Rudy Jahchan

Bumps In the Night - An Exorcise in Futility

Rudy Jahchan — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Over two months ago, I was whining to Jenni Powell how I didn’t get to collaborate anymore. So did the logical thing? Told me to shut up and invited me to guest-direct an episode of the horror-comedy show she produces called Bumps in the Night.

It was a great opportunity for me, as I hadn’t called the shots in over two years since we last produced Galacticast, and this would be only the second time I directed somebody else’s material (the first was an amazing screenplay that Matthew Balthrop wrote for us). I learned (and re-learned) many things along the way, which will make for great future posts.

I have so many people to thank for this episode:

Jenni Powell for inviting me in (hope she doesn’t regret it too much)
The writers and stars of Bumps; Emmet Furey, John Reha, and Greg Benevent. You constantly surprised and amazed me with your delivery. We have to work together again sometime.
Our guest stars April Billingsley and Daniel Weiss. Their patience and advice to this humble director was very much appreciated.
To editor Andrew Seeley; he was going to sit this one out as I rampaged through the editing, but came to our rescue when we needed him.
And finally, to my love, Casey McKinnon, not only for her cameo appearance(s), but for tolerating many super late nights of her frustrated guy focused on his computer instead of cuddling with her. You’re the best.

New Mediacracy Episode 13: The One About the IAWTV

Rudy Jahchan — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

I was lucky enough to sit among the many brilliant minds at this session of New Mediacracy. Chris McCaleb and I talked about why we love doing these, and it like verbal jazz sessions, where we all riff off of each others’ thoughts. I tried weakly comparing this episode to Led Zeppelin’s No Quarter. Yeah, I know, that’s quite a stretch.</p>

New Mediacracy Episode 13: The One About the IAWTV

It’s a lively one, and a bigger group than usual joins us on this episode, which we recorded immediately after the first Los Angeles meeting of the IAWTV which took place at the WGA. Tony Valenzuela, Casey McKinnon, Barrett Garese, Brett Register, and Rudy Jahchan join regulars Chris McCaleb, Zadi Diaz, and Steve Woolf to share their thoughts on the meeting and what it means for the future of the first organized member body dedicated to web video.

We spend some time talking about the Streamys, but a lot more time talking about the things we took away from the meeting and what the ramifications are for everyone invested in making web video a sustainable, progressive medium. Also, we drink wine and laugh a lot.

Most importantly, listen and leave a comment so we can get some outside feedback on the topics we discuss, such as the idea of the new gatekeepers, why we are trying so hard to replicate tv and film models, the vision of the IAWTV, and Chris McCaleb jumping out of planes.

Follow Friday

Rudy Jahchan — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

A Twitter tradition I have only vaguely dabbled in is Follow Friday; the way people dump the hash tag and a huge list of names turned me off. I like it when they take the time to explain WHY we should follow them. And I was simply to lazy to do it.

Until now.

Here are my five people below 10,000 followers (apart from my beautiful partner Casey McKinnon) I follow and why you should too:

CarbonFive - The great coding crew I work with. I love that I'm the stupidest person in the room, as I get to learn so much everyday, and so can you; we regularly post a lot of practical and innovative development tips, covering everything from Java and Rails, to the latest iP(whatever) tricks.
Eliza Bayne - The looks of Katherine Heigl with the comedic genius of Sarah Silverman, dear 'liza is quite the package of enterainment. Eliza has produced and starred in content of all formats and styles, but it's her twitter messages I love the most; each an injection of hilarity into my day.
Brett Register - the mad, overproductive creator of innumerable web shows. I follow him because he reminds me of myself four years ago (I am an internet dinosaur), except he is far more talented. I also hope that by doing so I can encourage him to twitter more.
Eric Mortensen - Watch him when he goes on a web video advice tear. Deeper words of wisdom you will never hear. All that, and he has remarkable taste in all cultural things. Cheers, my friend.
Taryn O'Neill - Taryn has been an inspiration personally not only with our mutual desire (and her successful accomplishment) of getting fit, but in the way she consistently, professionally, almost procedurally pursues acting work. One day, I hope I can supply her that work.

Photo courtesy of Shovelling Son.

How to Dismantle a Shia LaBomb

Rudy Jahchan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Above is the core of what I dub the Shia LaBomb. Notice the stylish use of crotch shots.

