Exciting times!

This month so far had a lot of exciting things happening:

The MachinExpo 2009 is accepting submissions now - don't forget to submit your movies! I'm looking very much forward to the event in Second Life in November - hopefully it will be at a time when I can attend (sometimes it sucks to be on a european timezone.. :p).

Trace Sanderson and Kate Fosk have created a fascinating new site for grown-up Machinima - visit Fallopian, were you'll find movies and directors showcased who are as far away from the general Machinima clichés - lots of guns, explosions, game-related jokes - as you can imagine... and maybe even farther! :) Thank you Trace and Kate!

There's also a new group on Vimeo - Women in Machinima - also created by Trace and Kate - every female Machinima creator is invited to add their films to it, regardless of the engine it was created with! To quote Trace: "Let's celebrate women in machinima!" And there's a lot to celebrate, I think. :)

I'm also really excited that Chat Noir - Kate Lee and Sherwin Liu - are back in the machinima making 'business' - they have gotten their teeth into Moviestorm and released a wonderful one-minute film (made for the Filminute 2009) called Darren, and are currently working on a big project - I can hardly wait to see it!
They also have a brand-new blog 'In the Mind's Eyes of the Black Cats', where, apart from posting about their filming process, interesting, mind-stimulating discussions can be joined. Love it! :)

Me, I'm enjoying my holiday - and I finally got iClone 3 Pro, which means I'm trying to learn everything I can about it. Which is quite a lot - iClone offers loads of possibilities and because of that, has quite a learning curve. For me, it isn't really intuitive, so I do a lot of reading and watching tutorials, hoping to get into it a bit before iClone 4 hits the market - the new features that are being revealed right now are what decided me to try the program again and though my progress is slow (compared to the ease with which Moviestorm came to me), I'm glad I did.
I've even begun to work on an iClone shortie - but it will take me some time to finish that yet... it still needs some more hair-pulling, set-building, learning and ranting. ;)
I'm looking forward to at some time combining iClone and Moviestorm material....

Anyway, here's the set I'm building right now...



Exciting times!

The secret project is ready for take-off!

Or should I say, ready to be read by someone who knows about modding, and I'm ready to be asked if I'm crazy... *insert nervous-smiley here*

24 pages, 21 characters, the first time I will need not one, not two, no! - a whole bunch of mods to be made especially for a project.... I'm excited and still dread the verdict of those who will (hopefully) work with me on this.

I'd like to thank both Norrie and Kate Lee, who have read, proofed, suggested, read again, suggested some more... without both of you, the script wouldn't be as it is now! Thanks for all the time you invested in this - I just hope I'll be able to bring it to the screen!

Finding the 21 actors to voice the characters seems comparatively easy in contrast to the mod work - as always, a lot of the roles are already taken by what I call my 'dream-cast' in my mind - but I will worry about that once I'm a bit more sure if the project can be realised in Moviestorm as the only engine, or if I have to consider mixing again.

Oh well.... :)

For the moment, I refuse to be disheartened, and present to you the name of the project.... keep your fingers crossed!

The Afflicted is online!

Little did I know that this would be such an ordeal - Vimeo took about 15 hours to convert the movie (I uploaded yesterday) - that has never happened to me before...

The Moviestorm version is visually nice, but there's a sound-synch problem due to flash converting. Nonetheless I thank all those who already watched, and hope you'll watch it again in HD, now on Vimeo (also for download)! It's also up on TMUnderground now, and I'm happy to say that it's the featured film on the Moviestorm page!

I hope you'll enjoy the movie - I'm very glad that both Kate and Sherwin seem to like it!

The two things I like best!

After my longish, enforced break, I had to do something to get back into movie-making mood... what could be better to do that than combining two of the things I like best?
Which are? Well, singing and movie-making, of course!

So here it is - my rendition of the Cole Porter classic "What is this thing called Love", accompanied by a video shot in Moviestorm.

Hope you enjoy! :)

The Thing called Love from sisch on Vimeo.

Fun with new and updated programs!

My Vegas arrived today - and just from playing with it for an hour, and testing the chroma keying abilities, I know I'll love this.... it's so incredibly much better than what I'm used to! :)

Only thing I need to find out about is which codec (?) to use for the sound of my Moviestorm renders - it definitely isn't the one I used before, 'cause there's no sound. But I'm sure I'll find out about that quickly...

Moviestorm got updated today - we now have a breathing function, and an advanced mood changer - I've been experimenting with that, too; the breathing is great! The rest will get tested over the next few days while working away on "The Afflicted".

So, generally a fun day in sisch's kitchen.... with lots of new spices.... :p

New screenshots and update on "The Afflicted"

Work on "The Afflicted" progresses nicely - I've already completed (short of the background footage, which will be filmed in "The Movies") three of the many conversation scenes, started on the intro scene - which I'm still not sure if it will be kept as it is right now - it's a bit complicated, because I have to imagine how a TV scene in the future might look -
but so far I'm content with what I've shot.

Once again I'm very glad I've made the switch to Moviestorm - this film is very heavy (again) on dialogue; an intimate setting - I would feel incredibly constrained now if I had to shoot all that in TM.
With Moviestorm, I'm justing going "berserk" again in adding layers and layers of gestures, a feature I just love, love, love. Did I mention I love it? :)

Two more screenies taken from the film - I had an idea concerning the look, and I'm very curious how it will pay off in the finished movie.

I've also finally decided to switch editing programs - from Magix to Sony Vegas Pro 8 -
and I'm looking very much forward to immerse myself into learning how to use it.
Should be in the post tomorrow..... though I'm not sure I'll make the switch during filming this project - depends on how fast I feel comfortable with Vegas.

Saving Grace is featured on the Moviestorm frontpage!

And in addition to that, Matt Kelland and David Bailey interviewed me - you can find the interview on the Moviestorm News!

I'm grateful the guys gave me the opportunity to talk about filmmaking - and I hope that Saving Grace will do a little bit to get more anymation/machinima makers interested in trying Moviestorm out - it's a great program; I find using it very intuitive, and there are new features added to it constantly!

In addition to this, the Moviestorm team is the most helpful I ever came across - wether it's driver problems, or great sites for soundeffects, special effects - you ask for help, and they are there!

I appreciate this kind of support very much - makes realising my visions much easier for me.

Thank you very much! :)