Still, I'm healthy. I've got someone who loves me and whom I love and trust in return. I've made some good friends this year and travelled more than in years past. 

I guess it's a matter of perspective. I tend to be more melancholic at the end of the year (Dec is not my favorite month). But, spring is not far off and I am feeling better. 

Couple goals for the upcoming year:

1. Get out and see more movies in the Theater this year
2. Listen to more music. 
3. Finish an animated film (that I direct)
4. Clear out the clutter in our apartment
5. Learn Luxology's Modo 3D program
6. Write every week. 

I'm looking forward to this new year. I want to enjoy myself and spend time with my friends. Only 15-20 years left and I want to make the best of it. 

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www.ubu.com

Founded in 1996 by poet and dj, Kenneth Goldsmith, ubu.com was originally a site devoted to concrete poetry, but expanded to include music, documents and film. It's a completely free site whose goal is to make experimental and avant-garde works easier to access. The experimental in any art form is often marginalized with little commercial distribution. Ubu.com is a treasure trove of artworks many of which are in the public domain. 

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www.mediahistoryproject.org

I came across this fabulous website recently by way of the remarkable davidbordwell.net cinema site. David is a film scholar who has written many excellent books on cinema and cinema history. He always has interesting comments, guest bloggers and up-to-date links for anything cinema related. And mediahistoryproject.org is no exception.

Basically, the Media History Project describes their site as:

We are a non-profit initiative dedicated to digitizing collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access. The project is supported by owners of materials who loan them for scanning, and donors who contribute funds to cover the cost of scanning. We have currently scanned over 200,000 pages, and that number is growing.

Our Collections feature Extensive Runs of several important trade papers and fan magazines. Click on the arrows below to learn more about these periodicals and select volumes to download and read. You’ll find more material and options at our Collections page.

The site is a treasure-trove for those interested in early Hollywood film/radio history. And all of it is public domain. You can download in pdf or use their excellent reader to read online. I love the many covers of magazines they have archived as well. 

This is a young site and deserves your support. Try their blog and sign up for their newsletter. It's a fascinating glimpse into history. 

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See the full gallery on Posterous

In addition to drawing, writing poetry and creating wonderful animations, Mike also creates his own music. His music for The Fall is really neat (created with toy instruments, I believe). He's created comics using the www.issuu.com publishing site (very cool) and even has a section on his site devoted to puns. I also found his compilation film "Man Dies Goes to Hell" quite amusing and original. 

I just love Mike's spirit which comes through beautifully in his website and design. Funny, DIY, retro, imaginative, silly, sad; all of these words come to mind when I visit his site, which I plan to do often. He's got a collection of his animations out called "Baby is Mamas Favorite Toy" which is being sold at another great site called www.crankyyellow.com

I hope I get a chance to work with Mike some day on an animation project. He's the kind of artist I admire. Now, take a look at Mike's version of Albert Camus' The Fall

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Came across this remarkable abstract artwork using 2D images projected onto 3D sculpture and also flat paper. The result is a continually moving collage of colors and abstract shapes. Catch it in HD at Vimeo. The creator, Robert Seidel, has a cool website where you can get more info and download the film as well if you want to study it further. 

Robert is also the creator of several remarkable abstract films including _grau which has won awards at festivals all over the world. 

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Madame Tutli-Putli is a stop motion film created in 2007 by Montreal artists Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, known collectively as Clyde Henry Productions and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. I came across it while browsing through the NFB's extra-ordinary online archive of films. It took five years to make and broke new ground in using compositing as part of stop-motion production (the characters eyes were composited on to puppet bodies).

Madame Tutli-Putli has won many film awards around the world including an Oscar nomination in 2008. This is the kind of film I admire and love. It inspires me because it shows how, with hard work and passion, you can create an entire universe using your imagination.

The film is also available at the NFB in HD at this link: http://www.nfb.ca/film/madame_tutli_putli_en 

or simply select the drop-down link on the video player below, switch it to HD and go full screen. 

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Steve Sczcepkowski, the audio director of the just-released Deus Ex: Human Revolution, talks about creating sound for games. His comments are thoughtful and funny. I wish I could work for him. I'm playing the game right now and it's excellent. Check more on Deus Ex: Human Revolution at metacritic.

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Second Hand from Isaac King on Vimeo.

I love the combination of new and old style animation in the little gem of an animated film. Isaac King has created a nearly perfect film where the form/style is imaginative and yet acknowledges past cartoon series like Mr. Magoo and the Rocky & Bulwinkle Show. It's what author Amid Amidi calls "Cartoon Modern", although Isaac King's take is uniquely his own. The form of the film also perfecly expresses the plot and theme. Sound effects, music, animation, design and editing are simply masterful. Second Hand is made with imagination and care. It's the best kind of work created by someone who not only is a master of their medium, but obviously loves creating.

I felt at one point as if I could see myself in the lead character as he throws everything away after one use and clomps along pushing his way ahead. I suspect there are others who might feel the same way. The message of stop and enjoy your life is an important one for us in these hyper-modern times. I won't be watching snail TV anytime soon, but I will take a deep breath and look at the trees. Thanks to Mr. King and his animated film. 

Check Isaac Kings website for his bio and other works. His Vimeo site is quite good as well. 

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I was recently invited to speak to Chantal's "Machinima Mondays" group in Second Life about audio in Machinima. The session lasted for about an hour and I enjoyed it very much. The group, which numbered about 15 people, had good questions and were patient with the inevitable tech issues that come up in Second Life. I chose for my topic, "Working with Voice Recordings", mostly because I was presently working with voice recordings that had been sent to me for a machinima production. 

I wanted to provide a sort of re-cap here on my blog of what I presented to the group. I created a short video demonstrating some of the problems and solutions that come up when working with voice recordings. Let's start with that and I'll add to it afterwards

You can view the video in HD at youtube here

Working with Voice Recordings

• Remember that audio is part of directing as well. Don't wait to work with audio until the end of the production process. Start with audio from the beginning. 

• Learn simple, key concepts of Audio: wav format, digital audio formats, frequency, reverb and noise removal should be the first things you learn. Plenty of info out there on these topics. Try YouTube and the Wikipedia for more info

• Three basic steps to process voice recordings: clean it up, level the volumes and process the tone

• Be sure to level the volumes of the voices. This doesn't mean that every voice has to be at the same volume level all the time, but it does mean that actors will send you recordings that are done at different volume settings and you need to get those levels to sound relatively the same. 

• Clean background noise BEFORE you raise the volume. Encourage your actors to avoid background noise during recordings, but if there noise present the trick to removing it is to sample the noise only then remove just the noise. This is pretty easy to do in Audition and Audacity. Here's a tutorial on noise reduction for Audacity. The problem comes when the noise is at the same frequency as the speaking voice. In this case, when you remove the noise you'll remove some of the speaking voice as well, which you do not want to do. It's much trickier in this situation and would take a much longer post to explain what to do. For now, read up on "Noise Reduction Audacity" via Google and you'll figure it out. 

• Processing the tone of the voice recordings: each actor will most likely record their parts using different microphones with different recording qualities. Your job as the director is to make sure these recordings sound like they were all recorded using the same microphone. The reason for this is that you do not want to distract the viewer of your film by inconsistent or different sounding voice recordings. You want to get the viewer to think that the voices are coming from the visual world you've created in your film. The best way to solve this problem is to use a "parametric equalizer" (tone shaper, basically) and to adjusts the bass, mid-levels and treble of your recordings to get them sounding similar. The technical process is simple in Audacity (check this tutorial), but it takes some time to develop an "ear" to hear different tones. Try to follow the basic rule: voices should be clear and distinct, not too bass sounding and not too tinny. Listen to some of your favorite Anime films or series and you'll hear great sounding voices as examples. 

Finally, it's important that you voice recordings sound good in your film. They share the task of telling the story along with the visual images. If you have poor, or sloppy voice recordings, the story you are telling will be hard to follow as they will distract the viewer. Even if you do just the basics of a lttile noise clean up and volume levelling, you can make your voice recordings sound much, much better. 

I plan on expanding this video to include a voice over and better video. Stay tuned as I hope to have it done soon. 

My thanks to Chantal for inviting me to speak to the Machinima Mondays group. 

