Basic Painting! is sponsored … Paintball Sports Magazine!

It is with the utmost pleasure I get to announce Scenario Paintball Films just closed a sponsorship deal with Paintball Sports Magazine  (http://paintballsportsmag.com/).

While I believe it is appropriate for the exact details of our deal to remain private, I would like to share with everyone the following:

• Basic Painting! and future Scenario Paintball Films’ productions for the time being will feature Paintball Sports Magazine as it’s lead title sponsor.
• Paintball Sports Magazine will be printing monthly advertisements for Basic Painting! and any future projects.

I advise everyone to get used to hearing about Paintball Sports Magazine and Scenario Paintball Films together.  We both have an overall plan of growing the sport of paintball and bringing paintball to mainstream media outlets.  We both plan to take the industry by storm as Scenario Paintball Films continues to rise to the top to join Paintball Sports Magazine as media leaders in the paintball industry.

About Paintball Sports Magazine:

Paintball Sports Magazine is the fastest growing magazine devoted to the world’s fastest growing action sport! Every day, week, and month, we deliver cutting-edge articles and full-color photos that capture the true essence of the sport of paintball at every level from the woods to the tournament fields.

We provide in-depth coverage of the hottest people, players, products and events, while increasing the general public’s awareness of this rapidly-growing sport. Paintball Sports Magazine has been growing right along with the industry, raising the standards for paintball photography and journalism.

We settled on a title!

As some of you may or may not know Bruised and Battered was really only a working title, something I needed to call this project for my own sanity. Jay and I were never really happy with “B&B” as it became known in some circles, and had always told ourselves one of these nights we’d get really really falling down dr*nk and come up with a better name. Well here it is about a month later, and we still haven’t found the time to have even a few beers and brainstorm.

My co-captain and I were able to find some time last week to do some brainstorming. Jay was busy gallivanting around Florida looking at girls and working on some other film project … stay tuned, there will be more chops bustin’ on Jay later. Dave and I needed to come up with something quick (we had an artwork deadline of last Friday, which would include this production’s title), and had only a few hours to settle on it. We used the same method that named the Loaded Crows: we IMed stupid things to each other for an hour or two until one of us said … “wow, that doesn’t sound half bad.”

The complete title is “Basic Painting: An Introduction to Scenario Paintball @ West Point’s 2009 Spring Combat Classic.” heheheh, Basic Painting will do just fine for our first project’s title.

I should mention that Jay did cut his business / mini vacation trip a little short. Jay worked Thursday through Sunday and was expected to take another few days to himself to recharge the batteries and get our from behind a monitor. While I have a day job to distract me from this documentary, if he isn’t filming he is editing. The “Birdman” wasn’t due back until this Wednesday. Apparently all Jay could think about was editing our documentary instead of concentrating on the women he was supposed to be oggling while on vacation. He emailed me a couple of hours ago and let me know he touched down late last night, woke up early and put many of his ideas into a new *rough* version of our sizzle reel. Basically this is a really long (currently about 13 minutes) trailer that we will use to court sponsorships. I just finished watching it, and I have to say – this is the 4th version I’ve seen far, and every one is at least twice as good as its predecessor.

Yes, I did just mention “our first project.” With the momentum this little documentary project has begun to pick up, it is now entirely possible we may do another, or even turn this into a series.

I do have *huge* news, which of course relates to the fore mentioned artwork deadline. I’ve been dying to tell the world about this for the last week and a half. Of course one can’t count one’s chickens before they’re hatched, and I’m waiting on just the last little tiniest bit of paperwork before making the official announcement. Trust me, it will be more than worth the wait. Hopefully I’ll get to make another post tomorrow detailing it. You’ll all just have to keep reading!

infrastructure day …

so, today is a pretty big day for Scenario Paintball Films. Aaron(me) has been busily researching many many different shopping cart packages, trying to find the best of features for our purposes. Jay has been living in the editing room frantically getting our sales demo / trailer thrown together. Jay and I both have been working with the latest addition to our team, a professional graphic artist. We should have a logo by the end of this week, and some art for some other *secret* projects as well.

Check back often, within the next day or two I will be ready to activate order accepting for pre-sales. We may even have a loose release date by the end of this week or next.

Yukon(me) owes BennyT an apology!

Those of you in the northeastern Scenario community have likely heard of BennyT, Kendall and Train. Harder.  If you haven’t, please check them out – great guys all around:  youtube channel

Well, in my anxiousness to get this site up and running I looked through all the names I could think of  and they were all used except scenariopaintballtv.com, so I quickly registered it, began to move my blog to it, and post it around a few forums.  I knew our names (mine and BennyT) were similar with him using SPbTV, and me using scenariotv on my original blogspot site, but Benny and I had already spoken about it and were cool with each other.  Benny hadn’t been overly thrilled with the idea, but he knew he was using a generic sounding name – and I was looking for a generic sounding name for the same reasons.  It was inevitible that they were going to be similar.  I knew my new domain was even more similar to his name, but I didn’t think they were identical because as I rememberred it, Benny always used the abbreviation.  I have been ridiculously busy the last few days and have had very little sleep (working late every night on this project + a 0430 alarm to drive into NYC for my *real job*).  That all combined to equal the following mistake:  In my idiocy I failed to remember that at the opening and closing credits of most (last count well over 60) of Benny’s youtube videos he doesn’t use the abbreviation SPbTV, he spells out “Scenario Paintball TV.”  I rewatched a few of  Benny’s videos a little after 10 last night, and immediately registered a new domain name.  That being said you can all see how my registering and beginning to use the domain scenariopaintballtv.com name was a pretty lousy move.  On the plus side, at least it was me, and not some jerk offshore none of us have ever heard of and would try and charge Benny and exorbitant amount to acquire the registration for scenariopaintballtcv.com.  Benny and I know each other on and off the field, phone calls amongst the community have commenced and all with be settled shortly.

