LRRcast for Hagiography Today
About the podcast, the origins of LoadingReadyRun, background info on "Hagiography Today", new video codec.
Vital Statistics
Featured Video: Hagiography Today
Date: May 19, 2006
LRRcasters: Graham Stark, Paul Saunders
Runtime: 33:08
Synopsis
Paul and Graham wax sarcastic about podcasting. They recently purchased two new microphones, one of which is ideal for this purpose. They defend getting lazy and playing video games as "research".
After doing "weird little video things" for years, Graham and Paul made After Hours. They had considered going backpacking around Europe, and Paul suggested making a website to host videos they'd make while on vacation. This idea was promptly forgotten. Six to eight months later, they dusted off the idea. For some reason, the first design was entitled "Penrose Tiles" and featured heavy use of pastels.
Then they decided to use Commodore 64 references and call it "Loading Ready Run", which for some reason is extremely difficult for people to remember. An early version of the webpage can be seen here . Originally there was a heavy emphasis on funny/weird news links, and there were no forums, so people sometimes discussed the latest video in the comments section of a news post.
For the first month the site was online, Graham and Paul didn't tell anyone about it. The pre-launch period was also one of the few times there was a backlog of videos (in order to prepare for LoadingReadyLIVE!, LRR produced the Rapidfire videos so they could air the backlog while they practiced on the live show).
Graham's parents provided the nucleus for Hagiography Today by pointing out the website on which various Catholic saints and their patronages were listed.
This video involved the most set dressing LRR had ever done up to that point: corkboard and draped cloth. Trying to create the look of a low-budget public-access show on LRR's no-budget without making it look dumb was quite challenging.
The saints used in the video were all official, despite some of them being quite ridiculous; for example, see, Saint Bernadette of Sienna and Brandon the Navigator (who was probably stolen from the Thousand and One Nights). Various discussion of the history of saint creation and existing saints ensues.
Paul did all of the graphics work.
The afternoon before the end of the video was completed, Graham and Paul went over to Morgan's, Bill's, and Lissette's place to shoot the "man-on-the-street" segments. The microphone in this shoot was actually a small umbrella. No one seems to have noticed, although Kathleen thought something was odd. The turtleneck worn by Graham was the same one worn by Paul as head of Evil Inc., although that hadn't been shown at the time of the video; the wig is the "Quentin Jones" wig from Jangles and Jones and was also used by Paul in Spam Theatre 2.
New compression settings were introduced immediately before this podcast. For two-and-a-half years previously they'd used mp4, but then Apple released h.264... and they didn't use it. But when Quantum Documentary was featured on the website of a local festival, they noticed that filesize was half of LRR's and looked great, and the new compression format was adopted. No artifacts! This may have provided the impetus for Paul's parents to upgrade to a new computer capable of reading the new format - or so G&P joke.
At 7:00 PM on Monday, they have no idea what video will be featured that Friday. (It ended up being Wyy.)
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May 5th, 2006: Wyy ∙∙∙● ▶ |
