Kick-Ass comic review.

Sup Readers, Cody here with a review on a comic book my good friend Josh recommended me. Well it was a strange matter of timing really, I was staying at my friend Sebastian’s house and we were going to watch The Descent. I had got to talking about the second film that was supposed to come out this year (2009) but its already Dec 31 2009, I don't think its happening like that anymore. but it got me talking and I couldn’t recall the directors name, so I grabbed his ps3 controller and went online to IMDB and checked out his profile, I found out that another guy was directing The Descent 2, and was also directing a film named "Kick-Ass". Now of course I had to see what it was. So I read what it was about and then watched the trailer. I got so hyped for the movie when I saw that trailer. Link. When I got home my buddy Josh called me and I asked him if he had ever heard of a movie coming out soon called Kick-Ass. He paused and said, "You mean the comic book right? The one I recommended to you like three weeks ago? Hard to find?" I felt like a dumb ass. So I told him to check out the hella great trailer and I'd see if I could find any of the comics in my local store. I got lucky and got the first and second issues. So now I will Tell you what I thought of the first and second issues.




So, already hyped up from the upcoming film I opened up the comic and noticed, the trailer was a near word for word about the crazy guy in the start, I found it pleasing. The story is simple about a teenager in school that lost his mother at a young age and lives with his father who works night shifts. the first thing I noticed was the writing in this book feels great, very realistic. The talking flows perfectly and its next to impossible to be confused on who is speaking. The art in the comic is really well done. The detail in the shadows really caught my eyes. Nice coloring and interesting style of outlines, nearly what I like to call scratch art. The story of the first comic follows young Dave as he attempts to become a super hero and prove people wrong about super hero being useful in the world, so he makes a costume and picks a fight with his first section of hooligans, which ends rather badly for young Dave.

Before I keep writing I am going to read the second comic so that I may see how Dave gets out of this mess.




Okay, so Dave got his ass kicked, and hit by a car. His body was totaled and he tries to make a fast recovery, while he swears off ever going near that damn costume ever again. Well that didn’t last long as he is back to trying to kick ass and help a man in need, and man does he fight!

This comic has pulled me in more than any other I have ever read, even Uzumaki (Manga) doesn't hold a candle to this, and I stayed up till 3:30 AM one night reading Uzumaki just to finish it, well lets hope that reading all of Kick-Ass doesn't end the same way for me, I hated the ending of Uzumaki.

Bottom line on Kick-Ass is a 5 out of 5. The Style, Writing, Tone, Color, Characters, everything about Kick-Ass is perfect. This is one comic book series I greatly desire having tucked neatly into my custom comic box.

Cody ~ Out.

CRASHED/HAUNT comic review.

Heyo fellow readers! Cody here with three(ish) comic book reviews and some information on why my Christmas animation "Coup's Christmas" will never be appearing upon your frail flickering pc monitors.

I'll get the bad taste out of my mouth now. So the day before my deadline on the animation, I had stopped to take a rest from the animation, I had just finished 11 shots and rendered 5 shots. I was more than half way done while I was updating my information about this to a new Gofio post. Then a pop up flew on to my screen alerting me I had a virus, another came up and before I knew it my virus detector fell for a trap and let a virus right into my pc cutting my animation into a untellable story and my pc into pure trash.

"Coup's Christmas" was all lost in the crash 'cept a mere 5 shots I have rendered on my Mac and a bad voice over of me telling the story. Who knows maybe I'll go all out next year and do what I really wanted to do, make a bundle of render shots and print them into gloss paper and make a hard cover children's book for my family. Maybe I could get it published as well. Funny thought to me.

Now the Comic I'll be reviewing today is called "HAUNT" by Robert Kirkman and Todd McFARLANE

Now I'll be perfectly honest with ya, first thing I thought of when I saw this cover was two things 1: Venom? and 2: Cookies and milk candy bar. You might not get that same feeling from looking at the picture I'm posting with this for a simple reason, the copy I own is a third printing but the one you see is a special edition, though both are black and white, the one I own has shadows on it that give it a, blending kinda look.

