Blog of TheBiz

Who Is? .....and The Land Down Under

2011-11-26T00:07:00.010-05:00

Im toying with the idea for a future production. Liked the way this came out.

Furthermore...Sewers? Good stuff to be seen on the interweb. Nice lighting eh?

All photos from : http://www.undercity.org/_Prints/aqueducts_undergroundrivers_sewers.html

A look at the 2011 MachinExpo Films - Part 2

2011-11-07T10:03:00.001-05:00

Continuing through the screening films, here are two more that I enjoyed profusely:

Pixilated Truth by ArbitDelacroix - "Pop Art Lab music video contest entry for Giana Factory's Pixelated Truth"

This music video is a perfect example of the of the power of SL as a machinima tool. The character models are wonderful, the motions are effective, the editing is excellent and the end result is something you might see on a bigger medium than Youtube. Catchy song.

It strikes me that I have seen more effective and memorable music videos made in second life than any other platform. And not for lack of trying as Iclone is constantly being used in this genre. Perhaps there's an inherent glossiness in SL that works well for music videos. Perhaps its a difference in the way the directors film (and I do believe there are basic general differences in the way programs teach/influence the director to shoot things). Perhaps its just my bias. Something to ponder.

Transmission by Ed Lie - "A lone astronaut, miles from home."

The majority of machinima shorts that I watch lack a defining moment. I reach the end of the movie and pass judgement upon the productions strengths and weaknesses to determine where it stands among other machinima shorts that I have seen. There are plenty of good shorts that have no moment. they are cohesive and perhaps even thought provoking. But the kind of moment I'm talking about is one that is bigger than the movie itself.

Occasionally there is one with an aha moment, or a moment of genuine humor or sadness that tends to pull me out of the screen for a moment and makes me evaluate what I have just seen. Transmission has such a moment. Stylish and mysterious this moment changes the environment that Transmission works within but leaves the definition of the new environment blurry. Lets call it a "wait.....uh...what?" moment. While this may sound like a detriment it actually works incredibly well and makes Transmission truly memorable.

I would not have been suprised to see Transmission as a jury finalist. Crazy high production values. My only qualm involves the music which too often feels like a round peg forced into a square hole.

MachinExpo
November 19-20
http://www.machinima-expo.com/

A look at the 2011 MachinExpo Films - Part 1

2011-11-04T09:44:00.000-04:00

I started wading through the screening selections last night. Here are three of my favorites so far:

Scent Memory by Patrick Kendrick - "A fighter pilot regains consciousness next to his wrecked plane, only to find it rusted and aged by decades. As he explores unfamiliar surroundings, he encounters a bizarre cast of characters and confronts decades of layered memories."

Skilled SecondLife machinima tale that is engaging, mysterious and beautiful. The story is a bit floaty (with a seemingly healthy dose of 2001 mixed in) feeling a bit like a dream. Well worth a look.

Sintetic FAITH by Nikolay Rusenov - One of my top 5 favorite Iclone movies. Humanity isnt always human. Excellent work.

What Isn’t Underneath? by Hypatia Pickens - "This short film is an homage to Scottius Polke's eerie art environment called "The Docks," on display through June 30, 2011 at Originalia in Second Life. Since it is due to come down after that, I thought I would try to capture some of its subtle ominousness in a machinima narrative. So Sangreal Arnica and I put our heads together and came up with a story that explained something that really can't be explained. Whenever you do that, you disambiguate something that is ambiguous. I tried to capture all the strange details that Scotty filled his build with."

My favorite viewing of the evening. Dark and poetic secondlife tale that looks a bit like a living painting. Short and wonderful. See it!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T13:17:00.000-04:00

Heres a short I put together for the Chris62 HalloweenFest on TMU.

Tan Julius tells a tale wrought with woe, in the end he reeps what he sows.

Paper Theater from myclone.wordpress.com/

Sounds from freesound.org

Intro piano clip from incomptech.com

Happy Halloween!

Fun Fact + MachinExpo Promo

2011-10-27T15:33:00.000-04:00

A flock of crows is called a murder of crows. Huh.

November 19th and 20th 2011.

Sushi Ronin

2011-09-01T11:19:00.000-04:00

Here is my latest flick all dudded up using crazytalk animator and Iclone 4. Hope you like!

Soap Box Racing - Brooklyn 2011

2011-08-13T17:34:00.000-04:00

This aint machinima but I promise a post soon on some machinima stuff Ive seen lately.

A block party in our hood had some soap box racing going on. There was an excellent crash into the stands that proves that kidfun danger isnt as dead as Ive heard. Yea I feel bad for the guy with bloodied shins and the scared little girl but it was good to see noone called off the race in horror. Of course I woulda sued...hehe. Anywho, heres the pics. and theres Kid MIllions soaking up the fun. A fine summer day.

Ethyl Merman Lies Beneath

2011-06-22T09:13:00.000-04:00

More work to add to the Kid Millions Resume. Just some sillyness and fun.

Nathan Bitner and the Mysterious Tunnel

2011-04-28T15:05:00.001-04:00

I ever tell you the story of the Nathan Bitner Expose? Its a memorable story to me because I myself entered the He-Man character contest back in the 80's. My character was Hear-O (he had excellent vision...or someting) and I was convinced I was going to win with an idea like that. Then Bitner came along with his superior drawing skills and his character Photog won the contest. Years later X-Entertainment writes a little blog about whatever happened to Nathan Bitner and the sordid exploits of his youth and otherwise become public knowledge. Memorable.

Today I happened upon a little pic on Shorpy,com of a mysterious tunnel from 1924. Reading through the comments (often almost as fun as seeing the hi-res pics) there were plenty of suggestions of speakeasy tunnels but then someone unearthed the newspaper accounts of a rather extensive tunnel system built by a millionaire entomologist as a hobby. This was followed information of the man being a bigamist and his failed attempt to get a real divorce of a fake marriage (complicated as bigamy must often be) and then dying 5 years later. The situation reminded me Bitner (who was understandably horrified when he happened upon the X-Entertainment post with 1000+ comments about his personal life).. Only it happened in 1925 instead of 1990. And still people were able to use the ol internet to get to the sordid little details.

The Sport of Kings (and queens and jacks)

2011-02-17T14:01:00.001-05:00

I think I mentioned a while back that I was toying with a Faustian baseball project. Following a 3 month computer issue wash, I seem to be back in business. Been working the last 3 weeks on this particular scene. No animation yet; just set and lighting and characters. But then theres no script for this particular episode. Most likely a music video type of thing. And I heard that collective gasp of disappointment.

Of interest to me, I'm using fog to tamp down a bit of the brightness from the HDR effect (and to give things a hint of smokiness).

The Thomas Beale Cipher

2011-01-25T09:55:00.001-05:00

Caught this one as a Vimeo favorite. Much fun and creativity. More info here.

Family Sci Fi Fun

2011-01-17T00:17:00.000-05:00

My first CTA short and easing out of a funk.

2011-01-14T14:52:00.003-05:00

I am slowly coming out of a 3 month funk due to computer issues. Heres hoping everything is fixed (though it inspires no hope that I do not know why everything seems to be working correctly). Expect another little family oriented adventure in the next couple of days. Until then...

GO Falcons!!!

Yea, Im a big falcon fan. It doesnt help that MrsBiz is a big Green Bay Packer fan. Lets hope things stay civil when my team wins.

NYC Holiday Train Show

2010-12-02T13:42:00.002-05:00

Made a trip to the NYC Holiday Train Show last weekend and managed to splice together some admittedly amateur video into something coherent enough to send to the grand folks. Its a bit too long. If I were doing it again, Id lop off at least a minute. Meh. 100 NYC buildings (and 3 major bridges) made out of sticks and twigs and berries. Very cool exhibit. A good excuse for me to get acquainted with Vegas Movie Editor.

Thoughts on the MachinExpo 2010 Jury Nominees

2010-11-17T14:51:00.004-05:00

I heart the Machinexpo. Its got smarts, variety and edginess but lacks the attitude you might find elsewhere. Its a great way to see new things or to see old things in a new way. So when their jury film selections are released I get all excited. 16 films selected this year. The majority of the selections are under 10 minutes and I managed to watch 3/4 of the selections in 2 hours. So without further ado, heres my thoughts on the jury nominees...and as always these are just my opinions (which are seemingly often overly critical). Your thoughts are welcome.

Unheimliche by Pierre Gaudillere - Im completely unaware of the creators intent here. Based on my experiences this felt like a fan film or perhaps even a teaser for Limbo (the video game). Little info in the credits as to what was used (perhaps it was limbo or perhaps Little Big Planet) or what it means. Shadow profile looked cool but felt like a buildup to something more interesting. The most esoteric of the bunch this year.

Rod Pulsar - Terra by Rod Pulsar - No less than 10 seperate video games were used in this techno music will save the world flick. Very well made, lovely to look at, clever premise. In the end, I dont like techno music and the process of reading the subs kept me a bit distanced.

The Big Event by Jorge - I have voiced my positive opinion on this one elsewhere. Razor sharp dialog and a tight focused story. Perhaps lacks the visual bells and whistles of some of the other nominees but is more than competently put together. Excellent.

That Girl Stole My Nick at the Voom Hotel by Luca Lisci - Snow Crash meets Lydia Lunch in easily the most bizzare Expo offering Ive seen. An interesting portrayal of what I wildly imagine a 2nd life sex show to be like (though I realize its probably not). At the beginning I was bewildered and by the end I had it figured as mostly genius. I really liked the carnival vibe music that ends in an eerie, somber er...release.

W.B. Yeats - An Irish Airman forsees his death by Russell Boyd - A short Flight-Sim based, reading of a Yeats poem. Nothing jumped out at me as particularly noteworthy though the ending is very nice. I wonder if I'm missing something that hooks others either through knowledge of the poem or the methods used in flight sim machinima.

A Woman's Trial by Chantal Harvey - One for the ladies. Theres some nice inventive camera work focusing on the Eiffel tower. However, once the sisters of the audience were formally addressed I felt a bit um..alienated. But thats just me.

Major League Azeroth by John Hsu - Frenetic and crazy like a Japanese game show but still had me thinking about fast forwarding at times (perhaps it's a bit too long). Would be interesting to see a "making of", as theres so much going on in this one but outside of the pacing, the effects and the howdtheydothat?? factor it failed to grab me.

Order of Madness by Eugene Tan - A modern war movie with a compelling description. Some of the scenes were wonderful depicting war machines at their most sleek and destructive but I thought that the effect of jumping around between the shooter P.O.V. (with that rigid gun arm) and the 3rd person perspective was at times rather jarring. About half way through, OoM presents a compelling scenario where the protagonist uses all means necessary to stay alive. It is a unique moment (at least for me) for this type of film. I simultaneously hated and loved the way it made me feel and think. Unfortunately, I felt that the last third of the movie was very confusing and failed to build upon that moment.

Moonlighter by Igor Tkachenko - Exceptional animations (best Ive seen in Iclone). Technically wonderful. A cute scenario but feels a bit thin on content.

Dagon - HP Lovecraft by Lainy Voom - Excellent and creepy. Voom's distinctive style cuts out or alters much of the more goofy looking 2nd life animations and instead relies upon sets of slightly animated stills (if that makes any sense). The style reminds me of an old TMU flick from Trewill7 about a serial killer and a tree (it featured AND I believe). Anywho, great visuals, creepy stuff. On par with her own The Dumb Man (one of my personal machinima faves). A frontrunner I would bet.

gEISHA by Krish Spyker - Another distinctive 2nd life style. Dirty, gritty, adult themed. Very good. Interesting both in its style and its point (and I have little doubt that there is indeed a point).

Clockwise Part 1 by Amorphous Blob Productions - Half Life noir. Not quite as fun for me as Shelf Life (2009 Expos excellent Half Life Jury selection) but very smooth and very enjoyable. Great VO performance from Ricky Grove.

Breathe 2 "Its a wonderful 2nd Life" by samlowry - A tour of great second life locations. Well made, inspiring and a call for more creativity and less capitalism. I'm a little torn on what this has created; it is after all just a tour of locations and perhaps a bit of promotion. Not so much a story or an idea but a nicely executed location tour.

Out in the Cold by Legs I - A fine Xmasy WoW flick but I felt like I was missing some back-story that perhaps exists in the framework of the game (which I don't play) or barring that, in fairy and goblin xmas lore.

Success Begets Success by Freeta Kayo - A documentary about a man with a brain injury who finds inspiration and more in 2nd Life. Its an inspiring story told (IMO) in a somewhat bland and unfocused manner. Is more interested in the social environment of machinima than in the movie making aspects which is fine but hard to compare to the other nominees. And I feel like a jerk for not liking it.

The Ills of Silence by Walvince - A complex espionage/thriller made in MovieStorm (French I believe w/ English subs). Complex and a bit confusing at times but hugely original and stylish. I found myself confused at times due to not understanding if there were cultural customs at work or a changed/imagined future society at work. The animations at times were called upon to get something across that didnt always come (all the time spent staring at the "deaf" man didn't always convey the isolation I think it was supposed to). A bit of a downer but worth the watch.

This is a pretty good collection of varied machinima flicks. I have gripes and personal opinions about many of them but an argument could certainly be made about any one of these being the big winner. My favorites are The Big Event, That Girl Stole my Nick, Dagon and gIESHA with Dagon being my most probable to win and Big Event being the Underdog (ala ClockWork from last year). I am surprised to see three 2nd Life flicks as my faves. Perhaps some further thoughts on this in the future.

Today I looked back at my thoughts on last years Expo. Interesting to compare to this years if your into that type of thing.

Provacative diorama seeks not to solve world's problems.

2010-10-26T11:39:00.000-04:00

I'm beginning to really enjoy bldgblog which always seems to have new interesting posts. Like this one about a guy who marries architecture to story. The Emperor's Castle is like a little diorama of craziness full of meaning that i just don't quite fully understand as yet. Check out the Migration of Mel and Judith as well. I don't really know what it is but I know I'm intrigued and a bit inspired. And I rarely ask for more than that.

baseball tonight

2010-10-20T23:32:00.001-04:00

This is what we pray for in a baseball team. A bunch of guys of who hear they dont have a chance and say fuck off Yea, the Giants beat my locals (ATL) but we all felt good about it as it was a close knit and respect filled affair (christ, the braves had nobody left at the end..give us a break) and the giants are doing exactly what you want in a feel good season. Show your strengths (starting pitching) and stick around. The Phillies may yet win this series but the Giants are memorable this season for thier Blackbeards and their Pandas... What would David Justice have been compared to in 95 wonder. Alas Posey is up and it way past my bedtime. And baseball can still be potent.

3 animations I've enjoyed immensely

2010-10-13T10:54:00.001-04:00

3 excellent animated shorts I watched in the last month that left a lasting impression.

Stand Up - Creepy rotoscoped creepiness. Nothing says "cant tear your eyes away" like a bad standup comedian flailing away into the blackest parts of their being (Michael Richards anyone?). Thanks for the headup CartoonBrew.

Salesman Pete - Fun action, memorable visual setups and editing. A Vimeo spotlight feature.

How Wings are Attached to the Backs of Angels - Another creepsy short. Rube Goldberg Machines meet otherworldly (even other to the otherworld of this story) Ghost story. Highlighted in the Myclone Blog.

Graphic: A Risky Business by D.L. Watson

2010-09-27T22:40:00.000-04:00

Im really digging the live action actors on the MovieStorm sets as well as the twotone color. Yea, the lipsync decision is distracting at first but kudos for the varying route. Color me impressed.

"Graphic: A Risky Business" from D.L. Watson on Vimeo.

YOU ARE THERE!!! - Archive.org

2010-09-24T09:31:00.002-04:00

Been poking around archive.org a good bit lately, specifically in the 78 cylinder archive. Some pretty excellent stuff there if you like your blues/country/jazz authentic and alive. Some of my faves include Big Bill Broonzy's Good Liquor Gonna Carry Me Home (what should be sad is in fact pretty fun), Geeshie Wiley's Last Kind Words (haunting), LeadBelly's Where did you Sleep Last Night (haunting again), Charlie Poole's Don't Let Your Deal Go Down, Dock Boggs' Country Blues (feels like your sitting around a campfire at a sqatters camp), Trio Matamoros' Yo 'Ta Cansa (check out that shift there at the end) and Im So Glad from Skip James.

Anywho, I stumbled upon this CBS radio re-enactment of the third day of The Battle of Gettysburg complete with multiple radio correspondents. Bizarre interviews with soldiers in the field (especially the creepy confederate who sounds like a jailhouse rapist around 9:40), field reports from the middle of the battle and the excellent booming, echoey, dissafected voice shouting YOU ARE THERE like the horsemen of the Apocalypse are upon us. Surreal. I have openly mocked war re-enactments in the past but this one is worth a listen just for the strangeness of it all. Also kind of weird how they never really talk about all the dead (50,000 lives lost).

As an added plus you can follow along on Wikipedia. Strange fact about the only civilian death being a stray bullet striking a woman making bread in her kitchen. A bad time and place to make bread I suppose.

Sketchup Bonus Materials

2010-08-27T09:38:00.001-04:00

With Google sketchup models being easily accessible to both Iclone and MovieStorm, sketchup is a good tool to have in your anymation movie-making belt. Ive been playing around with sketchup for a little while now and while I'm no expert I can do most of the things I need to do. Still, after a year and a half of putzing about, I only today downloaded the bonus materials pack. Doh! This little pack greatly increases the number of textures you can paint your model with. Definitely worth the download.

Just download the materials library link and change the folder in the installation process to the Sketchup 7 folder. Easy Peasy.

Thanks to the Dr. Nemesis Blog for the link.

Monsters of the Atomic Age!

2010-08-16T09:41:00.002-04:00

A man finds fame in a monster suit. Fame fades. World explodes.

Starring

thebiz as Dave/Growth-O!

6HeadedMonster as Steve-O!

Madison as Little Girl

JohnnyEx as Angry Dad

Nahton as The Boss

Wolf as Alan Hale/Giant Robot monkey

Norrie as Quinn/King Buzzo

GoofParade as The Mayor

Dulci as Dulci@Dusk

Act3Scene24 as Felix Award Presenter

Sisch as Marie Heim

MrsBiz as Red Leather

Jase180 as JetPackBoy

Music by Precog and Kevin Macleod

Full credits in film.

Please let me know if you have any problems viewing the flick.

A crutch is a tool after all...

2010-08-09T09:46:00.000-04:00

Watched KibishiPaul's The Comeback last night. On TMU he has provided an interesting and involved description of the scenario/story involving generation of clowns and the protagonist being a very bad performer who wants to take off the makeup. However, the flick itself contains no dialog and could be easily broken down to a simple little horror story (though not a bad one, pretty fun I thought) that has none of this back story. It made me wonder if the description served to enhance the movie by adding context and secondary info or if the movie failed to explain the plot and uses the description as a crutch.

With online videos, the description is closely tied to the movie and I always read it before viewing a flick so here I tend to feel it can be used as a tool. No, the story line doesn't need to be fully expounded upon but perhaps some small verbal clues can be used to aid the visual story or is this cheating so to speak? Tag lines are used in most cinema poster promotions while expository info is often used in trailers. With online videos the description is sitting right there next to the little screen so why not use it? Or perhaps all this is pretty obvious. Thoughts?

Video Game Makings

2010-08-06T15:03:00.001-04:00

Continuing on the subject of Video Games, Edge Magazine has a very cool weekly feature on the "Making of.." various games both current and classic. The articles run the gauntlet (hehe) from design to tech specs and a good bit of history. Some of my favorites so far include:

Little Computer People (Thanks for the heads up Overman!) - A Sim before the Sims ('85) for the Commodore64

Tapper - Hard to believe making video games was as simple as they make it sound here. And who doesnt love a beer themed game.

Gauntlet - The multiplayer co-op Granddaddy

Repton - Never heard of it but an interesting story as its creator was 15 and lasted 2 years before leaving the game business behind to enter college.

Worth a look at thelist to see if one of your favorites is there as well.

A Life Well Wasted

2010-07-27T10:46:00.003-04:00

Heres one of the best things Ive heard off the internet in quite a while: A Life Well Wasted is "an internet radio show about video games and the people who love them". Created and produced by Robert Ashley and featuring uber quirky pop music from him and his band, I come to Shanghai. Very good editing that sounds like a very hip version of NPR and provides incredibly interesting material. Trust me when I say you dont have to be a video game aficionado to enjoy as the episodes venture from the death of print journalism to musings on fame, creativity and ideals. Currently there are six episodes and Ive listened to three.

Episode 1 - The Death of EGM includes interviews with the writers from Electronic Games Monthly at their going out of business party. Suprisingly interesting with amusing travels down memory lane of guys who seemed to live in the land of misfit toys. Reminded me a bit of skate culture from the same time period. Makes a fine, though subtle, case for why we should care about the loss of print culture.

Episode 3 - An outstanding piece on Jason Rohrer, a bohemian game designer intent on creating art through video games designed for 256mz systems (I gotta download Passage soon - its free!). Another pretty good interview with a game designer who discusses what happens when a game turns bad (and is reviewed as thus). Both pieces really translate well outside of the ideas of game design and are just plain interesting to listen to.

Episode 6 - A musical montage of user submitted game ideas. A narration on ideas that sounds like Jim Morrison in an American Prayer circa 2010 (this was the highlight for me...really well written). A man who licensed Tetris, made millions and now wants to save the world from itself. A well endowed, fame loving video game geek.

I will probably finish up the other three episodes this week which is a shame as new episodes of this one man show seems to get made very sporadically but its definitely worth the wait.

Stormy Baseball, Zombieland, Toy Story3

2010-07-25T02:00:00.007-04:00

"Faust" Eddie Brock has become my "thing" ...meaning my next big project. Ive mentioned him here before so in short he's the baseball player who claims to have sold his soul to the devil. But where do we go from here? As I asked before...whats the story. In a straight up conventional world he wants to win a pennant (a pennant is so much more interesting than a world series..hey its baseball and baseball loves the old school and pennants only really matter in the old school). Mayhaps we throw in a girl or an orphan (it is a Wallace Beery picture right?). Or we throw in the Seatle Supersonics (cause they are simialr to a girl or an orphan...Cause..um...they dont exist anymore).   But a city got screwed in the process (not for first and certainly not for last). But the last year in a city who's losing its sport franchise is pretty solid for a pretend strory right? Whos the protagonist and whats his issue? Not sure yet. Still, in the process of figuring it out. In the meantime, let me tell you a tale.