I reiterate, I have nothing but love and respect for: BennyT, Kendall, and Train. Harder.  Please visit their site via link earlier in this post, or the link on the right column of the main blog page.

This blog has moved (again) to http://blog.scenariopaintballfilms.com, please update your bookmarks and check back often

new blog, I will continue to double post for a week or so

here is the new site of the new Blog:

http://blog.scenariopaintballtv.com/

It’s on wordpress, and I have all sorts of new features to go with it.  RSS, email links, etc.

The single most important feature I added is the ability for you to sign up for an email list.  As a network engineer, trust me I get enough spam and hate it.  I vow to never sell, misuse, or otherwise abuse your email addresses.  I am just asking for you to sign up, so in the future I can send out some messages about how to go about pre-ordering your DVD copies.  If you’re really lucky and there is enough interest we may do a limited quantity pre-release edition which will include a regular DVD much later when they come out at little or no additional cost.  Jay and I still have to work out the details for that.

we’re going to move soon …

You just never know what you as a reader will find hidden in my posts here. Occasionally (such as today) you will find a lot of useless ramblings, however some days (possibly today – you’ll just have to read below and make up your own mind) you will find a nugget of real hard core meaty information. I mentioned in the beginning I won’t hold anything back. I will keep the general public as informed as I keep my close friends, and you are all now paying the price … be careful what you wish for.

So, I have been thinking (I know I know, I should stop – it usually sets what little hair I have left on fire, etc. etc.) about this project a lot lately. Jay and I set forth since the beginning two driving forces: One was to do this for my love of paintball, and to further grow our beloved sport. The other was to keep this project completely professional and to “do it right.” In keeping with that ideal, I’ve begun to consider that using a free blogger (google) account may not have been the most professional looking way for us to go. Earlier this morning I purchased a new domain and web host space:

http://www.scenariopaintballtv.com/

There isn’t anything there yet (so don’t bother browsing to it), and it will take us a little while to get it up and moving – but I do believe it is “the right way” to go. We have already been approached and have briefly considered what our next project might be, and it’s sounding like we may actually be able to turn this into a small (part time at least) business. To be honest, that is all really a pipe dream for Jay and I, and we are really just trying to concentrate on making this first one as successful as possible (and sell at least enough copies to make back our personal investments) – but I did want to let you all know my gears have been turning lately.

Sales, Strategic Alliances, and other fun stuff.

I know I know, its been a few days since I posted, but I haven’t had anything really interesting to tell you all. Jay has continued to edit lots and lots of film and we’re quite confident in the shape this project is beginning to take. This is likely to wind up as an “introduction to Scenario Paintball,” filmed at one of the best games in the business, West Point USMA.

I’ve begun to reach out to industry people and am having some really interesting and exciting conversations. From magazines to manufacturers the feedback I’ve received has been 100% supportive. Not to punch a gift horse in the mouth, but so far I’m amazed to report not a single person I’ve reached out to has given me the old blow off. It really just proves to me that the professional side of this industry is just as warm and hospitable as the player side that we know so well.

Some really awesome marketing (and cross-marketing) ideas are beginning to form in my and others’ heads. Very soon some of them may be coming to fruition so make sure you all check back here for information often.

Jay is a machine in the editing room!

All:

I just got off the phone with Jay, and I’m crazy psyched. We’ve got some really awesome footage, and after a 2-3 days of sitting in front of his Mac Jay is almost halfway through previewing available footage. So far he tells me we have a good one hour show, which was our original goal. The DVD release will be longer containing extra scenes, and may contain some bloopers such as inside jokes, some people tripping, etc. We’re still probably a month or two away from a full length trailer that I can begin circulating through the paintball industry and go to networks with, but things are looking great.

For today’s “appetite whetting” Jay has picked out a frame grab from inside one of the tanks:

First Teaser.

All righty guys, you’ve been asking for it, and Jay has been dutifully sitting in his editing room working to appease you.

On the right side you will find our first Teaser clip. Also you can watch it on the Vimeo site where you can pop it out into full screen:

teaser on Vimeo

West Point Paintball Combat Classic Spring 2009 Teaser from Jay Lavely on Vimeo.

First production images …

Here are the first few production stills:
Mud & heavy rain + much steeper ditch than expected + tank =

and a couple of our crew members (Tom with the camera and Topher with the mic) talking with the Red Comms Officer (Hollywood, from team Delta Co.):

and of course one of yours truly, (also the the Red team’s XO) all kitted up: