oxcjae's hideout

February 2012 Update #2

2012-02-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

I'm giving another update this month for a good reason. Recently, my computer's motherboard has gone apeshit, which required me to order a new one. I might have to reformat again, but that's not the purpose of this entry.

Remember how my old computer supposedly went to crap and made me spawn this announcement back in 2009? Well, when we first purchased my new computer, we quickly found out that our old one only needed to be dusted out. Yeah, we surely felt stupid. So I gave that old computer to my older brother, who needed his own after moving out. Last year, he moved back in, along with my old computer.

So, while I was waiting for my new motherboard to ship in, I hooked up my old computer and found all of my ancient documents and Steam files sitting on the hard drive, untouched since 2009. (I thought the computer was reformatted.)

Know what this means? Thanks to Valve games including demo-recording features, I'll be able to remaster several old movies of mine, including "A Night At The Monastery", "A Time At The Chapel", "Jeff Raven's Mushroom Car", "Fortress Forever: The Pyro", "Good Ol' Half-Life", and especially "The Chapel's 2008". Since I'm not producing any new content right now, I'll be focusing on remastering these in the meantime.

February 2012 Update

2012-02-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

So yeah, I've been lazy, but my imagination's been brewing. I'm unsure if I should go balls out and make whatever videos I want, no matter how random they are, or sit around and hope I eventually have enough desire to complete a full machinima.

Sadly, my time is limited. I'll be heading off to a university next fall, going for a degree in mathematics. (Call me insane, please.) When that time comes, there's no way I'll be producing anything. There's a small possibility during the summer and winter breaks, but my activity will majorly drop either way.

I will be taking advantage of the little time I have left before college, whether it's producing shorts or full machinimas. When I'll begin relies on my natural motivation.

January 2012: Freedom

2012-01-07T21:04:00.000-08:00

At last, my UnKnown Moments 5 has been released. I can't emphasize just how long that project has stressed me out. Thankfully, now the public can enjoy it after over two long years in production. Much respect to the guys at Garry's Mod Informant and Lambda Generation for appreciating and promoting that hard effort.

To my (new) followers: video-making is an on/off hobby for me, which means I'm very spontaneous and unpredictable. In fact, I'm so unpredictable that I, myself, don't know what I'll be up to next. Note, I never release anything on a schedule, since this is only a hobby. All you can do is sit back and look the other way during my times of inactivity. Attempting to rush or demand from me will only make things worse. (It kills my little motivation.)

As for future projects, they'll most likely be one-piece Machinimas rather than any new series. I currently have an interest in one song by Gorillaz that has caught my attention. Hopefully, once I rejuvenate motivation, I'll hand the song its own music video.

