I made a video of me singing the song One Day More from the hit musical Les Miserables. It’s entertaining. You should watch it.

http://youtu.be/NCEn_GENe90

I fell in love with the music when my summer school English teacher played it in class as a listening practice. The music was just so… epic! I had the pleasure of seeing it live back in 2003 (while it was still on a revolving stage!) and although my comprehension for English at that time wasn’t good enough yet to catch all the words, it was still a moving experience. It was also my first time seeing a live musical by a professional company (rather than my high school classmates) and what a great introduction!

Recently I watched the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert (multiple times) on PBS. What a massive production and many great singers in it (Alfie Boe, especially). And then when we started rehearsing for Puppet Jukebox, which required me to sing, I ended up using the Les Miserables soundtrack in my car as vocal warm-up (which is great for that purpose, by the way). For many weeks, every time I am driving, I am singing Les Miserables. I got almost the entire thing memorized by now.

So when Center Theatre Group announced that they were having a Les Miz Obsessed video contest for Les Miserables tickets, I thought, “Obsessed? That’s me! I should totally make a video! With puppets!” So that’s how the video came to be.

What surprised me was that the video reached 1000 views within the first day. That left me a little puzzled. I was wondering whether it got digged or stumbled. And people started mentioning Matt Lucas in the comments, which left me scratching my head. Finally I figured it out. It turned out that Matt Lucas, who was Thenardier for the 25th anniversary concert and will reprise the role at West End from June 23 to September 10, actually tweeted my video!

Whoa, definitely didn’t see that one coming! Matt Lucas approves. That made me really happy!

Oh yeah, before I forget, if you enjoyed the video, please take a few seconds to vote for my video to win those tickets! You can vote for it once every 24 hours on Facebook:

http://apps.facebook.com/contestshq/contests/124981/voteable_entries

Or if you prefer not to sign into Facebook for these things, you can just use this link:

http://wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/124981/voteable_entries

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I got an iPad.

I bought it either because I had fun trying one at Best Buy, or because I am an iPhone app developer and need one for work purposes. It was probably a little of both, but anyway, I ordered one and got it in the mail last week. So, I proceeded to open it. But after I opened the outside packaging, I thought, wait, I should make one of those unboxing videos, like what you see many people unboxing the iPhone, XBox, Wii, etc. on Youtube. But my will have a puppet in it, of course! So here we go:

About the device

So, did I like the iPad? Yes, I love it. Even though so far I’ve mostly just used it to browse the web and watch videos (something that I normally do on my computer), somehow using a touch screen to do so is quite an enjoyable experience for me. The battery life is excellent. I got it on Monday and did not charge it at all until Thursday night. Of course, when I was watching videos instead of just browsing the web, the batteries would not last as long, but I could still go without charging it for the whole day. Compared this to my laptop that would only last less than two hours or so, that was pretty good and freed me from being close to an outlet. Also, it stays cool instead of heating up like my laptop, so I appreciate that as well. It is a little heavier than I thought, but is still significantly lighter than my laptop. Therefore I prefer using the iPad when I am in a situation in which I don’t have a desk in front of me.

Now, the downside. There is no multi-tasking so I will need to quit one app if I want to start another app. However, if the app is well designed, it will save its state before it exits so you can resume from where you left off. I mostly just use the web browser anyway. It just means that I won’t be checking my IM or Twitter all the time. I guess it also make you focus more on one thing instead of going back and forth. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a different mentality. Also it doesn’t support Flash. It means I will have to wait till I get back on a regular computer if I really want to see that content. As a computer programmer, I believe it’s a good trade-off. It makes the whole device more stable and keeps the battery from draining. The Youtube videos still work anyway, because they have their own dedicated app, and have recently switched to HTML5 for the mobile version, which is supported on iOS devices anyway.

So, overall, it’s pretty nice, but is still a luxury item, in my opinion. At this point, it cannot completely replace your regular computer, but maybe it was not meant to anyway.

About the video

I actually already cut the outside FedEx box open before I made the video, so I just taped it back. My camera isn’t high def, so you can’t tell anyway unless I tell you, which I just did. What you might be able to tell, if you are really observant, is that some parts of the video are fast-forwarded because the puppet hands are really clumsy at doing things. To remove the plastic from the box, I had already cut a slit on the back (hidden from view) so it’s easier to tear. I actually struggled to remove the plastic from the actual iPad, so you saw me bring it to the side of the screen. What I was actually doing was taking one hand out of the puppet so I could actually peel it. Of course, this was fast-forwarded because it took me a while. (I think that particular part was playing at 13x normal speed.) For the introduction where I had the puppet talking, I actually did several takes, but for the actual unboxing, I knew that I could only do one take (or make it an excuse to buy another one? Hm). That was interesting in trying to get everything right in one try.

