I usually pick up your podcasts as soon as they are released and catch up on the news in the big Machinima world, but haven’t been recently as there hasn’t been a lot of interest in flight sim movies outside our little community. So it blew me away to hear Matt and Dave talk about our movie Faith, Hope and Charity. That means a lot, thanks.

…and I hope you’re gonna get some decent Irvine Jackets and flying helmets in a Moviestorm pack Have you seen the silly ones you get in Sims 2!!

-JT

About “Hollywood Camera Course”, Hugh Hancock’s last sentences in review: “Beg, buy, borrow. No matter what your level of expertise, if your name’s not Scott or Spielberg, and you’re serious about your filmmaking, get these DVDs now.” are absolutely true.
This is wonderful material and almost all what film director need to know about craft is there - easy to follow, with lots of simple “this is good, this is no no” examples, covering all, camera, blocking, continuities, where to cut and why.
Great stuff.
If 20 century is century of consumers and 21. century of authors (I have my saying now, he he), “Hollywood Camera Course” is must have for the movie authors.

Very enjoyable show. Thanks for putting it together, Phil. Am excited about watching “Faith, Hope and Charity”, too.

Cheers!

I myself plan to do both, assuming both paths end up being open to us. I’m already working on some, as a matter of fact.

Thanks a lot for the answer.

The GTA Coke commercial and the Californication video are both non-machinima; they are standard 3d CGI animations which are given a machinima aesthetic; with at least the Coke commercial, that was intentional.

Thanks for listening!

i couldnt find a answer in the net

does anybody know something about that?

oh and it is the same with the musicvideo californiacation

Agreed, c’mon Johnnie you know the rules, screenshot or no kill… *waits*

Ah, if I only was 10 years younger and still a drunk, i’d have given mr. dellario a run for his money.

The Short Fuze offices, of course, are a whole different story. Naked Wednesdays are hugely popular here. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I’m slowly working my way through prominent members of the machinima community. I’ll have so many notches soon I’m going to have to buy a new bedpost.

Funny you should mention the room full of slightly drunk Americans as I believe overcast 26 may… but I won’t give anything away. As for the humour level… well you can certainly judge for yourself… like I say I’m not giving anything away

Man, “Journey” is still one of my favorites. Good call!

Funny these paintings, everytime you look at them you see something new - like the feet of Ozymandias in the back

good work Phil, how are you getting on with Frank and Paul’s?

Duly noted!

Waiting to meet up for breakfast in the morning was… interesting. We really should have clapped after some of the more enthusiastic noises.

Dave - thanks, er, I think…

I was very pleased to hear the guys talk about some of the tech for their films and also some of their working methods. I registered at their site and noticed some nifty tutorials on demo smoother there (why didn’t I do this months ago?). I agree whole heartedly that their work seems to get better and better. Reading some of the crit at Kotaku, I found I didn’t completely agree with the idea that their writing wasn’t up to par, but I really like how they took the crit and turned it into a goal to work on their writing/stories. This part of machinima is certainly one of the weakest for everyone, in my opinion.

Too bad their Sony gig couldn’t go through. I found the talk of Valve having a big plan for machinima in the pipeline intriquing. I tend to agree. Perhaps this explains their big silence on machinima. The Filmmaker tool accidentally included on TF2 demo certainly points in that direction.

Again, not only was this a very entertaining show, but I think allowing Lit Fuse members to define themselves and share their ideas with the community is a very, very good thing. It’s like having the atmosphere at the machinima festival where you
meet all of these people who’s films you know well. Lit Fuse is going to be one of our best machinima teams. I think their best work is ahead of them.

I’ve never been one to storyboard a lot. Normally I have an idea for how I want things to look before I shoot but a lot of things influence the way stuff turns out (input from the cast and crew mainly). I’ve found storyboarding really useful for doing reshoots though. It helps me avoid continuity issues by accidentally shooting something that doesn’t jive with other shots from the same scene.

“Looking forward to hearing your comments on HL2: Ep2. Don’t forget the ‘Garden Gnome’ challenge!!” - OMG. I just couldn’t do it! Once you have your showdown with the combine advisor in the barn things get complicated really quick.

Great show!

There’s nothing wrong with drawing your storyboards with stick figures - most of BloodSpell was done in exactly that way! None of us (with the exception of Justin) can draw anything more advanced than stick men with blobs for heads and “J” written inside the blob to signify which one is Jered, so that’s what we used.

To a certain extent, Machinima is a tool that almost does your storyboarding for you. Certainly, you can whip out a machinima platform such as Sims 2 or Moviestorm and very quickly put together a sequence of camera shots. All you care about at that point is the composition of the shot, and the way they fit together. Even if your movie is eventually going to be shot in World Of Warcraft or something, you can still knock up a quick storyboard in Sims 2. Pre-visualisation is one of the primary appeals of machinima for conventional film-makers - there’s no reason we can’t take a leaf from their book.

I feel like charging them rent for the space they consumer in my brain.

Writer’s strike is complicated. Knowing some writers here in LA, there is a sense of “it’s due” about the strike. Issues of online + residuals are complicated and have more than one side. I dont’ think this strike will help either side, honestly. Plus the already struggling economy of California and Los Angeles are going to go into the tank. Hard to see the future on this one.

Thanks for the soundsnap link and the Indy Mogul. I’m also very impressed with Mike Jones’ series and blog. I’ll be writing about it at Machiniplex3 in the near future as well. Smart as a whip that boy is.

Looking forward to hearing your comments on HL2: Ep2. Don’t forget the “Garden Gnome” challenge!

Glad to see you back in the Overcast saddle. Thanks!

Ricky

His last post on their homepage was dated Aug. 15. Maybe they’ve posted commentary about recent developments in the aforementioned thread but I don’t have the time or energy to go through the entire thing to find out.

Alexander Winn and I kept a brief correspondence concerning the original rules when they were first published. I just sent him a message via facebook with a link to the revisions in the unlikely case that he isn’t aware of them yet. If I get a reply I’ll summarize what he says here.

I’m really looking forward to the interviews – especially the one with Philip and the one with Ricky. I’m interested to hear what software you both use and your approaches to sound design.

Congratulations on the new addition to the family! Very exciting!

And my thoughts go out to your friend and his family. I wish them (and you) strength and the best of luck. It’s times like these that define people.

Thank God there’s another Pee Wee fan in machinima besides me! No Butt’s about it! I enjoyed the skit very much. Great voice work (and sound, too). You might be interested to know that Gary Sinise hit it big with Sam Shepard’s play “True West” when it transferred to New York. Saw it there and he was fan-tas-tic. One of my fav’s too.

Very excited about your line up of guests. I’m working on notes for our talk on “acting”. Hope to go over one or two specific scenes with you along with general chat. Brave of you to have Philip Debevoise on the show. Smart, too. I’ll keep my mind open as I hope others will despite the smell of burnt bridges.

Hey, I noticed the sound quality was very nice on this episode. You should record off site again. Reverb is perfect, plus you have a ruminative quality about you which makes for a show with a special personal touch. Glad you had a chance to share what’s been going on with you. Your friend is in my thoughts and I wish him and his wife good luck.

Thank you!

(PS play HL2:2 and talk about it next time!)

Moviestorm: Human modeling yes (I have well developed love handles, so I can relate), but I want power over the animations so badly I can taste it!

CSI:NY: It seems that CBS has a vested interest in not alienating the denizens of SL. Judging by the ads they kept running for their corporate area they have set up in SL, the audience they were aiming the episode toward was totally virtual. At least their production was miles above what NBC did recently with their Law and Order foray into MMO land. That was embarrassingly horrible!

Your friend is in our thoughts. It doesn’t take the name of a soul to send caring regards in his direction.

I’ve been looking for some good podcasts to listen to while commuting, and was also wanting to ham up on what’s happening in the realms of machinima before I go along to the Machinima Europe Festival this weekend. I come from the relatively small planet of flight sim machinima, and within that world, the tiny island of IL2.

Well, sir, this fits the bill perfectly and I have been laughing out loud for the past week in my car as well as having little moments of revelation at some of the ideas put forth. So, accepting all the strange looks I have received from other mad commuters, I thank you for such a free and illuminating resource.

More please!

The big galaxy of machinima and the little planet of flight sims need to meet in the universe more

I appreciate your coverage of the Microsoft …uh..what to we call it? Agreement? Rules? After reading it several times and going over Hugh’s comments, I’m still confused on many aspects of the document. While Anthony’s comments are specific, they just went right over my head honestly. In one sense, our comments are really moot since it’s meant as a legal document written in more common language. Even at the end of Hugh’s long (and excellent) blog on the matter he states that you shouldn’t consider his comments legal advice. Do we really know what Microsoft intends us to do and not do with regards to machinima? If I wanted to know exactly, I’d have to contact a lawyer, wouldn’t I? This is just for my own work as a machinimator, but why would I want to even put myself in the position to violate ANY rules that Microsoft has created? It’s the main reason I don’t work with Halo or any other game created by Mircrosoft.

Of course, I’m playing devil’s advocate here. Commentary and discussion about this important document is essential in the community. I guess what I’m most pleased with is that Microsoft is actually talking to our community (via Hugh and EEF). I’m not as sanguine as you are about Microsoft, but as Hugh points out, this is a very good sign.
Blizzard’s recent document along the same lines is an improvement over Microsoft’s. Perhaps this will create a domino effect and pressure studios like Epic and Valve to issue “rules” in the same fashion. Whatever the outcome, the movement seems to be a good thing for game oriented machinima.

Thanks again for your show. I always laugh and think (not necessarily at the same time).

ricky

It worries me because I feel like we’ve made such healthy progress in steering ourselves away from the copyright snares of commercially licensed music, and I think the general feeling was that CC BY-NC-SA was the savior. But it certainly does appear that - with game-spawned machinima - it may feel “safer” but it’s no more legal to use BY-NC-SA instead. And that’s disappointing to realize.

There are several workarounds; avoid this kind of source material, for one. And the other option is, of course, to forsake games. Optimum timing to consider doing so, too, given the products out there now.

“You can’t grant anyone the right to build on your creations.”

This is a clarification of what is already true given the other rules, not an additional restriction. There is a lost opportunity to grant further freedoms, though.

The basic bad news is that you will never be able to release a work that uses MS content and is allowed to do so only because of the freedoms granted by the Usage Rules under a license that allows generic derivative works. MS have placed other restrictions on the way in which you can use their content. A license like Creative Commons BY-NC (Attribution, non-commercial) grants a general right to create derivative works that could be in conflict with those restrictions. You could use the BY-NC-ND (…, no derivatives) license so long as you require the “was created under Microsoft’s Game Content Usage Rules…” boilerplate as part of the attribution requirements for your work.

There’s nothing MS can do that would allow people to use BY-NC (let alone BY-NC-SA) as-is without removing the restrictions that are important to them. What we’re seeing here is the difficulty of combining differently licensed materials, which I understand to be an active research topic at Creative Commons. (A way of more easily adding “plus these other inherited restrictions” to CC licenses would be great, although it can only make the world muddier.)

MS could explicitly allow you to permit a third party to publish a work derived from your one so long as it was in accord with the Usage Rules (and with whatever additional restrictions you want to muddy the world with.) Wording it will be a little tedious, but that’s what the lawyers get paud for. I got the impression from Hugh’s report that MS are looking into doing that. I’m not sure what else you can expect to persuade them to do.

But Overman’s example of Share-Alike is viral and by definition cannot play nice with any license that wants to impose additional restrictions. It only works for subcultures where adoption reaches a suitable critical mass or where sufficient material is public domain or similar (music is your example, GPL is an analogous success story in software.) The lesson is that if you want more freedom in your choice of sources to combine, don’t use licenses with viral components.

…I’m not lying, but I rewinded it like… 10 times just to hear my name. Really.
Heh, well, I’ll be expecting my DVD in the mail one of these days.

Oh, and another great podcast, Mr. Overman.

B/s that the internet can’t inspire creativity. That man needs to learn about creativecommons.org and start actually listening to some of the stuff people are putting out.

Now I may be wrong here, but doesn’t Trent Reznor own Nothing Records? I know he was pissed about the high price of his singles in Australia (rightfully so), but I didn’t know that he himself was actually getting boned.

Also liked Bllius’ comments on the YouTube debates. It reminds me of a time when I was playing Rainbow Six: Vegas at a friend’s house. We were playing terrorist hunt and we were clearing this room. There was one guy left and Tim was going to go in but I told him to hang back. I threw a flash in, blinded him, entered and blew the guy away with the Desert Eagle. Tim looked at me, “you would.” I smiled, “Yeah, most likely.” It makes me kind of wonder how chaps like Mitt Romney would approach the same situation!

I thought the MySpace part sounded preachy, but you did bring up a good point that it is in fact a privately owned site. I know I certainly won’t shed a tear for those 20,000 something people that will be MySpace-deprived. You’d think that there are more important issues in the world at hand than sex offenders’ right to use MySpace. Bollocks.

“A sandwich… or a kabob…” That segment was freaking hilarious! More!

Terrific show, as always!

Interesting form of Soviet-style censorship of the net happening in Kazakhstan: don’t forbid it; just make it too expensive for the potentially unruly masses.

Nice Brit accent while poking fun at that pompous madman across the water!

Good show, old chap!

Had my own experience with ASCAP when they made a sweep in the Valley here in Los Angeles. They were claiming that the music were were playing in the bookstore (Iliad Bookshop) was a copyright violation even though it was music from our own personal collections that we had purchased. They sent several letters claiming we were using the music to “influence” the buying mood of the customers. We ignored the letters until we began to do some research and found out that the courts have ruled in ASCAP’s favor almost all the time when the sue. WTF? We can only play music via the internet and PC speakers if we want to be legit. Man, it’s crazy.

Loved the machinima.com bit. Hope you do more.

PS forgot to add this to the survey I filled out: can you do just a little coverage of Linux and Machinima? I’ve converted to Linux recently (well, 80%) and am looking around for information and ideas. Just a thought.

Great show! Thanks, Phil.

Ricky

Here’s a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zYSv-5R_Hs

Here’s a reference (the IMDB page is lacking): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_(1988_film)

Afterlife - I think there were problems with the bud.tv promotional aspect, as that seems to have been dropped.

Multiple video websites = http://www.webtvwire.com/heyspread-a-how-to-guide-for-uploading-video-clips-to-multiple-sites/

It’s summer time. Time to enjoy the great outdoors.

*runs to listen to E3 from last year’s podcast*

The news flashes were a hoot!! Poor intrepid yet lonely Jeff Daniels.

Great question about the many streaming outlets. I’m trying to create relationships with members of the different outlets, watching and commenting on as many of their videos as I can, but with the exception of a few, I don’t meet many people who overlap multiple sites. What I find is that folks camp out on one and make that their main social hang out. So many posters, so little time!

And my only machinima-related spam comes from the account I have at MySpam… I mean MySpace.

I wonder how many plumbers are on staff at that restroom. And what happens to the water pressure if 500 or so people flush at the same time? LOL!

Tom did his two films in Poser (99% sure of it)

Your “news” reports.. still stung.. *sigh* I’m never going to let go am I?

Too many items.. not enough time..

That, or “where’s my damn beer?” I forget now. Anyway, great interview. Thanks to Peter for his insights.

Not exactly the same, but this guy punched into a time clock every hour for a year and has pictures of it, one frame per hour: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/one-year-performance/video/1/

Tied up tonight, but I’ll give the show a listen tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

“Steven Tyler compiling his Kernel”

BWAHAHAHA. Best line ever.

Very entertaining show!

Seconded. Let’s make this happen. We’ll have to tie Phil down and force him to do it. He hates talking about himself, or having any attention thrust on him whatsoever.

If anybody’s interested, I’ve created a last.fm group for Machinima makers and fans. Go join, at

http://www.last.fm/group/Machinima

- Matt Kelland, Creative Director (I think)
- Dave Lloyd, CTO/Lead Programmer
- David Bailey, CEO.

Great job guys! I’ll sure be buying the book. In the meantime, get Part 2 up soon!

Carry on!

^_^

Yeah, it’s true. Sorry about that.

And Johnnie’s just being terribly British about the entire thing. It’s a national character trait - if you say anything nice about us, we have to spend the next twenty minutes apologising for all our mistakes.

Of course, any attempt at modesty is probably ruined by the fact it’s now obvious that the first thing we did today was spend an entire hour listening to ourselves talk…

Apostrophe edit: done.

Johnnie is very funny, though. And some of it was intentional.

In our defense, we were very, very tired at the time, and also not entirely without the influence of alcohol.

I can’t believe there’s still the second half of this to come. I’ll be dreading it until its release. I just hope my poor mother never gets to hear this. She’ll be so ashamed.

Good to hear about Darth’s “Chronicles of Humanity” being accepted.

I thoroughly enjoyed your melodramarealshow. I understand how Tom feels, but the impact of the show and it’s technical excellence are really something. You’ve got
people guessing now, and interested. I hope you use the style again, maybe for a
machinima.

Thanks for a very enjoyable show. I love to hear you ramble. Yes, the “triangle” guy should be shown the door. No question.

We can’t FRAPs Audio Mixing or Vegas Tinkering

If we could - that would be something awesome - we could call it the Overman Tutorial training overhaul project

It’s sad to hear about the Stage6 problems. Guess I still make a DivX version
and send it to them. I’ve tried the DivX Author and the file worked with my standalone player. Not the menu stuff, but subtitles and multiple audio tracks work.
I now have two different subtitles and an optional audio commentary for my
film and that looks like a great way to distribute all that in one file.
I’m interested to see what FleeF will find out during his player tests.

BTW, I found the ant video from NWN, not boing boing, although I did see that post later on.