There will be a brief hiatus on production as we go out of town this weekend to hang out in Austin for South By Southwest. We’ll be attending the live DiggNation filming on Saturday night at Stubb’s, so if any of you guys live in Austin, are of age and want to drop by, please do.

In other news, I saw this pretty slick Modern Warfare 2 machinima, created by YouTube user Michael Barnes. He’s done some Call of Duty 4 stuff as well as GTA 4 stuff, so I’d definitely recommend checking out the rest of his work as well. Anywho, give it a watch.

However, the good news is that we started filming Season 2 of Web Zeroes last weekend, and so far, so good. I even brought some screenshots to prove it. I’m loving the look of the new footage we’ve shot on Daniel’s sexy new Canon 7D. It’s a great camera. Take a look and see for yourself.

We’re going to start on Episode 2 this weekend, and will keep hitting the grind until sometime during the Summer. The show starts in March, so it’s not too much longer before you guys will get to see what we’re working on.

In the meantime, who’s played Mass Effect 2? I kind of love it.

In the meantime, I’ve been anticipating Mass Effect 2 something fierce while enjoying Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Seriously, Mass Effect 2 might derail Web Zeroes in at least some small way, seeing as how all of us are completely obsessed with it. If we end up delaying the show, you can blame Bioware.

Speaking of Bioware, I saw this hilarious Dragon Age DLC machinima video that highlights some things people have done in the mod community. Looking forward to more of what people do with that game. Who knows, maybe I’ll try my own hand at the toolset.

I’d also like to thank you guys for all of your votes for the Streamys. It really means a lot to us. Hopefully we can get our silly show nominated for something. Next week we plan to start posting some photos from what’s going on with Season 2 of Web Zeroes, and hopefully some other content. If nothing else, expect some cool changes and more regular posts to start very soon.

EDIT: It seems that Game Informer is reporting that Half-Life 2 Episode 3 won’t be out in 2010. Ouch.

Writing has officially begun on Web Zeroes, Season 2. We had an awesome planning session recently and I must say, this season gets meta as all hell. I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully you guys are, too.

In other news, we are considering picking up the podcast-ing again. You guys should submit some topics you’d like to hear us discuss or things you’re curious about in our world of content creation. Maybe we’ll talk about them. Or not. Either way, let us know!

Also, I’m not sure how many of you have seen the Source filmmaker tests that have been leaked from the TF2 beta. From what I hear, it could really change the way Source machinima is done. It eliminates the need for actors and renders some pretty cool effects in real-time. That sure would have been helpful a few years ago, Valve, but maybe it’ll see the light of day at some point. I doubt it, but folks can dream, can’t they? Anyway, here’s a cool Team Fortress 2 test I saw the other day:

In the Smooth Few Films neck-of-the-woods, things have been awesome. We’re taking a few weeks off of production since we’ve been working like crazy people since early 2009. So far, it’s been cool to see the great reviews pouring in from the finale. We were more than a little excited to reveal that Rooster Teeth played a guest part in the final episode of Season 1 of Web Zeroes, so I hope you all enjoyed that present as much as we enjoyed providing it.

We’ve already had a planning meeting for Season 2, and I honestly can’t wait to start writing it. We’ll be filming towards the end of January and will start building a foundation of lulz upon which the new season will stand.

In other news, one of my favorite machinima teams, TheDuoGroup, released a pretty cool Assassin’s Creed original animation that they created called Initiation. I highly recommend watching it if you’re finding yourselves parched for cool video game content since the end of The Leet World.

More content coming soon. Some of it Leet World related, some of it Web Zeroes related. Also, stay tuned for some posts that will be going up over the next few weeks informing you how you can help us out. You guys are awesome fans and we know you jump at the chance to support us. That being said, we want to go grassroots style on the promotion for Season 2 of Web Zeroes. We’ll let you know more when we know more.

Speaking of Episode 7, we think it’s easily our best yet, and kicks things up a notch. You see, we filmed 6 episodes in just 4-5 weeks before the show even debuted and we saw any kind of feedback. We listened to lots of people, learned some things, and then started working on the back half of the season. I think the results will speak for themselves. We’re pretty excited to start releasing it. So excited, in fact, that we’re holding a screening of the episode later tonight (Tuesday, November 17) at the Pearl Bar here in Houston. If you’re in the area, swing by, say hi and have a drink. Or nine.

