Hey everyone, while I’m guessing most of the people who watch these videos aren’t lawyers, I wanted to at least see if there were any out there who would be interested in giving me a hand. I’ve been trying to contact Machinima.com for about a week and a half regarding some important matters and have not only been unable to get a reply from their legal department (which this concerns), but I can’t even get a DATE when I can expect to hear from them. The last time I showed patience with Machinima.com it didn’t work out very well, so now I’m trying to expedite the process.

I’m not even sure what I can reveal about this situation publicly, but I’m looking for some legal advice regarding my video rights and Machinima.com engaging in what I would call “less than legal” activity that’s affected me personally. I am not looking to go to court over anything, in fact I wish to avoid that if possible, however it’s looking like I might need some sort of legal notice sent to them otherwise it could be months (again) before anything gets done.

Unfortunately I do not have a lot of money, so I would either need some pro bono help or at some sort of discount. Someone who has experience in contract law would probably be best. Anyway, if you think you might be able to help, please contact me at rosswscott@gmail.com.

Everyone else: I’m still working on more videos!

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

Blip.tv

Youtube

(Downloadable copy will come out later)

Welcome to the longest delayed episode of Freeman’s Mind ever made! This video was actually completed last year, but is only just now finally free to go up. If you’re wondering why this took so long or if the series had died, you can read more about it here. Future Freeman’s Mind episodes will no longer be appearing on Machinima.com. They will go up on my own long-neglected Youtube channel, my new blip.tv channel, and also on thatguywiththeglasses.com. At some point in the future I may delay the newest episodes going up on Youtube, but nothing’s decided yet, I’ll have to see how this all plays out. In the meantime, please feel free to spread the word of where the new videos will be since I imagine a lot of people will still be looking on Machinima.com.

If some of you are watching this series for the first time, be sure to check out the episode page on the site here to see all the previous videos. It’s still a work in progress and will look better in the future, but all the links SHOULD be functional by the end of the day.

As for the episode itself, I’ll warn everyone right now that this one contains some singing. It’s not that I especially like singing actually, it’s more that the song sung in this video is considered notoriously hard to do so I thought it would be a good challenge for Freeman, plus it semi-fits the circumstances in the video. In any event, I have NO plans for future videos with singing in them, so you can rest easy.

Even though most of the situation was out of my control, you have my apologies for such a long delay on this episode, I plan for something like this to never happen again. Also while I won’t promise release dates in general, it’s my goal for the foreseeable future to have at least two FM episodes coming out a month from now on. I’m also gearing up to be producing even more videos and other content in addition to that. I’ll have all updates here on the site.

Note: Apparently some people received an email update about an old episode, I’m not sure what’s happening with that, hopefully we’ll get it fixed.

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

I was hoping to have the next video up by now, but since that’s taking a little longer than I planned, here’s some more news of what’s going on instead. One of the reasons I was hesitant about leaving Machinima.com before was because I wasn’t sure where else to go, since the larger problem behind all the changes was Youtube itself. Thanks directly to people in the forums recommending other sites for me to check out, I’ve decided to join the “That Guy With The Glasses” network. Thatguywiththeglasses.com is the spawn of Doug Walker (pictured above), more famously known as “The Nostalgia Critic” where he is known for analyzing bad movies and ripping them apart piece by piece. I had seen some of his videos before, but never realized he had his own network. It turns out my videos qualify for this group, because Freeman also wears glasses, so we’re all good. So far my contact with TGWTG has been quite positive. They’re run by a small group of people (I’m told 7) that all have all known each other a long time. There’s no sinister contract for me to sign, and they’re not even taking a cut of my income (I’m assuming they make up the difference on their site). Most of all, they don’t give me a heavy feeling in my stomach the way reading the new contract from Machinima.com did, which counts for a lot. I don’t need ulcers.

The next episode of Freeman’s Mind will be appearing on their network, which is essentially wherever I want to post the videos. It will be be appearing first on blip.tv, a competing network to Youtube (and about 1/1000th the size). This allows me to form an escape plan from some of the madness going on with Youtube. New episodes will also be appearing on my Youtube channel (I’ll make a new post here as soon it’s up), but in the long term, I may try and focus newer videos towards blip.tv. Right now the next episode has been uploaded to blip.tv and I am currently waiting to hear back when it will go up. I’ll make an update here as soon as I know. More videos are coming!

ADHD version: Freeman’s Mind is still coming, but will appear in new places! Check back here later for links to the next episode!

