Thirty Second Stories (.com) is ALIVE

I am boring but would contribute coding help if it's needed!

I am glad to see all you respectable people also procrastinated. Phew!

before this only very tall buildings had thirty second stories

and few people in buildings with at least 32 floors even VISIT the 32nd story. EVER. they don't know what they're missing.

i am trying to fix the video code and i'm having hilarious moments of ineptitude. also i have a knack for creating coding conundrums that are like UFO visits. they're fantastic and no one believes me. my current thing is that i finally figured out how to play the video full screen in the background automatically, but after celebrating for a few minutes and then reloading the page, it reduced the size of the video to half the screen, and the buttons on the website no longer work. it's baffling. so it worked perfectly, then upon every subsequent reload no longer works. i confirmed with my main squeeze that i was not insane and that it did work the first time, and never again, even though nothing changed except reloading the page.

i think the whole situation is heightened because i've been reading emmanuel carrere's the mustache and i feel like i'm the guy in the story.

also amory blaine you are way too kind and no, please do not, and if you, may you feel MUCH REMORSE!

Try clearing your cookies? It's the browser version of turning it off and then on again. Work sometimes!

yeah, i tried that! i think maybe it's the css somehow? i deleted out a few lines that were under the video tag, and that fixed it (for now).

anyway, basically i'm just dealing with a neverending series of stuff like that. but listening to neon lights so everything is good

Just pump your hands in the air like your little screen name dude and you'll make it through!

I recorded about 10 takes and sent ZS 8 of them, I could hear myself getting progressively drunker as they went on

You know what, I want to tell my one good story for this, Karl do I still email you to get instructions

I am delurking to say this project should be very fun.

I found it fairly okay to do it in 30 seconds, I did three takes and they were all in and around 30/31. My tip would be to think of it more like a haiku or something more surreal. I was surprised to feel like I could allow some space even within the 30 seconds.

Though admittedly my story was about a time I counted to 25 - after the first line it kinda told itself.

guys i worked an event tonite on the 32nd floor of a hotel

while you were up there did you hear any good...well you know

/dadjoke

silby - got your email, and I'll send you some instructions in just a bit.

a lot of my dadjokes are attempts at far side jokes but i can't quite get there

sounds like you're practicing your dad jokes!

i was going to do this but i didn't know if they were supposed to be true stories and the thought of strangers hearing my intimate true stories in my own voice made me queasy

Sent! Yay!

BCC'd myself but not getting it, please let me know if you received it ZS

hmmm - haven't gotten it yet, at least not at my gmail account. if you sent it to my zach at thirtysecondstories.com account, i'll check it when i get home from work and let you know.

it's kind of fascinating to listen to the stories and hear what people choose to talk about and how they go about fitting it into 30 seconds. hopefully that'll end up being interesting for others as well. i received a submission from my 4-year-old niece that no one is going to be able to top, though. it's 7 seconds long and leaves an unforgettable mental image.

!

do you still want more of these? I forgot about this.

Odd, will try and send again ZS.

4-year-old niece story!

Sure, go ahead polyphonic. The deadline I set for sending in stories is the end of today, and so far I'm missing over 40 of the 60 stories I expected, so I could use some more. (However I fully expect to be anxious all day about it and then receive them all at 11:55pm, because that's how deadlines work)

Sent again and think you received it this time!

Got it! Today is my day of cranking out one video after another (I hope). to this point I've felt kind of like your friend in high school who always comes up with band names and titles of songs and knows what to wear during the debut concert, but never actually practices or writes songs. time to make this thing

ok, the bad news is that each one of these videos is taking me about an hour to make, so i have quite a ways to goes. the bad news pt. 2 is that there's always a tradeoff between file size and quality, and since i'm trying to keep the video sizes small so that they'll load quickly, the videos are a little blurry and certainly the opposite of crisp. i could address this by playing them as normal size on the screen, but fuck it, i want them to play full screen.

the good news is that i have a semi-functional prototype going with 5 videos and i think this whole thing is going to work. i apologize in advance to the people who get one of my shittier visual/audio accompaniments, but i'm doing the best that i can with each one, and in some cases it just really *clicks* and it reaffirms that the effort is totally worth it

🎼♩♪♬♫♩♬♫♬♫♩♬♩_\o/_♫♩♪♩♬♬♩♬♫♫▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ █

𝄞

in other words,
▁▂▂▁▁▂▂▃▃▂▁▂▂▂▃▂▁▁▁http://i.imgur.com/yUCHVI9.gif▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ █

WANNA SEE PROTOTYPE

so i have quite a ways to goes.

when someone commits a speaking error in the heat of the moment, document it here

ZS are you going live at a certain time? Would be nice if we could gather in this thread and experience it!

eh zs if mine doesnt make first cut fu I'm out

ZS are you going live at a certain time? Would be nice if we could gather in this thread and experience it!

read this with "to" inserted before "live" and had a private intense moment! i was initially aiming for Monday the 19th to launch but there's no way in hell i can do that. i want to make sure i at least give my best shot to each story, and they're taking me quite a while to make. i rushed a little on two of them yesterday, and now in the cold sober light of sunday morning i know i have to go back and fix them. plus there's a bunch of stuff with the code and css that i need to address. anyway, i'm going to have to push back to the 26th for launch. i'm not sure what time yet but it'll probably just be around noon or so on whatever day it goes live.

Haha :)

No prob, git 'er done properly before launching imho. God speed my man.

i have 10 done.

i am really enjoying making these. i realize they're going to be amateurish compared to what most video artists can do but every once in a while they come out pretty well and it's so fucking satisfying.

i keep on changing the plan as i go, but now i'm thinking of releasing these as 10-story "episodes". the plan would be to launch with episode 1, and then follow up a week later with a 10-story episode 2. i have enough submitted stories already to take care of that. and then, if there's any sort of appeal to the site and people want to submit stories, do subsequent episodes.

i think that's a good idea. you could easily have a three month block as of right now.

oh no i didn't see this thread til now :( i wanna tell a story

stevie d you can still submit a story, i'm starting with 10 but i'm already working on episode 2 with 10 more, and then hopefully more after that. if you're interested can you send me a quick email at [MODERATOR REDACTION] at gmail so I can reply back with more details?

more boring developments (sorry for making this the most self-indulgent thread of all time but i've spent virtually all of my non-worklife time on this for the past few weeks so it's kind of subsuming everything else):

in addition to the website, i'm thinking about uploading each video individually onto youtube, for three reasons:

1) i'll be able to post high resolution versions of the videos. the versions on thirtysecondstories.com are low quality so that they can be loaded more quickly.
2) for the "credits" section on thirtysecondstories.com i can just point to a youtube playlist with all of the videos, each one with the name of the story and storyteller.
3) if one of the videos is particularly good or something, having a separate youtube version of it will make it possible for people to share it more easily.

i was gonna suggest that, good idea.

Thinking of referring to this as XXX Sec Stories to maximize confusion

Imagine someone sending you a link to www.xxxsecstories.com. Total missed opportunity.

hot college football action

XXX sec stories, free, high quality, topical

lol

http://i.imgur.com/CUmHSbc.jpg

slightly more informative placeholder up

definitely going live this monday, most likely at 11 am or so. i keep changing the organization of it every day but currently the plan is to launch with two episodes of 5 stories each. then i'll follow up with a third five-minute episode the following week (it's almost done already, i'm just trying to give myself a buffer just in case).

lookin good!

Yes looking great!

http://38.media.tumblr.com/d6043387c1c692a87efc103f5b04195d/tumblr_nir56wX1ey1qdmmiqo1_500.gif