It’s December and with my editing skills starting to come back I thought it’d be fun to try a new opener for this month’s videos. I’m exploding onto the scene! I’m going to break up my journey by month so I don’t end up with a single crazy-long playlist. Both current playlists are down below as is the video I made yesterday!
As usual, comments and questions are welcome.
Enjoy!
November Playlist:
December Playlist:
Filed under Operation: Television's Curtis Andersen, videos, YouTube
Friday the 13th is here and while you can learn the real history of Friday the 13th here, I’m instead going to shamelessly self promote with videos!
I love the original Friday the 13th movies – always have since I was a kid. They are campy (pun half intended), bloody and the first four are actually pretty scary. They were the inspiration for the slasher movies I helped to write and make and if I see them on Netflix it’s pretty easy to click play. I made a video about some of my favorite horror things as a content test for the first year of Fun Size Horror. We dropped the concept, but I still have the video. So in honor of Friday the 13th I leave it here for your perusal:
Also if you’re following Operation: Television’s Curtis Andersen then you may want to check out some of the latest additions to the playlist:
Filed under fun video friday, videos, YouTube
Picture by Molly Hawkey
Hi.
My name is Curtis Andersen and I have been an entertainment professional for over 30 years.
I started working professionally when I was 8 years old and haven’t ever stopped, but some years were definitely better than others.
From eight through my mid-twenties I made my primary living as an actor, you can see a list of most of what I did at IMDb. But then in 2005 I thought I’d have more control over my career if I tried producing. It went fine, made some movies; sold some TV shows; and made a lot of music videos, but something was always missing. It was not creatively satisfying, at least not in the way acting is for me, and a majority of the job was hunting for financing. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried independent film financing, but I don’t recommend it. It takes a lot of time to get a “yes” and then there are a thousand ways that are beyond your control where that “yes” can suddenly turn into a “no.” In 2012 I lost the funding for three projects on the same day – it was the next six months worth of work – and I started thinking that being a producer was probably not the path I wanted to follow.
At the end of 2014 I was ready to be done with producing. I was very pleased to be a part of the first year of Fun Size Horror, but found myself having a lot more fun being in the shorts than being behind the scenes. That’s when the final decision was made – I needed to be a working actor again!
That being said, becoming a working actor in Hollywood, even when you were one for over 20 years, is not easy. It takes dedication and persistence and a lot of hard work. I’ve decided to chronicle my path back both here and on my YouTube channel. I’ve created a playlist of the videos I’m shooting, you can see it down below:
I’d love to hear your comments as this keeps going either here on the blog or on the videos.
Let’s see if we can make the nickname “Television’s Curtis Andersen” a reference to me in the present instead of the past.
The wife had a good idea for a video this year about California’s lack of significant seasonal change. She wrote a great blog about it HERE but if you just want to see the video you can see it below:
And last year I did a short for Fun Size Horror based on a short story I wrote called Bloody Mary. Since it’s the right time of year you can see that below:
Happy Halloween! Be safe and have fun!
Filed under Andelon, blatant plug, comedy, creativity, directing, filmmaking, Fun Size Horror, fun video friday, Halloween, scary movies, videos, YouTube
You may remember that last year Rene and I were involved in the Fun Size Horror project, a series of 31 horror shorts that were released the week of Halloween. Rene and I were directly involved in the production of two of them: Bloody Mary, which featured Rene and our niece Katie, and Home which starred Rene and our friend Matt Conde. After the release embargo was over I released Bloody Mary right away – but I thought that I had lost the final file for Home!
During a massive file transfer to my backup drives I found it, and posted it on YouTube for all to see! So please watch and enjoy Home:
Filed under Andelon, blatant plug, Fun Size Horror, Halloween, Home, horror, making movies, movies, projects, scary movies, shameless self promotion, short film, video, videos, YouTube
Early in the year Rene and I were invited to participate in a secret music video shoot.
It was for a new television show whose first season was just ending.
The video was for the special features on the DVD.
We were sworn to secrecy…
Above – an image of our costumes for the shoot.
Below- the video itself.
Side note: This is the only thing in history where I purposely have facial hair and might be the only thing that ever does.
Also, my wife’s dance moves are pretty slick.
And yes, that’s her in bed with Matt McGorry.
And I was in the room… watching.
Special shout out to director Charlie Visnic for including us!
Here’s the video:
Filed under acting, actor stuff, fun video friday, news, performing, television, TV, video, videos, YouTube
This weekend ends my run as Brian in Avenue Q at The Maverick Theater. There are four more performances:
For tickets dial (714) 526-7070 or visit the Online Box Office.