UnKnown Moments 5: Information

2012-01-06T08:51:00.000-08:00

-- Music --
01. Soulja Boy - Hey You There [0:05 - 0:09]
02. Akon - I Wanna Fuck You [0:09 - 0:17]
03. My Chemical Romance - I'm Not Okay [0:17 - 0:43]
04. Three Days Grace - Life Starts Now [0:44 - 0:48]
05. Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth [0:55 - 0:57]
06. Metallica - No Leaf Clover [0:57 - 1:04]
07. Trapt - Headstrong [1:04 - 1:09]
08. OneRepublic - All Fall Down [1:13 - 1:22]
09. Salt-N-Pepa - Push It [1:27 - 1:32]
10. Green Day - Minority [1:43 - 1:57]
11. Vangelis - Chariots of Fire [1:57 - 2:18]
12. Eminem - Love The Way You Lie [2:19 - 2:30]
13. My Chemical Romance - Bulletproof Heart [2:32 - 2:38]
14. N.W.A - Fuck Tha Police [2:39 - 2:46]
15. Snoop Dogg - Drop It Like It's Hot [2:48 - 2:49]
16. The Lonely Island - Threw It On The Ground [2:49 - 2:53]
17. OneRepublic - Apologize [2:55 - 2:59, 3:02 - 3:06]
18. Three Days Grace - Never Too Late [2:59 - 3:02]
19. Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz - I Don't Give A Fuck [3:12 - 3:35]
20. Henry Mancini - The Pink Panther Theme [3:37 - 3:46]
21. DMX - Where The Hood At? [3:59 - 4:03]
22. Savage - Swing [4:04]
23. Mindless Self Indulgence - Shut Me Up [4:06 - 4:22]
24. Soulja Boy - YAHHH BITCH [4:22 - 4:25]
25. Eminem - Not Afraid [4:27 - 4:29]
26. Daughtry - What About Now [4:30 - 4:35]
27. Kelly Bailey - Triage at Dawn [4:37 - 4:41]
28. Family Force 5 - Love Addict [4:41 - 4:43]
29. Chris Brown - Look At Me Now [4:46 - 4:53]
30. Gorillaz - Superfast Jellyfish [4:55 - 5:04]
31. Disturbed - Divide [5:07 - 5:14]
32. Afroman - Because I Got High [5:15 - 5:26]
33. Disturbed - Down With The Sickness [5:26 - 5:33]
34. Bizarre - Rockstar [5:33 - 6:36]
35. Eminem - Rain Man [6:36]
36. Bon Jovi - You Give Love A Bad Name [6:38 - 6:40]
37. Blink 182 - I Miss You [6:53 - 6:54]
38. Eminem - Go To Sleep [6:55 - 6:56]
39. Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby [6:56 - 6:57]
40. Green Day - Know Your Enemy [7:02 - 7:03]
41. Soulja Boy - Crank That [7:03 - 7:06]
42. Eminem - Role Model [7:06 - 7:13]
43. Kelly Bailey - Slow Light [7:17 - 7:23]
44. Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks [7:25 - 7:29]
45. Rage Against the Machine - Wake Up [7:29 - 7:39]
46. Gorillaz - Rhinestone Eyes [7:43 - 7:55]
47. Ludacris - Move Bitch [8:00 - 8:05]
48. Tom Jones - Kiss [8:10 - 8:15]
49. Jon Lajoie - Show Me Your Genitals 2 [8:18 - 8:22]
50. Rick Ross - Hustlin' [8:23 - 8:32]
51. Nickelback - Just To Get High [8:34 - 8:37]
52. The Lonely Island - I Just Had Sex [8:37 - 8:49]
53. Rage Against The Machine - Wake Up [8:49 - 8:56]
54. Usher - OMG [8:56 - 9:02]
55. Savage - Swing [9:02 - 9:03]
56. Korn - Word Up! [9:11 - 10:10]

-- Tools --
1. Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0
2. Adobe After Effects CS4
3. Adobe Photoshop CS4
4. Fraps
5. GCFScape
6. VirtualDub
7. Goldwave
8. Audacity

-- Content --
1. Valve Software
2. Facepunch Studios
3. GarrysMod.org
4. (Miscellaneous)

-- Thanks To --
Family
Friends
My Fanbase
jonbrown93

-- Fun Facts --
01. The series' title was inspired by my online alias from my childhood years: UnKnown.

02. Production began in September 2009, a month after the prequel's release. The first scene created was the "apologize" scene.

03. Like the first two UnKnown Moments, the opening scene features a song by Akon.

04. Almost every scene took at least four hours each to create and finalize through editing.

05. Old songs I used were nostalgically ruined from constantly editing their scenes during production.

06. I became confident in this video's replayability after finding myself constantly amused by my own work.

07. The tripmine scene sparked my short series "Half-Serious".

08. This series began and ended with the lonely metrocop.

09. On average, most scenes were produced from August to October (2009-2011).

10. Dubstep hindered this project's release by many months. Don't ask me why...

11. This was originally to be released on the series' fifth anniversary, but I changed my mind as soon as I finished.

December 2011 Update

2011-12-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've contributed my monthly touch-up on UnKnown Moments 5. I'm about to complete my last scene (with the exception of credits), which is surprisingly much longer than first expected (55 seconds). This will bring the total duration of UKM5 to 9:14/10:00 complete. I couldn't help but notice that I may finish this video awhile before my internal deadline. For now, I'm still pondering on how I'll present the credits. (Ironically, the credits were the easiest in the past.)

I was sampling through Gorillaz's newest album the other week and stumbled across a song that certainly has machinima potential. I already have a basic idea down for it. All I can do for now is hope that I'll retain my motivation for it later, since UKM5 is already a huge distraction at the moment.

Last week, I joined a TF2 clan by invitation, and they're active in the competitive department. Note, if I still desire to produce some artistic TF2 videos later on, participating in those private matches may make the videos much more interesting...

Also, I turned 18 last Thursday. Go me.

November 2011 Update

2011-11-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

There's not much to talk about, so this'll be quick.

Of course, I've only bothered with UnKnown Moments 5. Recently, I finished Gordon Freeman's little music video, featuring music from Lil Jon. I cut it short by half a verse, due to it leading nowhere, but I'm sure my fans will appreciate it being 24 seconds rather than 36 seconds. (The scene's supposed to be satirical, but someone will still bitch about the rap music anyway.)

