User talk:Khamar/Draft article on Alan Melikdjanian

Notes on

Interview for The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe (13 Aug 2008)
Otherwise known as Captain Disillusion. Captain Disillusion is a YouTube web series that tackles paranormal and illusion found on Youtube. Alan demonstrates how YouTube illusion videos are made and explains them from a background in film-making and visual effects. Alan started this effort as a blog entry on myspace but later saw these items as ready made scripts for short videos.

Parallel to this effort is his background as an entertainer and musician. Penn and Teller were instrumental in his interest and eventually found the skeptical movement involved in similar work.

Melikdjanian finds that his followers like to learn about the illusions. It is not his intent to spoil legitimate entertainment or spoil a current performers work. His intent in showing how video illusions are created is to clear up misconceptions.

Openfilm.com was formed for film makers. The goal is to provide higher quality product and a group of serious content creators.

Interview for The Skeptic Zone (13 Aug 2010)
Alan created the character Capt. Disillusion as a superhero to highlight the web comic. The makeup represents illusion revealing reality.

3D
It is very difficult for independent filmmakers to create 3D video. Creating 3D is complex and does not work well in YouTube.

James Randy and Alan have collaborated on some projects and fictional scripts.

In another fictional character, Lens Flare explains the illusion created by a lens flare.

Alan was partially inspired by an animated comic character from [The Maxx].

In TAM 7 overview, during a panel on skepticism and magic Alan watched Darin Brown present an infomercial style, piece by piece publicity stunt. Darin Brown is a mentalist.

Alan would like to make more video more often. Editing, visual effects, and post production can take a long time to complete by one person.

http://captaindisillusion.com/ https://www.facebook.com/CaptainDisillusion

Interview for The Skeptic Zone (6 August 2011)
In TAM 9, Alan gave an interview to Dr. Riche where he appeared as Captain Disillusion (in makeup). He stated that it is a funny web series that picks viral videos online that depict unbelievable things and deconstructs the video effects that are used to create these videos. He tries to do this work in "the maximum fun way possible." TAM 7 resulted in the longest Captain Disillusion episode ever. Alan was a judge of the talent show in that year. James Randy called Alan to say he had seen Captain Disillusion episodes and invited Alan to attend future skeptical events. Alan lives close to where James Randy (used to be) based. Alan and James created some video in a later project. captaindisillusion.com (ref) youtube.com (ref)

http://skepticzone.libsyn.com/the-skeptic-zone-146-29-aug-2011