Will Hines Dot Net

Editor Dave Kovenetsky and I stand in to test lighting in the AOL Studio. I think this would make a great cover for the all keyboard prog rock album Dave and I want to make called “Hines and Kovenetsky: Journey to Aurora.”

Tabitha and I saw August: Osage County last night. Here’s a shocking opinion: I think it’s good! It long (3 hours and 10 minutes plus two ten minute intermissions) but you don’t notice it. The characters are instantly interesting all by themselves and also begin f*cking with each other in compelling ways. My one very minor quibble is that I started to be aware that everyone in the family seemed to have a ready supply of interesting and smart comparisions to movies and books. I mean, writers write plays of course — and then all of their characters seem to like books and movies and talk about them. More than people do in real life. I didn’t really mind.

Stepfathers won cagematch, barely. Derrick packed the house with an awesome crowd. I felt a bit desperate in the walk-on department, but also had a blast. Thank God we won. Derrick are hilarious and great guys and are to a man many times more successful than I am, but I was placed on a Harold team before they were in college and would have felt like crap losing. Good times.

The Stepfathers are in Cagematch tonight. Come on and watch. We are opposing Derrick, who have approximately fifteen thousand blindly adoring fans coming in to cheer their heroes on. Should be a good show!

[youtube 6CmC8h49AX4 Hillary Takes Ohio]

I know I’m video crazed in this blog lately, but that’s how I’ve been spending my time. For our last video with the Hillary Clinton impersonator, we were pressed for time so I re-did the template I had used for News Anchors, where Ben and Gavin just improvised incorrect headlines. In this one, Hillary states incorrect or obscure facts about Ohio, ending with my favorite of all pop culture references — Klinger from M*A*S*H.

Stuff:

• Not that you need my opinion to believe this, but this season of Human Giant is going to be amazing. Carpet Monkey.
• Separately, Philip K. Dick was right: the final war of humans will be fought by automated robots. The earth will be covered in slag!
• Old newsstand. Pictured above.
• Stand-up went well, thank you to Andrew Wright for booking me and to the nice audience for supporting my “secret to Life: give up” set. Mike Dobbins was there, who I hadn’t seen since R Bar days. I recommend seeing his set if you haven’t yet.

We had a Hillary Clinton impersonator in here for Mo Rocca’s video blog.  We did videos for her campaign for Texas and Vermont. Ohio to come.

[youtube oC-hwmZi1yM Hillary Takes Vermont]

[youtube sbwScutvmHI Hillary Takes Texas]

DeCoster and I represent the UCB’s commitment to new comedy in today’s issue of AM New York. Above is from our sketch “Harpooned” which opens Seven Fights. Thanks to Dyna for making that harpoon look pretty good! We’re not credited in the caption so I will do that here: “Matt DeCoster questions why Will Hines won’t comment on allegations that he has been harpooned.”

Separately, I’m doing stand-up tonight at 8pm at Pianos. Come check me out, friends.

The UCBT site has a pretty great new design.

Self-indulgently: here’s my first Harold (Muscle) and first sketch show. Here’s one of my favorite shows of all time (suggestion: fishwater). The last night in the old theater. The Ian/Ali improv show (11pm) show was not to be missed. The final episodes of Gemberling and My Wife The Ghost. My brother’s Harold team Filth beats Respecto.

Er, it’s not quite as impressive as looking through pages from centuries-old issues of The New York Times, I know.

I’ve been Freedying on “This Will Be Our Year” by The Zombies. Mitch said the whole album is good and he is correct.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(edited to add the track)

Three things I’ve learned the hard way. Tagged by Latham.

1. Don’t ever upload a major change to a financial company’s web site at the end of a working day, especially Friday. Your client is a dick, and will phone you all night. Do the change in the morning, or really late like midnight — so the calls don’t come in until you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep.

2. Always do something nice for Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t matter if the relationship is just starting, or if you know it’s all gonna crash and burn a week later. I once got a girl that I had been seeing a long time just a candy bar — knowing that I was doing practically nothing, because I was mad. It’s a ridiculous holiday but not worth doing something that makes you feel like a dick for ten years.

3. Being able to play “The Moonlight Sonata” does not impress girls.

AMENDED (5/17/2008): Uncheck ‘Prepare for Internet Streaming’ when making files to upload to flash video sties.

If you want to upload your video to YouTube or FunnyOrDie, or any flash video site, you want to upload the most uncompressed version that is still under the file size maximum. That way when those web sites compress it into flash video, you still have a good looking video. So use:

• MPEG-4 codec (the more popular H.264 compresses too much), default data rate (6400 kbs).
• Set the size to 640×480 and check “deinterlace source video.”
• For the audio, compress with either AAC (alternate: MPEG-4). Keep it mono and 22mhz.
• NEW: UNCHECK ‘Prepare for Internet Streaming’ – it screws up conversion on some sites.
• If the file is too big, drop the data rate to 5000 kbs and do it again.

Upload to Flash Video Site
Video	Size	Sound
No Streaming

If you want a QuickTime file to put on your website:

• compress using H.264 codec with SINGLE-PASS (multi-pass takes forever and doesn’t add much if anything), restrict data rate to 500 kbs.
• Size: 320×240 and check “deinterlace.”
• For audio, compress with AAC (alternate: MPEG-4). Keep it mono and 22mhz. Same as with uploading to Flash Video sites.
• You WANT to check ‘Prepare for Internet Streaming’ here.

Upload to Your Web Site
Video	Size	Sound

If you want an “uncompressed” version of your video to give to whoever is making your reel, then you want to export your file as a “DV Stream.” It’s about 1 gig of data for every 5 minutes, so you’ll need to put it on a flash drive or a DVD. In Final Cut, you

• export with “QuickTime Conversion” and pick DV Stream. Default options.

Data File For Your Reel

Save as DV Stream

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Suggestions?

I was exhausted last night. But I was dying to finish season 4 of The Wire, and so Tabitha watched three episodes in a row, not an easy task as it’s an hour each of densely-packed crime drama. It feels very dude to have someone watch a show you love. “I’m a guy! Come absorb this media with me! You HAVE to absorb this media! This media is so good!” But you know what? It really IS a good show, and the ending to season 4 was heartbreaking and good.

Separate point: lots of my friends are making smallish amounts of money acting or creating videos for the web. Good that my friends are getting some cash for their talents. The bad side: no one really watches videos on the web, unless it’s a video of birds attacking people at weddings. Especially “webisodes.” Unless it’s on Channel 101 or Channel 102 — I automatically skip anything with “Episode Whatever” in the title. Except for Nailed It, because that shit is genius.

The other thing I hate about big companies paying my friends to make stuff is that these big companies are overly-concerned about controlling the exposure. They want to own my friends stuff — which means if my friends have free versions of their stuff up, it has to come down. Take them down from YouTube! From Channel 102! From your site! Which means: take them down from the places that people are actually watching them. Hello money, goodbye audience. I’d recommend: eyeballs first, advertising later. Like Rocketboom. Like Google. Like everything that has actually worked on the internet.