Friday, March 30, 2012

VVVVVV


One of the things I like most about promoting Deeds is that I'm forced to explore as many vintage/retro game sites, blogs, and boards as I can find on the net.  Tonight this led me to discover VVVVVV.  VVVVVV is an independent video game that is just super amazing fun to play, and is a serious tribute to vintage computers specifically the C64.  This game is a masterpiece.  I'm not the type to go ahead and pay money for a game when there are so many out there for free, but for some reason I was so intrigued by the artwork in the screen shots that I paid the $5 via paypal, and downloaded my copy of VVVVVV.   It was worth all five bucks, and if you like retro games I don't think you can go wrong with this one. I haven't even gotten into the ability to make your own levels or play levels other people have made. VVVVVV is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and even Nintendo 3DS.  I'm including the link to the official website. 



Thursday, March 29, 2012

As seen in Episode 1...Skyfox


A fantastic game that was featured in Deeds is "Skyfox".  Set in the future, you play a pilot for The Federation, and you fly the most advanced fighter craft in the world,...The Skyfox.  As a kid the two things I liked best about this game were that when you started a mission you pressed the button and  launched through a tunnel (like Battlestar Galactica), and The Skyfox can't crash into the ground, I assume because it's so advanced.  Game play is simple but action packed and for its day (1984) the graphics are awesome.  My favorite thing about games like Skyfox and really most vintage games in general, is that they didn't come with or impose upon you a very specific story line.  Sure Skyfox allowed you to select the parameters of the mission, but after that you just played and used your imagination to fill in the details.  Games today are like complete alternate realities, with no room for the use of imagination.  I feel a little sorry for kids today because the games they play are so advanced most of them will probably never get to experience the type of computer gaming my generation enjoyed.  Anyhow, check out the links below for more information on "Skyfox".

Skyfox on GB64

Skyfox on Wikipedia

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore International



Anyone who coins the phrase "We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes." is a hero in my book, but Jack Tramiel was also the man who founded Commodore International.  Mr. Tramiel and his company were responsible for creating the Commodore 64 home computer (as seen in "Deeds Of Yore").  You may say "Who cares?", and that's what I usually say when someone brings up the CEO or founder of a company because I don't believe in money worship myself.  However, Mr. Tramiel's story is different...  He was born in Poland in 1928, being Jewish he ended up in Auschwitz during WWII, came to the US after the war, joined the army, was a taxi driver, started Commodore as a typewriter repair shop, and turned it into a huge computer company.  This guy has a story.  You can read all about it on wikipedia...

Jack Tramiel on wikipedia

Inspirations For Deeds..."Heart Of Africa"


I credit "Heart Of Africa" with being the ultimate inspiration for the people of yore including David.  It's this simple yet obvious character art that I wanted to recreate in Deeds.  When I first started developing the artwork for deeds my characters were closer to "Heart Of Africa" than they ended up being in the actual production.  Games like "Legacy Of the Ancients" inspired more color in the long run.  All that said, "Heart Of Africa" is an awesome game.  You play an explorer in the late 19th century.  You buy supplies, then hit the road to explore Africa.  It is a particularly realistic game.  It contains a lot of history and geography. It is extremely difficult, yet fun in a strange way.  While not on my top five list, I did spend hours and hours playing this game in the 80's.  It's fun and even educational, but weird, very weird.  Oh and it has a freakishly tiny game screen, I don't know why.



Friday, March 23, 2012

The Ghouls Of Gharn, mid-season finale


Early Sunday morning I will post Episode 13, The Ghouls Of Gharn.  This is by far my favorite episode in the series so far because I love the artwork, and I'm a big fan of ghouls.  Many people like vampires or zombies, I'm partial to ghouls.  Episode 13 is the transition to the second half of our story.  This episode marks the exact middle of the series.  From this point on things will be different for David, more danger, more adventure, and a host of new faces are what lie in the future of Yore.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

IMDB


I guess they just let any old thing on IMDB now :) , because Deeds has a page on the who's who of the entertainment world of the Internet.  The poster above may be the most expensive upload I have ever uploaded.  To upload your poster art to IMDB they charge you $35.00!  Production stills are $10.00.  However, this is still a lot less than a newspaper add, and they wonder why nobody advertises in the newspaper anymore.  Anyhow, here's the link to the IMDB page.


Saturday, March 17, 2012

How to shoot the live action segments of your animated web series cheap.


All the live action for "Deeds Of Yore" was shot in two days on a super ultra mega LOW budget. When you add up props, costumes, Mini DV tapes, construction supplies, gas, and food, it comes to under $500. I wanted to recreate the 80's as well as I could given the limited resources. This was made possible first by luck, and second by a pooling of the team's resources. Here's a list of the team and what they brought to the table...

