Steve translates via phone, while Blaine phones it in...
 So we obviously shot this episode (March 31, 2006: "EIFFEL TOWER") in front of a blue screen...this is the third time we've used it..first, in the Action88 News episode, and again on Wednesday for Blaine's insert in the Solar Eclipse episode. As I mentioned before, I simply bought this blue patio/outdoor fabric from this store on LaBrea for 40 bucks. I wasn't 100% happy with the way the blue screen turned out in this episode. It's totally fine, don't get me wrong...but not as sharp as the previous two, so I wanted to use some smoke and mirrors to make it a little better... #1. I converted everything to black and white, which not only made the blue screen work better, but also gave it this vintage Parisian feel...  #2. I called a college buddy of mine in New York City, Steve, to do some French voiceover for us around Noon. First of all, I didn't realize just how fluent and proficient he was in the language. By adding Steve's voiceover, in addition to the subtitles, we take away from the blue screen a little more and puts us, the viewer, right in Paris (I think!?!). We see the tower, Rachel's beret, and of course - hear the language. I originally did a first pass translation script for Steve through the Internet, but it wasn't that good...I emailed Steve the English script and he took a few minutes out of his day in his hoity-toity NYC law firm to work with me. I have this account with an audioblogging company that allows me to record a post via telephone, and it automatically uploads it to the Web. I used it during my travels in India last year. Steve and I called the number on conference to do the voiceover session. Here's the raw MP3 file of one of the calls with Steve...we ended up doing it three times...this is probably the second one...  Voiceover Session with Steve.mp3OK, and Blaine...another story...First, I gotta give it to him for basically being home around 9:20 every night to do this thing. I'm so fine with him not being on camera every night...after all, I think our audience appreciates that we're real people behind this thing!....So I call him around 8:30 to see where he is (as I always do around that time every night)...no answer. OK, no prob. 9:00, no answer...9:30, nothin...I figure I'll grab a bite at McDonald's and take a break; he should be done by then. After my #5 (Big n Tasty w/Coke as mentioned in another post), Blaine gives me a ring from his friend's place at Sepulveda and Sunset. I ain't shleppin' out there at 10:30; I have a meeting first thing in the morning plus I have to put the finishing touches on the episode. SO, we used the same audiblogging service and record his voice from there. I mocked up a little Charles de Gaulle airport sign via Photoshop and there ya go...look closely at the sign, it says "Charles de Gaulle Airport & Tanning". Hardee har har. Here's the raw MP3 file of my call with Blaine; we did a few different takes and approaches: Voiceover Session with Blaine.mp3Oh yeah, one more thing. After we discussed it, Steve ended up saying in his voiceover "email, text message or Minitel your answer by 9 PM Pacific Standard Time..." The Minitel is actually a pre-Internet service that was used throughout France back in the day...here's some info from Wikipedia: "The Minitel is a Videotex online service accessible through the telephone lines, and is considered one of the world's most successful pre-World Wide Web online services. It was launched in France in 1982 by the PTT (Poste, Téléphone et Télécommunications; divided since 1991 between France Télécom and La Poste). Since its early days, users could make online purchases, make train reservations, check stock prices, search the telephone directory, and chat in a similar way to that now made possible by the Internet." This image of a Minitel machine is also credited via Wikipedia...  Fun day, lots of last minute changes - but that's what this is all about. No layers, no higher ups, no deliberation...just doing and moving forward...and that's why I'm doin' this. Tomorrow's outtakes and bloopers are starting to shape up...I left the end of the Eiffel Tower episode run long to tease tomorrow... That's it! I have to remember to return that beret, don't let me forget. Thank you all for a great week, especially our guest hosts Ty Paddington from ShowbizNewsyNews.com, the LA Rebellion Rugby Club, and astronomer Dr. Robert Hurt...and Steve, our French voiceover...and of course, Blaine and Rachel. We apprciate your 60 seconds with us, daily. Noah
Blaine's View
 This is what Blaine sees as he's looking at me behind the camera every night... Two china balls from Ikea, an existing 3 bulb light stand, a desk lamp....mirror in the background there...records behind him. These go up, Blaine records the correct entry, and then go down - all in about 15 minutes... I told you we'd go behind the slide in this blog. Coming up soon, my colonoscopy video. NB
Special Guest: Ty Paddington from ShowbizNewsyNews.com
 Today we're joined by Ty Paddington of Showbiz Newsy News. Ty usually has a filthy mouth, (which is why I approached him), but I asked him to tone it down for just one episode. Maybe we'll see his other side in the bloopers? Check Ty and his pals out at zipperfish.com and showbiznewsynews.com...
