M dot Strange's blog

When I was in Prague I saw this statue and immediately I was like "Hey thats Darth Vader!" So I assumed thats where Star Wars mayne got the idea for Darth... I didn't know what the statue was or anything... I just walked by it everyday I was there and thought it was cool... Then yesterday I was researching the legend of the Golem and I came across the story about Prague's legendary Golem that once roamed the streets and there was a photo... Its the photo of the statue I saw...

So I just realized that no one that I interact with in this town knows wtf I'm talking about... haha... So I made a song about it.... Nobody knows wtFFF mp3 Words ---------- Nobody knows what the fuh fuh fuck I'm talking about I have to explain it for like 20 minutes then they're like oh You should of said so in the first place sorry I was distracted by myspace I got a hole in my head like that Nine inch nails song ya know the band from the sticker on my bong Thats when I knew something was wrong Is it better to have no friends than ones that don't get you? I dance alone a lot and laugh to myself in my bedroom So my answer is one not two cause its just me my headphones and my disease I like having this plague cause my brain is intact and I'm not being eaten slowly by rats I rave alone on rooftops to chiptune beats from Stockholm streets then I get ice cream and ride meh bike quickly and I dream Nobody knows what the fuh fuh fuck I'm talking about Don't pret

So I was lucky enough to be summoned to make an animated music video for one of my favorite bands "Mindless Self Indulgence" I used Cinema 4d 9.1 w/Cactus Dans tools, and After Effects 6.5. I thought I would out together a little thang documenting my work on the Mindless Self Indulgence music video "Animal" There's a ton of music video making-of's out there but since I'm bored waiting for 3d renders to finish I'll add one more to the mix. So this is my process.... The sonG - The first thing I do is listen to the song over and over and just see where the sound takes you... If nothing really jumps out...if scenes don't start building themselves in my head I'll go read the lyrics and see if that does something for me... The title can also do thing for you... For this song I just kinda had an idea about the singer being chased around a weird city by a bunch of strange animals. So I listened to the song and drew up some totally photorealistic stor

Listen to this awesome piece that just aireD ^^ Str8nimE

Torrentrical ^^

So I made this for a French chiptune artist named Pnok in two nights last week. Real quick fun thing to make eyeballs bleeD. PnoK music vide0

I forgot why I got into this whole thing... I never wanted to make traditional "films"... Lost Highway was the the "film" I saw in 1996 that changed my life and made me want to make "films"... It excited me because it was like nothing else I had seen before...it was more like a dream... I want to live and work in dreams because reality suX... So I was just talking to my friend who is a mega artist extraordinaire... I gave him a copy of the excellent short film "Maquina" I met the director Gabe Ibanez in Brazil... Maquina is very dream like and awesome... So as I was talking to my friend who will soon start making moving image thangs said "these are the kind of movies I want to make, where everything isn't explained" and just then I remembered why I got into this whole thing... Because of Sundance and sales reps and distributors and all this and that I forgot why I started in the first place... Making regular films doesn't reall

So I guess if I was like a normal director or even a pure 2d or stopmotion animator I wouldn't have such a strong urge to geek out... but alas I am a 3d animator as well AND I love geekin it up... researching new hardware...going through specs and benchmarks! Ooooh! Almost gets me as excited as reading a new volume of BerserK.... but yeh I can geek out all I want right now but I wont need any new hardware for at least another 6 months... I'm in pre-production so I've got paperwork to get to... Here's a note on my last post... In the workstation I might consider an 8800gt...I did a little more research and peeps in the c4d community tend to think it WINS... Also I want to use some of the functions I didn't get to use in WATS like SPD and hair and cloth sim...Soooooo I might choose different barebones boxes and more RAM so they can rock 4gb each... But yeh... So as I retreat in my anti-reality bubble more and more and interact with physical humans less and less I'

