KyleSorkness.com

I’m making some efforts to catch up with myself. I keep saying in blog posts and Twitter updates and to some of you in person that I’ll get certain things online soon. Starting at the beginning of my tweets, I only have to make it to my 14th one before I run into an instance where I mention uploading something. Two days earlier, I had tweeted, “My classmate and I filmed 2 PSAs today. It involved myself trying to fit in a garbage can with a puppet on my arms.” Then, on November 18, 2008, I began a dangerous habit when I said, “The PSAs turned out pretty cool and I hope to have them online sometime in the near future.” I guess we’ll consider today “the near future.”

During my senior year of high school, I took advantage of the PSEO program and took classes at our community college, Minnesota State Community and Technical College – Fergus Falls (then it was referred to as MSCTC, now it’s “M State”). A few of the classes, such as College Writing and Calculus, were ones that I thought would transfer easily to another college. I also took classes that I didn’t think would transfer as easily, if at all, into other programs anywhere else like HTML (web design) and TV Production. The purpose of taking those classes was to explore specific interests of mine at the college level before I had to pay to do so.

Our TV Production class was small. There were two guys named Matt, a guy named Chrystian, and me. We didn’t have much for equipment, either, just a couple standard definition video cameras and a couple lapel mics. We also didn’t meet very often (once a week I think). All this preface goes to show that we couldn’t really and didn’t really produce “professional” content. But, some of what we did come up with is kinda entertaining, so I’m slowly posting some of our videos online.

These first two videos I’ve posted were the results of our Public Service Announcement assignment. Chrystian and I were paired up as a team, and we chose to make our videos on recycling. (There was a big recycling effort being made at the community college at the time, so we thought we’d play off of that.) We had to make one 30-second PSA and one 60-second. So here are those new (old) videos now for your viewing pleasure. (Yes, the first video, “You Wouldn’t Throw These Away,” has been on my YouTube channel for a while, so it’s more like an old new (old) video.)

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I don’t really have any commentary for the first video, but here’s some stuff about the second one.

I’ve been involved with puppetry ever since I “graduated” from 6th grade and was old enough to join the puppetry ministry team that was lead by my friend Timothy’s mom. Since then, I’ve tried to use puppetry almost whenever and wherever I have the chance. So, while Chrystian and I were brainstorming ideas for this video, I probably suggested we do something with a puppet, and he probably agreed.

The day of the filming (or maybe it was the night before, I can’t remember), the puppet still hadn’t been built, so I whipped together the guy you see in the video. Of all the puppets I’ve made, this one has to be the most, well, whipped together.

Here’s the funny part. So, Chrystian and I decided to film these PSAs at our mall. I had brought along a garbage can and the puppet and a few other props. At first, I tried kneeling behind the garbage can, but the puppet’s posture just didn’t look quite right. Then I decided I’d try climbing into the garbage can. It didn’t work very well to just kneel down in it because my knees hit the side and I couldn’t go down very low. So, I had the brilliant idea of bending my legs backward and going knee-first into the garbage can. I had to do this with the can on the floor. I then put this whipped-together, cumbersome puppet thing on both my arms, and Chrystian tried to tip the can up with me in it. The worst part was when I realized that I still couldn’t get low enough and decided that I should get back out of the can. If you’ve ever gone knee-first into a garbage can with a homemade garbage monster puppet on your arms, you (a) have something wrong with you and (b) know that it’s near impossible to get back out of said garbage can. As carefully as he could, Chrystian struggled to lower the can back down to the ground without crushing the puppet or my face.

A father and his young son had been sitting somewhat nearby, and I believe it was at this most awkward moment that the little boy walked over and stared at us. Just stared in motionless silence. It was probably the scariest thing he had ever seen. Here he was, an innocent little guy, just spending some time with his dad in the mall, when he sees two young men doing something strange, something he’s never seen before. In his childlike curiosity, he approaches to find one of the young men stuck, contorted inside what appears to be a garbage can. What’s more, this strange young man seems to be wearing some sort of bizarre flannel, shoebox, and tuna can monster puppet. He is crying for help to another young man, who then attempts to tip the garbage can over to free his twisted friend and his freakish appendage. Even once the garbage can has been evacuated, the little boy must then observe as the two proceed to film some sick sort of recycling video, which involves sub-par acting and the puppet-laiden young man speaking in a ridiculous voice. I remember this boy in my prayers every night. I only hope that these images will be wiped from his tender mind so that he can move on to live a full and happy life. (Okay, maybe I don’t pray for him every night.)

Enjoy the videos. Recycle when appropriate. Don’t feed the monster. And, never, ever allow young children to walk around unsupervised in shopping malls.

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P.S. I’m not exactly sure why anyone would really want to see these, but as long as I’m uploading everything else, I’ve added PDFs of the scripts and of our Production Comments for these two PSAs to the Downloads page.