EDIT:
I’ve gotten a reply back from blip.tv. The next FM episode has been rejected by them on the following grounds:

”
Poor audio: We took a look at your show and concluded that improving the audio quality would really help you get to the next level. Consider taking some time to improve your sound setup and reapply. We’re eager to hear from you again!
”

I spent hours volume balancing the tracks and it has custom sound effects. I don’t know if they don’t like my mix, don’t like HL1 sounds or what. I’m currently trying to get a more specific answer.

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

I have a lot to say and am finally at liberty to say most it, so here it is. First off, I have officially left Machinima.com for future videos. There are many reasons for this which I’ll cover and I’ll let you know what’s happening in the future. This is a post I’ve been wanting to make for months, but didn’t have all the info or legal grounds to do until now.

YOUTUBE TAKETH AWAY

Here’s a chart some of you may find interesting. It’s a record of the total views of all my videos (some 60+ or so) and the monetized views (views that advertisers on Youtube will pay for) for the past couple years (with my own commentary added):

As you can see, there’s been quite a fall from grace. My views have been cut in half multiple times, despite adding more videos this whole time. While you could maybe blame this on the age of the show or not having more frequent updates, that would only account for a gradual decline looking like a wheelchair ramp, not the dive bomber maneuver that is this chart. So what’s causing this? The short answer is Youtube. Their algorithm “tweak” in 2011 caused me to lose half my views. Not just in popular recent videos, in EVERYTHING from years back. I’ve read about many people losing up to 90% of their audience during this time. So are my old views going towards other machinima makers, giving lesser known people more exposure and a better chance of being seen? No, they’re going towards videos like this:

That video has 42 million views and will get recommended to you even if it has nothing to do with what you’re searching for. Why? Because Google can profit more by steering you towards videos already getting a crapload of views and by companies paying money to advertise their videos on Youtube more than they can by sending you only the more relevant results. Youtube’s “tweak” is making your search results worse than they used to be and it’s making already huge videos bigger and everyone else smaller because they’re less profitable. It’s essentially killing the “long tail.” The viewers lose because they won’t find as many custom-tailored results. Most content creators lose because it means a large drop in views. Best I can tell, the only people benefiting from these changes are companies that were already very large to begin with. Google’s motto has long been “don’t be evil”, well in my opinion, what they’re doing now seems kind of evil. Maybe they’re taking lessons from the music industry.

MONEY HUNGER

I can’t reveal how much money I make or have made from Machinima due to contract reasons, however I can say at one point it was enough for me to live off of, so I did. In retrospect, this was maybe a bit foolish of me, but when you’ve worked as many minimum wage hell jobs as I have before, being paid to work full-time on something creative is like manna from heaven. Believe me, I realize how incredibly lucky I’ve been to be able to make a living just from creating videos from videogame engines. I certainly don’t feel ENTITLED to live this way, but damn if I’m not going to try everything I can to try and make it work. To get geeky on you, I feel like Malcom McDowell from the movie “Star Trek: Generations”; a man who had a taste of a better existence only to be ripped out of it, leaving him obsessed on getting it back. In the movie he blows up some planets in the process, I’m not at that phase yet.

I actually don’t really care how popular or profitable my videos are. I just try to make them as good as I can from my perspective. Some are more for fans, some are ideas I personally really like, but I want to keep making videos no matter what. However, I do care about being able to pay rent and buy groceries. Also, when I’ve had some excess, I’ve offered money to most “long haul” volunteers with the videos also. Looking at that chart, this isn’t going to be possible staying with Machinima’s channel on Youtube, so that’s definitely a part of why I’m leaving.

PLEASE SIGN IN BLOOD

Around the time the views started dropping in 2012, (but before I was notified of it), Machinima.com tried to change its contract terms with me just as I was getting ready to release the next Freeman’s Mind episode. Now I can’t reveal anything that’s in this contract (or my old one), but I will say that in my opinion this was NOT a good contract in terms of rights regarding my videos. It would have turned over so much control to Machinima.com that I don’t think I could sign it even if I was just starting off today. Machinima.com’s standard contract has changed a LOT since I first signed with them and I advise anyone considering signing up with them to read it thoroughly AND get some sort of legal advice. You might be amazed with what it says they can do. I’ve seen some leaked versions of their recent contract before online, and I can say there was a lot more added than what I’ve heard of anywhere else. Prior to this, I almost agreed on a new deal with Machinima.com, but after seeing their new contract, it made me rethink everything I was doing and was a big factor in my decision to leave.

