Captain's Blog 30.12.2009

In what will probably be my last blog of 2009, as I type this, Episode Seven is slowly rendering itself in the background.  A year of seven scripts, seven episodes, multitudes of exceptionally talented people, some wonderful friends made, some great movies I've been privileged to be a small part of, and a fantastic time had in the process!

I'm hoping to get Episode Seven premiered (hopefully on New Year's Day) on TMUTheatre (if I can get it rendered and uploaded in time!), so watch this space for an update!

There have been so many fantastic folk who have leant their talent to the production of Season One of Odyssey this past year, that I wanted to reiterate my profound thanks to them all.  So, without any further ado… (takes huge breath…)

Episode One
Chris62, JohnnyEx, K4 and Ken

Episode Two
Allpoint, Dulci, Biggstrek and Uber

Episode Three
Acemaster, Bella, Roger, Nahton, Norrie and WX_IVAN

Episode Four
Act3Scene24 and Kwistufa

Episode Five
Dulci (again), K4 (again), The Artist Formerly Known As Tfoster (;)) and WX_IVAN (again)

Episode Six
Afterthought, Anim8tor Cathy, Chris62 (again), Bella (again), BlazeLee Dragon, Jase180, JetCity Woman, JohnnyEx (again), Ken (again) and Mustachio26

Episode Seven
Bella (again), BlazeLee Dragon (again), Jase180 (again), Nahton (again) and Uber (again).

And, of course, super kudos to my delightful regular cast: -

Goofparade, Sisch, JosephKW, Kwistufa, thebiz, Lanna and Marine101; thank you for your hard work and dedication to the ideal!

Modding as always provided by a plethora of talented people, including (but not limited to): -

Alshten, Biggstrek, Budbundysmullet, BusStopWilly, Dr House, Evolchild, Fraas Movies, Frenhofer, Gunsnroses562, Guppi, Jabhabsoul, Jess Franco, Kwistufa (…again!), MikeDeBoing, Malak,  Rik Vargard, Rileyman (especially for the mod utilities, without which I would have screamed and jumped off something high a long time ago), Rysto, Sexymaria, Skelch, Stvndysn, Tarison, The Punisher and last (but my no means least) Mr Ubernewbie himself.

Without these guys desire to expand the limitations of Lionhead’s engine and provide quality mods for the community, Odyssey would not have been possible.


Special thanks go to (in no particular order)  Kwistufa, Norrie, Dulci, Uber, Allpoint, Animatechnica, Warlord, Wolf, Chris62, JohnnyEx, Sisch and the ubiquitous K4 (Who's Your Daddy?!?) and (of course) Ken and Roger, for their offerings of roles, putting up with me whittering on for hours on end and just plain comradeship in the last 12 months; thanks, guys!

And last, but by no means least, thanks to everyone who has watched Odyssey this year; I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as I enjoyed writing and making it!

Thank you all, and see you all next year for Season Two!

Captain's Blog 12.12.09

Teaser One for Episode Seven; not brilliant but something to be going on with!

Been so busy with work and other stuff I've hardly got a chance to scratch me own bum right now machinima wise, but hoping to actually get some time over the festive season to kick back and check out some stuff at last!

Catch you all soon, peoples!

Captain's Blog 14.11.09

I shall be strutting my funky stuff on this week's Roger and Ken Show, discussing Episode Six and associated stuff, so please feel free to drop by and listen in, good people!

Captain's Blog 01.11.09

Episode Six -  Secrets and Shadows

Yes, it's out at last; the penultimate episode of Season One is released.  A Leyland focussed arc episode, this is the first of a "not quite but pretty much" trilogy of episodes, taking us into the second season and setting things up for the ongoing season.

File download link is here.  Enjoy!  There are some audio glitches (the volume levels go out of whack in a coupla places, which is very annoying as I adjusted them all individually before I exported the complete movie... I think it's time to bin my patched-up sound card and invest in a new one finally ;))

One more to go... hopefully, I'll have this out by the end of the year.  Then, into scripting Blackstar and playing with iClone 4 (potentially for Season Two... if I can transpose all the required costumes and props across and make a set of characters that look like the principals!).

UPDATE: Oh my lord; dunno how it happened, but Episode Six has clocked up 171 views in a little less than 48 hours! 

Captain's Blog 19.10.09

Well, I took the plunge and shelled out for iClone 4 today.  Now all I need to do is learn how to use it ;)

I have been holding off on changing engines for a while until I was sure what I wanted to do could be done, and I think iClone 4 is as close as it can get right now to the potential for what I need for the future.

Episode Six principle shooting is now complete; I just need the last lot of VOs and I can start putting it together.  Episode Seven will follow on it's heels (already completed the precredits shooting for that), then Blackstar goes into full swing... then a few weeks back on the keyboard, frantically banging out Season Two... in between learning how to use my new toy, of course! :)

Captain's Blog 14.10.09

Back to the grind then, now :)

And for some reason, I've been invited on The Weekly Look this Saturday on TMOA, to talk to my chums Chris and Norrie about script writing... they must be desperate for a last minute guest this week ;)

Captain's Blog 12.10.09

The Day After The Night Before...

And so it ends.  The First Ollies Show... what a night!

Hopefully everyone had fun; we had a few shocks, some expectations and a great time was had by all, I hope!

Needless to say, not everything went according to plan.  The Old Git (Mr K4 himself) bust his arm in two places on Saturday and was in a great deal of pain, yet (consumate professional that he is, bless his little cottons) he continued with a 4 hour stint on the show, in a fantastic MC performance that was worthy of an Ollie all by itself!  Well, maybe a few of the jokes could have done with the dust being blown off them BEFORE he wheeled them out, but still... ;)

Huge thanks to everyone who supported the awards, helped out with guest announcing (oodles of people; far too many to thank individually, but heartfelt gratitude to you all), musically (thanks Norrie, you Scots git!  Note the absence of the usual "miserable" there, as he made a gigantic effort to actually enjoy himself last night... though most of that was a drive to get MGM to snort on air, I feel...), organisationally (thanks Ken and Tom!), spiritually (especially that bottle of Glenfiddich that kept me sane throughout the show...)

Great turn out; chat was packed to the gills.  And some VERY close calls in the final round (a lot closer than some people might think, I reckon...).

All in all, I think everyone involved enjoyed themselves; we learned some lessons for next time, but overall everything went smoothly enough.

We'll be jigging the format a little for next time, and hopefully having a harder time when it comes to nominating and voting next time round!

Captain's Blog 11.10.09

THE FIRST ANNUAL TMUNDERGROUND  OLLIES AWARDS

From approximately 9:40 am Eastern (3:40 in the UK, 4:40 in Europe) we'll be streaming music from movie soundtracks - mostly from familiar movies - guess them all, win a prize! (not really)

At 1 pm Eastern, 6 pm in the UK, 7 pm in Europe, 4 am in Melbourne Australia, and 1 am in Perth, Australia, Norrie and The MGMKid will present the Ollie Award Red Carpet Show.

At 2 pm Eastern, 7 pm in the UK, 8 pm in Europe, 5 am in Melbourne, and 2 am in Perth, the Ollie Awards Broadcast will begin.

To listen, go to the TMOA website and select one of the streaming options or the flash player. Or, you can go to the TMOA Radio page at the all-new TMUTheater, and use the built-in player there.

Also plan to visit the TMOA chatroom (also available at the TMOA Radio page at the TMUTheater), where the official Ollie Party is being held - join nominees, presenters, and filmmakers from across the community while they enjoy the show. Your chatroom hosts will be the lovely JudyAnn88, with today's special assistant, Roger.

It should be a show to remember!


(Due to work commitments, I might not be around until later on in the show but will endeavour to get back ASAP to join in the festivities!  There are, however, some top-drawer film makers and community members who are going to be giving out the awards for each category and, hopefully, we should be able to get some interesting acceptance speeches on the night ;))


Have a great night, all.  And, while unfortunately there can be only one winner for each category, every one of the movies or individuals nominated are fully deserved of the votes they got; rock on, TMU! :)

I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have contributed in whatever small (or sometimes humongous!) ways to the initial endeavour; all this was done in little over two months, with the lion's share of the donkey work going to Tom and K4 in the last coupla weeks especially, for their organisational skills, MikeDeBoing and Guppi for their stirling mod work in creating the awards themselves (3 seperate engine mods, no easy feat, that...); Norrie for his hosting and musical abilities, and (of course) Roger and Ken for providing such a platform to entertain the machinima masses from :)

And, last but absolutely not least, every member of TMU who has contributed to the site and movies in the last twelve months... withotu you guys, there would be no need for the Ollies.

Now, let's go put on a show!

Captain's Blog 08.10.09

It's coming....

Yes, the premiere awards ceremony of the year is approaching; the First Annual TMU Ollie Awards will be hitting an internet stream near you this coming Sunday (11 October).

This weekend, Roger and Ken will be playing host to the awarding of these prestigious awards to those film makers, directors, voice artists, modders, writers, composers, etc, etc, that have sufficiently impressed the filmic collective at TMUnderground in the last year, that they went ahead and nominated them for an award!

So, this weekend, tune into the Roger and Ken Show for 5 hours of celebration of some of the best machinima work in the last 12 months!

Be there, or be a small right-angled, 2 dimensional cuboid!

Captain's Blog 05.10.09

Chatnoir's "Death in Venice"

I can't say enough good things about this; suffice it to say it's a masterpiece of machinima by two people who (should) need no introduction.

I can't do it justice in any amount of words (in my opinion, to do so would belittle it); you MUST watch this movie.  It's simply exquisite; nuff said.

Captain's Blog 22.09.09

Jesus...

What with work, real-life, The Ollies, slipping back into online gaming a little (D&D Online, now free, so have dabbled in that a little.  Don't think it'll hold any concerted interest for me long-term, but the missus does like to dip her toe in the water from time to time...), I seem to have had little time to do much of anything...

Except, of course, beavering away on Episode Six, penultimate episode of Season One!

Managed to sit down this weekend and actually get some shooting done; the first four scenes, in fact, and part of the sixth.  So it's coming along quite nicely, really.

Episode Seven will be the biggy, and am already swirling ideas around for the big changes coming in Season Two... can't say much at the moment, but it should ratchet things up nicely, tension wise! :)

Actually got some time (following the lurgy attack) to sit down and run off some lines that had been outstanding for a coupla friends, so with some luck and a following wind, I'll be back to where I should have been by this weekend.


Well, back to the grind... fare thee well, phantom reader!  Til next time...