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Hey hey! If you get a chance, check out Half Acre Day’s new single, “Skeletons“. They’re releasing one every lunar month this year (unless if I’m grossly mistaken… which is always possible).

Phil just had a meeting with the band to talk over stuff and show them the film, and their reaction has been awesome!!! I’m really hopeful that this will be a helpful piece of synergy for all of us.

Project London, as always, is getting closer and closer to completion! I just wrapped up a previs for the opening animation, and I’m almost done with the ending. The VFX sheet just has one more shot on it… also fantastic!

We have a couple premiere coordinators now, putting a BUNCH of sweet stuff together; this premiere will knock your socks off! If you can make it, do! (No! We don’t know exactly when the premiere is yet… we’re workin’ on it! )

The McCoy Brothers and I had a publicity photoshoot thing last Saturday with Mark Studer, getting assets for the soon-to-come press release. Holy cow we got some fun pictures! Marc Studer is a genius.

I’ve been posting weekly updates over at ProjectLondon.net, if you’re interested. The producer reports are also quite fantastic!

Copied From Projectlondon.net

So I’ve definitely bit off slightly more than I can chew lately. But only slightly! It’s like a drawn-out game of whack-a-mole. I wrote out a to-do list the other day, glanced at it, then quickly hid it, so as not to be overwhelmed.

But hey! Most of these tasks will be over within the next couple weeks—so just gotta push on till then!

Until that point, I’m just trying to keep up the momentum that’s built up with Project London as well as I can—had kind of a non-crazy-awesome week last week…

Basically, in order to remain really productive, I need to find the ‘hook’—the thing that keeps me interested and really excited. Last week I didn’t have that. This week I think I’ve found it—a new sequence that’s more or less ready to be attacked.

So here’s hoping! Nate Taylor’s just finished another shot, and it looks fantastic, so I’ll get on rendering that. Pretty darn pumped!

Peace!

Ian

Original Post

It’s actually coming together. The entire finale! Finally! The Finale! Is actually coming together!

I’m still riding the wave from Nathan’s involvement a while ago—rendering out all the shots he animated over the months. Nate Taylor’s animating out a few more shots, so hopefully we’ll reach an equilibrium where we’re both animating shots as fast as I can render/composite them.

I think the ending needs more explosions. This is something I feel strongly. The explosions don’t even necessarily need to be motivated—things just exploding is enough.

Also; I’m practicing drawing badgers and moose.

Peace!

Ian Hubert

So as I was moving out, I found a bunch of old floppy disks, and decided to share the best secret.

I put the secret on the floppy disk, in a standard text file, and left it hidden at a bustop.

Of course, I was also wearing a disguise (Of course I was wearing a disguise!)

What was the secret? I really shouldn’t tell you.

Oh, alright.

How to pet a Goldfish:

Get a goldfish.

Put it in a bowl (with water in it, and maybe rocks and a plant)

Feed it sometimes (some sort of fishfood)

You do not need to water it (it is already in water)

Sit by it’s bowl (or tank) until it has become acclimated to your presense (you will know because it will stop giving you the ‘evil eyes’)

Raise your hand over it’s bowl slowly, like a bridge over troubled water, and wait for it to become acclimated to it’s presense (FYI, at first it will think it is a hawk, come to grab it, but give it time! Fish inherently are very trusting)

Put your hand in the bowl (perhaps while holding some of that fishfood?). your fish will freak out- this is normal!

The goldfish will stop freaking out when it begins to believe that your hand is another goldfish (science says this is because goldfish are very susceptible to flattery. I suppose there is a lesson here for us all)

Once the goldfish has stopped freaking out (you will know this because it’s bug-eyes will shrink a little) you can pet it

Pet it slowly and gently, but with a firmness that lets it know you mean business. You don’t want your goldfish to be the boss of YOU!

Soon your goldfish will learn that your hand is a friend, and you can pet it whenever you want. Sometimes it may even leap out of the bowl (and back in) in excitement at the thought of being pet

Some scientists say frequent petting can kill your goldfish.

So… I’ve been battling CSS and a billion different problems trying to get the website updated, and yet still keep all the old content-

I half did it. I’ve still got to figure out why all the pictures aren’t really uploading, but we’re getting there!

So yes! Hopefully it’ll keep the same RSS code and everything- we shall see. I’m no good at this tech stuff!

I mean- basically what we’re talking about is something that has the potential to slowly kill the film industry as we know it. In every article I read I keep waiting for them to tell us “The Solution”- the way to stop the changes- but so far nobody’s proposed a feasible one. As far as I can tell, digital media transfer will become easier and easier, and more and more socially acceptable, until we reach a point where the current means of film distribution (and in turn production) are no longer feasible.

Is this bad? I mean, my first instinct is to resist the changes- after all, the industry I grew up wanting to be in could be dying just as I get into it? Because everyone suddenly thinks stealing stuff is OK? It kinda gets me irked.

Filmmaking used to be reserved for the big studios. Sure, you could make a film with your Super 8mm Kodac camera, but anything above that generally became prohibitively expensive (at a feature film length) because of the cost of film stock and processing fees- not to mention all the equipment needed to edit it. And if you wanted your film to be seen by massive amounts of people you needed an outside resource to distribute it. Now, with the revolution of video, filmmaking is possible for most everyone. It really is like Gutenberg’s printing press, because what was once reserved for the Church (Hollywood), was then accessible to most everyone (growing steadily cheaper as the technologies to make books were improved and became more common). The internet now makes distribution more or less free- a process that previously, on a wide scale, generally cost millions of dollars.

But if Hollywood loses it’s competitive edge of “Massive Amounts of Money”, where does that leave us? A future I haven’t really wanted to consider, I guess, until I really think about it.

Because the question remains- will it be possible, in this new future, to make money- enough money to support the creation of more films and the creators- off of the films? And how? I’m not optimistic enough to believe that donations would really bring in enough to support a whole film- but we’ll see. I think a complete reimagining of the medium is going to take place at some point in the coming decades, one that will be very difficult to anticipate. It could very well result in the end of “the industry”, but overall, in this competitive rich new atmosphere I think the odds are good we’ll be seeing significantly better films, perhaps more targeted to niche audiences.

I believe this may mark the first occasion of my referencing the “EPIC FORUM” here in the “BLOG THING”. 

So, Robot Soup now has an IRC channel, set up by Calvin! Feel free to join us at “#robotsoup” . 

If you don’t know what IRC (internet relay chat) is, you can check it out here and learn how to join up, if you feel compelled. 

Lots of cool folks on there. I’m on there, occasionally, when I remember. It’s a party 24/7.

SO! We’ve finally released a Project London Tease Thing!

It’s not really for marketing purposes so much as it’s to see if we can find a few last bits of amazing talent.

Project London: Unleashed! from Phil McCoy on Vimeo.

In the words of Phil McCoy;

“This is the first clip to be shown from Project London that includes live action footage composited with the animations we created using Blender. Half Acre Day let us use their music on this. Thanks Guys! Listen to more of their music at halfacreday.com.

If you are interested in working on this film, you can check us out at subjectc.com. You can also stay in touch at projectlondonmovie.com.

This is the second clip that we’ve released from the film and we are darn proud of the work everyone is doing to make this film really cool. Thanks Team!”

For the more than 6 billion of you who haven’t seen this already, allow me to post…

THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF ANGRYHAND

This is the story of how this morning I decided I needed a fish.

So this morning I was peeing, as I often do, and as I gazed downward I saw something mysterious.

Why, it was Bromwell Bear, upside down in a candy container! But it dawned on me it would be much more pleasant if the jar contained, not an upside down Bromwell Bear, but a fish!

I drove to the store lickity-split!

A pet store is kinda like a really small free zoo, where you can BUY the animals?

Inside were birds and snakes and fish! I gazed at all of them in a very friendly way.

Okay, okay, you guys, I’m serious. The cutness of this turtle cannot be over…yelled. It is only an inch and a half long. I proclaimed in the store, to no one in particular, “This is the cutest turtle I have ever seen!” and the woman behind the counter agreed. However, they were not for sale.

I got a Betta fighting fish! Since they normally live in puddles they don’t need any ridiculous fancy air filtration systems. I had been wondering how I was going to transport, but apparently fish fit in cup holders?

I got a fish! WHoooo!!!

I decided to name the fish “Dog”. This is Dog in his new home… my counter. HOWEVER! I knew such a small container could not long appease a fish as adventerous and danger-loving as Dog! It was time to finish the bowl!

I cleaned out the bowl repeatedly, and painted some bamboo on it with a bamboo brush (the only REAL way to paint bamboo, apparently). It was hard, because even when the brush was almost totally dry, since it’s water based, the water spread all over the glass. Whatever. It worked.

I then prepared the water! I filled it with room-temperature water, and added 7 or so drops of the anti-clorinator liquid they sold me to make the water safe for the fish. When I was little they used to say just leave the water sitting around for a day to prepare it, but no no no! Not now! Because apparently pet stores cannot make any money off of “letting water sit around”?

I put Dog’s water container in the bowl, so that the water temperates could equalize (and reduce the shock to his system!), along with slowly letting more and more bowl water into the little container.

Then it was time to wait! I set up the Commodore64 and tried to play a little Jumpman™, but I think you need a joystick for that.

Finally it was time! I inserted Dog into his new home and let him sit. Now, 14 hours later, he’s still happy as a bee in a… honey factory? Or would that be as horrified as a bee in a honey factory? I dont’ know. I cannot read fish body language all that well (excluding, of course, “Wheezing on the shore” and “Eating”).

Best wishes to you, Oh Dog!