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Tuesday 4 August 2009

The Forgotten Spartans "Inspiration"


Hello to everyone that loves T.F.S This update is not mentioning episode 8, really giving you an inside story to how I began the series and break down each episode so that you have an understanding to my thinking and maybe find out some of the answers that you would probably like to ask me. How it all began: I have been making Home Made movies for just over 10 years now and love it with a passion. I made my big home made movie called "Black Gold" a James Bond movie that was 1 hour 10 minutes long involving all my friends, it's not on the internet don't worry. A few years down the line and short movies was where I really just made movies because I enjoyed it, not all good but most on my channel on YouTube are old. I hadn't made anything for a few years. One night I was playing Halo 3 with my brothers and some friends and realised that the Theatre mode could be good for making a Short Movie about the Halo Story. Now, I hadn't seen any Machinima's at this point as I never really thought about it, looked on YouTube and saw many many Machinima's, most of which I actually thought were bad. I came across a few Machinima's that I actually liked but still thought to myself that I could do this, and thought I could do something better than some (not being big headed but there are quite a few bad ones out there). So, me my brother and a friend decided to make a Machinima. As I was used to action and just wanted to test to see if I could pull something interesting off, I thought I would go for a serious feel with maybe comical elements. There was me (Darknal) my brother Mike (Conan) and my friend Colin (Cosmic). We thought we would base the Machinima around ourselves as it wasn't going to be that serious anyway. I would do the voices to Darknal and Conan, and my brother did the voice to Cosmic. Reason Colin didn't do the voices was because he wasn't down often enough to play the part and it was easier for us to do all the voices. So, I began thinking of a story, but it was a basic story purely for entertainment. There are many mistakes with Part 1, things like Elites holding Human weapons, using the wrong grenades etc, but remember that every character you saw was only controlled by us 3 over Xbox Live. So I didn't know you could put guns down, didn't know that I could invite more people to help at the time. I also only had a video camera so filmed the whole episode by filming the T.V where I uploaded it to my YouTube account in 2007. The episode was a great hit. People write me comments saying I should do more and continue the series etc. I had only planned on making ONE episode, even though I said it was to be continued, this was not the case. BUT, everyone loved it so much they told me to make more. This is when I got some more helpers and did the second episode, Part 2. BUT, as YouTube could only take 10 minutes at a time, I had to break the episode into two parts creating Part 3, hense the cross over of scenes from Part 2 and why Part 2 seems so pointless. I then invested in a capture card and RE-DID the WHOLE thing. I already had the saved clips so I had to re-capture everything, doing all the angles again, editing all the scene's together again and re-did some of the talk scenes with the guns down, hense why Part 1 had guns lowered at the end talk scene. This method wasn't used for evey talk scene though hense BIG MISTAKES and a DODGY story line, that made sense, just wasn't invloved enough. I had finished the series after Part 3, that was where it was going to end, hense all their "Deaths". Machinima.com liked my series and took me on to host my videos on their page for more views and popularity. I made Episode 4 which was the Pre-qual and episode 5 which was the continuation of that prequal, linking the story back to Part 1 where the story began. This was done for two reasons, I wasn't fully sure how I was going to continue the story and realised that I had killed all the main characters. But, I saw some flaws in their deaths and developed a way of continuing the story. I knew I had to get bigger and better before making Part 6 so sat down and got more poeple involved where it was becomming more of a Crew than just random Xbox Live users. I brought in some more Voice actors that had better acting skills and tried to develop the series further. This is where I wanted a war. So episode 6 was a build up to an episode I had no idea how to approach. I invested in Adobe After Effects, very expensive, and used the tool Masking to create multiple shots. Part 7 was the biggest challenge EVER. I had scene NO Machinima's that had actually used masking to create an ACTUAL BATTLE SCENE, only build up scenes, but not fighting scenes. So obviously, I got planning. Every shot was filmed around 6 to 10 times with people in different areas of the map, I had to cut around each group frame by frame so that people could cross paths in the runnning shooting scenes looking like hundreds of Elites and Spartans. The rocket scene took the most time, and every rocket had to be masked, every explosion had to be masked and every group of Elites had to be masked. I can tell you now, this is not easy stuff. After Part 7 I took a HUGE break as it was so much work. Even now, I have only half a script written and a few lines returned. Do not think this is going to be a huge episode because it's not going to be like Part 7. It is going to be a story driven episode, just I havn't had the time. My week goes like this: Monday - 8am Work, 7pm Home, 7:40pm Football, Bed whatever time after. Tuesday - Work, 7pm T.F.S TIME Wednesday - Work, 7pm visit family Thursday - Work, 7pm Editing and check shoot time Friday - Work, 7pm Have my son. Saturday - With my son Sunday - With my son So as you can see, my week has two eveings of around 3 hours of those nights to do this. That's not a lot of time so things starting to move especially with summer is very difficult. I hope you have enjoyed this update and remember that I am working on Part 8. Just it will take time. I hope you guys have a good week. Kind Regards Darknal

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one Darknal, you've really give me and a few of my friends an insight as to what drove you to making the series. Being a new comer to machinima directing, myself, I can say that we have had similar ideas. A few of my early ideas involved stories that are based around me and my friends, but these are just in the planning stages, nowhere near as far as you've taken them. You've really outdone yourself, episode after episode, and I can only hope that the events of part 8 will bring us one step closer as to what those Elites are Hiding.