Ok on with the review!

Is it just me, or have most new comics been trying to juggle to many characters and story lines at once? So in the first pages we join Kurt, speaking to a priest in a confessions booth about how he killed people due to it being his job as a special forces officer. we see him break into a compound and try to rescue a scientist and his subject so that he may help find a cure for a strange mutation. When Kurt and the scientist find his mutated living subjects, Kurt pops a bullet into the scientist's skull, then proceeds to help free/save the infected people. I'm am unsure of why he killed the scientist, I assume he was making the people worse? Okay so we fellow Kurt as he leaves the booth and has a conversation with his younger, wait no, older, uh, well his brother who looks younger but seems to be older, shit I'm confused.

He has a conversation with his brother(Daniel) who happens to be the priest who takes the confessions of murder from Kurt. He tells Kurt to go speak with his mother and that she misses him. Kurt leaves the church and goes for a walk, he stops at a near by crosswalk where he lets out a deep breath and reaches for his gun, for no apparent reason, but is cut short by a woman who injects him with a knock out drug and is then transported to a holding cell to get a beating of a life time so he will confess about the scientists research.

Suddenly from there we are now following his younger/older brother Daniel. we see him talking to Kurt in the back of a limo about a girl named Amanda, Daniel hates her and would like to avoid her, then he, demands, that Kurt vanish, 'cuz he is dead. Um, okay so I guess Kurt was killed and now Daniel see's him as a figment of his imagination.

Daniel is then visited by Amanda where she tells him that she is a pill junkie and has trouble sleeping, so she pops a pill to sleep but she can't wake up without someones help. So he sleeps on his couch and she takes the bed. Kurt shows up again to help warn Daniel that two men are breaking in. They open fire on Daniel but as the bullet zings towards his face, Kurt leaps toward Daniel and becomes one with each other causing a milky white substance to halt the bullet in front of his face(Not joking, milky white liquid that spews from his mouth.) and Daniel transforms into Venom a monster that looks like venom and rips the heads off of the two intruders(FBI agents?. End of Issue #1.

I feel like I wasted $3.00 on this comic. The art is good, lots of color and well placed panels, but all the guys look the same, and made it hard to tell who I was reading about. the story juggles too many things at once bringing many holes to the plot and no real reason to enjoy the story. I felt like Kirkman and McFARLANE got together and said, if we toss a half naked girl into the start, lots of gore, mutants, dual personality's and a pill popper into one comic, we might have a hit.

Now the first issue of a comic is made to give a taste of what the line of comics will prove to give us, and with that being said I am rather unsure about reading another one. I feel like this comic has promise, but only if the story line becomes more solid. I want to know why Kurt is a ghost/figment following Daniel. Why does Daniel suddenly have powers? Why should I care about Daniels pill junkie ex-girlfriend?

I do think I will pick up the next issue soon and give it a chance, but I suggest if you are interested in reading this one that you buy #1 and 2 or all 3 at once, #4 will be out soon.

Okay so on a scale of 1-5 of this comic I'd rate it a 2 and a half. Art style and paneling was nice to look at but lost points in being uncreative with the design of our brothers and hero. He looks like a Oreo remix of Venom (O_o) . the comic loses mad points on the fact that it juggles more than it can handle for a first issue. The writing in the comic flows alright but every now and then it gets confusing with how they would be saying something to the other person.

Walls

So, I got a chance to play Playstation: Home over at Cody's house, and it's pretty insane. Really insane, maybe, but further exposure to the product is needed before making that judgement. It's pretty much Second-Life, but with the visual chaos replaced with conceptual chaos. Everything looks clean and nice, and I must admit, it's pretty cool to be able to casually walk around the environments of popular games (Resident Evil 5 especially). But the chaos comes when you attempt to take advantage of the goods and services offered.

