Button Wiser
Welcome to Button Wiser! Here a team of 4 crazy writers find random pictures on the internet and write even random-er stories about them! So check out our posts, give us your feedback and ideas, but most importantly, enjoy!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

The video!




Come one come all to see the greatest show of them all!!

...

Ok so i may be over-exaggerating just a tad, but i got you interested didn't i? Well if i didn't then perhaps the knowledge that we stapled Marcus into a shark suit for an hour or 2 will.

Why torture the poor guy so i hear you ask? Well the answer to that friends is simple. Why not?

The writers here at Button wiser take pride in exploring situations and notions that most "normal" people would not even consider, let alone write an entire story about. Naturally we soon got bored however and decided to "up the anti" as it were, hence this post!

The button wiser team valiantly gave up their mothers day lunches to go get hopelessly lost and befuddled by the illogical and impossibly steep streets heading to Balmoral and Chinamans beaches. Luckily Marcus was not only an excellent driver, but was also a brilliant navigator.

We soon found our way to the secluded Chinamans beach and promptly began work to set up the props. I however attacked Marcus with the stapler for whilst i had cleverly constructed several wire frames to help make the shape of Jerry the shark, i had yet to find a way to make the shark suit stay on said frames. The idea of Velcro was tossed around for awhile, but i think staples are more fun don't you?

((We may add another post up on the site after this one with some pictures of the making of Jerry, but i'm not sure if Yuto still has them so don't hold your breath.))

Some finishing touches with a permanent marker to draw on the teeth and eyes and we were all set to go. Khoder and i were tasked in as the couple on the beach, Yuto falling to the role of camera man since Marcus was already trapped in the suit. We took individual takes of each of the scenes described in the script for our video by Khoder in a previous post below. Then we did a complete run through, non stop. However we left the scene of Jerry emerging from the water until last.

As awesome as my stapling skills are, i had doubts about how the suit would hold up in the water. It did better than i had thought though. I actually cheered. Ok, so it was an internal cheer, but still.

Then we all packed up, after answering many a curious question from our fellow beach goers as to why we had stapled some guy between two plastic sheets and colored him in to look like a shark, and went and grabbed lunch. I could go on and explain the interesting adventures the button wiser team had on that exciting part of our outing, but i'm fairly certain you're sick of reading this by now so perhaps some other time?

Yuto spent the rest of that weekend at a computer slaving away at editing the video to look just like it does now. Khoder took up the role of updating the blog with background info for the video, a "making of" if you will. Marcus and i didn't really have anything else to do after that until it came time to writing the report. Overall we feel the work load was fairly split.

But anyways, give the video a look, and, on behalf of the team, i hope you enjoy it.

Sarah

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Outing


On Sunday the 8th of May, Mother's Day, we went to Mosman in order to act out our video. We went to Balmoral at first, which was too crowded to work with (too many extra people on film), so we drove around until we came to China's Man beach, which was less crowded. Sarah had designed a costume that was to be worn by Marcus that made him look like a real life shark who could speak amazingly fluent english! The video was done in less than three takes and the acting caught the attention of many onlookers who inadvertently added to the ambience of the film by becoming unaware actors. It was if Jerry the Shark had come to life! It was a great success.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Script


So this is the script that we will be using in our video. The actors are Marcus, Sarah and Khoder and the camera man/director was Yuto. Enjoy!

Scene 1: Fade in from black. Sarah and Khoder lying on beach. Camera from sea.

Scene 2: Camera from behind them. Marcus emerges from water.

Scene 3: Camera from sea, Sarah and Khoder are stunned

Scene 4: Back to original camera angle. "Hey guys, my name is Jerry the Shark, can I interest you guys in getting some credit cards?"

Scene 5: Same as scene 3

Scene 6: "Well guys?"

Scene 7: Khoder: "Ummmm...well Jer..."

Scene 8: "I know I know, I can see you already have credit cards, I know you don't need another American Express person to harass you but can you please consider it? I got to pay my rent!"

Scene 9: Sarah: "Jerry, can you plea..."

Scene 10: "No! Its okay, I'll leave now, thanks for your time anyway". Marcus walks away, turns back around and says "Oh by the way, have you seen my tail anywhere by any chance?" Then we revert to the original shot with everyone in view and fade out.

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Idea for our Video


We have decided to do our video based on our first story ...Jerry the Shark!
We have decided that we should re enact the story as it was done in the post almost exactly, with two beach goers not expecting anything and a shark who is trying to make a living by selling credit cards ?! We will be picking the location for the video soon.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Storyboard



This is our storyboard for our blog. It's taken so long for us to put one up cause our layout and color scheme, etc keep changing haha.

We started off using a template that not many other blogs use - emphasizing the vibe of our blog, that being the vibe of randomness. However we felt that the color scheme was not quite right. Hence we changed a few things. The text color is now a light blue. Titles are a bright yellow. And the links in the side bars alternate between medium dark green and black. We also changed the color of the background in the lower sidebar to match that of the top bar, simply for the sake of continuity.

Speaking of sidebars, let talk about the gadgets we've used shall we? Our about me section has been moved to the top of the sidebar and an image close to our hearts has been used as the profile pic. If you click on our profile you can find some info about the jobs each member of the buttonwiser squad performs.

Below the about me tool is the links to the 5 most recent posts on our blog. Coincidentally there are only 5 posts on our home page, so effectively this tool is just links to further down the page. If you can't find the post you want to read on the home page check out the archives, located as a drop down menu under the above tool.

In the 2nd sidebar are a list of our followers. After that is a live feed of the tweets Sarah posts on twitter. Every member of buttonwiser has posted tweets at one stage or another, but Sarah has posted the most.

After the twitter feed is our blog role. this is a list of all the blogs we follow, or have posted links to.

At the top of the page is a banner we staff have created. Under it is a text tool where the title and description of buttonwiser is located.

Over all, we believe that the color scheme of the blog is very easy on the eye and comforting and easy for the reader to see and the layout and use of gadgets allows easy navigation of the blog without over cluttering.

We think it was worth the trial and error to get the awesome layout we have now :D