movie Cable" channel, and we took a few minutes to return to "Chuck and Diana - 1 Year Later". This tape was mainly significant as the first production without Eric, as he had moved on to Annapolis by that time.
So, let's go where no one (except us) has gone before...
SF Classiques 008
27/09/09 08:21
A Brief (?) History of SF Productions--Part 8
Well, we got into episode 5 of Bored of the Rings, and it was clear we were getting burned out--we had been slogging away at this for 9 months. So, we wanted to wrap things up with a double episode, but would have ended up with a very short episode 6. What to do in order to stretch things out?
I am an unashamed Anglophile (my mother is English), and I remember getting up early in the morning to see the wedding of Charles and Diana--we had an early VCR, but I didn't trust it. So, since there's a big wedding at the end of BotR, why not break in with special NBS coverage of the Royal Wedding?
This ended up being far more interesting that BotR, since the last few chapters are really just wrapping things up. We got the chance to do bad Monty Python impressions, made IRA references, plus we introduced the concept of cloning world figures--a topic that would come up again in the future. Eric got to be a protestor, Saylor explained the tax benefits of marriage, and Mike slept through it.
Next--females enter the picture.