NEGOTIATING MACHINIMA-STYLE

Perhaps the biggest reason I’ve decided to leave is how this mess all went down. There were so many things that went badly. I was only told of the new contract changes by ACCIDENT (I found out later I was supposed to have been informed in November). I didn’t find out about much bigger changes to Youtube and monetization until January (which was also supposed to have been told to me in November). I had a deadline when I had to make a decision by on the videos, but couldn’t get important replies from people prior to that. I had two meetings cut short and one almost cancelled where I needed to get critical information before the deadline. I got relayed to four different people during the process, having to update each new one on what was going on. I needed criticial information from Machinima, but it took MONTHS for them to get back to me on it, with me emailing them every few days. I was told contradicting information with weeks before I could verify anything. When I did receive an initial contract offer, it covered almost nothing of what was agreed upon with the representatives (or refuted it entirely).

Until this was finally resolved yesterday, this whole situation has been an ongoing nightmare for me. My income has crashed, I was stuck in limbo waiting on vital information from Machinima and it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. Meanwhile, fans have been pissed because there are no new videos and I’ve been gradually running out of money. I couldn’t release new videos because the terms had changed and I didn’t have a new offer yet. I couldn’t leave and put videos elsewhere because I needed to hear what their offer was and if there wasn’t proper communication with Machinima.com, they could come shut me down, thinking I was violating my contract, even though I was waiting on them! I don’t think Machinima realized just how much duress this caused me. This should have been resolved in December, January at the latest. It’s outrageous that it ended up going on this long and I think that in itself showed how lightly they took this whole situation. So what was obviously not a high priority for them has been one of the most extended stressful times in my life that I’ve had in years. To be fair, they did propose a decent offer towards the very end, but aside from it not being sustainable, this whole period has left a permanent negative impression on me that I can’t forget. It’s really undermined my trust in the whole organization if I know devastating changes like this can happen at the drop of a hat and I’m powerless to do anything about it for months on end.

LEAVING IN PEACE

While these past few months have left a big impression on me, I don’t want to sound too ungrateful since Machinima.com has really helped me achieve as much popularity as I’ve had over the years. I’ve also personally met a lot of people who work there and most of them seem like good people, some have helped me out a lot. When I was there, only 2-3 people max struck me as possible sociopaths, which is really a low ratio for Los Angeles. I think a lot of what has happened is normal once corporations reach a certain size and I don’t blame any individual that I know of for how this whole thing was handled. I’m really not a revenge-oriented person. Gandhi said he wanted to see the British Empire off as friends after they had been ruling India for decades. That’s kind of the attitude I’m taking towards all this.

WHAT’S COOKING

So what’s happening now? For the moment, existing videos will still remain on Machinima’s channel. If they get taken down later, I’ll be sure to put them back up somewhere else. I currently have a good lead on a new network to post future videos on, particularly Freeman’s Mind. It depends on how fast everything moves, but it’s my plan to have a new episode up next week. While I have a couple episodes done on Freeman’s Mind, I’m ashamed to say I don’t have a BUNCH ready, I hope you guys forgive me. Once I realized things were going to take a long time with Machinima.com, I started panicking, trying to earn money any way I could to make ends meet (and still am!). I’ve been spending most of my time lately job hunting and working on some side projects to help earn more money that you’ll hear about in the near future. I AM STILL FOR HIRE if you need voice acting, writing, or something else I can do from online. I do hope to be resuming Freeman’s Mind quite soon however and get more videos up as soon as I can. I still plan to make good on my promise of delivering a Freeman’s Mind spree at some point. Sorry for such a long rant, but I’d lose it if I had to keep this all to myself.

More videos are coming soon!

ADHD VERSION:

Ross has left Machinima.com! Youtube is turning evil! Machinima.com knows not what it does! New Freeman’s Mind will be coming soon!

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

Working on Doom Guy’s Mind kind of made me nostalgic for “punk” games. There were a lot of punk games in the 90s. I feel even with the indie scene there aren’t enough punk games today, but that’s probably just me getting older. Doom was also the first video I’ve had to record realtime in a while, which is a challenge for my system, since I don’t have a SSD. With all the Source videos, I export the footage frame by frame, so it’s all perfectly smooth. I hate having to record in realtime, because one hiccup from a hard drive means the footage will start getting choppy.

Also to clear up any confusion, this was NOT the Freeman’s Mind related side project I mentioned earlier, that’s still a work in progress. I hope to be able to announce that in a week or two. Besides that, I’ll be continuing work on future Freeman’s Mind episodes. I’ll make sure they eventually get released one way or another.

[LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS]

Youtube

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

Hey everybody, sorry for such a long wait on the next episode, but it’s finally here. I think this episode turned out a little better than episode 6, let me know what you think. Also I think there’s a glitch or something where Youtube is labeling this video as having offensive content, but that’s an error because this video is totally not offensive.

[LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS]

Edit: The forums have been updated and are live again, We’re still tweaking some features which may result in temporary interruption of service.

-David Donaldson (web admin on Accursed Farms)

EDIT:

I’ve been told today (Mar. 22nd) that there should be an agreement proposal sometime by the end of next week. While I can’t discuss specifics, I’ll keep making timetable updates as I get them.

EDIT 2:

I have received a contract which had terms I simply couldn’t agree to. I’ve today (Apr. 4th) received a revised contract that I still think I might not be able to agree to, it’s unfortunately looking like I’m going to need some legal consultation.

WEBSITE DESIGN / PROGRAMMING:
I’ve been wanting to make updates to the site for over a year now, but don’t have web programming knowledge myself. Some of the things I wish to do are update the FAQ, add extra info fields to the episode pages, and have some sort of WordPress plugin system so I could manually generate new episode pages myself, etc.

AUDIO EDITING:
I have had some great audio editing help in the past, but it’s a real dice toss as to whether anyone will reply if I need help with a video. I’m looking for someone to add in sound effects, do some general reverb processing, and volume balancing. If you have examples of previous work you’ve done, please send me a link to them.

- – -

If you’re interested in helping in either of these positions, please contact me at rosswscott@gmail.com. They will have to be volunteer positions since I’m currently in Ramen noodle territory myself. For audio editing that I use, I will put you in the credits of the video, and for website help, we’ll find a way to credit you somewhere on the site.

Also I’d like to add that if you are interested in helping, try to sound semi-professional. If I get an email like this:

”
ya ill fix ur site wat u want

-Sent from my iPhone
”

it doesn’t inspire confidence in me as to your abilities. I’m old-fashioned like that.

EDIT:
I’ve received a bunch of offers since I made this post, so I’ll probably be covered once I sort through it all.

VOICE ACTING:
I can do any voices you’ve heard in the existing videos, plus I’ve also recorded a voice acting reel as a sampler for additional voices I can perform:

Voice acting reel for Ross Scott (MP3, 4MB)

Please feel free to spread this to anyone you think might have an interest in hiring me.

SCRIPT WRITING:
Writing is generally one of the lower paid categories in movies in general, but I thought I would list it as a possible option anyway. I’ve obviously done a lot of comedy writing which you see in the videos, though I’m not strictly limited to that. I am likely to be a poor candidate for any dramatic dialogue however.

SOURCE ENGINE ANIMATION / MACHINIMA VIDEOS:
I’m really not anticipating anyone hiring me in these areas, since even at minimum wage, I couldn’t even afford to pay myself the hours I normally dump into machinima videos; animation can be incredibly time consuming. I also have some experience animating with the Unreal 3 / UDK engine, however I’m far less experienced with it than I am with Source.

- – -

As for how much I’m charging, it kind of depends on what people want me to do. I found this article indicating how much voice actors typically earn, but I’m guessing most of those numbers are far beyond what I qualify for. Also it’s worth mentioning that I can’t do any jobs directly related to Civil Protection or Freeman’s Mind until things are resolved with Machinima.com, sorry.

Just so you know, episode 45 of Freeman’s Mind is DONE. I’ll probably be done with episode 46 before I hear anything from Machinima.com again. I promise I’ll do everything I can to get these out as soon as I can without having legal action taken against me or losing all rights to the videos. I’m sorry about the delay with this, it caught me completely by surprise.

Youtube

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

Here’s a new video that was meant to be simple, but I ended up spending entirely too much time on it. This was made for a film festival that Machinima.com contacted me about, saying that if I made a video for this, it would open up a portal to a new universe and humanity would transcend into a state of pure energy. The festival isn’t over yet, so I’m not sure how accurate their claims are, but either way, it was an excuse to make a new video. Part of the rules for the festival were that the video could not be part of an existing series, like CP or FM, so this is something else.

I’m expecting this video to be hit or miss with people. If you like surreal or mysterious stuff, then this should be right up your alley. If you’re expecting jokes or explosions every 10 seconds, then probably not. Personally I’m very happy with how this came out, it might be my own favorite of the videos I’ve done so far. The atmosphere is pretty much just how I wanted it and the voice acting and sound are great. I recommend watching it full screen in a dark room and not turning it off once the credits start.

