Round★One - The Official Website

well... after sitting on my ass for the past 18-20 hours, it's finally finished! round one has a website, and[!], it's working seamlessly - for now.

i've made some downloadable stuff like wallpapers and avatars, and i've also installed a direct donation button so if you don't feel like going through indiegogo you don't have to.

but now, let's make a deal :) if you can help me spread the word about this to your friends and family on either facebook, myspace, livejournal, blogger, twitter, whatever - for ONE whole day - i'll toss your name up in the Special Thanks section for the world to see how awesome you are :D and yes, you'll get the nice Thank You gift goodies too ;)

now...on to work on the trailer! yay! some animating (finally!)

so much to do when you're a one man op.

Great news today!

movie poster for round one

woke up this morning to a see a big contribution to the Round One project. seriously its been about 2 weeks since starting this fund raising campaign and it's been quite the journey.

there's still a lot to do...

trailer
website
ACEO cards
art book
press kits
registration for film festivals and much more on my plate...

thanks to those who've been helping out to spread the word about this project!

Some WIPs

working on the website design for Round One. trying to keep it simple and straight forward. lots of CSS on this puppy. can't decide on the light or dark version... granted, with the dark version, some text colouring is going to change..



illustrative poster for the film. been using a very traditional oil painting technique of holding my stylos pen like a brush. i love working on a cintiq :D

More Round One Updates

yo. so i've been on this fund raising campaign for a minute now, and i have to say that it's been pretty rough for the first official week. i could really use some help in getting the word out about this project.

if your interested, head on over to indiegogo.com/roundone and check out the widgets you can click on to send to facebook, myspace, email, twitter... blah blah blah... you'd be helping me get some sleep back that's for sure.



there are 120 shots in the entire short film. i have to break all of those down from quicktime files to FLV and WAV file formats - then import them and assemble them in flash...its a long process...



just assembling the shot. it's much like the traditional "shot" folders back in the day - you have your layout drawings, audio track, and dope sheet ready to go.



just working on another concept painting for round one... might revisit this one later...

Animation As A Language

“You can explain so much more if you don’t have to explain it. In interviews they ask me, ‘Marcus can you explain funk?’ The words can’t do it. How can you explain funk? How can you explain a groove? If you can explain it, you don’t have to play it and if you’re trying to do music to words, you loose something.” – Marcus Miller

Well, isn’t music, but it’s still a language all its own. It’s like a painting you see in a gallery; a majestic work towering above us, it leaves us with a sense of awe. Can you explain your feelings when you see it? We can try, but doesn’t it feel like we’re leaving something out, that we’re cheapening the experience all together?

I remember seeing Akira for the first time and the phrase “mind blowing” does not even begin to do it justice. I would be doing a great disservice by trying to toss my own mediocre words to describe the neuron-roasting exploit. Even reading the cover description didn't give me a sense for what it was. And yet, for any motion picture to receive the green light, it has to be explained away with words that just don’t seem to describe anything.

And what’s more, if you can explain what it is, why bother going about trying to do it; the story has already been told.

When creating a story, I tend to think in pictures, not words. The story comes out in various forms from character drawings, to a sketch of a scene that’s in my head - like a musician coming up with a song; but the last thing I do is write it out. In fact, I hate writing out the explanation for something I feel you have to watch in order to understand.

This industry demands the opposite. We explain first, show next, and then hope to get a palatial response of acceptance. In every pitch or description I write, I can’t help but feel the loss of something grand in the over all story. And then we wonder why our “top notch” idea went belly up. It’s a Catch 22 that this business suffers greatly from. Script writing aside, we have to write tag lines, pitches, bibles…

Sometimes we have to stop explaining it to people just have to stay quiet and watch.

-V

INDIE GO GO's FEATURE PROJECT!!

come see it at http://indiegogo.com

Round One - On PayPal

i have to say thank you for everyone who's been helping me out to spread the word about this project! it's incredibly encouraging and definitely rewarding to do a project that can really get people involved :)

a few people outside the US have been asking me if i have a paypal account, and the answer is - yes, i do!

i've added a Donate button to the right -->

and I'm also playing it here:

again, thanks for the help and contributions!