Went to the new Yankee Stadium last night. I dont like the Yankees (You may not know it but Im a die hard Atl fan. Love my Braves, love my Hawks and above all love my Falcons) but it was a friends birthday so such is life. Took the ferry uptown to the stadium. Great 30 minute boat ride. Good times. But alas, we had purchased the Mohegan Sun Bar seats. Ive been to many baseball games. I was at the game where Otis Nixon scaled the wall to send the 91' braves to the pennant (see pennant description up above). Or perhaps Ive got my facts wrong but stick with me anyway. So we are in a bar in dead center field with giant glass windows. But its a bar (with 11$ beers). Nothing like a baseball game, more like sitting in a bar. Ok, fine, I adjusted.  We are 50' from the center fielder and Im thinking in my mind about what is the story as Eddie should be a center fielder and the experience was..er..it was an experience. Then somewhere around the 5th inning with a tornado warning in effect, a bitch of a storm wandered through (Hell came to Frogtown). Mass amounts of water and lightning but still Im inside and behind glass and watching as some of the bleacher bums dance and enjoy their 100% soakedness. Im feeling guilty cause Ive never seen a game from a stadium inside a bar before and it feels fake but alas Im getting pretty sloshed from my 11$ beers and then the ceiling springs a leak. As a result of a lot of water (did I mention how big this storm was?) on our seats leaking through the roof, we get our whole tab comped which is about $600 (there were a lot of us) which makes the whole experience worth it. Plus the storm was uber-cinematic.

So yea, my next picture will be a baseball flick I think.

In other news, I watched Zombieland today. Solid but perrhaps lacking. I would have liked to see more of the bigger picture of society (especially the zombie kill of the week stuff) and I didn't like the two females and the finale was pretty lame. Still, the whole BM (and I aint talking Bob Marley..in fact the whole Hollywood Zombie combo could have made an excellent movie itself.) scene makes my 2 hour investment worthwhile and Woody Harrelson was great. (2.5 outa 4).

Also watched Toy Story 3 this afternoon with Kid Millions in tow. His first cinema event in which he participated in whole. I was a little dissapointed as the reviews I read made me think I would gather some insight from the proceedings (perhaps see UP...perhaps...). I left feeling unaffected and wondering how much longer the 3d fad will persist.  It was used fine here but it added little (and was a big detriment when your three year old refuses to wear the glasses and ends up watching an unfocused blurry screen for two hours and get to feeling all guilty over it). 2 of 4 stars.

LastLegs

2010-07-16T10:44:00.003-04:00

Ive been working a bit on an idea for myclone's comic book challenge lately. LastLegs is a character I've been wanting to bring to life for a few months and a still life comic book seems a good place to start. He's based on a song from CopShootCop (titled aptly...Last Legs) but my version is an old and decrepit man who's a bit more spry than you would think at first glance. Wasnt completely happy with the character model yet (looks a bit to young and nice). No telling if I can get it done by the deadline as I wont start really working till MotAA is done. Anywho, played around a bit with photoshop this morn and got a look that I was pleased with. File this one under more ideas floating about the noggin.

My hero, Incomptech.com

2010-07-10T23:42:00.001-04:00

A few days ago I mentioned my baseball Faust story idea. I made a little pitch to my co-workers over lunch and one of them mentioned a website (forgotten at the moment) where you pitch your ideas at people who have the ability to contribute to the idea which would fund your dream in the area's where money is necessary. An interesting idea but alas I was mmm...pensive about just how this works and what benifit the contributer would get out of the arrangement and such. Still its an interesting sounding idea. And no, Im not going to pitch the baseball faust idea there.

However, Incomptech, Kevin MacLeod's music and movie critique website, recently raised $1,500 in 5 days for some new music software and I gotta say thats pretty freakin awesome. Kevin has allowed his excellent music archive to be used comercially and otherwise with little else but contribution rights for the last couple of years. His fingerprints can be found all over machinima and elsewhere. Its pretty cool that people are willing to give back to a guy who gives a lot (or has defined himself and his website as a leader in the new age of internet music rights and responsibility)

8 Bit Cities, Motel Modern, Spindrift

2010-07-08T09:26:00.002-04:00

You've heard of Google Maps, yes? Well here's Zelda Maps or rather 8 Bit City, transcribing some major cities from around the world into proper Zelda map style. Cute. I love maps.

And with the summers first big heatwave, I present The Life and Times of the American Hotel series from If Charlie Parker was a Gunslinger... Sweat and dream of yourself floating in a cool, heavily chlorinated motel pool in 1960.

Ahhh.

Finally, commemorate Summer with a look at Reptor7's Spindrift Part 2! Perfect 1960s Summertime Sci-fi Drive-In fare. Pack a cooler, bring a date. Enjoy.

Scenario, Story, Moral, Plot and "Faust" Eddy Brock.

2010-06-30T15:55:00.000-04:00

So I got this idea for a movie. A journeyman (re: average) major league baseball player (Ed Brock) gets on a hot streak and subsequently announces to the media that the streak is the result of his selling his soul to the devil (thereby becoming known as "Faust" Eddy Brock). Theres a few other wrinkles involved (an opposing star player who loses his skills as part of the deal, a city going wild for the man who was willing to sell his soul for their pennant hopes, religious nuts, ect). Its a solid idea. I pitch it to my wife. She says, "good scenario but whats the story"? I says "huh"? She says "whats the moral? Why would I watch it?" I says, "cause your my wife". Chuckles ensue.

Its true though. Too often I got a good scenario but a story it is not so much. Will have to think this one through. It's times like these I wish I had a good collaborator.

The New (well...1980s new) Flesh, Easy Beach Reading and Incubus

2010-06-23T14:13:00.004-04:00

Heres a rather interesting essay on Cronenberg and the Postmodern from the Art and Culture of Movies blog. I would expound deeper on my thoughts of postmodernity but I'd rather show you a little screencap of something Ive been playing around with as an idea for an Iclone short (which has absolutely nothing to do with the postmodern...or does it?). This is just a cap from sketchup but its easy to see where I'm headed. Easy beach reading....get it? Cause they are words.

Finally here's Incubus from Chatnoir studios. Well written, expertly shot and edited. Skills. How does this movie not have more comments. Sigh.

Gawping and Film Essays

2010-06-18T11:35:00.003-04:00

After your done gawping at my brand new blog design (stunning aint it) you should head over to the Criterion Collection Online Cinematheque to check out some very well written essays on movies you probably haven't heard of. Yes, 90% of the criterion collection is old, arty or foreign language (or some combination of the three) but thats no reason to miss out on some fine film critique and expand the old horizons..

Heres a few of the more recognizable subjects that I enjoyed:

Why we feel icky watching Peckinpah's Straw Dogs

A boozy, winding but interesting reprinted discussion (or is it a monologue) from Robert Mitchum

An insiders look at why Wes Anderson is awesome

A look at the genius/insanity of Guy Maddin

More Map Fun, LoC Tour, Without Words

2010-06-09T09:58:00.000-04:00

Another excellent Map, this time in the Gothamist. Here someone has used geo-tagged photos to delineate NYC locals from tourists to produce a tourist hotspot map. OK, realistically I don't need a map to avoid areas with throngs of tourists but it is an interesting idea and a groovy looking map.

Next up, Without Words from ToxicMenges. A little creepy, cool SL Machinima. Good narration, great visuals. This is the second time TM has impressed me with Second Life (Princess and the Pea was the other).

Finally, heres a tour of the Library of Congress digital archive process. Ive mentioned my love of the LoC before and if you like geeky digital archive things this is a very fun read.

Also, a brief mention about a very brief (4 pages) writeup about "how Pixar works" in the latest issue of Wired. You would think it would be a bit more hefty given its the cover story but theres a pretty cool set of pics that goes from storyboard concept to actual movie scene still. Worth thumbing through in your local newstand.

Summertime, Graeme Mitchell

2010-06-01T12:01:00.001-04:00

Amid the sunshine and the cookouts and the walks to the park or trains to Coney Island and the late nights playing Texas Hold'em in Red Dead Redemption (almost like having friends..hehe) it is hard to work on Machinima or even interact so much with the computer. Now that the 2010 Machinima Expo is officially accepting submissions I have a new deadline of August 31st to complete Monsters. Wish me luck - or perhaps a cold rainy weekend.

Ran across this very cool site featuring the photography of Graeme Mitchell. Lots and lots of NYC in wonderful black and white making everything look like its 1970s and making me want to pull out the old 35m. Man, when is the last time I took a picture with something other than my phone?

Kid Millions makes a debut, Rarebit Fiends

2010-05-20T08:48:00.000-04:00

Dinnertime VOs led to this little quickie.

Surfs Up! from thebiz on Vimeo.

Something to show the fam and nice to work on something not involving a man in a monster suit. And speaking of which, Im realizing I wont meet the July 1 deadline for Monsters of the Atomic Age and so the RL Scifi contest is out for me. A recent re-interest in Fallout 3 and an urge for Red Dead Redemption are making me wonder if it will ever see the light of day. I've thought a lot about cutting it into two parts as I could finish the first half in a couple of weeks and take a break (probably would be a good thing to clean out the cobwebs) before diving into the second part. However, this would leave both parts lacking and much less than their summation. Decisions, decisions.

In other idea news, a recent preview of Wolf's second scifi pack has me reconsidering another attempt at HG Wells Lord of the Dynamos (especially the pic in the first post...thats the set I wanted to build...hmmm) and a recent blog entry from Matthew Barry has me thinking a lot about Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend (not just the Porter short but also the running comic serial - kind of like a turn of the century twilight zone).

And I almost forgot, I got my first five star review of a sketchup model (to go along with the only other review Ive recieved - one star..hehe). The oscar stage is ok but I think this snow sled is the best thing Ive done yet. Certainly not professional but not bad.

Maps and Digital Voodoo

2010-05-10T08:54:00.000-04:00

Been busy lately with both real world and Iclone work. Not looking too promising on me getting Monsters completed by my self imposed July deadline, though I am making progress and will continue to try. I have no idea how folks pull off these big projects in so little time. Hindering some of my efforts is the fact that about 1 in every 5 times I open up my HP laptop, the laptop fires up but the screen remains blank (there are three loud beeps - one long, two short). Ive already sent the laptop back to HP for a new motherboard about a year ago and now the (already extended) warranty is up. So Ive done a bunch of research on the issue and found out that if I wrap the laptop up in a blanket and let it overheat before rebooting then I get it too work again. Talk about weird voodoo computing. Just hoping to finish this production before looking at something from Dell. No more HPs for me.

And now for something completely different, here's a pair of interactive maps from the New York Times. Im a bit of a Geographic information Systems kinda guy so I'm a sucker for a good old interactive map. Plus points for demographic info.

New York Times Immigration Explorer - Watch how the foreign born settled into the U.S from 1880 forward. Tell me it aint cool.

Taxi cab pickups in Manhattan (below 60th street) by day and hour - Like blood circulating through the city. Watch those late night weekend location to see where the drunken revelry happens.

Sketchup Modeler; Fight Night

2010-04-22T09:59:00.000-04:00

Its going to be a while before I invest in 3dExchange 4 so I'm still working my way through various sketchup models. One of my favorite modelers is IDW (Ian west) who has a varied array of high quality models good for all your sketchup needs. Vintage Televisions, The S.S. Enterprise or Millineum Falcon, gates, street and railroad segments, cartoony wizards quarters, military barracks and bunks, bathtubs and a lot of main street urban buildings from his often used warehouse to this very cool lawyer office. Even if you don't have a specific idea when you go looking through his models you might have one when you leave.

Heres a good version of Nemo's Nautilus for your League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie (hey part 2 of Century gets released soon I believe). Then there's this unbelievable rendition of Edward Cooper's Nighthawks by jedicharles who also makes some pretty nifty futuristic transportation models (among other things). You really should download it just to see it in 3d. Very impressive. I wish more people would recreate famous artworks. Well, heres Hegel's Holiday (Magritte), and heres an attempt at Dali's Persitance of Memory. Would love to see a 3d version of Guernica. When I first started using Iclone I made a crappy sketchup version of Picasso's Guitar Model and slapped together a little scene. Perhaps I should revisit it one day and see if its salvageable/watchable. My own sketchup abilities are rudimentary to say the least but I manage (well I manage to get a one star review...hehe). Well not much of interest here but my balloon model (all from scratch) gets some hits. Its all just stuff I made for specific instances. Nothing to see here. Move along.

And heres a recent Shorpy entry that I love. Such magnificent mustaches and machismo. Click it (or here) for the HiRes version.

Barcelona Redux, Flat Cars, Kickass Ripoff

2010-04-19T10:17:00.000-04:00

As promised a ways back, heres a few shots from Barcelona. Roman columns hidden within the city, buscars at Park Guel, me outside Sagrada Familiar, Mrsbiz in the Gothic Quarter.

Heres a quick shot from sketchup of an idea I was playing with. More in the vein of the 2D/3D "sleeper" with the design a bit inspired from some stills at Cartoon Modern (see previous post). Will have to put this away for a while while I try to get MotAA finished up by the July deadline (as a possible entry to the Reallusion Sci-Fi contest) but Im posting it here as a reminder for later.

Keeping to my usual all over the map motif, I went to see KickAss this weekend. Fun play on comic book movies. Production values looked a bit TV (video) to me but the story was fun, constantly and defiantly contradicting itself and it contained enough black humor to keep things lively. However, I was disappointed to see a particular painting used in a key locale. The print is of Andy Warhol's "Gun" which depicts the snub nose 22 pistol that Valerie Solanas used to shoot him in 1968. The painting works well in the set. My appointment stems from the fact I included this very same print in a set of "Monsters..." I shot 2 days before seeing the movie. Arg! The painting is prominent enough in Kickass that when you see it in my flick you would probably recognize it and think it was inspired by the movie, which it was not. To re-shoot or to leave be...that is the question. Sigh.

Also saw The Hangover this weekend. Amusing but perhaps overhyped and as a result not as funny as I had hoped (though the rainman tribute was inspired). In contrast to Kickass though this one looked very polished. Lush, dark and glossy.

Cartoon Modern and Transportation Future

2010-04-14T15:07:00.000-04:00

Heres a fascinating Blog that ran for about 3 years called Cartoon Modern (which also served to promote the Cartoon Modern book). It highlights the animation and design styles of the 1950's. From Mary Blair to Tom Oreb theres a boatload of cool stuff here. The blog then seems to have moved to Tumbler with a daily(ish) still shot. I could spend a lot of time reading through this stuff. Take a look see if you gots the time (below is a still from Ward Kimbal's Adventures in Music:Melody - 1953 and Mary Blair's concept for "The Little House" which reminds me of the Blade Runner Concept even further below).

Another interesting man of style (futurist) is Syd Mead, famous for his concept designs for Blade Runner, Tron and a host of others. I wasn't familiar with Mead till read about the NVArt5 competition on the myclone blog this morning. Cool competition. An even cooler guy. Run a google image search on him and you will find more than a little bit of super stylish futuristic design (like this concept still from blade runner below).

Google Earth as AnyMation Tool?

2010-04-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

Am I off in thinking that Google Earth would be a pretty useful tool for some anymation projects? Pretty cool camera control, path creation and the ability to import sketchup models (your own or someone elses) into your local version of the software. The free version could be screen captured for use in a host of scenarios from flying (superhero, plane, ect) to boating to perhaps a fly in intro (greenscreen or video textures). The level of detail for some of the larger urban areas is fun and impressive (see Manhattan as an example). The pay version (300$) allows you to record as wmv. Oh, and theres a fun flight simulator built into the free version. Admittedly, you probably wont be doing any walk-throughs as it often loses its effectiveness up close (though the topography for natural sites is pretty solid).

And even if you dont come up with any movie ideas, its a very cool tool to explore locales you might never otherwise see in 3d (Grand Canyon for example). Might want to be careful about the TOS though if your using it for a project.

Apple

Vegas Baby! Vegas!

Hoover Dam

The Grand Canyon

London Eye

New York Destroyed by 1980s Video Games

2010-04-08T08:41:00.000-04:00

Nice! I especially like the tetrisized buildings and the overall effects. I would wonder about the budget but always feel cheated by the answer (for instance a production that supposedly is made on no budget or 5-10K by someone who possesses many of the required skills to pull something like this off would cost the average unskilled person - say a producer - 50K to pay the talent). Just a thought. Feels a little in the same vein as Panic Attack. A fine view.

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.

Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Independent web videos.

Further, looking at inspiration for Monsters of the Atomic Age materials and came across this excellent movie poster for my favorite Andy Griffith flick (coutesy of "If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger..."'s Art of Cinema series.). Mmmmm, bourbon, sin and blood. Also really love the shot of the outstreched hands of Lonesome Jones across America. If you've never caught A Face in the Crowd its well worth adding to your netflix queue. Some sort of premonition to Network (another 5 star flick) and stars a super evil version of the sheriff of Mayberry. Big thumbs up. Was recently thinking about how the "Hudsucker Proxy" is kind of the antithesis of Face in the Crowd (though they both contain that "Going Down" elevator scene). OK, enough babble.

Another Time, Another Place

2010-04-07T09:42:00.000-04:00

Just returned from a brief trip to Barcelona. My first time in Europe. Good times were had. Perhaps a picture in the next few days.

One of more interesting things about the trip was the daily calls to Kid Millions (who stayed home in the able hands of Grandma and Grandpa). With a 6 hour time difference it was a bit surreal being constantly reminded of how the life I live 98% of the time exists on a totally different time plane. While me and Mrsbiz are wrapping up a day of sightseeing and getting ready for dinner and drinks, the boy is just getting his day started. Felt like an alternate reality of sorts.

Anywho, was great to get out. Was even better to return.

And while Im on a completely different subject, three short reviews for movies recently seen.

Alice in Wonderland - Almost managed to be entertaining until the ending came along and absolutely ruined any good will it had managed to build. If Tim Burton allowed that JarJarBanks moment of stupidity at the end with less protest than than I imagine....well...color me disappointed. Perhaps he should stick with stop motion and stop employing Mr. Depp (though his wife was solidly amusing as ever).

Sherlock Holmes - Saw it on the plane on a 6" screen about 6" from my face. Surprisingly enjoyable me thought. Plot was garbage but characters and scenarios were thoroughly amusing. Part 2 with a less scoffable storyline? One can hope.

Public Enemies - Surprisingly boring with characters that failed to engage me in any way. A long plane ride seemed even longer. Well at least Johnny didn't dance a jig at the end.

EDay40 yo

2010-03-26T09:32:00.000-04:00

Yes, Earth Day is coming (now called Eday40 for those in the ever hip know) and this year its hyped with catchy phrases like "b the E" (is that like being in a K-hole?) and "i am E" (they are trying to pass them off as being inspired by Gandhi...to that I fight fire with fire and say LOL) and is sporting Earth Day gang signs.

Mark my words, someones gunna get hurt throwing these signs around. And am I the only one thinking of an Anchorman style street fight between the E'ers, the Greenpeacers and say...PETA? I suppose I am.

Ok, I guess my sarcasm got the better of me this morning staring at the poster on the train. I like the earth as much as the next guy. The promotion is just a bit too text generation for me I suppose. Now get off my lawn you kids!

Oh My Darling

2010-03-19T09:16:00.000-04:00

I put Kid Millions to bed last night and was all set to settle down for some Iclone action when I found myself watching My Darling Clementine; John Ford's take on the Gunfight at O.K. Corral starring Henry Fonda and Victor Mature. Wow! Thats an excellent movie. Great light and shadows (a bit German Expressionist at times...I read somewhere about Ford being a fan), excellent cinematography, cool characters (Victor Mature was something of a bad-ass - see Kiss of Death - and Fonda is always great) and great action. Theres a superb scene with a thespian acting out a scene from Macbeth for a bunch of ruffians that manages to really enthrall me. Then its followed with a lightning fast explosion of violence.

I don't often care for westerns but when I do....

Other things inspiring me as the days turn warm again;

Marcel Duchamp - Is there a cooler artist than Duchamp? A man who never took himself too seriously but had his fingers in many excellent pies. I really like Nude descending a Staircase and the fact that he transitioned to hard core chess player makes him ever cooler. If I were to grab a booth at Old Town for 5 or 6 rounds with a couple of characters I'd take Duchamp, Willie "the actor" Sutton and perhaps Abraham Lincoln. That would be a drink.

Bokeh Textures - Some fine examples here and here and here

Movie Night

2010-03-06T23:27:00.000-05:00

Spent the eve watching some flicks on TMU. Some silly, some interesting and one big winner. Lets review:

Grayskull: Rise of the Hordak Part 2 - Great characters and sets. Amazing VOs. Animation is stilted and lacking.

Crimes Worst Nightmare Part 1 - Stick with it and you get a pretty funny Police Squadish parody of all great cop/buddy movies. HomeMadeEye is certainly unique. By not caring much he serves up solid comedy. Kwistufa is very, very scary in cameo.

Show me the Sun - Music video in MS. Looks lovely but a bit too unfocused to be particularly effective

Fallen Angels - Cute characters, a solid idea. Again the animation lacks and the writing is a bit repetitive.

Sandstorm - The Winner. Incredibly well writtten, performed and filmed. Best thing Ive seen in a long while. Miss it at your own peril.

Clockwork....No really, clockwork

2010-03-05T11:34:00.000-05:00

As a fan of pictures from yesteryear, two of my favorite websites are Shorpy and If Charlie Parker was a Gunslinger... Shorpy tends to get its hi-res pictures from the Library of Congress (as a side note the hi-res shots are really the way to go...so freaking vivid..like this one of Joe Jefferson the early film comic - note the couple in the background and dig on those clothes. Side note number two: another wonderful part of Shorpy is the comments where there's often some bit of interesting info about the image that some anonymous poster will share), which is a very cool repository of photos and the like. I made pretty good use of it way back on O the Ocean and its fun to just type in a subject and explore the archives.

Today I was looking at pics of Cooper Union (Free but very exclusive College of the Arts in NYC) when I came across this one of the inner workings of the Cooper Union clock. Somehow I always thought clockwork would be a bit more grandiose. And who would have thought that time can kept using long doohickies that intersect with the hands of the clock at something other than a right angle. Still I think its a pretty cool little photograph (if you are interested, the Hi-Res tiff is available at the LoC site).

Reminds me of the old joke about Bill Clinton and the presidential clock that is in the attic of the White House. Some other time perhaps.

Yet Another....

2010-03-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

Slowly getting settled in to the new place. Got the cable and internet turned on, snow in the backyard is almost melted. You can nearly taste the Springtime.

Heres another promo shot for the MotAA production thread. Huzzah!

Added bonus today. Heres a groovy film blog Ive started reading recently. Well written and interesting for the casual film buff and perhaps the amatuer filmmaker.

The Art and Culture of Movies

Another Promo Poster

2010-02-26T10:47:00.000-05:00

From the Monsters of the Atomic Age production thread and my favorite of the set so far.

The Boss, Hectic Times, Some more eh....

2010-02-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

Another promotional poster from the MotAA production thread for your perusal.

Quickly coming up on a busy couple of weeks that will entail a move to a new pad (complete with a back yard! Huzzah! A rarity here and my first in 10 years. Kid Millions will be pleased as will I as I cook burgers and drink beer in the summer sun.) followed by a a trip to Barcelona (my first time in Europe). Perhaps there will be pictures that don't involve animated 3d characters. A lot of fun but a bit hectic.

Heres a flick I assume most of you have seen but I somehow missed; ThrowAxe's That's Amore. Won the Romance category of the MS valentines competition but dont let that stop you. Evokes all the airy goofy fun of a 50's musical. Great animation sequences and camera work. Pretty badass.

King Buzzo, Olympic Ideas, Explosions!

2010-02-17T14:30:00.000-05:00

Here a quick poster I worked up for the MotAA production thread over on TMU. Im real excited to work with King Buzzo. I hear he's quite the professional.

Amid all the work I've been doing on that production I've ended up watching a fair amount of the winter Olympics when I had no intention of doing so. I just happened to flip by and saw some scrawny looking russian ice skater who looked like he wanted to die because he had made a mistake that cost him his 5 minutes of fame. And then I remembered how there was occasionally some unhyped, completely real emotion seen in the Olympics and then it was too late. So last night was the mens ice skating competition which was just unbelievably funny. "Blades of Glory" was but a tiny LED compared to the sunburst of garish comedy on display in this event.

There was an Italian Luke Duke wannabe (complete with undone overall), Edward Featherhands, the Tassle (who actually looks like edward scissorhands) and Skeletor. Too much fun.

Anyways, it got me thinking about how much fun a Olympic mashup would be where the ice skaters would have to form a team and take on the worst olympic hockey team while that hockey team would have to compete in the figure skating comp. Cutting Edge of Glory anyone?

Sorry, enough of the sillyness. Check out WarLords first part of The Outland; Freeport 7 for some impressive scifi effects (including things that flock together, things that break apart and a wonderful floating dead woman) and a solid start to something good.

The Dark + Jekyll & Hyde

2010-02-09T13:33:00.000-05:00

Heres a little concept from mcornetto called "The Dark". Write up a short script based upon the darkest regions of your mind and if selected it will become part of a moviestorm feature. The Deadline for the script is this friday so it's short notice but could be a pretty cool exercise. Full details can be seen at SimplyScripts.

Be sure to check out the (pretty well made) concept reel here.

Added link bonus today of a somewhat underseen multipart (as yet unfinished) MovieStorm project from Kibishipaul...
Jekyll and Hyde (Part 1)
Jekyll and Hyde (Part 2)

Monsters - Production Screen #1

2010-02-04T12:14:00.000-05:00

I am not too sure about whether its good form to duplicate information so I'll just say I finally started a production thread for Monsters of the Atomic Age. I'll post the production stills here but leave out the description cause duplication is the devils playground. Or something.

The Genie and The Trashman Premiers Tonight

2010-01-29T09:34:00.000-05:00

The Genie and the Trashman will be premiered tonight at TMUTheater at 6pm (EST). Its part of a triple bill that includes JosephKw's "Experince Crawling Flesh" and RJAnaconda's "Perfect Chaos". If you plan on coming be aware that TMUTheater doesnt work well in IE (last I checked) so you might wanna download Mozilla/Safari/Chrome before gametime. Here is the full release thread. I'll post a link in this post to the movie on TMU after the premier (edit - The poster is linked to the TMU upload). Hope to see you tonight.

Bouncing about like a jackalope.

2010-01-27T09:03:00.000-05:00

I find something inherently cool about typography, language and the written word. Back in "Travel with Berlitz" I had an idea of a league of extraordinary linguists (Noam Chomsky, Charles Berlitz, C3P0) but settled on travel agent noir. In the future I think I will tackle typography in some shape/form.

Speaking of which, My little lego man entry in the hairloss.com video contest lost out to a short film of text and two others. Check out the winners here. While I wasnt so impressed with that particular typograophy short (3rd place), here is one worth taking a look at...War of the Words..er Worlds read by Welles and set to text. Very cool stuff (and just over a minute long). Really makes me want that After Effects Program (and you thought Iclone was expensive... hehe)....And here is another pretty cool shorty showcasing a typography as architecture art project. Nifty.

Even in a film having nothing to do with typography, I think the style of the titles and credits has a profound effect on setting the mood (especially up at the beginning of the film) and is something often overlooked or tacked on right at the end of many little screen flicks. Im just saying.

A fine read (on a completely different subject) this morning is Berardinelli's take on the New York Times changing online pricing structure and on online commercial revenue in general. SoundSnap sent me an email just the other day proposing a change in their pricing strategy, while MovieStorm continues to futz about with their subscription and pricing methods. The internet is a hard place to make a living (especially when you start charging for something that was at one point free, or can be found elsewhere for free).

Finally, The Genie and The Trashman is wrapped (my wrap party consisted of a couple of greyhounds while playing Uncharted 2 for a few hours last night...party like a rockstar!). It will be released thise week. Keep an eye out here for more details.

LibriVox and The Genie

2010-01-19T11:50:00.000-05:00

I ran across this resource the other day while cruising the Internet Archive. LibriVox - an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers. Currently has over 3,000 recordings, free to download. It struck me that this might be a fine resource for the budding filmmaker who wants to play with some good human voices or perhaps even tackle a full production set to one of these recordings. At the very least its a good source of free audiobooks for your next roadtrip. Take a look.

And now, as promised, heres a little Genie screenie (from my upcoming Genie and the Trashman flick). I suppose I haven't said much about this production so heres the fun facts. It was dreamed up after viewing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in North Americas largest cathedral, Saint John the Devine, one halloween...a very cool experience. A bit inspired by Trashman's Utarefson (itself inspired by.. well Nosferatu - a very cool German Expressionist flick in its own right) and then fell by the wayside for a year or so until watching Metropolis not so long ago and thought, "huh, I oughta get back on that particular german expressionist, silent treatment horse one of these days". It will probably be silent though I'm still playing with the idea of using some sound effects. Will probably be about 3 minutes long. Will probably be a case of style over content as the story is uber simple and its more or less just an experiment. Ive been avoiding using the camera switcher functionality in iclone, instead exporting clips separately and editing elsewhere for fear that the camera switcher influences the editing process. Also, the HDR lighting effects mixed with the fog particle effects have crashed my video driver multiple times. Very irritating. Still, I think it will turn out pretty groovy if I ever finish it up.

Hibernation

2010-01-14T09:05:00.000-05:00

I stocked up on pie and cookies and holiday candy a plenty and seem to have settled down for a long winters nap. Been fiddling about with the Genie & the Trashman but with little urge to complete anything. If I get an ounce more motivated I might have that little short out in a couple of weeks. In the meantime I swear I will try to get a screenie or two out. Monsters of the Atomic Age is festering about in my head as well. I'm starting to get back into the motivated column and I have many of the sets just about ready, though the costumes remain a work in progress.

On the Iclone front Im digging Pauly's line of free Iclone characters and three of the better Iclone productions I've seen lately; AT's Voyages of the Sojourner (a very strong 3rd act much like At's Expedition), Raven2Angel's Echoes (check out that windswept apocalyptic exterior set) and AllPoint's "Who Am I: 2012" (so much work and effort is made to seem so effortless). Yarmond has recently released his foul mouthed and nicely written MovieStorm flick, Jolly Old Saint Dick that has some great vivid characters and the J-Hard Christmas album commercial enclosed within like a belated xmas gift.

Otherwise, I've been reading The 5 C's of Cinematography which is a good source of thought on how to film. Its dry but informative and has me attempting to think of scenes sequentially in terms of camerawork. Also really enjoying this list of online tutorials for film and video production amassed by Mike Jones. My fave so far is the 4 minute film school classes that includes material such as Drawless Animation (very cool segment).

Also finished up the graphic novel Luna Park which is visually something to behold but the story went somewhere I would not have expected. Lets see, penniless, down on his luck, Russian soldier moves to America, lives in Coney Island and is an enforcer for a small time gangster. Sound like any video game you've played lately? And yet, its not that story at all. While its no Asterios Polyp, its worth the time and money for the images alone. I still haven't decided what I think of the story.

So thats it, I guess I'm busier than I realized.

2009 - A review of the creative side of my life

2009-12-30T10:48:00.000-05:00

Following the closure of TMO and the move to TMU in 2008, this was the year I began to take advantage of all the tools and facilities available to me from editing software to video sharing sites and social networks. Im no longer tied to just one site as my destination for seeing and being seen. Credit Machinifeed for some of that as its now a daily destination for the thoughts and productions of a varied and dedicated group of peoples. Also credit both the 2008 and 2009 MachinExpo for opening up my eyes to new platforms, new creators, new ideas and a spirit of inclusiveness that is rarely seen elsewhere (added plus of getting Ptolemy's Blues accepted as a screener at the 2009 Expo..yay!).

That being said, heres a look at my own movies of 2009

Whitefish - My first real effort using 3rd party editing software (Magix MEP14) ended up something of an unweildy and rambling monster, part by design and part by fault. The production took forever and as a result lost some of its focus. Highlights include the train ride via animated overlays and Satan's musical sideshow. Was it good? As a narrative story it was a mess, as an idea and a an emotional feeling it hit its mark (imo). I'd score it out at about 7 out of 10.

Upon finishing this movie I decided not to exceed 8 minutes of runtime in my future features. Make it tighter was my immediate mantra as seen in....

Travel With Berlitz - Tight, snappy, poppy, travel agent noir with my first dash of Iclone. Even here in its little scene the beauty of iclone shined as I was able to (somewhat successfully) take an idea from my brain to execution without worrying first about the limits of the program (recreating a lost in the bermuda triangle/3D Warehouse scenario). Also got to work with both leading ladies from TMU (Sisch and Dulci) for the first time. A fun idea, good execution, highly watchable. Grades as 8.5 of 10 for me.

Tales from the People Zoo - My next/first full feature foray into Iclone was a little sloppier. Storyline resembling dadaist sketch comedy (Perhaps I give myself too much credit), some things worked some did not. As my first Iclone feature it was interesting and ambitious and some of the sketches (the birdwatcher) still make me chuckle. Ending credits were inspired. However, it doesn't age as well as I slowly advance my IClone skill. 7.5 of 10.

Sleeper - Asked to include a little something into an elaborate Xmas collaboration (more on this later) this little ditty fulfilled an idea I had been playing with for a long long time. Specifically that of 2d sets and characters in a 3d world. The humor is only smirkable but watching the paper flutter to the ground as the result of the toddler suicide bombing is something else entirely. 8 of 10.

TheBiz's House of Horror - Easily my favorite experience working on a production as every major thought or advance was logged in an online production diary that kept me thinking and kept me on track (and gave no thought to the issues of releasing too much info). Also a totally different concept from a story based production, I basically designed a carnival funhouse from past experience (a realistic one at that), built it from the ground up using sketchup, 3D warehouse and Iclone and then attached a camera to a character and walked him through the sets giving the whole thing a first person perspective and avoiding some of the shortcomings of Iclone; namely the animations. My most popular production in terms of feedback, it was a big success, timely (hello halloween) and a lot of fun (if you could get past the fact I called it TheBiz's House of Horror...please excuse my ego, he knows not what he names a movie). Winner winner, chicken dinner. 9 of 10.

Toying Around - A short ad for the hairloss.com video contest. Took about 2 and a half weeks once I decided on the scenario. Disgustingly cute and well done. I really wanted to use the new Ic4 lighting effects here but the flat lighting approach worked best. Kid Millions loved it to death and I bet it would have faired well in the contest (I do believe it is postponed due to lack of interest..). 8 outta 10 and a boost of confidence about trying out the contest realm.

My Favorites of 2009

TWCS - An Epic collaboration spearheaded by BudBundysMullet and featuring the talents of BBM, 6-HeadedMonster, JohnnyEx, Kwistufa and the uber-talented GoofParade (he's everywhere in this) dedicated to being the raunchiest XXXmas special ever. It succeeds in the raunch and the humor. The collaboration parts worked like a well oiled machine thanks largely to the BBM's overarching idea and willingness to leave things open ended and his hard work to glue it all together, not to mention GP's voice on pretty much every skit...hehe. As mentioned elsewhere, the chipmunks Christmas skit blew my mind. A fun project (collaborations that work are rare), a great result.

Clockwork - More style than you can shake a stick at. A nightmare world brought to full realization. Worthy winner of the 2009 MachiniExpo.

Shelf Life - Most cinema-esque feature I've seen in game based machinima. Creepy and very, very good.

Push - Like a commercial that is trying to sell you an improved imagination. I would never have guessed it was made in Second Life.

Other things 2009 and my hopes for the New Year

Comics and Graphic Novels - Starting with a January reading of the Watchmen (my first entry into comics) I managed to collect 15-20 classics of the genre with favorites including ; Asterios Polyp, The Dark Night Returns and The Leaugue of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Those with a slight interest in finding grown up comix with a boatload of style, vision and sheer art need look no further than Asterios Polyp. Its an interesting genre with strong ties and similarities to animation that Im hoping to further explore in the new year.

I'm finishing up the year with an interest in film theory, practice and editing techniques. Reading and thinking a little more about how the story will get told once Ive developed the story itself. Looking forward to a little self improvement.

Im also really hoping to see some Iclone productions that will challenge some of the wonderful stories that have unfolded in other software (namely MovieStorm as they share so many similarities) such as Daddy is Home, Clockwork and Death in Venice. I tend to put Coming Home on the same level as those 3 but otherwise the IC productions are a bit lacking in the fully realized story based realm - imo but also a quick look at the 2009 MachinExpo finalists tell the same story. Not sure if its an issue with the awkwardness of the homemade animations, the editing style that has evolved from the software or what but I have high hopes for the new year.

Ok, I am winded...Have a lovely New Year.

The TWCS and Sleeper

2009-12-21T10:55:00.000-05:00

After many many months in the making, BudBundysMullet has released The TWCS! Its full of much XXXmas cheer, holiday shenanigans, rad 80's commercials, a truly stunning Chipmunks Christmas parody thats so well done you will swear its the real thing and much else. Its kinda like a perverse and twisted Heehaw Christmas Special but with Aussie in-jokes substituting for redneck outhouse knock knock jokes. Sort of.

Anyways, part of my contribution to the project was a take on the old TMO xmas scenario that inevitably featured jesus and the easter bunny (being that The Movies provided a bunny suit, santa suit and jesus was easy enough to achieve). I managed to get a paper cutout look by designing everything as a 2d prop in sketchup including the characters. This was an idea that I had been playing around with for a long long time. Originally I wanted to make a Coney Island movie using 2d props so as to look like a community theater production. The Coney Island movie eventually morphed into Whitefish and now I have finally used the idea here in Sleeper. I was mighty happy with the resulting look. Its best viewed as part of the whole TWCS but if you happen to be under the age of 18 and 6 year old suicide bombers don't disturb you you can see it below. But you will be missing out on the reason for the season you scrooge!

Sleeper from thebiz on Vimeo.

More Set Design, Doilie Patterns and Mercury Men

2009-12-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of things I have been working on lately. Below is a set about 2/3 complete of which I am rather proud. Its a full on dive bar that I would be proud to patronize. Its a pretty hefty resource hog but it looks pretty. Still need to add some tables and a juke box. Will probably be used in a 5 second shot in my Monsters of the Atomic Age project but I think its on the same level as the space age bachelor lounge from a previous post. Solid work biz. A pat on the back...hehe.

Found some groovy old beer, liquor and car ads (used in my dive bar set) at a strange half dead site called cemetarian.com. They also sell those old pattern sets that my mom used to buy at fabric stores back in the 80's. Very distinct cover designs. Kinda cool in an old lady way. Also really like that "Doilies" image which is strangely grandma modern. Worth taking a look at if you like things of yesteryear (postcards, ads, designs, bottles, etc).

Anywho, next up is a rather simple little project I am working on to experiment with light and animations. Doubt it will get released but you never know. My own rendition of Green Eggs and Ham which is Kid Millions absolute favorite book right now. Needless to say he has seen the early production work (18 seconds) and he is mighty impressed for a two year old though he believes the HDR effect is a little over the top. This project began the day I made a personal promise never to use that stupid toon character in any of my productions...EVER! Personal promises are made to be broken (preferably on the day you make them).

Finally, I caught a mention of Mercury Men on the Celtx blog and went off to check it out based upon the overall design of the production (the storyboarding segment is very informative). I'm really impressed with the package they have layed out to promote this upcoming web series. Theres a digital prop series that features things like papercraft characters, very groovy poster sets, production journals and a running blog from the writer/director. Promotion in the machinima community too often seems like a lost art and as a result many productions that have a serious amount of time spent in their creation end up feeling temporary and small (often dissapearing a week or so after their release). In contrast this feels...big. Chris Preksta (the writer/director) mentions Myst as an overall influence to the series and briefly discusses how Myst was able to develop a world that felt like it existed with or without you and exists far beyond what you could physically see. All of the promotional content here does something similar for the Mercury Men. I have seen similar web promotions used for some studios (moonlight pictures) and it would be nice to see others (including me) think a bit more about their promotion beyond just the initial release (and thinking outside the box and beyond just a web presence).

I continued on the trail and ended up watching 5 episodes of Chris's previous project; Captain Blasto. Definitely small budget but pretty fun and cut up into little web episode chunks that work very well. Dialogue and acting was a mixed bag at times going over the top and at times feeling like filler. Some of the slapstick worked, some didn't. However, I really liked the music and the editing (see the ending of episode 1 for an excellent musical editing job) as well as the overall scenario in which a teenager who wants to be a super hero enlists various men to play the role of thugs and bad guys. Together they create elaborate plots that the kid can then foil as Captain Blasto. In playing these "thug" roles the men find something exciting and fun in their otherwise frustrated lives. Theres a bit of a fun Oceans Eleven vibe going on It has a cute naiveté and the editing keeps things from getting too sappy.

As an added plus, I am enjoying the 3 years of blog posts as Chris deals with the project and goes through things we as creators all seem to go through. I feel enriched.

Youtube explorations continued...

2009-12-04T08:58:00.000-05:00

Heres another great one off of youtube: The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello. First watched it about a year ago but rediscovered it last night. Shadow characters in steampunk airships battle monsters (ala Skull Island) and disease. Engrossing and very nice to look at. I only wish the export quality was higher.

Stop Motion Goodness

2009-12-03T09:14:00.000-05:00

I have never really sat down and searched for good movies on youtube, feeling instead this is the proving ground for 13 year old Jackass wannabes and illegally uploaded tv show clips. However, after being required to upload to youtube for the hairloss.com contest (and realizing its a much more snazzy site that it was a year or two ago) I've been spending a little more time there and have been enjoying the visits. Here are two stop motion flicks I caught last night that impressed me to no end.

First up is Madam Tutli Putli. Reminded me of Amelie by way of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or perhaps more fittingly Jacobs Ladder..though the sound design in "Madam" is similar to "Massacre" in its crazy tension and volume) Tense, beautiful, cluttered. Characters move with the heaviness of puppets with realistic (creepy) eyes. Open ending might frustrate some but its pretty haunting altogether and will stay etched in my brain fro quite a while. And I have my theories on just what is going on here.

Next up is Vincent by Tim Burton. Created in 1982 and narrated by Vincent Price its a cute and deranged little short that has more than a hint of what Burton would soon become. What struck me was the lighting and the angles of the shots. Kind of a Noir, expressionist, classic horror, children's short. Watching it made me want to attempt to recreate certain scenes in Iclone. Would certainly be a fun exercise.

Hope you enjoy.

Character Development

2009-11-30T08:20:00.000-05:00

Spent a chunk of my free time over the holiday working on characters for my upcoming project. There are all sorts of quirks and oddities in the Iclone body and facial sculpture but eventually I got some characters that I felt I could live with and have grabbed enough experience to move forward with less dress rehearsal jitters. Still wondering why there are not more hairstyles (either by RL or 3rd party).

The chubby fellow to the left could use a better hawiian shirt for sure (less a hawiian tshirt) and my bikini gal should probably roll with a different design than polka dots but like I said, it'll do for now. Hope you all had a fantabulous turkey/pie day. Mine was solid.

And if anyone might be interested in helping me create a Robot Monkey suit that the afore mentioned chubby fellow to the left could wear, aquire within. This is my last big hitch in the production at this time.

A Room to Die In

2009-11-25T09:26:00.000-05:00

It's a common story. I just wanted a platform to tell my little stories and show off the ideas in my head. Along the way I've learned a bit about video game theory, began making digital music, have become somewhat proficient in graphic arts, dabbled in acting, touched on costume design, done bags of research on bizarre topics, developed scripts, proofread scripts for others (Am I qualified for this? As much as anything else I suppose...) , gained (limited) knowledge on video conversion processes, developed architectural exterior and interior designs and the list goes on.

