The MSU library is hosting a digital video contest. Here’s the promo we made.

I’m proud to announce that the The Peripook took home the Best Home Grown award at the 2008 Magnolia Independent Film Festival. This award is given to the film the judges deem as best among the ones submitted by Mississippi filmmakers. Good Commitment is honored and excited to receive this award as there were some fantastic entries by other Mississippi filmmakers.

Don’t miss the Magnolia Film Festival February 14th-16th 2008 at Hollywood Premiere Cinemas in Starkville. Here are some promos we made for it that are playing at the theater and soon on TV (We didn’t do the black and white one).

If you are on our mailing list (look in the sidebar) you would’ve gotten an email inviting you to send in your mailing address to receive one of these sweet Christmas cards to put on your refrigerator or mantle with all your other Christmas cards. If you did send in your mailing address, you should expect your card in a few days.

Happy Holidays!

So where’s Good Commitment been, eh?
Well, right now Kary is hopping around Europe with his wife Mandy.

Gabe is in the thick of rehearsals for his role as the detective in the murder mystery Laura at SCT.

Graham and Derek have been busy getting the ball rolling over at The Tenth Wonder (in case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, the 2nd season of Heroes just started.)

And James has been helping Bruce Butler get some plans underway for the 2nd Southeastern Comedy Arts Festival Nov. 9-11 in Oxford this year. And even though James has more free time than the other four, you wouldn’t want to watch him fiddling around with his crappy camera and some sock puppets.

So we promise we haven’t died, and we will return with plenty of funny in a short while. If you need funny quickly, check out a local live comedy troupe. Lots of Mississippi troupes are having shows soon.

Oxford, MS: October 4- Laff Co. is performing at the PowerHouse!

Starkville, MS: October 12- Lab Rats are performing at the Lab Theater!

Jackson, MS: October 13- Off Kilter is performing at George Street Grocery!

And then, get ready for the return of Good Commitment!

Hey guys! Good Commitment needs extras! And lots of ‘em! If you want to be in the next Good Commitment episode, just show up this Saturday, the 25th, at 5:00, to the Pecan Grove on MSU’s campus, which is next to the old music building A (check out the campus map). You can wear whatever you’ve got on, and we’ll be done in time for you to have your Saturday night. (we’d like to have one too!) We’ll also have a sign-in sheet so we make sure you get name credit for helping us out!

If this is a possibility for you, we’d love for you to let us know, just to give us an idea of how many are coming, but if you find yourself free Saturday and you didnt tell us, just come on out anyway! Saturday @ 5:00, at the Pecan Grove near the old Music Building. Be there!

Also, the Reflector is slated to have a story about us in Friday’s paper, so check it out!

I was having a conversation with someone yesterday and this story somehow just came up. And it was then that I realized how fond an improv memory it it to me, so I thought I’d share it with everyone.

In November of 2006, Kary, Will Cooper, and I performed at the New Orleans Improv Festival (the same festival that bequeathed the name Good Commitment to us) as the BBQ Peas. We were originally going to be a six man ensemble with Gabe, Kristin, and Jonette (how awesome would that have been?!) but they couldn’t make it. So Kary, Will, and I developed a lineup that included some new versions of several games we love.

Interrogation is an improv game played by three people. One is the “criminal.” He must either leave the room or seal his ears while the audience determines who he is (usually a celebrity or a literary character) and what crime he has committed. The other two players are the cops, and they sit him down in front of everyone, and through their interrogations, he must figure out the info and confess to the crime.

Sounds challenging enough, huh? Well, apparently not for us. No, we decided to make it as hard as we could on ourselves. So we developed a version with further limitations. What you’re about to read might scare you. Brace yourself. For this version, Kary is the criminal, Will is Cop 1, and I’m Cop 2.

Will was mute. He put duct tape over his mouth. So he heard the important information for Kary to guess, but he couldn’t say anything. I was deaf. I had my ipod on the whole time, and I never even got to hear what Kary’s crime was.

…so obviously Will would have to act out what it was, so Kary could guess from that, huh? Nope. Kary was blind. We put a blindfold on him, so that there was no way he could see what Will- who was the only one who knew the information- was doing.

It was one of the few games we performed that the New Orleans audience loved. Probably because it was almost like watching a Penn and Teller trick. The premise is impossible, but somehow, it all works out. And it did. I interrogated Kary based on what I was guessing from Will’s charades, while Will indicated whether Kary was on the right track, or even whether I was making the right guesses in the first place.

Ahh…good times. Now, why the New Orleans audience only loved a “few” of our games, well, that’s a different story for another day.

We’ve entered into the sketch vs stand-up contest at Project Breakout. Please consider voting for our entry Stiff Job. You’ll need to create an account, but it’s pretty painless.

Thanks!

You may have noticed a fresh new air about GoodCommitment.tv lately.

Well, we’d like to thank a few people who have been working behind the scenes to make that happen.

First, you can thank Mallory Violette for the awesome new GC look! When we decided to update the feel, we knew we had to ring Mallory up for the rocking work she does! Thanks, Mal!

Second, in no particular order, we’d like to introduce you to the new members of the Good Commitment creative team, who are joining us here in the second season to help bring even more bang for your buck!

Graham Hancock is a podcaster, photographer, and producer extraordinaire! He currently records and produces 10th Wonder, an NBC “Heroes” podcast which is regularly in the top 50 most downloaded podcasts on itunes. He recently also just finished his work on a documentary with Bo Duke himself, John Schneider, which is set to hit the DVD shelves within the year.

Derek Russell is another successful podcaster and comedian. He is the front man and creator of Starkville’s House of El, a “Smallville” podcast. SHoE recently shot a feature video which will appear on the “Smallville” Season 6 DVD this fall. Derek also hosts Tangent, a podcast devoted to conversational topics and celebrity interviews.

Last but certainly not least, Gabe Smith, Good Commitment regular and fan favorite, is joining the team as a full-fledged contributor. Gabe has worked on 10 previous Good Commitment episodes already, and is set to direct the next one. He has more acting experience than any of the other four GC members (possibly combined), is currently the sketch coach for MSU’s Lab Rats Comedy, and has won numerous awards for writing, including 1st place in the American College Theatre Festival’s southeast region Critics Institute.
We are extremely proud to be working with Graham, Derek, and Gabe!

Starting now, Good Commitment will be moving to a temporary “New episode every 2 weeks” schedule. We’ve had a few sketch ideas in the bank for a while now (some since January) that we always wanted to do, but never had the time it would take to fully execute them. Now, we will!

So to sum up, next Monday, the 11th, there will not be a new Good Commitment episode. But the 18th, there will! 25th, no. July 2, yes. And so on.

You know what? There are probably episodes and extras hiding out that you haven’t seen yet, plus old ones worth a second look!