Hey, this website was tagged for a couple weeks with a warning screen saying the website was infected. Google had just seen a couple posts by a spambot and blocked us for a little bit. It was nothing, and thought I’d make a post. I’d like to make a “BROTHERS” Finale, but other than that not much new planned. Some big news worth sharing is that we may be seeing a Hearts and Brains re-launch in April sometime, with the idea being that I trade off every other episode with another director. This director is Keep you posted.
I gave as straightforward a response as you can get about going into the “GMOD Machinima scene” to somebody today. I thought it was worth sharing ::
A little overwhelming given the tons of downloadable addons and things you can do but you’re dealing with a good sandbox game. it’s going to see major updates at some point. definitely helps to know all your console commands. if it’s dialogue heavy, i personally would say avoid any kind of headbobbing, and think of a good quick way to implement something else like a sdk faceposer scene. start with some camera utilities you can find over on garrysmod.org like Catmull’s, and just practice the shots you want to do. a lot of things are done best solo, and this can get complicated if you are incorporating 1. you the player, 2. props, 3. npcs, 4. binds (a thruster, wheel, console command), 5. the gmod camera. much is doable. you can shortcut or cheat so many different ways with the source engine (green screening).. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5dPe0PFGO0
Check it out. Newest to oldest, here is a list of my machinima videos. Created with Half-Life’s game engines. Pretty crazy list overall. I’m not done yet, but these old videos can not be duplicated -
The stars signify ones that I think stand out amongst the rest. Keep checking the facebook for my random posts that make you want to hide the entire feed,
Hey. I haven’t been checking the website as much, mostly because I have been AWOL. Hood life. But I keep facebook updated and still check YouTube and go on Steam. While I was working and prepping for moving out last summer, I edited a few things. And right now I’m just starting on a new CS:S machinima as well, so if you’re not following the youtube or facebook, start it up! Possible resurgence going on since I don’t have much to do at my new college town.
Some links of things I edited for fun on JsXanatos -
PEACE BRAHS. Leave me some comments on the JsXanatos YouTube page.
I want to make a quick shoutout to a guy who’s always been a part of the moviemaking effort, and without his old contributions, many of the older videos couldn’t have happened. That person is MrSentual (referred to as MrSensational in Gman Squad: The Lost Tapes). He was the engineer in a TF2 Western, wrote the Game of the Year sketch in Gman Squad 8, and has done a hell of a lot with custom mapping (the busted-down door on de_dust in Source Wars, the explosive train in Gman Squad 5) and skinning. Pretty much everything. He and his voice didn’t get recognized as much as say, Boris or HKSniper, but he sure as shit was my partner in crime for a lot of our machinimas. Hi MrSentual.
So this was a very impromptu thing, but a guy by the name of Cabooss15 (goblinsrevenge) sent me a private message on youtube asking for a quick interview. I haven’t been up to a lot lately – just the usual mix of personal problems and internets, so we added each other on skype and did the interview right then and there.
Hey everybody, figured I should make a site post again. So I went to Florida a couple weeks back and got to see Gerald and MrSentual while I was down there. And when I got back, Stev and I went and saw Tim and Eric Awesome Tour in the Detroit area. Since then, not a lot has been going on. Just a matter of what to get done. So if you’re not apart of our Facebook, here are some of the things I’ve posted in the past couple weeks.
Gerald, MrSentual & Xanatos, Xanatos sitting on stage at Tim and Eric, Stev with “Jim and Derrick”.
Episode 8 of the Gman Squad is well into production now. This will be a short site post because there’s really not much else to say other than that. Don’t want to give too much away, and there’s not a whole lot happening otherwise.
Oh, our Team Fortress 2 machinima Unfriendly Fire is an official screening selection for the 2010 Machinima Expo. Woohoo! Other than that, all’s been quiet on the western front. Some new projects will likely begin after this is completed.
Get ready for the new Gman Squad episode soon. Maybe a couple weeks from now?
I really don’t know what to say. Just sorta failing at life on this end. Things will look up eventually, and there are a handful of things on the backburner right now. Expect another ‘extras’ type-ish video soon and probably an outing from both DOD:S and TF2. Three new videos for sure within the next few months. It’s a battle of the will.
If you’re that anxious for anything, I do occasionally post some goofy finds and creations from other JS members on our Xanatos facebook page. If you like our kind of stuff and if you’re interested in my warped findings, become a fan:
In this video, there’s an introduction from the cast members, the original video with commentary by STEV and Xanatos, behind the scenes of the Extreme Gore segment, and some extra footage that wasn’t included in the original cut.
Now, we could’ve talked on and on about the production of this video for hours, and we didn’t get through shit in this video, quite honestly. I guess for the sake of comedy, and the fact that we are limited in what we can all fit in during eight minutes of video. So now, to add to that, I present to you, a lengthy writeup with some trivia regarding CS For Kids and its production!:
A WRITEUP ON CS FOR KIDS – BACKSTORY & TRIVIA:
The idea behind Counter-Strike For Kids was inspired by none other than a Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job sketch. Particularly, the Lazy Horse Mattress scene with Will Forte.
What I originally was going to do was make a Source Mod Todd type video in which he pitches the kid-friendly mod for Counter Strike, and randomly throughout his commercial, there are very abrupt, quick, shocking cuts of extreme gore segments in CS:S perhaps done by an outside source as Todd reacts in frustration to what’s being inserted – basically, what you see in the extreme gore segment now, but randomly placed throughout the video. Personally, I think what the video is now was the better choice as it suits the mainstream more. What do you think, what would you have liked to see more?
But the real frontrunner of the format in which CS For Kids is in now was coined by MrSentual, who wrote a number of the lines in the “Extreme Gore” segment and had the idea for “calling within the next fifteen minutes, throwing in…” The rest is history.
After I pitched the idea to STEV, that’s when (as mentioned in the video) we went and got some food at Wendy’s, which isn’t the nicest place in our area as it seems to be run behind the counter by an ex-con lineup. He wrote down the lines for the first segment in which he voices, the whole “Tired of having your kids…” bit. The recording of the eight year old kid saying “weel gun” was actually from a YTMND I had found ages ago, originally saved by someone I knew during my old CS days in CAL. We incorporated it around Stev’s bit.
So now we had a beginning and an end. Now for the middle. Thinking about it a bit too much, and looking for ideas on a format, having the concept of what essentially is a list of bulleted items came to me after watching the T’IRD sketch from Tim and Eric Awesome Show (you could say I’m a fan of Tim and Eric Awesome Show). And then I was able to write the middle portion, including all the jokes like the poorly made cut-ins like “<BIRTHDAY PARTY> has been planned.” and “GOING TO PUT THE <BIRTHDAY CAKE> AT <BILLY’S HOUSE>”.
Back to the beginning of the video, the first thing that was edited was the flash transition between the Counter-Strike screenshot and the photoshopped screenshot that made them all clowns holding nerf guns and pookeyballs. All the skins that you see after that were found on FPSBanana.com (MrSentual made the skin for Stev’s character, the nerf guns, etc). No, CS For Kids is not a real mod. We just skinned the shit out of Counter-Strike Source, in both segments.
Yes, the puppy exploded. It’s a HE Grenade replacement. Kid friendly. Now, onto the actual interesting stuff.
The giant pistol pulled out during that final battle sequence in the “FOR KIDS” segment was completely an accident. I downloaded it particularly for the Extreme Gore segment, and didn’t mean to expose it in that last shot of the Kids segment, but I later thought it was pretty funny that amidst all the kid friendly weapons to pull out the most insane fucking pistol and kept the shot in the final cut.
The exteme gore segment was made mostly in Garrysmod. The CS shots were zombie skins and I downloaded a blood pack to make things extra gory. ONE THING I DON’T THINK A SINGLE SOUL NOTICED IN THE EXTREME GORE SEGMENT is that the majority of the text is REPLACED via a .txt file edit in the game files. Next time you watch it, try to read what’s on the BUY MENU (my favorite is what is in place of the “machine guns”) and what new text pops up when the person plants/defuses the bomb. The text is probably way too hard to read in the original upload because the quality got dumbed down, but maybe on machinima.com or on this Extras video which has better quality.
All the exploding terrorists and guys who get their heads shot off were shots contrived in Garrysmod. I was happy with doing the voiceovers for this segment, as a number of the lines were improvised on the spot and fit very well.
