largento

Just a quick update. My plan to get the first episode done by September 15th was scuttled when I was surprise called into a freelance job on the 5th of September and I'm still there over a month later. I've had to put a break on everything, but I think I'm almost free. I'm working Monday and maybe Tuesday, but I've had to remove my availability for the rest of next week to play catch up and get ready for another convention. As part of such, I've decided to take an easier way out with the creation of a website for The Paunk! Show. I went with Squarespace because it's easy. I'm not crazy about the lack of ability to really design it the way I want to, but sometimes that's a black hole of time waste, so I'm just accepting that it's limited. I'm going to use the site not only for the web series, but for occasional web comics, letting me do short snippets of parodies that I won't have time to do as full projects. The new site: paunkshow.com I've already succeeded in getting stalledtrek.com forwarded to this site and I'm waiting for the change to propogate so that paunk.com will go there, too.

I was going to suggest the sepia tint. Seconding the Rodster's suggestion.

Classy!

Thanks, man! That's awesome!

Thanks, Rodney! I gotta say I'm always amazed when folks respond so positively to it. Makes all the hard work worth it! If I ever come to the end of this freelance job, I'm going to jump right into the web series. I'm just too tired after being in the office to leap into the heavy stuff. Hoping this week is the last.

A great review from the Subspace Communique blog. Wow! Read it here...

Simon, there was a Trojan going around awhile ago that used the flash pop up to install malware on Macs. It was supposed to have been fixed with an update, but I would only update your flash player from adobe's website.

Ernest, I wrestled with the same thing on The Wannabe Pirates (and still wrestle with it.) For me, the bottom line comes down to what are you going to get the most enjoyment out of doing. Let's face it, it's a crap shoot that anything we do independently will ever be financially successful. The Wannabe Pirates did have a small following, but in the end, I had to consider whether or not I was getting what I wanted out of it, and I don't think I was. However, if that weren't the case, if I was still enjoying it, I would be doing it no matter whether or not there was an audience or a reward at the end. If you had been contracted by a company to produce this, that would be a horse of a different color. Doing our own projects is really no different than a hobby. Sometimes folks start a hobby, put it aside and come back to it years later. Other times, they never come back to it. I say go with what excites you.

I wouldn't think you would need a card since it is a one-time transaction. If the store doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll come up with an alternate way.

Are you asking if you need a credit card to get a PayPal account?

I came across that name when I was searching for festivals. I was looking at the local one and they require that the film have NOT been available on DVD on the Internet. I'm not really into the idea of seeking awards for this. But it would be cool if it spread to getting shown at lots of cons. It seems like Star Trek cons aren't as big as they once were. I've even noticed that some Star Trek fan clubs have switched to genre clubs to include other shows.

I saw some of the cast at one called Trek Trax, I think. I'll have to look into it. You can get the DVD at my Storenvy store. Stalled Trek DVD It's $10.

I haven't, Robert. To be honest, I didn't even know that kind of thing existed. I'll have to do some googling.

Thanks, guys! It's definitely an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life. There were no surprise laughs, but I was surprised at how big some of them were. There was one gag I thought was funny, but in showing it to individuals never got a response. Not only did the audience get the joke, but it was a huge laugh. Also, there is one gag that is meant to be a little harsh as an inside joke. The noise the audience made was this bizarre combination of nervous laughter, a disapproving oh! And a sly ah! The combined sound was unforgettable. :-) By far the biggest laugh came at the surprise reveal of Krok kissing T'Pomeranian. I thought the next line would have been the big line, but it almost got laughed over. Still angry that I missed the first four minutes, but hopefully I'll get another chance to show it.

Thought I would revisit this thread one more time because I had first public showing of Stalled Trek: Amutt Time at FenCon today! There were some bumps: For some reason, they took down my poster advertising it (?!) and started it without me so that I missed seeing the audience's reaction to the first four minutes. They were playing the DVD on a computer attached to a projector and had the aspect ratio messed up... BUT what I did see of it with the audience went over really well! Such an amazing feeling hearing a group of people laughing and enjoying the film! I noticed one of my legs was shaking when I sat down to watch it, nervous I guess, ...but it stopped once I heard them laughing, and I know I had a giant grin on my face. :-) This is why you make something like this! It was a great rush. After it was over, I got up and did a little Q&A and the audience was really great. They loved it and thanked me for doing it and wanted me to make more!

The upgrade cost is pretty small ($19.99). My laptop did not make the cut (it won't even run Lion) and my Mac Pro is the earliest one that can still be updated. The official word is: iMac (mid 2007 or newer) MacBook (late 2008 aluminum or Early 2009 or newer) MacBook Pro (mid/late 2007 or newer) MacBook Air (Early 2008 or newer) Mac mini (early 2009 or newer) Mac Pro (early 2008 or newer) Xserve (early 2009) You need to have either Snow Leopard or Lion installed, have at least 2GB of memory and 8GB of space on your hard drive. I wouldn't rush out to buy a new Mac to get the new OS, but it sounds like yours is coming up on the end of its life cycle.

