elroyonline

As regular visitors (if there actually are any) will have no doubt guessed, the lull in posts last week was the direct result of my focusing on this latest episode of Powers Cosmic. Gladly, I was able to palm some of the more eye straining work (lip-syncing) to Furious for this episode - actually Simon lip-synced (lip-sunk?) his own dialogue (as Furious) and I did mine, the idea of which amuses me more than it should. The end result is that we've got a system in place now for sharing that load! Great news for me, not so great for Simon as I'm now more likely to outsource that part of the process to him! Hopefully it will also mean that the turn over time between releases will get a little thinner too.

So, what's this episode about? Being prepared, that's what... and no, it has nothing to do with Scouting....

It's been a while since I made a Remote Viewing episode, mainly because they're a pain in the butt. So this time round I've tried something new, and I'm calling it a Remote Viewing Video Log.

The basic idea is that I wanted to move away from the whole "show" aspect of the previous Remote Viewing episodes and head towards a more podcasty feel. Something a bit more spontaneous and far less work to produce... which will hopefully give me more time to write and animate new Powers Cosmic episodes.

Anyway, I hope this new format goes down well. Please feel free to let me know what you think.

Enjoy.

It's been a long time coming (and the source of the post slow-down of the last week or so) but the first episode of Powers Cosmic for 2009 is finally here. Despite the fact that this script was written months ago, it's fallen into line with that other thing that's been taking up too much of my time lately... Left 4 Dead: A game that reminds us all of the, ever present, threat of a Zombie uprising. What could be worse than the streets filling with the living dead? Perhaps trying to warn your friends about it, and having them not believe you?

This is the longest episode so far, at almost five minutes. Therefore also the largest at 16 meg.

Enjoy

This episode was actually completed last week, but rather than upload it right away it was jammed onto a DVD and, along with all the other existing Powers Cosmic and Remote Viewing episodes, was played repeatedly for the duration of the eGames expo and Digital Lifestyle Show. Talk about getting sick of the sound of your own voice! I can still hear "Hi, I'm elroy" echoing around in my head as I try to get to sleep at night.

The tragic part about this episode is that it is quite literally a transcript of an actual conversation. It wasn't until the debate started between Furious and I that I realised that so many people have such differing opinions on what it means to be immortal... See if you can't start an argument amongst your own friends!

I think it's time now to get back into the swing of writing DVD reviews, so...

It only just occurred to me, as I was uploading the video files (and accompanying images and what not) for this new Powers Cosmic episode, that this is the first time that the characters have been seen in a location out side of the e-shack. This episode takes place in a cinema... a venue that appears in several other upcoming scripts!

For a variety of reasons (all technical), both Furious and I have been having no end of trouble with our dialogue recording. Two separate problems, but both with the same solution: Cold hard cash. Hopefully we'll both have new apparatus soon and the audio quality should improve dramatically... This is my way of preparing you for the poor audio quality of this episode. As far as the poor script, shoddy editing, dodgy animation, talentless voice acting and ham-fisted illustrations go... well, you're going to have to prepare yourself for them...

The plan to do an animated version of the Powers Cosmic comic has been in the works for a while -- Remote Viewing spawned directly out of the test animations that I've been doing over the past year or so -- in fact, anyone who attended last year's eGames may have seen a very early 'draft' episode playing on the big screen on the main stage (it involved Elroy and Furious playing Guitar Hero).

Well, with the expo once again looming large on the horizon, I thought that it was time to actually get this show on the road.

So, what are the animated episodes of Powers Cosmic going to be all about? I'm glad you asked! The idea was really just to capture random chunks of conversation and animate them... the very, very sad fact is that much of what you'll see in these cartoons is very close to verbatim chunks...

Well, I missed the end of the month, but only by a couple of days. This episode of Remote viewing may be the last one for a while as the surgery on my left eye is only a couple of weeks away. Now, I say that there may not be a new episode for a while, only because I have no idea just how far out of sorts I'll be afterwards. I've been relying heavily on my left eye over the past 15 months, while the right eye heals from the first surgery. The problem is that I still have stitches in the right eye, so I have no idea what I'll actually be capable of doing after the op.

That said, I'll most likely keep posting reviews and such, even if they're less comprehendible than usual.

Anyway, back to this latest Remote Viewing episode... Enjoy!

~ elroy

Just a quick post to accompany this Remote Viewing episode release as I'm about to fall in a heap, right here on the keyboard... and given how unhygienic people say keyboards are, I don't think that's something that I want to do.

It's an all DVD outing this time with REC (which is actually currently screening, as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival), Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, Frisky Dingo Season 1 and Nosferatu: Symphony of Horror.

I had a hell of a time getting hold of authorised footage for this episode, but fortunately the Madman guys were kind enough to help me out. As for Futurama... I challenge anyone to find a higher quality version of the trailer (online), than the one I've used in this episode. I honestly don't think one exists!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this ep. Thanks to everyone who has emailed me about...

Well, it was touch and go there for a little while! At some unfathomable hour of Wednesday morning I was working away on this episode when the harddrive that I have set aside for Remote Viewing (and another animated project that a select few have seen), decided to fail.

Now, when I say 'fail', I don't mean that it started to play up... No, it simply died. After the blind panic wore off, I pulled the drive out of the computer and stuck it in an external drive case, just to see if powering it up a few times would get it reading again, but that also failed to produce anything helpful. So, as a last resort I... well, resorted to one of those computer related voodoo solutions that always sound so implausible that they simply must work! Yeap, I wrapped the drive in a hand-towel, then sealed it in a...

Looking back over the posts from the last month I realised that I hadn't really done many reviews this time 'round and that meant that content for the next episode of Remote Viewing would be a little wanting. So instead, I figured I'd just make a promo or some such, just to fill the gap between the last episode and whenever the next one is. The promo idea went out the window after I wrote the last post however, and the idea of doing a Public Service Announcement regarding the Eliza Dushku / Joss Whedon series, Dollhouse, became lodged in my head... So an all nighter and one particularly bloodshot eye later, I ended with the video posted above. Enjoy.

Here's a [YouTube] link if you're so inclined.

And a [digg] one too!

Which brings me to a couple of other bits of news relating to Remote Viewing.

The one that should be immediately...