Sep 26, 2008 @ 09:22 am by Spiff
There was never any promise, nor even any kind of mention of an invitation to this year’s Blizzcon for machinima artists like there was last time. Still, I know I was hoping for one, and I’m sure the others were too. But here it is about two weeks before Blizzcon starts, and I haven’t received an invitation. I contacted Oxhorn, and he says he hasn’t received one and neither has any of the other machinimists he’s in contact with. So I guess that’s that. 
Sep 17, 2008 @ 09:42 am by Spiff
After putting out “Bacteria” and “Live” in rapid succession, I had hoped to take “The Captain’s Wife’s Lament” nice and slow, savoring each gag and taking my own sweet time to put the whole thing together. I had a vague idea that it would be nice to release the video in time for Talk Like A Pirate Day, but I didn’t actually know when that was.
Then my nephew told me TLAP Day was Sept. 19. He told me this on Sept. 13. My leisurely video was suddenly going to have to be a Bataan Death March if I wanted to get it done in time. So I threw myself into it and actually got the video posted two whole days before TLAP Day. I must be some kind of video-making superhero or something. 
This one was simultaneously easy and tough. It was easy because it’s relatively short, and the whole second half of the song is just a series of quick sight gags, which (as long as I can come up with good gags) aren’t that difficult to put together. It was tough because the first half of the song is all build-up that I had to work hard to keep interesting so that the viewer didn’t stop watching before the rousing second half. Also, many shots (especially in the first half) have many characters on screen at the same time. Each element in a shot adds time to composing the shot and to rendering the shot, and those couple of shots that have a screenful of pirates in them took over 30 minutes to render the couple of seconds of video you see in the final product.
In the end, like all of my videos, there are a couple of shots I wish I’d spent more time on, and a few that ended up being better because I was in a rush and so kept them simple (and funny).
In the ending scroll, I put a couple of pirate riddles that Paul and Storm use in their live show when they sing this song. The answers to the riddles can be found on my website.
Sep 06, 2008 @ 08:38 am by Spiff
The WeGame August Machinima Contest is over and the results have been announced. My “Live” video got “honorable mention”, which is honestly better than I had expected. There were a lot of really good entries in the contest (about 120 in total, I think), done by people with lots of actual talent for the technical and storytelling aspects of machinima, and I’m lucky to have gotten any kind of top mention at all. I also get a ThinkGeek.com gift certificate and a t-shirt. 
I’ve posted “Live” to my YouTube channel, so it’s now in the same place as all the rest of my videos.
The other winners in the contest:
I didn’t mention this before, but I should give credit where credit is due — I was having a hard time coming up with a good ending for the video, and it was my mom who suggested that Dr. Skullcrusher (or whatever the gnome’s name is) die so that The Bride could live. Great idea, thanks Mom. Also, I was originally going to have the video just end with a big bloody fight scene, but my wife suggested having The Bride and Igor want to bring Dr. Skullcrusher back to life with the dead villager’s body parts. Awesome.
Seeing as how “Live” is my first non-Jonathan Coulton video (sort of), I’m hoping you all scoot over to www.paulandstorm.com to check out Paul and Storm’s site and their music. They’ve got similar comic sensibilities as Coulton but go at it in a slightly different way. Be sure to check them out.