In other news, I’m going to be working on some TLW outtakes for Season 2, as well as a post that details the similarities of Leet World and some other popular media, including Dragonball Z and Star Wars. Yes, really. Not on purpose, mind you, that’s just the way these things go down sometimes. I’m not particularly proud of it.

And besides playing Dragon Age: Origins and Modern Warfare 2, that’s what my nerdy life consists of at the moment. If you want, you can check out my MW2 review over at GamerSushi. Still not decided on Left 4 Dead 2 yet, though I think I’ll pass. I believe I’ve had my fill of zombie hunting in real life. It’s my day job, you know.

Also, if you don’t follow us on Twitter, you might have missed this picture I posted the other day of us on set of Ep 10 of Web Zeroes. We were doing a video conference between LA and Houston with Jace, who snapped a picture at a rather inopportune time for me. At least it might give some of you lulz.

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!

The support coming in from you guys and from other places has been really awesome for us, especially after giving our all to get that TLW Finale up. Thanks for that. We even got some nice props from Burnie Burns, of a little outfit known as Rooster Teeth.

In recent days, JJ has updated the trusty SFF FAQ page. We’re still taking some questions, so send them in. A few of you have been asking some questions about the new show. So I thought I’d answer those and a few more below the jump:

• What about the old episodes of Web Zeroes?

We’re rebooting the show, so they’re gone. Lost in the vacuum of the Internet. If you really wanted to download them, you had a chance to do so for about a year. But you are lazy.

• What’s with the “reboot”?

When we started making Web Zeroes, it was really just a test. We loved the idea, didn’t have many long term plans for it, and just wanted to make something that was uniquely ours. Pretty soon, we realized that the machinima angle was a bit too constricting, and there was a better way to open up the show more to give it more options: namely, that Alex, Ray and Nate would try anything and everything to get famous, and not just making movies with video games. They will still talk a lot about video games and will dabble in machinima, but it won’t be the only thing they do.

This gives us a lot more places to go with the story, and will make for a better series, I think. We discussed doing this kind of reboot anyway, and when Revision 3 came calling it gave us the perfect opportunity to start the series off again, with a better focus. That being said, not all of the old jokes/scenes are gone, and a few of them will find their way back into the first few episodes of the season. Other than that, the show is almost entirely the same. Except for the laser-eyed sharks.

• How often will the show come out?

Web Zeroes is going to be a weekly show, starting October 7th. You’ll be able to watch episodes here, on Revision 3, on YouTube, on iTunes and even Tivo if you really wanted to. Pretty much anywhere you can think of, our episodes will be there. It will even be at your mom’s house. We go there often.

• TLW Season 2 Soundtrack plox?

Jace has done some work on it, but we’re not sure when it will be out. We’re focusing on Web Zeroes at the moment. Believe me, I want to listen to it as badly as you guys do. For future information, plox has become the word that we associate with mental disabilities.

• What about the TLW outtakes and making-of video?

We’d still love to release that stuff in the next couple of months. Right now we’re so swamped with Web Zeroes that it’s just not really on the radar. To give you an idea, we’re currently working on six episodes at once. Eight if you count the two that Jeff and I are writing. Once we finally feel like we’ve got some breathing room, I definitely want to start working on those outtakes and show you guys some of the behind-the-scenes footage from TLW.

I think that about does it for now. That’s about as specific as I can be with Web Zeroes and our future plans. In terms of when there will be more machinima stuff, who knows? I hear Dragon Age: Origins is going to have some robust machinima tools, as well as Uncharted 2. We’ll see about that in the near future. Right now, though, we’ve got a sweet deal to do what we love, and that is live action content.

P.S. You guys have heard that the dude who made Counter-Strike is making a new game called Tactical Intervention, right?

In other news, the next post on this fair site will be the long-awaited Episode 10 of Season 2. The Leet World’s got a few watershed episodes, and I believe this to be one of them. I can’t wait for you guys to see it. Don’t punch yourself waiting for it, though.

Daniel’s out of town for the next few weeks or so, but Nick has been busy editing while I move forward on Episode 11 assets. In the meantime, here are some last-minute screenshots of Episode 10 to hold you over until the big release.

You have been teased.

However, all that free time is gone as of this coming weekend, as we kick up production on Episode 8. We’ll hopefully have a camera there filming the process as we move through some of the episode, and hope to release our “making of” video at some point in the next month or so.

Speaking of, do you guys have any particular piece of the TLW production process that you’re most interested in hearing about? Besides whether or not Nick’s Beard (it must be capitalized out of honor) hinders our ability to puppeteer. Let us know!