EvansAmerica

The mass downloading may begin, just go here. Remember to right click and "save target as" to download to your desktop or other folder. Thanks to everyone who made it out to the launch, the episodes went over real well I thought, and for those of you who didn't show up, I hate you.

Writing on the last half of the season is continuing at a feverish pitch, and it looks like production will resume the last weekend of June, where we are going to test a new feature on the site, video journals. Candid behind the scenes footage and interviews of each day that will hopefully be up on the site a day or two after the actual filming day. We're going to try at least.

Thanks again for all your support, hope you enjoy webisode #4.

This is awesome. Just plain awesome, no other words for it. In 1954, President Eisenhower wrote a letter to his brother. Following is an excerpt from that letter, word for word: Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid. Wow. Good thing we don't know any Texas oil millionaires who want to abolish social security...Apparently they would be stupid. Oh...wait... Shoot. (You can read more about it here.)

-originally posted by "Lara"

The fourth webisode of EvansAmerica will launch next friday night, May 27th and will be available for download starting at 7pm CST.

For those in the Omaha area, you are invited to a special Launch Party at MJ Java in the Old Market (13th & Farnam) on the same night, Friday May 27th. We will be having a special encore screening of the third webisode at 8pm, followed by the debut launch showing of Webisode #4 at 9pm.


Webisode #4 - "We're Here With The Protest" synopsis:
When "Free Traders For Peace With Asia" roll into town to hold their initial rally and seminar, the EvansAmerica crew plan to greet them with a raucus protest. However their protest runs into major roadblocks and the group is forced to improvise. Deana finds out just who Dr. George Vallone really is and confronts him about his silence on his past. Nikki struggles to complete a long and complicated book in under 48 hours to impress Paul. Haley struggles with her role in the group and with her boyfriend, Chris. And Tate makes Dee Dee pretend to be his girlfriend to fend off a crazed fan.

Omaha is number one! ....if you are an STD, that is. Numbers out this week show that Douglas County* has a 64% greater incidence of chlamydia than the national average, and a 94% greater incidence of gonorrhea. Why would that be? Omaha is a god-fearing, conservative red town (except for the heretics like us). No one has sex here, do they? At least not that they talk about, anyway. But wait! Could that be part of the problem? No one will talk about it, no one will teach about it in the schools...maybe if we weren't so focused on gay marriage and Nebraska football (Go Huskers!), we could educate our children on safe sex. * For those of you not familiar with Nebraska political geography (And why wouldn't you be? It's fascinating stuff!) Douglas County is the most populated county in Nebraska and home of our largest city.

-originally posted by "Lara"

Call it judiciary activism, at least there is one branch of government not taking its orders from the religious right. At least there's one branch of government that bases its judgements on legal fairness and not ideology. At least there's one branch of government who is looking out for all citizens, not just the few. A federal Judge strikes down Nebraska's ridiculous gay marriage ban known as 416. Now some of us voted against the amendment back in 2000 because well it was riddled with legal problems and because we choose not to hate people because they are different. So yay for Nebraska, well actually no cheers for us, because our state voted for it in the first place, but yay for judges. Too bad after next week's attempt to outlaw the filibuster in the Senate on judicial nominations our road to theocracy may be complete.

As a rule, I generally try to stay away from Liberal blogs (used as a blanket term to represent the flame throwing left-handed internet screamers). I see as much value in these as I do in Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter. But this caught my eye. I read Alterman a lot more during the election, back when I was desparate for any sign that the President would lose the election, but I really haven't been back in a while.

It's a pretty good discussion. What does it mean to be a liberal thinker? What do liberals believe? If this were a message board I would say "discuss." But as this is a low-traffic blog, I will simply say "talk amongst yourselves," just so I'm not embarassed when my discussion thread falls flat.

laters, sc.

EDIT: Fixed the link. That must be why no one's talking... Really.

-originally posted by "Scotty C"

Most of you internet saavy out there have probably already seen this clip. But if you missed it, Omaha local Bright Eyes played Leno last week. I didn't watch, but I was surprised to hear he played the tune "When the President talks to God." I have a clip here. (Thanks to the Meat-Eating Leftist for the link.)

Crowd responded pretty well. I first heard this song a just after the election last year. It's a so-so song, but a good Bush-bashing always feels right.

So for your viewing pleasure... click the link above I guess. sc.

-originally posted by "Scotty C"

Director's Journal - Sunday, May 1st, 2005

Our last day of production on Webisode 4! You bet your sweet ass we rock n' rolled on getting this webisode in the can. I'm very proud of the crew for this amazing accomplishment, we seem to really be gelling on set, and it especially showed through today, another 5-man crew day happened to be a large part of it, but things are looking good for where we'll be for production this summer on the 2nd half of the season. Scotty pretty much covered everything on his post below. Jackie Walker who guest starred on this episode did a great job and I think we captured alot of good stuff. It feels really good to be done with half of the first season, pretty much sums up my feelings right there. Thanks for the support from everyone out there in cyber-land for downloading the webisodes, I don't know who you are, but thank you. I hope this is just the beginning. Webisode #4 is set to launch Friday night, May 27th!

With the wrap of production of Webisode 4, whatcha say we do some of these ole' production journals eh?

Director's Journal - Sunday, April 24th, 2005:

Day 2 of filming this fine weekend, sun out and indeed beautiful weather again. It was a rather light day on the production calendar. We started by welcoming back Ann and Ja'le back to the set after a long hiatus. They play Haley and Chris and hadn't shot together since September when we filmed all three of their scenes from the pilot during our first production week. Nevertheless we scraped off the rust and knocked out their three scenes. Got away with lighting with just the lowel kit, which was nice. And made Ann only force down a little bit of soggy cereal, we're on a tight budget people, we can't keep replacing the cereal in between takes, come on! We ended the day with an evening shoot with everybody's favorite, Mr. Bill Wassem who plays Dr. George Vallone who you'll learn a lot more about in the upcoming webisode. Bill and Givani rehearsed a bit on the porch because we were about to shoot our first car dialogue scene of EvansAmerica. We made a decision to stay away from these as much as possible, not because they are hard, they are actually the easiest thing to shoot and you don't have to worry about securing the location, you just throw the crew in the backseat and have the actors drive wherever they want. But, this can become a crutch and pretty soon, you notice a lot of driving around in the scripts. But since this was the first, I'm not worried and the setting O-town sun gave the scene nice light. We picked up some pickups in a nearby parking lot, ridiculously rushing in between takes to get all we could out of magic hour. And wrap.

George Lucas, one of the worst film directors, but successful movie industry profiteers of all time talking about the new film and the controversial (PG-13) rating:

“We’re getting a lot of flak from parents, a lot of people saying how can you do this? My children love these movies. Why can you not let them go see it?” Lucas told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “But I have to tell a story. I’m not making these, oddly enough, to be giant, successful blockbusters. I’m making them because I’m telling a story, and I have to tell the story I intended.”

Commence collective groan now.

Yeah dogs. Ep4 is totally in the can. After the long drawn out shooting schedule that was ep3 (we did start shooting it last September), we kicked out ep4 in short order.

Our final day of Ep4 shooting was done at the illustrious, if not amazing, Fremont High School. It was a little scene where DeeDee, Paul, and Tate try to get a permit for the protest they are planning. (Oh stuffing, kind of a spoiler there I guess.) They encounter the Permit Lady (played by SEP alumnus, Jackie Walker) and I'll just say that Hilarity ensues (I hope). The shoot went off without a hitch, as they usually do when you have a 5-person crew.

The day was finished up with a last scene from the finale of ep4. The highlight of this scene (aside from the terrific performances from Branden and Jackie), was the fact that Dan and I got to fulfill our fantasies and actually play God for an hour or so. To explain, last weekend when the majority of the party scene was shot, it was really sunny out. Today, it was not so much sunny. Armed with two of our 1K (re: really effing bright) lights we simulated the warm sunshine ("Let there be light!" We said. And there kinda was). Ask either actor and they will tell you it was not warm. It didn't show though. With that scene we finished principal photography on ep4. Look for it in a couple weeks.

I think Dan mentioned this earlier, but with the conclusion of ep4, we're going to take a short hiatus, to write the rest of the season. We hope to get shooting again in mid-June and finish off this first season of EA. Thanks for sticking around for the ride. We're just hitting our stride and it will only get better! Keep your eyes/ears/nose peeled as there will be much going on around here at evansamerica.com, even in our "absence."

late,
sc.