STBD Season Five: Halloween Special

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Dierdre brings home a nasty virus -- one that comes with fangs and a strange appetite... (8:00)

Filmed at Affogato

Music by Paralyzed Circuitry and High Noon Records.

STBD Season Five: Episode 7 "Leo vs. Culture"

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Leo enlists Liz's help to buy some art, but she has other worries. Meanwhile, Pryce makes Caroline an offer she's too bored to refuse... (4:50)

Theme by ZOX / Music by Paul Zazadze

Filmed at the Pittsburgh Gallery Crawl and Affogato

STBD Shoot Tonight: Extras Welcome!

If any STBD fans are interested, we'll be shooting a few scenes at the Gallery Crawl in downtown Pittsburgh tonight. Interested in stopping down? Email me (jkownacki at somethingtobedesired dawt com), or just look for the guy with the camera.

Yes, I'm sure there will only be one...

STBD Season Five: Episode 6 "Lame Expectations"

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Dierdre learns that always expecting the worst from people might backfire -- even though it works for everyone else... (6:00)

Filmed at Affogato

Theme by ZOX

STBD 5-5: Revealed!

This week's episode of STBD was a drastic departure from the norm. How so? Read on...

The Making of "Pittsburgh Politics" involved:

- 3 scripted "PSAs"

- 9 improvised sequences (of which, 5 made the final cut)

- 30 minutes of raw footage

- 1 shoot in 1 day

- 6+ hours of editing

Fun Facts, Scene by Scene:

* This entire episode was filmed in one day -- the Sunday before the epsiode went live. (Actually, filming only took three hours, including driving time.)

* The PSAs were scripted. Everything else was improvised by Erik Schark (aka Rich Mathis) and Courtney Jenkins (Tabitha), with minimal direction from yours truly.

* We purposely diverged from the standard STBD "look" to obtain a more "documentary" feel, which necessitated the removal of the opening credits sequence.

* The piece of cheesecake Rich devours really did cost more than $8...

* This episode is only the second, ever (that we're aware of) that DOESN'T feature Leo, Caroline or Dierdre in some capacity. (The first? Episode 4-28, which revolves entirely around Tim's romantic duel with guest stars iJustine and Matthew Ebel.)

STBD Season Five: Episode 5 "Pittsburgh Politics"

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Tabitha helps Rich film a few Mathis 4 Mayor PSAs, but it's clear Rich doesn't have a good grasp of Pittsburgh politics... or basic humanity. (5:00)

STBD's "How to Make a Web Series" Session from PodCamp

At PodCamp Pittsburgh 2, STBD creator Justin Kownacki hosted a session on how to create a sustainable web series.

Alterna-tv's Tony Letizia was in attendance, and he wrote up a lengthy recap of that session here.

“All social media, whether it’s journalism, whether it is a family blog, whatever it is, everything that’s been successful has been successful because you’re telling a story,” [Kownacki] remarked. (More)

STBD 5-4: Revealed!

This week's episode of STBD included some brand new locations, a cameo appearance and the return of a missing cast member. (Not bad for 8 and a half minutes!)

The Making of "Creative or Desperate?" involved:

- 2 mostly-scripted scenes

- 1 mostly-improvised scene

- 1.5 hours of raw footage

- 3 shoots in 3 days

- 10+ hours of editing

Fun Facts, Scene by Scene:

* When STBD first began in 2003, Lacey Fleming (aka Dierdre) smoked a lot more than she does now. In fact, she's nearly quit entirely several times, only to complicate things when Dierdre is asked to smoke on-camera...

* Brent's entry-level fraternity task of calling strange women and asking them for naked photos is directly inspired by a similar type of phone call someone in my own family received this summer. (In case you're wondering, that caller struck out too.)

* The 24 Hour Creative Marathon at Creative Treehouse took place overnight on Sept 28-29. We filmed the scene of Pryce and Caroline working through creator's block at 11 PM on Friday night, and then I edited the entire sequence together, minus the music track, by morning.

I had to leave for Connecticut at 12:30 PM on Saturday, so I transferred all assets from the Final Cut Pro project to my laptop (with its broken monitor) and finished the episode at 3 AM Monday morning.

All of that would explain the original typo in the episode's title, "Creative OF Desperate?," which was typed, bleary-eyed, at 4 AM...

STBD Season Five: Episode 4 "Creative of Desperate?"

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Dierdre, Pryce and Brent each take drastic steps to improve their lives... but why? (6:00)

Music by ZOX and Robin Stine.

Filmed at Affogato and 24 Hour Creatoive Marathon.