So far, so good, Darkwing. I had worried about a slowdown, but some UI things actually seem quicker. Right now, apps seem a little slow to launch, but I'm pretty sure that this is because the system is indexing everything right now. I should have pointed out that when I went to re-install A:M, I was at first prevented from doing so by the OS. By default, the security is now set to only allow you to install apps via the App Store or from "identified developers." They call this Gatekeeper and it's meant to make it more difficult to install a malicious application. The fix is to go into the security panel of the system preferences and switch to "Allow applications downloaded from Anywhere." Once it's installed, you can go back to the more secure setting (or the highest one that only allows applications bought from the App Store.) I skipped Lion, so it's a definite annoyance trying to retrain my brain to scroll in the opposite direction. I know I can turn this off in the system preferences, but since this is the way it's going to work from now on, I'm just trying to get used to it. I've encountered this with using other Macs at freelance jobs, so I did know it was coming. Being able to resize windows by dragging either bottom corner rather than just being able to do it in the one corner is something I'm going to really like. Mail displays your messages in threads, so that clicking on an email shows you each of the messages in the conversation as individual sheets. That's cool. I haven't used Launchpad, but then it's not the way I'm used to doing things. I like the notification center. It's nice to have the notifications come up where you can see a clip of the new email, so you can see what's come in without having to actually go to the mail app. It's like Growl. One big motivation for me (besides not finding myself so far behind that I could only upgrade from a new install) was the iCloud stuff. Having an iPhone and iPad, it's nice to have things synched across the board. I had this to a degree with my old dot Mac account, but I had to give that up a couple of years ago. One thing I like to do with my iPad is write notes and now there's a notes app on the desktop that synchs up, meaning that I now have access to these thoughts from any device. Also the upgrade allows me to use Apple's free "iBooks Author" application that I could use to create an interactive book. I thought it would be cool to do a children's book that incorporated animated sequences and this gives me an easy, free way to do it.

I can't definitively say that, but in the short time I played with it, opening and closing and saving files, I did not encounter the glitch a single time. This will, indeed be great news, if it turns out to be the case! :-)

I finally decided to take the plunge. After skipping Lion all together, I figured I'd better catch up with the OS before I get completely left behind. I went out and bought a new HD and spent all of yesterday backing up my old HD in case this doesn't go well. After a lengthy download, I've installed Mountain Lion and went straight away to see if it had any adverse affects on A:M. By coincidence, this is the day that my subscription expired, but I'd known it was coming and had bought my upgrade last week. After pulling out the files so that I could get A:M to prompt me to activate it, I entered the activation code and started up v16b. Everything seemed fine until I went to open a cho file. No luck. A:M couldn't couldn't access the Finder and the beachball came up and it became unresponsive. I forced quit and tried three more times. Same each time. I decided to start fresh and downloaded v17.0a and put in my activation code. It started up fine and success! It could access the Finder. Guess I finally got the push to go to v17. :-) Didn't spend a lot of time in A:M this time, but will do so this evening. Anybody else using A:M with Mountain Lion?

Sounds pretty pessimistic to me. :-) I mildly gripe, but every time I've gotten a mention on a website or podcast, I've gotten sales, so I don't think it's as out there as you suggest. Not to mention that the DVD is still the only way to see it in its entirety. The web series version will be broken up into parts and shown at angles on the viewscreen of the Paunk set. I've no worries about anything from CBS. Stalled Trek: Amutt Time is a parody. If you want to read up on that, you can. Suffice it to say that I knew what I was doing when I did it. I've been selling it for months now ...and if I was going to get a cease and desist, I'd have it already, since a senior VP at Paramount Pictures was one of the first people to receive a copy, having been one of my Kickstarter supporters. I know that one went straight to the lawyers. :-) Although I might be a fan, this isn't a "fan production" or a fan film. That's a different animal and that is a case where you can't legally monetize it.

You joke, Paul, but just like old time radio and early tv, I think sponsors are the best and maybe only way to go. Get a corporate sponsor and let them pay for everything.

Well, I'll find out how the free model goes over. Maybe it will create more DVD sales.

Thanks, guys! I tried getting ThinkGeek to carry the Stalled Trek DVDs, but they said they don't have any luck with DVDs and passed. On the bright side, they did say that Stalled Trek looked fantastic and wished they did have interest in DVDs. This is symptomatic of what I'm finding. People seem to love it, but not want to buy it. At one show, I had a guy come to my table three times saying how this was going to be a huge success and how he knew a good idea when he saw one ...but didn't buy one. :-) Gives me hope for the web series, but there's still the question of how to monetize it. I'm going to try putting up ads, but that will only be significant if it gets lots of views.

Thanks, Gene! I appreciate all of the support! Well, I procrastinated and I'm under the gun. I have to work freelance this week, which means the only way I can get the first episode up on Saturday, Is to seriously burn the candles at both ends. This project has been a crazy on since day one, so I'm going to go for it! I've got all the models and sets finished and lighted. It's easy talking head animation, so it's possible. I've broken it down into 15 shots. I've got to do a new opening title, too. Rendering and editing and designing a new website is going to be really tough. But hey, as Mr. Spock is fond of saying, I like to think that there always are possibilities.

Cool! Already drooling at the thought of seeing animation of Tar fighting a couple of these guys. :-)