And do I see a little Crazy Talk in there too?

Does the brilliance of Olibith know any bounds?

Interestingly enough, in this Darwinian new future, there will absolutely be a premium for good films on tv, pay per view, on-demand, internet–or whatever that large pipe that goes to all of our houses will be called.

Why do I know this? Because one of the big research companies conducted a study recently which gave viewers on-demand everything. No more schedules. No more appointment television. Just tune in anything–any movie, any TV show–at any time. And guess what: the best stuff won out. Hands down.

In a nutshell, the audience is sick & tired of the atrocious but all too familiar version of television on a schedule: 500 channels to choose from, and nothing to watch.

Some of this is purely a function of demography. There actually is a growing audience for quality.

- Mark Gill, via indieWIRE (emphasis mine)

If you didn’t catch the conference speech by Mark Gill (former President of Miramax Films) over on indieWIRE when it was put online back in June, you really really need to read this.

If you desire a future in filmmaking, in fairness I must warn you: his remarks will likely scare the crap out of you. But stick with it and see where he takes it… it is so worth the journey!

On September 9th, the National Geographic cable channel will be premiering a documentary called “How To Build a Better Being,” a companion piece to the release of Will Wright’s Spore game. If they interview Wright at all, it’ll be worth the investment of time to watch it, he’s a bonafide wiz.

The show looks very interesting, and is some nice credible mainstream exposure for a computer game that has machinima in its very genes. It will be interesting to see if and how they sidestep the whole phallus-creature phenomenon to avoid that TV-MA rating.

Okay, so this is basically shameless crowd-sourcing. But when you don’t know what to do, you don’t know what to do. Maybe someone out there has a good idea…

Quick note regarding Overcast: Due to some personal issues this week out of my control, and mounting pre-festival work commitments, I’ve decided to just let last week’s absence of episode serve as a day off for the show, and we’ll resume regular schedule next Friday. On Sept. 5, Ricky’s SIGGRAPH show will debut, along with a special announcement regarding things to come. Two weeks after that, Ricky and I are looking to give Antics v4 a thorough exam.

Have a great weekend!

This Sunday the 31st of August at 11 AM Second Life Time (I put 10:59 AM in some places its posted, just to avoid anyone in any time zone ever having to deal with 12 AM/PM Midnight/Noon confusion), we will be having our monthly get-together of machinima filmmakers and enthusiasts at Frank & Michelle’s place in Second Life. We’re doing to do something just a little out of the ordinary this time, and that is we’re going to kick off the meeting with a presentation on a specific topic.

I plan to spend a few minutes presenting some information related to preparing your film for screening at the Machinima Film Festival in New York if you’re selected there. The information might be of general usefulness too. The MFF is one of many festivals which ask that you submit films in the DVD-friendly NTSC 720×480 format. But what if your film is 640×480, 800×450, or some other size? How do you make this conversion smoothly and professionally? I’ll use Sony Vegas as my example platform, but the principles will apply to virtually any video editing software you might use.

After this brief discussion, we’ll launch into talking about whatever else is on the attendees’ minds. What is talked about is always fairly diverse, but no doubt one of the big topics for this month and the next few months will be the festival season which is now officially upon us. Who’s going, to which and how, and so on. And also, who is entering films in which, and all those issues that arise when trying to meet submission requirements.

Hope to see you there on Sunday!

Whether you’re of an Anymation philosophy or not, sometimes a special effect you’re looking to pull off is best served by compositing rather than by trying to accomplish it within your engine. And there is no better nor more affordable source for this chroma-ready effects footage than Detonation Films. Whether your needs be violent (blood, explosions, carnage, etc.) or non-violent (rain, snow, etc.), you’ll find some amazing footage here, all primed and composite-ready.

They give away a significant number of items for free, and even their HD resolution stuff is reasonably priced compared to larger commercial stock footage outlets. These guys’ target audience is definitely the indie filmmaker, but the quality is superb and professional.

It’s one of those finds that I almost hesitate to share before I’ve had opportunity to wow someone with it in my own films… but it’s just too good to keep quiet.

Check out their email list, which keeps you posted on all new releases and also entitles you to some freebies you can’t get anywhere else.