We entered into a virtual haunted house promoting the game "Siren: Blood Curse", wherein we joined 20 or so similarly inclined players all attempting to do the same thing: actually explore the haunted house. It was not to be though, as the only way to gain entry was by gaining the favor or some A.I. controlled nurse positioned behind a glass podium, who was eternally stuck in a bad animation loop. The sick joke of a rogue Sony employee, I must say.

Quickly realizing that entry would require a combination of luck and a desire stronger than we had, the best choice of action soon became clear: create anarchy within the lobby.

We learned that one player must "register" with the nurse, therein becoming a "party leader" and given the ability to select five other people to take along on the tour. Of course, only one person can be registered at a time. So only five people can go inside at a time. And this is all happening in real time. In a world where there are potentially hundreds of people on the server with the desire to partake in the experience. Sony has in effect, created a space where people line up to be advertised at, and to them I must say: good show. I'm sure Microsoft is slapping themselves on the forehead; "you've won this round, Sony".

Anyway, realizing that no one is really capable of knowing who in the teeming masses is a registered user, we decided to tell everyone that we were registered, and that the first five people to the corner would be coming along with us. We quickly got more than five people at our side, waiting eagerly to come along, their thirst for digital scares/marketing/possible free shirts, about to be quenched.

After stretching out the time for awhile ("hold up, controllers not working… it's loading… waiting for one more guy", etc), we decided to finally reveal that, indeed, we were no more a registered user than the player in the creepy bunny costume over there in the corner.

We then proceeded to dance.

So, while your enjoyment of Home depends entirely upon how much you wish to spend on digital items and/or exploring rendered game environments as a creepy doppelganger of yourself, there is fun to be had, if you like finding the walls. Doing the things that the designers didn't intend for you to do. In that way, it's a sort of mental exercise; how can I fool the other guy, how far can I reach outside the box? It's a place where you make your own fun, which I'm actually more than ok with. Because at the end of the day, Sony is the who's dancing.

Christmas short film update.

Yo, Cody here with some updates about what I'm doing and whats going on in my life.

I'm currently hard at work with putting the finishing touches on the textures for my upcoming short film, "Coup's Christmas"
I should be finished today (Dec 5th) with the full set design and lighting, after that on Monday I will recorded the voice over and then begin animation. The video Needs to be finished by the 18th so Tim can add his own background music to make the film flow better. My deadline is Dec 22nd for the whole video and sounds.

I am also working on my GED(much harder now) and am going to try to meet a dead line of being finished before June(More than reasonable).

As for my time burners, I have been playing lots of Resident Evil with my good friend Sebastian where we plan on shooting every blue plate in order to get a achievement-Trophy, while I also snipe the heads off zombies from a mile away! And Seba' runs up to a zombie and breaks its neck, yet still ends up with 30 more zombie kills than me, every time!

I have also been playing lots of games with Bre(LittleBigPlanet, Monster Madness, and she beat Uncharted but I haven't.). I'm enjoying my December a lot this year. Also last night Tim, Bre and I went out and got some food, some coffee from starbucks and spent some time at Castles and Coasters, where we played "Deal or no deal" over and over till we won enough tickets to buy Bert and Ernie.


We never gave up! We saved them from their cold plastic cages and placed them in new much larger places, know as our bedrooms where they sit in our windows and are, currently, Tim and I's default picture on our fave-5 plan from T-Mobile... I'm Ernie.

Okay, Cody~OUT!

A interesting Turkey day.

Today is Thanksgiving. Bre and I attended to a feast at my sister-in-law's home, while I was there I spoke with one of her family members, A well spoken, kind, and interesting man. He and I spoke with each other about his job as a designer for sleek airplanes. He put my mind at ease about a few things I had been wondering about lately via 3D modeling, and now I feel a lot better about some things and the way I am doing them. We also talked about film and the CG in today's film compared to that of an older time.

He told me that I should push at myself harder to get my GED and get into a school(Though I had already planned this, hearing it again helped me want it more.). I shall finish my 3D Turbine, keep up my work on the Christmas animation and push at myself much harder on my GED. He said something to me tonight that I hope I never forget "You can teach yourself your whole life, but there will always be other things people will be able to teach you that you cannot find out yourself."

