Spriggs: a Halo 3 Machinima

In the unlikely event that you’re reading this entry before seeing it on YouTube (not likely), Episode 12, Part B is currently up for your consumption. Mad props go out to Rob for more original graphics work. And I think everyone will agree that Dave (Willy) plays the best drunk ever, and that Erin (Vollin) could give lessons in sultriness.

In other news, I’m currently working on getting our entire run of videos subtitled on YouTube, thanks to the .srt subtitle support they added recently. A wonderful feature, which will help not only our international viewers, but also those of us who simply can’t understand the Elites. I’ve only put up a few subtitle tracks so far, Triple M at the Pulpit, When Willy Met Hammer, and for an example of Elite only subtitling, Episode 5, Hammer Time. To enable them, click on the upward pointed arrow in the bottom right corner of the video player.

Also, in case you missed the details in our channel description, we intend to release the third and final part of episode 12 this weekend, either Friday or Saturday, and the following following Friday or Saturday we will be releasing the short “Road Trip”.

With official business completed, I’d like to take the opportunity to spotlight a fellow YouTuber by the name of Bryan Simon. With the aid of a mere acoustic guitar, and a bountiful music wit, he has written several amusing songs about Halo 3 you may enjoy. In particular, I’d like to highlight “He’s One Shot On My X”, which speaks deeply to me, as I have never ever managed to kill anyone with the Battle Rifle.

Aaron Clark
Assistant Director, Webmaster, & Voice of Rogir
Chief Creative Officer, Running Gun LLC

You don’t wanna know. We were lucky we could save your hands.

In the interest of consistently producing content, consider this the first installment of the regular Spriggs slash Running Gun slash machinima slash Halo slash Castle Crashers update. So every Monday, regardless of whether we have produced a video or not, I’ll be serving up a regular news post, even if it’s to remind you of how exceedingly ineffectual we are at producing videos on the internets. So now that we’ve broken the ice, let the lack of news commence!

We are so awesome at not producing videos. In the production of this episode, I managed to wreck my car, and then Mike had to be zapped and scanned with so much radiation that the half life of the isotopes in his system has to expire until they can look inside him again. Lesson learned: getting hit by a car sucks, even several years down the road. Those alone have spurned our productivity enough as it is, but then we had a hurricane, and then once the hurricane cleared up, Mike had an allergic reaction to whatever pills they gave him to prevent him from turning into the Incredible Hulk. So he spent a good portion of one evening hopped up on Benadryl. I swear, the guy is like the combustible director, all you have to do is toss a lit match at him, and hilarity ensues. Shame we don’t own a video camera.

In short, we are incredibly unlucky. This is why we’re avoiding providing release dates in the future. Sorry.

Episode 12b, 12c, Road Trip, as well as a few other things I’m not cool enough to tell you about are all in concurrent production. So in all likelihood, we’ll finish all of them at the same time, which is precisely what we’re trying not to do. Oh well. On the upside, it gives Rob a little extra time to work on the 3D elements. Which I have to say we are all very proud of. It’s allowed us to both expand and realize what we want to do with the story by and overcoming the limitations of Halo 3’s assets. Creating ACM3 (Acolyte Choir Model 3) to get around the inability to play teamless in forge is something we are particularly proud of. And let’s not forget Kitty Killer Bot and Agent Dodd.

Other stuff we want to mention that is not directly Spriggs related is as follows.

Our friends over at Smoothe Few Films are actively working on being known by their production name, and not as “The Leet World”, so I highly recommend taking a look at their new site. They have a few productions coming up that look noteworthy. You might know them for their Counter Strike machinima series, as well as some of their shorts, most notably, “A day in the Life of a Turret”, and my personal favorites, “The Bag Boy”, and “The Gunstop Way”. They’re working on a short Halo 3 series and given what we’ve seen of their other stuff, you’re going to want to check it out.

That’s about all I have time for this week, so I will conclude by saying to hang tight, and keep your ear to the ground. But don’t hang on the edge or your seat or anything, the next video still needs some more work before we’re ready to put it out.

Aaron Clark
Assistant Director, Webmaster, & Voice of Rogir
Chief Creative Officer, Running Gun LLC

Hello, fans and folks just passing through!

This is Jordon, your charming Music Director/Sound Editor of Spriggs, temporarily taking the helm of this flagship called Running Gun Productions and putting out the new Episode 12: Blitzkrieg Ball, Part A to hold you guys over from your (almost) two month long Spriggs withdrawal.

Now that I have your attention and your glutes are glued back onto posturepedic computer chairs, I’d like to say that our machinima team is on a roll with the scripts, audio and video work. We’re ahead of the game in this stage of the production, and we’re definitely going to return to a tentative schedule for episode releases (or I swear I’ll have to sever heads and cut work benefits, whichever is deemed a worse fate…). Part B and C of Episode 12 should be displaying their existence for the masses between now and the next couple weeks.

Anyways, our fearless leader, Mike Reed, is currently on “vacation” to “take care of business” until later next week. I, thinking that to be the biggest oxymoron I have ever come into contact with, have been left with completing Episode 12a with the help of our video/animation gurus, Aaron, Rob, and Tom. I extremely appreciate all of their good advice and skill to be used to create an essentially flawless episode of great quality. To our glee of finishing the first part of Episode 12 and as a random act of shenanigans, we decided to doctor up one of Mike’s anime convention pictures and paste it at the end of Episode 12a. It’s completely random and not intended to harm Mike’s reputation (well…), but it’s all in fun. It kind of reminds me of the subliminal messages that Tyler Durden spliced into the film in the movie, Fight Club. One fortunate point for any fans that have seen that movie is that our splice in the episode is not porn. After all, we are the creative minds of machinima making, not the peddlers of psychological scarring. So, just catch this blip of insanity at the end of Episode 12a.

Alright, gang! Keep watching the show and we’ll keep updating! Like monkeys behind typewriters, we will diligently bring you the funny. Later!

-Jordon Jones

Music Director/Sound Editor

The fabulous panelists of the Otakon 2008 “How to Machinima” Panel

This weekend, the entire Running Gun crew descended on the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland for Otakon 2008. If you’re not familiar with it, Otakon is a huge Japanese animation held in Baltimore each year. It features anime screenings, guests, cosplay, video games, a dealers hall, music videos, and a whole host of closely (or not so closely) related interests. Mike, Donny, Jordon, and Rob helped man the Anime Depot table in the dealers room, while others (Erin, Thomas, Abbi, Liz) actually got to enjoy the convention offerings. Meanwhile, I (Aaron) slaved in the Panels department for three years running, this time as a lieutenant.

Highs and lows of the convention included (but were not limited to) Mike, Donny, Jordon, and Rob slaving under two mute dealers, Rob cutting his thumb open, a friend (Mark) dressing up as Rick Astley and Rick-Rolling cute girls outside of Panel 1, the “How to Machinima” panel, Erin being a cosplay nut (see photos), Liz dressing up as Kool-Aid Man, and of course, good food at Tír na nÓg.

In all, the convention was plenty eventful, and fun was had by all, we’ll surely be there again next year.

Someone in this photo doesn’t belong, can you guess who?