Held every Wednesday in Second Life, The Actors’ Sandbox is a tuition-free open enrollment workshop for voice and machinima actors.

Producers of machinima and other forms of animation are welcome to attend and observe. It’s an excellent opportunity to evaluate talent in a context free from the anticipation and tension of an audition.

More information about the workshop can be found here.

The folks at Transvideo Studios work each and every day to produce some of the finest commercial and industrial media that the Bay Area has to offer.

This film was their contribution to the San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project in 2009. The story won the hearts and minds of both audience and judges, and brought them home multiple award in the year’s competition.

On Friday of this week (Jan 27, 2012) they will compete with other top filmmaking teams from the region in the first ever 48 Hour Film Project Colleague Awards. To get you in the mood for their entry in that prestigious field, we offer their award winner from the Summer of 2000 – The Legend of Chloe.

You can see their entry in the Colleague Awards by being in the house yourself on Friday night. It’s at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco, the doors open at 7:00pm.

Tickets are $6 online and $8 at the door. They can be purchased in advance here. (http://schoolhouseearthtickets.ticketleap.com/bay-area-48hfp-colleague-awards/)

We hope to see you there!

When you look in the coolerator and see that you’re out of quinoa and mango salsa — there’s only one thing to do. Get yourself to the Whole Foods parking lot!

There’s nothing we can add to this. Genius sometimes shows up equipped with its own shopping bags.

This month in San Francisco, the 48 Hour Film Project will present 8 specially selected films from the past years of the competition in the Bay Area. The films have been selected by the filmmakers who created them from among their favorites. The filmmakers were selected from among veterans in the field who have competed on multiple occasions and who have submitted award caliber films more than once.

Each of the participating filmmakers will complete a ballot that contributes to the final determination of the first Bay Area Colleague Awards.

One of the teams that will exhibit a film in this event is Fogbelt 2880. We found this reel with some of their bloopers and outtakes. It appears that they had a lot of fun making this.

You can see the full film in the company of a great audience and projected at full size by attending the Colleague Award Screenings on Friday, January 27th. Tickets are available here.

New Hope!

Posted: January 5, 2012 in Uncategorized
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In a season of bad news, poorly produced videos meant to shock us into consciousness, and regurgitated snippets from terrible faux news programming, it’s refreshing to encounter a well made comic masterpiece.

We dare you not to laugh.

We did get hate mail from some offended Icelanders over this. We’re not sure why.

In the spirit of the season, we thought that this future classic would be a good pick.

(it’s a little over 7 minutes but worth every drop!)

The rumor is untrue that the text of this brilliant little comedy made us swear off ever writing again. We thought about it though.

San Francisco competitive filmmaking team, Team Rock!t brought home the Audience Choice Award for their 2010 48 Hour Film Project entry. Enjoy the adventures of Ladycat and her best friend.

You can see more of Team Rock!t’s work this weekend at the SF Underground Short Film Festival. Their 2011 film, Killin’ It In Reno was chosen for screening at this year’s Fall edition of the popular (and wildly flamboyant) short film festival.

More information about it can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/San-Francisco-Underground-Short-Film-Festival/188975937793646

To Destroy a Pie from Scratch

Posted: October 14, 2011 in Explanations
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The folks at Sci-ence reminded us of this gem.

 

If you wish to destroy an alternate universe from scratch, you must first invent an apple!

Oh, in the meantime, if you want to create audience delight from scratch, you may want to spin up your favorite filmmaking team and get yourself into the National Film Challenge which happens next weekend! (http://www.filmchallenge.org) It’s a great way to get your filmmaking expertise noticed on the global stage.

From our Fathers

Posted: October 4, 2011 in Short Film
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Filmmaker Luke Snellin delivers a polished and poignant tribute to his father.

Maybe we’re just saps, but somehow every note and every frame rang true for us.

Now Luke, we’re ready for your comedy. Because after all, a day without laughter…

Meanwhile, this film was created to mark the launch of Virgin Media Shorts 2011. Visit http://virginmediashorts.co.uk for more information and to enter this year’s competition.

If you’re like us (mainly humbled into immobilized awe), then save the link and go there tomorrow!

Machinima and 48 Hours

Posted: September 30, 2011 in 48 Hour Films, Second Life
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A couple of weeks ago, the 48 Hour Film Project took place in a very special town — the town of Machinima.

For those unfamiliar, machinima is a form of rapid animation that uses game engines to do the rendering instead of highly specialized software and powerful server farms. One of the most famous machinima series of all time was Red vs. Blue created using the Halo engine and some wickedly funny writing. (One of our favorites was the Strangerhood series created with the Sims 2 engine.)

Here’s an example of a machinima film made for last year’s 48HFP competition. It won the Audience Choice award.

 

This year’s entries are scheduled to be screened in Second Life on Saturday, Oct 1 at 3pm PDT. The location has not been officially announced, but we believe it will be at the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre.

If you’ve never been in Second Life, it’s quite easy. You simply create a free account, and download the free software — then you’re good to go. The Second Life viewer takes no more resources than Firefox. So get on it, and we’ll see you at the show on Saturday.