But the full Shia LaBouef is the above video playing as the DESKTOP BACKGROUND of its intended target MacOSX system. Yes, a terrible weapon, but these terrible times demand nothing less.

Assembling your own is easy, and I post them here for the sake of mutually assured destruction:

First, collect images from here
Then, use some long forgotten music.
Assemble the above with your favorite video editor into a loving montage of the man in question. I used iMovie.
1. Grab this freeware screen-saver that let’s you play movies.
2. Load the video in question.
3. Using Apple’s Script Editor, create an application using this code:

            tell application "System Events"
              if process "ScreenSaverEngine" exists then
                tell application "ScreenSaverEngine" to quit
              else
                do shell script "/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background > /dev/null 2>&1 &"
              end if
            end tell

1. You run it to turn on/off the currently selected screensaver. Run it to start the ball rolling and and voila, instant Shia LaBomb!

So what could bring me to develop such a monstrous creation? Well …

Last night, we had a last-minute get together with Tim Shey, his beautiful wife Rachel, and our friends (and leaders in the independent show producers field) Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf. Among the catch-up and laughs, Casey and my horrible seekrit came out.

We don’t like Shia LaBouef.

Actually only I don’t like him. Casey LOATHES him.

In my case, its nothing personal, and I respect he’s a working actor. I just want to see him move beyond frustrated joe reacting to shit that’s so much cooler than him. Not entirely his fault I realize but hey, I am pathetic enough to funnel my anger at a meaningless target.

When rumors emerged of Shia possibly starring in the adaptation of one of our favorite comic-book series, Y: The Last Man, it came with a shocking image. Probably photoshopped but who knows. For us Shia-haters, it’s just painful.

I joked with Casey that one day I would play the nasty trick of setting her desktop to that image. Well, that didn’t go over well, so she went for the preemptive strike.

Of course you realize this meant war.

I believe in shock and awe (but don’t ask me about a follow-up), so created the Shia LaBomb, and left it running on her laptop, enjoying her twittered reactions.

WARNING: It came at a terrible cost. For the rest of the day, images of Shia and how he wouldn’t never gonna let me down haunted me.

But it was worth it.

Review: The Black Diamond

Rudy Jahchan — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

A comicbook review! Bear with me, as this needs some set up.

For those who haven’t figured it out, I love me some comics. This is a constant for me; if I ever want to cheer up, get some brain candy, I hit up a few stores and grab some pages of “4 color” fantasy.

My other pop culture tastes are always in flux. Sure I will always love westerns, zombies, iconic heroes, deep space, etc. But I usually obsess over a single genre for weeks on end, with a white hot flame of curiosity until it burns itself out. Otaku am I.

Currently, that obsession is cars. Partly due to our LA move. With no wheels of our own, and in a city where they are a necessary part of life, the hunt begins. And for me hunting is not just about hitting the pavement and crunching the numbers. That’s just nasty reality stuff.

It’s also about the dream. Like renting a Mustang for the first two weeks to see how we like it (another day). Or thinking ”y’know, best nexus of fuel efficiency and performance is a Lotus” (my soul brutha Barrett knows what I am talking about it).

And it’s also about seeing the dreams of others.

Now you got your classic car chase movies like Bullit. I prefer Ronin, as I like the taste of McGuffin in the morning. And I am SUPREMELY pissed I couldn’t find my copy of the stunning BMW funded series The Hire starring Clive Owen from a few years back.

But under the hot LA sun, in the long, boring, maddening hour long lurch that is the morning commute, with gas prices arising and the American dream turning nightmare, it’s the apocalyptic masterpiece that is Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior curls my lips in a sneer of joy.

So when I heard that Larry Young and Jon Proctor’s The Black Diamond was finally being collected, I said “Oh yeah.”

The premise is great. In the near future, America raises a cross-continental mega-highway. Called the Black Diamond, years down the line it’s become a no-man’s land of muscle cars and gangs with their own subcultures, and while the government begins steps to take it back, a young dentist must race from his practice on the West Coast to Washington DC to rescue his kidnapped wife.

Comics + post-apocalyptic car action != fail, right? With a terrific introduction Graeme McMillian of io9.com I tore into it …

… and was left incredibly disappointed.

Upfront, the art is not the best. The style itself is not bad, and the cars are gorgeous (as they have to be, even being traced). But the rendering of people and their faces are a random affair of meh to sloppy work. Funny enough, while some people have criticized the coloring of the book, I think it captures the feel of the 70s movies the creators are trying to evoke. But most sequences give no sense of the action taking place, despite some cool ideas and visuals.

