District 9

In case I haven't mentioned it...District 9 was awesome. Can't say enough good things about it.

Saw the Avatar in theater 3D teaser....it didn't rock my socks off. I hope the humans kill them all.

j

Remote

I've been down in Tulsa, OK on an emergency project this past week, doing 16 hours a day for pretty much 7 days straight. It's taken me back to the days at Interactive8 when we would occasionally have stretches of hell like this. I suppose we have them at _Echelon as well, but those are more "fun" ^_^;

This week I reunited with my old adversary, Howard Coale. I use the word adversary in a loving way. Howard and I worked together at Interactive8 when I was 22 and he was around my age(36). It's amazing how time changes perspective on how we approach projects and creative, but more on that some other day.

We got a lot of stuff done but we used to push each others buttons...will sledgehammers. Ultimately we learned to work together and made a hell of a team...so much so that when an opportunity presented itself that seemed to be "impossible" he was on my list of 3 people to call.

Working like this, while not healthy or even productive long term, does have a weird effect on team. I guess nothing brings people together like an impossible situation. Well...if you have the right people it does. It's strange how no matter how far I go, I always go back to Interactive8 as one of the best jobs I ever had in terms of the people/team. We had that magic chemistry that one team in a hundred has. At _Echelon we've been very careful about how we grow the team. In fact it's barely grown at all. We have 2-3 guys we go to for consulting when there's cash in the bank but for the most part we still go it alone. Slow and steady. Not rushing to market.

Be it gaming, creative, music or whatever, it always comes down to the right bunch of people being at the wheel.

Speaking of the right people, when I get back we should begin production on the BPRE graphic novel. The screenplay is in the can and I am meeting with the Josh Taylor, the artist, next week to kick off the project. We'll do a read,rough out the book and then identify all the images I need to capture for the appendix of the book. There's so much detail in the script we decided it would be best to make an artist's reference appendix to the script that showed images of everything I wanted in the finished book.

This is going to be my first published full length graphic novel and I have to confess...I am pretty excited.

When the 2nd Hayaino Daisuki EP is released(looking like October on vinyl and January 2010 on disc), a Scratch Trigger Era (you remember STE right?!) mini comic will also drop that was written by Mark Gilson and myself, though I will say the lion's share of the credit goes to Mark on this one.

In GridLink news, Takafumi busted out 2 finished GridLink tracks this week. They are hell on wheels to write to. Crazy parts that go all over the damn place. I have no idea what Fajardo is going to do with them.

I also cashed in some of the Amazon mp3 credits I received for buying a 360 Arcade this week and picked up the first 2 1349 records, which I had never heard in entirety. They definitely helped me drive through this project and combat the alien world that is Tulsa, OK (more on that someday >o<). These 1349 records are pretty insane. I picked up "Hellfire" a few years ago and there were a few tracks that had some cool hooks but, it never stuck with me. There's definitely things on these records that are far more sticky. I need time to digest though...

Home again, home again. Good evening JF!

Just got back from Fayetteville, NC. We shot about 15 gigs of photos for use in our upcoming Facebook game. We're getting closer and closer everyday to some sort of release. It's quite exciting after so many years to get even 1 of these games out the door.

We also had a few script meetings on the BPRE graphic novel. I need to add a crawl to the beginning as well as a few points of dialog. I wanted to just drop the audience into the story in progress and explain on the go. I think it gave the story a very immediate feel, but it also disoriented the hell out of half the people who read it LOL

I also made a decision to rewrite one of the major action pieces as well. It was too big...and just felt wrong for the the story. I am hoping to be ready with revisions by the time our artist arrives in September.

I've been trying to squeeze in all the new Comicon stuff since I returned. Last week was a non-stop run through hell featuring daily temperatures of 100-110F with 90-100% humidity, intermittent rain and block after block of chain stores and churches, which are admittedly a chain store of a less interesting variety. As a side effect of living my dreams, I missed all the live Comicon covergae and have to play catch up.

Despite following a bland and mediocre first title with an even worse graphic novel, I must confess I am a bit curious in the new Army of Two games. Not enough to place a pre-order mind you, but interested enough to tune in. I think the allure is pretty obvious. Similar subject matter...radically different approach to what we are doing. The first one was boring and tedious. I still am not sure why I bothered to finish it. The story, acting and level design was all fairly generic, with the conclusion being face punchingly textbook. It was like Lethal Weapon 3 bad...

