Not A Blog™

When I was a kid, there was one TV show that I looked forward to more than any other. If I recall, it was a Discovery Channel program called, Movie Magic. It was a pretty straightforward look at the special effects behind movies, something which fascinated me to no end. I like to think watching that particular show paid off in some small way; I learned the basics of film, lighting, and greenscreen compositing techniques, among other things, gleaning what I could. Despite all that, I always felt a little guilty watching that show because I enjoyed it more than the movies that were featured. I have always liked to watch how a movie is made more than I like watching the movie itself. Such is my customary behavior.

In addition to the behind-the-scenes stuff, my other guilty pleasure was outtakes. In the same way I liked Movie Magic, I like watching the outtakes more than I like watching whatever movie they came from. The best thing about DVDs is that some of them contain outtakes—footage that, prior to the invention of the special feature, would never have seen the light of day. Back in the Movie Magic days (pre-DVD, certainly pre-YouTube), outtakes were quite difficult to come by, and I took what I could get.

Recently, however, I found myself spending hours on YouTube watching nothing but outtakes. From talking with acquaintances, it seems everyone likes the outtakes. I watch outtakes for movies I’ve never seen. Why should this be the case? What a bizarre past time. I’ve told people that I spend a disproportionately large amount of time watching videos on YouTube; I’ve never told anyone that I spend a disproportionately large amount of time watching outtakes for movies I haven’t seen on YouTube.

I believe, for me, it all goes back to the “why and how”. I’m always trying to figure out the underlying mechanisms. In my Nanowrimo novel last year, I wrote a section on magic and illusions and how I can’t enjoy them because of the big “secret” that you can’t know how the illusion is done. I don’t care what the trick is so much, I only care about how it was accomplished—and for me, knowing this increases how much I enjoy the presentation because now it’s impressive. I couldn’t do it. That’s why I like Penn & Teller so much. They show you a trick and then tell you how its done. It’s no less amazing.

What I like about outtakes is the demystification of the realms in the film. These worlds are many things—exciting, dark, scary, care-free, and so on—but one thing they are above all else is fake. Magic-fake. In opposition to illusions, however, I know how the movie world is created. It’s still impressive from a technical achievement standpoint (and, sigh, the computer graphics are good), but I so rarely get taken in to the world. I’m more interested in the people and goings-on that helped to create the illusion of a world, and so I get to see them as regular people in the outtakes. I get to see the process.

Some wise guy said that the journey is more important than the destination. He was talking about movie production.

I realized a few weeks ago that the tenth anniversary of the Terrible Travesty Team passed by completely without fanfare. Nary a mention in the Not A Blog™ despite my ongoing struggle to acquire interesting topics. I celebrated in a private sort of way by dusting off the old HTML of the site and updating it to a more final state, reading back through some of the archives, and watching a few productions. (And the outtakes, where available.)

In thinking about outtakes, I thought about movies, and so I thought about the TTT, as I can’t help but do. This article was almost going to be that look back, but I’m not going to try and write that when I’m on the road, my mind bogged down as it is with notes regarding our work from today and coming up tomorrow. Rather, I’ll just throw this out there: as light as I am today, I’ll go down that path for Monday. A look back—a belated tenth anniversary look back—at the Terrible Travesty Team.

-Ted