I saw the first few minutes of BloodSpell on Monday. Of course, I've seen it before. Many times. Far too many times, in fact. But this was the first time I'd seen it after it had been edited to within an inch of its life, and had a funky soundtrack applied. Well, I don't want to blow Strange Company's own collective trumpet (who would?), but it was looking pretty darned fantastic. It felt great. I got very excited. I wanted to show it to my mum so she could pin it to the fridge and be proud of me.
It's a very, very strange feeling when something that you've been working on for so long finally starts to become a concrete reality, rather than a vision in your own head that you know will eventually be made real. It made me realise how much work has gone into this. I've been feeding my free time into this project for months. God knows how Hugh must feel - BloodSpell has been his life for the past few years. This film represents a lot of NonGenderSpecificPerson-Hours - love, toil, blood, sweat and tears. However, if you compare our efforts to the number of NGSP-Hours that would have been dumped into BloodSpell had it been a commercial Hollywood live-action production, or a Pixar-style 3D rendering, you start to realise just how powerful a technique machinima really is.
Now, don't get too excited - it's still not finished. There's the foley to add, and more editing to do, and maybe some ammendments based on the feedback we get from preview screenings. But my point is, it's there, and it's looking good. Soon, my friends, oh so very soon.
P.S. Speaking of the illustrious Mr Hancock (or machinimaguruhughhancock, as he's affectionately known about the office), I've read some blogs and commentaries that refer to www.bloodspell.com as "Hugh Hancock's BloodSpell Blog". It's not. Just because he's the only one that ever posts, and the only one that actually knows what the heck is going on, and the only one who's industry experience equals that of the rest of the team put together, doesn't mean he owns this blog, do ya hear?
Can I go to the toilet now, please, Mr Hancock, sir?
It's a very, very strange feeling when something that you've been working on for so long finally starts to become a concrete reality, rather than a vision in your own head that you know will eventually be made real. It made me realise how much work has gone into this. I've been feeding my free time into this project for months. God knows how Hugh must feel - BloodSpell has been his life for the past few years. This film represents a lot of NonGenderSpecificPerson-Hours - love, toil, blood, sweat and tears. However, if you compare our efforts to the number of NGSP-Hours that would have been dumped into BloodSpell had it been a commercial Hollywood live-action production, or a Pixar-style 3D rendering, you start to realise just how powerful a technique machinima really is.
Now, don't get too excited - it's still not finished. There's the foley to add, and more editing to do, and maybe some ammendments based on the feedback we get from preview screenings. But my point is, it's there, and it's looking good. Soon, my friends, oh so very soon.
P.S. Speaking of the illustrious Mr Hancock (or machinimaguruhughhancock, as he's affectionately known about the office), I've read some blogs and commentaries that refer to www.bloodspell.com as "Hugh Hancock's BloodSpell Blog". It's not. Just because he's the only one that ever posts, and the only one that actually knows what the heck is going on, and the only one who's industry experience equals that of the rest of the team put together, doesn't mean he owns this blog, do ya hear?
Can I go to the toilet now, please, Mr Hancock, sir?
