This will be the webpage devoted to the Civil Protection video series. I've just finished the first episode which you can download from the link above. As for the series, it's inspired by the oppressive policing force within the game Half-Life 2. It's a comedy created using the game engine itself to animate everything. Right now I am the writer, animator, director, producer, cinematographor, editor... pretty much everything you see in the episode is my fault. This episode does contain some language and violence, but it's not much worse than a PG rating.

It was a real pain to learn the SDK and animate all this, so I won't be starting on another episode immediately. Not that you have any frame of reference, but the next one should go much more quickly since a lot of the time was spent on learning everything. Whenever I start on it again, that is. I need a break, I'm practically dreaming about those spooky metal helmets that the CP units wear. Anyway, feel free to contact me or post comments about whatever.

Well at long last, here is Episode 2 of Civil Protection. This one is the most ambitious video project I've done yet, having more dialogue and action than Episode 1 and weighing in at 11 minutes. Also, this one deals a lot more with the world from Half-Life 2, but I tried to write this episode so that people who know nothing about the game can still follow it without any trouble. Since this one is fairly huge (100MB), I'm offering a low quality version of it as well, although you're going to miss out on some stuff if you watch that one as you won't get stereo sound, nor be able to tell what's happening in the background. The download links are up on the right.

Here's the third episode that I originally intended to have done before the 2nd, but here it is anyway. I meant for this one to have slick motion blur, but I would have taken my computer an eternity to do it right, so I just shot it and released it as it is. WARNING: This episode is not suitable for all audiences, it contains singing. It's over with pretty quickly though, and I promise that this will be the first and last time Mike sings. As for Dave, well, I'll keep it to a bare minimum in the future. Unfortunately it's going to be a while before Episode 4 because I have something big planned for that, so imagine I'm dead or something so you won't expect it too soon. Enjoy!

After numerous delays, here is Episode 4 at last. This one is clearly a step above the previous ones in terms of production quality and I hope everyone enjoys it. This episode has nice motion blur, mobile camera shots, scenic backgrounds, and more action than the previous 3 combined. This was originally meant to be Episode 5, but since the numbering is arbitrary anyway, it may as well be 4. I've switched the video hosting to filefront since I wouldn't have enough space for this on my student account. As always, there's the Youtube versions, but for this episode especially, it's worth getting the high quality copies.

If you missed my previous post, I was griping about how much time this took for things that I think could be expediated. For that reason, I'm putting the series on hold until I find a faster way of producing these. I'm not going to be aimless; I do have some ideas, they'll just take me time to research. I'll make another post here once I've started up again. Until then, don't wonder when the next episode is coming out because it's on hold for now. And finally, to engage in some shameless hint dropping, I DO have work right now, but it will not be steady, so the future is uncertain, though the same could be said for everyone.

Alright here's the alternate Halloween episode out good and late, but oh well. To reiterate, this is NOT the one I was working on for a month and a half, this is a last minute one I tried to get out by Halloween, but didn't happen. This is the shortest episode so far, but I tried to pack a lot into it, hope you like it. I'll try and get some subtitles or extras up here before too long.

Also as you may notice from the intro, I've kind of joined forces with Machinima.com since they've been helping me out with hosting, relaying files between team members, and the idea of expanding the publicity a lot since I'm not so hot at that part. Since one of my goals for the series is to use this as portfolio material so I can get a job better than flipping burgers, an association with a company is the sort of thing that would help. I apologize in advance for the video ads, they said they're working on that.

Finally, if you act on any of Dave's suggestions in this video, you're an impressionable idiot. If you blow your arm off and try to sue me, the joke will be on you since I don't have any money.

Well the new episode is finally out, it took about 1-2 weeks longer than it should have for a lot of different reasons and has been the most problematic release so far for several other reasons. This episode contains an enormous amount of custom content I hunted down on the internet, as you'll see in the credits. So thanks to everyone who let me use their maps, models, and textures. The tone of this episode is a little different than the others as it was intended for an environmental contest that ended up getting postponed, but I'm releasing it anyway. It's a little fact-heavy as a result, most of the humor is towards the end. My primary reason for making this though was an excuse to use a one-liner I'd had in my mind for a while (the "hybrid car" one). And for those wondering, I took the corny title from the old computer game by the same name.

You should by no means assume anything said in Civil Protection or Freeman's Mind necessarily reflects my own beliefs, however this is one case where they do. The theme of this episode is how we're in big trouble once we run out of oil. The research I did on the topic suggest that things are going to get pretty ugly in the future. One expert interviewed by National Geographic says that the world oil supply is plateauing right now and we have about 6-8 years before it will start to decline and this guy was right on the money about when the U.S. was going to be be unable to rely on domestic oil back in the 70's. Besides what Mike mentions in the video (I won't spoil it), I think our only realistic solution is figuring out how to get cellulosic ethanol production to work on a mass scale (this isn't the same kind made from corn, sugar, and other crops). I'm not really a miltia type, but the more I read about the situation, the more it makes me want to live in a cabin out in the woods with guns and a bunch of canned goods. That would be a good place to be if society starts to fall apart. It'll be at least 10-20 years before things really get bad though.

If you hate this episode and think it's being too preachy, don't worry, this is probably the first and last episode of CP with any sort of "message". I'd rather focus on making funny, strange, or exciting videos anyway. Finally, check back in a few days and I'll have an update about what you can expect in the future with regards to CP and FM.

EDIT: I forgot ANOTHER person in the credits! Oh well, his nickname is "JakeyB" and he did the port of "The Postal Dude" model I used as a cameo in this episode.

Well this was done a little while ago and while it's normally my policy to never withhold a video release, this episode is a little different. This is a mini-episode that was done at the request of Machinima.com putting together a collaborative video asking several directors "What Is Machinima?".

EDIT: The high quality version is up now and contains additional dialogue.

OTHER NEWS:

Also, it looks like a growing number of people are becoming frustrated with how long it's taking for me to release videos. Believe me in that I share that frustration. A big part of the problem is that with this tutorial combined with other oddjobs, I've been spending most of my time working on stuff to make income so I can do things like eat and pay bills. I ask that you hold out a little more patience, once this tutorial is done, I promise I'm going to start putting out machinima faster than ever.

In order to make more time to work on episodes, I'm planning to move soon near a friend where I'll have relatively low housing costs. I'm very frugal, so once I'm there, I think I'll be able to survive on part-time work somewhere (hopefully as a videostore clerk or something). That should afford me more time to make videos, plus I'm going to be getting more help on animation for CP, which is the slowest part of its production. In addition to this, I'm getting help setting up a new website which will serve as a central hub for all videos, especially CP. I'm still trying to find the best/cheapest host for this that can accommodate any forseeable bandwidth needs. It will contain a cleaner interface, more information, more updates, subtitles, extras, and just be better all-round. I still need to figure out what will be a good hosting option for the bandwidth load I'm anticipating however.

Right now I'm still too busy with the tutorial to work on any more episodes, I'm sorry. For the record, I am NOT taking the stance of "I don't owe you anything." If no one liked my movies, I wouldn't make them. The fact that there are so many fans makes me want to make new episodes more than ever. Also I am confident that the best episodes are still yet to come. Thanks for hanging in there.