It has been a lot of fun doing a musical again and getting to play with a very talented cast. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a real musical. The last thing I sang in was the Christmas show last year, but those were holiday standards. It’s easy to forget that Broadway musicals actually have some very complicated harmonies! Nothing makes you realize how out of shape your voice is then pushing out tenor notes you haven’t had to reach since you were in your twenties. I don’t know if I’ll be hired for any national tours any time soon, but it’s been great getting back into swing of things.
While we were rehearsing we shot a series of promo videos to help advertise, I’m sure you’ve seen the one of me if you follow my Twitter feed or are a friend/fan on Facebook. In case you haven’t, here are all of the promos in one spot!
Filed under acting, actor stuff, puppets, shameless self promotion, theater, videos, YouTube
Back in February we held our first Andelon Discussion video roundtable. I got together my oldest friends, who all happen to have varied and diverse careers, and we talked about being creative. It was a really good discussion, if I do say so myself. We covered a lot in an hour.
Admittedly, we did have a few technical troubles (namely the sound for the first 10 minutes) and an hour can be a long time to ask people to watch on the internet, so I edited together what I feel are the best 13 minutes of our discussion that will hopefully help to inspire the creativity in your life.
I want to thank Dan, Dean, Jeff and Scott for participating. If you want to learn more about them see their links below. Also, Jeff wasn’t wrong, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield is amazing! I’ve provided a purchase link down below.
Scott Sanford – IT specialist for the financial industry.
Dean Ethington – Graphic Designer and web developer for Oakley.
Dan Zarzana – Manager at an entertainment payroll company.
Jeff Garvin – Author and musician.
What do you think about being creative? Did anything the panel said strike a chord with you? Let me know in the comments.
A friend once said, “You know a good song when you can play it on an acoustic guitar around a bon fire and it still sounds good.” I subscribe to that idea and would expand it to say that a good song can survive new arrangements in new styles as well. The folks over at Post Modern Jukebox are regularly doing this with popular songs. I’m not the first to find PMJ (as the kids call them), they’ve been posting great versions of pop tunes for years and they appear regularly in pop culture and geek blogs. In fact they are going on tour! I’m not getting paid to bring that up, I just like in supporting cool creative things.
Back to the song…
Permission to Land was my favorite album of 2003… and 2004… and most of 2005 and ’06. It’s a solid, fun, driven rock album and was the perfect anthem for my late 20’s. “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” is a song I still love to listen too even though I’ve heard it thousands of times. The New Orleans version below gives it a different kind of energy that still fits the spirit of the song and it never hurts to have a strong female voice driving a song.
And here’s the original:
What are some of your favorite tunes? Pop some links in the comments.
See you next time!
Is TBS Speeding Up Seinfeld?
I was cruising around Reddit the other day, just burning some screen time, when I stumbled on this little tidbit:
According to this post TBS airs reruns of Seinfeld faster than the shows were originally broadcast to gain extra ad-time to sell. This notion isn’t new, radio stations have been speeding up songs for years to help cut run times, but I haven’t ever heard of it for television. If it’s true (and in the link it does say that it was reported by CBS news on 2/20/2015) then I’m not surprised. The changing ecosystem for television has seen a drop in ad revenue as audiences have found new ways to consume the shows that they like. Since they can’t charge the same for the current air time they have it makes sense to try and create more of that air time.
The way networks used to do this is by cutting actual run time – the shows would actually have additional cuts made to remove a minute or so that could then be sold for commercials. This used to bother me a lot, especially when I was a kid. I’d specifically remember something in an episode and then in syndication it wouldn’t be there. When I finally did find out that the shows were getting trimmed it was relieving, but also still sucked because the shows was shorter.
An example of this is an episode of Diff’rent Strokes called “A Haunting We Will Go.” It was the Ghostbusters episode where Arnold and Sam think the house down the street is haunted. It looked like this:
At the end of the episode they find out that the ghost is fake and that the man who supposedly died in the house was an inventor who faked his death. More HERE including the whole episode. In the episode, when the ghostly things would begin, the doors to the parlor would slam shut. Once everything has been resolved at the end they all go for ice cream and walk out with the parlor doors doing one final “slam!” When I was a kid I was convinced that this meant that the house really was haunted and that the door was open for more spooky business. Problem was, when I watched the reruns that last slam was always cut out. I started to think that it was cut because it was too scary and then that I was imagining it completely. Many years later I got confirmation that I had remembered it correctly when I finally saw the complete episode again.
If TBS is only speeding up the episodes then it might not be that bad. You’ll see in the video below it’s hardly noticeable. But if they’re speeding up and trimming…? Well let’s hope there’s still enough episode to watch.
What do you think about this? Fair game in a declining market? Total greed from corporate overlords? Let me know in the comments.
See you next time.
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March 2, 2015 · 8:00 am