A brand-new tutorial series is in pre-production!

Hi all!

So finally a blog update from me - seems I just can't break this pattern of posting in spurts and then disappearing off the face of the Earth, can I?

So this is really just a quick update to let you know that:

A. I'm still alive (cue GLaDOS)
B. I've started pre-production on my first-ever proper tutorial series.

     I'm going to be bringing an old tutorial request from 2 years ago back into the spotlight and making it as professional and well-built as I can. It's going to push my presentation, editing, and general recording skills to their current limit, but hopefully this can get my tutorial-creator juices flowing again.

     So I've actually spent the last 2 years not recording anything really worthwhile due to some personal issues I was having and am still dealing with (in short, a lot of self-criticism), but I've decided it's time to simply plunge and figure it out as I go. Learn to accept my shortcomings and work on improving them.
     I've been practising with Minecraft and I'm also simultaneously working on a new Let's Play series and channel - I've always wanted to get into Let's Plays ever since I started watching Chuggaaconroy's The Legend of Zelda - The Wind Waker and Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door series. I've gotten more and more interested in LPs as I've started to follow people such as Etho's Lab and GuudeBoulderfist and others of the MindCrack group, so I've finally decided to dive in and start my own.

     I've been putting a lot of thought into both my tutorials and the LPs, and I've started working on setting up my channels for both. The LP-specific channel hasn't been created yet; I'm still figuring out a banner and whatnot, as well as creating a backlog of episodes that I can then upload on a regular basis. I'll be doing the same for this tutorial series, so there may be a couple of weeks of work ahead of me still.

     If you're curious to know more about the series as it develops, check my Twitter and/or Google+ and I should post some updates on a semi-regular basis. I also tweet/share other things like Linux news, artwork, anime songs, gaming news and a few other things ;)
   For anyone wondering about my Facebook profile, I really only keep it just in case I might need it, but I never use it. I just don't particularly like the system - Twitter's the one to check if you want to follow me.

That's it from me for now. Keep an eye out for those production updates!


Philippe M., signing out.

A note to my fellow film geeks

I usually don't do posts like this, but as a 3D and Visual Effects geek I thought this was an important issue.

Today is the Oscars, and of course there are lots of films being nominated, one of which is Life of Pi.  Now, all I know about this film is that it's an adaptation of the book by the same name, which I've never read.  The point is that Pi sold over $500million in tickets worldwide.  The studio behind the apparently amazing visual effects is Rythm & Hues - it's one of the big, well known studios in California.

If you take a look at their Wikipedia page (link) under Filmography, they've worked on a lot of big films - many of which I've seen and like: the X-Men films _{(except for Origins: Wolverine, thankfully - haha)}, Lord of the Rings, Night at the Museum, The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and many others.
However, they've had to declare bankruptcy and around (maybe over) 200 visual effects artists lost their jobs.  This is after a Oscar-nominated film - for which they created the VFX - has made over 500million bucks in ticket sales worldwide.  And according to my reading, more and more studios are having financial trouble even after their films make tonnes of $$, and the studios and artists involved aren't getting paid as well as they should.

So my point is, today I found out about a protest being held by VFX pros and artists, and after reading up on it I thought I should share the news with my fellow geeks.  I grew up watching VFX-laden films like Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or animated marvels like Toy Story, Shrek, or The Incredibles, and I've spent hours watching bonuses and behind-the-scenes footage on how they make a 2-tonne mecha smash through a digital wall, or how they created the amazing character that is Gollum.
So, if you're on Twitter (the hashtag is #vfxprotest) and care about VFX and its future, let those artists down in L.A., Vancouver, and other cities know that we're behind them as well :)

Well, that's all I have to say for now.  Thanks for reading!