"The Place was There, the time was then, this....is who we were."

In light of Halloween around the corner, and in light of the current economic crisis, here's a children's story made scary. Mary Gillis is the actress who recites the tale of "Chicken Little". It appears at the beginning of a season 2 episode of Chris Carter's Millennium FOX TV series, called "Monster". In this context, it takes on a spine-chilling, creepy retelling.

The music is also from the series, and appears in the opening credits, created by Mark Snow. So the images in this video are in the spirit of the show, sort of like a parody. The footage was all gathered at Santa Monica Gymnastics Center (yes, I've had this video idea floating around in my head for quite some time, and some of the clips used were intentionally taken for the day I'd make this specific video); hopefully, that doesn't give anyone bad nightmares about the place that holds fond memories for so many of us.

I used to tell some of the kids there were ghosts in the building. They never believed me. Maybe this will change their minds:



The last message etched into the chalk, "O.K." was an idea inspired by Thea, who went through a phase where no matter what coaching advice you'd give her, her one-line response was, "okaaaay." It left coaches wondering if she ever really "got it".

I finished the video late last night (or early this morning) but have been steadily at work on it for a year or more. What was fun, is it allowed me to use play with more special effects than I normally use in my videos. A number of the effects are customized xml, which I got from the Windows Movie Maker forum.

Happy early Halloween, folks! I plan one more Halloween video, which'll be a re-edit of the SMGC labyrinth (just a shorter version). I might also add a second cut version of this video, later this weekend.

Then again, I might not.