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This is old -- almost nothing on this blog is timely -- but I thought I would put it up anyway. Brad sent me THIS LINK, and Brad and HCDuvall sent me THIS ONE.

Brad Winderbaum: the Satacracy Interview part 3 (of 3)

Here is the third part of my discussion with Brad about the final episode of Satacracy 88, on Hulu.com:



If that does not work, click HERE.

Brad Winderbaum: the Satacracy Interview, part 2 (of 3)

My discussion with Brad continues.



If that does not work, click here. Use the links at the bottom of the page, or scroll down, for part one.

Brad Winderbaum: the Satacracy Interview, pt 1

Brad Winderbaum's Emmy award winning Satacracy 88 (nominated again this year) comes to an end this week. (If you want to start from the beginning, click here.)

I did a 30+ minute interview with Brad, which is going to be up on this site in three parts over the next week -- and you can LISTEN to it.



If that does not work, click here.

Brad Winderbaum and the end of Satacracy 88

A message from Brad:

Dear friends, family, and associates,

I'm excited to announce that the first of the THREE FINAL EPISODES of Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.tv.

Thanks to our amazing cast and crew, it's some of the best work we've ever done. I'm proud to share it with all of you.

Though the series will reach its climax over the next two weeks, this is not the end of the line for 88. Right now we are developing the next chapter of her life as one of The Knights of a Hundred Sorrows.

I can't say too much more about it yet, except that it will begin to unfold slowly in places familiar to 88 and Futurist fans and will soon grow into an epic online adventure.

It is because of the continuing support of our fans that we have been able to bring our story to the conclusion it deserves. For that, I am eternally grateful.

Thanks for tuning in to watch our work over the past two years. It's been an exciting ride and I can't wait to go on more adventures with you in the future.

All the best,
Brad

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88.11.3

The third part of Brad Winderbaum's Emmy award winning Satacracy 88, episode 11, is up at itsallinyourhands.com. As the third and final part of episode Eleven, this is the one where you get to vote.

Though it is up at the site, it is not up on youtube. A more tech-savvy person than I could probably figure out how to embed it directly from the site, but the only way I know how to do it is to cut and paste the "embed" thing from Youtube. So HERE IS A LINK TO THE EPISODE.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88.11.2

The second part of the eleventh episode of Brad Winderbaum's Emmy award winning Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com.

Satacracy 88.11.1

The first part of the eleventh episode of Brad Winderbaum's Emmy Award winning Satactracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. This one has a quirky sense of humor, as well as the two leads beating on each other a bit, which is a good direction for the show to continue in.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88.10.3

The new episode of Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com, and after you watch this one, you get to vote. This episode has a great fight scene, hooks up with the foreshadowing in 10.1, and has an interesting vote at the end. The numbered soldiers are revealing their super-powers here as guest star Kirk Ward, the Futurist, shows an awesome super-power, and 88's connection to electricity expands into something useful.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88.10.2

The new episode of Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. It is the 70th most watched clip on youtube.



This installment stars Kirk Ward, the title character in Brad's student film, The Futurist. His freakout in the final moments of this episode makes the whole thing for me -- this guy seems like he jumped right out of a comic book.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88.10.1

The first part of the tenth episode Brad Winderbaum's Emmy Award winning Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. Also, it is right here.



The teaser flash-forward prologue is great here, especially with the swooping camera that then modifies to give us stills of Angela and Susan. Michael Bay would have just swooped in and out, forcing you to ask your date what the hell was going on.

Something about the film quality, the three tough chicks, the car, the lighting, the setting and the quick beat-down of a male aggressor are all suggesting Death Proof to me, in a good way -- part of the way an episode of less than two minutes must work is by invoking larger patterns of violence for authority and scope.

Cassie Pappas, who plays Susan, has an undeniable charisma. Something about the way she holds herself as she walks back to the car.

Satacracy 88.9.3

The third part of the ninth episode of Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 is up today. This episode, like a handful of past episodes, invokes Tarantino again, for solid effect. It strikes me that this kind of invocation is crucial in a format this short -- like mythology, something else Brad uses a lot, allusion is a good way to squeeze the most out of small resources. Small things can make your world seem huge. As with all the third parts, you get to vote on something when it is over. Go check it out. It is getting lots of attention.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88.9.2

The second part of the ninth episode of Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. This series is getting major buzz, now that it won the Emmy. There is also a report about it on the New York Times, and all major newspapers, I think.

In this episode Calloway (Marc Cittadino) recruits a recently brainwashed Arial Zim (Adrain Zaw) to the cause. A lot of information is thrown at the viewer in a big block, which should not work. But it does, because we identify with poor wounded Zim in the first few moments, and are entertained by how overwhelmed he must be.

Satacracy 88.9.1

The new episode of Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. And some big things have transpired since I last posted about the series. First, Satacracy 88 won the Webby Award / People's Voice award for best drama, online film, and video. Then it also won the Emmy award for outstanding broadband drama, a new category.

As for the new episode, it features some great stuff, including my favorite effect in the series so far -- the teleportation out of the storage facility. It is also fun to see 88 square off against a guy (Martin in back) who looks like he is out of 24. The episode ends on a great beat, as Angela puts a tape -- yes a cassette tape -- into the car stereo as she drives off with a handcuffed girl next to her.

Expect this series to get big now that it has won big awards. It will be on TV before you know it, and you can say you saw it when.

Satacracy 88 Episode 8 part 3

The third part of the eighth episode of Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. It's extra short (1:35) but it features a fight scene (choreographed by Brad, his first extended one), between two beautiful girls in the hallway of a mini-storage. I don't think that kind of situation requires little footnotes, but it does require me to alert people to its general awesomeness. Go there, and don't forget to vote.

(EDIT [6:17pm same day]: this post was edited because, re-reading it, I found the original construction a little vague).

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 Episode 8 Part 2

The second part of episode 8 of Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com, and they just won a people's choice Webby award, which is quite cool.

With the episode we are firmly back in Quentin Tarantino territory, as the warrior women gear up for their uber-battle as we learn about their past in a series of flashbacks (both aspects of Kill Bill), and a guy is shot in the back-seat of the car (which happens in both Resivoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction). The victim? Director Brad Winderbaum. Tarantino 's Resivoir Dogs character dies, as does his character in From Dusk Till Dawn which he wrote (that film was directed by his friend Robert Rodriguez); in Rodriguez films Tarantino plays characters who get killed in Desperado and Planet Terror. All of those Tarantino deaths involve getting shot, if I remember correctly (though the guns are useless in the vampire movie and the zombie movie).

Satacracy 88 Episode 7 parts one through three and Episode 8 part one

The seventh episode of Satacracy 88 went up a while ago at itsallinyourhands.com. It has a new format -- instead of one roughly five minute episode where you vote at the end, each episode comes in three smaller parts and you vote at the end of the third one. This allows Brad to put them up more often -- once a week for three weeks before a short hiatus till the next set begins. The first part of episode eight went up today, and I wanted to catch up on them. Just a few brief notes:

Episode 7 part 1

Best. Episode. Break. Yet. And, in a subtle a joke, the episode break is also a literal break -- the break of his neck.

Episode 7 part 2

Changing scenes buys time -- it allows the cliffhanger from the previous episode to remain a cliffhanger longer. Lost does this all the time expertly. What is Jack going to do now that he is captured? You will have to wait three weeks to find out because the next episode is all about Sun (on a boat), and the one after that is about Locke (in the jungle).

The actress playing Susan does a great sarcastic face in this episode -- Brad has Tarantino's love of tough women.

It is a nice touch that the bag in this episode is a real bag, like the kind you would get from a deli, rather than some leather sci-fi monstrosity. Reality is in the details.

Notice also how part one had us in a confined white room, and this episode has us in a confined black room, a nice contrast.

Episode 7 part 3

In this one Brad is hitting up big mythology -- the dreamplane, the sprig of a magic plant, the elixer, the answer is inside the hero. He is also playing with Star Wars, -- the guy dressed like the Emperor says in a raspy voice "There is a disturbance" -- "in the Force" is how the line continues in the movie (I think it is actually "I sense a disturbance in the force" but the point still stands). Star Wars, of course , drew on mythology in the same way Satacracy does: Brad is locating Satacracy at the same conjunction of mythology and science fiction.

Episode 8 part 1

The Origin Story is the something special you want for the eighth episode of Satacracy 88. (When Brad gets a TV deal for this series I will recommend to him that he plan for four seasons, so that the final episode of the series will be the 88th episode). It is hand drawn to boot.

The end of the episode gives us the best shot of 88 so far, and a great little preview of Susan, waiting. Her makup reveals another wrinkle in this universe Brad is weaving.

Go to itsallinyourhands.com to vote for Satacracy to win a Webby award. Voting ends Friday.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88: Episode Six

The new episode of Satacracy 88 is up on itsallinyourhands.com; check it out (link on the right), vote, then come back here for the commentary.

This sixth episode of Satacracy has debts to Batman: Tales of the Dark Knight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a sixth season episode Brad has never seen), and plays with material from Nightmare on Elm Street in a fun way (objects from dreams can come back with you). But the influence I want to focus on in this post is the origin of all three.

Like the best science fiction (Dark City, The Truman Show, the first Matrix film, the Invisibles), Satacracy has found its Gnostic heritage. Creation is a flawed and dangerous illusion, a horrific prison world, and an inner light is your only guide, against all other influences. Even those we are closest to, those we want to trust, may be part of the nightmare, soldiers sent to keep us in chains with kind words and good intentions. Just as the Gnostic messiah -- or messiahs, as there are more than one -- enters the world of the dream (the world where we live), where he may become ensnared both physically and psychically and forget his true mission, Angela enters a dream with a mission she is in danger of forgetting. It is important that her most dangerous foes are kindly and familiar. This is how they come for you.

The casting of Max Ghezzi as Dr. Johnson is perhaps the best casting yet. He looks almost nice, almost right, but something about him is subtly off. It may be important that his namesake -- 18th century man of letters Dr. Samuel Johnson -- was famed for insisting on absolute accuracy in in all things, for hating illusion and having an almost pathological fear of the madness that might result from too much illusion. It is important that in the world of the asylum Brad has abandoned fancy camera work, weird music, and pulp effects of any kind. A dose of realism made his sci-fi effective; now his main character is in danger from an overdose of sober realism, which will kill her more than natural spark.