This week has been one involved in interior design. Based on my experience from the House of Horrors project, I've developed a workflow that begins with me creating my rooms in sketchup. Wall cutouts are hard to achieve in Iclone but rather simple in sketchup and I actually like the textures offered there. So when I realized I would need an office for a movie mogul in my current project, off I went to sketchup where I built a simple rectangular box with three square windows on one side, the walls divided with a wood finish on the bottom and a seventies wallpaper texture on top (see the pic from the previous post). My muse was most likely the initial office of the movie mogul from Barton Fink. At least some version of it stored away in my porridgey like brain. Tossed it into Iclone (the prop, not the brain) and got to work on furnishing and lighting. Then realized how much I disliked the design.

My experience in interior design consists of a "use what you find" (I am an avowed garage sale kind of guy) attitude and the memory of that interior designer in Brewster's Millions who kept trying to design a room that Brewster would want to die in. As I decorated that room I realized how much it looked like the band rehearsal space I created in my parents basement when I was 15. A hodgepodge of crappiness. Ok says I, back to the drawing board. After thinking things over, the intent here is some sort of swinging bachelor pad of an office (the time period is a combination of late 50's to the early 70's in some type of alternate universe of style and culture...it makes more sense in my head I suppose). So I hit up the google image search and found two pics I liked....oooh, circular and wood and stone and groovy fireplaces and bars.

Loved that bar on the first pic so it became the focus of my office (which is now an office/lounge...ok just a lounge). Then I realized a fishtank would be needed. So mixing all these elements (and a pair of Corbusier chairs) together like some kind of chef salad here is what I got:

Im still short a possible rug, lamp, fish for the tank (hmm paths not stationed on the ground are difficult), fire for the fireplace, track lighting, additional posters and some knicknacks but I think Ive got the basis of a room here that I could die in. Or at least have a drink in.

As much as I like to get things done in an expeditious manner, I always find it satisfying when I step back, think about what I want and eventually achieve it.

HDR Effects, Classic Fairy Tales from Virtual Worlds

2009-11-24T08:48:00.000-05:00

With Toying Around being the first production done wholly in IC4, I made an effort to dally about with the new HDR settings. However, the content (toys) called for a flat colorful look and I ended up not using the effect. Now that that project is complete, I turn my attention back to bigger and more ambitious things. Things that can use the HDR effect to better results.

Heres a simple screenie of what is supposed to be a studio executives office. The office layout kinda sucks and theres much work to be done here but I do think the lighting really brings things to life (or mayhaps it's just the bowler). Much experimenting in this area to be had. And how are there no good old classic typewriters available on 3D Warehouse? Theres like 150 pod racers and not one typewriter older than 1970? Hurumpha.

And not to be outdone, heres a quick closeup of Steve-O's electronics and our hero (?) done up wrong. Agaion the HDR lighting with a lot of contrast seems to be the look I am going for.

Heres a little flick I caught last night; The Princes and the Pea by ToxicMenges. Shot in Second Life, amazingly cool costumes and sets, very effective storytelling. Color me impressed.

Expo, deep thoughts, ect.

2009-11-23T10:31:00.000-05:00

My brain is soup. Not that it's a bad thing but it needs to be strained to get anything solid from it. Busy weekend full of thoughts on the MachinimaExpo, machinima and animation in general.

The Expo was grand, full of interesting looking people, films and presentations. IceAxe's Clockwork took home the gold which somehow further validated the jury panel in my eyes. As I said previously it was a really strong contender but I figured on a win by the excellent Push because the Expo organizers have shown something of a penchant for the more artsy films and an appreciation for process. Removing knowledge of process from the equation perhaps led to the selection of Clockwork (or perhaps not, what do I know). Overall, it was neat to see the darkhorse (and deserving, though I could have slept easy with many of the other jury selections as well) win.

This issue of process has also been of interest to me of late, coming to a head in the great 48Hr Film faux pas (I amplify only for comedic effect) in which the differences between MS, IClone and virtual world and video game video capture were discussed. While it turns out the omission of Iclone in this event was simply a mistake, some very valid differences were brought up in terms of process. In short, filming in IC or MS is very different than filming in SL.

As someone who now works with Iclone, I tend to think of myself as an amatuer animator more than a machinimator as there is little link to the video game world (for me) and the idea of real time rendering as a dividing line is a technical one at best. I don't think of one as better than the other but I do recognize that working in Iclone or MS knocks off a level of uncertainty and chance from the process (no bikini girls wondering into my shot...unless they are in the script) and allows me to follow a more rigid process to get my vision on film.

So I continued in my stoic rigidity until reading these thoughts from Mike Joyce (Pineapple Chunks) which reminded me that some level of uncertainty and chance can be a good thing and organic filmmaking is something to remain open to in the future. When we spend 3-6 months working on a film and it open and generates 20 responses in a week and then fades to relative obscurity perhaps process (those 3-6 months) indeed is as important as the end result. Theres also an ease of collaboration and interaction that occurs in a virtual world that is much harder to attain in something like Iclone.

And amid all these thoughts I have finished (I think) my hairloss.com video contest entry. It's sugary sweet and reminds me of my childhood aspiration to be a tv adman dreaming up catchy jingles and cute catchphrases.

At the advice of Phil Rice I purchased Quick Time Pro for the h.264 video codec and am quite happy with the results. 1 minute of film uncompressed from Iclone to Magix was coming in at 2.5Gb. Compressed in Quick time with nice looking results it 33Mb. The conversion to flash looks solid in youtube as well as Vimeo. And there was much rejoicing. Thanks Phil!

2009 Machinima Expo - Some Jury Film Comments

2009-11-19T10:37:00.000-05:00

The 2009 Machinima Expo takes place in second life this Sunday with multiple events, screenings and the winners of the Jury Prize and Asian Jury Prize. I spent a lot of time recently watching some of these films and here are some of my thoughts..

The jury films can be broken up into two categories; the artsy films (9, Transient, AM-Radio, Push) and the story based films (Cafe Insomniac, Clear Skies, Clockwork, Death in Venice, Saving Grace, The Orchard). Outside of this was Taste the Cake which is a music video about the game, Portal, and Twilight of the Gods which could be considered a story based film but the story is so thin that it feels (to me) more like an extensive flight sim tech demo.

Noting the dominant platform used in the film, there are 4 Moviestorm films (Cafe Insomniac, ClockWork, Death in Venice, Saving Grace), 2 Second Life films (AM Radio, Push), 3 Half Life2 films (Clear Skies2, Shelf Life, Taste the Cake), 1 WoW film (The Orchard), 1 TM flick (Transience), 1 IL2 flick (TotG) and one that Im not entirely sure of (9). Its a bit dissapointing that no Iclone flicks were selected though my favorite Iclone film, Lizard's Coming Home was selected for screening.

Here are the films:

9 by Claus-Dieter Schulz - Akin to watching a collidascope set to music. Too esoteric for me personally. It would have probably been more impressive if I had any background on the how/what/why but without this info I found this one lacking. As an aside I did a little research and found this: http://machiniplex3.blogspot.com/2009/09/audio-text-from-machiniplex-premiere-of.html. Like I said, it does seem a lot more interesting when theres some background accompanying the flick.

:transient” by Sisch - I remember watching this about a year ago. At the time many of The Movies people were considering using outside editing software on our movies and this was a highly touted example of such things. Its funny that outside editing was such a big deal to us old TMOers not so long ago. Anywho, I paid a lot of attention to the technical aspect of the film and failed to just watch the movie. Coming back to it I was highly impressed at how well this holds up compared to the other art films selected for the jury. Great music. Very cool movie.

“AM Radio – Second Life – HD” by Pyewacket Bellman - Another esoteric one but this time full of images and things and places that I can relate to (at least on the surface). Definitely beautiful things to look at and perhaps there is a hint of story here but I found myself wanting more than a hint and thinking about what else could be done with all these crazy places and things.

“Cafe Insomniac” by Hardy Capo - I need to revisit.

Clear Skies 2 by Ian Chisholm - I will have to come back to this when I have 45 minutes to dedicate to a machinima film. I saw the first Clear Skies at a Machinima Fest in NYC last year. Seeing it live on a big screen with a crowd of people was actually not an optimal experience for me. I was preoccupied with watching the people attending and there were other things happening (a forum discussion in another part of the room) and the sound was inferior to the headphone experience. As such I wasn't all that impressed. The exterior scenes all felt like a video game and it felt pretty long to me. I will try to give this the attention it needs (soon) as many people have raved about it. And many people cant be wrong..hehe.

Clockwork by IceAxe - Heres one that I forgot just how good it was. The strength here is the environment that is created. A V for Vendetta/Clockwork Orange world that is so real you can touch it. Put together through colinear peeks into various phases of that life (the robotic radio - a definite V influence eh, the govt sequence, the droogs, the police). It really is effective and soo stylish to boot (that scene of the gang walking along the edge with all its high contrast is very very nice). A strong contender me thinks.

”Death in Venice” by Kate Lee & Sherwin Liu - I need to revisit.

”Push” by Lainy Voom - The odds on favorite to win in my book. Beyond polished and way too cool. If I saw this in a commercial break I would sit up scratch my head and hit the rewind button on my dvr. What does it mean? Who knows. Who cares. Its fun and interesting to watch like some kind of complex cartoon mousetrap device. If you haven't seen it yet let me assure you that you can find two minutes of your life to watch it.

”Saving Grace by Sisch - Will need to revisit.

Shelf Life by James Spencer and Jon Sortland - This one was a revelation to me (I'm not so very up on the latest and best releases). Cinematic and very eerie. Pulled me in and left me wanting more (Shelf Life 2 will premeire very soon). Ended up reminding me a bit of Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness". I have been playing HalfLife2 a good bit recently so I am aware of the world they have to work with and this still felt fresh and inventive. Still, I think the restrictions inherant in the engine/platform will keep it from taking home the win. For example, the creation of Push is constrained only (well mostly) by the imagination while Shelf Life is a very good story acted out in a premade environment. Eh, perhaps this makes no sense. Regardless, I will definitely be in line to see part 2. Very good flick.

”Taste the Cake” by Ray Koefoed - A fun, well made music video about the game Portal with very original music to boot. Its the only jury film that could be considered Comedy. It probably wouldn't have made my list of 12 (lacks something to really push it over the top and felt like a commercial for the game) but its definitely very good.

The Orchard by Dan Ross - A world of warcraft flick that is attempting a little bit of fairy tale horror but ends up feeling awkward because of the character cartoony looks and some of the mildly awkward and limited animations. This is the first WoW film I have watched and I suppose the land of fairies and orks just isn't my thing as yet.

“Twilight of the Gods” by Jan Kopřiva - A WWII aviation flick with loads of very very cool air combat footage and very little else (in what was approximately a 12 minute film). There are little snippets of story here and there (the nurse, the germans, the Saving Private Ryan ending) but overall it felt like a very long tech demo to me.

Im hoping to rewatch Death in Venice, Saving Grace and Cafe Insomniac soon as well as watching Clear Skies 2. Also hoping to get around to the Asian Jury films this weekend. Might try to post again about these and some of the screened films as well in the next day or so. Saw a mountaineering GTA flick I'm just itching to talk about..hehe.

Playtime

2009-11-13T08:48:00.000-05:00

A little something I've been working on this week for the hairloss.com comp and a quick reminder of how great IClone is at creating stills and screenies but how frustrating the animating process can be. The toy man below has been cloneboned and can be animated similar to any other character except for the fact that the legs and arms are one piece instead of 2 and therefore cannot bend. Not the end of the world but the legs had to be connected to the hips and the clonebone character will not allow you to get rid of the lower leg section nor the feet. I shrank them as much as possible but they still exist and therefore toy man walks a few feet above the surface. No problem, I'll just adjust the transform key and...well, he bobs up and down like a corpse in the Hudson when he starts walking. Its a problem. I havent found any keys in the timeline that are causing this so I might just have to figure a workaround. Still the screenies look nice and I like all the new lighting features and the ease of giving this a washed out super bright look.

Ive been thinking about the wisdom of posting so many screens of whatever Im working on at the moment. Does it dull the surprise for the 4 people who happen to see it? Maybe but my third point overrides this one.

Does it create higher expectations than the project can/will deliver? Probably. I see so many great screenies from Iclone projects where the animation ends up stilted and lacking compared to how my imagination spun things upon seeing the shot. This is probably the case with the screenies I put up but I already know about my shoddy animation skills so no suprises for me..hehe.

I think the real reason I put up so many screenies is because it allows me to think about what I'm doing compared with the visions in my head and to help guide me through the process. And all this while not cloning about. For instance, I really like the low camera angle on that second shot. Makes things look a bit more grandiose. This is something I will probably be playing around with. And then I notice that the ball shown in the screenie is the same color of the toy horn squeezie and should be changed. See, its already worth its weight in screenie gold. Just sayin.

And since you've put up with my rambles, heres an excellent bathing beauty from Shorpy.com. Kay Laurell, A Zigfield Follies girl and actress of the silver screen. Died 5 years after this shot of pnemonia. Not sure if she's on the banks of the Potomac (note the Washington Monument in the background) or what but those one pieces are excellent. Or perhaps its that hat. Eh, either way.

O My!

2009-11-12T09:12:00.000-05:00

Check out this crazy parody from Teviniii, made with Ic4. Amazingly good character creations (look at those facial expressions!), lighting, lifelike animations and snazzy set design. Similar in subject matter to those old claymation deathmatch shows or perhaps a touch of robot chicken. Probably the most polished production I've yet to see made with Ic4. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see this on the boobtube one night. A high bar to strive for me thinks. Very good stuff.

The Future!

2009-11-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

I've been working on a new scene from my future project and created a space aged character with a nifty jetpack and a hot babe and figured I'd just go get a nice backdrop of a future city and we would roll right into the 10 seconds of shooting that I needed. But then I found the backdrop image I wanted and I started worrying about copyright issues and I thought...hmm, time to work with Iclone primitives.

So there we go. I might revert in my thinking back to someone's future city image as a backdrop but with a little vaseline on the lens I think I can get away with this. Went ahead and had the babe saddle up to jet pack boy and they take off together. A lot of fun involved in making this scene. Made me late for work this morning when I decided to point JPB's feet downward on takeoff but was worth it for the smirk of accomplishment that is splattered on my mug today.

On another note, heres an interesting take from James Berardinelli on the death (or near death) of independant film.

If only it were that simple...

2009-11-05T08:52:00.000-05:00

#8 from the Art of the WPA series over at "If Charlie Parker..."

On the local front I'm in the midst of trying to make a bear cheer and a man fly. Or is that I'm trying to make a man a fly. Well yes, that too.

And if you havent seen the Star Wars Uncut project, do so now. I doubt I'll participate but I will certainly be awaiting the finished project.

The Challenge by David Thomas

2009-11-04T10:35:00.000-05:00

Heres a little action flick from David Thomas that was advertised in the Reallusion forums. Pretty solid flick with some nice sets, custom music and good action sequences. Sweet finish too.
Some of the character animations seem far too slow (a common complaint from me) but still a very solid action feature.

DAVID THOMAS "THE CHALLENGE"

Uploaded by dreamfighter66. - Arts and animation videos.

Hallows Eve and some flicks that are treats.

2009-11-02T08:51:00.000-05:00

Halloween was lovely. Released my House of Horror on Saturday after a nice premier at TMUTheater. Received some nice comments which makes me happy. Did some trick or treating with Kid Millions and then made it out to a friends to watch Basket Case (exploitive 80's b movie shlocker - very nice). Late night in a bar in Brooklyn on Halloween is quite a treat. Some great drunken costumed characters. Robots, aliens, tiny tim, wonder woman, vamps and many undead. It was like spending the evening in someones little crazy machinima flick. Good times.

Work continues on my Steve-os set. Ive added a backdrop of panoramic Indianapolis 1918 (thanks library of congress) but the resolution was shoddy and I didnt like the actual results as much as I liked my gimped mockup test (below).

Also worked up a more elaborate terrain but the scale is weird so much more work to do here. Hopefully I wont spend too much more time on a set that will be used for less than a minutes worth of filming. And I suppose I wont show any more pics of Steve-Os till its done (at least not the same image perspective).

On the filming front, I find I'm much more of a dream it up and then figure out how to do it kind of guy but decided some old fashioned learning without a goal was called for what with me owning Iclone4 and not having played around with many of its features. So last night I played with the path editor and was rather impressed to have my characters walking (pretty naturally) around corners in less than a minute. Path based motions are good.

A lot of good movies put out this weekend. Here are two that caught my eye and went largely unseen...

What the Fu-ture? by TR3 - Live action high school spanish class educational video that rivals all that old 1985 mtv stuff (think David Lee Roth's "I aint got nobody") and includes turkish belly dancers and people getting pushed into a pool. Did I mention this is a high school production? Its a blast.

Cateneda Cops - Garn by Bongo - Trippy and fun moviestorm flick with more mod magic than you can shake a stick at. Reminded me a bit of the Big Lebowski in tone. Much unique and inventive.

Hair Loss, Bewitched, Chick Tracts and Baby Monsters

2009-10-30T08:37:00.000-04:00

In the battle against hair loss there can be only one winner. No wait, there are four winners (of varying degree of prizes).

Create a 60 second clip about hair loss (comedy, drama, else) for a chance to win cash or a fancy camera.

I'm in. Plus I've enlisted a bit of help in the idea department from some friends which gives the whole process a Mad Men/Darren Stephens* (Bewitched) kinda advertising campaign feel. Im stoked though I gotta figure out how to create a toupee thing in Iclone. Thanks for the heads up Dulci.

* Did you know that Darren was played by Dick York who hurt his back and was replaced by Dick Sargent (did the producer figure no one would notice so long as the actors first name was Dick?). But perhaps more interesting, 2 actresses won posthumous Emmys for Bewitched. Yep, bewitched won an Emmy (er...2). Which leads me to Boo! which I actually picked up in a Kroger in the South (the religious tract, not the movie) and vividly remember the page discussing how Bewitched was indeed Satanic. But thats neither here nor there. Watch Boo because it's funny and Halloween themed. Then go watch Guppy's Godzilla because it's cuter than ...well I got nothing. It's cute so watch it. End transmission.

More Set Design and Wasting the Rappers

2009-10-29T09:06:00.000-04:00

In news of old things that I find interesting, theres a new Life magazine special that highlights the 50 Greatest unsolved Mysteries. Some pretty good little snippets here like "What Killed Rasputin?", "Who was D.B. Cooper?" (I love DB Cooper), "What Happened to Judge Crater?" and so on. Cool black and white photos, though the text was probably ripped straight from wikipedia (or is that the other way around). Anyway, the mysteries are listed in chronological order so the older ones start it off and towards the end we get "Who killed Jon Benet Ramsey?". Now almost all of the 50 shorts involve questions like "Who killed...", "Where is...?", "What happened to...?". Then out of nowhere comes the title "Who Wasted the Rappers?" which should have been followed by the question "Which Editor got fired for allowing such a title?". The inclusion of the murder of Biggie and Tupac is appropriate (I love Biggie as well) but that title just strikes me as demeaning and incredibly stupid. Eh mountains and molehills and such.

Worked a bit on Steve-O's last night. Adjusted the Steve-O sign (much better me thinks), added interior backdrops running at an angle within the building to give a sense of perspective when looking through the window, created the balloons in sketchup (would you believe there is no effective group of balloons in 3d warehouse that are less than 1Meg), added the Color TVs sign, adjusted the sidewalk width and added the roadway markings and a scooter. Whew...

Still some additional signage to add to the windows, add some color to the grand opening sign and then I need to figure something out for the background besides trees. I think this is an urban setting so I'll either look for some buildings or perhaps either a photo-realsitic or cartoony urban backdrop. Have to play around with this to see what works. Might shrink the line weight on that roadway marking..its kinda big. Finally I'll send it off to some set design guru to get an opinion. Overall, I think shrinking the sidewalk and the Steve-O sign goes a long way to making this look better.

Surfs up and the need for some perspective

2009-10-28T09:49:00.000-04:00

Strolling about on my morning web commute I ended up reading the reelviews review of Wings (1927). An interesting review that describes the flick as something of a time capsule capturing the essence of WWI in that brief time before the world had to view it through the lens of WWII. Also mildly amusing is James' brief take on how Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (made approximately 70 years later) infects Wings with a sense of cliché. So a fine read of a silent classic which made brief mention of Clara Bow's breasts (Wings was pre-Hays code) which sent me googling Clara Bow and...hubba hubba.

Not all that familiar with Clara (somehow thought she was the intended parody of Lina Lamont from Singing in the Rain..but perhaps not). Anyhow, the "It" girl wikipedia entry is well worth 20 minutes of your day. At least it was was to me (my favorite quote from Dorothy Parker..."It, hell, She had those." Also fun to note that putting on your lipstick in a heart motion is called putting on a Clara Bow...).

And moving on to things more animation based..Ive started work on a new project. Script is drafted and being reviewed and I'm currently developing some of the characters and sets and such. So here is a very early version of a set I was working on last night; a simple electronics store.

I'm still considering how to develop the store interior (use an interior backdrop/wall or use individual props...I don't have any interior scenes so probably just the backdrops) and I will be adding some flyers on the windows (20% Off!) and pehaps some street and parking lot markings (and perhaps a vehicle or two). The Grand Opening sign is a flex prop that waves gently in the wind (though I think it could use some color). And I'm rather proud of the how the set is shaping up.

But the question is should I be? I keep trying to step back to view things as an outsider because as the creator I have that bit of pride that keeps me from realizing its not all that good. The same issue happens with all my projects in just about all the phases. Is this script good or is my sense of pride unjustified. Is my halloween movie solid or have I just watched it too many times to know the difference. This is where a mentor/critic role would come in handy.

Looking at the screenie this morning I'm thinking that the Steve-O sign is way too big in relation to the building and the sidewalk is too big as well so thats more things to add to my list. More on this project as it develops (feels like 4-6 months production to me) though as a little teaser clue I will say that this flick will use of exclamation marks to excess.