I don't really have much to say here. It's summer. Most of us are guilty we're not doing more with our free time. Others don't care, they sleep in until 1:00 and watch TV until they get bored for three months. Well, I'm happy to say that I am actually doing some work over the summer! No, not the kind of work that's actually productive and profitable, like a job or something, no, I'm talking about FLASH WORK. Yes, making flashes IS work.

I keep going over to my mom's house, and she says nearly every week: "So, how much animation did you get done? 2, 3 minutes?", and I laugh as usual and reply: "13 seconds". People underestimate how long it takes to make flash on a regular basis. See, being a (nearly) one man team, I've got to write a script, get voice-overs, draw the characters and backgrounds and menus and effects, animate everything, find music and sound effects that fit, lip-sync everything, and do it all in a clever and interesting way. So, yeah, it's a good bit of work.

Actually, I'm not really sure why I'm writing this. As of right now I don't have too many fans, so...whatever.

And by the way, I can't completely spill the beans on what I'm working on, but I'll give you a teaser: It's got pancakes and waffles. And it totally rocks.

Reply if you like, or don't. See if I care.

--Mikael

Well, it's that time of year, campers! Yep. My school's open house event thingy. Heh, I said thingy. I'm funny.

Well, it was actually pretty cool. Some of the highlights were chalk drawings on the ground for people to look at as they walked (I would have done one, but I'm not in art this year...next year, though! :P), they had a video screening, and "Activities and more in Mount Olympus". Basically, that last part means that the latin class organizes events and activities and stuff for open house with a toga theme to it.

"Toga! Toga! Toga!"
Seriously, why is that funny? I never got that joke...

(WARNING! IF YOU DON'T LIKE GUITAR HERO, SKIP THIS PART)
The highlight of these activities: GUITAR HERO III. And to be honest, I was kind of expecting this on a whim. I even brought my own guitar hero controller in case they only had one. Didn't actually bring it WITH me though, just left it in the car.

I waited in line for about 3 songs, then I got to play. And let me tell you, it was just about as epic as epic could get. They gave me the controller that had stupid little stickers on the frets, which would make it almost impossible to slide my fingers on the buttons. I tried to switch guitars, but he said he didn't want to. And I thought: "Alright then, all the more glorious will my victory be! Muhahaha!!"

Well, I picked Raining Blood, on expert pro face-off. A song I was extremely familiar with. And back to the epic thing I meantioned earlier, when I was playing...there was a sunset in the background...the wind was in my hair...a guy behind me was trying to sabotage me...and lastly, he was actually pretty good. We were about tied, right up until Mosh 1 (if you don't get guitar hero-speak, this is a hard part in the song), then my score just skyrocketed over his. I beat him, with me at 170K, and him at 100K. He seemed pretty pissed though, probably cause he didn't know the path for it...

Also, since it was windy, I was doing HORRIBLE. I mean, my hand was moving about 1/3rd as fast as it could have been...so yeah. Also no warm-up. The guy trying to sabotage me, he was pushing my elbow, going "Hey Mikael! Don't mess up! Don't mess up!", eventually, I turned around, mid-song, and feinted a kick, and that got rid of him. There were a few people behind me too. About 5.
(OKAY, GUITAR HERO IS OVER NOW)

Alright then...the film screening...ugh...
Well, let's just say...it gave me a prespective on how...barren the valley is. I mean, I was watching the videos in the theater area with about 50-something people in the audience, and--I'm sorry--but for the most part, they were god-awful. Really bad. When I mean bad, it has the majority of the following descriptions:

1. Heavy metal in weird places (transition texts)
2. Ridiculously long (anywhere from 10-20 minutes)
3. Stretching good ideas to death, until they are unstretchable (hey! "Mad TV" anybody?)
4. No sense of pacing ("okay, you're skateboarding. WE GET IT ALREADY!!")
5. No plot ("Olololol!!1 lets just skateboard everywhere and put some heavy metal in the background music!)
6. Plot made no sense (self-explanatory)
7. No tripod ("seriously? I mean...seriously?!")
8. Really bad acting (thankfully, though, there wasn't too much of this)

So if your movie matches at least a few of those, it most likely sucks. The only ones I liked were my cartoon I showed (Nowheresville: Showcase), my friend's cartoon, and some other video that actually had something of a plot. Of yeah, and on a side note, only 2 cartoons were shown (mine and his).

And to make this even more depressing, most of the people who submitted something were seniors and juniors...I'm just a sophmore (however that word is spelled)!

This really reminds me why I named my series "Nowheresville". Where I live, there is nothing. I know a lot of people say that...but I mean, come on. Want to go shop at a mall? YOU CAN'T. The only redeeming things about where I live is...let's see... Fast food, a movie theater, some grocery stores, a Rite Aid, a bank, and a flagpole. Nearly everything else is farms, vineyards, and fields. There IS a town, but it is more of a tourist trap. It is made to look like a mock-up of Denmark, and there's nothing there except for a HELL of a lot of antique stores, multiple hotels, some clog shops, and a flagpole. It's like Disneyland with everything fun taken out of it. But that's enough of my ranting...

Seriously though, if I didn't have a real city on my mom's side of life, I would probably wither and die, like a flower. And for that, I'm thankful.

(Man, this is the most time I've ever spent making a news post)

As far as my first episode goes, I've got the entire script done, and I'm getting my final voices from people on friday. Who cares? EVERYBODY!!

"Nowheresville Showcase" is out now! Go check it out!
I'm not gonna bother to type up details about it here, just go to my page to see it.

I AM pretty happy with how it turned out, but I really think I could do better. I'm going to start production on a new one some time in the future...Not sure HOW far into the future, but I want to finish the script for Episode 1 first. Yeah, it should be fun...

I can't tell too many details, but I CAN say that the voice actors from the first nowheresville will be there, along with some others. Still undecided on who, though.

Well, let's see...it's thursday today, and I pretty much have to be finished with my new flash by monday...well, actually, it's wednesday, but I'll have school from mon-wed, so, I pretty much have to get it by sunday...

Well, I'm fairly pissed off, tbh. I have to go into LA today with my mom to visit with my sisters, which isn't all that bad, kinda fun actually, but it makes it much harder for me to get my flash done if I can only work on it saturday and sunday when I get back...

I'm pretty much finished with the flash, witch will be a pilot episode of a later flash I'll make if this one goes well. Earlier this week, it was about 37 seconds. Now, it's totalling out to about 1 minute, without an intro or credits yet. I'd post a screenshot along with this news post, but I'm typing this up on my mom's laptop.

The ONLY thing I regret about it is the pace. I just watched "Hyperanimation ep 1", and it was great, but it only reminded me how slow MY flash was going to be. It is meant to be a surreal experimental comedy thing but...IDK. I guess I'm just being personal about this, but I'm sure people will like it anyways...

Shoot, gotta run. See ya!

Probably not. Sigh...it's going to be just like my myspace blog all over again.

Anyways, I've got bad news and good news. Bad news: My flashes' deadline for the film festival: April 3rd. Good news: I've got about a week of spring break to work on it! yayyyy! It's probably just going to be a teaser though. I've fully animated about 32 seconds of it so far. It should probably end up being 90-120 seconds in the end...if I'm lucky.

I've got a name for my series too. I think it's really awesome as a name, but I can't exactly tell you it yet.

later!