So as I'm writing my next animated feature and in talks about producing a lot of other animated stuff I've been researching new hardware...Because I'll have to buy new hardware eventually... Cinema 4d is my 3d app of choice and it comes with a pretty nice network render client...If I was going to get a new workstation and mini render farm today this is what I would get... I know we wanna go out and get some macho like 8 core system but from my experience its not the best way to spend your money... Its better to get a cheaper system now so in a year or two as processors get cheaper and faster you can simply buy another similarly priced system and add your previous one to the render farm... If you spent 6k on your workstation your not going to be able to do that... So if I were to build a new workstation today it would be like the one in the image based around an AMD x2 6000...My workstation for WATS had an AMD x2 4400...its an excellent processor I must say... 4gb RAM...beca

Mayday I was the only one under your blinding son screaming hey... mayday... I'm not okay... I was the only muthafucker bold enough to say hey... I don't like this... mayday

OmGz he finally put his site up!!! Go download his tracks...this d00d makes some mean craY_Z chiptuneY niceness x9083092839 tRasH cAn maN

I just got back from being strange in NEw York City and like 8 countries in Europe... Next month I have to go to LA twice, New York again and JapaN... exciting stuff for like my "Career" but its not as fun as creating... I hope to get back on it soon... Tonight I was thinking about the future and made this little track in an hour. Oh yeh the We are the Strange DVD is now shipping.. Get yours while they still exist in this dimension.

This little animation WINS so hard WINNING... I am proud to say it was made by my pal Ed... he has a bright future of animated insanity ahead of him and we are going to collaborating on some stuff... PANDA and SWAN

Like a sparkler in the middle of the day... A song lyric from one of my past music projects... I've always felt that I could create bright and dazzling things that bring forth a deeper sense of wonder and excitement.... So I kept that image in my minds eye and set out on my journey... I burned the passion and the pain for fuel and reached the finish line bleeding to death only to have to stand out in the frigid Park City air waiting in line for a meeting with film business people so they could tell me that I made a film that only outcasts would like and that outcasts don't buy anything they just pirate it... So they could tell me that I did BAD by making something new and different... So they could shake they're money stick of cardboard fucking passionless experience at me and fly back to New York or L.A. to continue being miserable because deep down they hate what they do... I love what I do and I love the people that my work speaks too and I will never compromise my integ

My past films sit in a bulging shoe box under my desk... Yeh so if thought WATS was like my first film or something hell naw its like my 108th :)

Yeh so I'm writing a book on animation, filmmaking, being strange and all this and that... So if you see me banging away on my laptop thats what I'm doing... Sean is doing the illustrations for it... Here's an image from the part where I'm talking about why old media distribution deals sux0R...

I just finished a promo video for the new Sweet Noise album "Triptic" Here's an image from it... I'll be working on a music video for the same project this year... I'm doing all the texturing in Bodypaint now... I like giving the models a gritty hand painted look... I'm also doing a music video for the mega ultimate band Mindless Self Indulgence...

Several people on youtube asked me to include an interview on the "We are the Strange" DVD... So I'm gonna solicit questions from the online audience :) If you have any questions you want me to answer on the interview portion of the We are the Strange DVD extra please post them as comments here...Thanks! I am already including a 20 minute Q &A session from one of the Sundance screenings which answers a lot of the common questions...but yeh...please post your questions and I'll do my best to answer them on the DVD.

Mega knowledgeable cutting edge writer Scott Kirsner interviews this d00d Peter Broderick who like knows everything about independent film distribution... Cinematech: Advice for Filmmakers

I made this short film over the weekend for fun... has nothing to do with my next film...

I just for back from Sao Paolo, Brazil...The theaters were full... "We are the Strange" got a standing ovation from what I heard... I met tons of cool people and had a good time... Here's a photo of Clarice Reitschul (The film programmer for Resfest Brazil) Gabe Ibanez (Director of "Maquina" he's from Spain) and myself. We are the Strange is also featured in this months DV Magazine. I would like to give me MEGA thanks to everyone at Resfest Brazil and I hope to meet you all out in the world somewhere again! Thanks for having me!

If you want to talk animation/filmmaking or UFO's, Aliens, Mind Control etc... I'll be out there...

