The Dalai Lama (Mr. Lama to you!) is back with some kick ass styles to slap down those mother hubbards who’ve been calling him a pussy for the last 74 years.
Words of Wisdom: The Dalai Lama
Featured on Channel Frederator… Again!
Yehy. Message in a Bottle was featured on Channel Frederator‘s episode, ‘Robbery! Notes! Goats! SWINE! #177‘
Please vote for it at http://www.channelfrederator.com/episode/CFR_20090428
- There’s a 21″ Cintiq up for grabs! The voting system isn’t the most obvious, so here’s handy visual aid. Click ‘(Read more)’ near the top of the sidebar, and give a nice fat star rating under my name. We’ll love you forever.
Machinarium, Beautiful New Game by Amanita Design
In true Video Wall tradition I don’t normally post videos up on their own (You’re too busy for that nonsense!), but this needs savouring. Machinarium is a beautiful new Flash animated computer game brought to us by Amanita Design. I don’t really waste much time playing computer games anymore but I’d happily sit in front of this for hours I think – Just as long there’s no overblown loading times. Clicky, Clicky Mr. Close Button.
Mmmm… suck it in.
Linking up filmmakers in the midlands…
Recently, we’ve been helping to run and promote Film Forum West Midlands with local video artist Rill Marchant. To explain what it’s all about and what it’s for, here’s a little piece I wrote about the group:
Considering that filmmaking is such a collaborative process, I’m always amazed at how rarely filmmakers get out and about to meet their peers. After all, you need a crew, a cast, a writer and a host of equipment, not to mention that much-needed injection of cash to pay for essential props and costumes. This especially amazes me in a city such as Birmingham, which seems so adequately poised to host a network of talent and resources for filmmakers.
As an initial remedy to this, Film Forum West Midlands has been founded to provide opportunities for filmmakers in the region to meet, chat, develop a network of contacts, and hopefully provide a springboard for those projects and ideas that otherwise would be left languishing in the city’s many creative minds. The group meets every month at a variety of central locations and invites filmmakers of all abilities and levels of experience – from grass roots to professional – to come together in a social setting.
With no set agenda, the meetings allow filmmakers to promote their own work, source people, equipment and other useful contacts, and perhaps find collaborative partners or financial backers in a relaxed, no-pressure environment. At the very least, it could get Birmingham’s filmmakers talking to each other.
Film Forum WM has a blog for opportunities and member adverts, a social network site and its next meet-up is Tuesday 28th April at the Victoria pub, John Bright Street in Birmingham starting at 6pm.
Fair Trade on XtraNormal.com
Louis stumbled across animation site XtraNormal the other day, and I’m already hooked. It’s a pretty powerful online animation tool that lets you make your own animated films without so much as a clue of how to animate. All you have to do is pick a setting, pick some characters, and type in a script for them to read out. I had a play with it by putting one of our sketches called Fair Trade into the system, you can see the results here:
The only downsides are the robotic voices, but to be fair, they aren’t that bad. It isn’t likely to be free for long, so get your creative juices flowing soon.
Need to write a story fast? Use Frankenstory
Using Frankenstory you can create a sort of blind story writing tennis match. You write 40 words, of which the next contributor can only read the last few words. When you’ve done 4 entries you have your story.
Ian served up the first 40 words, which ended with:
“…the park and before he knew it something terrible happened.”
I accidentally lost the rest of it due to me serving it onto Tom (you can’t play tennis in three’s apparently) so here’s how the rest went:
… St Mary’s apple orchard had vanished. What was left? Biscuit crumbs. Tons of the stuff. This was the work of Fat keith. ‘No more cider for Jack’, he weeped as he sprinted full pace with his hands failing towards the devastation. The child wept as the chilling events unfolded before him, surely that old woman couldn’t have been right? The blind man, the prostitute and the ferrel child scrambled for the last rust encrusted wrench.. Only one would be beaten to death. The sky gods turned their eyes away in disgust. There was no fight. There was no picnic. Just appalling rust induced hugging. ‘What hope can there be if they can not learn to hate properly?’ said Hovis the God of Elasticity. He backed off momentarily, catching his breath before allowing the last remnants of blood to dribble down his chin. He should have know all along, who else but Eamonn Holmes could have done this? He held his shins praying for death.THE END
You can get to Frankenstory here: http://frankenstory.com/stories/34ac7a0f
Introducing the Facts of Life
The Facts of Life are indisputable, carved into the stones of history and knowledge forever to lay down the laws of this world. But who knows them? No one, that’s who. So we’ve decided to put things right by finally educating the world of the amazing, true facts that make our planet such a rich and compelling place.
To advance your brain by up to a factor of six, go to www.twitter.com/thefactsoflife to learn a new fact as they pour into the twittersphere. All of the incredible facts will be streamed on this very blog too, so don’t waste any time, advance your mind now with The Facts of Life.
A Bit of Light-Hearted, Feel-Good Melancholy
Tom’s decided to take that depressing old song, Needle in the Hay by Elliot Smith, and spruced it up with some feel-good melancholy.
You can watch it in HD (well, bigger) here.
If you’ve never heard of this song or you want to see it in possibly its best context, here’s a clip from The Royal Tenenbaums.
