I remember it was a Thursday night or if you count the days by when you wake up then it was more like a long grudging Tuesday just refusing to end. I had just gotten together with the brain trust and found that the self appointed one video per week might not be getting made. You see Nick was still catching some flack from the brand defamation suit that he received after putting up "The Night Train" video and had back to back court case appearances. Keith was wholly convinced that this could only be a sign of bitter things to come and decided we should just cut our losses and try to put the whole video ventures behind us. It had all left a terrible taste in my mouth and mixed with a bit of insomnia I started to convince myself that it was all going to be up to me.
I literally had only one idea going in there, and it was more based on the concept of my own self-hatred and the wish of harming myself on camera. The only problem is we make comedy videos, I can't just go in front of the camera and just punch myself in the face over and over again. But when I thought about it more and more, I thought, "What if it's not me beating the shit out of me, but me beating the shit out of me?" A difficult concept to wrap one's mind around but I assured myself that it could be done and set out to do just that.
I found an empty room that had no one around within ear shot for at least 20 minutes and began setting up my camera and just filming myself swinging violently into the air and jumping and falling in all great fashions, all the while hoping that no one happened to walk by outside the door and inquire on what exactly it was I was doing. If the case had happened, I decided quickly that I would just tell them a story my father once told me, "I've seen thicker thighs on a buffalo, but that ain't never stopped me." Thankfully all who passed by were kind enough to either just keep walking or just too terrified to find out the origin to the disturbing sounds coming from within my room.
Once I finished filming all the content that I supposed would suffice I made the realization that absolutely none of the footage was shot with the intention of matching with another me. With exhaustion already creeping up on me after performing incredibly tiring feats for over 50 minutes and almost a week without sleep I decided that I would just composite other shots of myself on top of the other to make it seem like the actions made sense. I spent an entire day at this effort finally breaking down into small fits of rage and began taking to occasionally yelling at passing vehicles out my window. I had been awake too long and my body was just giving up on itself.
After waking up to the realization that I must have strangled myself in attempts to try and get myself out of this project I turned to my screen to see the looping footage of what appeared to be the movie I had been working on. To my astonishment, I was actually very surprised and not just a little bit proud of the accomplishment. As it was still 3am I had to call someone to see what I've made, someone who I could get approval from, so I called my friend Korey.
Korey and I have known each other for 7 years, we met under regrettable circumstances but have always been very good friends. Korey went to school for Film and Broadcasting so I always take it upon myself to get his opinion on something I've shot. Just as I suspected from the way I felt about the project, he told me exactly what I expected him to say, "It looks like fucking shit." I've made at least 4 movies and shown them each to him and each time he tells me exactly all the minute flaws that I know an average person would look over. But this is exactly why I call him, his attention to detail is so sinister and unforgiving that I knew he would tell me how to fix this project. In fact he was the one who made the important decision to change the soundtrack from a polka theme to a metal theme as it would make a more "ballz to the wallz" demeanor. After an hour straight of nothing but frame by frame scrutiny, I fixed the project to until he said, "It looks okay" which is honestly the best you can get from him and published the video an hour later.
So there you have it people. This is exactly how I made "Self vs. Self"
I hope you enjoyed my story.
Kyle C.
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