Mike McCafferty on Slice of SciFi Show #148, Sat., Feb. 16, 2008

Our guest for the next Slice of SciFi Show (#148) will be actor, director, writer and producer Mike McCafferty. Internet geeks will know Mike from his portrayal of the Ghost in the very popular video short “Chad Vader”. He has done stints on television with such great shows like “The Invisible Man, “ER,” “The West Wing,” “The Shield” and more.

However, Mike has also had roles in some pretty big feature films including “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” “Idiocracy,” to the upcoming Clint Eastwood directed film titled “The Changeling,” due out in November of this year (script written by J. Michael Straczynski).

Addendum by Amanda:  Mike, thank you very much for letting us know about your upcoming interview!  I just want to let readers know that they can catch your podcast interview at http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2008/02/14/mike-mccafferty-on-slice-of-scifi-show-148-sat-feb-16-2008/.  I couldn’t find any mention of when the show starts on the website, but if anyone misses it, they can listen to the interview at their convenience by simply looking for it in the Archives or Most Recent Episodes section of the website.

Mr. Sprinkles and Eberts

Hello team,

Sadly, L33t Haxxors 4 did not win the final contest on Acceptable TV because, well, we got hacked.

The winner, a good friend of mine who is also the creator of the wildly popular “Chad Vader” series, posted on his site that his show was up for voting. Ambitious readers, noting that voting was unlimited, took that to heart and set up autoclicking programs to rig the game. We tried to fight it with our own ballot stuffing but in the last hours of voting, we lost by 2%. Ugh.

I mention L33t here because as writer and co-director of the past 3 episodes I’ve definitely started to mold the duo of Overlord and Razorwire to resemble Fawkes and Hobbes, respectively. I think they’re really starting to hit their stride and hopefully we’ll shoot a few more of these. Take another look and see if you can spot the similarities.

Also, check out the last three episodes of Mr. Sprinkles. I did the voice of Agent Pedone, who works for Homeland Security. I was surprised that the animation looked a lot like Eberts! I hadn’t even thought about that until I saw the first episode and then it hit me that this could be Eberts, post 9/11. Admittedly, a harsher, no nonsense version, but hey, it’s been quite a few years since we’ve seen him so who knows?

As far as the I-Man, well, you know the story thus far. I’d love to get the cast together for a little I-man short in the vein of the Star Trek online series that use Trek talent. It’d be a non-profit fan film, maybe something to jump start the whole process of a feature. I dunno, if you all support this, maybe you should post comments and let me know.

Having said that, I support Amanda’s quest to bring us all back to the big screen some how. She’s tireless and fearless, both of which are crucial in the battle against Hollywood. I know she’ll succeed someday, when is the million dollar question.

Thanks,

Mike

The Con-Time Machine

Hello team,

I thought I’d share this little short film I made a month ago. It’s of marginal interest to I-man fans because A. I and jason Makiaris are in it and B. It’s sort of a spoof on H.G. Wells’ “The Time-Machine”, forefather of our beloved Invisible Man.

This was entered into the Channel 101 short film monthly competition, in which the top five voted films get to make additional episodes. This actually finished sixth, oddly enough, right behind my return series “Quest“, so it was a mixed evening to be sure.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

Mike

http://one.revver.com/watch/155330

Eberts, er, Collins Files.

Amanda beat me to the punch with her post.

I’ve uploaded my scene if you’d like to watch it. I don’t really consider this to be too illegal since Fox did everything in their power to kill this movie, including not spending a dime on advertising (the first film to have that distinction in 41 years) and waiting 2 1/2 years to release it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9k-OcviNNQ

As I said before, I played this as Eberts. There’s very little distinction between “Collins” and Eberts and in fact it’s very easy for me to believe that after the Agency Eberts transfered to the Army’s research division. The Army was good and bad to Eberts, he lost 20 pounds but got bad eyesight and grew a mustache.

Trivia:
*If you look of my right shoulder there’s a picture that’s mostly obscured. That’s a shot of my 3 day old son. Kiernan was born and two days later I was in Austin, TX shooting this. I brought a picture and they put it in the frame. His first big break in show business.

*I do say the “N” word, so be advised. About a year after we shot the film Mike Judge brought me to the Fox lot (The Marge Simspson recording room no less!) to record some additional dialogue. He gave me that line and I thought it was funny. I think in the context it’s not me or Collins being racist, but rather Collins trying to become a pimp by changing his language. I probably wouldn’t qualify any of this if Michael Richards hadn’t totally lost his mind.

*Mike Judge is an amazing guy and I’m sad his movies get treated so badly. He sounds exactly like Hank Hill in real life. He lives in Austin and records all his “King of the Hill” lines there.

* The pimp is rapper Scarface. He showed up for the photo shoot with an entourage of about 7 guys. Most of them passed out from being hung over the previous night. Scarface started hitting on Maya Rudolph during the photo shoot. He was probably just kidding but Maya wasn’t having any of that and looked pissed. It was funny, though.

* Some of the photo shoot of Collins with the pimp was in a real bar. It was about 2 pm and there were locals already there. They didn’t seem to notice or care when an Army Lt. Colonel, 2 pimps and 15 “ho’s” (Mike Judge’s words) walked in and began to take pictures.

As I said before, I think this character is probably Eberts. It’s a funny ending for his character…at least until the I-Man movie. Who knows, maybe while he’s rotting in a military prison, The Official will offer him a pardon. All he has to do is participate in a little experiment…

Well, that’s what I got for right now. You can check my MySpace blog to read about my auditions and I’ll stop by here occasionally to update you on the movie from my perspective and the doing of other cast members. Until then, Shoom on.

Mike

Hello everybody!

My name is Mike McCafferty and once upon a time I was on a pretty cool show called “The Invisible Man”. The show was doing well, getting great reviews and good ratings. Then 9/11 and bickering network presidents killed it before it’s prime. But you know all this.

5 years later, most have moved on. But there are still enough people who remember that this was a show that meant something to them, and so they hold on. They hold on to a faint dream that someday these characters on a tv show at the turn of the millennium would return and entertain an enthrall at least once more.

I’m one of those folks.

So is Amanda, who took an idle conversation we had two years ago about how the fans need to take the reins and make something happen, and then proceeded to do just that. That’s why this site is here.

There are others. There is you, who is reading this blog not because you are required, but because you choose. If you’ve made it this far, for this long, you believe that this dream can happen too.

It ain’t gonna be easy. The last 5 years has buried the dream in a thick layer of intellectual property rights, shifting networks and general apathy. No one wants to help us, in fact they’d rather we fail to save them the hassle. They want you to watch what they tell you to watch and don’t cause a fuss. After all, they know better, don’t they.

Actually, they don’t. The fact is that the industry is changing a light speed…literally. There’s a lot of chaos going on and if you need proof, see how much a company called YouTube sold for recently. It’s no longer a world where a few dictate entertainment to the many, rather, the many create content, and a few or many watch, listen or read it. It’s a brave new world, and the rules don’t exist yet.

So I say we make some new rules, possibly by breaking old ones. Let’s take some baby steps then start to sprint. The dream is of course to have an I-man movie, but it can also be so much more. A group of like minded people can do almost anything, all it takes is a dream, the will to do it and a place to meet to talk about it. I think we’re in pretty good shape.

So drop by here now and then and I’ll do the same. I’ve given Amanda license to show anything I do here if that drives people here. If you make something that you think helps the cause, maybe it belongs here too. Maybe you can just tell a friend, maybe you can mention it in your own blog. Maybe you can just believe for a little while longer, just enough for us to get on our feet. Whatever you can do, it will help.

For now, we baby step. Soon, we shoom.

Thanks, and see you soon,
Mike McCafferty