I actually stumbled across this myself and was amazed by the amount of viewers it already has attracted. Do you know if it really IS created with videogame-technology? It looks a lot like Poser to me, but i wasn't sure.

I've been digging around for particulars, am coming up dry so far. I'll see what I can find out.

It's interesting that they don't include how-to credits... kind of the ultimate expression of "it doesn't matter to the viewer", huh? Very interesting.

We use Poser and AfterEffects and a bunch of very talented artists and compositors.

Hope you keep watching,

Brent Friedman

In addition to being an interesting format/technique, the writing is *good*. (Considering the garbage coming out of commercial TV these days, yeah, I was surprised.)

Great find, Phil!

This is the most interesting work I seen for long, long time. This "patchwork" approach to movie making always gets me right on the soft spot.
Comic film noir style made in Poser and AE?
What a clever and bold combination. I am impressed.

I started watching afterworld and i think it's a great story. i can't wait to see how the story goes.

Until our Afterworld website is up an running (mid May) I'll be happy to answer any production/technical questions about the series. In answer to the credit question, a full credits listing will be available on our website, if anyone CHOOSES to view them.

Brent Friedman

I think it's an exceptionally smart move, Brent, to not weigh down a web serial with ANYTHING non-essential. The intro is brief but effective, no closing credits in the individual episodes... it is the ultimate expression of respect for your viewers' time, and shows great understanding of the kind of audience the internet brings. Having a team that is willing to save their accreditation for an optionally viewable full set of credits, well that just really speaks highly of you and all of them that you're willing to put the viewer first.

And on top of all that, it's a quality product, which is of course very important. The story is intriguing, the visuals are gorgeous and evocative, the voiceover work is top of the line. Congratulations on a great series!

May I ask Brent whether you did look into machinima technology in the pre-production and research for this series?

Just wanted to pipe in here. Im one of the artists on the show. Its really pretty cool getting to work with Brent and the other writers (hey Brent!)
Afterworld is amazing...such a wonderful, deep story. :)

As Brent mentioned we are using Poser for the characters and AfterFX for compositing. A lot of the props and most of the other 3D artwork is done using Lightwave. The pages in the journal flipping I did in Lightwave and Russ walking I did in Poser. Our Matte painters mainly use Photoshop. We also have some other apps we use for more specific things such as Vue, Paintshop Pro, PDPro etc.

In answer to Michael's question, yes machinima was a big inspiration to us from the outset. The other main influences were anime (in particular, my favorite "Serial Experiments: Lain") and the landmark French film "La Jete" (the 25 min B&W still frame version of "12 Monkeys.")

But as Larry reveals, while my co-creator Michael DeCourcey and I may have had the vision for the show, the actual visualization -- those gorgeous visuals! -- is executed by our brilliant team of artists (and their nifty bag o' tricks) without whom we'd have nothing more than a book on tape. ;)

-- Brent

I have to say that Ive worked on a lot of things over the years and this is probably the most interesting and challenging in many ways. I love talking to the writers which is something that doesnt happen often in production. Its very exciting to hear where this rich and complex story is going and provides a great deal of inspiration to all of us to produce the best artwork we can. Its very important to me and the other artists to really do this story justice. :)

AFTERWORLD IS A FUCK UP LOST LOADS OF FANS DUE TO ITS STOP MAKING FOR NO REASON AND BEING RETARDS

I love afterworld. I found it online one day and watched ALL episodes, I was up till like 3 am. Well worth it!!! I am sitting on the edge of seat waiting for episode 61 to start!! PEAce OUT!!

Just to say I looked at questions that arise from Afterworld and the other current "Poser-machinima" Haloid over here. And I can't wait to see the thing taking over Youtube. Do you guys look into any alternative publication methods?

A decision was made early on to release the first 10 episodes of Afterworld virally as part of our beta launch. The show does not actually premiere until mid-May when our website goes online - a website that will feature add'l content, interactive episodes, geo-caching contests, video mashups, forums, fan faction, branching storylines and more. Once our show premieres as a daily experience (ie: Mon-Fri), episodes will run exclusively on BudTV for the first 10 days. After 10 days, the episodes will migrate to our site - www.afterworld.tv - as well as YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo, MSN or any of the other online distributors we're in talks with presently re: "syndication." But that is just domestically, in North America and Canada. Sony Digital is distributing on all platforms - net, mobile and broadcast TV - internationally, as well as publishing a mobile sim game based on the show here and abroad. In the near future we will probably be available as a podcast on iTunes and we are also in talks with several cable nets to air the episodes in a half-hour format - our series of 130 episodes was designed to be recompiled into 13 half hours (clumping together 10 online eps, or two week blocks of eps.) Lastly, we will release the entire show on DVD with "lost" episodes and a ton of extras. So, in answer to the question, we've definitely looked into alternative publication methods. ;)

What an interesting exercise that must have been, writing a series designed to be split in two very different ways. Is that a common skill that writers for television and film are expected to have, or is it a more specialized craft? The small episode breaks feel very natural right now, I'll be interested to see how they play in the half hour sets.

