En Passant

En Passant wins Best Film!

Dec
12

OK, little late announcing this - work getting in the way and all that.. Anyway, En Passant snatched the Best Film award at this year's Blender Conference, and took away this awesome monkey statue. Big thanks to all who voted for Leilah's descent into the night.

Meanwhile, progress on Adventure Creator has been rapid - the Unity community have been great in offering advice and suggestions, and I've been releasing nearly one update a week! Here are some of the latest features to be added:

- Ability for 2D and 2.5D games, as well as 3D
- Support for both Unity's own 2D framework and the popular 2D Toolkit
- A powerful and easy-to-use interface designer
- Touch-screen support for iOS and Android devices
- Many, many interface options

And more on the way. I've also been busy making video tutorials, which are a good way of seeing how it all works before grabbing it.

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Brain returns! And an En Passant round-up

Sep
16

Well, not quite in the way you'd expect. The past little while, I've been working on a 3D adventure creation kit for Unity (release / pricing TBC), so I've made a little demo to show it off. And who better to lazily read off marketing spiel than the greatest wrestler in history, Brain himself?

I'll have some proper info about it in the near-future, but for now, enjoy the demo!

Meanwhile, En Passant's had a fantastic response since it's online release. Here's a rundown of it's various appearances around the web:

• I get interviewed by Libre Graphics World
• AintItCool feature it in their weekly Saturday Shorts
BlenderNation describe it as "one of the icons in Blender's history" (thanks, Bart!)
CG Channel compare the film's tone with that of Sweeney Todd
• Blender users discuss in over on Blender Artists
• Some guy on Reddit: "It's like if Pixar had a baby with Sin City and was raised by Moulin Rouge"

If you still haven't seen it, watch it today!

*UPDATE* Found out that speech wasn't playing properly in the demo on Windows PCs - no more!

Posted By chris read more

En Passant is online!

Jul
02

Last week's awards win was the icing on the cake to En Passant's festival run, and we've decided it's finally time to unleash it onto the interwebs for all to see.

Big, big thanks to everyone involved (and it was a lot of people). It took a very long time to make, so please considering sharing with your friends if you like it.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: You can also now grab Leeran's amazing soundtrack for free!

Posted By chris read more

En Passant scores two Jerry Goldsmiths!

Jun
27

Big, big congratulations to Leeran Raphaely for winning both Best Song (for Leilah's Ballad) and Best Score for an Animated Film at last night's Jerry Goldsmith Awards ceremony in Spain. That's a quarter of the awards that were going!

Leeran writes:

From the beginning, it was my goal not to write a single love ballad, and that is a goal I have certainly achieved. In short, I wanted to write a musical that, were I to watch it without having been involved with the project, would not cause me to roll my eyes.

A very shared sentiment - I can assure that at no point in the movie do the characters link arms and perform synchronised dancing while facing the camera!

Posted By chris read more

Leilah hits the red carpet

Feb
28

En Passant will be having its US premiere in none other than Hollywood! It'll be screened as part of the LA Indie Film Festival together with a bunch of others at 7pm on 20th March, at the Let Live Theatre, Los Angeles.

The "World premiere" took place here in London in January, when it was screened at the Roxy Bar & Screen, for friends, family, and local film-lovers. It was also the time I first met my collaborator on the film, Leeran Raphaely, so it was a great night all round.

In other news, I've been doing a load of other freelancing. I'll have to see about adding a Portfolio section to the website, in another shameless act of self-promotion. But, it's been giving me a chance to think about the next big thing, and I think I've got something good in mind..

Posted By chris read more

En Passant - website and trailer

Sep
25

Major milestone today - the trailer for En Passant, my latest movie project, is right above these very words! Have a watch, and if you want more, you can check out a full synopsis, cast/crew list, and galleries over on the official website here.

For those who missed it, En Passant will be a 15-minute animated musical by myself and songwriter/composer Leeran Raphaely. It'll be complete in a few weeks (November at the latest), and after a hopeful festival run it'll go up online.

Posted By chris read more

En Passant announcement and DNG news

Jul
19

So! Little late with this one, but anyway: pic above is a teaser of my next movie, En Passant. It's an animated musical I'm co-writing with songwriter Leeran Raphaely, and it's been in production since.. oh, 2010.

It's a massive project - 15 minutes long, 30 characters and many locations. I didn't want to start talking about it until we were in the home stretch, but now that we're in the lighting and rendering stage, it's safe to say this thing's well on it's way. I'm hoping that by October it'll be ready for festivals, and online next year.

I'll publish a full credits list soon (a lot of people are helping!), and I'm hoping a trailer as well.

In other news, Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass has been out for six months, and it's still appearing on gaming sites. DIYGamer recently listed it as one of their top-rated indie games of 2012!

It also just occurred to me that I never posted up some of the reviews it got. Marketing's not my strong point:

● "The game looks, sounds, and plays like a lost classic from the golden age of adventure games"
Gamespot

● "I honestly had trouble putting the game down... it was so damned funny."
Die Hard Game Fan

● "Da New Guys is the most pure fun I’ve had with an adventure game in quite some time."
Just Press Start

● "You’ll definitely have a good time."
Gaming Irresponsibly

Posted By chris read more

En Passant

Hardened by her violent upbringing, a young woman goes on a night of mayhem, and crosses a very dangerous personal line.
July 2013

Singer animation test

Feb
12

Song: Crazy Burn by Sepiamusic

Sound effects: sagetyrtle and datasoundsample, Freesound.org

Made in Blender 2.56

After Da New Guys: FTW, I stopped making films with dialogue to concentrate on communication through expression. I'm not ready to talk about it properly yet, but my next piece is going to feature dialogue and singing - and lots of it. So, I've been trying to figure out the best way to make rigs that support natural-looking facial movement (especially lips) for cartoon characters. This is just a rough animation test, and while not perfect has given me a lot of feedback on how to improve it further.

On The Light At The End front, I'm happy to announce that the film is now finished and has been sent off to a few festivals and screenings, and when it's OK to do so I'll post it up online.

Posted By chris read more
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