Today, I've (finally) completed the introduction. I'm slightly disappointed with it, only because I wasn't able to swap around two shots due to the way they were filmed. (The swap would've made the intro better.) Being a perfectionist, the littlest issues bug the crap out of me.

These two completed scenes add the whole project up to 28 scenes, 8:19/10:00 completed. Believe it or not, I only need to finish one more scene and the credits. (The credits will take a lot of work, though.)

Apologies for this project taking forever to those who've been eagerly awaiting, but my progress is still in sync with my internal deadline. I'll release a trailer two weeks before release to give everyone a heads-up.

October 2011 Update

2011-10-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

Until a few days ago, I haven't touched upon UnKnown Moments 5. Created a new scene, and I'm now finishing up the introduction, which will bump up UKM5 to 28 scenes and be approximately 7:55/10:00 complete. (Note that the credits will most likely consume around another minute and a half.) This project has been in production for so long that I'm unsure how to arrange all the scenes together, because I've watched all of them so many times to the point where they're stale to me. (Its replay-ability was that great.) No worries, because it'll all be fresh to my viewers.

Some people have the illusion that I'm working on UKM5 all the time, which is not the case. (I'm not that dedicated to video-making anymore.) I only produce a new scene, at the shortest, every few weeks. This is because of my rough personal life draining my motivation, and my music interests have shifted towards dubstep (which removed most potential of creating ideas for UKM5).

On another note, I've been brainstorming about producing more small Team Fortress 2 fragments with more of an artistic direction. I have the potential and the ideas; all I need now is the motivation. I'm not sure if I'll begin them before or after completing UKM5, but they sure will be beautiful once I come around to them.

September 2011 Update

2011-09-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

I've only made one more scene for UnKnown Moments 5 since my last blog, due to a lack of ideas. Though, that's simply because I haven't been acquiring any new songs. Let me put it this way: I'm a huge dubstep fan, so most new songs I discover are in the dubstep/d&b genre. In simple terms, dubstep songs are completely useless for ideas.

Fortunately, I only need to produce/complete a few more scenes (maximum) before I can move on to the final stage, which is the introduction and credits. The intro is already close to completion, but the credits may be a bit more difficult.

With this data in mind, I can make a partly-safe conclusion that UnKnown Moments 5 is now on an internal deadline. (Revealing its release date to the public would only pressure me even further.) This deadline will give me a safe amount of time to brainstorm a few more ideas, produce them, and finish the introduction and credits.

On another note, I've been thinking about opening up a second channel for a YouTube partnership. My primary channel already contains videos with copyrighted music, which is prohibited during partnerships. If I were to give this a go, it would revolve around foolery on video games (PC), much like my Half-Serious video I released today. Of course, my primary channel will continue on with Machinimas and the like that use copyrighted music.

August 2011 Update

2011-08-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

Not only did August bring a new month, but it coincidentally gave me motivation to continue on with UnKnown Moments 5. In the past five days, I've completed five new scenes that add up to 1:20 more on the total. I now have 6:40/10:00 with 23 scenes, introduction and credits not included.

Unfortunately, my extra productivity this month has left me depleting on ideas. Thankfully, my last year of high school will begin two Mondays from now. This will give me lots of time to think as I zone out during my useless electives, maybe bumping into some good ideas for this epic, final sequel.

As for Bag O' Weed 3 and FF - The Spy, recent life distractions have left me unmotivated to continue on with either of these. Maybe I'll come back to them some other time...

July 2011 Update

2011-07-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

I have a few projects I'd like to discuss:

UnKnown Moments 5 continues to be slowly developed, but its quality is certainly up to par. I have 18 scenes completed, with five minutes and twenty seconds finished. My goal is to reach 8:30 before I begin on the introduction and credits. Hopefully the development will speed up once I have motivation to exploit. Note that UKM5, and any future videos, are not on a deadline.

In other news, a possible Bag O' Weed 3 is in its discussion stages. I've been typing up a script for it, and hopefully I'll have enough players from the Fortress Forever community to film it. The plot will be deeper and longer, with a bit of a twist. With such a high-end rig, it'll certainly look good, too.

Meanwhile, I'm currently producing another Fortress Forever video that revives a series I haven't touched in three years. It'll be called Fortress Forever: The Spy. It's not Machinima quality; it's me fooling around on Fortress Forever's pub servers, like the good ol' days.

Although I never started on my Not Alone project, it still lingers my mind after over a year. Just saying that, one day, it may still happen.

Welcome!

2011-07-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to 1337CaLeB's new Blogspot! Information on upcoming videos and video-related data will be posted here.

As for everyone else, visit my YouTube account.