Now, onto Crackbone’s recording. In all honesty, I should have ended the video right at the end of the Extreme Gore segment, but I had this mentality back then that just having a two minute video is cheating the viewers out of content. So I made a silly choice by adding two sequences – Crackbone’s testimony, and the George Lopez sketch. Completely out of place. The idea for crackbone’s testimony began when I recorded him transmitting in ventrilo yelling in response to a video he was watching of a snapping turtle attacking, ripping apart, and eating live mice. And we adapted the scene around that. Fit fairly well. All that footage I had the misfortune of having to film myself in GMOD, so there were a lot of key binds I had to hit in succession all the while framing a shot and recording at the same time. Total pain in the ass.
Lastly is our controversial George Lopez segment. This should not have been in the movie. A friend of ours made a silly little video in CS1.6 that basically involved his buddy go around a map yelling what you hear in the video. For some reason, we all found it hilarious. So, to fill the gap more, I asked the guy if we could use the audio from his video and he agreed. We reshot the sketch in CS:S. Upon making the first final render of the video, Wolfer had the great idea of putting a cheesy George Lopez head over the head of the CS Guerilla Warfare model’s face for the entire bit and shorten it up some (we originally had the scene run a little longer). I was skeptical at first, but Wolfer was 110% right in his idea making that scene better. Just seeing the Guerilla model would’ve been gimmicky and pointless, so thanks Wolfer for saving that bit. It also helped me think of the liquify face which I’m proud of. The George Lopez scene really shouldn’t be in the video anyway in my opinion, but hot soup! The original upload of CS For Kids from Summer of 2008 is currently far surpassing 7 million views and is the #2 most viewed video on the Machinima.com Youtube Channel (first being Master Chief sucks at Halo 3).
Hi everybody. I suppose it’s senseless to apologize for the lack of productivity. It’s been…what..5 or 6 months since we’ve had a Machinima.com release? Yeah, a lot of junk has been going on with the ideas we’ve tossed around not working, and not to mention real life being a major hinder.
But we’re still here. And we’ve got a new video on the way. It’s going to be a special bonus video about our most popular video, CS For Kids, to get us jumpstarted back into the swing of things. In this one large overall piece, you’ll get an introduction with comments by the cast, a version of CS For Kids with commentary by Stev and Xanatos, a tutorial-like segment showing how the Extreme Gore sequence was built, and some extra footage. All in one video.
It’s fucking crazy that CS For Kids is almost the #1 most viewed video on Machinima.com’s Youtube page. It’s currently the second most seen video on their channel with a viewcount of well over 7-million. How this happened is pure viral chance, and help from partner promotion. I suppose people must like it, too. This is basically why we thought it’d be appropriate to make a sort-of addendum video to the original with everything stated prior. Will keep you updated, I’m hoping this release goes smooth.
Oh hey. The Janus Syndicate, as a group, turns exactly four years old on the 19th (We formed on that day in 2005). Time flies.
Also, to address the fanboys: YES, THE GMAN SQUAD WILL EVENTUALLY CONTINUE. IT’S JUST ON HIATUS RIGHT NOW FOR MANY REASONS (one being that we got a lot of unnecessary flack for Episode 7, I suppose we’ll talk in detail about this incredibly bizarre series at a later date). Episode 7 wasn’t the last. That’s why at the end it said “To be continued”. Source Wars fits this same category but is even lower on the priority level. Source Mod Todd is probably said and done. Just for the record. Ok, see you soon. Leave some interesting comments.
-Xanatos
Oh, and here’s what Gerald did to me this past Halloween:
I know we don’t have a very large following for our website and it’s decreasing even more due to our inactivity, but a few of you guys are still curious as to what the heck’s goin’ on. I didn’t see the point in making a post right away saying that our productions have come to a serious halt, but seeing as how it’s been some time, well, our production effort has been in a bit of a slump lately. A number of ideas are just not worth attempting, or I’m not comfortable with all the specifics within an idea, or something like that.
Looking back on a lot of our old videos, I can’t say I care for them too much, but at the time I thought they were something worth uploading, whether it be for a laugh or whatnot. I’ve never wanted to half-ass a project for the sake of having a video to upload on a regular basis, and I won’t start by doing that now. So I figure it’s best that we wait it out and take our time on videos. We’re still around, however, we’re just a bit occupied at the moment in real life and, more importantly, I think it’s best to wait for an idea that’s really worth going for (and that’s capable of being done) to start our next project.
Once we begin work on a brand new video, you’ll hear about it right away in a site post. So don’t worry about it, and don’t use words like Ringo here:
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