This is the first video I’ve made in Source Filmmaker and will also be one of the last. I was originally going to attempt this using the Unreal 3 engine, but I wasn’t able to get enough functionality from the ported models in time, so the video was made in Source instead. As a result, this video just BARELY got done before deadline. For every advantage SFM has, it also has a shortcoming compared to Source SDK and the whole experience just strengthens my resolve to stop animating any videos in the Source engine. If you look for them, I’m sure you’ll see lots of flaws with the animation in this video. I’m fully aware of all the shortcomings, it was simply the best I was able to do by the final deadline. I may make some small improvements for the downloadable copy later, I haven’t decided yet. In terms of animation, I think it needed a few days more of polishing, but the vast majority of people will only see the online copy anyway.

Anyway, I hope people enjoy the video, this is the LAST one I’m going to animate in any form of the Source engine (not counting FM). I’ll still keep making videos, but Source is hell.

- – -

You can vote for this video in the festival, but as I understand it, you can only do so via twitter, and then there will be a judge panel to decide who has the best vote (I am not making this up). What happens if a video gets the most or “best” votes? I DON’T KNOW. My guess is this.

EDIT:

Looks like my 36 hour sleep deprivation paid the price on the credits and I made a typo with the name of the LEAD VOICE ACTOR. It should be Kamran Nikhad, not “Karman.” It will get corrected on the downloadable copy.

”
If you want to see more episodes please donate some money to develop the channel
WEBMONEY: wmid: 997662107645 OR Z404399251838
PAYPAL: email: lubikmax@gmail.com
”

THIS IS A SCAM

I can only hope no one has been tricked by this, but with about 7500 subscribers to his channel, I’m sure someone has. I have never asked for money from viewers, I’m happy people even watch the videos. I have set up the donation page because I had so many requests for it, but even on that I clearly state there is no obligation to donate, that money is going towards helping the movie project along. If my situation ever got so dire that I wasn’t able to keep up with food and rent, the most I would ask from anyone would be for room and board from somebody. I’m sure at least one of you has a farm. I can chop wood and dig ditches and stuff.

Anyway, I’m going to try to shut this guy down since this is just scamming people in my name, I just wanted make an announcement in the meantime.

Also in other news, the mystery video I think will be going up on Monday and I’ll begin working on the next FM episode tomorrow.

EDIT:

Machinima.com has since taken down this guy on Youtube.

For now I guess I’ll just rant about Source Filmmaker. My initial impressions of it acting like an inverse relationship to Source SDK are entirely correct. They are both great at some things, and horrible at other things. So horrible. Just saying the software sucks doesn’t really do it justice, because it does have some nice features, but to take that and assume that as a WHOLE it’s great is incorrect. I get kind of annoyed by this kind of reasoning as I think some people make one TF2 video of some guy jumping around (or better yet, have never animated anything in their life), then assume Source Filmmaker is the answer to everyone’s problems and will usher forth a new Renaissance for all. I kind of feel like eventually someone will make the end-all standard for making good machinima with the least amount of pain, but it’s not there yet. I’ve been waiting for it ever since I started working on this. I do plan on jumping ship to UDK, but I’m going to have help with getting models ported over and having NPCs created. UDK gives you basically nothing in terms of assets, whereas Source has a plethora of options there. If I was just starting off making machinima today, UDK wouldn’t be a realistic option. Great potential, no assets. That’s great for developers, but machinima is all about taking shortcuts so you can actually get stuff done. I don’t want to animate, I want to manifest things in my brain, but that doesn’t happen, so I animate and do a hell of a lot of other things too.

I really don’t understand what the hell’s Valve’s attitude is with their tools. People complain about how long it takes their games to come out, but I’m guessing those people haven’t worked in the Source engine. Hell I’m amazed they get as much done as they do. The crazy thing is I think Valve as a whole works like I do. They take a long time to do things and their energy gets divided up among several different projects. I want to do civil protection, I want to do freeman’s mind, I want to do short fun videos, I want to do the movie, I want to do other series ideas, also have improvements to the site, finalize subtitles, respond to emails, etc. The thing is though, I’m just one guy who earns less than your schoolteacher. They’re a mega corporation with no rules. If I had access to a fraction of the money valve has to work with, I feel like I could get 10x more done than I do now. Hell, anything to get animation out of my hands without sacrificing quality would do it. If I didn’t have to animate anything, I would have 10x the videos I have now. So back to Valve, what are they doing with that money? Are they building an underground secret civilization? Rich people should be doing all this crazy Scrooge McDuck stuff with their money, not just letting it in sit in a pile when you already have more money than you would ever spend in your life several times over. I guess the idea goes against their touchy-feely “no management” employee ethos, but why not hire some people whose sole job is just to fix the source engine and make better tools. They have so much money it could operate at pure loss directly, but would help solidify their long term future on yet another front. If they DO have people like that, they’re either bad at their job, understaffed, or too hamstrung by someone else. Source is a mess for the kind of resources they have backing it. Almost every major update I’ve seen to the engine since HL2 came out has been more about eye candy than making life less like hell for devs. I’m calling them out, I think if I had access to those kinds of resources I could have more games out that are just as fun AND better tools for people without making everyone hate their life, like at Electronic Arts. It would take management, but you can have managers that aren’t assholes, that could be a company policy. I have ulterior motives though, I get frustrated with having to take care of hundreds of different elements in a video where the right tools could have saved me thousands of hours over the years, but the people I’m at their mercy for seem to operate like they’re not sure what they’re doing.

Anyway, I’ve lost weeks to Source Filmmaker and this video. I’d say it wasn’t worth it, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out. It could use some improvement, but I’m not letting Source steal any more of my life force. I’m never using the Source engine again for anything major (Freeman’s Mind doesn’t count, that’s just playing through). I could using it for some simple 30 second videos, but nothing I really cared about. That way lies only pain. Pain.

I know this will piss people off, but the month of Freeman was completely robbed by this side project that took way too long. I plan on doing it, but this video took so much out of me, I’m going to take a break for a few days before I start anything again, I still promise a FM spree at some point. To put it in perspective that all of you can understand, I haven’t even had a chance to play Black Mesa yet, I have literally been that busy since when it came out. I did a lot of lip sync work on it back in 2007, but I ended up flaking out timewise and made more civil protection instead. I’m wondering if they kept my name in the credits or purged me from the project, probably with lots of others, I can respect their decision either way. So I’ll be chilling out, but I’ll try and catch up on emails. I’m going to sleep.

ADHD version: I haven’t slept in a while.

EDIT:
It turns out public schoolteachers on average make about 56k a year, so I probably should have said “grocery bagger” instead.

Shirt prices will be about $20 before shipping (more for extra colors). We can’t get the prices much lower than that without owning our own illicit sweatshop factory, sorry. We WILL be shipping internationally, however it may be a high price for shipping overseas from America. I don’t have any control over that. We might be able to get it down in the future, that will be Sean’s department.

We are launching with 4 shirt designs, but we can have many more in the future if we get enough sales. For the FM quotes, I tried to pick ones that people might want to wear a shirt of even if they were unfamiliar with the show. I think most of these will be funny to other people whether they watch the show or not. If only 3 people buy a shirt, well, at least those 3 people were able to get a shirt. If we get enough to break even however, you can expect the following designs in the near future:

-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “Not everyone is cut out to be me”
-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “Science will thank me someday”
-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “I know almost everything”
-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “Robots are the only friends I need”
-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “Everyone is crazy except me”
-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “Caution Laser Caution Laser Caution Laser”
-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “I can now solve up to 800 problems a minute”
-Freeman’s Mind Quote: “Error 482: Somebody shot the server with a 12-gauge. Please contact your administrator”
-Civil Protection Logo (yellow on black)
-Civil Protection Logo (orange on black)
-Accursed Farms logo
-Any other video-related design that gets enough popular support

So go ahead and buy a shirt if you want!

- – - -

In other news, I’m still working non-stop to finish the next video, it will be done in a couple days, but may not go up until the end of November. Also on a personal note, I LOVE watching Black Friday mob videos, so if anybody finds or records any wild ones this year, go ahead an link in the forum or send me a link.

 
ADHD version: Buy a shirt!

MYSTERY VIDEO PROJECT STATUS:

I’ve been unable to meet the deadline on my mystery video project. This isn’t as bad as it could be however. This short video is being done for a film festival happening at the end of the month / early December. The original deadline was to also get some extra Youtube promotion for it, but not for the festival itself. I’ve been working around the clock for weeks trying to get this finished. In other news, this video also has the highest number of volunteers flaking out / disappearing / or becoming too busy of any other video I’ve worked on. Sometimes I get a lot of help and things work great, but most times, this happens.

T-SHIRT BUSINESS WANTED:

As mentioned previously, I’ve been trying to get t-shirt sales off the ground, but haven’t had much success with it. I haven’t given up on it however, and feel I should open up to scope of how to handle this. The reason I haven’t done this myself is because it’s very time consuming and I would much rather throw my time at making more videos than running a business. With that in mind I wanted to ask people online if anyone wanted to make an offer regarding this. Here are some things to keep in mind if you have business experience and wish to contact me about the shirts:

-I’ll want to be separate from the business / production end of things. This means I won’t be taking orders, shipping the shirts, handling the paperwork, etc.

-Due to my previous attempts at this, I’m going to have to insist on someone who has experience running a business. So this means someone who can handle all the tax forms, has licenses to operate, has an idea of production costs, etc.

-I’ll want final say over the shirt designs and will be responsible for providing them.

-Previous plans for this operation were to split net profits on the shirts 50-50. If this isn’t doable, then your offer should hopefully beat cafepress or zazzle.

-I really don’t know what to expect in terms of sales. My guess is there will be a large surge of sales initially, that will taper off after a couple months. Ideally I’d want something that can scale well. Even if only one person wants to buy a shirt a month, I’d like for them to be able to get it.

-While it doesn’t have to be immediately, I will want to eventually be able to sell shirts internationally. This can either happen by charging more in shipping for non-USA residents, or have a separate handler for different regions, like Europe, Australia, etc. The majority of sales will very likely be in the USA however.

-Shirt designs for the near future will all be black and white. I’m going to want to have the Freeman’s Mind logo, the Civil Protection logo, and gradually roll out some custom designs based on one-liners from Freeman’s Mind.

-While it’s not a necessity, it would be highly preferable if something could be set up by the end of the month.

Go ahead and contact me at rosswscott@gmail.com if you’re interested in this. If I don’t hear from anyone or if I’m not convinced by the offers I get, I’ll probably set this up myself at cafepress, zazzle, or some site like that.

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ADHD version: videos and shirts and stuff

3RD PARTY SOFTWARE ANIMATOR – There are two areas to help here. One is doing some custom character animation for a Valve skeleton, you can use any software you want for this, as long as you can export to .SMD or .DMX format. The other will involve altering a model and creating some simple animations for it. For this you will either need to decompile a Source model or else import a Softimage scene file into whichever software you use.

SOURCE FILMMAKER ANIMATOR – Depending on your skill level, may involve facial expression animation, movement of simple objects, patching together some scenes, car animation, maybe some lighting, could be several different minor things.

HAMMER HELPER – Someone to do misc. touch-up work to maps in Hammer. This will involve placing additional props, testing light settings, replacing and rotating a lot of textures, simple stuff like that. You do not need to be a skilled map maker for this (already have great people on that), but you do need to be familiar with Hammer for Source SDK.

If you’re interested in helping with any of this, please contact me at rosswscott@gmail.com, thanks.

ADHD version: Ross is working on a mystery video, he’ll make a bunch of FM episodes afterwards.

Youtube

Downloadable copy will be up after I move

Here’s the next exciting cliffhanger episode to Freeman’s Mind. If you think the laser in this episode acts strange, you can blame that on Source’s amazing demo recording code. It will be a while before the next episode comes out since I’m going to be moving very soon, but I still plan to have a spree of episodes done at some point, hopefully in November. I’m mostly going to be working on one of the mystery video projects between now and then.

This episode uses my new microphone setup, which I’m pretty happy with and will likely be the standard for videos I voice for several years. This episode also has a new sound editor for Freeman’s Mind, Max Petrosky, who does the additional sound effects work that you hear in the game and will likely help with a lot of future FM episodes. The old editor, Otto Beumelburg, will still be helping me with other video projects however.

And in case you missed the post before this, I will not be switching to the Black Mesa mod for Freeman’s Mind.

FREEMAN’S MIND:
The next episode is underway and will be a longer one. The one after that (45) will unfortunately be delayed more because what I have planned for it presents some unique challenges. To make up for the delays, I’ll have to see how busy I am and what my situation is, but I am considering making November “the month of Freeman” where ALL I work on is Freeman’s Mind and no other projects and see how many episodes get done during that time. Also I plan on getting the downloadable copy for #43 up soon.

MYSTERY VIDEO PROJECT #1:
While I was originally planning to have the movie project be the only animated thing I was going to work on for the foreseeable future, some interesting developments came up where I will be working on an original short that will be going up sometime early December (won’t be Christmas related). It’s still uncertain whether this will be filmed using the Unreal 3 engine (UDK) or in Source. If you have mapping experience in either, feel free to contact me at rosswscott@gmail.com. Be sure to send me samples or screenshots of your previous work. Who gets picked will be determined by previous map visual quality + how much free time the person will have. It will involve a forested area and will be in a contemporary setting.

MYSTERY VIDEO PROJECT #2:
In another set of interesting circumstances, I’ve agreed to help with a video project that may become a series. I won’t be directing or animating it, but I am doing the writing for it and voice acting for one of the characters. More details will be revealed later.

MOVING:
My past has caught up with me and I am moving to a mysterious location once again. I’ll be leaving in about 2 weeks, I may not have internet or a place to record for a little while afterwards, but I’ll get on track ASAP. I’ll get the next FM video uploaded before I leave.

T-SHIRTS:
Work is slowly progressing to set up an online store so that people will be able to buy Freeman’s Mind and Civil Protection t-shirts (with more stuff later). I’m hoping this will become fully operational in a month or two with more shirt designs rolling out later on.

ADHD version: Ross is working on stuff! More videos coming!

Something about how you’re NOT supposed to fire roman candles at other cars while the vehicle is moving. Anyway, I think everyone who didn’t collapse from heat exhaustion had a pretty good time. Here are the results of the revised poll!

The results were pretty close to what I was expecting after the first poll (including the would-be time travellers). What I didn’t expect were a few people to meet us completely by coincidence! The other thing I didn’t expect is that out of the fans that said “yes”, one of them was MacGyver!

He still remembered a lot from the show and taught me how to make a polygraph using tweezers, a battery, plastic wrap, and some string.

The next meetup is coming up soon, the details below are pretty similar to the North one:

ITINERARY:

Date: August 4th
Location: Carowinds – Charlotte, NC / SC

9:00am – 10:45
Meet at Shoney’s restaurant, which is very close to Carowinds

Link to Google Maps

I’ll be inside having breakfast or outside in the parking lot. T-shirts and prints will be available for sale outside (though they’ll be for sale all day). We should have higher quality ones this time, including Civil Protection ones. If you don’t want to pay for the cost of the amusement park, you can stop by during this time for free.

11:00 – 11:30
Arrive at Carowinds, Meet outside the south gate (not the north one). Here’s a picture from google maps:

WARNING: There is a $15 parking fee inside Carowinds because they’re jackals. You might want to try to park somewhere else and carpool with people.

11:30 – 2:00
Enter Carowinds, go on rides. If you still need a ticket, here’s the info to get a discount on it if you buy one online:

Price: $41 for August 4th if you use this link to purchase tickets. ($36 + $5 BS “processing” fee.)

2:00 – 2:30
Meet at the Carolina Skytower structure (should be the tallest structure in sight) in case more latercomers arrive or people get lost. We’ll probably eat after this.

5:00 – 5:30
Meet again at the Carolina Skytower structure.

~10:15pm (as park closes)
Meet outside south gate again.

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Like the last meet, things will be pretty informal. I’ll answer questions, sign things, you can stick with me while I go on rides, split off and do your own thing, whatever you want. If you hang around, be prepared to have an answer for what you would do with an island if you were rich enough to buy your own.

HOW TO FIND ME:

I’ll be wearing a bright lime green t-shirt to remain as visible as I can. If you come late, you’re welcome to track me down “Where’s Waldo?” style. Here’s a picture of me from the last meetup:

Once again, if you’re colorblind, you should probably arrive on time. If you don’t see me, look for a large man wearing a Freeman’s Mind t-shirt, he’ll know what to do.

Hope to see more people at the meet!

Well the first meetup is over and went well. I got to meet several fans and have some intense fun at the park. I learned some things about myself too, specifically that I can mostly stay in control when it appears that I’m falling to my death. The people that came were all great; I feel like if there was a zombie apocalypse, then the group we had would be very functional and survive. All in all it was a lot of fun and I’m glad I had the meet. Really my only complaint about the meetup is that the numbers were a little short of what was projected in the earlier poll:

Now the second meetup hasn’t happened yet, so the results of this are still inconclusive. It could be that 1300 of you are coming to the south meetup, that would be great. If that happens, then I won’t understand why the Confederate states lost the Civil War. If the second meetup turns out like the first however, we can make some interesting conclusions:

-If internet people say they are interested in attending something, over 99% of them will not actually attend.

-If an internet person says “maybe” they will attend something, there is a 100% chance they will not attend it.

I don’t want to pass judgment too quickly about internet people however, maybe some people got scared off after seeing my picture, or some of you weren’t able to make parole afterall. In light of this, I’m launching a new poll to see what we can expect:
 

There will only be the Freeman’s Mind logo of shirts for sale, I vetoed producing the Civil Protection logo after seeing how the FM ones came out. Anyway, I felt like I had to make a quick announcement about this, otherwise I would feel like a con man. My apologies to everyone on this.

The good news is we’ll have nice high quality prints for sale that I can sign!