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My partner, Lisa, has been involved with the Mystery Writers of America for the last several years. We've been to several of their events including lectures, book signings and mixers. They recently set MWA members and their friends with a Raymond Chandler tour of downtown Los Angeles and the Hollywood area. The tour is conducted by Esotouric Tours, run by the husband and wife team of Richard Schave and Kim Cooper along with other guest narrators like James Ellroy, the mystery author. Esotouric runs not only the Raymond Chandler tour, but covers other subjects like Charles Bukowski, Black Dahlia and Route 66. It's my first tour with them, but it won't be my last. Lisa and I had a great time. 

The Raymond Chandler tour costs just under $60 and for that you get almost 4 hours of top-quality tour bus commentary and many, many stops at important locations connected with Raymond Chandler and his works. We started at the venerable Clifton's Cafateria in downtown Los Angeles with a tasty meal in a wild decor. The tour starts on the 3rd floor of Clifton's (where a lot of pictures and displays of the restaurant are located) with an cheerful orientation by tour guide Richard Schave, who appears to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Los Angeles/Chandler history. Once in the bus (very comfortable and cool) we headed over to sites related to Chandler like the Barclay Hotel (wonderful single-room-occupancy turn of the century hotel), The Giannini Building (where Chandler worked in the oil industry), the Oviatt Building (the lobby is wonderful LA art deco) and ending up out in Hollywood with Musso and Franks restuarant and the original location of the Stanley Rose Bookshop, where Chandler and many other literati met and drank in the backroom. 

In between stops, we'd watch clips from various Chandler movies and Richard, along with his wife Kim and Joan Renner, would read aloud from Chandlers works and letters. We'd also be regaled with stories about Chandler's life in Hollywood, especially his relationship with director Billy Wilder while Chandler was writing the screenplay for Double Indemnity. The stories were sometimes hilarious, but with a dark aspect to them, too. 

I was particularly excited to see the original location of the Stanley Rose bookshop, which I've often wondered about but didn't know. Stanley Rose was a kind of fake bookseller in that he set up a bookshop as a front for providing bootleg liqour to individual and to the studio (Paramount to be specific). Somehow, the store caught on and many literary figures met there and hung out in the back room to chat and write. I knew the location was near Musso's, but Richard pointed out the exact place based on his research using pictures and documents. Now, the place is a t-shirt shop, but it wasn't hard to imagine the bookshop and rows of bookshelves. You'd come out of Musso and Franks and head over to Stanley's. 

Eventually, after driving through some wonderful LA neighborhoods that look almost unchanged from the twenties/thirties, we made it back to Clifton's and said goodbye. Both Lisa and I thoroughly enjoyed the Raymond Chandler tour. It was informative, entertaining and a lot of fun. I highly recommend this tour or any of the other tours that Esotouric runs. This short blog post only touches on a few of the fascinating aspects of this tour. If you are in Los Angeles at some point, give the tours a try. 

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This is one filmmaking rule that I see broken all the time. Yes, you can break rules and do things your own way, but I think perhaps you should learn some of the most important rules first. Or at least understand them because they help to make your film's visual story easier to follow and understand. 

The "180-degree rule" requires that you shoot on one side (the side you set up in your establishing shot) of an imaginary line. So, when you move in for coverage of the actors (close ups, medium shots) your screen direction will make sense. Screen direction is part of "film continuity" which is the basic craft of visual story-telling. 

What got me to thinking about continuity today was reading a favorite blog by cinema scholar David Bordwell. He has a guest blogger today, Tim Smith, a psychology researcher who writes about "Continuity Errors: How They Escape Us". It's intriguing reading. 

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From Cartoon Brew today I discovered a new stop-motion film titled "Chief Serenbe" (pronounced Seh'-ren-bee) by student director, Evan Curtis. I knew it had to be good as it was being featured as one CB's select student films, but I was completely unprepared for how imaginative and evocative the film was for me. Imagine taking a scene from a Wim Wenders film, setting it in the streets of Atlanta and shooting it as a stop-motion film with a male doll. Sounds crazy, but it works...and them some. Curtis, at is excellent website oregmagifilms.com, states that he wanted to make an "Italian neo-realist stop-motion road film" that reflected his feeling of alienation after having moved from New York City to Atlanta. He felt like "getting on a motorcycle and riding around" with no real destination in mind. So, using a tripod, his Nikon D40 camera and his guy/doll character, he " had no script or storyboard, only a short list of locations". 

I just love this film and find it immensely inspiring. By combining familiar things (road story, city wandering, stop-motion, no dialog, street shooting) with the aesthetic of stop-motion, which immediately creates an odd, new way of looking at scenes, Evan Curtis has created a work of art that expresses a lot of feeling and mood despite the production limitations and lack of prep. I like this style of filmming and hope to emulate it myself. Very pleased to hear that Evan has had this film screened at several festivals (including South by Southwest) and is planning on creating a feature length film using stop-motion. 

Wonderful work, Curtis. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work at your website (oregmagifilms.com). Here's wishing you a great year at school. You sure have a bright future ahead of you. 

A film by Evan Curtis debuting online exclusively in the the Cartoon Brew's 2nd Student Animation Festival.

Visit the website of filmmaker Evan Curtis at:
http://www.OreMagiFilms.com

To learn more about the production of this film, visit:
cartoonbrew.com/​brewtv/​serenbe.html

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Soul 45's

• Discovered WFMU (free form radio/internet station in NY) a year ago and they have consistently impressed me with their cool weirdness. From found cd's to obscure TV shows, this station and their blog makes me happy. Today, I came across Mr. Fine Wine's Friday night "Downtown Soul" station which plays only soul music, baby. This set is composed entirely of "soul 45's" hand picked for your pleasure. Check the blog post, too. 

Blackwing 602

• If you have a big-time pencil fetish like I do, you'll want to put on those runing shoes and get to a computer fast. Go to pencils.com and order a dozen of the "Blackwing 602" pencils for $20. You'll never use any other pencil again. Mark Frauenfelder, from boingboing.com (and a supporter of the Machinima Expo btw) blogged on this classic pencil coming back into production. Boy, he was right. I'm already getting that wonderful illusion that because my pencil writing looks good, the ideas are good as well. Ah, festishes....mmmmm. Seriously good pencil though. Their is even a blog on this pencil (well-done, too). I like the motto on my 602: "Half the pressure, twice the speed". 

The Agency

• Came across a bit of this machinima series while browsing the Cartoon Brew website via my rss reader. They usually have very interesting news on animation in general and occasionally feature machinima-related topics. Today, they were covering a big July 4 film festival at the "Cinefamily" here in Los Angeles. Quick backgrounder: the Silent Film Theater on Fairfax was the only theater in the US showing all silent films until about 15 years ago when a macabre murder of the owner by the projectionist caused the place to go into limbo. Young entrepaneur picked it up, re-modelled and started out with a bang (I saw Valentino's Son of the Sheik there), but fell into financial problems and the theater ran fallow again. Now, a group called Cinefamily has taken it over and have really done a number on the place and programming. They've kept the silent film showings to Wed nights only (going to see Lilian Gish in a restored version of "The Scarlet Letter" this Wed) and have really gone wild with their programming, especially regarding animation. So, this July they are running their 2nd annual "Everything Is" festival which covers everything from found footage to machinima. 

Which brings me to "The Agency", a machinima film created in Xtranormal (online machinima creation tool). Get this: it's feature length and was created in one week by the directing team of Vernon Chatman and David O'Reilly. I couldn't get through it all as the text-to-speech dialogue drove me nuts (so much better with real actors methinks), but there are aspects of the film that are striking (design sence, pacing, dialogue). Cinefamily plans to screen the entire film at their "Everything Is" fest which is pretty neat for machinima. Here's the portion of the film they've put up as a trailer:

Silence by Bolderkar

From the ridiculous to the sublime:  I discovered this student film on Vimeo today. It's really wonderful. Created by 4 Dutch animation students (see their blog here) as part of their 2nd year studies. I love everything about the film from the design to the wonderful sense of place. Perhaps the music is a shade sentimental, but the ending more tham makes up for it. This kind of rendering (mental ray) gives an animated film such a deep palette of colors and shapes. Machinima often loses it's ability to convince precisely because of the real-time rendering, although certainly not all the time. 

Second year project made by 4 animation students.

Technical details: Made in 4 months using the following software: Maya, Cinema 4d, After effects, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro.

Directed by: Olivier Ballast
Animation: Joost de Jong
Art Direction: Erik van Helvoirt
Technical: Michael Koning
Music: Gijs van Amelsvoort

Link to our blog: http://bolderkar.blogspot.com/

Extra Credit

A reward for those who actually read my entire blog: from WFMU comes a chapter from Boris Karloff reading scary stories "The Vampire Sleeps". 

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Siggraph always has remarkable film screenings. I've been attending this huge CG festival for the last 4 years and have literally seen hundreds of animated films, but at last year's Siggraph in Los Angeles I saw a film that has stayed with me and is probably my favorite of all the films I've seen there. The film is called LOOM and it's finally online at Vimeo. It's essentially a dramatic vision of insect life at it's cruelist. Although that doesn't sound particularly involving, wait until you see the film. 

Created by the film collective POLYNOID, the film is stylish and at times frightening in it's intensity. Completely original in style, LOOM is an inspiration. 

Here is the description of the POLYNOID collective taken from their website:

Polynoid is the design / storytelling loving collaboration of Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck, Csaba Letay,Fabian Pross and Tom Weber.
Founded in 2007 as a creative platform and playground for our own films and experiments, Polynoid today is using that same spirit but combining it with the resources of a
production studio. On a project we can get involved at any stage of the creative process, ranging from concept, direction and art design to the actual production and finishing.
Our narrative technique combines new forms of storytelling with a shared interest in progressive sound design to create a minimalist, photo real and abstract sensory experience.

Year: 2010
Length: 5'20"
Directors: Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck, Csaba Letay
Technical director: Fabian Pross
Production company: Filmakademie BW
Producer: Regina Welker
Sound: Joel Corelitz / waveplant
Artists:Felix Mertikat, Jin-Ho Jeon, Roman Kälin, Tom Weber, Christian Hertwig, Silke Finger, Jacob Frey, Leszek Plichta, Georg Schneider, Anja Wacker, Andreas 'Felix' Gebhardt, Falko Paeper, Sarah Eim
Sound Mixing: David Axelbaum / Airstream Audio

for more information visit www.polynoid.tv

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Dark, steel-grey clouds fill the screen. They move very slowly across the screen as the title theUnspoken quietly fades in at the center of the screen. The dark edges of the clouds just touch the top of the title as it fades away and the camera slowly pans down to the parking lot of a department store. A medium-sized toyota pulls into a parking slot at precisely the right time so that the front of the car fills the screen. We see two people in the front seat: a woman looking out the passenger side window, her face tight and upset. The driver is a young, bearded man with a slight smile on his face.

This is the 16 second continuous shot that opens the moody and well-crafted short film, theUnspoken, directed and edited by D.L. Watson. This short, but difficult to create sequence, is a perfect opening to a film about the little ironies of life.  I say difficult to create because having worked behind the scenes on many films I know the value of camera/actor timing that is crafted so well you don't even realize how it comes together. The fact that the clouds fore-shadows the difficult and conflicted conversation in the car between the man and the woman, the simple pan down that suggests we are going down into peoples feelings and at the same time sets up the time and location of the scene and the perfectly timed car movement to the center of the screen which reveals the class of the two people and shows their emotional situation visually before any line of dialogue indicates how carefully considered this beautiful opening scene is. It sets the tone and style for the rest of the film which essentially takes place inside the car between the man and the woman. Eventually leading to a uneasy resolution of their problem and a major twist at the end of the film.

This new interest in short films, along with the rise of cheaper easy-to-use film equipment (and widespread availability of tutorials and communities that help you lean film skills) has led to a massive amount of short films being released to the internet every day. This widespread democratization of the filmmaking process has encouraged more creativity and has helped steer more audience members away from the epic bombast that constitues mainstream films nowadays.

And theUnspoken is a perfect example of what is so good about this new film zeitgeist: a beautifully shot, well-acted film that doesn't involve zombies or vampires or severed limbs, but is actually about everyday people who stumble through the problems and conflicts that all of us face every day. Not only is the film beautiful to look at (thank you, DP Michael Sherman), but the colors and mood of the film support the story extremely well. And what a great story. Much like a short story by Chekov or Raymond Carver in which dialogue conceals as much as it reveals, the script by Allie Manasco is beautifully written and is deceptively simple: a couple go to a department store, have a difficult conversation in the car and then eventually go inside. The story is at the center of this film and it's all of the small details that build up the characters and their worlds so well that when the twist occurs at the end, you feel for both characters because you can see their points of view equally.

The acting in the film is very good, which is not always the case with many short films which are often cast from the directors family and friends. Actors need time and experience to build up their belief in themselves as the character.  Short films by necessity have a short production process and therefore you often get a particular actors first choices in the role. By “choices” I mean the kinds of things actors have to decide: what does the character mean by that line, what is my objective, does the woman character love the man, etc.. By being able to try something and see that it doesn't work, an actor can often find the right direction in their second or third choices for a scene.

The acting in theUnspoken is very good, especially Erika Antonsen as the woman. Her portrayal of a considerate woman who is dealing with very deep feelings and who works at holding them back in favor of being as tactful as she can, is effective and at times moving. Nick Pemble as the man is effective, too, but he has a much more difficult part. It's his characters thoughts/feelings between the lines that set up the irony at the end of the film. In his moment to moment work with Erika and in his enthusiasm to please her, he's convincing and at times a sad picture of a man too eager to love and be loved. His performance misses just a bit of what makes the characters story ironic at the end. He's certainly a capable enough actor, so perhaps this criticism is laid more at the directors feet then. Unfortunately, I can't be more specific without giving away what really pulls you in at the end of the film.

And that ending is really something. The writer and director really lift the film up into a higher level with the ending. It's effect is to take your conception of the characters and suddenly reveal something about them that changes them completely. And I think the effect might be gender-specific, too. I'd love to see what women viewers think of the ending as I suspect their feelings for the characters situation change might be quite different than my own.

I highly recommend TheUnspoken and sincerely hope that D.L. Watson, Erika Antonsen and Michael Sherman continue to make films as I would love to see a full-length work by this very talented team of artists.

NOTE: TheUnspoken will premiere online this Saturday, May 14th at 2:30PM PST/5:30PM EST at the Indytheater. You can also check out the production company website (leefilm.com) for more info on the film.

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Quick update notes before I share this remarkable animated film from Cal Arts.

• Thanks to everyone who donated to Friedrich Kirschner's Kickstarter project "Moviesandbox". It's funded and he's working hard to create tuts and develop the code to this unique machinima tool. 
• Mamachinima, the annual machinima film festival, is taking place on June 17 & 18 in the virtual world of Second Life. It's a great festival that has expanded to two days now. More info at their blog
• The Journal of Visual Culture magazine's April, 2011 issue devoted to machinima. Many noted machinima filmmakers and critics are included. The issue is free online (till the end of May, 2011) with downloadable pdfs. You can also order a physical copy by contacting Sage Pulbications at journals@sagepub.com
• Very excited about DL Watson's new live-action film "theUnspoken" which I screened over the weekend. I'll be posting a review of the film here this week. 
• Be sure to check my book review blog, Booklad, for current reviews and comments on life in a used bookstore. 

On to the new animated film, Hollow, by Oliver Franklin Anderson

Caught this link at motionographer this morning (the source of so many excellent animated films) and found this new film from director Oliver Franklin Anderson to be a remarkable work of art. Using a somewhat Stephen King like story of boys discovering something horribly fascinating (and probably changing their lives forever), director Anderson uses experimental animation styles with incredible skill and talent. There is no dialogue, but plenty of brilliant sound design by Frank Anderson (probably the director here). I can't say enough about how impressive this film is. Even the end credits are entertaining. Mr. Anderson is a student at CalArts and, in my view, has a very, very bright future ahead of him as a filmmaker. Be sure to watch his showreel at his website

Note: be sure to download the 720HD version of Hollow at Vimeo as it's best watched full-screen so you can see all of the details. 

When the evening sun goes down. You will find me. Hanging round.

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see

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See the full gallery on Posterous

Many interesting projects and discoveries in Animation and Machinima over the last month. Rather than writing out each item as a separate blog post, I think I"ll just highlight them here for ya. Although I've been excited about my many projects, my time over the last several weeks has been colored by the loss of a much-beloved, our bookstore cat, Zola. Especially miss her in the mornings when she'd greet us at the door for her morning walk and breakfast. Every day I miss her.

• Recently appeared on the 100th episode of the Wolf and Dulci show. I really enjoy the banter and conversation there. We mostly discussed Reallusion's Crazy Talk Animator and my review at Renderosity.com. Kudos to Wolf/Dulci for keeping their show alive and for helping to foster a spirit of community in machinima. And also for providing much-needed info on how to create machinima. Thanks for the invite, Dulci. 

• One of the bests posts in Machinima I've read is by Matt Kelland at the Moviestorm blog ("Ethnic Diversity in Machinima"). He wants to know why there isn't more ethnic diversity in machinima and puts out an invitation to directors to use Moviestorm to make their film. Why haven't he we discussed this issue sooner? As usual, Matt's thoughtful post pushes the machinima community in the right direction. Bravo, Matt. How about an Expo talk on this subject?

• Spending a lot of time learning the new Blender 2.57 build which is a pleasure to work with. Purchased the 2010 Blender Training Series from BlenderCookie.com (great site for tuts) and am working my way through my first model (a mag flashlight) with the help of the forum at the Blender Newbies forum.

• My machinima series, Screenland, is moving along. It consists of a series of thematically-linked short films all centered around Hollywood and the movie business. The first film, "9413" is in production now. You can follow it's developments here. I'm using Muvizu to create the film. Not all of the films will be created by me as I hope to commission some works and act as a producer and perhaps a writer as well. 

• Speaking of Muvizu, they've delayed their much-anticipated update from April 26 to an undetermined time. This update will affect the base Unreal engine and will allow for a 64-bit version and improvements in rendering. Accidents and injuries to crew have created a slow down in very detailed programming. I wish them well as it's not easy work.

• Work on the Machinima Expo 2011 is coming along well. Meetings with Kate have focused on making this year's Expo leaner and perhaps shorter. However, the film screenings and awards will remain the same essentially. I'll be announcing updates on the Expo blog soon. We really miss Phil Rice this year, but wish him the best on his Sabbatical. He recently opened a physical location for his new computer-service business. All the best to you, Phil.

• Friedrich Kirschner, a long-time machinima filmmaker and producer, has recently created a Kickstarter fund-drive for his Moviesandbox machinima tool. He's been creating the code and working on this program for years. Please head over to the Kickstarter site and donate a buck or two. It's a really interesting program based on the Unreal Engine and is quite flexible, but because he doesn't have much money to promote it the program is relatively unknown. You can also see some of Friedrich's machinima work here.

• Working on sound editing and voice acting for Shirley Martin's ambitious machinima series "Ring of Time". Shirley is a smart and hard-working artist. I know the series will be interesting to say the least.

• Many excellent short films have come across my path over the last few weeks. I've been reading a book on the Brothers Quay (first critical study) and going back to watch their work with a renewed sense of wonder. If you haven't seen any of their films, run to the nearest DVD store or get on Netflicks and rent "Street of Crocodiles". I'll be reviewing the box set of their films and the book on my Booklad book blog.

• Finishing up a second run through Crysis 2 and am enjoying the second time much more than the first. A beautiful game with shallow ideas and hackneyed plot. More pix and full review here in a week or so. 

• MdotStrange is at it again. He's written two books on his life/production methods while waiting for the score to his next film to catch up to his schedule. A_Book and B_Book are both self-published and completely wonderful. I'll be reviewing both and commenting on them extensively. Get em get em get em. MDot is one of the true artists blazing a trail for us all. 

• My good friend, Damien Valentine (Darth Angelus) presented me with a beautifully  designed DVD of his "The Chronicles of Humanity: Descent" while he was visiting Los Angeles with his mother, Marilyn. We had a great time and promised them both we will visit them in Bath, UK. in 2012. Look out England, here we come!
• Will close with a wonderful short film I caught today called "The Saga of Bjorn". Wonderful combination of animation styles and zippy script make this a very enjoyable short film. This is how you do it, folks. 

The Saga Of Biorn from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.

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The remarkable short film "Thursday" was just released to the internet today by director, Matthias Hoegg. Via Motionographer and Vimeo, I've embedded this remarkable film here. Motionographer has a nice interview with the director as well. I think the sound design is as remarkable as the visuals. But it's the story that really makes a difference. Inspiring work.

An everyday love story set in the not so distant future sees blackbirds battling with technology, automatic palm readers and power cuts.

Directed by Matthias Hoegg at the Royal College of Art, London, 2010
Nominated for a BAFTA for Short Animation
For more info go to matthiashoegg.co.uk

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See the full gallery on Posterous

See the full gallery on Posterous

-see ya!

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