Smooth Few Films » G.R.I.E.F.

Let’s Clarify

Eddy — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:57:47 +0000

I’d like to thank everyone for the encouraging words regarding our announcement about the end of TLW after this season (and an awesome movie). We’ve been suspecting that this might go down for a couple of months, but it only became set in stone recently. It’s good to have it out in the open, and even better when nobody goes ballistic and throws things at us. You know, like e-rocks.

Since the questions are rolling in, I wanted to clarify a few things:

Daniel is not leaving yet. He actually won’t be gone for about 5 months or so. In that time our goal is to finish the season, party like man-imals, and then make a sweet movie. We don’t know how long the movie will be, minutes-wise.
The show is not over yet. We’re still going to do the second half of the season. For those of you wondering, it will be just a bit shorter than last season.
Without Daniel, we won’t be continuing Web Zeroes regularly. Since he’s kind of in it and also the director, there’s no way it could happen. We’d still like to do an episode or two before he goes, and there might be an occasional episode if he comes in town for a weekend, but that’s it.
Nick and I will keep making stuff after TLW is over, but we’re not replacing one crazy big workload for another crazy big workload. Whatever we work on next (be it G.R.I.E.F. or one of our other ideas), it won’t be as regular or as big as The Leet World.

Anything not answered there is something we don’t know the answers to or can’t really address at this point. There’s a lot that we still don’t know, but I thought I’d do my best to answer the things we could.

Episode 8 will be out at some point this week. I’m excited to start this half of the season. It’s seriously going to be wild.

A G.R.I.E.F. Update

Eddy — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:11:30 +0000

So if you haven’t guessed already, G.R.I.E.F. is on hold indefinitely. Now that we’re working hard on Web Zeroes and The Leet World, adding one more thing into the mix is going to bring down the quality of all of the projects. We are but mere men after all, though I am somewhere close to troll-ish in nature.

We’ve filmed part of the first episode, but it’s a very ambitious endeavor, so we’re just going to stick it on the backburner until we find some time for it. Who knows, maybe our new TLW method rocks our socks off and we have all kinds of free time to make Halo 3 machinima in addition to our other stuff. And play video games.

We’re also hard at work on Episode 3 of The Leet World, filming and doing all kinds of Counter-Strike things. Episode 2 is coming sometime in the next week, and I think you dudes will enjoy it. Web Zeroes short in the next few days.

Prepare for lulz in 3…2…

The Prodigal Son

Eddy — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:12:59 +0000

After several months of being away, Daniel has finally returned to Houston, marking the end of a production lull for us here at Smooth Few Films. We’ve been working on some pre-production and housekeeping things (new sites, scripts, etc), but now we can fully jump into things like Web Zeroes, G.R.I.E.F. and early work on Season 2 of The Leet World.

Our break for the last few months was much needed, as we had driven ourselves into exhaustion after working on TLW for a year straight (seriously). It was a time fraught with ups and downs, but we learned a lot of lessons from it, and we have a plan to make everything easier on ourselves moving forward. You’ll hear more about that soon.

In other news, the TLW soundtrack is essentially finished. We have to take a few more steps before we can actually put it up for sale. We’ll make a post soon enough detailing prices, but rest assured, it’ll be affordable, and it’ll be worth every penny. In addition, you’ll be able to get individual songs if you don’t want to get the whole album.

Also, a new TLW Season 2 teaser is on the way for hopefully sometime next week, with some Web Zeroes bloopers dropping soon as well. Things are kicking into full gear again, and there will be tons of content coming over the next couple of weeks. Oh, and one other thing…

Who dat?

Hour of Power

Eddy — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:16:09 +0000

I don’t have time for much of an update, but if you’ve been paying attention to US News at all, then you know that Hurricane Ike came through Houston and rocked the city. The storm pretty much came in and took a path of ownage straight to the area where Nick and I live.

We came through all right, no damage to our places, but neither of us have had power since Friday night, which was 3 days ago. Water just came back at my apartment last night, so that’s good. We’ve been chilling with my brother, who was one of the first of 2.1 million people to get power back.

If you hadn’t guessed, this kind of puts a damper on any immediate plans we had. It’s not too big of a setback, it’s just that Daniel couldn’t come back in town when he planned, and it’s delaying the filming of both GRIEF episode 1 and Web Zeroes as well. I also had a TLW related project I was going to work on over the weekend that’s on hold indefinitely, though I plan on picking it back up once we have some electricity to work with.

In addition, the soundtrack is just about ready for release, but there are some finishing touches that also can’t happen until you know, our city is functioning again. Anywho, once again, thanks for all the great comments on Web Zeroes, we’re really proud to have released it, and thanks for all the well wishes over the weekend.

Also, if you haven’t been to GamerSushi yet, I just put up an article today about some of Halo’s underrated qualities. Go join the discussion.

Important Post: On Branding

Eddy — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:52:00 +0000

It would appear that nothing is going on here from just a mere glance, but that is one tall fib. A lot is going on behind the scenes, much more than you know, and all the dust of our construction (specifically, Nick and Jeff’s constructions) should settle, leaving behind something superb in the aftermath.