Oh yeh I forgot to post here about this panel I was on in San Francisco... I doubt any of yall are in SF anyway so it probably didn't matter... I was supposed to create an introductory video and of course I stayed up all night and did it at the last minute...Check it out I'm totally professional :) It has the WATS trailer in the middle so just skip that part... Watch M dot's "Innovation Salon" Intro Video It was a pretty cool event as I got to meet Stu from the Orphanage, This Cool d00d from EA, and the CEO of IODA... If you are in SF and want to go to the next Innovation Salon check it out here! BAVC Innovation Salon

If you want to know how I did this... Then watch these two tutorial videos... Yes now you can make disturbing animations of yourself too! XD Or ummm...wait?!

So yeh in this like made up game--->film theory of mine Act 3 is the ending cinematics. So when Act 3 rolls around in a game, its already over. So what happens in these cinematics? All the loose ends are tied up, the opposition is dead, the protagonist is safe and the world is usually a better place. Most games, like mainstream films have closed endings. A closed ending is just that, it isn't open for interpretation. We know the protagonist succeeded at achieving his goals, and we have no doubt that the opposition is gone and won't come back. Just look back at my notes about archplot from Robert Mckee's book story as I summarized all this closed ending stuff. So what should you do in Act 3 in your film? So your protagonist overcame all the obstacles your threw at him and now he/she should reap the rewards or die a horrible Death!!!?! It's up to you whether you want a "happy" or "sad" ending but it should be a definitive end unless your planning on

The first time you take control of the character in a game it is already Act 2. Act 2 is confrontation. In most games what usually happens after you take control of the character for the first time? Enemies come after you, you are presented with obstacles, confrontation. According to my mega notes the purpose of Act 2 is: -Confrontation: Monsters, zombies, killer robots come after you and you have to kill them or be killed. The enemies are obstacles that you must confront. There is lots of confrontation and action. In Resident Evil 4 you only have to take about 10 paces after your first take control of Leon before some crazed dude tries to split your head open.... yeh thats confrontation and he's an obstacle. -Subplots blossom: In Resident Evil 4 we meet Antonio Depp who is a scientist who helped create the crazies...OOOH subplot! And he becomes our friend and we care about this guy and what happens to him. If you bring the subplots in during Act 1 you might cause confusion about

M dot Strange is a mixed media animator from San Jose, Ca. He recently singlehandedly completed an 88 minute animated film entitled "We are the Strange" which made its world premiere in January of this year at the Sundance Film Festival. A reviewer that saw the film M dot made in his bedroom with 9 PC's over the course of 3 years said "it looked like something Hollywood would make for 70 million" He has recently been featured in the NY Times, ABC World News , Wired.com and his youtube videos have been viewed over a million times. Recently I did a few lectures on animation and film making for San Jose State University students. One of the students asked a question about how video gaming had influenced the way I developed the narrative in We are the Strange. At the moment I hadn't really thought about how video games had influenced the narrative aspects of the film. Retro video games have obviously influenced my visual style but until tonight I hadn't real

So I've done a few animation lectures recently and I have a few more in the next month... My presentation is on Mixed_Media_Animation... it includes screen capture video clips and the like... I'm trying to figure out the best way to make it available online... but when I do I will post it here... I've also read a ton of good writing books recently and I will post reviews here soon...

Seriously its like the best thing ever... I've had it for awhile and just skimmed through it... This week I'm studying it and it's great! If your getting ready to write a script or reworking one this man has the information that you need so buy his mega_awesome book as soon as you can then you can follow along because as this blog moves on I'll probably use a lot of the terminology from this book along with Egri's books... I'll make a new list of books I'm reading now and post it soon.

Hallo I'm M dot Strange a lone animator creating strange new films for this bland old world... This new blog marks the end of my work on "We are the strange" and the beginning of my new animated featured film that for now I will call "Mysterious doll film" I have the real title but knowing it would give away too much about the story. I've learned a lot about animation and production in general since I started "We are the Strange" so I'm planning on completing this film in less than 2 years. Stylistically this new film will be similar to "WATS" although it will be much more refined and contain more 3d animation. I've been doing some tests with a new 3d style that I will employ in MDF (mysterious doll film) and it will allow for a much more flexible production process than the stopmo/3d one I used in WATS. This new film will also contain much more dialog than WATS, lip sync is usually very time consuming to animate that is one of th