Show off time... And some thoughts on quality

We had the actors meeting for Precedent a few days ago - man did that go well. Think we made some great choices with the casting. "Desmond, BITCH!"

I recieved my nice new DVD DL burner (BenQ DW1655) and 1GB Corsair RAM yesterday - man what a difference the memory makes. Before, my HL2 was nearly unplayable because of stuttering issues, but now with 1.5GB, it runs like a dream. Now all I need is that video card... HDR here I come! I've decided against the BFG 6800GS OC and will instead go for the just released BFG 7800GS OC. Can't afford to upgrade my motherboard/processor at this point yet, so I'm still stuck with AGP for the time being. So unfortunately no SLI for me. I'm surprised they're still making AGP cards, though I got a feeling this will be the last one ever.

Old specs:

P4 3.06 Ghz @ 3.45 Ghz
512 MB Corsair PC3200 RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy
200 GB Hard Drives

My upgraded specs (once the card arrives):

P4 3.06 Ghz @ 3.45 Ghz
1.5 GB Corsair PC3200 RAM
BFG GeForce 7800GS OC (gonna overclock this baby too)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
780 GB Hard Drives

Not bad eh? I think it can last for at least another year or two. The only parts remaining from a year ago is the motherboard, processor, and power supply... I really want an Athlon 64FX but I don't think I don't think I'll need it for a long while.

I also recieved my Adobe Production Studio Premium the other day, after waiting a month for shipping. Being a student has its advantages, I got nearly half price off. I haven't had a chance to play around with it but I did check out Premiere Pro 2.0. I'm loving the new interface and overall feel of it. Go to hell, Final Cut Pro.

Anyways... now that my PC has (nearly) caught up to the times, I think I'm definitely doing Precedent in 720p. I wasn't gonna bother with it before as it was gonna be a bitch to capture and also to edit. But now with my upgrade and the fact that PPro 2.0 has native HD support it will be easier in both capturing and postproduciton.

Here's something you guys might not have thought about. HD is rapidly becoming the standard everywhere and is slated to officially become the standard in a year or two. You already see it everywhere. Because of that I really think people need to start taking machinima to the next level and start recording in HD resolutions. Of course, if you want to stick to the internet crowd it won't apply to you, but if you want exposure and attention: film festivals, television, job opportunities, etc. it might be a great way to push your film through.

The reason I'm dead set on creating OTSS 2 in HD 720p (actually 1080p now, depending on certain things...) is not because I want viewers to see things clearly (after all who has time or space to d/l a 40 minute film in HD), but because I want to push my film everywhere. By having a HD master I now have the option of taking it to TV stations to be broadcast in HD, doing the same in film festivals or convert to film, etc. Someone wants to distribute my film theatrically (yeah right)? Well, because of the HD master, it's actually possible. Sorry, no one's gonna distribute your crappy 320x240 "film"...

I just think that aiming high and allowing these opportunities to open up almost forces you to seek them out. I honestly think up to this point, there is not a single machinima film worthy of being distributed or on television. Not because of idea, but because of execution. Quality. Severely lacking in my eyes. I'm probably harsher than most when it comes to this because I just cannot stand bad production values. If I had a choice of creating a badly written film with excellent production values, or a ingenious film with shitty production values - I'd take the former. I'd just be too ashamed of myself if I had my name attatched to a crappy production. Now I'm not saying I have uber production skills or I that don't produce crap (I certainly have in the past... and maybe in the present), but come on, you've seen them. Those "films" that make you wanna sit in the corner of the bathroom and slit your wrists.

Point is, we can't stay in our cave forever. We gotta head towards the outdoors and see the sun. The rest of the world. That's the only way to advance our art. Great writing alone will get us attention for a few weeks and die off as the "interested" lose interest when they watch everything else.

If you're gonna do something, don't do it half-assed. Research, learn, incorporate, redo. That's how I try to approach the films I do.

Mashenemah

It was my first "official" day at machinima.com today. Fairly straightforward, went on a mad hunt for machinima films all over obscure sites. Found a really interesting HL2 film I've never seen before, called City 17, but I'm not sure if it can be categorized as machinima. It's mostly live action and based on HL2, with some HL2 models edited in. Some of the XFire WoW machinima contest finalists have really impressed me. I think WoW is shaping up to be a fairly respectable machinima engine.

Precedent progress update: Me and Johnny (producers) were to meet with the 2 actors tonight, but somehow things got messed up and we had to delay. Being a pretty short script, I think that 1 or 2 quick rehearsals should suffice. More so than my previous projects, I really want the actors to add their own touch to the characters and see what happens. Though I haven't directed anything/anyone in about a year, so I'm a bit on edge about it.

Being that it's so short and concise, I'm currently designing the map (a rooftop of some building) as economically as possible. When I picture "rooftop", I immediately see a tall building dwarfing the rest of the city. In level design terms, that means creating the whole damn city. So my solution for this is to have the location be a rooftop of a small building, maybe one of those square-shaped office buildings. That would then be surrounded by taller skyscrapers, so no matter the angle, the rest of the city would be hidden, thus, not needed to be made. The dilemna is, how can I make that look cool or interesting without making it look like a big room with no ceiling? Maybe I'll leave one side open, and try to focus the angles towards that.

I also want to experiment with some depth of field effects with this project. After I get my new video card (Geforce 6800 GS) I'm going to run some visual tests and see how it looks. In my imagination it looks great... somehow I get the feeling it's going to be more complicated than I think and won't look too hot.

Slightly Later Man

We've released 'Slightly Later Man' over at machinima.com. Check it out here.



"Activision and Machinima.com have combined forces to bring you an original comdedy, "Slightly Later Man" produced with The Movies PC game.

In an effort to break through the fourth dimension and control time, Dr. Lloyd Wexler created the Time-U-Later. But a mysterious lab accident caused the Time-U-Later to explode, bombarding Dr. Wexler with dangerous "time waves" and causing him to miraculously exist seven seconds in the future. Dr. Lloyd Wexler realized that he must use his new found powers to fight evil and become: Slightly Later Man!"

The downloadable versions aren't up yet, but I put up temporary mirrors on riot-films:

Slightly Later Man WMV
Slightly Later Man MOV

Precedent

I finally got my monitor back from the repair shop. 2 weeks of not being able to use a computer felt more like a month. Sometime during that 2 weeks one of my hard drives also died... fortunately all of my project files and such are ok but the biggest loss is that my music is all gone. :(

We're doing a new project, a short called 'Precedent', written by Tony Gleed (The Crafty Hombre). Gonna try to get this out as fast as possible, in 2 months or so. The film is 99% dialogue based, and we'll be using Source to film it. Having just started the production, I'll be updating this blog more often with more news about it.

But what about OTSS 2, you ask?? On a short hiatus. Nearly finished with the second draft (I've been saying that for months!) and I'll be finalizing it during the production of Precedent. Also, I'm also looking to get some practice with the Source engine so that OTSS 2 will go a lot smoother. And this time I'm going to make sure concept art and other such talent-enticing stuff is finished before I start recruiting people... Our first run was a bit of a failure.

The project done in The Movies that I mentioned earlier was finished a few weeks ago and you'll probably be seeing it sometime soon. Look for 'Slightly Later Man'.