Writing simultaneously for different platforms (in different formats) is definitely a new skill set... since this has really never been done before (that I'm aware of.) And believe me, the learning curve is near vertical. Just because episodes are only 3 minutes does NOT make them easy to write. In fact, writing a week of Afterworld (five episodes for us usually comprises a single dramatic arc) is harder than any TV series I've worked on, from "Dark Skies" to "Twilight Zone" to "Star Trek Enterprise." Because you have to create all the story beats, infuse it with internal logic and depth, then suck all the air and dialogue out of it - make it distilled drama. So we're definitely learning as we go and, having just written episodes 60-65, I can honestly say we're getting better each week. As is the animation. Like most series, we will go through quite an evolution in our first season. And on the visual front, we hope to incorporate some stylized "live action" backgrounds, as well as some occasional mo-cap... without losing our signature "La Jetee" feel.

Ah - I read the magic words "first season" - good sign. Generally interesting to see whether you keep the team together for a follow up project.
BTW although I also compare Afterworld to La Jetee, your camerawork is much more active and closer to some of those Japanese animation series (if you add two dozen stock animations and effects). Not that I think these are necessarily the shining light to follow, but they are a benchmark that is understood by cartoon network and adult swim.

VERY interesting stuff. Thanks. As someone who has put together a few similar business plans in my time (although nothing quite as huge as what you have planned), I'll be watching how you do closely.

BTW - your influences include "Serial Experiments: Lain"? Awesome. Definitely checking the show out now.

Micheal -- You're right about the Japanimation influence. As I mentioned, if you watch Lain we aped their technique of using photo-real backgrounds (painted in Photoshop) with animated characters foreground. The difference is we're using 3-D characters instead of 2-D characters, hence I call our animation "American Anime" (mostly because it sounds catchy.) Also, we're using hi-def stills which allows us to do some pretty amazing push-ins/pull-backs that, in conjunction with the "parallax" technique employed in most anime, allows us to really simulate the illusion of depth.

Some times ago I was wondering about name for some new breed of animation technique and I came up with "Anymation". (Btw, Overman wrote excellent text about it.)
Your wonderful movies are exactly the Anymation. Maybe this term can help you describing you work.

I have been following 'Afterworld' for some time now, and while I find it grimly fascinating (and not like 'The Quiet Earth' which was a film from New Zealand, not Australia) I also find it to be unsettling. And that's a good thing. While the graphics are a bit odd to a layman like myself, who is not a huge anime afficianado, I enjoy very much to comic-book look of it. But more than anything, I enjoy the fact that it is a text-based story which relies solely on the story-telling, not the superduper geewhiz special effects that so much of today's screen-seen fiction seems to rely upon. Given that the time constraints per episode are so unforgiving, a lot gets packed into those few minutes of experience. I'd like to see it as a movie. Like Russ, I am 'trusting the road' with this pice of story-telling, and hoping that it becomes less squirmingly family-values and becomes a bit more hard-edged.

One more thing: is there any woman in the post-Fall world who does not have unbelievably balloon-ish breasts? And will Russ' cheekbones become less chiselled? I would expect a man of his centrefold-like appearance would be rushing home to his husband, not his wife!

It's refreshing to see an animated sci-fi series like this...the conceptual design is really intriguing ...i think that's what gives the show an edge.

A friend of mine recently called it "fake-a-mation." But I like "Anymation" better...

For those interested in this sort of style of digital storytelling, check out one of their main influences, BrokenSaints.com. It's a finished series originally done in flash and the original episodes are still available online.

Broken Saints aside, I'm really excited about Afterworld. I think it's another step in the right sort of direction.

Im on Windows Vista and in the US and i can't even get the website to load. It says i need to upgrade flash. I have the latest version and i even have Macromedia Flash and all players installed, and it still does not work. Wish it did, looked interesting.

Woah man! Why come in here yelling about the show? It's not gonna help anything!

I watched the whole first season today! It's awesome! Is there any mercandise ?

Great observations, Daryl; story is definitely king in 'Afterworld.' I've watched up through episode 30 now, and am really impressed with the smooth blend of social commentary into intriguing storytelling - what science fiction is best at, actually.

Your last two comments crack me up. :)

Its a cheap rip off of this science fiction aussie classic:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3712/quietearththerl4.jpg

The quiet Earth.

Sameless plagerism of the film and the book.

I hate this show so much its king of the kill. The world end and hank @#$@34ing hill lives the people who makes this show should be arrested

Actually, it's quite different from "The Quiet Earth". The only thing they have in common is that only a few people are left on Earth. However, this is quite a common theme in speculative fiction (e.g., see Stephen King's "The Stand").

starved for info on the afterworld series visit afterworldblog.blogspot.com and get your serve

Afterworld is the best thing to happen to the internet, its like I go online with a puspose, now when are those new epsiodes airing, I have to know what happens next!!!
p.s. the graphics are INSANE, I love the art work.

A high-res version of Afterworld is available on Vuze.com!
http://www.vuze.com/channel/afterworld

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