Mithrandiryod Productions

and ohhh the adventure continues…

The Glue:
I thought I’d take a little time to explain a little of my thought process regarding my recent push to Live action as well as what the future of MYP may or may not be. Working on any Live action film or short is something that really fell to the wayside for me over the past year or two (or three if memory serves me) and only just VERY recently has it come back to the forefront of my mind. Every since I stopped producing video’s for an old group that I worked with, I gradually moved away from live action, and into something that was more feasible for me to work with in my present situation. When it came down to it I had several reasons why I went almost exclusively Machinima. (Not all of them good I’m sure)

• I work…and work necessitates that priorities be allocated to it for the majority of my time.
• I still go to school…it’s grad school, but that still soaks up a good portion of my time during the year. (I’d like to finish eventually you know)
• The friends I have…have lives, and can’t always be used in what I work on if their schedules won’t allow for it. Seeing as…
• Live Action requires so much more work and time dedication, with scheduling, setting up equipment, and other unforeseen items that vary depending on the story you’re trying to tell. Machinima only requires that I have the hardware components of a Gamer and Editor. It’s like the producers wet dream, especially if it can be successful in telling similar stories.

None of these arguments haven’t been used in the past…and I’ll be the first to admit, Yes, it’s lazy. But I decided that it was the best thing for me at the time. In a way it still is, but I recently came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t just exclusively rely on it. That’s why I hit myself on the head when I became very unhappy with the direction my series was taking from earlier writing. I had been noticing for quite a while an interesting trend with machinima…even without being a part of it’s community for very long.

• It’s Limited: Yes, there are some game engines that are great for building and filming great machinima…but that’s just it…everyone and their dog is doing it now (I mean look at me).
• Everything is apparently a re-hash: There’s a lot of argument among the machinima diehards regarding what makes a machinima good…and that most everyone is simply copying someone else…even if the story is completely different…if one element is used it’s apparently full on theft and the directory should be bashed for it…though truthfully they’d probably bash even if it wasn’t as not everyone likes the same things (great thing about freewill and tastes).
• Filming generally game play and making commentary is becoming the primary source for most views as most viewers apparently don’t wish to appreciate the hard work put into many of the video’s made. The reasoning for this is logical as game play video’s will get more exposure because they are much easier to make, and there are a crap load of them.
• It’s becoming quite stale…in most respects unless you already have a tried and true formula that fans like…and even that becomes stale after a while.

Now, I know this is a large complaint…and I’ve always said that I make videos because I feel like it and for the viewers…but it does end up wearing on you after a while. I mean just pop on to any machinima message board and they’ll start complaining about the politics of the whole thing. That’s one thing I can’t really stand too much of…talking politics. It’s good every so often…but it gives me a headache and I’d rather put my time to other more constructive uses.

Because of all this, I decided to take a break from it all to rehash the script. When I did, I remembered how much fun it was to actually work on live action film. It was then that I started to write and brainstorm a new idea. I worked through it for quite a bit and finally started the planning and production. I found that it was fun…and that I missed it. that’s why I decided that…I will now be focusing more on live action shorts for now. I will also be experimenting with other types of visual effects and churning out a few new things as they become of interest to me. This will allow me to hone my skills further and to continue to tell the stories that I want to tell. Hopefully, I’ll have time for it all..but that’s what’s great about this…I want to and now can fully take my time to do things the right way and give the quality I want to give. As these live action shorts are not Machinima, they will not be seen via distribution on Machinima.com. Instead I’m independently releasing it in my own channel and various other outlets (VEOH) to give it more exposure. I still may do machinima…but it will likely be very rare..and will probably focus on finishing up the story I started with Tango Squad.

I do hope I’ve piqued your interest enough to give it a chance. But most of all I do hope that you enjoy. I’ll let you know when I have more, in the meantime check twitter on the right…it’ll let you know more till I have an actual official announcement to make.

admin MYP 2010 Season Film, Live, Machinima, mithrandiryod, Production

The Glue:

Just FYI…it’s going to be a while, before I have something new to release, so take that into account. So far…the Hiatus continues. I’ve been using the time to re-write a few things, as well as start some planning on some newer projects. If you’ve been following my mini updates (twitter) you know that I’ve also been doing some work on a pro-bono project, that I felt was a decent change of pace from my normal production schedule.

Speaking of production schedules…I don’t have one…not right now at least. I have several ideas going, but to be honest, only two strikes me as any good, and I’m pursuing them currently (Only in the planning and testing stages mind you). Recently I’ve started thinking, especially after watching a few pieces that were absolutely inspiring, that I’m not where I currently want to be in my work. True, I have some elements that I do like…but it’s not as interesting as it was. I want to continue to grow, to expand my skills and to create things that I truly am proud of. Tango Squad, for all I’m unhappy with, is honestly a good story in my mind. Granted it may have borrowed a little heavily from my influences…but for being my first real work it was good experience. I do plan to finish it, but with what’s currently going on in my life (creatively and socially), I’m going to give it a bit of space and make sure I’m truly happy with it before I finish it. I know I’ve said this over and over, I just felt I needed to say it again.

That’s not to say you won’t see something new from me in the near future, but I’m going to scale back releases for items that I’m truly happy with and try to spend more time with each individual project to make it something that doesn’t fail completely. For those of you who’ve followed me up until now I thank you for your continued support, and feel bad for asking you to wait even longer…I understand if you don’t really want to.

Anyways that’s it…I won’t be posting again till I have something more to say, release, or announce. As always for little bitty updates you can follow me on Twitter ——————)

Till next time….

admin MYP 2010 Season Production, Tango Squad

We’re working on it we’re working on it….

The Glue:
Wow things sure are slow on the site, but that’s to be expected when I won’t have anything to show till the new season.  There hasn’t been too much to write or twitter lately because of various reasons (school being one of them). For now I thought I would post a little something to show that I am not dead (rather you could consider my absence a brief “hiatus”), in fact I am very much working for next year.

I know that anyone who still checks this site, or my YouTube page is probably actually concerned when I’ll release something new and is still interested in what I’m doing. To those of you whom this applies to, “Thank You.” I don’t expect everyone to share this view. I know as well as anyone, that in the current climate of internet popularity (which I’m still sure I’ve never had), you’re only as good as your next project. With that I’d like to first say that I am indeed working on a couple of projects that I intend to start releasing starting in January (somewhere in there).  And after a long break from my last release, I hope to be able to produce a steady stream of decent content with only a few minor hiccups along the way. That being said, I thought I’d take a bit of time to give you a bit of behind the scenes content of what’s happening with MYP.

The 2010 season for MYP, I’m happy to let slip, will be featuring the second act to my first machinima series: Tango Squad. I tinkered around with the thought of leaving this as a brief introductory series to introduce myself to machinima and work on technique. While I did learn a lot, during my brainstorming, I was able to develop a whole series of stories that span at least three acts. The first of these, act one, was guard duty. It was simple, and I tried to do several things with it, humor and serious wise. Act 2 will feature Tango Squad as they continue where we left them last…trying to recover the item they were guarding. I can’t promise that it’ll be the best thing you’ve ever seen, but I’m rather proud of where I’m taking the series as a whole, and hope that people will enjoy it. Act 3, is tentatively scheduled for 2011 and will be the finale of the series. I may do a one shot here or there based on it, but otherwise, that’s all I have planned for Tango Squad.

But wait, the fun doesn’t stop there. While Tango Squad was being released, I noticed that several of the comments, yes I read them occasionally (even if they are discouraging at times *shrugs*), were very disappointed that the machinima was “just another Halo Machinima” or simply stated, “why can’t there be machinima from another game, Halo’s been done to death?” I thought about this for a while, and soon after wards scrapped a Halo script that I had been writing (and wasn’t too happy with) and started working on something else. As such, I am also developing yet another machinima that is not made from the Halo 3 engine, that I hope the masses will enjoy. I don’t want to say what it is just yet, but hopefully you’ll get a kick out of it.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the bulk of my released work next year is going to be Machinima. No particular reason why, except that it’s the medium I’ve chosen to work in for a bit while I let a few other ideas stew and work on others that will take a bit longer than normal to produce. As you can see, now that I’ve gotten the scripting done, I have to actually shoot the game play prior to editing (side note: yes I know I don’t show my face in shots…there’s a reason for this, though I suppose if you’re relatively clever you can deduce who I am and what I look like). During that time I usually record the voice work and then proceed to primary editing. It does take a bit of time, but it’s usually worth it in the end. While it is only a standard procedure for most productions and I suppose if there is enough interest I’ll elaborate further. Though if you’re truly interested in how this is done in further detail, or just want more pointers, might I recommend digitalph33rs guide to making machinima? It’s fairly straightforward and offers several good tips for your machinima work.

Being on “Hiatus” has given me a little more time to think and work on what I hope will be an excellent season for MYP. Truthfully the hiatus was only necessary due to poor planning on my part, but with every problem one experiences, one also learns. As you can see, there is some work being done and I should have more to say on the subject soon. To everyone who is still staying with me during this “hiatus” I want to assure you that I am working very hard to ensure that I won’t need to go on Hiatus again for quite a while. Anyways, I’ll try to post more if I have some time or there is enough interest, but either way you should expect the next major announcement to be the 2010 Season starting, and a few promos being released *crosses his fingers*.

Till next time…..

admin The Glue MYP, Production, The Glue, XBOX 360