At Loki’s suggestion I did some designs for a potential green machine last week. The major parameter for this work was that the machine should be able to eject or “throw” the boxes that were painted last week. Also, if possible, it should be machine-ish in appearance and have a part which appears to break off in a jagged crack at the end of the scene.
(click picture for detailed view)
Hopefully the following diagrams, along with accompanying text, will assist in achieving those meager goals.
Hoe I lang voor de dag dat mijn lippen deze prachtige geest kunnen opnieuw raken. Vind me en koop me voor Thom en hij zal u dubbel betalen wat u betaalde. Chestertown en de andere steden op de oostelijke kust van Maryland dragen dit niet, alstublieft me helpen dit vinden. -Thom
I painted 30 boxes (part of the props for Ameviathan: The Green Machine) this weekend and I am officially very nervous. While the boxes are looking good, I keep wondering how I’m going to pull the rest of the movie off. And to be honest, I really don’t know.
On a slightly unrelated note, I thought I’d plug Celtx, a freeware scriptwriting program which I have been currently using to write up the final draft of the Ameviathan: The Green Machine script. While Celtx doesn’t read your dialogue in Mac voices or do format in styles ranging from Warner Brothers to the TV show Alias like Final Draft, it also doesn’t cost $250 for Final Draft.
Celtx also comes with a bunch of other neat little perks, like reports (for organization on shooting days) and scene and character anaylsis. Of course, as freeware, the program isn’t without its bugs. For example, I’ve had some trouble backspacing and editing written text. Nonetheless, as freebies go, it gets my seal of approval and is making my script look far better than anything I could do in MSTurd.
This shot you guys took of a truckstop patron caught my eye and gave me a chuckle:
I showed it to She Dragon and She in turn wryly pointed out the salty growth of barnacles that’d recently taken hold on my own face:
Proof once again that people with shag carpets shouldn’t throw lice.
Or something slightly more coherent.
Here is the itinerary for the next two weekends. If you are interested in doing either of these activities, get in contact with me.
This Saturday Megan and I scouted for locations. On our excursions we came across Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve where we saw this impressive looking gristmill.
The mill turned out to be the Thompson-Neely Gristmill, which is actually apart of the Washington Crossing Historic Park right across the street.
In the coming week I’ll contact with the people at Washington Crossing and cross my fingers that they let me film there. Even in the event that they say “no” – I plan to go back. Other interesting structures in the area include Bowman’s Hill Tower.
The photo of the Thompson-Neely Gristmill comes courtesy of Megan Register who also has a very nice photo of sheep from Washington Crossing Historic Park on her website.
This is an unofficial crew call for readers of Protozoic who would like to be involved in the shooting of Ameviathan: The Green Machine. Over the next couple weeks, and very possibly more if I quit teaching, I’ll be involved in a number of activities ranging from scouting locations (this weekend for example the ever-beautiful Megan will be aiding me scout) to painting boxes. Of course, I can’t pay you money, but I can promise you things like credit where credit is a due, food, shelter, good times and the spinning of Blue Oyster Cult tunes. Who knows – it may even look good on your resume’.
So if you think you would be interested – contact me. Chances are if you are reading this then you know me personally, but if you don’t – all you have to do is drop me an email here at the site and I’ll give you more details of how you can be involved.
The recent Ultima entries brought the subject of Live Action Roleplaying (or “LARPing” as it’s known in the “industry”) to mind. But I was a little hesitant to post this stuff on such a highly accredited website as to Protozoic. As Loki has pointed out information on this hobby abounds on the internet already and I hate to fool anyone into thinking the stuff I’ve written on LARPs is particularly more informative than any existing LARP-ocentric sites already out there.
The stuff below may serve as a general introduction and outsider’s totally biased critique of LARPs, but does suffer slightly from being pulled straight out of my ass. Not that I’m saying anything made from whole cloth, or even in part intentionally fictitious. But while I’ve followed table-top roleplaying games (RPGs) in general alot over the years, as I’ve mentioned at other times, I sort of steer clear of LARPs. I’ve picked up a few tidbits about them here and there, but my knowledge of LARPs is about as informed as my knowledge of football: I might have a vague ideas of the rules and paraphenalia, and maybe remember an amusing anecdote or two someone told me about the game, but when it comes to the background, sub-culture, and details of specific games/teams/conferences/etc. then I’ve been pretty much willfully ignorant of the whole deal.
Still, even though my understanding might not be perfect, I would like to discuss it at the moment. So, for the sake of argument consider the following a primer written by an outsider, or better yet a straw dog to be beaten apart so as to stimulate more elucidating discourse.
With that excessively long disclaimer…
Continue reading Them’s Me Magic Spells: The twisting paths of live action roleplaying.
The Legend of Zelda II, The Adventure of Link, has long been berated as the bastard child of the Zelda series. Many go so far as to not include it within the Zelda “genre” out of personal distaste for the game. But, I consider it one of my favorite games of all time.
There are many cases to defend the game, like unique gameplay and excellent player control, but my angle is specific: The game has the most interesting swordplay out of any I’ve played.
The discussion of torches and immolient soaked toilet paper rolls got me thinking: Surely there must be a way to have flaming textiles or paper products portably contained in such a manner as to avoid burning through their support structures or leak through the non-factory joined seams of their containers. To that end I’ve devised (probably re-invented) the hanging lantern on a stick (a.k.a. “flail lantern”).
A new film is coming out and I predict that I will love it and place it among my all time favorites!!! It’s by the same folks the brought us “There is Something About Mary,†so you know the film will leap over many social boundaries and rape several taboos.