On the other hand, Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer videos are starting to surface. I can't say I'm really jumping up and down with excitement, but they've got my $ anyway LOL

I also canceled my preorder for the US edition of Bayonetta and ordered the Japanese version from ncsx.com (since the jp version is out in October versus January). Also pre-ordered Lost Planet 2 and Halo ODST. Now that 360's with the Jasper motherboard are arriving in stores, I can finally get one without worrying about another RROD.

I also just finished Red Faction Guerrilla...It put me in the mood to play Black again. Which I promptly did last night ^_^ If you are interested in my copy of RFG let me know - $40 shipped baby. If not I will be parting with it shortly via ebay.

Just starting the new book by Charles Stross, to be followed shortly with The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century and Death's Head: Day of the Damned.

Have a better one ^_^

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

I am going to go against the grain of pretty much every review I have read with this...

TROF fucking owns. It's not Reign in Blood, but it could definitely be Seasons of the Abyss. My experience with the film went something like this.

At 2 PM the lights went down. Roll Harry Potter trailer...doesn't look bad, but *yawn* magic/wizards is not my deal. Then blam, straight into TROF. The film is basically structured like a video game. Short objectives and plot elements are dropped in between scene after scene of robots annihilating factories, houses, cities, aircraft carriers, you name it. There's a lot more of the robots and the humans are way more tolerable because..well there's more of the robots.

I've read many times this movie has no story. I think it has a solid, if a bit simplistic, story that moves at a breakneck pace. There's a few continuity errors, but nothing that seriously breaks/detracts from the experience of 50 foot robots raging full spectrum warfare.

Probably the best testament to the pacing was that when the lights came up, the only indication that 2.5 hours was that I had to take a leak. Bad. I wasn't alone either. The line for the toilets was well into the concession area ^o^

So yes, it's not written as well as it could be, but seriously...are there any well written scifi movie epics other than Alien/Aliens/Alien3?

Invincible Gate Mind of the Infernal Fire Hell

Is at the printers. This record took about a year to write, 4 days to record and mix and over 6 months to get the artwork complete. It will be out late July/August 09 on vinyl, followed by a CD release 2-3 months later.

Since I get a fair amount of inquiry about working on projects I wanted to go through the general creative and production process for creative/design projects I work on.

First, get the music done, to the point where I am fairly comfortable there won't be any major changes to the lyrics or music. Often this is the day after tracks have been committed to a master. After 10+ years of this stuff, a very specific pattern has emerged on everything I've been involved with. Changes are made right up until material is committed to tape. This has led to everything from lyric sheets with completely inaccurate lyrics to designs that had to be rebuilt from the ground up because there was suddenly a need to fit twice as much information in the same space.

Next, begins the discovery process. This can take anywhere from a few weeks to a year in the most extreme cases (especially when large projects are on the table and multiple concepts are developed and taken to a point that can be evaluated beyond some sketches or ascii). This latest HD project had a very short incubation time. I saw the works of the photographer Chen Zhun and was inspired.

Then comes the budget. My ideas often far out strip the budgets attached to projects. With about $250 left to spend on the art, I made the personal decision to start liquidating collectibles if I even wanted to approach the vision I had in my mind. At the end of the day, we still didn't have enough $ or time to create my "true vision" of the project, so I scaled and worked with materials available to get as close as possible. It turned out pretty good I think ^_^;

At the end of the day, we spent over $1500 on the production of this specific piece including photography by Mr Scott Kinkade, wardrobe by Michelle Bowlin of Assassins Boutique, modeling by Hannah Craft of Rabbit Hole Bakeshop and finally the cosmetic works of Jenny Kline aka facemakerj. Each one of these people played an integral part in making the art come together and look the way it does. Note: that figure above doesn't include the original Scratch Trigger Era comic that comes with the record! Featuring the writing of Mark Gilson + Jon Chang with the artistic talents of Mr Stan Sakai we are finally releasing a prologue story to STE! And yes, it's that Stan Sakai! When it comes to making the stuff shine, I don't half ass anything ^_^

However, none of that $1500 includes the time I spent in post working the art to its finished state. I spent about 2 man weeks to produce 3 different layouts before I picked my winner. I've found that this horrific burn rate of man power and time is what it takes to bring something in at a quality level I consider professional.

Projects with a decent budget get decent creative. Projects with proper budgets, come out looking amazing. Projects with low budgets, I/we simply pass on. If it's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing.

Have a better one!

Odds and ends

There's a bunch of things to gab about today.

To start with, what's on my mind this morning is the new James Cameron film Avatar. Theoretically still 6 months away, I'm starting to get the fever. Despite there being a host of other movies between now and then I am interested in, Avatar is the only one I think will both look great and have a great story (Star Trek surprised the hell out of me but more on that later).

Several pieces of concept art recently surfaced on the net. I found them via AICN but I'll send you to the source here:

http://marketsaw.blogspot.com/2009/05/want-to-see-what-whole-power-suit-might.html

I pretty much exploded the second I saw The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventurewas available for pre-order.

I haven't seen a trailer, a teaser or really much more than the previously linked pieces and yet, I am hopped up like I just pounded 4 Monster Khaos in a row. It's strange to believe after so many disappointments that I can still get hyped up about products/films/games, but there you go. 35 and I still have faith despite my general despair for the future.

Me and Michelle have spent a considerable amount of time trying to find a new school for my step kid, Mercedes aka Chebes aka Cheese Band. The more I learn about education, the less I am impressed with public schools. It's not really their fault mind you, but there's just not enough money to go around and what is one to do? Go the route of the EU and have much higher taxes to provide far better schools or simply privatize schooling entirely...The method that seems to be the most locked on is called "montessori". Google it if you're interested. I'm sure it's not a silver bullet for everyone but I like a lot of what they are about.

I'm reading Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Centuryright now. It's pretty engaging, especially after just finishing "Twisted Metal" by Tony Ballentine (which was fun but not something I ever need to read again. I'll probably pick up the sequels though ^o^). Wired For War is a pretty interesting look at robotics/drones in culture and warfare today and has some very interesting speculation about the future of the industry.

I've been working on client projects and the BPRE graphic novel(and by extension the Facebook game) screenplay this whole week. BPRE as a non-FPS title was really hard for me to swallow at first, but it's becoming clear that this route will allow us to really show off some of the research and story telling we wanted to do, but couldn't afford to create in a 3D experience.

Everyday requires me to embrace change as an artist and as a leader of creative organization. To our credit we've been pretty resilient at this. I am generally resistant to change, but I come around more often than not.

Have a better one :)

The past week I've been working on a vertical slice of our Facebook game. My job is to write the narrative that drives the player from area to area, to identify or invent all the tools(ie weapons, fieldware, armor, clothes) that the player will utilize during their adventure and create a "shot list" for the game, ie shots we want/need to capture to convey what is going on to the user. It's an interesting excercise in that it quickly tells you what you can/cannot do, ie if a sequence is too ambitious to represent, cut it and come up with something else!

We're going to be doing 2 photoshoots this summer. One in the US with some of the people at BDSCI (don't bother looking it up, they don't have a website) and then another overseas, most likely in Dubai to collect location shots. After the game is up and running we've discussed releasing a coffee table book with all the photos from the first "chapter" in high res for people to enjoy outside of the game. As you can imagine, our stuff is going to look a bit different than some of the other games that are out there.

We also settled on an artist to begin work on the BPRE graphic novel. We had a call this week and the artist will begin work on a style sheet shortly. We're still not 100% if the book will be color or B+W. I like both and I think either could work. I'm desperately trying to get the screenplay wrapped but it isn't easy with all the client work we've been running. I have a ton of notes laying out some scenes that had needed more...tissue.It's pretty insane how far the story has come since we switched our locations from Mars to Earth.

Been reading up all the books I can by David Ignatius. Started with Agents of Innocenceand then read Body of Lies: A Novel (Movie Tie-In). Agents is definitely the better read...maybe because when reading Body of Lies I had a pretty good idea of what was in the coming pages. Just ordered his new one, The Increment: A Novel, just shipped. I'm hoping it's killer ^_^;

I used to read nothing but scifi. Now, I feel like good sf is few and far. One trend I've become increasingly aware of is a sf author will get a great start. Fast paced adrenalin rush or super complex intrigue story...250-350 pages...Boom and we're out. By book 3 they are pushing 600 pages and much of it is not the gripping/ass kickery I originally signed on for. I suppose one cannot do the same thing forever but...I ordered Twisted Metal by Tony Ballentine a few weeks ago after Neal Asher raved about it in his blog, theSkinner. It's scheduled to ship any day now...sigh.