Archive for May, 2005

Only One Week Left…

Wednesday, May 11th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • With E3 just a hop and a tick away, I’ve been getting rabid daily mails compounding passionate gamer hopes, surreal brand loyalty statements, and the odd near-spiritual Revelation regarding the Big N’s plans for the show. Some are nutjobs and wankers. Some have promise…but still a certain fishiness lingers in the air (Aries, anyone?). But here’s something I like. It summarizes a lot of networking theories that have various ‘in’ developers nodding their heads in backrooms and – most importantly – it allows Nintendo to be…well, NINTENDO. Definitely worth a read before the big show.

    Oh…and if everyone has to put on ‘special glasses’ before doing a gyroscope hokey pokey at their press conference next Tuesday? Then you SO owe me one for the abuse 😉

    Mid-Week-Distracto-Haiku

    Wednesday, May 11th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • Our Sweet Little Drew

    was taken advantage of…

    England got him drunk.

    CALLING ALL CANADIAN SAINTS!!!

    Sunday, May 8th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • (just sent this out via Forum newsletter on Sunday night, and will follow suit with the main mailer this week – gotta love the blog immediacy 😉 )

    Like the poster to the right says, fellow Canucks – IT IS UPON YOU! After months of negotiations with the #1 DVD and electronics retailer in the country, it looks like they’re going to get behind BS in a BIG way – we’re talking in-store promo, HD trailers, featured shelf and web positioning – the works! Starting this week, FUTURE SHOP stores across the country (with a focus on Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver) will be pimping BS with some mad love, and for the cheapest price ANYWHERE – $39.99 CANADIAN. Holy Poo!!!

    So please – pretty please with Zephies on top – if you’re from the Great White North, and have only been holding off grabbing a copy ’cause of shipping costs or web security or some such shizz, then now’s pretty much the perfect time. Hit the stores in droves. Reserve and review one online. Tell your friends. Convince your school or club. If it does well, we’ll be aces for getting into shops all over North America! If it tanks…well, at least we tried our darnedest to spread the good word – and in the end, that’s what it’s always been about. 😀

    And as a little FYI, we’re still working on an international release for our friends in the faraway quiet corners of the globe. In fact, it looks like Spain and Korea might be the first on board, with the UK and France close behind. Stay tuned, kidlets…and keep the faith!

    Another Weekend Treat…

    Saturday, May 7th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • Loved the books. Panicked about Disney’s involvement with the flicks. Still worried they’re going to stick to their original statements and water down any and all references to Christianity onscreen. But never let it be said that I can’t throw some love to an above-average trailer. Sure…I’ll always have a soft spot for Aslan in the BBC original, but Tilda Swinton as the White Witch has me more than a bit giddy…and WETA doesn’t exactly suck either. Say a secular prayer for a fantasy franchise that ain’t Potterized. 😛

    Friday Fan Fun – Week 3!!!

    Friday, May 6th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • Sorry for being a little late with this gang. We’ve been busy trying to sort out the final specs and bitrates for the HD TRAILER that’s going to be featured in Canada’s largest electronics and DVD retailer!!! More news on this over the weekend, but rest assured that a rallying cry will be sent out to Canuck fans early next week, urging them to hit stores in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and Vancouver to show their support and keep BS on the in-store charts.

    And speaking of crying – well, singing actually (wow – worst…segue…ever) – here’s a wee tribute to the much celebrated Broken Saints Fan Musical!!! It’s too bad about the fried forum, as lyrics were popping up at a maniacal rate, but we hope to have things back to normal within two weeks – so hopefully the thread gets resurrected by the mastermind of it all. ( 😀 smiling at you , Zephie dearest…)

    Oh…and in closing, we tried to think of something nice to do for Free Comic Book Day tomorrow. Hmmmmm. Okay…you twisted our damn digits:

    HAPPY FCBD!!!!

    Spot the Saints!!!

    Thursday, May 5th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • Dashing to and fro’ in the quiet corners of the globe can leave things a blur for all involved, but it was still nice having some of the core crew drop by for the showing of CHAPTER 20 at Vancouver’s Pacific Cinemateque last weekend. Not many could make the wonky screening time, but for the few who could make it there was definitely some bigscreen bliss to be had. But speaking of screens, this was a surprise snap on the cam phone as we trundled towards some post-viewing Greek food somewhere on Davie Street – our downtown’s Great Gay Way. (insert joke here :P)

    Can you spot forum freak and DVD localization bad boy ‘CotC’? Or how about our associate producer Kimmy V? Or 5.1 deity Adam Fulton? Or the lovely and poetic Empress of BSness ‘Gypsy’? It’s true. We didn’t do the whole series by ourselves! These folks actually EXIST!!! 😉

    A ghost on padded feet…

    Wednesday, May 4th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • It was just supposed to be another Wednesday visit to my local comic book haunt. I’d push open the heavy glass doors, plastered with the latest four-color promos for muscled heroes and limited editions. I’d drop my backpack at the front counter as a friendly theft-deterring courtesy, even though I’ve been going there for a decade now and the staff knows me – if not by name – then at least by facial hair variation.

    I’d wind my way past the anime DVDs, foil-wrapped trading cards, black and white indies. I’d graze a finger across the cool edge of glass display cases, filled haphazardly with hand-painted busts of childhood icons. I’d work my way back to the monthly racks, where regulars would shuffle sideways with a nod and make space so I could leaf through my favourites in the B’s, G’s, and J’s. Maybe I’d find a gem, and clutch it gently as I pivoted towards the back shelves – the ones stuffed with graphic novels and movie posters and scripts and boarded back-issues with plastic bag skins…

    And then I’d get what I really came for. The little flood of warmth in the chest and the nervous, tingling fingers. The gentle steps and measured movements, so as not to startle. The slow extension of self, purposeful and profound, to touch and be touched. Lazy moist eyes and dimpled nostrils. Tired silver whiskers and serrated cinnamon ears. And soft, tiny paws – choosing to sheath their daggers – guiding me to a fragile, misshapen mouth that held sandy pink treasure. Every Wednesday. The same joy. The sweetest feline blessing…

    But not today.

    Today, there’s just a picture.

    Today, there’s just a picture on a handmade card.

    Stained with glue…

    And tears…

    And sloppy ink memories…

    Including my own.

    BS DVD Review

    Wednesday, May 4th, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • (I’m swamped today, so thought it might be kosher to revisit this piece from Norway’s own Jens C. Brynildsen – Senior Editor at FLASH MAGAZINE)

    Broken Saints is quite a bit of Flash history. From being a pet project, it turned into one of the highest awarded Flash animations ever. From the modest beginnings three years ago, until todays 12 hour, 24 chapter animated novel, the series have thrilled millions browsing the web. Now the DVD is out!
    Broken Saints is a dark and depressing, but beautiful tale about four people that receive disturbing messages telling them to abandon their current lives. Using beautiful illustrations and great sound, you are drawn into a world of strong, evil forces. Broken Saints is very much an action-based story, but this is a sort of “Long form” storytelling. Things progress slowly to build up moods. To illustrate this; one of the chapters contains only a handful of drawings, but uses good narration and fading and morphing text to push the story forward. The Ninjai series is another example of such storytelling. Slow, but beautiful. It works best in front of your computer in a dark room.

    This way of storytelling is something unique for the web, and it does not conform to any traditional format like film or TV. Broken Saints is strong in story, but rather shallow in terms of animation. This is not Disney animation with 24 new pictures for each second, though it clearly uses animation to tell the story.

    Broken Saints can best be described as a narrated, animated comic or novel. The story is created using smart fades, transitions and panning. Despite the format, it’s a strong story that will draw you into a mysterious, magic, poetic and disturbing world. This is a true Epic story about the good and evil. Broken Saints is a modern cult classic and have received praise from publications from CNN and TechTV to Wired Magazine and USA Today. They have won the FlashForward Film Festival, Macromedia Site of the Day, The Peoples’ Choice Award at FlashInTheCan and they have even landed the prestigious online award of the Sundance Film Festival.

    ANIMATED IN FLASH – DRAWN IN PAINTER
    So what’s this to do with Macromedia Flash then? Brooke Burgess (writer and director of the series) decided to take a break from his job as a producer at EA Games. He traveled for a while, came back to Canada and met up with his good friend Andrew West. They decided to do a traditional comic together. Brooke would write the story and Andrew draw it. When they met up with Andrew’s friend Ian Kirby, plans were changed. Ian showed them what Flash could do and both Brooke and Andrew were sold on the idea of making a narrated, animated comic for the web. Using the web allowed them to create exactly the story they wanted, without censorship and with a potentially huge audience. The company called Budget Monks Productions was formed and they set off.

    From the beginning, all the animations were done in Flash. The graphics were drawn in Painter and then imported into Flash for animation and addition of sound. As soon as an episode was finished, they’d put it online at brokensaints.com and start on the next chapter. Creating Broken Saints was a massive task and the fans were eager, so they’ve had a constant pressure to finish new episodes.

    During one of these pauses, I more or less forgot about it and I didn’t watch Broken Saints again until the DVD recently dropped onto my desk. It was a pleasant surprise. One can easily see that they all have increased their skills throughout the production. Graphics are more beautiful and the storytelling more effective towards the end of the series.

    For this DVD version, all scenes have been exported (using SWF2Video) and re-rendered in Combustion, a great compositing program that is sort of like Photoshop, but for video. The use of Combustion also allowed for adding some extra effects to some scenes in the DVD version. More than one million source files had to be gathered again to scale them to the right video format. The original format was 530×320 pixels at 20 fps. Video is 720 x 486 at 30 fps (American NTSC standard), so a lot of pixels were simply missing… Despite the massive amount of work, the result is really good.

