Check out our kick-ass recap of Simple Man Cruise 2010!

Sixthman TV – Simple Man Cruise 2010 Recap

Have a great Friday everybody, catch ya on the flip side!

-Steve

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Check out this great recap video from Cayamo 2010:

Video: Cayamo 2010 Recap

We had an absolutely incredible time on Cayamo 2010 and we hope you did too. See you in 2011!

-Steve

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For those of you who missed out on the awesomeness, here are the highlights from the Belly Flop Contest on Simple Man Cruise 2010.  We had to stop early because the pool ran out of water.

Belly Flop Contest – Simple Man Cruise 2010

-Steve

Here’s our latest Sixthman TV film – Knowing Your Paris Lounge.  If you’re joining us on the Kid Rock Cruise, VH1 Best Cruise Ever, or Sailing Southern Ground, this will apply to you!

Sixthman TV – Knowing Your Paris Lounge

Take care everybody, have a great weekend!

-Steve

I just filmed this video about an hour ago from the Lido Deck of the Carnival Inspiration while on Simple Man Cruise 2010.   Don’t let Ship Envy happen to you.  It’s kind of tough to hear me in the beginning (due to the ROCK CONCERT happening right behind me), so make sure your volume is turned up.

Ship Envy – Don’t Let it Happen to You

Still got another big night, and a full day tomorrow left on SMC 2010. This is awesome.

-Steve

Check out the latest video on Sixthman.TV, Stephen Kellogg performing “Girlfriend as Pretty as You” during a songwriter panel on The Rock Boat X:

Sixthman TV – Stephen Kellogg, “Girlfriend as Pretty as You”

Take care guys!  Stay tuned all weekend long for updates from Simple Man Cruise 2010.

-Steve

For those of you who weren’t there, and for those of you who were there but want to relive it…check out our Rock Boat X recap – fun was had by all!

The Rock Boat X Recap

-Steve

If you’re watching this, then you already know: we’re leaving on The Rock Boat X today!  Check out how we prepared:

Sixthman TV – Rock Boat Training Camp

Take care, and stay tuned to the blog for updates all weekend long from the ship!

-Steve

Happy New Year friends and family!  We know the weather is making some of you blue, so we thought a video about the blanket with sleeves might cheer you up:

Sixthman TV – The Sixthman Snuggie

We hope you all had a great 2009, get ready for an even better year in 2010!

-Steve

A few months back, Andy charged the company with creating some videos to bring out our Sixthman personality on screen.

Every Friday since then, we’ve added a new Sixthman TV video to the mix (18 in total), trying to show you all what life is like as a Sixthman employee.  Sure we do quite a bit of embellishing, but a majority of the movies are all grounded in a little bit of fact.  You know how every movie nowadays is “based on a true story?”  That’s kind of how we come up with our ideas.

If I HAD to pick a favorite, it would have to be the “What About Us?” video that we made while the rest of the company was on the Elvis Cruise.  First of all, there was only 5 of us left in the office, so we had to film this in between phone rings, we didn’t have to buy a SINGLE prop (for some reason, we already had silly string, sombreros, a margarita machine, and a dog), and the outtakes are the best because none of us could keep a straight face for more than 3 seconds.  My second favorite is probably Tour De Sixthman, as that first time I tried messing around with black and white, slow motion, and an epic soundtrack.  Good times!

We’ve since graduated from filming on a tiny Flip Cam to a nice new Sony HD camcorder, but my process is still the same, week after week:

• Sit down with Andy and a few other Sixthman team members
• Start throwing out ideas, keeping the good ones, making fun of the bad ones (you’d be amazed what Andy comes up with)
• Write a script and shot sequence
• Find my actors, ask for a few minutes of their time, give them minimal direction, and then let them roll with it.
• Generally try to stop myself from laughing from behind the camera (which you can clearly hear during the soft-serve scene of the Boat Dumb episode)
• Take the film, add a title, pick a soundtrack, and then edit
• Show the company, hope they laugh, and then send it out to you guys!

Here at Sixthman we never do anything by the book, which is why we want you to write the next Sixthman TV script!  You might think we’re asking this because we’ve run out of ideas.  Nope – we’ve actually planned out the next two months worth of ideas already and I can’t wait to film them.  However, with this community being so tight and connected, we wanted to see what you could come up with.  Is there a part of life in the office that hasn’t been highlighted yet?  Is there a part of our job that hasn’t been featured?  Let us know!  Here are the guidelines:

• The video should be between 1:30 and 2:30. We’ll add the outtakes at the end, but shorter is better.  2 Minutes is the best.
• Tell us who you want in the film – let us know who your actors are
• Write a simple script – it should have an intro, 4 or 5 scenes, and then an outtro
• Give it a title!

For example, this is the rough outline of the script for What About Us?

• Starts with some sad song with piano.
  
• Close ups, sweeping cameras of each of us “hi, my name is Joy Todaro, and I was left behind”  “Hi I’m April Gardner, and I was left behind.” etc.
• each one will be in front of a different backdrop, different camera style, fade in, fade out…like one of those sad public service announcement videos.
• Then the next scene is the 4 girls sitting on a couch, and Steve walking over and sitting on the arm of the couch next to you all “hi, I’m steve kamb with sixthman, and I”m here with 4 amazing individuals who were left behind while the rest of the company went out on the Elvis Cruise.  Luckily, we’re all mature individuals, and we understand that somebody needs to mind the fort, so we’re going to continue with business as usual.  Andy can trust us….and then a second or two of silence, serious faces…and then we all burst out laughing.
• Show scenes of us with our feet up on the desk.  Steve answers the phone “you want to book a cabin on the Zac Brown cruise? Sure! How much does it cost? Um…(rolls a pair of dice, 7…0 dollars. 70 bucks. Yup.”
• Cut to Joy and May, Joy is in a chair, and the chair is spinning as May is wrapping her up with toilet paper and they’re both laughing maniacally.
• Cut to Jill Mac in the kitchen firing up the margarita machine.
• May walks by “are you making margaritas?”
• Jill: yup.
• Ape: “but it’s 11:15 in the morning”
• Jill: “yup.”
• Ape: Can I get salt on mine?
• April on the phone : “yes (giggle), this is, um, Andy Levine, I’d like to order 12 dozen wings delivered to Sixthman please.  you can put it on my account.”
• Fade to black – don’t worry andy and the rest of the company, we have everything under control!

As you can see, some things change, some things stayed the same, and some things were improvised.  Your script should be no more than a page, tell us who is doing what, and if there’s any songs you want us to use.

There’s no limit on how many good scripts we can use.  If we pick yours, we’ll send you a bag of swag.  If we like your idea, we’ll probably have to change a few things to make everybody’s schedules work, but we’ll let you know if we use it.

Email your ideas and scripts to SteveK@sixthman.net.  There’s no guarantee that we’ll use your script, but if it’s good we’ll certainly work with you on it.

-Steve

photo: PedroSimoes7