Actors - Dani and Max (Tiffany and Mitch), brought their talented selves, and fantastic attitudes. They were a real pleasure to work with. Dani even brought some of her own wardrobe (stuff I forgot), and did her own makeup.

Willey - Provided us with the location. He let us disrupt his weekend, build a set in his garage, and then bought us food and beer to top it off. He also fixed up an awesome big time prop that you will not see until later in the series.

Dominic - He did all of the music for Deeds, but you may not know that he was also the sound engineer for the live shoot. Dom brought an awesome mic with a computer interface to his mac laptop that captured the dialog and room tone.
Cameron - Besides playing David and writing the script, he also used his technical knowledge to direct and do cinematography. He also brought his Canon XL 1 that we used to shoot with. So to wrap it up brought all the film making knowledge.
Me - I got together all the props, wardrobe, did all the art direction, built the Electrotainment set, did all the organizing, calling, and scheduling, and loaded all the crap we needed into my VW Rabbit to take to the location. I also did some light direction.

So the team brought all that stuff, but I did have to get the 80's props and wardrobe items. Where did I get that stuff you may ask? ...

Props - I already own a lot of 80's junk, like the computer, games, and even the portable pac-man, and Radio Shack robot. I was able to get magazines, posters, labels and shrink wrap bags (for the games at the store) all off of Ebay. The cool flip clock I found at the Goodwill. The awesome beige 80's telephone I found at St. Vincent De Paul.
Wardrobe - I got most of it at The Salvation Army, but I found one cool item at the Goodwill.
Lighting was provided by either The Sun, or indoors we used Home Depot clip lights with gels.

As for the interior of Electrotainment, I already blogged about that, but I got all the supplies from Home Depot.

All in all it was a lot of fun, and I'm happy with the results. Everyone put in 500%. If you think you can't get a creative project off the ground because you don't have money, think again... if you are creative and find other people who are creative too a lot more is possible than you might have imagined.






Thursday, March 15, 2012

Inspirations for Deeds..."Alice In Wonderland"


Yes, I was influenced by the book, but the Commodore computer game?  Windham Classics "Alice in Wonderland", is without a doubt on my top five best computer games of all time list.  This game was like getting to go into the actual book.  You could talk, sing, eat stuff, and solve some almost impossible puzzles.  I played this game for hours, and hours, and I think I finished it somtime in the early 90's.  Alice was a direct influence for the look of Deeds.  Signature black background, trees and flowers, jerky animaton, all features found in the artwork of "Deeds Of Yore".  Beyond that Alice has a kind of personality and simple interaction that I tried to translate into the feeling of Deeds. Alice takes me back to a time when games were for the imagination and not just playable CG movies.  There were actualy five Windham Classic games...




Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Inspirations for Deeds... "Legacy Of The Ancients"


When I think of my inspirations for "Deeds Of Yore", one of the first games to come to mind is Legacy of the Ancients.  I remember going to Toys 'R' Us with my Christmas money (twenty five bucks), and proceeding straight to the computer game section.  In 1987, the video game section of Toys 'R' Us consisted of NES, Sega 8 bit, and Commodore 64/128 games all behind glass with tickets that you tore off under them and took to the register for purchase.  I remember selecting Legacy of the Ancients because of the graphics depicted on the back of the box.  At that time the quality of graphics and price was my main concern in selecting a game.  This criteria led to a number of disappointments, however Legacy was not one of them.  An exciting story that mixed sci-fi and fantasy, vibrant colorful graphics, and a large world to explore all contributed to Legacy becoming one of my favorite games of all time.  I was actually playing Legacy on an emulator, when the idea for "Deeds Of Yore" was born.  I thought..."What if I could take an audience into a game like this?"  Legacy also inspired some of the more colorful artwork in Deeds, because it was the first RPG for Commodore that I ever played that actually used all 16 colors.  Legacy of the Ancients is also one of the games seen on the shelf of Electrotainment in Episode 2 because I still have the box and documentation.  If you want more information on Legacy check out the links below.

