Kat is right here!
Here she is!!!
Friday, March 31, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
Some photo blogging...
Some phone cam pics... with explanation:
The new Espy development. Horrifying. It is the size of a football field. But there's 10 stories of it. Horrorshow. How long after the new owners/renters move in will we see the first noise complaints about the Espy? "Oh they didn't say it would be THAT loud"
GRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Mum's had her annual flood. This comes with many fun things for me:
I entered my housemate Duncan in NOVA100's Nerd (man trip) competition. I did my bit by writing the application, wording Duncan up on what to say and then driving him in.
Needless to say, once it was his time to shine he screwed it up and stayed home for the weekend.
Reporting for 3AW from the World Superbikes at Phillip Island. Some pit gals. Whatever!
Yet another WONDERFUL St Kilda Sunset.
The triathlon at St Kilda. Miss Rachel refused to leave until the last Vanuatu competitor had finished. He high-5'd all who stayed till the end. NOTE Miss Rachel's all to tight GALLIPOLI top. She claims that's all the girls could buy. No wonder it's a bit of a mess over there around ANZAC day.
The Commonwealth games are on in M-town. Here's the Yarra river lit up in the games colours a coupla nights before the event.
Triathletes in the bike leg.
St Kilda foreshore about an hour ago. No one about- bit TV screen to ourselves. Why go the plasma?
Church st Richmond on a scooter doing my scooter story. Well put eh?
Marine Pde St Kilda- peak hour tonight. The men's cycling time trial is tomorrow. They've swept the road so no cars tonight. Amazing. A lone cyclist rode past- and I cheered him on and said "GO AUSTRALIA!" He got into it and waved whilst looking like a winner...
The new Espy development. Horrifying. It is the size of a football field. But there's 10 stories of it. Horrorshow. How long after the new owners/renters move in will we see the first noise complaints about the Espy? "Oh they didn't say it would be THAT loud"
GRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Mum's had her annual flood. This comes with many fun things for me:
- Pulling up carpet
- Removing carpet
- Moving HUGE TV
- Moving all contents of cabinets
- Moving cabinets
- etc
I entered my housemate Duncan in NOVA100's Nerd (man trip) competition. I did my bit by writing the application, wording Duncan up on what to say and then driving him in.
Needless to say, once it was his time to shine he screwed it up and stayed home for the weekend.
Reporting for 3AW from the World Superbikes at Phillip Island. Some pit gals. Whatever!
Yet another WONDERFUL St Kilda Sunset.
The triathlon at St Kilda. Miss Rachel refused to leave until the last Vanuatu competitor had finished. He high-5'd all who stayed till the end. NOTE Miss Rachel's all to tight GALLIPOLI top. She claims that's all the girls could buy. No wonder it's a bit of a mess over there around ANZAC day.
The Commonwealth games are on in M-town. Here's the Yarra river lit up in the games colours a coupla nights before the event.
Triathletes in the bike leg.
St Kilda foreshore about an hour ago. No one about- bit TV screen to ourselves. Why go the plasma?
Church st Richmond on a scooter doing my scooter story. Well put eh?
Marine Pde St Kilda- peak hour tonight. The men's cycling time trial is tomorrow. They've swept the road so no cars tonight. Amazing. A lone cyclist rode past- and I cheered him on and said "GO AUSTRALIA!" He got into it and waved whilst looking like a winner...
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Hey ho, lets go!!
As regular thomasr.blogspot readers would know, Rachel and I went Round Oz (Halfway) last year on our shiny red BMW. Was ace.
And here it is- 1hr 8 mins!
And here it is- 1hr 8 mins!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Meet The Chief: released!
My all-too-hastily-put together short film "Meet The Chief" a machinima/real life comedy was not selected as part of the final 16 films in Tropfest 2006, but has passed the Movie Peer review process in halo.bungie.org:
See the reviews (I have encoded a new version that does NOT have the 2 minutes of black video the reviewers complain about. The new version is also higher res. All good):
[Status]HBO:Movies Peer Review Rating System (MPRRS)
To answer some of the critics/comments from the review process:
Why is the HUD visible/not in letterbox view?
This film was not specifically made for the Halo 2/gamer community. I wanted viewers to immediately understand that this was not an animation, but machinima. Also, having the HUD visible is part of the story- only when we go to a "cameraman" view would it be right to remove the HUD and frankly going back between a letterboxed view and non letterboxed view would have been confusing and distract from the story.
Whats with the 2 minutes of "black video" at the end of the movie? The credits are hard to read...
Black video: A glitch in the encoding process/don't know. Credits: The new version that halo.bungie.org have posted is higher res and rather readable.
"the characters sounded alike sometimes,"
Hey man, if you can't pick the difference between a puka English accent (the Chief) and a broad Aussie accent (the player) there's nothing I can do to help!
All that said, Meet the Chief passed with flying colours olde bean.
See the halo.bungie.org news post about "Meet The Chief"
"Meet The Chief"- Windows Media Video [52.1MB]
"Meet The Chief"- Apple Quicktime format [55.6MB]
"Meet The Chief" - Google Video version [low res, only choose if 52MB is too big for you!]
Here's where I will tell all about how and why.
I had been planning a Tropfest film for some years- but frankly a machinima film was NOT in my plans. I only decided to do the film 10 days before cut off and really knocked the whole thing off in 3 days- 1 day to film it (both Halo and real life) one evening to record voices and two days of editing and trimming (Tropfest films MUST be under 7 minutes- Meet The Chief chimes in at 6:55)
I actually edited out three or four "what shall we do next?" gags when it became apparent that 1/ I was well over 7 minutes 2/ I had no idea how long each scene was.
Deleted scenes:
- The Master chief jumps off a cliff- like a kid pretending to be superman. This took freaking ages to shoot- we actually got the actor (or rather stuntman) to run towards the edge of the cliff and then simultaneously shot him with 2 tanks and a rocket launcher. This sent the chief halfway across the map. Not only was it hard to get a consistent kill/flying, but the camera work was nightmarish. It was to be the last scene before the return to the beach. The chief was going to be lying face down and when the Player asks him how he is he says "I think I'd rather be back at the beach if its the same to you".
- The Master Chief and the Player play cards- snap actually- in the garage on the Turf map. We shot it ok, but there were to be technical overlays of cards and so on. Not only was it going to be technically difficult- it was really one joke- they play cards. Big frickin' whoop.
Rachel suggested I put those scenes back in for the halo.bungie.org release, but I think it's time to let it go...
Some final points:
But last point: Start earlier. I went from no idea to finished in a week. That's not enough time. I have a new script in my head and will refine it in the coming months and we will shoot it before November and finish it over Dec.
The best laid plans...
**UPDATE**
I am offering a signed (by the whole crew) DVD copy of the film to the first person who posts in comments what the Red Vs Blue reference in the film is...
**ANOTHER UPDATE**
The first poster picked it: I am wearing a red V Blue t-shirt. I oughta make the next question waaaay harder!
The Movie Peer Review Rating System (MPRRS) is designed to allow for more timely review and publication of movies created by you, the fans. There are many additional benefits such as distributed work load, accurate analysis, validation of review, feedback and others. This approach to submitting items for posting and hosting was necessary following the release of Halo2 when the sheer volume of submittals skyrocketed. Were there more good movies -- definitely. Could we always find them to allow the fan view them -- not always. Why? Noise. There has been an overall increase in the number of submissions, which has a tendency to overwhelm and hide the truly awesome submittals. We are growing a whole new generation of movie makers and we hope that the feedback from your own peers will help to increase the quality of your product.
See the reviews (I have encoded a new version that does NOT have the 2 minutes of black video the reviewers complain about. The new version is also higher res. All good):
[Status]HBO:Movies Peer Review Rating System (MPRRS)
To answer some of the critics/comments from the review process:
Why is the HUD visible/not in letterbox view?
This film was not specifically made for the Halo 2/gamer community. I wanted viewers to immediately understand that this was not an animation, but machinima. Also, having the HUD visible is part of the story- only when we go to a "cameraman" view would it be right to remove the HUD and frankly going back between a letterboxed view and non letterboxed view would have been confusing and distract from the story.
Whats with the 2 minutes of "black video" at the end of the movie? The credits are hard to read...
Black video: A glitch in the encoding process/don't know. Credits: The new version that halo.bungie.org have posted is higher res and rather readable.
"the characters sounded alike sometimes,"
Hey man, if you can't pick the difference between a puka English accent (the Chief) and a broad Aussie accent (the player) there's nothing I can do to help!
All that said, Meet the Chief passed with flying colours olde bean.
See the halo.bungie.org news post about "Meet The Chief"
"Meet The Chief"- Windows Media Video [52.1MB]
"Meet The Chief"- Apple Quicktime format [55.6MB]
"Meet The Chief" - Google Video version [low res, only choose if 52MB is too big for you!]
Read no further until you've seen the movie!!!
***SPOILERS ALERT***
Here's where I will tell all about how and why.
I had been planning a Tropfest film for some years- but frankly a machinima film was NOT in my plans. I only decided to do the film 10 days before cut off and really knocked the whole thing off in 3 days- 1 day to film it (both Halo and real life) one evening to record voices and two days of editing and trimming (Tropfest films MUST be under 7 minutes- Meet The Chief chimes in at 6:55)
I actually edited out three or four "what shall we do next?" gags when it became apparent that 1/ I was well over 7 minutes 2/ I had no idea how long each scene was.
Deleted scenes:
- The Master chief jumps off a cliff- like a kid pretending to be superman. This took freaking ages to shoot- we actually got the actor (or rather stuntman) to run towards the edge of the cliff and then simultaneously shot him with 2 tanks and a rocket launcher. This sent the chief halfway across the map. Not only was it hard to get a consistent kill/flying, but the camera work was nightmarish. It was to be the last scene before the return to the beach. The chief was going to be lying face down and when the Player asks him how he is he says "I think I'd rather be back at the beach if its the same to you".
- The Master Chief and the Player play cards- snap actually- in the garage on the Turf map. We shot it ok, but there were to be technical overlays of cards and so on. Not only was it going to be technically difficult- it was really one joke- they play cards. Big frickin' whoop.
Rachel suggested I put those scenes back in for the halo.bungie.org release, but I think it's time to let it go...
Some final points:
- I will never "act" in a film again. I sucked. My real life acting was kept to a minimum (man's gotta know his limitations). My voice over acting was ok at first, but was GOD AWFUL in the final death scenes. Rachel actually imitates me voicing my final words in the film as a rag/gag.
- Adrian Rowe is a freaking genius. His "Master Chief" was quirky, odd, funny and oh so English. It will freak the Yanks out. He really did the job- I asked at the last minute, he had about 10 minutes to read the script and he tuned in and gave heaps. From script suggestions to little asides- he owned this project.
- Always get Donny in for techy bits. The opening bit where the guy blinks as the alarm goes off was all Don. The final scenes with the Halo 2 screen over the top of the television was the result of some hour/s of fiddling in Adobe Prem Pro Nice one!!
But last point: Start earlier. I went from no idea to finished in a week. That's not enough time. I have a new script in my head and will refine it in the coming months and we will shoot it before November and finish it over Dec.
The best laid plans...
**UPDATE**
I am offering a signed (by the whole crew) DVD copy of the film to the first person who posts in comments what the Red Vs Blue reference in the film is...
**ANOTHER UPDATE**
The first poster picked it: I am wearing a red V Blue t-shirt. I oughta make the next question waaaay harder!
Sunday, March 12, 2006
More Google video...
Now that I can embed Google video content here on my blog- ecpect more of it
Elwood beach- long zoom (by Duncan). Big, mean, clean forward loop.