The big crime here is that while the world the story takes place is ripe for exploration, I don’t feel that we see any of it! There’s a lot of talking about the world by characters you never really connect with. Worse, as the story progresses, it (and the artwork) moves from really straightforward primal ideas to a vague, abstract symbolism with no real conclusion.

I don’t want pure symbolism in my apocalyptic car story! I want paint scraping, bone jarring, tire squealing driving! I want DIY mechanical weapon bad-assery! I want to SEE more of the dynamics of this world, not have it TOLD to me!

Some may say there is a fundamental problem in trying to render the dynamic beast that is a car chase in the “static” images of a comicbook. I say bullshit. Matt Fraction and Kieron Dwyer’s The Last of the Independents and Pirates of Coney Island by Rick Spears and Vasilis Lolos are two personal favorites that come to mind. There is a way to do violent, thumping, end-of-world, vehicle of death action!

The Black Diamond is simply not the right route to take.

Vote for my SXSW Panel: Soapbox Speilbergs

Rudy Jahchan — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

First off: GO VOTE FOR THIS PANEL!!!

Now the story behind it.

Basically, Tim Shey is a bastard.

When I went over to vote for panels for SXSW 2009, I was surprised to see very few digital film-making panel propositions. What I did see was great, and I tossed my big-time votage to video ~~peers~~ betters Kent Nichols, Ben Cote, and Michael Verdi, among others.

I mentioned it to Tim, NNN’s founder and hamster in the wheel that keeps it going. We bounced the idea that we should have submitted a panel about doing effects on a budget, like we do on Galacticast and the talented Erik Beck and Justin Johnson do on IndyMogul. Tim said he could get it on the panel picker; I thought it was great to try, but didn’t want to get too excited, so as to avoid disappointment.

Well, the lesson of the day is DO NOT DOUBT TIM SHEY! He did get it on the panel picker. So now I’ve got to step and make sure it not only gets attention, but also reestablish Galacticast as an entertainment and effects show to be reckoned with.

Bastard.

Going to California

Rudy Jahchan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As the song says, going to California to make a new start.

This year has been a busy year for me. But not in accomplishing the goals I set out as my resolutions. One big reason is the my day-job began taking over more time as we moved on a major goal.

I was until last Friday Director of Technology of WebMD’s Montreal office, nee Conceptis. Which basically meant development team lead, architect, analyst, advocate, and general tech dude. I worked with an amazing group of guys, and through the larger WebMD family met equally talented people.

The first half of this year was occupied by the launching of Montreal’s flagship sight theheart.org, playing catch up with the latest design trends and best practices the rest of the ‘net. Layouts, comments, RESTful architecture. It was quite a challenge, made greater by the fact that we had to pull this off on legacy systems and a legacy code-base.

We succeeded to an extent, and I am pleased it what we accomplished in so brief a time. But as the project wrapped up, it made me realise how stagnant I had become. Apart from missing my own goals, and the continued delay of Galacticast’s return, it had become quite some time since I learned something new on the job, apart from the odd bug in JAVA or the way systems worked together.

So when an opportunity to work in LA popped up, I had to snap at it. I’ll be working at CabonFive out of Marina Del Rey, in developing applications for a wide range of clients. The way they work, the people involved, and just the change of responsibilities has me excited about showing up to work again. And you should always feel that about your work.

For those concerned about Galacticast, don’t be. Bringing it back is still my primary personal goal. We have a new season drawn out, and having actually calculated our expenditures for making the show over two years, we know exactly making an episode costs us. I’ll be upfront; our immediate goal is to look for someone to fund it. So if you’re interested or know anyone who may be, reach out to our (himself very talented) agent, George Ruiz, or hit me if you want a preview.

So that’s it. Big unknown future ahead of me. Rebooting goals of physical fitness (environment will help), creatively (ideas I have a plenty, time to launch them), and building my data-cloud (this is the first of daily, srsly I swears).

Judging a Video Copyfight Content; Join In!

Rudy Jahchan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I am really honored to be among the awesome panelists selected by Michael Geist for his video contest C-61 in 61 seconds. The goal is to create videos raising awareness of the many flaws with bill C-61, commonly referred to as the Canadian DMCA act. The last time they tried to ram this idea down our throats was the subject of the last Galacticast we released, so you know the issue is near and dear to my heart.