    BUMPY ROAD TO SUCCESS
    Creating the series has not been very fruitful in terms of money. For the first few chapters, the project was supported by Switch Interactive, but they had to leave the project to do more commercial stuff. With increased popularity, there are also bandwidth costs. To avoid putting adverts on the Broken Saints site, the three guys in Budget Monks Productions had to be creative. To keep the project rolling, the creators have spent their savings, gotten donations and also arranged concerts to benefit the project. They have long hoped for a commercial investor, but this is not a story for the faint at heart. Blood, gore, fright and politics are important to the storyline. Having an Iraqi main character also makes Broken Saints a hard sell in USA and even Canada.

    On the DVD’s Behind The Scenes feature, Brooke Burgess says ‘This is not fun. Right now, no one is being paid a lot of money, but we’re recording this featurette so you can see the pain involved with creating Broken Saints the Deluxe Collectors edition – if it doesn’t all go to hell and fall apart before then.’

    Last year, Telefilm Canada offered funds to produce a DVD version and a lot of work has gone into this. Brooke says ‘this was a chance to revamp the entire series, add incredible new features, and make up for all the mistakes and limitations inherent in our original processes. We simply had to do it, despite the obstacles standing in our way.’ 3 years in the making – now it’s on DVD also, and the creators might get something back.

    WHAT’S ON THE DVD
    The DVD’s are well produced, with animated menus and nice graphics, transitions and sound. Apart from the story, there’s lot’s of extras on the DVD version. Disc one contains a Behind The Scenes program and edited versions of some of the benefit concerts. Disc two has a section showing some of the press coverage from CBC and other media, an in-story website and a video from a lecture Brooke gave at a school where he tells much of the background story and also what he thinks about Flash. Disc three has a cool section of stuff submitted by fans of the series and wallpapers, MP3s and more. Disc four has a couple documentaries and a lot of behind the scenes material (slideshows, sketches and more). There are even some hidden features on the discs too.

    CONCLUSION
    This disc is a true Work of Art. If you’re a fan of the series, it’s a must-have. Go pick up a copy at once. The extras alone are worth it. If you’re a Flash artist or developer, this is a bit of Flash history that you should know. Check out the original online series and buy the DVD if you like what you see. We love it and highly recommend it!

    Tuesday Picto-Haiku II

    Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • This Magical Shack

    Like a Second Home to Me

    Come Visit and See

    Toby’s Bush Bonanza

    Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005

  • Posted By Brooke Burgess Eye
  • Just got a mail from the BS maestro – and the closest thing to ‘family’ I’ve got on this rock – Tobias Tinker. Normally, Senior T is content to share his cross-Europe travel exploits, the contents of his DVD player, or his patented techniques for making superior fishbone latte art. How can you NOT love this man, folks? 😉

    But yesterday saw him dipping his cyber tootsies in the political end of the surf, yielding a mix of material on ol’ W and the neocon cronies. I’m feeling lazy this morning, so I’ll basically cut and paste here:

    Hey man…spent a little while surfing to try to understand what’s going on these days as I felt a bit out of touch. Here’s a random sampling – as usual, no doubt little or none of this will be new to you, but perhaps some fodder for blog links. First, a nice chipper introduction, to get an initial perspective, click this bad boy. (B – and you know at Broken Saints we LOVE fascists. Can’t get enough of ’em with toast and jam!)

    For the intellectually-inclined, a typically long-winded but also typically lucid essay on the current hot-ticket item, the Attack on the Independenct Judiciary, what it really means, and why it is so VERY, VERY important… by your favorite ex-president-in-exile and mine, Al Gore. (B – hey, we couldn’t having this whole ‘internet exchange’ thing without him! :P). And since we need some comic relief after that, here’s a light-hearted look at who’s calling at least some of the shots. (B – makes me feel dirty and happy all at once!)

    Returning to a serious vein, just to remind us that They don’t really give a Rat’s Ass who’s paying the Big Price for what They Want…watch this. This one’s harsh. Still crying and shaking. Fucking hell. The impotence and rage don’t really go away, do they? Just sitting there… (B – bring it home, Mr Cash…bring it home 🙁 )

    And by way of a nice tight wrap-up for those just getting started in their understanding of what exactly is at stake for the long term – here. (B – I’ve seen this in higher res somewhere else, but it’s totally worth a watch if you haven’t scoped it yet. Cool AND chilling.)”

    My Cousin. Composer. Connoisseur. Canuck. And now he’s finally joined me in the swelling ranks of ‘Conspiracy Theorists’. I said it before, and I’ll say it again…how can you not LOVE THIS MAN?!?!?!