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And… here’s the new video! I built four new puppets for this project, so together with the old ones, there are 8 total in this video. This is a music video that I made in January to enter the Brad Paisley’s “Start A Band” green screen contest (which I didn’t win, but whatever, enjoy! )

If you can’t see the embedded video, click here to see it on YouTube.

The premise of the contest was that they provided the green screen footages of Brad Paisley singing the song, and you can use the footages in your video any way you like. I was glad that I participated, because I’ve always wanted to try these things:

1. make a music video
2. purchase and learn to use a sewing machine
3. build more new puppets
4. build puppets that are humans (as opposed to “monsters” and animals)
5. build puppets that have shoulders made out of foam and cloth them
6. build puppets with hair made out of yarn
7. try out new lighting set-up
8. enter a contest
9. overlay several different green screen shots

And somehow making this video has all those elements! Of course, that’s also because I consciously attempt to try out a new technique every time I make a new video, but so many of them at once? That hasn’t happened before. So yeah, it was definitely a good experience. And I hope you all have as much fun watching it as I have making it!

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In this episode, Bottle Monster can not decide between Barack Obama and John McCain. And that’s when he discovers another candidate – Chet.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch Chet for President on Youtube.
Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (29MB)
mov format (10MB)

Now, why would I release a video on election day when everyone is watching news coverage of the election turn-out? Good question, I don’t intend to answer it.

Is Chet a character that I’ve recently created? The answer is no. Chet and these other characters in the Chet 2008 campaign ad are part of the Bubbleboy Films, which is another online series of puppet videos. It’s created by Paul Hokanson and is my favorite online puppet series at the moment. I’m a big fan, so thank you, Paul, for letting me use your footages. To see more of Chet and his friends, check out Bubbleboy Films. I’ll probably write more about it later.

Update: Yes, I just voted.

The background music is Eternal Hope by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Previous episodes:
Episode 16: Insomnia
Episode 15: Godfather Nightmares
Episode 14: Tofu

To subscribe:
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About damn time for me to release a new episode, eh?

In this episode, Mac and Cheese is having a hard time falling asleep. Bottle Monster suggests sheep-counting as possible remedy. And then… I think it would be more fun to watch the video and find out for yourself instead of having me tell you.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch Insomnia on Youtube.
Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (22MB)
mov format (7MB)

I actually got the idea for this episode when I was sort of dozing off. Also, filming this one made me realized something: it’s probably a good idea to get a small TV to use as a monitor. See, with the bed scenes, I was operating one puppet on each hand. And that can get pretty awkward already… especially when Mac and Cheese was in bed and Bottle Monster was supposed to be on the side. AND I had to twist my back and neck just enough so that I could actually see the camera’s tiny LCD screen. Since I like to find the easy way out, I think I should probably get a monitor so I don’t have to look at that small screen. Heck, it’s easier than becoming a contortionist!

In case you are wondering what’s that book Bottle Monster was reading, it’s Marisa Haedike‘s What Are You Going to Be Today, Olive?

The tracks used are Earnest and Hamster March, both by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

PS. What’s a little odd is, the video and audio are slightly off in the two downloadable files. But when I uploaded the file to Youtube, it seems to be free of that problem. Weird.

Previous episodes:
Episode 15: Godfather Nightmares
Episode 14: Tofu
Epiodse 13: Tis the Season to be Charlie

To subscribe:
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By email
And you can also find all the episodes on iTunes!

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In this episode, Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster talk about the strange nightmares they have after watching the horsehead scene from The Godfather. If you don’t know what that scene looks like, you can look it up, but I will not be held responsible for any of your nightmares.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch Godfather Nightmares on Youtube.
Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (23MB)
mov format (7MB)

The tracks used are Serpentine Trek and Mystery!, both by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

By the way, Kevin made a bunch of holiday sing-alongs. You can download them at his website Incompetech.

PS. I actually had some problems with YouTube this time. I normally upload the m4v version, which is 23MB in this case and takes a few minutes to upload. However, when I upload this file onto Youtube, the video and audio became all out of synch for some reason. So I uploaded the DV file, which is 422MB (!!) and took a few hours to upload. The video did come out better though, so I might do that again for future epiodes. I don’t like the black bars at the top and bottom though…

Some Links:
Episode 14: Tofu
Epiodse 13: Tis the Season to be Charlie
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