After taking a long hard look at things, it dawned on us that with all of our new endeavors (GRIEF, Web Zeroes, GamerSushi, etc), we can’t just be known as The Leet World any longer, as is the case for our base of operations (this site) and other things like our YouTube account. But rather, we need everything to be focused around who we are, and that is Smooth Few Films.

What that means is, we’re getting a new website. Several, to be more accurate. By the end of the weekend (fingers crossed), this whole place is going to look different, and smoothfewfilms.com will be a part of the Smooth Few Films network. We are also launching a new SmoothFewFilms YouTube account that will eventually replace the old one, and if you frequent that site feel free to go ahead and subscribe.

Over the weekend, we’ll release some announcement videos there to attempt some grand migration of our subscribers from one account to another, leaving the old one behind as some ragged skeleton full of old videos. It’s not going to be pretty (or easy), but it’s better to do it now than later. The Web Zeroes pilot will hopefully be coming alongside all of that.

So yes, big steps are coming. And once they are done, production hits the ground running on all fronts.

Also, Ty (the voice of Mendoza) has made it into the second round of the AMC Mad Men competition. Feel free to lend your support once again, and show what a great supportive community we can be.

Edit: In addition, Happy Birthday, Ty.

The TLW House

Eddy — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:18:11 +0000

Thanks for the cool response that you guys gave to the G.R.I.E.F. trailer. I’ve got to say, the general excitement people showed for it was pretty sweet. We’re looking forward to doing a few episodes of G.R.I.E.F. while we continue to recharge and prepare for Season 2 of The Leet World.

The Web Zeroes Pilot should be hitting at some point next week, as well as some other cool TLW extras. Also, PAX is this weekend, and I really can’t wait, but more on that later.

It occurred to me that some of you dudes would be stoked to have a couple of the maps that we film on. Nothing too exciting, just thought you’d like to have them. So, here you go- simply download these and then stick them into your cstrike/maps folder:

TLW House
Death Room

Edit: For those of you wondering, the TLW House is an edited Militia map with no hosties, no time limit, no cars in the garage and Leeroy’s Lair. Also, that map probably won’t work in GMod if you don’t have CSS, but the Death Room should be just fine.

G.R.I.E.F. Trailer

Eddy — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:57:50 +0000

In a world overrun with hoodlums, criminals and vagabonds— griefers — one government agency rises to take a stand against an abomination that threatens the very existence of Matchmaking.

This is a trailer for our new Halo mini-series that should be hitting next month, titled, as you all know, G.R.I.E.F. It’s going to be an action/comedy series with a heavy emphasis on the action. We’re excited about it, and you should be too.

Stay tuned to the site for some more cool announcements and extras this week (some of it TLW related) that you definitely don’t want to miss. Huzzah!

Edit: Much thanks to Burnie from Rooster Teeth for the shout out. You all should go check out Ep 12 of Reconstruction.

Force Friday

Eddy — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:44:09 +0000

If you haven’t played the Force Unleashed demo yet, go do so. It’s everything I’ve always wanted in a Star Wars game. And in real life.

Speaking of games, I thought I’d update and let you guys know that our new gaming blog should hopefully be up and running soon. We’ve got some other great writers on board, so it’ll be a good time once it’s kicking.

Also, the GRIEF trailer is scheduled to make its debut this weekend, and if not then, early next week. It’s very trailer-ish.

And lastly, a small concept screenshot of the title sequence Daniel is working on for Web Zeroes. This is an earlier mock-up, so the final will look different from this in terms of some design tweaks, just wanted to give you guys a little peak at the process:

Holding Pattern

Eddy — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:34:16 +0000

We’re kind of on the verge of a slew of fun content for you guys, but as of right now, we’re in a bit of a holding pattern while we get a few things ready, a few things written and a few things recorded.

Stuff that’s being worked on this week includes the GRIEF trailer, Web Zeroes episode 1, The Leet World Soundtrack (I can confirm that I just listened to the Producer’s Theme, and it rocks), a new video game blog and quite possibly an endeavor that answers the question of one of the bigger mysteries of the summer (Where is Mr. Sizzler?). All of these are coming soon, so like the Jedi, we must exercise patience. And/or flipping maneuvers.

But now, my curiosity begs me to ask this question concerning Season 2 of The Leet World (coming Fall/Winter 2008):

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Things to Come…

Eddy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:48:56 +0000

So in two weeks, Daniel and I will be flying out to Seattle to partake in PAX. For those of you don’t know, PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo and it is a glorious celebration in gaming and gamers. There will be a number of awesome things to do, including seeing Rooster Teeth, Jonathan Coulton, a bevy of unreleased games and hours of other fine entertainments. To check out the full line up of the nerdery, click here. Looks wild.

Anywho, we’re busy fist-pumping about that, and excited to get out there and say hey to some folks. Other things we’re excited about include Web Zeroes, which is now getting closer to completion. In addition, we’re nearing the launch of our new site(s) as well as the trailer for GRIEF, part of which was filmed tonight.

Much thanks to all you dudes who participated. Some screenies: