MSPP #32: Buttons Plays Broomball

on March 2, 2008 in Activity, podcast

It has been a month since the last podcast was posted, but there is a reason for that. I wanted to make a film with Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, that showed him participating with Boy Scouts on an outing. I felt it was time for Buttons to leave the safety of the house, and play a game with the Scouts.

This video features the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 on their winter outing in February, 2008. Their schedule includes an afternoon game of broomball, so Buttons decides to go along with them and watch the game. When one of the boys gets tired, he asks Buttons to play for him. Unfortunately, Buttons is not very good at playing broomball and the Boy Scouts need to put their first aid skills to use.

This video presented several challenges. First, filming outdoors scenes in the sun while looking at a 2″ LCD view screen is tough. It is very hard to make out what is being filmed, and what is not. We also had a little trouble with the camera and did not get all the scenes filmed that I wanted to get filmed. Unfortunately, time did not allow us to go back and record scenes that could have used another take or two.

Filming Buttons in the real world is quite a challenge in itself. There is not budget for these films, of course, so we have to develop ways to show him active with the Scouts without creating special sets that would have been made for bigger productions, like the Muppets. Trying to keep a puppeteer out of camera view is a real problem. In fact, in one scene the puppeteer was in the shot and it took some creative editing to get him out of it.

Editing this video was also a challenge. Soon after I started editing it I realized that I would need a little narration to help the story along. I also felt this one would need some music to help it move along, but I did not want to use popular music and violate any copyright laws. So, with the help of Mel-TV, I was about to use their music library and also present them with a film to play on the station.

I hope you enjoy this video. True, Buttons in not in it as much as he is in his previous films, but I really wanted to show the Scouts interacting with the puppet, and thus, the film features the Boy Scouts more then it does the puppet.

I really would like to read your comments about this film. You can leave one here, or at the PTC media forums. If you leave a comment at the iTunes Music Store you will help the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast climb higher in the ratings. Let me know if I should continue to produce more videos like this one.

Download Podcast
Watch the Video on the troop’s website.
Subscribe to MSPP through iTunes.

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