If you didn't know it, there's a rare solar eclipse tomorrow. We're joining astronomer Dr. Robert Hurt on another 60 second episode of 88SLIDE. 
This is the answer breakdown from Monday...  We got a lot of new entries yesterday from various IGRAB members, the International Gay Rugby Association and Board. Welcome to our growing family!
Today: Gay Rugby, Tomorrow: Special Guest, Entertainment Reporter Ty Paddington
 Today we met up with some members of the Los Angeles Rebellion, Southern California's first gay rugby club. The episode didn't take too long to shoot. We arranged to meet a few players before their 10 AM practice on today (Sunday)...shot the intro with two members, did Rachel's thing, and came back for some b-roll. Stopped at McDonalds on the way out...Big n' Tasty #5, yo The timing worked out that Blaine was home when we passed by his place. This marks the first time Rachel and Blaine have been in the same shot together. In this one take, Rachel must have still had the rugby bug as she almost tackled Blaine on her entrance...very funny, you'll see it in this weekend's outtakes and bloopers.  Speaking of, we had our highest "Outtakes & Bloopers" view number via YouTube this past weekend! Tomorrow we have a very special guest...  Entertainment reporter Ty Paddington joins us tomorrow as we celebrate a very special day in television history... That's about it - we're pretty excited for this week. Remember, the audio and video are even better if you subscribve via iTunes. It's free and you don't need an ipod. Click on VIDEO PODCAST on our site. Oh yeah, we've also updated our archives. While BLIP.TV and everyone at at BLIP has been awesome, I simply wanted to keep the archives on our server, but we're going to continue placing a copy with them...its a win-win... I spelled the world STRICTLY wrong in the daily email and it's eatin' at me. I hate that! Aights...I'm off to bed...here's a sneek peek on what's coming up: TOMORROW: Special Guest Entertainment Reporter Ty Paddington WEDNESDAY: Solar Eclipse with Guest Astronomer Dr. Robert Hurt THURSDAY: Van Gogh's Birthday FRIDAY: We're going to France, sort of... SATURDAY/SUNDAY: This week's outtakes and bloopers! It'll be HI-LARIOUS! Here's to a great week...send us an email with any questions or comments via the CONTACT US part of the site... Later. Thanks Blaine.
This past week...
I know, I know...haven't posted in a few days... Let's talk about what happened this past week...  Monday, LA Marathon - great episode, lots of energy...got lots of great feedback about it...Notice the yellow police tape we used for the finish line. Make sure to catch Rachel chasing her dog around in this weekend's OUTTAKES episode.  Tuesday we headed up to Laurel Canyon and found a road less traveled for World Poetry Day. For Blaine's insert, he first had a little rap - which then turned into a poem. The rap was a little too Ali G...I thought his poem was touching. The back end of this episode was shot about 50 feet from the fence in the front end. The episode also debuts Rachel's new glasses. She told me over the phone, "I got new glasses, they're red" - I thought "great, just what we needed, a young Sally Jesse Raphael hosting this thing." I like 'em though...Blaine pops his head up after the poem all proud...very funny.  Wednesday - Dylan Goes Electric...a little mid-episode wardrobe change, how 'bout that, huh? The guitar was on loan from Baba. Rachel strummed a few ditties between takes. I really like the graffiti backdrop on the backend, especially with Rachel's wardrobe in this episode. Kudos to Louis, our Art Director. I thought Blaine did a great Dylan impersonation...he got the eyes down right. At first I thought imitating Dylan was too much like imitating DeNiro or Nicholson (generic comedy), but why the hell not. He did a good job with it.  Thursday - wow, one of my favorites....took a lot of time to do the graphics and blue screen. We actually shot this outside as the sun was going down...we raced right though it, and I had no idea if it was going to work. I bought the blue screen at a fabric store on LaBrea...they wanted like 3x as much at the production/studio store...35 bucks I'm out the door at the fabric store. That's actually Louis BEHIND the screen holding it taught as to not blow in the wind. I wasn't planning on putting Blaine "High in the Sky" until the last minute, I was going to have him anchor from his DJ stand. I love how a) Blaine's audio is much louder and muffled, and b) he talks real fast like a real traffic guy. How cheesy is the music? Classic. We got a lot of great feedback on this one too...Looks like the NEWCASTLE choice as an answer threw a lot of people off and guessed England. The correct answer was AUSTRALIA. The stock footage behind Rachel is from a public domain site that has tons of interesting stuff for free. I bookmarked the site and will definitely be visiting again soon...lots of funny old US public service campaigns in the public domain...  Friday - Houdini! We did this down on some train tracks...Rachel wasn't really tied up all that much, but I was a worried nut that a train would come. I said to Louis, "if we even hear a train approaching, I'll grab her arms and you grab her legs and just get her off that track as soon as possible." No train approached. There were these guard dogs on the property next to where we shot. I kept saying "don't look at'em in the eye, don't look at'em in the eye." They hadn't been fed or washed or shown attention in years. We shot a few ending for the THANKS BLAINE part. One had Rachel twitching her nose and disappearing, but I decided on the quarter in the ear, perhaps one of the most classic magic tricks out there, haha... Its Friday afternoon right now and I'm editing the outtakes and bloopers from this past week. Rachel fell over quite a few times this week. We'll show you what the blue screen really looked like, and of course - lots of flubbed lines. I'm both the Dick Clark AND Ed McMahon of the podcast blooper world. I want to release one episode of a THANKS BLAINE stringout...actually, maybe we can make a music video out of it one day. I'll sleep on it. P.S. Was finally able to get out last night after posting the episode...headed to The Little Bar on LaBrea to enjoy a midnight beer!
LA Marathon & Coming Up This Week
 Today we're (sort of) running the LA Marathon. We headed down to Rossmore and 3rd in Hancock Park, not exactly sure of the mile marker...but like every year, they're such positive spirits along the marathon route. Everyone is out cheering, helping people, encouraging...lots of good energy. We saw this one guy, who wasn't running the marathon - just standing amongst hordes of runners...talking BS about movie production, scripts, etc...classic LA scene. Josh Nassar is a very funny stand-up comedian who plays the part of Narcoleptic Long Island Marathon Runner Guy. We kept shpritzing both Josh and Rachel down for these various takes. We have a lot of great episodes planned for this week... TUESDAY: World Poetry Day WEDNESDAY: Talkin' Dylan THURSDAY: Meteorology Day (With Special Effects!) FRIDAY: Harry Houdini's Birthday SATURDAY: Outakes & Bloopers from this week! Few random things: Quite a few people subscribed to our FREE video podcast through iTunes this weekend. You'll see AND hear 88SLIDE with better video and audio via this M4V format. Click here to subscribe, no signup required!
YouTube Features 88SLIDE
 Today was our biggest day, by far... Around 6 PM PST, I noticed a slew of answers pouring in...replied to one entrant and asked where they heard about us, and he replied back via YouTube... YouTube featured us right on their homepage, how 'bout that? From there, the numbers kept goin' up and up and up...we finished the day in the Top 100 just from this one episode. Psyched. To those of you joining our growing community via YouTube, welcome. Join us as we develop this alternative media experience into something bigger each day. Our mission is to entertain, interact and enlighten you, daily, in 60 seconds. Feel free to hit us up via the CONTACT PAGE at http://www.88slide.com. Also, if you're just joining us - you can subscribe to our free video podcast via the iTunes Music Store. You can subscribe via http://www.88slide.com as well... Today we're honoring Caesar's death and the Ides of March.  I have to give Rachel credit for wearing this toga in what was a pretty cold day in LA! Her jaw was freezing up...lots of good stuff for Saturday's outtakes episode...Nice!  We thought it would be funny for Rachel to walk down a crowded street for the backend of this episode. If you notice in the episode, she's walking her dog...Rachel, you're a good, er - GREAT sport. Blaine is funny as the blind seer/soothsayer/whatever from Shakespeare in this ep...The fog was done digitally...  Solid episode.  Tomorrow we'll be joined by Rane, and we'll be treated to some sitar music... Friday: St. Patrick's Day Saturday & Sunday: Outtakes & Bloopers Thanks Blaine, NB
More Prizes! Choose 1 of 18 Gift Certificates!
I alsmot forgot to mention that we're testing out some new prizes this week... Started to think that not everyone is motivated by iTunes. Hey, some people just grab their music from Kazaa, and many more might not even use the computer for music. I dunno, we're just experimenting...BUT, who doesn't want a movie ticket or gift certificate to Ponderosa Steakhouse!?! F Yeah!!! This week, the randomly selected correct entry will have the opportunity to choose a gift certificate to one of these eighteen stores, restaurants or movie theaters...  
Outtakes, Slivercasting, Pow Wow, This Week
  Today we're visiting the 36th Annual American Indian Pow Wow at Cal State Long Beach. The group there was very cool to let us stop by. I'd never been to a Pow Wow before...The event was originally scheduled for two days, but was cut short one day because of the rain. We were in a huge rush because Rachel had a modeling gig up in Culver City in the early afternoon, so no deer taco for me. Oh well, next time. I accidently left the headphones at 88SLIDE HQ for this one. I know, it sucked. You want to know a secret? What the hell, in the spirit of this behind-the-scenes blog....The audio from the drum circle was pretty loud (as you can imagine), and I could have used the audio from the original footage. All of Rachel's audio though, was RE-RECORDED. Basically, I cut the episode and threw it onto my video iPod...met up with Rachel with a script of what she said in the piece, and had her RE-RECORD the audio back into the camcorder while watching the video iPod. Then, I brought the footage BACK to my place, digitized it, and synched it up. It was worth it. Again, I could have gotten away with the original audio, but you all deserve more. I'm telling you this because I want you to see what really goes on in the production of these episodes...  We got a lot of great feedback from this weekend's outtakes. Peep the archives to catch last week's outtakes if you missed them. Shot some more footage yesterday, have lots of stories to tell which I'll break up into their respective days... The New York Times had an interesting story on "slivercasting," which isn't EXACTLY what we're doing with 88SLIDE, but somewhat applicable. You can check the article here with a NYT.com password: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/business/yourmoney/12sliver.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Tomorrow is National Pi Day, like the number. We'll be joined by special guest star "Mathemagician" Dr. Arthur Benjamin from Harvey Mudd College. I'll simply leave you with a picture, although this one doesn't show his "numberbund" - you'll see it tomorrow though...  COMING UP THIS WEEK ON 88SLIDE: TOMORROW: National Pi Day, Guest Host: "Mathemagician" Dr. Arthur Benjamin WEDNESDAY: Ides of March & Caesar's Death, Oooo! THURSDAY: Rane Plays the Sitar! FRIDAY: St. Patrick's Day! SATURDAY & SUNDAY: This week's OUTTAKES & BLOOPERS! Later, NB
Cheese Store of Silverlake
 Today we're visiting the Cheese Store of Silverlake... I'm not even sure what gave me the idea to explore cheese, but I called up the owner and asked if we could do an episode there. He was cutting up some prosciutto when I got there.  Not too much to report from the behind the scenes on this one. The owner let us come in 30 minutes before he opened, so we sort of hustled during production. Rachel had to eat a few samples for the last shot... Again, lots of great feedback from today's episode with Elvis Poultry. I actually got an email from him today. He wrote, "I'm still trying to get over the fact that a hot girl said my name!" Haha...If your'e reading, thanks again Elvis Poultry. Tomorrow: OUTTAKES & BLOOPERS! NB
Elvis Poultry
 Elvis Poultry, great guy... We have a lot of great outtakes for this Saturday. When we originally taped Rachel's intro and backend, the noise from the helicopters circling the Academy Awards bled into the mic...we didn't realize it then...so she stopped by today to redo it...the intro is on my roof, and the backend on the street (obviously). We had to keep stopping and moving out of the street like when I (didn't) used to play sports in the neighborhood. I put up a "press release" (2 lines) at PodcastingNews.com about today's "guest star." I'm all official and stuff, like an NBC PR exec - "88SLIDE is pleased to announce the guest starring role of Elvis Poultry..." Haha, who knows - worth putting it up for some more traffic... Oh yeah, I was interviewed by "The Podcast Brothers" show today - took about 5 minutes, to be chopped into 1 or 2...gave some plugs, touted our interactivity, spewed rhetoric...FUN! Got a lot of great feedback on the boxing episode. I mentioned this before, but Rachel has great energy and Blaine is hysterical in this one. If you missed it, peep the archives. What a 1-2 combo. Had a slice of pepperoni and plain over at Larchmont Pizza (Village Pizzeria) today, so good...  Tomorrow, we're going cheese tasting over in Silverlake, as we visit the Cheese Store of Silverlake...and of course, we'll have the outtakes and bloopers from this week up on Saturday... Thanks Blaine. NB
Trivia Challenge Knockout
 Love this episode, the energy... Couple things... First, thanks to our new pal Terry up at Boxing on the Boulevard...You wanna learn to box and get into the best shape of your life? Give Terry a call if you're in Southern California and he'll take care of ya... check it out at http://www.boxingontheboulevard.com I'm not just saying this b/c Terry was cool enough to let us work with him; not just a plug...he's cool and the gym is nice and small...  Next...how funny is it when Rachel wipes her boogerschnott with her gloves right before the reveal of the correct answer?  Now Blaine? I grabbed a few items from my place before heading over...the bathrobe, red towel, yoga straps that we wrapped around his hands, and the medallion...I brought some band-aids and we put them on, but it looked sort of weird...we're gettin' into the spirit with the props and stuff...good times...his apartment is losing the odor from the water tank burst mentioned in a post below... Still getting a lot of traffic from both PodGuide.TV and PodcastingNews... The Podcast Brothers interview is actually tomorrow morning, where I'll be speaking about the unique interactive elements of this property...Uh, what else... Speaking of Joe Frazier (from todays' episode), I actually worked with him one day on the set of The Next Great Champ. He's a trip, but it was Larry Holmes that was a real riot. As a joke, the Executive Producer gave me a copy of Larry Holme's autobiography with a fake signature from him....very funny JL... I guess we do have two guests this week...Boxing instructor Terry, and tomorrow's guest, Elvis Poultry. Again, a pleasure to work with. Aightski, gonna upload to Blip.TV and YouTube for the archives and call it a night... NB
88SLIDE FM
 Today we're celebrating a very special milestone in FM radio history. I somehow managed to sneak in two, actually three of my collectibles into this episode. Two are vintage SONY radios that Rachel is tuning during the episode...the other is a piece from the vintage Howard Stern collection...the prop microphone that Blaine is speaking into is actually a working FM radio that was given away as part of the Private Parts promotion... Blaine's energy is great in this episode. Did I mention the water tank above his fridge busted the other night? He called me in a panic, and all I could think about was running over to his place to re-record his insert with the water gushing all over the place...it would've been classic! Here's a screen shot of what's coming up on Wednesday...we visited a boxing gym right smack in Hollywood...  Tomorrow I'm being interviewed on the "Podcast Brothers" weekly show on the business side of podcasting and portable audio and video. We're gonna talk about the unique interactivity of 88SLIDE. I've mentioned this before, but the 88SLIDE format has an inherent viewership cycle of our community watching, submitting their answers, checking back the next day for the correct response/winner, wacthing again, submitting their answers, etc... What else?... Rachel stopped by to re-record one short line in today's episode. Can you spot it? Listen carefully. NB
88SLIDE, One Month Anniversary
Today is a very special day for 88SLIDE. It was exactly one month ago today that we went live, with a mission to entertain, interact, and enlighten you in 60 seconds, daily. First, big shout out to LD who created some great Web site improvements. A few members of our growing community mentioned that it would be nice for the site to remember their name, city, state and answer - so they can simply return each day and answer the question. You'll notice some other niceties on the site as well...LD, if you're reading - thank you! He also convinced me to switch to PHP, and I'm very excited about the potential of what we can do now! Our first Monthly Newsletter went out today. If you haven't seen today's episode, there's a very special surprise in there...I won't spoil it here... We have a lot planned for this week...Monday is our anniversary special, Tuesday we'll explore the airwaves, Wednesday we're getting into the ring, Thursday we have a special guest, and Friday is our cheese extravaganza. Here's a screenshot of one of our upcoming guests, Elvis Poultry...  We're getting a ton of video podcast traffic from PodGuide.TV and PodcastingNews.com, both of which gave us some great reviews: "Very refreshing when someone tries to do something so different." - PodGuide.TV "The [88SLIDE] podcast follows a tight formula." - PodcastingNews.com We're still getting a lot of traffic from Scoble's mention, in addition to people simply typing in "free video podcast" or "trivia podcast" into Google.  Oh yeah, re: Blaine not in front of his mega-record collection today...he ended up watching the Oscars at his parent's house and decided to spend the night there as he has to be at work super early tomorrow...SO, I jumped in the car and shlepped to the West side at 9pm to tape that in his parent's (new) kitchen. We're starting to think of some fun things we can do with Blaine's insert...keep checkin' out 88SLIDE to see where it goes. We appreciate your 60 seconds with us, daily. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement over the last 30 days. I promise, promise - this is just the beginning... NB
So much to catch up on...
Been working round the clock...got some wonderful press which basically brought our servers to a grinding halt...hosted the main video on Blip.TV for a few hours, and then things seemed to fix itself...was on the phone with the service provider for a while today... Speaking of press, some interview/photo requests are coming in from various outlets - some bigger than others...nevertheless, very encouraging... Redesigned the daily email template, and planning a bigger email on Monday to coincide with our one month anniversary.... On top of that, I'm hustlin' up some great places for next week....we'll be joined (hopefully) by more than one special guest... Outtakes and bloopers are up for the week, and I'm very happy with the new daily email template...I got a few comments about the yellow on black text from before, and while we still have the black background, its much more concise...you can subscribe on the site by clicking on EMAIL UPDATES.... Will catch up more tomorrow...LD is coming over to help with some Web site functionality that will make my life a lot easier... Goodnight. Will fix any typos tomorrow...
Iku Annunaki
 We had a lot of fun with our first guest appearance. Iku is a standup guy, a pleasure to work with - very professional. I love the last scene where Iku and Rachel are ready for liftoff. We have some funny moments I'm saving for Saturday's OUTTAKES & BLOOPERS episode. I asked Blaine if he wanted to wear Iku's purple robe, and he's like "no way." (It's his robe, not mine) Blaine threw on my sweatshirt to appease me, and then I threw on the distorted filter. Blaine doesn't know I was planning on doing that, but I'm sure he'll be fine with it. He's all robotic during the name insert, very funny. I definitely look forward to working with Iku again. Uh, Friday - we're upping the ante just a bit...MONDAY though...we'll be celebrating a very special anniversary. Got to work on Saturday's episode tomorrow. We received quite a few new names/entries today, and a lot of hits from one podcast directory. Seems like a lot of these podcast directories are jockeying for position. Stop by tomorrow and submit your answers. It only takes a minute. - NB
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