What have I gotten myself into?

Hey, been having some technical troubles, so haven't been blogging much this week. (I am on Twitter now, though...) And as one technical issue involved me having to restore my computer to factory settings, I have to re-install all of my video software. Well, not exactly all... But most!

But, anyways, today I got a package from Sam Milazzo for the Wonders special episode about the Land of Oz itself. Not only was there a video disc, but there's a printed version of the script Sam wrote himself. (Sam's calling this one "The Wonders of the Land of Oz.") It's been annotated by hand, and there's also about three other pages of notes describing each shot on the disc and how shots from previous footage I've received will work into it.

The funny thing about the disc is that while it does contain video, I'll be using it mainly for audio content. Sam wrote and narrated this whole episode by himself, but in lieu of a microphone (that will change... I'll see to that!), he filmed video, using book illustrations, liner notes, video clips, even colored illustrations Sam has photocopied and colored by hand.

However, that's very much a pre-visualization of how the episode should look in it's final form. The finished video will be completely different.

There's even a couple quotes from the Oz books, and Sam has his mum voice Glinda. There's also a line by the Shaggy Man, however, we have four takes of that dialogue, two of which we are happy with. One had Sam directing his father reading the line, while we also have a version read by Al Cook that we did during that Skype conference call. Sam says the choice is up to me which one to use, but I might be hard pressed here. Both performances are very good! (I've decided to put the unused version after the end credits of the final video, so in the end, people will hear both.) So does a Scot or an Aussie voice the Shaggy Man?

But above all, I'm floored by the work Sam's already done here! I can say without a doubt that Sam's got a future in this business...