A Right Royal Smiting

A Short Film in "High Quality" Flash Video

by MattBoySlim

So, if you saw this on youtube.com, you may have read the story that goes along with it. If not, I'll try to make it quick:

I was at my sister's house for my niece Paige's birthday in April. While I was inside, presumably stuffing my face or having a beer or three, events of epic proportions were preparing to unfold, like massive thunderheads gathering on the horizon. Between my brother Bill, my brother-in-law Ken and my Dad, someone had the great idea to cut eye and arm holes in some lawn furniture boxes and put one of my nieces and my nephew in them. They started running around the house. When I saw what was clearly cardboard boxes zipping past the windows, I knew something had to be up. I got to the window just in time to see my niece Jenna lose her balance and slowly topple sideways, falling flatly on a flower bed. I ran to grab my sisters camera and ran outside. Now, Billy & Jenna are brother & sister, so of course the next logical conclusion was to hand them plastic bats and let them wail away on each other. The rest is what you see before you...set to music and edited for time.

I prepared the titles and grabbed the music and made sure it was all loaded to my laptop before I went to spend 10 days in Ocean City, NJ. On a salty Friday night, I captured the video from my sister's camera and set myself to editing. A few hours later, it was done. It's simple, but I really only made it to make my family laugh and since it performed that task, I'm proud of it. The music is from the first track of the Gladiator soundtrack. I tried to give credit where it's due at the end of the video, but I won't be supervised when youtube.com yanks it for using copyrighted content or something. I can't even remember where I got the various pictures from, individually, or else I'd credit those people as well.

Hmm...I guess when I said "quick" I meant "longer and much more detailed". Anyway, I hope you enjoy this video as much as I do. And do remember that there was parental supervision at all times and this was all in good fun. That being said, kids bashing each other with Wiffle Ball bats remains one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed.