Dead Space 2 Cinematic: Previously in Dead Space

I'm playing Dead Space 2. It's awesome. I'm loving it. Thank the Nine we can re-tool our nodes.

One cool thing they did was through a 'Previously in Dead Space' video that sums up what happened int he first game. More developers should do this! It's so simple but cool, and I got a real thrill reliving the first game.

Here's the video:


And here's some photos I took from the first game 'cause I like the lighting. NEEEEEEEEEERRRD!

Spies and White Lies

I just made a video with Xtranormal.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11420692/Spies_and_White_Lies

It's called Spies and White Lies, a little comedy that features a couple who aren't what they appear, sidetracked by a rather delicate question.

No doubt you've seen the litany of vids made with this online software, most of them featuring fuzzy rabbits and bears taking the roles of creative and client (designer and client, production manager and director, SEO agent and client), and then getting more and more frustrated with one another, until expletives pour out of their mouths like confetti. Confetti fired from a mouth cannon.

The neat thing about this software is that you can type in a script with a two or one-hand scenario, and then pick the shots, the movements and the facial expressions. It's a cheap, easy way to play around!

WATCH IT!

Tropfest 2011 Winner Animal Beatbox

Tropfest has been and gone and no doubt scores of rejected filmmakers and critical fans are grumbling on message boards, comment sections and social media. The winner is Animal Beatbox, a kind of music video for a tailor-made beatboxing score, using paper cutouts of animals gathering around a cellophane river. Watch it here:

So what's being said about the winner? Some say this is an addition to the badger badger mushroom genre of flash animation popular online. Some say so lovingly, others derisively. One comment one YouTube suggested this was a good video for the web, but as a short film didn't make the cut. That's very interesting to me.

As a writer predominantly for the web, I've found that penetrating the holy duo of film and TV is a whole different game. There's a very large divide between what writers and creators do online and what's done in the 'legitimate' creative world of those staid institutions. I think it's to the credit of Tropfest, whose judges included an institution of his own, Bruce Beresford, that a very webby video was selected as the winner. For good or ill, the sort of odd, rather narrative-less video we silly buggers make for cheap and through online has been recognised by a significant figure in the industry.

The great masses have also been pointing to the cheapness and supposed low technical and production value of the winner. Done in a garage with maybe two lights and jerky stop-motion, the film certainly isn't a series of lush lighting set ups, crane and dolly movements, incredible performances by actors with current TV roles (well...), all shot on a RED or an Arri.

Then, who says it has to be? When it comes to this, neither side is ever really happy. People who spend (their parent's) small fortune on their shorts, using DPs from AFTRS or working in the film world; who manage to make gorgeous, deeply visual films, will inevitably feel cheated when a low-budget oddball makes it through. Of course, when a slick high-budget piece wins, those with less experience cry out, "But how are we supposed to get a break in and make something like that."

The outcry might also be, "Production values don't matter if you've got a great story." Interstigly enough, Animal Beatbox doesn't really have any story. People might try and stretch out that our trip down the river is the linear progression of narrative, with the weaving animals acting as sub-plot, but I'd call those people wankers and tell them to shush. Animal Beatbox doesn't have a story. It's a music video or viral video, built on a jokey premise of using vocal and visual depictions of animals to make music and video through repetition.

Where does that sit in what we've been taught as storytellers? Should winning films have a great story? Does it say anywhere that Tropfest is about great story, or great short films? What's the difference, and what's more legitimate? A lot of filmmakers see Tropfest as a launching pad. Wilfred, the SBS series, started as a Tropfest winner. The winner this year will be flown off to meet industry big-wigs. How does Animal Beatbox show off his ability to create something bigger like a series or feature?

Animal Beatbox is a divisive choice. Should it be lauded as a brave recognition of experimental comedy in a medium much maligned by the establishment, or derided as a cheap gimmick that slights dedicated filmmakers creating story? Sound off in the comments section!

UPDATE: http://www.popsugar.com.au/Damon-Gameaus-Winning-Tropfest-Movie-Animal-Kingdom-Accused-Ripping-Off-Eustus-Comedy-Dog-Cat-Video-YouTube-14330103

Two Posts on Cystic Fibrosis

Ahoy there! I've been busy as a hack.

Here's two articles on different elements of cystic fibrosis. Feel free to share these links with CF-ers, doctors or people with peculiar interest in disease. You know who you are...

The second relates the harder effect of the common cold on CF patients, and what to expect. Also good for parents of young CF-ers.http://www.helium.com/items/2086733-is-a-cold-worse-for-people-with-cystic-fibrosis

One discusses vitamin supplements and how I find they help CF.http://www.helium.com/items/2087730-do-vitamin-supplements-help-cystic-fibrosis

Also, please visit these suckers to bump the hits and help me earn a little from freelance writing.

Flood Levy Supported By Gen Y & X

“@MissBaileyWoof: Newspoll on flood levy. Voters back Gillard tax. Support 55 Oppose 41. Strongest support among 18-34s, most against are over 50s.”

All this generational bullshit saying generation Y aren't responsible and that we're selfish and lazy...yet here we have older people deciding they'd rather not give their money to flood rebuilding. Is it because they have more money to lose? Who cares? The generational wedge is rubbish and crap. But the next person who writes an article about it can use these figures to arm themselves one way or another.

To Be A Nerd: Patton Oswalt and Nerdism

Patton Oswalt wrote a compelling and interesting article on nerdery, pop culture and subculture. It could be considered the co-theory of Pop Will Eat Itself: Nerds Will Eat Themselves, Throw It All Up and Coat the World. (The article)

I got to thinking a little bit. 'Nerd' as it was used in the eighties and, certainly for me, the nineties, wasn't just about what you liked, or to borrow Oswalt's vernacular, what you lined your thought-palace with. Being called a nerd was as much about the people who did the name calling in the first place. You can't be called something without someone calling. To be a nerd was to like something different, weird, not part of the mainstream. We liked things the cool kids weren't aware of, and that made them dislike us but it also made us special.

I don't think that defining aspect of nerdism is gone. True, nerd culture is now pop culture, but that just means a different set of likes and small joys that sit outside the mainstream are being devoured by a new, different set of neo-nerds. Maybe using the word 'nerd' to describe an outcast kid is off-base now, and we need a new word. It should be easy to find: simply go down to the nearest schoolyard and eavesdrop on the words being spat at by those outcasts.

Nerd used to be derisive, or maybe you've forgotten. I think everyone's always been a weak Otaku, they've just had different things to obsess over. From a housewife in the fifties discussing the best laundry detergent with her friends to a member of the Vienese court, waxing lyrical over Beethoven in 1795. What really made a nerd, back in my day, was that what you liked was scorned by the mainstream, but you loved it anyway.

I'm certain those signifiers still exist today. What are they, do you think? In an age where Boba Fett and comic books are cool, what isn't?

Massive Freakin' Railgun

I want one.