Thanks for helping me find my passion again Larry.

Cody~Out and Happy Turkey~day everyone.

Juggling act.

Sup Cody here, trying to juggle a few things in my life.

Concept art is a lot more fun than big projects like animations. like my drunk bird, Fat smiley(unfinished, still disturbing) and the Gamco competitions from game-artist.net


I'm trying to keep my head while finishing the set for my Christmas animation as well as attending to family get-together's and my job. I'm hoping this animation is good, I would hate to pop out another "Meh" video. I have to texture a ton of objects for the animation and its killing me, I keep telling myself a tablet would make it so much easier. I would like to point out that I will not give up on this and will deliver a heart warming short film!

I have got much to do and this music is crushing my spirit, I need something more upbeat! A new task to juggle is here! Cody~out!

SAW: the video game review

Yo Cody here. Dropping a review on the SAW the video game.

Okay first off I wanted to hate this game. I rented this game due to it being around Halloween, and because I heard the puzzles did make it worth it. Now with that aside I will move on.

The game starts off with you being locked up to a chair. You break the locks on your wrists by pulling up on them(because, you know, your super man) then you take control of the black man they like calling Detective Tap even though it looks nothing like Danny Glover. Now lets be fair, human likeness can be hard. So you move onto attempting to remove the reverse bear trap on your head before it goes off. This is the first of many easy puzzles. Your puzzle is twist the thumb stick 'round and 'round till a button shows up, hit the correct button and you break out, just in the nick of time. okay Um, really? "It's a trap!" achievement unlocked, okay that's a really stupid achievement, it's like getting a achievement for opening a glowing box for items and oh, "Treasure: unlock first container". Okay Imma be frank about this. I hate games that force you into a achievement, like as if you got one for your first time-leap back in braid. God I love braid. The one achievement I did want, never showed up. That part in the first movie where Adam is using a camera to light his way in his pitch black apartment and then is pounced upon. I used the camera to light my way for quite some time and even took pictures of foes. never got a achevment. So upsetting.

So aside from the massive achievement let downs, I'd like to point out how slow the fighting is in the game, I had assumed it would be like most games were you pick up a pipe and swing away at the foe till he dies. Well that works, really well. If you are fast enough to land the first hit, and are good at timing the speed of the foe as he runs at you. I started the game and found the first foe, he breaks through a door and runs at you, you pick up a pipe and wait for him to get close enough. I did this, and then swung at him, only he hit me first, canceling my hit, over and over again. I had to stop trying to him him and run away for a moment then swing well before he got close enough. The time span it takes to swing your weapons is just ridiculous.

For some reason Det. Tap is barefoot and is incapable of removing someones shoes to place over his own. This brings me to my next point, some tasks are just a waste of time, like the balance beams you have to cross, just run across and hold left and you'll make it across 9 out of 10 times. Broken glass is easy to see and is far to easy to side step past. digging through a toilet full of needles for a key is as simple as A button, A button.

In the menu of the game you can look at concept art as well as the E3 footage and other perks but the concept art is always something I look forward to in any game. after looking at the concept art it will then show the 3d model of the art chosen, this shows us how konami can not model a person very well.

The cut scenes in the game attempt to pull off the cinematography from the films, they need to watch the movies more than once before making a game of it. It has none of the saw elements to it other than the environment, the look and feel of the game is really the only thing they managed to do really well, the rest is very blah. I have yet to finish the game and I do look forward to finishing it despite all the horrible issues it has already. Something about the game keeps me entertained enough to have the urge to see the ending(Maybe because the movies always had interesting twists).

The only fun I had in the game was the first big puzzle where you feed the poison to the trash and the antidote to yourself. Also getting a achievement for each weapon drove me to keep playing, as well as the mystery in the game.

I would like to give this game a rating of 2 and a half stars out of 5. Nothing more than a rental. My say is final!

Cody Out~

Video games: Or how I used to play them whenever I wanted.

Yo, Cody here with a short(I hope) look into my life revolving around my gaming habits.

Now I was going to bring this up on the second PodCast with Tim, but on second thought it would be a bad idea, I know that if he cut me off in the middle of this speech, I would Begin to stumble my words and not ending with the right note. This would bring me to a staring contest and sad face between my Fiance and myself.

Ok now, onward! I found myself today at 1:20 pm standing in my living room, staring at my xbox and my stack of video games. Games like "Gears of war 1-2" "Left 4 Dead" "Brutal legend" and "SAW"(SAW was gamefly'd, don't think I'd waste money like that do you?) I thought to myself, "which should I play before going to work? Gears? No, not very fun without Tim or Seb. L4D? Nah, that's more of a Bre and I kinda game. Brutal Legend!? Yes! wait no, Bre got bothered last time I played it without her. Okay this leaves "SAW", No, can't play that without Bre and my mom."

This brings me to my point. It sucks when people enjoy watching you play your video games. Being limited to a few old games and ones you have already beaten just because you have a friend or family member interested as well, it blows.

See but this where it gets worse. Every time I wait for Bre to play L4D, I have a great time, the team work is nearly flawless, we also have the same feelings about players without headsets, bam! Booted from the game. And to top it off, she won't get pissed when I leave her ass to die with the tank just so we can finish the level.

All of the games I named that I wait for her has its own advantage. Brutal Legend, she enjoys the story and way the game flows, she never tells me to turn the music off even though she hates metal. And she points out small things I might of missed and walked right by.

Now SAW, This one has its set of issues. See I have heard lots of good about this game, but its a game based on a set of movies, bad movies at that. But I had to rent it, it's Halloween time and it just felt like a good choice. I will be setting a review in a few days. Back on topic, in this case I'm waiting on Bre, and my mom. My mother barely ever wants to watch me play a game, but this is SAW and she is interested. Bre hasn't said much about wanting to watch it, I asked her in a grumpy mood so the answer was "Meh" at best. I want My Fiance by my side for this game just in case it has a "dark feeling and pop up bad guys: Or How I am to much of a scarredy-cat to play it alone." Again the waiting has its answer, I wait for her this way I can enjoy some games to a further possibility. Waiting on my mom though, that really sucks, she is a very busy woman.

I hate being impatient, but waiting for others to play a game when you have nothing else to do, is just plain boring. I guess GED and 3D are my only choices. Oh, and uploading the Gofio Podcast.

Cody Out!~

My, how they have grown.

Yo Cody here with some interesting news.

The first Team Gofio Podcast will be taking place later today, so the mp3 will be up later this week. We are very excited for it to take place. We got some great news on the way! So be on the look out.

In other news I'd like to say my comic book collection is becoming a monster of a addiction. I went from 4 comics in the year 2003 to 7 in 2006 to 9 in 2008 to being at Roughly, 147 in 2009. In one year I had bought roughly 140 comics.

Now at $3 a comic and 150 comics owned I have spent around $450 dollars in this year on comics alone. I now know where all my money has been going, aside from all the video games and trips to the movies with Bre and Tim. By the way Bre, Tim and I all suggest you go see Zombie Land.



I think its safe to assume you will be seeing many comic book reviews from me in the near future, I say this becuase my collection is growing so fast I now need a new comic box to hold the ones I know I'll be buying soon. Also I really enjoyed writting my first review on "The umbrella Academy" Which you can read by clicking THIS LINK HERE

Okay! I got some stuff to read and some stuff to write.

But we all know I'm going to just go play Brutal Legend till Tim gets to my house.

Cody ~ Out.

Piston background.

Yo, Cody here. I just got done making a new background in photoshop/3ds max
























I had gotten the idea from a stumble picture of paint splatter, and then a second stumble onto a car site. I went ahead and made a piston as well as a engine block but it turned out to be, sorta ugly. But here is the overall outcome.