Brad and actress-and-co-writer Diahnna Nicole Baxter have made Angela's ultimate choice in this episode the best one yet, a genuine dilemma: Angela needs the Truth, and was told to hold onto it at any cost by Loyce; in the dream world it is Loyce who insists she tell the truth, but now it no longer seems like Truth with a capital T -- she did kill Martin, but that feels beside the point. Her choice is not between truth and illusion, but between mere accuracy, and the gnosis of her inner light.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88: Episode Five

The fifth episode of Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. Check it out now (link on the right), vote, then come back here for the commentary.

The opening flashback is wonderfully natural, like a real home movie, and it juxtaposes nicely with the crazy sci-fi scene we transition to. (Those fireworks -- and fireworks herald events we bring video-cameras to -- were put in digitally, a nice touch). The flashback also anchors us emotionally to the choice Angela will be faced with at the end -- he seems like such a nice guy she should go get him back. Brad and Diahnna Nicole Baxter (remember the lead actress is also the co-writer) do well to remind us who he is again at the beginning of the episode to lock in the choice at the end. The casting of Loyce Baxter (Diahnna's real life mother and a first time actress here) makes Lois instantly sympathetic, and a genuine rival for the audience (notice she is introduced in the same way Angela is -- at the cutting board).

We also get a pair of Tarantino allusions; the action shifts suddenly from black and white to color, just as it does in the big battle at the end of Kill Bill volume 1 (and once again it is a woman who is at the center of the action). The band-aid on the back of the neck cannot help but recall Marcellus Wallace's mysterious band aid on the back of the neck in Pulp Fiction. There were those at the time, I recall, who imagined that his soul had been extracted from the back of his neck -- some kind of mythology I am not familiar with -- and that was what was in the case he wanted back so badly; here it is Martin's whole self that can be extracted in this manner.

Jonathan Dinerstein's score is dead-on throughout, and the special effect with Zim hopping after Angela and Calloway could not be better with more money -- it's perfect. The streaking lights were also well done.

The choice at the end is a different kind of choice than we have seen before: armed with more knowledge about these characters and the world in which they live it is less of a choice about what direction we think the show should go and more of a choice about what kind of episode we are most eager for.

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88: Episode Four

The fourth Episode of Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 is out today, another five minute story that continues to open this world up. If you have not seen it, go to itsallinyouhands.com, or click on the link in the right bar, or click on the thumbnail on yesterday's post. Then vote, then come back here.

The episode begins with a still black-and-white image of Angela and Zim (we will remember his photograph from the last episode) -- it turns out they know each other, they are friends, or at least colleagues. Brad does a great job introducing a conflict at the end of last episode (bring me this guy's hand), then starting by bringing the conflict up a notch (this is a guy she knows personally). A quick flashback establishes the other side of the conflict: she told him, if she fell under Carter's control, to kill her, and now Carter has sent her after him. The decision at the end revolves around the realization that he may not do what she told him to, and that may be the best thing for her. Complicating things is Angela's double life: at the club she is aware she is a serious, tough assassin, but in the car, on the way to get Zim that personae is not visible (actress Diahnna Nicole Baxter does great job with the two roles). Zim is trying to get her more violent side to emerge, for reasons we are not aware of.

Once again -- and as it should be -- the sold story structure allows all the little details to shine. Angela has flaking make-up at the club in the flashback as Zim as flaking make-up at the club in the present -- one of my favorite details from Civil War is how the costumes have wear and tear, it gives the thing a sense of lived in reality. Plus Susan, the series girly-girl, applies the make-up, which is nice. Zim's bright red shirt stands out (he is, after all, the target) and it is emphasized by the matching red drink straws and the red button that is Angela's weapon. We transition from the flashback to the present by focusing on Calloway's hooded face, watching then and now -- the lighting lets us know something has changed.

Brad also lifts from good sources. The secret club you can teleport to from an alleyway with a password is from the final two season of Buffy (though the password was not "the universe exploded from the primal atom", a surprising cosmic mouthful), and Ariel does a move right out of Nightcrawler's Oval Office battle in X2, combining fighting and teleporting in the most useful way possible. [The fact the Brad has not seen the final two seasons of Buffy is another question to address, but these ideas trickle down and I am sure Whedon was not the first person to make the hidden club door a mystical secret rather than a social one].

Only once do we see the influence of a potentially risky source, and that is with the eyeball in the hand. While the pulpy New Age book cover image is a lot of fun, it is easier to sell pulp if you have a big budget (like Lost, with all its 70s tech). A pulpy special effect with a very low budget recalls Saturday afternoon live action adventure shows like Mutant X. Again, it is a fun image (if like me you think pulp is fun), but it lacks the budget to get it across. It's a bit of a silly problem but it is a real one: do pulp on a big budget and it is an interesting stylistic choice; do pulp on a small budget and it's not a choice, it's a limitation.

For the identity of "Lois" we will have to wait until next time.