Elwood beach- long zoom (by Duncan). Big, mean, clean forward loop.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
New Google Video features!
Google Video now allow embedding of video. COOL!
Lets see the boys video from Feb:
Lets see the boys video from Feb:
Some new projects...
I'm busting a gut with Krusty:
Someone had the bright idea to go and do some pre season training with 2004 Superbike/Supersport champion Adam "Krusty" Fergusson. So far it's been a class awful. I've lost 4 kilos, so it's not a total disaster.
I've been scootering for the day with a trailer on board:
I spent a day touring around Melbourne with an advertising hoarding on the back of a Vespa 150 scooter. Was great fun!
I've been at the MCG for the Motorcycle Sports Touring Club of Victoria's 50th anniversary get together:
The best, fastest and most friendly sports bike club in the country turned 50, and Tone and I were there for the special day.
All the above to appear shortly in the nations best Bike mags!!
Someone had the bright idea to go and do some pre season training with 2004 Superbike/Supersport champion Adam "Krusty" Fergusson. So far it's been a class awful. I've lost 4 kilos, so it's not a total disaster.
I've been scootering for the day with a trailer on board:
I spent a day touring around Melbourne with an advertising hoarding on the back of a Vespa 150 scooter. Was great fun!
I've been at the MCG for the Motorcycle Sports Touring Club of Victoria's 50th anniversary get together:
The best, fastest and most friendly sports bike club in the country turned 50, and Tone and I were there for the special day.
All the above to appear shortly in the nations best Bike mags!!
Friday, March 10, 2006
How to sit on your Xbox headset and get away with it
I sat on the ol' Xbox headset and it broke like crappy china. Worse, it broke in such a way that left me somewhat disappointed. Angry. Depressed.
But I transcend these things like a deity and devised a cunning plan to get it back on track. It's now working better than ever.
What you need
- Three cable ties (smallest possible)
- 2mm drill bit
- Drill. You can use a metal skewer/nail and heat it up on your gas cooker/cigarette lighter. Just don't burn yourself as it makes you look dumb.
Stage 1- drill holes
Drilling two small holes in the body of the headset. The holes are non symmetrical because I was uncertain which would work best. The asymmetric design actually helps to hold the headset in place- stops it from wiggling
fig 1- the holes. The gunk around the holes is glue from crappy packing tape.
Step 2 - Cable ties
Poke the ties through the holes and secure them around the headset and the head holding part tighten them right up- and then rotate the ends away from your head lest it poke you and scratches you and prevents you from concentrating on killing people.
Fig 2- The two ties in place- third one is explained below. Note how you rotate the ties away from your head.
Step 3- The "securing tie"
This is where you really bring home the bacon. This third tie does not go through the holes- but off to the side and between the original ties and the headset. This stops the ties from slipping off to the side- something they will most certainly do without this winning maneuver.
But I transcend these things like a deity and devised a cunning plan to get it back on track. It's now working better than ever.
What you need
- Three cable ties (smallest possible)
- 2mm drill bit
- Drill. You can use a metal skewer/nail and heat it up on your gas cooker/cigarette lighter. Just don't burn yourself as it makes you look dumb.
Stage 1- drill holes
Drilling two small holes in the body of the headset. The holes are non symmetrical because I was uncertain which would work best. The asymmetric design actually helps to hold the headset in place- stops it from wiggling
fig 1- the holes. The gunk around the holes is glue from crappy packing tape.
Step 2 - Cable ties
Poke the ties through the holes and secure them around the headset and the head holding part tighten them right up- and then rotate the ends away from your head lest it poke you and scratches you and prevents you from concentrating on killing people.
Fig 2- The two ties in place- third one is explained below. Note how you rotate the ties away from your head.
Step 3- The "securing tie"
This is where you really bring home the bacon. This third tie does not go through the holes- but off to the side and between the original ties and the headset. This stops the ties from slipping off to the side- something they will most certainly do without this winning maneuver.
