I’ve been a bit quiet here on the blog, and thought I’d take a moment to let you know what’s going on. Ultimately, I’m just taking a bit of a recess from posting, but not for lack of enthusiasm or lack of anything to say. I’ve run my blog battery down a bit, and it’s on the recharger. As I think I’ve mentioned previously, spare time is at a real premium right now for a number of reasons: major work-related changes, pondering of other career options... Read Full Story

One of the funniest (and most embarrassing) memories I have of last year’s Machinima Film Festival in New York was related to the creator of This Spartan Life. After having met TSL’s creator, Chris Burke, I remember then wondering – out loud – why Damien Lacedaemion (also affiliated with the show) hadn’t come… didn’t he live in New York too? Of course, then some kind soul gently informed me that Damien was Chris Burke’s pseudonym/character on ... Read Full Story

It’s a new short-short I animated, but a bit of a different context. I mentioned Voovees in yesterday’s post, and alluded to some forthcoming collaboration between ThinkingCactus and myself… and lo and behold, last night it hit the web. The backbone of Voovees is 30-second machinima (ZenCub3d) animation, but what makes it different is that users are invited to insert their own text into the speech bubbles of the characters. I’m betting someone will come up with bet... Read Full Story

I am proud to announce that my film Sweet Nothingness took home first prize in the Machinima category at Festival Animatu in Portugal this year! Made with the Thinking Cactus independent animation tool, ZenCub3d, and augmented with a bit of CamStudio and Skype performance, this really is one of my favorite films I’ve ever created, and I am so thrilled to see it hold up well against some good competition. It’s one of a series of shorts I’ve produced that deliberately withho... Read Full Story

Fellow Moviestormer AngriBuddhist turned me on to this short over the weekend via the forum. Animated by Donato Sansone, it’s a really interesting reinterpretation of the flipbook animation approach, and features some great sound design as well. This might betray how weak my traditional camera knowledge is… but assuming the pages really were spread out across the floor as the video indicates, how do you suppose he did the camera for this? WARNING: Contains adult content. &... Read Full Story

Read Full Story

Chantal Harvey, the recently appointed producer of the 48 Hour Film Project for Machinima, has asked me to be part of the jury for this year’s competition. I have accepted the invitation, and in doing so have once again created an excuse for myself to not participate in the project. But I sure hope some of you will band together and give this thing a go. The “virtual worlds” requirement sounds like it would only include platforms like Second Life or World of Warcraft, but... Read Full Story

The inimitable Baron Soosdon was recently invited to “attend” what appears to have been some kind of virtual rave at Olibith’s place in World of Warcraft. (Olibith, friend of Baron, is also a fellow WoW machinima titan, and is quite possibly the king of WoW comedy if you ask me.) I have no idea if the event (or his attendance) actually happened, but this very funny documentary put together by Le Baron is worth watching for a number of reasons: 1) He manages to outdo hims... Read Full Story

Mumbai-based machinimator Krrish Spyker has put together a wonderful promo for this year’s Machinima Expo. Check out his Second Life based composition below, and read my interview with Krrish over on the Expo blog. I’d also like to congratulate Krrish on his excellent film Scripted, which was a finalist in the Bitfilm Festival 2009. Read Full Story

A recent vblog by Penn Jillette got me thinking about my approach as a solo filmmaker. For a few years now, it’s been normal for me to multitask projects almost to an absurd degree, at times having as many as half a dozen films in different stages of production. I’m a bit of a nutter in that regard, come to think about it. Now I don’t at all agree with Penn’s assertion that multitasking inevitably means doing everything half-assed. Certainly that can be the outcome... Read Full Story