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Category: Movies

DnD classic videos

DnD classic videos

This is the kind of entertainment that the internet had in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Not political, full of vitriol, not overrun by bot comments, not divisions and raging against the latest -ism of the week. Just fun, intelligent slices of gold.

One of the first would be this sketch called Dungeons and Dragons (also known as Summoner Geeks or Attacking the Darkness). It was a simple audio comedy sketch parodying the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game experience, produced in 1996 by the Dead Alewives. It originally comes from an album of sketches titled Take Down the Grand Master.

This animated version came about in 2000, when Volition released a 3D animation test turned promotional video for the Summoner video game. They cast characters from both Summoner and Red Faction to play the different roles from the sketch. The video was included in the game, and can be found by viewing the credits. It was one of the earliest forms of Machinima – even before that was even a thing.

Then came The Gamers. In their skit they play four college DnD players that must guide their characters to defeat the evil of The Shadow. They navigate dangerous forests, ancient ruins, a missing player who’s at his girlfriend’s, and not get killed by the girl down the hall. They later went on to make JourneyQuest, Dorkness Rising, and a host of other videos – but I think this original is still the best.

Journey back to a time when the internet was still amazing.

You Can Succeed, Too!

You Can Succeed, Too!

Did you know Japan made 50’s style musicals? I was recently introduced to Kimi Mo Shusse Ga Dekiru – 君も出世ができる – or it’s English title: ‘You Can Succeed, Too!’. It follows the adventures of some aspiring young professionals trying to make it in the business world that’s split between tradition and modernity. Even though the movie is 60 years old, if you’ve ever worked in corporate world you’ll recognize each of the characters: the over-zealous corporate climber, the guy just trying to do the right thing, the aging boss, and the up and coming VP trying to apply the latest corporate techniques learned abroad.

It has some absolutely AMAZING set and costume designs, the music is composed by a famous avant-garde composer and famous jazz performers to the lyrics of a renown Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa. The story is even more fun if you understand the traditions embedded in Japanese corporate culture.

The whole thing is astounding, super-catchy, and fun. I’m shocked it hasn’t gotten more recognition elsewhere.

You can watch it here on Rarefilm and at the Internet Archive. I only wish it were available on DVD/Bluray somewhere.

I found out about this gem from the guys over at Important Cinema Club podcast when they broadcast on Twitch (and then were promptly banned for a copyright strike)

Fifth Element – 1950’s style

Fifth Element – 1950’s style

Abandoned Films is back with another trippy, AI-generated movie trailer. This time, they took the 1997 sci-fi classic The Fifth Element and applied a 1950’s big-screen aesthetic.

While definitely not perfect, these AI generated trailers are amazing ways to generate and explore artistic concepts.

AI generated short films using LTX Studio

AI generated short films using LTX Studio

AI video platform LTX Studio is now open for users to get stuck in and make short films, storyboards and other generative productions all from a simple text prompt. Simply type the film idea or a full synopsis of your desired creation and then set the visual aesthetic, aspect ratio, inspiration and your virtual casting for a selection of AI generated characters.

It utilizes dozens of AI models to generate the script, add voice narration, background music, sound effects, and generate the image and video elements.

Other AI video tools create more realistic video, speech tools with more realistic speech and lip sync available in both Pika Labs and Runway — but for each of those you still have to make a series of short clips and they have poor character consistency.

It has a lot of limitations; but it absolutely could be used for previsualization and concept pieces.

Articles:

Using Unreal in Dune 2

Using Unreal in Dune 2

Dune 2 cinematographer Greig Fraser talks about using Unreal Engine to visualize the shots he wanted in the movie. It’s part of a trend of using Unreal as a previsualization and rendering engine for a variety of high quality, high budget movie productions.

Articles:

Star Trek Next Generation Mistakes

Star Trek Next Generation Mistakes

Mr. Plinkett put together one of the biggest collections of video bloopers in Star Trek TNG. From carpet shims to exposed wires to visible equipment to black paper to malfunctioning doors to countless reflections.

Recreating famous scenes with CGI

Recreating famous scenes with CGI

Blender Guru walks us through how a modern CGI workflow would work for a scene everyone knows – the elevator scene in the Shining.

He breaks down all the tools and rendering tricks he uses as well as points out 3 key elements that most VFX artists get wrong and makes CGI workflows look bad: grain, focus, and levels.

He shows why CGI has gained so much traction. The cost for the practical effect version of the elevator scene would likely now run around $50,000-$100,000. The CGI version? $14,000-$20,000.

He needed about 6 days to re-build the CGI version of the scene and 4 days of rendering. He does a fantastic job showing off how modern workflows work.

Tools he used: