Category Archives: Web Zeroes

Answer Time: Go, Go, Go

CS: GO

Man, I’m terrible. I’ve waited since August to answer some of your questions. Hopefully you don’t all hate me for that, but I think I’ve given you plenty of other reasons to loathe me before this oversight.

Because it’s Christmas and I’m feeling charitable, I figured it was finally time to give you guys a few answers. As I said last time, feel free to leave more questions in the comments, especially if I didn’t get to your question this time.

And now, Q’s plus A’s:

1) What all have you been up to since the hiatus?

GamerSushi! Nick, Jeff and I help run the video game blog and even recorded a few podcasts. We’ve been on a bit of a break from that (for reasons I’m about to list below), but they’re a good time and worth a listen. We’ve got a video podcast going up soon if Nick can ever pull himself from his beard long enough to do things.

In terms of other stuff going on, Daniel and Nick have both been out in Los Angeles, working for the man and making some money with various productions. They are currently working on a pilot for Dan Harmon’s Channel 101, an original piece they crafted with Jace called Street Justice. I’ve seen the script and I think it’s going to be awesome. As soon as it’s online, I’ll direct you guys over to it. Daniel’s also been updating a design blog, Done Well Is So Much Better, at times. It’s neat.

As for me, I’ve been working on the second draft of my novel. I’ve also taken a freelance writing gig with Rooster Teeth to help on Season 10 of Red Vs Blue. It’s kind of cool. I wrote a tad more about it on my blog, if you’re interested.

2) Do you guys miss working on content for Smooth Few Films?

Yes and no. I don’t think any of us miss the exercise in tedium that was Leet World, or the ridiculous daily grind that made up Web Zeroes. Much less doing all that work for no pay. The experience taught us a lot about ourselves and about what we like to do, but we’re not itching to go back to that formula of lots of work and no lives for no compensation.

That being said, we do get that itch and miss out on the fun part of storytelling. There’s nothing quite like writing or producing something and knowing that thousands of people are going to see what you’re working on, and soon. Everything else since then has felt like working in a vacuum. So yeah, we get nostalgic about the platform that we had to show people our stuff. But that’s about it.

3) Will you guys make anything in Counter-Strike: GO?

This is a tricky one. I don’t want to say never, but I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep either. As of right now, I’m not in love with the character models of CS: GO, and I’m not sure it would translate all that well for a fun little updated TLW short.

In addition, I’m not even sure what kind of machinima opportunities would even be available with the updated engine. It’s one of those things where I’d have to play it for awhile and see if there was anything we could do. And on top of that, we’d all have to want to do it.

I think my big worry would be releasing a one-off short, and then having people go nuts and demanding more. That’s a good problem to have, to be sure. But it’s still an issue to consider.

4) I was thinking of using Roxio Game Capture for the PC to capture footage, do you think this piece of hardware is a good buy? Or should I use an actual capture card?

I’m not the expert here (that would be Daniel and Nick), but I’d recommend a dedicated capture card when you can, if your concern is maintaining the quality of the original. I’m guessing going through a box like that is adding a stop for the footage, which just gives it another spot to lose quality. Also, I haven’t read great reviews of that particular piece of Roxio hardware. If nothing else, and you decide that you don’t want to invest the kind of money in a dedicated card, I’d always recommend hardware over software.

5) Can I make TLW DVDs for my own personal use?

Go for it. The reason we never made them is because we can’t sell them. Download the episodes and go nuts! You can’t sell them either, by the way. So don’t do that.

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!

Pardon Our Dust2Dust

I now bring to you guys the third track of the illustrious TLW soundtrack penned by sir Jace Ford, Dust2Dust. Many of you will remember that we released this tune under the name of Ambush at Bombsite B when Episode 4 of TLW first aired. Since then, Jace has done a little bit more to it, and I actually love the re-release more than the original, and that’s saying a lot.

Listen. Enjoy. Feel epic.

http://smoothfewfilms.com/extras/3_dust2dust.mp3

Right click and save as to save that to your demon machines.

I saw a pretty cool review of Web Zeroes the other day, and I thought I would pass it along. Definitely nice when people recognize the hard work that went into the show, and the spirit of its geekitude, something we really strove for during its production.

And continuing on that cool stuff vibe, I’ve got a couple of more links for you guys. One, for all of you old school PC gamers out there, we got a retro feature up on GamerSushi the other day about how to make a Myst movie that doesn’t suck. Two, I’ve done a piece on my blog about my ridiculous fan nerd love of Final Fantasy 7 and how it changed me as a gamer.

Attack those at your leisure.

Daniel + Bytejacker = Awesome

I was looking through the site the other day, and I can’t believe I forgot to post this back when it happened. One of the bonuses to being on Revision3 for a couple of seasons was the opportunity to meet some awesome folks in the same boat as us. This afforded us double rainbow like powers to create epic crossovers.

You already saw Daniel make an appearance on the Revision3 show Film Riot, where he demonstrated some of the audio techniques we used on Web Zeroes. But did you know that he also appeared on their indie video game show Bytejacker? Nerd and host Anthony Carboni did an episode where he toured the offices of Revision3, speaking with people from the other shows. One of those people included Daniel, who appeared as his character Ray from Web Zeroes. The results were hilarity and plaid. Daniel shows up at 3:57.

In other video game related news, today we posted an article over at GamerSushi about the top 30 upcoming games of 2010, and I love it. Go check it out. Got any you’re looking forward to?

More free soundtrack titles coming next week, plus hopefully some video/pics from Fantastic Fest.

The Question of What’s Next

Question blockMan, it’s been quiet around here lately, eh? Since Web Zeroes ended a few weeks ago, the wheels have been turning a bit slow around the SFF wagon, but that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped altogether. The biggest and most frequently asked question that we’ve seen in the last month or so has been: what’s next? I wanted to answer for that you guys as best as I could so you know that we haven’t hitched a ride on dragons out of the country or something.

The short of it is this: we’re not quite sure what’s next. That’s not for a lack of ideas at all. In fact, we actually have a surplus of them. The tricky part is narrowing it down, which will only come with time to weight out their pros and cons, and also time to chill out a bit. For real, we’re just starting to get used to having our weekends back for the first time in several years, and we’re going to enjoy that for a bit before we throw ourselves onto the content skillet again. It is a hot and buttery place. OK, that metaphor got kind of weird.

Anyway, the only thing I can really tell you is this. Our next ideas aren’t exactly small potatoes. They’re big. Orca fat, I guess you could say. Up until now, we’ve done everything without a budget and without a huge supply of time. Everything has been quick, free and dirty. The last episode of Web Zeroes is something we were able to throw a bunch of time at, and I think the effort really shows. As a result, we’re going to make sure that whatever we do next we tackle with both time and money. Just think: if we’ve pulled off the stuff we’ve done so far without a budget or ample time, it’s tough to imagine what we could do with just a little of both. Or a lot of both, which would be preferable.

And no, these do not include TLW. In conjunction with wanting to do our next project with the aforementioned time and money, we also want to be able to own it. TLW is the opposite of that, as we’ve discussed on many a fine occasion.

So, stay tuned. I promise more info is coming, along with regular updates. Some things that we’re hoping to have on the docket in the next few weeks include more lost TLW factoids, some Web Zeroes features and other cool things I can’t say just yet. In the meantime, check out GamerSushi, where we’ve got cool gaming news and podcasts.

In other machinima news, have you seen this Gears of War 3 trailer created by a variety of producers including The Duo Group, Treadster Media, Kootra and Sound Wizardry. I love it.

Discuss, gents.

A Party In Super Speed

Over the weekend, we had the super awesome series wrap party for Web Zeroes, where we had drinks and food while hanging out with fans and friends. It was a nice way to close the chapter on what was a long and grueling year for us. The highlight of the evening for me was probably when we all watched the series finale together at the close of the night, and everyone sang along to the WZ theme that ended the episode.

Releasing stuff on the Internet, we get so used to just putting a video up and moving onto the next thing. Viewer reactions are just words on a screen, so it’s just a really nice break to see people face to face who love the show and to hear their laughter while we watch in a big group. Nice to know that there have been some folks enjoying it in that way at their own homes. Or at least, that’s the hope.

Anyway, we’ve put up a time lapse video of the entire series wrap party. Check it out. Many thanks to our buddy Ryan Johnson for putting it together. Music is by Jace, of course, and it gets pretty rocking by the end. He’s the one whose face appears about halfway through, by the way.

And yes, Ahmad and Leeroy are there in the fray. Happy hunting.

Web Zeroes Finale Music

A few people have asked about some of the music in the Web Zeroes Series Finale that aired yesterday, most specifically the rocking Earth Angel theme that Jace cooked up. Because we’re such nice dudes, we thought we’d bring you guys a few gifts. Right click and save-as on the direct links to download them.

Earth Angel

Web Zeroes Theme

Techstrogen Theme

We’re seriously getting tons of great messages about the finale so far, and we really appreciate all the support we’ve seen from all of you. Enjoy the awesome music.

The Last Hurrah

Back to the FutureWell dudes, here it is: the final episode of Web Zeroes, appropriately and unimaginatively titled Series Finale. If I could have chosen a subtitle, it would fall anywhere in the range of “Earth Zeroes” to “In Which They All Became Cylons”. In a happy coincidence, the finale is a huge tribute to Back to the Future, which happened to have its 25th anniversary last weekend. Funny how these things sometimes work out completely unplanned.

In this episode, the guys put everything on the line to get their show done in time to deliver it to Revision3. There is some battling, advice from war heroes, BttF-ing, and more. I think it stands as maybe the best episode we’ve done, and among some of our best work, partly because of Jace’s killer anthem near the end of the episode. Then again, I’m a little biased.

There’s not really much else to say to you guys about the episode, other than thanks for watching it. We always knew that we would lose a lot of viewers after Leet World ended, so those of you that continue to hang out, comment, watch our show and share it with others are among some of the cooler folks on the planet. If you’re interested in reading some more of my thoughts on the end of Web Zeroes, I’ve put a few over on my blog. And if you happen to be in the Houston area, you should come say hi to us at the WZ Series Wrap Party this Saturday, where we’ll be hanging out and having fun.

For now, hit the jump to watch the final episode! Continue reading →

Ad Dudes and Announcements

Mad MenAfter a couple of weeks off to catch back up on the show, we now return with Episode 24 of Web Zeroes, Adverse Effects. In this episode, we see the guys deal with the surprise of incorporating ads into their show, and what all that means for the road ahead. Naturally, there are schemes and jokes, and things continue to progress with Alex’s co-workers as well, which will lead up to a spectacular season finale, if I do say so myself.

Many big thanks to JJ, who penned a great episode yet again. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to Miguel, who plays Scott, and did a fantastic job. Give those two guys a hand, as well as Jace, who always kills it each week on the musical front. These people are like ninjas at their crafts, so it’s cool that I know ninjas, I think.

And now for some news…

The season 2 finale (Episode 25) will also be the finale of the show itself. Next week will mark the end of Web Zeroes. We’ve known that’s how it was going to be for a month or so now, but couldn’t really talk about it until the release of this episode. I wish we could have told you guys sooner, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. I think it’s important to note that ending the show is our decision, mostly because it has just been too exhausting to do the show as a part time job in addition to our day jobs. We’re thankful to Revision3 for the opportunity to broadcast this show to a much bigger audience than we had before, and for allowing us the privilege of being their first scripted series.
Continue reading →

Heads Up Displays

As I said last week, there will be no new episodes of Web Zeroes this week or next week. We’re trying to get everything together so we can release the last two episodes of the season back to back. This thing has truly been a grind this season, and… ah, screw it, just blame Nick’s beard. That’s usually what I do in situations like this, and I’ve found it works for me.

However, in the absence of a good and proper new Web Zeroes episode, I’ll be releasing another post concerning some more Lost TLW Factoids, including the whole deal with Ahmad’s chip as well as some other lesser known gems. I think any Leet World fans out there will want to come take a look at it for sure.

Last week, I posted a cool fan video that re-created The Office intro with Web Zeroes clips. This week, I bring another similar treat in the form of the Law and Order intro re-made with Web Zeroes. This was a big hit with us during filming over the weekend, and we stopped shooting just to watch it once we saw that it was out. Much thanks. Stuff like this that you fans do is such a treat for us. The idea that anyone would spend time paying tribute to something I work on still baffles me.

In other news, this is E3 week, and we are covering it over on GamerSushi, so you should check it out. Nick has been tweeting the press conferences from the GamerSushi account, and it’s an absolute riot. In addition, we’ve recapped the Microsoft press conference, as well as the Sony and Nintendo conferences. The Sony one includes some Portal 2 information. Head on over to the site and join the community, it’s a great place.

What are you guys looking forward to from E3? Left4Dead 3? Lol j/k.