Over the weekend, I teamed up with my friends Nick, Mark, and Justin, to do a project for English class about the epic poem Beowulf. All we had to do was show that we understood a certain part of the story, namely, Beowulf's battle with a monster named Grendel. In spite of the fact that the project would be presented on Monday, we decided to be ambitious and make a video. It started as an idea of Nick's until I got interested and we told Justin about it. Mark isn't in our class and wasn't assigned the project, but he has the same teacher.

We've definitely been immersed in Beowulf in English class. Last Thursday we watched a cheesy video of a storyteller (or a bad actor) overdramatically delivering the account of Beowulf's battle with Grendel. (Yes, I think I've mentioned that already, but it bears repeating.) We basically decided somehow that Mark would be Grendel, Nick would be Beowulf, Justin would be Hrothgar (the king who calls on Beowulf to slay Grendel), and I would be the melodramatic storyteller who saved having to film potentially difficult scenes by simply explaining what happened. I knew that Nick and Mark would be perfect as Beowulf and Grendel because they tend to roughhouse in real life. It would be like method acting or something. (Justin, Mark, and I also played Beowulf's men.)

We were to meet at my house on Sunday afternoon, the only time we could all get together. That left me a few days to start working on the film because I would be editing it. I started with the credits, which I put at the beginning for practical reasons... and let's just say that I owe a lot to Monty Python (YouTube link). I recorded a few scenes that didn't require the others, and I found a site with royalty-free music to use for the movie. I wrote a brief summary of each scene; that was the script. I put the scenes in a more convenient order; that was the shooting schedule.

On Saturday night, Mark, Nick, and I attended an anniversary party for Mark's parents. I thought that that would be a convenient time to shoot the party scene that I had planned. So I got some scenes of the three of us having fun. Filming the party scene at a real party certainly made the video look less cheesy. I planned to interweave shots of Justin presiding over the party, which would make the video look more cheesy. It all balances out, you see. Also at the party, I got a crown prop for Justin, but it broke, so the next day, my dad got another one.

Sunday was the big day. Even though we got off to a late start, we went through the scenes more quickly than I thought. I think it was good that everything was ad-libbed. The dialog sounds pretty natural. The whole thing was a lot of fun, as you'll see. Since we got finished pretty early, Nick and Mark used my computer to do fantasy football draft picks or something like that, and after they left, Justin and I started editing the stuff we had recorded. A little while later, he left. It took me about three hours to finish the job. Saving the final file took about forty-five minutes. My dad let me use his 512 MB flash drive to take the movie to school. Mine's only 64 MB, and the movie at its highest quality is 156 MB.

On Monday during lunch, Nick, Mark, and Justin took me to the band room so they could see the finished product in advance. It drew a small crowd which was composed of other people hanging out in the room. They really liked it, which was a good sign. Next was English, and Mark came into the class to watch. Apparently he had asked the teacher if he could because she said that we would present our project first so that Mark could see it. After having the teacher's LCD projector and new speakers set up, we sat back and reveled in the fruit of our labor. The rest of the class loved it. Hardly anybody wanted to present their projects after they saw what we did. The teacher liked it too; she had me copy the video to her computer so that she could show her other classes. She even gave Mark extra credit, even though it wasn't his project.

I have to thank Mark, Justin, and Nick for all the fun I had doing this project. Anyway, I think that's all I have to say. So... Watch Beowulf: The Movie on Google Video now! This one's really funny, I promise!

Oh, about that tropical storm... nothing much came of it. We have to go back to school tomorrow.

Here are pictures of some celebrities without makeup. You're welcome.

One year ago: "Now, I don't really know if this is technically a date, but I intended it to be, and I hope she knows that."
Two years ago: "I thought it was interesting that we played this gig on August 29, the date in 1966 when the Beatles played their very last concert."
Three years ago: "The ball kept getting stuck yesterday, and it was hard to do anything."