You can download the background for yourself. The rez on the picture is 1024x768

CLICK HERE


Yeah, okay Cody out!

As it was.

So, this morning I awoke to a surprise. My camera and all included equipment had sold on ebay for a nice sum (though not as much as I would have liked, I am accepting of that fact in this economy). I was relived to have sold it, but as with most things of this nature, it's bittersweet.

I won't bother you with the reasons why I'm selling the camera, I'll only say the reason is not solely economical (though yes, it'll be nice to pay off my bills for a year). The reason(s) are varied and personal. Instead of sifting through them, I'll let this likely rambling blog post serve as a memoir of my times with the camera and the experiences related. I would post this on my twitter (twitter.com/timsenzee) but "Sold my cam, it's bittersweet, lol also it's raining and im bored" just doesn't have the same emotional resonance of which I am hoping to accomplish here.

For years now, I've been striving to be a filmmaker. I have memories, like all aspiring filmmakers, of making movies with my friends when I was younger. My "partner in crime" as it were was Cody, Cody, and sometimes Andrew. We started filming ourselves "skateboarding" (the word "skateboarding" cannot and will not be written without quotations as that would possibly imply that what we did could somehow be construed as an actual representation of the sport). After growing tired of shooting ourselves attempted a trick, and the required follow-up of "man, that was so close, you almost landed it..." we realized we could expand our film horizons by adding in "plot" (remember the quotations around "skateboard"? Same thing here).

We started off shooting what most inspired young kids start off shooting: f**king ridiculously complicated scenarios. Make a nice little short about two friends off on a neighborhood adventure? Hell no. Why do that when you can make an intergalactic space adventure with your parents waterbed doubling as "Cardashian Slime Pits" and the condiment bottles in the fridge used for as much bodily fluid as necessary?

Escaped convicts set loose on small town suburbia, aliens invading and killing our little friend Andrew, the story or a nerd (me) trying to get into a club, but stopped at every attempt by the violent bouncer, kung-fu epics in the back yard, and wandering samurais looking for vengeance. All this sprouted from our fertile minds (fueled by late night viewings of Starship Troopers and Star Wars) and was executed, however humbly, by maybe $10, a Hi-8 camera, and lots of imagination.

It's been said a band cannot be considered a real band unless they've recorded material on a 4-Track. I say you're not a real filmmaker lest you've recorded on a Hi-8 camera. We put Cody's Hi-8 through a lot of use. I believe we broke our little Hi-8 midway through one of our productions, so left without a camera and eager to move on with filming, what did we do? We got Cody to steal his bigger brothers camera. The show must go on.

One (myself) might wonder where the tapes of these "productions" could be found, but most of them are lost to time and banished to memory. For whatever reason, we were always very low on Hi-8 tapes. So, when we wanted to make a new project, we usually just said "screw it" and taped over our last filmed endeavor. And why not? Sure, our last one was alright, but our next one will be better.

Maybe losing those tapes was for the best. As many can attest, the taste of nostalgia is very sweet. And like fine wine, it only gets sweeter as long as the bottle is left closed.

Flash forward a few years and dozens of theater trips later, and the desire to create films only grew stronger. I felt like my years of watching and discussing films with friends was like some sort of "crash course" film school, and that I was ready to take the next step.

So I bought a camera, a computer (iMac) and Final Cut Studio 2 and started thinking up a good first short. And to be clear, this wasn't just a sudden decision. I saved for quite a length of time to get the camera, and with the grace of my father, was able to get a little earlier than expected. I'll never forget the feeling of seeing that big box arrive at my house. As I will never forget the feeling of seeing that big box leave my house.

Anyway, with my new found equipment and opportunity, I needed a project. Luckily, a project presented itself. On MySpace (heh) there was a short film contest to promote the new game "Stranglehold". The short was to be short in the vein of classic John Woo Hong Kong action flicks. Remember what I said about my friends and I shooting only f**king ridiculously complicated scenarios? Well, some things never change...