Legacy of the Ancients Wikipedia
Gamebase 64


Saturday, March 10, 2012

Electrotainment set

Here is a behind the scenes look at the Electrotainment store interior set.  I spent a couple of years as a construction worker so a single wall is easy.  With the help Guillermo Brambila, one of my associate producers, I was able to put this bad boy up, drywall and paint it in under three hours.  My favorite part was dressing this set up because I got to pick from my collection of vintage 80's computer games in box to put on the shelves (IKEA).  The wood, drywall and paint were a big chunk of my budget at around sixty bucks.  I was shooting for the feel of my local software store when I was a kid in the 80's, and I think I got it.  You can see Electrotainment in Episode 2.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Deeds Of Yore in Commodore Free


"Deeds Of Yore" got a mention in the very cool Commodore Free Magazine.  Commodore Free is a super cool free download magazine for all things Commodore.  I wrote to the editor Mr. Nigel Parker, and he was gracious enough to include a blurb about our series in issue #59 of his publication.  Commodore Free is more than an ordinary online magazine.  The team at Commodore Free actually puts out a C64 disk image that you can load up on your favorite C64 emulator, or even on a real C64!  The magazine is in pdf, txt, and a variety of other formats.  I love that they make a real C64 version.  It's just like back in my teen days when I would go and buy the LoadStar magazine on a C64 Disk.  Mr. Parker and his team are keeping the C64 alive and current and I applaud them for it.  Thanks
Commodore Free!

www.commodorefree.com

Deeds Of Yore 1986 game map.

When I was a kid all RPG computer games came with an actual physical map that you could touch and mark up when you found secret places or things.  So, to make "Deeds Of Yore" as realistic as possible I made it a vintage computer RPG style map.  If  Deeds had been a real game produced in 1986, the map might look something like this today.  I also created an entire players guide that I will post soon.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

"Deeds Of Yore" at LA Webfest!

I'm very excited about "Deeds Of Yore" being selected for the LA Web Series Festival 2012. I know that Internet TV has been around for a good long time, and that web series already have a lot of market share, but I feel like it's still an entertainment frontier that has land to expand on. Fifty dollar devices like ROKU being available now will only expand this territory. I realize my offerings are a drop in the bucket, but I'm excited anyway.  When I got the email that we got in yesterday, it made my week.  See you at the Webfest!

Friday, March 2, 2012

What "Deeds Of Yore" is and what it isn't...

Hello, I'm Robita owner of Ostrog Productions, and creator of "Deeds Of Yore".  I created this blog to share my experience making the animated web series / feature film "Deeds Of Yore".  You can watch it on our official website http://www.deedsofyore.com/.

What  "Deeds Of Yore" is.

DOY is an animated feature film broken into twenty five episodes.  We started releasing it every week on January 1st 2012.  The story revolves around David Grigsby, a young man, who after a string of bad luck, is transported into a computer RPG (Role Playing Game).  We wanted to take the audience with David into the world of "Yore" by making them feel as if they were actually playing the game and experiencing David's feelings of frustration, surprise, fear, disappointment, and joy.  Growing up playing computer games in the 80's I remember feeling the entire gambit of emotions, once I even threw my Commodore 64 to the ground in a fit of rage, "Deeds Of Yore" was inspired by my many hours of computer game play in my early teens.  It was also inspired by my love of books such as Alice In Wonderland, and The Wizard Of Oz , both stories that take the reader to complete fantasy lands yet mirror true life, in my opinion, as well as anything Hemingway ever wrote.  I wanted "Yore" to be the same kind of world, one that is not Utopian, or distopian, but with all the ups, downs and so-so times of real life.  "Deeds Of Yore" is a complete story, it is a feature film broken into twenty five parts and presented as a series on the web.  While this may be an ambitious concept, I believe it gives DOY an originality and depth that most web entertainment today lacks.  All that said, the story does take a turn in the middle of the series and becomes more action packed as David discovers more about the 8 bit world of Yore.

What "Deeds Of Yore" is not.

From day one Cameron (the writer) and myself set out to produce something original, that would set itself apart from the other animated entertainment available today.  We wanted to tell an actual story, make a real cinematic experience, include dramatic pauses, and other mood inspired timing.  Because of this, DOY is sometimes received with a raised eyebrow, or even a disappointed face.  A few comments have been downright insulting or filled with rage against what the critical consider "too slow", "not funny enough".  It's true "Deeds Of Yore" doesn't tap the over the top humor of "Southpark", or have the surreal comedy of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force".  DOY doesn't incorporate the timeley pop-culture satire of "Family Guy", or try to feed the public's hunger for the frantic pace of so many popular pet videos on youtube.  "Deeds Of Yore" is not not designed to be a laugh a minute "joke machine".  We did not cut "Deeds Of Yore" with our eyes on the clock, or screen it to focus groups for feedback on how we might get the maximum audience.  I know it's completely cliche, but we didn't color between the lines.

In the end I feel good about what we have been able to produce, and I believe that it will speak to a great many people.  I think a big part of enjoying any art be it cinema, painting, or music, is to let go of what you want the work to be and let it be what it is.  That's the best way to enjoy "Deeds Of Yore" and I think life in general.