god_is_my_goldfish

You guys are such game-creation nerds. Which is why I love you.

This screening is tomorrow(I just noticed I failed to mention that) but there will be a few more at various festivals in Chicago, I'll keep you updated when I know final dates.

Bump for Academy news.

Last bump for the Cannes info.

So today is the last day of my Semester in LA program, and pretty much my 5-year college career. Now I'm being shunted into the real world LA, full of drug parties, prostitutes and enough money to wallpaper Donald Trump's house, all 47 of them. Really though, I'll be starting internships, writing/directing shorts, and writing features (got a slight whiff of studio interest in one of my ideas), oh and being poor. That's definitely part of it. Stay tuned for more riveting news out of hollywood!

Trailer is up on youtube now:

Um, not to be picky, but the art doesn't look like Craig Mullins style. It's far too precise.

Well, once it's festival run is up, I'll be able to post it online, if we do so before that it'll hurt our chances of getting into the festivals. Unfortunately, festival runs last about a year.

Just wait until the film is released, believe me, the ways to die definitely hit 'over-the-top'

I happen to like it, especially as I was born with it. I actually agree fully on the free will thing, it's just the mechanic that works for the film.

So I'm now settling into LA, and I finally got the trailer up for my long belated short film debut, A Death in Progress. http://www.deathwrites.com/trailer.html It's an 8 minute comedy that follows the Grim Reaper as he tries to write out the last moments of a man's life, but can't make up his mind on how he wants the man to die. He keeps rewriting the man's death over and over, and each time the man comes back, and is forced to die an even more ridiculous way. We're aiming at the Cannes film festival in France as our world premiere, so keep your fingers crossed that we get in! You'll also see some awesome concept art on the site from a very talented fellow DarkModder (I'll let you find out who ) UPDATE: We made it into Cannes' Short Film Corner! To France! UPDATE 2: We won a regional Student Academy Award for the midwest in the "narrative" category, now we enter into the national competition in May! If any of you guys are in Chicago, there's a free screening of the film and the other winners at the Gene Siskel Center downtown, with a reception @ 5:46, and screening at 6:30. Gene Siskel Center 164 N. State Street Chicago, IL

I'm experiencing this same exact game (and system) killing bug. Unfortunately my system locks up and has to be hard-rebooted , so I can't grab a bug report or anything (if that's even possible.) My system Win XP pro w/SP2 DX 9.0c 2 gig ram AMD 64bit X2 3800 ATI 1950xt Running from a separate drive than win install, shouldn't matter though. I'll see if I can get it to work on my laptop tomorrow. Might be sound related, as it crashes when player footsteps would be generated/heard. UPDATE!!!! So it seems that i needed the absolute latest video drivers to get it to work right. Odd that 2 month old drivers would crash it, but what can ya do...

All you need is to have a standard digital camcorder that will export to computer (preferably through firewire), a sheet or screen to backlight, and a few fill lights. You could get a few of those worklights they have at hardware stores, set some sort of diffusion on them (be careful, they get HOT) and then shoot whatever costumed person you want in front of the backlit screen. Bring this footage into After Effects, Combustion, Shake or any other video program with chromakeying, and chromakey out the white, leaving a solid silhouette with a clear background, perfect to insert with your existing animated footage.

If you need any advice or hints, just contact me, I was working on a feature animated in that style a long time ago. http://www.thirdfilms.com/atp or

Whatever you do, don't buy from relatively unkown online retailers like Ibuypower or cyberpower.com, they have personally ripped me off bad, and their customer service is terrible. It may be a little more expensive to buy from a retail store, but at least then you can actually talk to a person face to face, and not be told over the phone, once the laptop is in the company's possession for a minor repair, that the thing needs 600$ put into it because it "won't turn on."

I myself have been boycotting EA games for years, the last one I ever bought was Freedom Fighters for PC. (An outstanding game by the way) Even though I kinda wanted to play BF2 and this one, there's no chance I'll buy them due to it being an EA release, especialyl with this much shit forced onto the product. (Though if Freedom Fighters II ever comes out, damn, I will be tempted)

We got snow yesterday here in Chicago, horizontal snow.

Yeah, but you can do that in any decent video editing software, it doesn't take a gee-whiz-bang super computer to do that. With a good knowledge of After Effects and Premiere you can do the same things that have been done in hollywood (not saying that a dv cam will look the same as film or high end video altered in post, but the tools are available to the average consumer who'se willing to learn)

What the 4K refers to is the image. A 4K image has the same resolution as standard 35mm. Even the high end Panasonic HVX or other cameras cap out at half the resolution of 35mm film. It also can (at least from test footage shown) emulate the dynamic range of film, and all the contrast levels. Basically it's the dream of any independent filmmaker, as we can make professional-looking films for a fraction of the cost of a $250,000-350,000 film or high high end digital studio camera, except it has all the advantages of being a pure digital format. Hell, I'm really hoping that I'll be able to use a redcam when I shoot my first feature in a few years. Also, consumer camera video footage can look like hot shit when you convert it to black and white and play with contrast levels. (Edited to fix da spelling typos)

There's also the concept of the medium reflecting an aesthetic of the film, for example, Micheal Mann's latest film, Miami Vice was shot on a pretty grainy digital video camera, but it added a sense of gritty realism to the film. War of the Worlds or Lord of the Rings were meant to be epic scale films, so they shot 35mm with anamorphic lenses and such. Other films such as Run Lola Run or Strange Days integrated both for aesthetic reasons. In most films, there is a reason that they were shot or played out a certain way other than "it just looks good," they were meant to evoke a feelign or mood. Just look at Casablanca and it's lighting. And Odd's right about the redcam changing A LOT of things when it comes out, I've been following that for a while. (A 4k camera for 20 grand? Goddamn!) Demagogue, no matter what you make, the biggest concern you should have is to have a good, interesting, story to tell. If you can do that, then people who know what they're doing in other areas will flock to it. Though believe me, putting together a full crew of professionals for even a short film still is no easy task.

That was really well written and well done man, and that's coming from a film major/filmmaker I am curious as to what your job is?

Dude, just spend about 300$ and (if you have the space) build your own hi-def projector! http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/13/sup...e_your_tv_for_/ (Especially if you can find a monitor that supports 1280x1024)

I just saw the destroyed building, and I went 'holy shits, that looks awesome.' Dom- If a destroyed building was well planned out, you could make it using minimal extra polygons and use a lot of specially made normal mapped textures. It wouldn't be so taxing.

He's got a few on my site, http://www.thirdfilms.com/fingernail

They are well done Ascottk. A little tried and true for my tastes (Thoguh I did download the third one) but still good nonetheless. Keep it up!