Ira Glass on Story-Telling, part 1

Ira Glass is the producer and host of This American Life (official site), which is both a weekly radio show (on Chicago Public Radio) and a television series (on Showtime).

Modder’s Workshop - What Some Stormers Have Been Cooking Up

Moviestorm includes a Modder’s Workshop that is still in the early stages of development, but lately some Stormers have been doing amazing things with it. Check out this thread - http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/forum/posts/list/2327.page - to see some of what they’ve been cooking up, from starships to starship consoles to fish tanks to fire hydrants to entire towns and cities.

Zuckerman’s “Being John Machinima”

Once again, Zuckerman astounds. Subtly utilizing the Sci-Fi pack from Moviestorm and cleverly riffing on a classic moment in the cult fave movie “Being John Malkovich (imdb), Sam “Zuckerman” Midwood has created a brilliant promo for The Overcast.

Zuckerman Raises the Moviestorm Flag at Machinima.com for HBO/Cinemax Contest

Zuckerman has entered the HBO/Cinemax contest over at Machinima.com.

When asked about the contest and his entry he responded:

So, I decided to take my favorite MMO, City of Heroes, along with my favorite machinima-making tool, Moviestorm, and make a little spin on “This American Life” hosted by Ira Glass, a documentary series about everyday people which then became “This American Hero” hosted by Johnny Barbarian — don’t ask me about the name — a documentary series about Superheroes.

This first episode focuses on the life of an old Mexican superhero by the name of Javier Jimenez aka “Mr. Fantastico.” I had to cut it short — I cut to commercial — because I found out about the conetst a little late but the next part is being worked on and I know where it’s going and I hope it’s kind of surprising.

That’s it. Oh, and “The Radical” Ricky Grove is the voice of Javier and once you hear him I know you’ll want to have ten billion of his babies.

A Moviestorm’s a comin’.

View and vote for his entry here.

Overman Dances to Radiohead

Aniboom is running In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest in which entrants compete to produce the next Radiohead music video (budget: $10,000). Overman’s stunning entry is pretty spectacular.

Overman’s tools for this project:

• Second Life
  
• Moviestorm
• Paint Shop Pro
• CamStudio
• VirtualDub
• Sony Vegas 8.0

More details/downloads here.

Matt Kelland Chats Up Hugh Hancock

Matt Kelland, Creative Director at Moviestorm, interviewed machinima artist and author, Hugh Hancock whose Moviestorm created “When We Two Parted” was recently the featured video on the front page of YouTube.

Right-click to download MP3 file (10.4 megs)

Featured Movie/Director: Why is Everybody Picking on Me

Why is Everybody Picking on Me by carl1937

Published: 15 May, 2008
Running time: 2m26s
Description: A friend of mine got stuck in to a few cans of cider. And decided to leap around in front of a green screen. I happened to get a copy of this, and decided to put it to good use. Dangerous stuff to have lying around!!

“1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”...

… is a book by Steven Jay Schneider. Here are the covers for the 1st and 2nd editions.

Check out the list itself on the forums.

Trent Reznor Releases Latet NIN album as DRM-free Download

On May 5th, Trent Reznor, frontman for industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails posted a short message on his blog stating “This one’s on me,” and released the band’s latest album The Slip for free on their site.

The Slip is the band’s newest studio album, a followup to the four-part instrumental album Ghosts I-IV released in March, the first volume which he also released free on file sharing sites. The remaining portion was released in a variety of formats include low-cost digital downloads and inexpensive CDS, along with a higher cost deluxe edition.

He posted the album’s 10 tracks - which are available in a variety of audio formats accompanied by files containing the album’s artwork and credits - “as a thank you to our fans for your continued support.” CD and vinyl versions will go on sale in July. He also urged fans to share the album however they like:

We encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.”

Reznor has been an outspoken opponent of the traditional model for music distribution and NIN split from record label Interscope in late 2007:

I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.

As of this writing, there are 8759 Comments on the NIN blog about the download.

Created-with-Moviestorm film “When We Two Parted” Featured on YouTube

Hugh Hancock, the well-known professional machinima artist and co-author of “Machinima for Dummies” created “When We Two Parted” using Moviestorm and it’s been getting a lot of attention, including a much-coveted spot today as the featured video on YouTube.