Working on Website

So most of the links are back up now, with just a few of the movies' individual pages missing as of yet. Once I get those pages done I'll get back to work on the machinima!

If there's anything you guys think the site needs while I am still working on it, let me know.

My Blizzcon Write-up

Blizzcon, for those of you who don't know, was a 2-day convention at the Anaheim Convention Center for the fans of Blizzard Entertainment's games. Why does a single game company have its own entire convention? Well, because they are currently one of the largest and most successful game companies in the world. Their biggest moneymaker, World of Warcraft, is an online monthly subscription game that is currently being played by over 9 million people. At $14 a month, per subscription...one can only imagine their weekly revenue. I, personally, have only been able to imagine about half of their weekly revenue.Anyway, this was their second convention, ever. Their first one was held in 2005, but I didn't go, because in 2005 I was playing Everquest 2 and feeling sorry for myself. At the time I thought World of Warcraft was for people who were not 'serious' gamers, as it looked so cartoony and so many younger people played it. Ugh! Younger people! :P But the tide eventually swept me into the game and I enjoyed myself immensely. Then I started getting into this machinima filmmaking thing, and enjoyed myself immensely some more. In 2005 Blizzcon had a machinima contest, and they decided to do the same this year. Well, heck, I had to enter. Even though the deadline was crazy. But I managed to finish Snacky's Journal 3 and skive it in right under the deadline, after a night of zero hours sleep. It was worth the huge amount of work, because I placed in the competition. They didn't say what place...they said it would be revealed at the Con.
I also had gotten an email from Blizzard, asking me and my team to spend an hour at a "Machinima Booth" they had set up there, talking to people about the art form. They also asked several other well known machinimators as well, and I was totally flattered to be included. On Thursday night a bunch of us met up for a quick dinner, including folks from the Blizzard video department. It was really, really interesting to see these folks live and in person for the first time, after emailing and forum hopping and PM'ing each other for so long on the internet. However, go figure, nobody was totally different than I expected ;P On Friday morning I headed down, and, to my surprise, found it easy to park (I had just been to Comicon the week before where parking = hell). I met the very nice Jo from Blizzard outside the doors and she gave me all 3 passes. That's right, I got 2 extra ones for helping with the booth. I had already convinced Pete and Karen to make use of these fine tickets so I hung around the machinima booth, waiting for them to show...finally Pete decided to put in an appearance. I handed him his pass and we wandered around the floor for a little bit, hoping Karen would call so I could stop worrying about meeting her to let her in. O.o (It was very dark inside, because of all the monitors and screens)
As we waited for Karen, I noticed a guy hanging around near the machinima booth who turned out to be Drewbie from 'The Grind', (which was embroidered on his shirt. Classy! :D) He was waiting for his partner Macheath to show up, too. We started talking and eventually decided to screw the people we were waiting on, and went to lunch instead. This became a drinking lunch, of course. It's a convention! Eventually both Karen and Macheath showed up at the restaurant and, 3 hours later, I realized we had to get back for our booth sitting time.(me, Karen, Pete at the table) Other people manned the booth as well, both days:
(Slashdance) (Red Sky Foundry with Matt from Xfire in the foregound)(Rufus Cubed making an Oxhorn sandwich)
(Jason Choi and friend from Riot Films)(Rob from Witty Wizard)
(Dead Workers Party)
(The Home Team, Blizzard's video/machinima staff).
Also the guys from Spiffworld were there, but I couldn't find pics of them in the booth. Anyway, we answered a few questions, gave away some weak-ass stickers that I made on my home printer, then it was pretty much over. I could have talked longer, if they had let me, though. It was fun. Then Xfire nabbed me for a live chat with their users - on the floor. Finally, it was time for all the contests, including the announcement of the machinima winners...they only had time to screen the top films in each category so I was crossing my fingers and biting my nails at this point, hoping we'd get screened. I wandered around to the front to see if there were any seats (there weren't), and saw Oxhorn and Oblivious films had snagged some primo ones up front. Just as I was starting to get jealous of their seats, however, their entire seating section was kicked out to make room for Blizzard people! I then called Karen a bzillion times on her cell phone to see if she had found seats, and where they were. After walking up and down the aisles for about 35 years I finally found her. Don't laugh, there were thousands of people there all packed together. (My great view of the stage)
Comedian Jay Mohr was hosting all the contests. I didn't find him that funny, but I think I was in the minority. The first contest was "Sound-Alike", but after a bunch of people shouting into a mic doing orc peon imitations, Pete as a pro voice actor couldn't take it any more and got up to go buy some stuff at the Disney stores across the street. A couple more contests went by, and I was dying, waiting for the machinima announcement. Finally, after what seemed like too many female blood elf dances later, they screened the top 3 films - and we had not only placed 1st in 'action-adventure', but had won the overall Grand Prize! I had tunnel vision at that point and neglected to take any pics or video of the crowd watching our film...(if anyone has any, please email me). Pete had wandered in just in time to see the films. Oblivious (the Grind) won 1st in Comedy, and having bonded with them via our liquid lunch I was totally happy for them too. Sedrin of Slashdance took the first in Drama, and he's one of the few Wow machinimators that even tackle this genre - and he does it very well. Finally my nervous system calmed down enough to believe what I had just seen. I barely registered the costume contest (which was last), luckily that's all over YouTube, lol. After the contests Karen went home and Pete and I stayed to drink some more with the machinima filmmakers and Blizzard staff in the Hilton hotel bar.

Even WoW accidental celebrity Ben "Leeroy Jenkins" came outta the woodwork:
I think he was a little lonely, actually... didn't even have a posse with him or anything. Finally my vision was kinda like this: Of course right at that point, the Dead Workers Party drags me and Rob upstairs to their hotel room to do a podcast. Listen at your own risk. Good thing Rob talks more than I do ;)
After the podcast I was all done in and went home. I wandered in on Saturday by myself and wandered aimlessly for awhile - I wasn't really interested in standing in line to play any of the demos. I finally met in person the awesomesauce Johnny 'triodin' Voruz and his loverly newlywed wife Leigh. I had a nice chat with Ian Beckman who is making a funny machinima show called Azerothian Super Villains and admitted he works for Disneyland part time, lol. I watched some guys doing tournaments but I wasn't close enough to see what was going on. So I went outside to wait for the double concert that was taking place at the end of the day. I was surprised to bump into an old classmate/boyfriend from high school, Dave, who is also in the animation industry - it was a weird feeling to run into a non-machinima friend at Blizzcon! I owe him a phone call. After that I ran into Drewbieand we went to see if there was any food we could get before the concert. Two overpriced, crappy sandwiches later, we watched Jay Mohr get heckled severely by nerds, and finally the Blizzard 'house' band, "Level 70 elite tauren chieftain" took the stage.

I have to admit, I expected better...they had such a neat video. The lyrics were fun - but the music....eehhhhh. I've played in rock bands for 10+ years so I'm a critic, what can I say. Also, they just weren't loud enough, for metal. Plus Mike Morhaine plays bass like a Nancy Boy. I'M JUST SAYING!!
This was a bit better, it was an orchestra that plays video game themes. I was a little disappointed, because they only played music from Blizzard games. I wanted to hear the music from Myst. ;P But it was a good show. After that all the machinima people and the Blizzard video people went back to the Hilton bar for - you guessed it - more drinking. I saw some original art from the WoW trading card game, too, and I was shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to see it wasn't digital, but actually painted with paint. Ha! At the end of the night we all took a picture:And that pretty much wraps it up for me. I said some goodbyes and went home. (Although the next day I hung out with Johnny and Leigh in Laguna Beach, which was really fun. Hi, guys! I hope you had a great trip!).

It was excellent to meet everybody in person and I hope we all keep in touch!

What the @#$%@$% we won the Blizzcon Movie Contest!!

I'm REALLY tired, I'll write more after Blizzcon is over, but just a little update - Snacky's Journal #3 walked away the grand prize winner at Blizzcon. S h w e e t! I'm pretty blown away right now. Also taking home first prizes were fellow filmmakers Sedrin of Slashdance for best drama and Drewbie and Macheath of Oblivious Films for best comedy. Congrats to the winners and to everyone else who placed, too!

Pics and stories coming...

Here's the "official" link to watch a regrettably poor quality version of the winning films, but at least they are all up. I'll be posting a Divx Stream soon.

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