Michael’s Blog

I think there is going to be a lot of these little Gems coming. lol…

During the move I found this in a old storage bin. One of our Havuk “Cassettes”! ouch…lol…from 91′ I believe. Some good ol’ fashion rock’n with screaming vocals and lots of nasty guitars. This was the tape we did the first version of the “Devil went Down to Georgia”, a crazy hard rock/metal version of it that became a mainstay at our shows. I later compiled this and a 2 song production demo we recorded at Castle Rockenstein Studios into the Havuk: Twisted Aggression CD.

Mark it on your calendars….Black Dynamite Night. Friday the 19th. I’ll be sending the invite out with our new address so come hang out with us, it’s going to be a fun little shindig of food, booze and kung fu!

Well it’s Friday and I’m sitting here the day of Art Lock which basically means I’m sitting around fixing the occasional bug that comes through and a minor tweak here and there. lol…so not a lot going on.

I did find out what I will be working on next so I am on the Internet doing research and all that. I’ll probably start prototyping some rough concepts starting Monday so that’s good to move on to something new.

I talked with Karlton today and I think I am going to go with this urban office assault theme for the “3 minutes of Fury” CD. I’ll be looking on Model Mayhem for some model talent for the project, but I need some office looking people for the shoot so if anyone is interested in being a part of it, let me know.

I also want to get together with the actors in Plan B to do a photo-shoot for the Plan B packaging / poster Art in the near future. Tim said he wanted to submit it to the Film Festivals so we should get that squared away at some point. I have a couple different concepts for the project Art.     

Last night I got the Art/Video system fully functional again so we’re all ready to begin file conversions on the Matrox hardware. I’ll probably start that process while getting the CD done.

I hope ya all are having a great day.

Tim came over tonight and we went over some of the details for his Film/Directorial debute I’ll be working on entitled Plan-B. A story about a kidnapping gone awry. After looking at the footage again and seeing how some of the footage is inter-cut, I think this is going to be a pretty cool project. I’ll be co-producing the final product with Tim as well editing, visual effects and box art for it. I am seeing kind of a Reservoir dogs/Suicide Kings kind of look for the box art. There are a few After FX shots in there as well with a couple guns blazing, blood, etc. that should be fun to do.

Ill be syncing all the video and audio together in the next week or so and get it all imported into the Matrox Hardware. Tim did a great job cataloging all the video with the separated audio files via excel spreadsheet so I don’t think it will take too long to get it all synced. Then I can start cutting into it.

Notice my cool revolver prop gun in the scene here.

We are done moving and it’s time to get back to business around the homestead. A lot of interesting things happening and not so interesting things. lol.

Today was the first day I have been back to the gym since the move…ouch! I really pushed myself today and could barely walk out of there, but I feel good. Not really all the interesting but its good to be getting back to it.

The illustrious Tim is coming out tonight to talk about editing and post for the film that was shot last weekend with some of ya. I am looking forward to checking it out. Rock’n Roel used his new Canon 7D so it will be nice to see it in action. I heard great things about the performances…so good job guys.

This next week is going to dedicated to finishing up Karlton’s CD. It keeps getting pushed back due to one thing or another, but I need to get on it and get it done now that the move is done. It is at the very top of cue but shouldn’t take me too long.

I also have the CD cover to do as well, which I kicked K an idea for the cover art this morning. I might need some people for the photography that I am thinking will be some kind of Action / corporate / shooting in the workplace kind of shot for it. Guns and Ammo meets Drew Carey. lol…should be a lot of fun if he wants to go that route. I’ll know more here soon.

Last night Shannie and I went out pet smart and got some fish for the condo. Cute little guys. Right now just some Neons and a couple Ghost Cat Fish. When we get the new house built we’ll be getting a big kid tank. lol…but it’s nice having fish around. It also gives the cats something to do as well.

So thats the news of the day.

Lock down for Battlegrounds happens this Friday and then I should be moving on the next thing here at Sony hopefully. Sentinel’s Fate will be on store shelves two weeks from today on the 16th.

I love this tune….and an amazing player. Awesome phrasing and astonishing technique. Give it up for Daniele.

Saturday evening and we are finally officially moved. yeaayyyy…lol.

Yep, got the rest of the small details taken care of, gave the place a once over and left the keys on the way out the door. We hadnt been over there all week and spent today getting junk out of the garage, and cleaning the place up.

As we placed the keys in a kitchen drawer and took a last look around it was kind of sad saying goodbye. We did a lot of things in that place. Finished an independent video game title and sold it to the Hasbro Toy company, worked on 6 EverQuest 2 Expansion games, shot our first film, met my Shannie and got married, worked on 2 cd releases as well as a few of my own Music projects….there was a lot of history there, and I’ll miss the place but it was time to end a chapter and start another one.

This next month should be interesting. We launch Sentinel’s Fate in a couple weeks and of course that means Launch Bonus time!…and that means I’ll be getting my mits on Canon’s flagship Camera, the 1D Mk4 very soon! Yes! I cant wait to start shooting with it…but also on the horizon, I’m looking into an AVID Editing system. Yep, the real deal. The Avid Adrenalin HD is what I am looking at so that would give me some serious editing power for whatever film projects we’ll have going on. Very Cool stuff.  

Well time for sleep…it was a productive, but exhausting day.

EVERQUEST II: Battlegrounds Site 

That didn’t take long. SOE released newsletter promo ads today for the Battlegrounds Release. Here are a few screenshots taken. Zones go into Q.A. at the end of the week so we are really close to being done with them. I’m doing some last minute requests and polishing at the moment. I think they are going to be well received. Out subs are up and holding strong so between Battlegrounds and Sentinel’s Fate it should be a really good year for EQ2.

Another long weekend, but we are pretty much done now. We have a few things in the garage we need to grab, and hired a cleaning crew to finish the place up on Saturday but for the most part we are done. This week we are getting things organized at home and not heading back that way until Sat….feels good to be removed from the old place finally. lol. Now I can move on and get back to business.

I have a quick film scene in the vain of The Crow / Sin City I’m currently writing and plan to use it for testing out the 1D next month. I have the basic premise written out, and Ill be putting pre-production elements together for it after this weekend. It’s a really stylized piece visually and has a kind of vigilante / super hero theme with a tragic ending. It also has a 3d element to it I am looking forward to creating for it. 

Today I received a new Dell 24″ widescreen monitor for the proTools rig…so I have Dual 24s for it now. Yeayyyyy!…plenty of visual space in ProTools. lol. I was using an older 17″ for the second monitor which had a lower res so using it for fader control and plugin displays kind of sucked. the new monitor on that side accommodates all that really well now. Happy Days!…

Well off to bed I think. We’re getting pretty close to wrapping up EQ2 Battlegrounds and everyone is excited about the new release. I saw some marketing shots they took of all the BG zones this morning and they looked really cool. I am sure they will be leaking them out to the press soon so Ill post them up when they are officially released. I think they are taking video footage as well tomorrow for marketing. Coming soon.