M dot Strange recently made a presentation at Berlin Talent Campus 08 called “Adventures in Self Distribution.” The methods and philosophies he shares here are the framework for a New Media Manifesto, if you ask me. If you’ve been a content creator for a significant length of time, a lot of this probably won’t hit you as particularly profound, but it serves as a nice reminder of what we’ve learned about what works. If you’re new to directing, the info here is a great primer… the essential fundamentals of new media, especially as it relates to animated filmmaking.

FYI, if you don’t know who M dot Strange is, he’s the guy who made “We Are The Strange,” a home-crafted full-length animated feature which made it into Sundance last year. After getting several offers to “go Hollywood” with it, he rejected them all and chose self distribution. Ricky Grove wrote a great review of the We Are The Strange DVD over at Renderosity.

1. Moviestorm Green/Blue Screen Addon (FREE).One of the first user-made addons for Moviestorm, made by yours truly.
2. Moviestorm User Image Dimension List - What should be a handy reference for those wanting to bring custom images into Moviestorm surfaces that support them. No hacking or Mod Workshop required.
3. REVIEW: We Are The Strange on DVD by Ricky Grove at Renderosity - A great read, and superb commentary on the film’s director, who is one of my modern day heroes.
4. Perspective on the $$ Value of Machinima - Geoffrey James (Kephren), producer of the full-length machinima feature Borg War, reveals some very interesting info, and presents a thought-provoking argument that could be made for getting game companies behind machinima… if they’d listen.
5. REVIEW: The Snow Witch - Robert Jones (Stranger109) is back, this time talking about the Britannica Dreams masterpiece.
6. The Future of Motion Capture? - Beowulf has everyone talking about mocap suits and whether animators will be made obselete… (the answer is a vehement NO, but that’s probably best saved for its own post)
7. dotSUB.com - An interesting Web 2.0 approach to the challenge of translations, this is a video sharing site which allows you to basically “open source” the creation of your international subtitles. (Thanks, RonAmok)
8. Poser 7 Revealed - A fantastic set of tutorials at VFXWorld, to help one learn and make the most of Poser.

See also:

• OverByte #3
• OverByte #2
• OverByte #1