Simply put, Galacticast could never have come to be without the fair use and play policies we all execute in our daily lives. The portability of media, the rapid turnaround time, the out and out parodies - all these things would be killed in sad, silent ways if this bill is not stopped. And while I am now thinking that more original content is the future our our brave, little show, it will work under the same principles of openess and fairness that we have always believed in.

To read more about the bill, check out Michael Geist’s informative blog and the amazing Facebook group that has grown up around the cause.

Galacticast's "The Supermarios" shown at MIFF

Rudy Jahchan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Our Galacticast video The Supermarios was screened at the Mississauga Independent Film Festival on Sunday, July 13th, at 11am in the Short Progrm category. I would love to see some footage of this!

Special thanks to brothers-in-arms Matt and Jeff Campagna. Read of their awesomeness in The Globe and Mail.

Galacticast in LaPresse

Rudy Jahchan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Casey and I were interviewed by the LaPresse. To my embarassment, I am quoted heavily and seem to have inspired the title of the article. Here’s the original and the translation.

In the Movies!

Rudy Jahchan — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

A few days after Casey I too am now listed on IMDB. It’s for our cameo appearance in Six Reasons Why, the post-apocalyptic spaghetti western love song to Sergio Leone by the talented Campagna brothers.

Now to fill that listing up with more roles.

Drinks with the Devil

Rudy Jahchan — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Originally posted on my old blog coderonin.

The urine ran slow and warm down my leg when I realized who he was.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, extending a hand. The Devil grinned. “I see you guessed my name.”

He laughed at the joke. A braying honk of laughter passed crooked, yellow teeth. A smell on his breath; not enough to drive you away, just enough to torment you. It finished the job of sobering me up, and I didn’t take his hand. He kept it out there for a few moments before shrugging and grabbing a drink in front of him.

“Another round?” he asked urgently, offering the glass.

So much for sobriety, as my first instinct was to shout “Hell, yeah!” But who knew how The Devil would interpret that. I managed to choke it off to a hesitant grunt that turned into a panicked headshake. The Devil caught the reaction change though. Surprisingly, he looked hurt.

“Oh c’mon,” he urged. “I promise, it’s on me. Won’t cost you a thing.”

He placed the drink in front of me.

“I insist,” he said.

Oh God, he insisted. What was I to do? Literally damned if I did, damned if I didn’t. My focus shifted nervously between the glass and The Devil.

“Won’t cost a thing,” he said again, nodding with that charming, awful smile.

I decided to take the drink. Slugged it back.

“Except your SOUL!” said the Devil.

The drink spewed from my mouth. Coughs wracked my body. The Devil roared with laughter.

“Oh, oh, that’s always classic!” he said. “The look on your face!”

I said nothing. Too scared shitless. Funny thing is I believe that’s what quieted him down so quickly. His laughter died out and he again appeared to be in some pain.

“Hey, hey,” he said. “I was only kidding. Your soul’s fine.”

He stared at me anxiously, waiting for a response. Felt hot under that stare, so I nodded to get it over with. That seemed to please him. He clapped his long, pale hands (a kind of wet sound) and giggled.

“Good, good,” he said. He waved over the horrified bar tender. “Another two for me and my friend here.”

“Sir, I … I think you’ve had enough,” began the bartender.

I will never forget the heat, sight, and sound of that poor man’s head melting in flames. Lucky to have its smoking remains crash turned away from me. The scalded back of his skull was bad enough.

The Devil looked significantly at the other bartender and nodded once. Our drinks were prepared.

I couldn’t stand it any longer.

“What do you want from me?” I said. More like whimpered.

He turned to me with surprise.

“Why, nothing.” An offended tone. More urine down my leg. “You came to me.”

He was right. I did come to him. Drunk from a night of trying to forget her. Looked over to see the first face that seemed to understand the blackness in me now that she was gone. Needed that understanding, so I came over. We shared a few great drinks, shared many great laughs. Until he clued me in to who he was. I wasn’t laughing anymore.

Which was what was irritating him. Nothing had really changed, had it? Just who I knew him as. It was still true that he understood the blackness in me. Who could ever understand it more than The Devil? And it still had been my decision to come over for a drink.

“But I never wanted to drink with the Devil,” was all I could say in the end.

“No one ever does, buddy,” he sighed. “No one ever does.”