By the way, thanks for helping me out with the Halo 2 and 3 soundtracks, I ow you one.

Well, later mate.
Regards
DG TKO157

K1LL3R Productions said...

The update helped thanks Darknal.
Oh I'm making a a video to youtube.com/user/123gamersblog


TFS RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Darknal, one thing is puzzling me though. At the end of part 7, the Chief turns up, I'm wondering, is Cortana, with him, and if she is will she ever be seen in the movie?

mike said...

well first i have to say great job! second i understand that you have a life just like most people. it only makes you human and i know that all the other fans respect that about you. but once part 8 is released it will hit 1 million overnight! i don't care if its a long story or awsome action! keep up the good work!

DoubleMoonz said...

loving the series and glad to see some insight

Halo123roxu said...

Yay Thanks Darknal! It looks really hard doing neally everything at once.

From Halo,

Anonymous said...

That movie you made was the best movie i saw!

griff dog said...

hey man i know how tough it can be making a video. i have made quite a few terrible ones (not on internet). if you need any help my gamer tag is RSF VALCOR. i am not a good movie maker but i can help however i can.

Anonymous said...

now wat would you all the fans of tfs
would think if darknall brought in the arbitor.

Anonymous said...

I don't think that it's really possible to bring the Arbitor in however it would be pretty cool if he could...But then he'd probably end up bringing a bunch more people from the games and books and stuff. I don't have halo 3 but i know a friend who does and he might like to help I haven't seen how he does in halo 3 but from what i've seen from his experience in halo 1 and 2 he's pretty good all that i know is he is a staff sarge and he likes gecko's so he'll be an elite and speaking of him being a sargeant(i think i spelled sargeant incorrectly) was that sarge from rvb in episode 8? Keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

Good thing you put 'NOT BASED ON THE ACTUAL HALO STORY' because mc is the last spartan and im wondering if your put in a cryo tube do you age at all? Because if you don't then i think i know who mc aka master chief is. he could be sarge forge from halo wars because a friend of mine showed me from a O wars (O=halo) that forge is 41 yrs old and at the end of halo wars forge's cryo said sarge J forge and in the O 1 booklet it says mc's name is John and the cryo says J forge and the O 1 booklet says mc is 41 yrs old but the thing that won't make sense is when did forge become a spartan? ps DARKNAL,machinima is pasting tfs on his or her site and showing tfs on youtube with nothing that i can see except the credits saying that you made it. Hope that your doing well!

Gravitycat said...

BEST SERIES EVER!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!111!!... Are you going to make a part 9???

Gravitycat said...

How do you do this? All my friends LOVE your series, especially part 7. I have seen many things on youtube (or machima) like gmod idiot box, cry havoc, top ten series, but yours is still the BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dr haaaxxx said...

YouTube won't allow me to see part 9b because it's in HD :( . Is there any way you can upload a non-HD version :)

arby n the chief iz da best said...

Man, part 9 was AWESOME!!! You always use the perfect music and camera angling. Im very imprressed. Not to be too critical, but the only weird part was when the red elite (I cant remember his name) jumped to attack and cosmic came in. Instead of pausing and having the background, I would have just had the elite charge after him. You could have angled the camera to make him look angry. But anyways, great series and you ROCK!!!!;) (sorry this is so long).

Mastur Ceef said...

Is part 9 the last part? PS: at the very beginning of part 7, what song was that, i cant find it :(

Anonymous said...

brilliant!! i would love to star in a machinima so if you need an extra then my gamertag is taipei ceebee.

TFS ROCKS!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I keep telling my brother that it's NOT based on the ACTUAL halo story, but he NEVER listens to me!!!! Arghh!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I'm extremely impressed by your work Darknal and keep up the good work. I have been a big fan of TFS for awhile now. I only have one question; when Conan came back, was that the end of the series??

Anonymous said...

did you think about showing what COSMIC and CONAN look like in HALO REACH

Anonymous said...

They probably had to rank up to get the gear unlocked. Then they might make more, TFS is awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!