I am proud to announce that my film Sweet Nothingness took home first prize in the Machinima category at Festival Animatu in Portugal this year!
Made with the Thinking Cactus independent animation tool, ZenCub3d, and augmented with a bit of CamStudio and Skype performance, this really is one of my favorite films I've ever created, and I am so thrilled to see it hold up well against some good competition. It's one of a series of shorts I've produced that deliberately withholds spoken dialogue, with the expressed purpose of forcing me to hone other methods of conveying emotion. I'm particularly pleased with the musical score which, in a similar spirit, was composed using only percussive instrument sounds, performed one at a time while watching the final cut. I guess even in this medium of machinima, somewhat famous for its imposed limitations, I find it inspiring to mix in some chosen limitations as well. In a weird way, it is those very limits - both forced and chosen - that somehow manage to inspire rather than restrain.
I'd like to thank my Twitter friends for their amazing outpouring of support for the Animatu win! That made my day as much as the award itself.
I'd like to thank Billy and Tony Chang of Thinking Cactus for their immense support during the making of this film, and for allowing me to be one of the first public heralds of their launch of Voovees.com. There's some other cool stuff I'm working on with them that you'll find out about soon.
By the way, the next generation of ZenCub3d is now accepting signups for a public beta, where you'll get to see the latest enhancements to ZenCub3d (no longer available as a free download) as well as get some insight into what's coming with the Voovees site. If you'd like to be a part of this test and get your hands on the software, signups are at this web page.
And here's an encore of Sweet Nothingness. If you haven't yet seen it, I do hope you enjoy it!
Sweet Nothingness from Phil Rice on Vimeo.
Comments
Well done Phil, that really was a very funny little film. :)
It's a brilliant film, Phil, well done. It blurs the distinction between machinima and animation and just stands as a darned funny little story.
Congratulations Phil. I'm not on twitter, but see my comments at:
http://machinima-studios.blogspot.com/2009/10/animatu-award-winners.html
Hope you'll visit next years festival and take some additional time to visit some parts of Portugal (at least Lisbon) as well. I really enjoyed my Animatu visit in 2007.
Bravo!
Congratulations to you! So glad for your win, Phil.
Awesome Phil! I really enjoyed watching Sweet Nothingness. Congrats on the win!
Congrats!!!! Pop over and see us in the UK while you make the trip to Europe!!!
Congratulations Phil!
Congrats, Phil! :)
Another big congratulations to you, Phil. It was not a problem at all as supporting you was easy, your ability to be able to work out all the kinks within ZenCub3d that most people just have no idea is pretty amazing, and it's an honor to work with you.
Like Phil said, if you're interested in taking part in the next generation technology of where ZenCub3d is going, sign up at:
http://voovees.com/phase2signup/
Congratulations Phil! You hit the nail on the head re: limitations. It was Orson Welles who said "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." It's something I didn't really realize until after I made that big stink a while back on your forum about Moviestorm's limitations and people pointed it out. Once again Phil, congrats!
CONGRATS PHIL!! Great news! I loved this animation!
Congratulations! The movie makes me giggle.
[...] So it was a great enjoy to get an email from our good friend Phil Rice (aka Overman), with a big ‘YAY’ telling us that he took home the top prize in the machinima category [...]
Congrats!
great job. i think the music really compliments it well.
Congrats! A well deserved win!
[...] also, our biggest thanks to our friends for blogging about us. What’s on the horizon is going to be exciting, can’t wait. [...]