Had a great night at the Lakeshore taping Kamail Nanjiani’s one man show directed by Paul Provenza. It’s an awesome show about Kamails experiences growing up in Pakistan and then moving to Iowa.

So I thought I’d write an update on Pitchman Part I for everyone. Those involved feel free to write comments and correct me if miss anything, and as always if you have any questions feel free. We were originally approached by LonelyBloggers.com to produce a viral video. Jeff found us in a round about way and we talked several times on the phone and became quick friends despite his canadian heritage. Anyway the video’s were simple, a “pitchman” type character interviewing man on the street editing the clips together and posting them to promote the site. We also wrote a commercial style clip called “The Break In” that used actors. It was my (Dave) first time really directing something in a while so I really wanted to make it great. As a producer one of the things I was toying with was a somewhat unique format of a show that was both promotional for a company but also entertaining. I wrote a short script that was a “behind the scenes” look at the making of the videos which were inspired by “Pitchman” character Kyle played by Kyle Lane. I had worked with Kyle on a feature film Riffraff a couple years ago and he’s a great character guy, very strong on comedy and improvising.

The clip was about the crew taking a break and Kyle waiting for his girlfriend Eve (Eva Miller) to show up to help them with the videos. They would argue and we would look into their dysfunctional relationship. We shot it and it was funny so one day I just started writing what there life was behind the scenes and in my mind Kyle was a struggling actor who wrestled with being a pitchman, but always looked at the bright side. We built the relationship between Kyle and Eve and brought in a producer “Dave” played by Ian Forester who was in another Mindlight project called “sketch”. The scenes were scripted but the goal was to have the characters be themselves and improv whatever they thought would work and we would fix it in post. Everyone was pretty trusting of me, not sure why, and we had a blast. We added a little bit of the T&A to hopefully get some hits on the internet but tried to keep it somewhat classy. (we might have failed with NAKED YOGA, you be the judge) We had a lot of clips and it was easy to cut together more than enough to make Jeff at LonelyBloggers.com a happy guy. Some stuff ended up on the cutting room floor like the pregnancy test bit and the condoms sitting around for Eve to find but for the most part everything worked. It was a nice lift to our spirits when we entered the Chicago Comedy Pilot competition and were selected to screen at the Music Box Theater Friday July 20th 2007 at 10:30 pm if you want to come check it out on the big screen. More about the competition later. Anyway that’s a little background. I’ll add more specifics as I remember them. Thanks to everyone who helped out, Juan, Nick, Jason and all the actors. You did a great job.

Casting is underway for our new series of videos for LonelyBloggers.com entitled Pitchman Part II. It’s an exciting and nervewrecking process in part because we’re faced with limited resources. The response has been great so far and we can’t wait to start shooting. As I’m meeting more actors the characters are coming alive in my head and new parts are being developed. A few characters that started out really small are growing into really funny parts. The script is becoming really really intense and it will be tough to film it all in the allotted time. We’re going to start filming on July 14th it looks like but that might change. Since some characters are already established we have to work around their schedules to a degree. Everything is fine so far. We’re looking for a few locations still but that should come together. We’re so excited to be filming Part II in the SUMMER. Part one was filmed when it was freezin out and we were so cramped in an apartment for most of the season. We did escape for a little outside when the weather got nice. I’ll recap part one a little in a new post soon. If you haven’t already check out our videos from season one of pitchman on the web. Go to www.youtube.com/viralfilmvideo and watch the Pitchman series and you’ll get a good feeling for where we’re starting from. The new season will be a hundred percent better though mark my words.

It’s an exciting day here at ViralFilmVideo.com as we work feverishly on our new campaign for LonelyBloggers.com. For those of you who are not familiar with us we’re a new company that was given birth by two beautiful parent companies, Mindlight Films and Mimi Productions. ViralFilmVideo.com is exclusively designed for our internet based clients who want to build their identity through the internet. We had some experience with a few viral ads before starting the new company and quickly grew to love the experience and freedom with the medium. Trying to stand out on the internet is going to be a challenge and we can’t wait to make our mark.