Dear Santa - A Holiday Journal Entry

When my talented husband D. R. Acula wrote his monologue entry for the new Tentsquare contest #HolidayJournalEntry, I loved the cool and hilarious twist he put on it, but we weren't quite sure how actors would portray it or if they would get the message we were trying to convey with it. But then, a light broke through the clouds of uncertainty. That light's name is Adra Janean.

Adra is an actress with some work already under her belt, which you can find on her IMDB. We were pleasantly surprised to see that she not only read the monologue, but understood completely the message in it, conveying it perfectly and hilariously on film, with some great editing to top it off and make it even more entertaining. And she did it all in one hour! As a dabbling video editor myself, I know how hard it is to complete a project like this in just one hour, but she did it. So that earns even more kudos from me!

At first Adra was worried if a female Santa could work for the challenge, but her take on it as Mrs. Claus was absolutely brilliant, and she even threw in some improv that made the whole thing better. With this video, Adra completely surpassed our expectations, and made a little masterpiece in the process. Watch the magic HERE. You won't regret it. ;) 

If you like the video, you can vote for it once a day, beginning December 13th. If she wins, she'll score some cash and a meeting with casting director Lindsay Chag. So help us show our appreciation for this wonderful performance by voting when the time comes. She so deserves to win. :) 

Be the lightning, 

Kylie Jude. 

}i{ 

Making "Coma"

 As most of you have probably heard by now, my husband D. R. Acula and I have been participating in a contest on a collaborative website called TentSquare, and for about a month now it's pretty much all we've been doing. We've now made it all the way to the final round, and for this round contestants were asked to write an original song, using elements of TentSquare's coming film "While You Were In A Coma" in which a man wakes up from a coma to find that aliens have invaded. 

We were told to incorporate a gas mask (which we happened to have anyway), a city (which we did NOT have), and the fact that the main character 'doesn't get the girl' in the end. So we built this whole apocalyptic world based on that little bit of information, in which our characters are in the midst of this war with the alien invaders, and we have run out of bullets so we have to use swords and hammers and such to fight them, and our characters are basically singing to the guy in the coma, waiting for him to wake up and 'help us save the world' as the song states. 

Photo by Kylie Jude

We only had about 10 days to compose the music, write the lyrics, film the video, edit the video, and get it uploaded (which for us is an entire day's work anyway). We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary during the 10 days, and we had to take a few breaks for yard work, road work, house work, and even tearing apart and rebuilding our porch steps. So in reality it probably only took us 6 or7 days to do all of this work. And trust me, it was a LOT of work. 

First he composed the music, which featured elements of the video interview we submitted in the 2nd round, so it wasn't too hard to build on that and make it into a full length song. Then I wrote the lyrics, which I'll paste below in case you can't understand them in the song. Then we recorded vocals and I mixed them into the song, which took longer than it probably should have. 

Then we filmed the video, which took about 3 days, and was a combination of us, some close-up shots of the machines that conveniently decided to work on our road during that time (which never happens here so it was good timing - we figured they could pass for aliens), and footage that people sent us of cities including New York, Chicago, and even from Argentina. We don't have a city near where we live, so we were really lucky to get that footage from them. Then our TentSquare shirts arrived in the mail just in time to go back and film some extra shots for the last chorus with us wearing the shirts. 

Photo by D. R. Acula

Then came the editing process, which was probably the most tedious and time consuming of all, but I love editing and I had fun doing it. As it started to come together, I literally squealed with excitement a few times. LOL.

We both worked harder on this than I think we've ever worked on anything, and it was so much fun to create something like this together. Hopefully we'll be doing more stuff like this in the near future!  

UPDATE: We didn't win the contest, but we did come in second place. We are grateful to those who supported us and voted daily for us, and we hope to do more stuff like this in the future (even if it's not with TentSquare). We will be uploading the music video to Youtube as soon as we can, but for now you can still watch it on the site HERE.

And please let us know what you think!

  Oh! And here are those lyrics I promised: 

When you wake up

We need to talk 

Everything has changed my love 

They came from the skies 

Hell fire in their eyes 

And waves of radiation 

They blew the buildings down 

They blew the lights out 

And now we're left with nothing 

To fend for ourselves 

To fight for our lives 

And only the strong will survive

Are you strong enough to fight 

Or will you give in tonight 

Don your gas mask draw your sword 

Come and help us save the world 

Open your eyes 

Look to the skies 

Death is in the rain son 

Don't be fooled by 

Their coy disguise 

Trust nothing and no one 

Are you strong enough to fight 

Or will you give in tonight 

Don your gas mask draw your sword 

Come and help us save the world 

When you wake up 

We need to talk 

Everything has changed my love 

I'm not yours and 

You're not mine and 

We will never happen 

This is not the 

Time for love - it's 

Time for killing - time for war  

So don your gas mask 

Draw your sword 

Come and help us save the world 

Photo by D. R. Acula

Be the lightning,

Kylie Jude. 

}i{