A 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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Production on Season 2, Episode 8 is rolling along pretty smoothly. It’s always funny when we do a big monster episode like Tempest and then things settle down a bit, making the episode much easier to film. The episode itself is going to be a shorter one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not chock full of goodness.

Sometime in the next few days you should expect some outtakes from Episodes 5-7. They will contain a couple of rofls, I hope. While we have gotten better about recording our stuff without many goof-ups, it’s three episodes worth of content, so it should balance out.

Also, here are some screenshots from Episode 8 for you to chew on.

Enjoy!

Making a series like TLW takes a crap-ton of time. So whenever we get a reprieve from the insanity of this absurd Counter-Strike: Source machinima, we tend to live it up. I’ve been playing a stupid amount of video games, particularly Halo Wars, Resident Evil 5, and some Killzone 2 for good measure. We even started up a game of D&D with some friends, which I’ve never done before. Nick is a Dwarven Paladin named John Smotetrain, Daniel is an Avenger named Cortez Cardinal, and I’m a Wizard named Tom Shanks. We are questers of the most badass sort.

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!

So it looks like the next few weeks of my life will be absorbed by either Hammer or Faceposer. No, I can’t tell you why. But here’s a hint: it’s for TLW. In case you missed the update, Episodes 6 and 7 are going to mark the halfway point for Season 2. Stuff is about to go down. For real.

Anywho, we’ve got a new TLW based short coming out this weekend, and Episode 6 will be dropping sometime next week. Get excited. There are a lot of fun elements in every aspect of production for the next two episodes, ranging from sound design to color correcting and Hammer work. I’m just pumped about how the end products are going to turn out.

There’s a chance many of you have already seen Cortez’s cameo in Source Wars, made by Xanatos and crew, but if you haven’t, you should give it a watch. Xanatos did this with our permission, and he’s a bud of ours, so I was happy to lend my voice. It’s pretty goofy, but definitely good for some laughs.

Here is Episode 5 of Season 2 of The Leet World, Return to Sender. In this episode, a surprise awaits the contestants as the Producer continues to influence the course of the season. And we finally get a glimpse of what the Terrorists have been hiding…

Remember, check out the TLW premiere page for a higher-res version of the episode. If it’s not showing the new ep, just refresh or clear your browser cache. See the episode after the jump!

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As promised, here is Season Two, Episode Four of The Leet World, Fight Nubs, ready for your hungry watching eyes. In this episode, we see the ramifications of a certain cast member’s actions, in more ways than one. It’s definitely got some lol-worthy moments, so I hope you guys enjoy it.

Be sure to visit the Season 2 premiere page to see a higher-res version of the episode. I’m a big fan of the page, and still love Nick to this day for making it. It helps Season 2 episodes feel more like an event, in my mind, which is exactly what we like. Click here to watch it.

Or if you just want to watch it the normal way, the video is waiting for you after the jump.
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The holidays are almost over, and I am saddened that I will lose much gaming time. Been playing Prince of Persia, Fable II, The Force Unleashed, etc. But alas, the real world beckons yet again.

A bit ago, I mentioned the Streamys, which are still accepting votes/nominations. Feel free to submit Web Zeroes for the comedic categories, if you feel inclined to do so. Also, Hawty McBloggy is running a contest called the “Best of Halo Awards” for notable Halo machinima from the past year, and Bag Boy has been nominated! There are some other greats on the list as well, so browse, watch and vote to your liking.

I think it’s about time you saw the first glimpse of Episode 3 of Season 2 of The Leet World. In true Counter-Strike:Source fashion, our dudes are battling it out in Inferno. We worked hard this weekend filming, and I’m excited about the results. Here are some screenies:

Enjoy.

We appreciate all of the comments on the Season 2 teaser/Halloween message/release announcement thing we put out. Glad you guys are enjoying the ride leading up to the second season. Trust me, we are too. We’ve had some bumps, but now everything is running smoothly. Much thanks to Lord Ned for the assistance with some of my Hammer frustrations.

And while I’m thinking about it, I have some screenshots from Episode 1 of Season 2. Enjoy!

I know that some of you are having problems logging in. That comes from some pretty hardcore caching we’ve got set up on the site- all you need to do is just refresh the page (try it more than once if you need to) and it should help.

There’s a cool new post up on GamerSushi, titled “5 Features That More Shooters Need”. Thought you guys would like it since I mention some Counter-Strike in there.

Also, the dudes over at The Duo Group have just put out a new Gears of War machinima, as well as the guys over at LitFuseFilms. It seemed appropriate to mention these in honor of the hallowed Gears of War 2, which I will be beating like it stole something later this week.

Last night, we filmed the first scene of Season 2 of The Leet World. Pretty wild. Of course, we would have gotten more done, except we were having all kinds of technical issues with the capture card and with the camera computer. But hey, I guess that means it’s business as normal, eh? Wouldn’t be TLW if there wasn’t a bunch of complications. Now that the dust is all cleared out, we should be off to the machinimaking races.

I can’t wait to show you guys some proper screenshots, and you should start getting some of those next week, once we have some things we can really display. For now though, I have brought some teasers…

Looks like somebody’s got a bit of an upgrade…

Have fun with that. Also, I just put up an article at GamerSushi titled “Are we Really Ready for the Next Gen?”. You guys should check it out, and I would appreciate it if you could Digg it, too, for those of you who enjoy it. I’d heart you forever. Or at least for today.

It’s an update.

Now that the Season Finale has come and gone, I must say we’re pretty pleased with the results. Much thanks to you guys for all the thoughtful comments/ encouragement/ criticism that you left, it was definitely really cool for us to read. It’s nice to be on break for a couple of weeks, but that doesn’t mean the content is going to stop. On the burner right now:

• Season Finale Outtakes

These should be up by the end of the week. I’m going to get cranking on the 50 or so audio files (that’s right, 50) that make up parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Finale. There’s a lot of good stuff in there.

• Episode Commentaries

Starting next week we’ll be adding episode commentaries by Nick, Daniel and myself. We’ll be doing this every week until we’re finished. There’s a chance you might get one or two eps worth of commentary per week, but I’m not making any promises.

• Podcast

We really wanted to have one of these ready when the season ended, but Daniel’s absence kept that from happening until now. He gets back in tomorrow. Much celebration will ensue.

There are other assorted surprises that you guys will see soon enough, so don’t go anywhere.