:: Earl Green - Freelance Television Writer / Producer ::

Several years in the planning and taking over a month of intensive editing, Phosphor Dot Fossils is a three-hour DVD documentary based upon the web site of the same name, which I’ve been writing and adding new material to since 1995. Tracing the history of video games from their inception as a mass-market item in the early 1970s, through the rise and fall of their mass-acceptance in the pre-Nintendo 1980s, Phosphor Dot Fossils features game footage, rare (and in many cases, extensively restored) commercials, and photos and mini-essays (in its unique everything-on-the-screen “video book” format) of extremely rare prototype games and hardware. I wrote every word, edited every second, composed every note of music, and embarked on an extensive DVD authoring project to create the disc’s extremely concise menu system. To date, despite this being a self-published project aimed at a small niche audience, over 200 copies have sold, with more orders always being taken. A follow-up, Phosphor Dot Fossils Level 2, is in the planning stages for early 2009, and I’m brainstorming possible further projects using a similar format. Phosphor Dot Fossils debuted at the OEGE live event sponsored by Oklahoma City Community College in April 2008.

The Odyssey2 DVD is a direct-to-DVD compilation of archival clips and historical footage related to the groundbreaking (but these days rather obscure) Odyssey2 home video game console, marketed internationally in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I did not author the DVD, but instead restored and remastered nearly all of the assets used on it; in some cases, the footage was in very poor shape, requiring many hours of work to bring it up to the level of merely being viewable, let alone at an audiovisual quality that most consumers expect from a DVD. Footage included classic commercials, internal sales tapes from Magnavox and Philips, rare footage, and even a full-length video recording of an employees’-eyes-only performance by the Second City comedy troupe from 1983. The assets required color correction, contrast and brightness enhancement, and numerous audio fixes ranging from minor (sound level adjustments) to major-league enhancement and restoration. At the client’s request I also composed music, complete with sound samples from the Odyssey2’s infamously primitive voice synthesizer, to be used on the disc’s menus (the client handled DVD authoring for themselves in this case). The Odyssey2 DVD is still available from Packrat Video Games.