Category Archives: film

Short Film: The Last Word

I think I end up saying this all the time these days, but sorry to you faithful dudes about the lack of updates around here. As I said before, there’s just not a whole lot to update on at the moment. Everyone’s kind of doing their own thing, and whether that turns into a Smooth Few Films project in the near future is anyone’s guess.

For instance, I’ve been working on a monster of a book which I just finished in this past week. It’s a huge unwieldy fantasy story that needs a ton of editing that I can’t wait to get started on. Meanwhile, Daniel recently produced a short film with his bud Ryan Hargrave for a local art show. It’s called The Last Word, and I kind of love it. Different from the tone that you guys are used to from Daniel’s work to be sure, but that’s not a bad thing.

You’ll notice a few SFF regulars in there, including Alex, who played Pedro in WZ and also ran sound for that series as well. You’ll also see Ty, the lovable Bobby King. Music by Jace Ford, in what I think is one of his best pieces yet. Plus, Daniel plays a dude that chases people and beats them up. Anyway, take a gander to see what I mean, and give Daniel his props.

Another TLW soundtrack song coming next week!

A Late Spring Break

BeachThe horse picture has nothing to do with the post, but came up as one of the top results for “beach” on Google, which gave me a hearty lulz. So, there you have it.

As I mentioned last week, we are actually on something of a late Spring Break from releasing Web Zeroes for the next couple of weeks. That’s not to say we aren’t still working on the show, which we totally are. So it’s not really much of a real break. How lame is that? Regardless of the nature of the break’s lameness, the show will resume on its normal release format on May 19th, so hold on to your butts until that moment.

I say that things are “wild” all the time, so I’m trying to expand my vocabulary in that regard a bit, but it’s shocking that we’re half way through the second season. We’re looking forward to getting the rest of it shot and delivered. It gets way more meta. Some won’t like that, I don’t think, but we are fans of meta things. Hell, Chet was always Meta Guy in Leet World.

In other random SFF related news, you may have missed the fact that we run a pretty awesome video game Web site known as GamerSushi. We’ve got a cool community over there, so come swing by. We just released our first podcast, too, which features SFF dudes Nick, JJ and myself. Go check it out.

You also might have missed Daniel’s appearance on Film Riot, another Revision3 show about film production and techniques. We shoot Web Zeroes on a Canon 7D DSLR. If you’re unaware, DSLR filmmaking is kind of a hot topic right now, as it enables people to shoot high quality projects for a relatively low budget. Daniel gives a pretty cool breakdown of how we do our audio process for the show, so it’s a nice behind-the-scenes look at Web Zeroes, if you’re interested. Daniel appears at the 6:40 mark.

The Problem With Machinima

MachinimaLast year, as many of you know, we announced the end of the Leet World. At the time, we cited several reasons, one of them being our confirmation that Valve was not interested in machinima in the slightest. While we couldn’t go into the details of how we knew this to be true, it seems that another machinima studio has done so.

Pixel Eyes Productions are the creators of the well known Shelf Life machinima, using the Source engine. Recently, they’ve gone through some of the same issues we had in terms of trying to monetize their (hour intensive) hobby, and came up with similar results. We just assumed not talk about the problems we had, but it seems they have done so. This includes their issues with trying to become YouTube sponsors, where they were denied, just like us, since they don’t own the rights to the Source machinima they produced. Naturally, Valve owns those.

More interestingly than the YouTube dilemma, though, was that they (like us) pursued the securing of these rights from Valve, via a commercial machinima license of some kind. And, they have posted the official response. Which, just as we insisted all those many months ago, was simply that Valve is not interested in machinima.

If you don’t feel like clicking on the link, here’s the short of Valve’s response.

We are not interested in licensing our technology or IP for machinima. This includes providing copyright approvals.

I have to say, I really feel for Pixel Eyes, having been in their shoes just last year. If you are a young filmmaker trying to use Valve’s excellent Source tools, they have essentially shut the door with statements just like that. While I don’t blame Valve for trying to protect their property in the slightest, it certainly is a shame to see them take such a hard line stance when it comes to something their community produces so readily and in many cases excellently.

To me, it’s stances like these that will keep machinima in kind of a stale flux for many years to come. What you are starting to see is that the more talented individuals get snatched out of making machinima and onto other things, because machinima runs into more dead ends than it does opportunities. While it’s a nice low-budget way to practice something you love doing, making money off of it is often times the exception and not the rule. And this extends beyond machinima even, to any kind of derivative content.

My advice for any hobbyists out there that like to dabble in machinima or other forms of derivative content (fan fiction, stories based on popular games or movies, comic strips that do the same, etc) is that if you want to do this stuff for a living, don’t spend all your time on something you don’t own. By all means, practice your craft with machinima and use it to gain a fanbase, but let that be only a supplement to a project that you own completely, and let that be where you sink most of your time into.

Trust me, in the long run, it’ll be worth it. You don’t want to spend years of your life working on something only to be told that it doesn’t really belong to you in the end. Sure, you gained lots of experience and you had fun doing what you loved, but if you can do all that and then use it to pay the bills, it’s a double bonus. And believe me, if you’re good, somebody somewhere will want to pay for what it is that you’re kicking ass on.

So go out there and make it happen.

New and Noteworthy in the Machinima Scene

machinimaEven though we’re not making so much machinima anymore here at Smooth Few Films, it doesn’t deter my interest in it. I still like to scour and search for what’s new out there in the wide world of video game movie-making, just to see what other people are doing and what games they’re using.

Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem that any game has made as big of a splash for the machinima community as Halo 3 did back in 2007. It’s crazy to me that it’s just over 2 years later, and we’re still waiting on the next engine to come and revitalize amateur filmmakers to try out some of their own stuff. Uncharted 2 just dropped for the PS3, and it has some machinima tools hidden within its depths, if only you can make it past the incredible single player campaign (and trust me, it is quite incredible). I also hear that Dragon Age: Origins coming out next month will make use of some rather robust tools.

In terms of some of the new things I’m seeing out there that hold promise, a couple of things come to mind. Red Vs Blue Recreation once again sets the standard for awesomeness. SgtPadrino has some remarkable Call of Duty videos that he’s been scripting together, and they’re impressive as anything I’ve seen in recent months. Likewise, Mystfit continues to work away on some custom TF2 animations. Can’t wait to see what the results of those experiments are. Running Gun (creators of Spriggs) are steadily releasing a fully scripted Fallout 3 machinima called JudgeMental. And then there’s good old Darkspire Films, who just released the Candy Coated Wonder Road, a Halo 3 children’s show.

So what do you guys think the state of machinima is? What are some of your favorite machinimas out there right now?

Also, Web Zeroes Episode 3 hits tomorrow, and some new TLW outtakes should be up later this week- hope to see you back for both of those!

Screenshot World, Yeah

Thanks for all of the congratulatory posts regarding our news from last week. I really wish I could tell you guys some more, but unfortunately, that cat has to remain in the bag for just a little while longer. All I can say is that this new project is already starting to eat up all of our time, and will continue to do so for months to come. Funny enough, we are managing to put one time sucker to rest in exchange for a shinier one.

It is impacting the series finale (and already affected Episode 13) in a few ways, mainly in that it’s taking longer to make. We’re getting pretty close to being done filming it completely, and as I said before, I’ll let you guys know when we’re about a week away from release.

In the meantime, check out some new screenshots. They contain images of machinima ownage and dudes shooting at other dudes.

tlw214_ss4 tlw214_ss5 tlw214_ss6

Also, has anyone seen District 9? I’m planning on going this weekend and I keep hearing great things. I have a condition where I ache to see awesome sci-fi action, and the movie appears to be able to scratch my itch in a meaningful way.

Respect the Whedon

joss-whedonA somewhat big event took place in Episode 10, Wake Me Up Before You Go. The passing of a character in any show is always a big stinking deal, and it was no less so for us here at Smooth Few Films. We’ve been plotting and scheming this for well over a year now, and seeing it on screen was strange, awesome and sad.

I figured we’d have a fun discussion about it. However, since there are no doubt some of you who haven’t seen the episode yet, I’ll go ahead and put the rest of this post behind the jump. Beware. There be spoilers beyond these parts.
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Blocked and Bustered

relaxJust wanted to write a quick update so you guys know that we’re alive and kicking. Due to the Memorial Day holiday weekend, we pretty much have been (mostly) on break for a few days, which was needed. The next month or so is going to murder us production-wise, so it was good to chill, play video games, and whatever else it is that three geeks do in their free time.

However, some work is still progressing in order to ensure that Episode 10 makes its debut next week. I spent Sunday cursing JJ (who wrote eps 8-10) for putting in the longest scene that required faceposer in the history of our simple machinima. Daniel spent some time working on some cool visual elements last week, and Nick is hard at work on the edit. In addition, we recorded some audio for Episode 11, which begins filming this weekend.

In other news, the summer movie season is just getting underway. So far, Star Trek serves as a proper example of how to reboot a franchise, while Terminator: Salvation is just the opposite. What summer movie are you guys looking forward to the most? At this point, my money’s all on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The Subtractions

tlw208We don’t really have deleted scenes in our episodes all that often, but once in a blue moon it happens. There are a few reasons for this. I’m a strong believer that in our show, scenes should do three things:

  • Advance the story
  • Build characters
  • Have lulz

While it’s not possible to accomplish all three things in each and every scene, we hope to have at least two, and if nothing else, just one. When a scene has none of those 3 things, then it usually just gets axed, never to see the light of day. And trust me, that’s for the better.

However, there are other times when we cut scenes simply because YouTube sucks, and only allows us to put up 10 minute videos with our account (certain accounts allow you to do more if you’ve signed up before a certain date, but we were late to the YouTube party). We could split the video in two for them and deliver you guys a longer one, but it becomes such a pain in the ass to do this.

This is where you guys get screwed a little, and that’s mostly due to many of the kind folks over at YouTube being unable to grasp the concept of checking our profile page for the second video. Seriously, I don’t know how some of them even turn on their computers (if you’re here from YouTube, you are not included in this group, since you are clearly of a superior intelligence). Luckily, this has only affected just a couple of episodes throughout the entire series.

Anywho, Episode 8 of Season 2 had a couple of scenes cut for this very reason. One of them was filmed and one wasn’t. Check them out after the jump.
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The Nine

Thanks for the responses to Episode 8, Hide and Sneak. Episode 9 will be out next week, and is about to enter the editing process via the bearded one himself, Nick. We’re spending a lot more time putting the finishing touches on our episodes this season, and I really think it’s shown so far. While he works on that, Daniel and I will be tag-teaming Episode 10, WWE style. There will be dropkicks, sirs.

The next few episodes dish out equal parts intrigue and answers. It might rule a little. Or at least, that’s the hope. Anywho, here are some screenshots from the next episode, “Stranger in the House”. Enjoy!

tlw209screen1 tlw209screen2 tlw209screen3

Also, the Houston Rockets and Star Trek are totally going to interfere with TLW this weekend, somehow. But I’m ok with that. Who else is seeing the movie?