The short was called Bandage. It was to be under five minutes long, and it starred myself as the title character (covered in bandages from some past injury. A plot device made up due to the fact that I didn't want to show my face in the movie). The character (name unknown. Not important!) is washed up on the bank of a canal, wrapped in bags. With a knife, he slashes his way out and gathers himself on the nearby sand. Pulling out a picture of a woman, he lets it drop after a moment of mourning.

Then the killing starts.

Out of all the films I shot, I have the fondest memories of this one. Something about it was just pure. Cody and I (and Josh, and my Dad and everyone else who helped) were just having such a blast with it. Here I was with this new equipment, making something that was actually, for all intents and purposes, pretty damn good. We shot it in our office late at night, so no one would bother us (the first of many past-midnight office shoots) and staged a fairly cool action scene in the lobby.

We must have scared the hell out of some poor maid though, because about an hour into shooting, the cops arrived. It must have been divine intervention, because despite the fact that we were carrying VERY REAL looking guns, and running around an office building at 2 in the morning wearing dark clothes and trench-coats, the cops didn't do much else than say "be more careful". Really? I was almost disappointed. Come on guys, you've given me the start of a great story to tell my friends, and now you're gonna end it with THAT climax? "Be more careful"? At least confiscate something, threaten us. Hell, I felt more intimidated when I got pulled over for speeding. You're doing it wrong.

Anyway, suffice to say we didn't win the top prize (some bastard with the help of his french commercial production company took that place) but we had an extremely fun, memorable experience.

I remember the day after finishing the intensive shoot for Bandage, another contest came up for the game "Assassins Creed". So, after shooting and editing intensively for three days with probably eight hours of sleep altogether, why not immediately start the process again?

Cody and I packed the car and headed off to Flagstaff to take advantage of the great wilderness to shoot our mini-medieval epic about an assassin tracking a target who should not exist in this time period (at this point, little was known about the game "Assassins Creed", so we were guessing what the game was about. We guessed wrong).

Anyway, after getting some AMAZING shots (and carrying 200lbs of equipment up a mountain), the worst thing happened: torrential down pour. We got rained out of Flagstaff, and had to retreat to the shelter of a near-by Taco Bell (not the first time) and re-think our plans over a burrito and Baja Blast. Unfortunately, the short was never to be finished, but it only further cemented our habit of filmmaking, something that would carry through the years to follow.

A number of shorts followed. "Haste for History", the story of a young man entering a foot race for the chance to own a valuable antique once in Mozart's possession. "Merc for Hire", a series of shorts I had grand ambitions for, but only the pilot was ever shot (twice). I would go into the details of the story, but it's... convoluted. Basically, it's about a start up company that specializes in solving difficult videogames for pay ("difficult videogame" being a dated concept these days). It was like Ghostbusters, if the ghosts were replaced by rage inducing videogames, and Bill Murray and company were replaced by people not nearly as funny as Bill Murray and company.

I was always disappointed to some degree with the scale of our short films. What I saw in my mind, what I knew I could accomplish if just given the opportunity was so grand, so beautiful, that I knew it wouldn't fail.

But I never quite got there. Not yet.

I still have a large file of concepts for stories, both big and small. I look at them sometimes and, in a moment of self-aggrandizement, I think, "damn. That really is good". "Cockroach is a Meat Too..." being one my favorites. I don't know about you, but I would see a film with that title just based on morbid curiosity alone.

While selling my cameras and equipment would seem to symbolically be the end of my filmmaking ambitions, I assure you (and myself) that that isn't the case... I don't think. I don't know what the future has in store for me or my friends, but if I were to come into a few thousand dollars, I would surely consider renting an HD Camera and shooting my LONG talked about film, "REAL". But that was the problem. I talked about it for too long, and was unable to make any progress. Life is pushing me in a different direction right now, and who knows where it will twist and turn. If it passes back into the filmmaking realm, I'll be right there with my clapper, friends, script, and a case full of Red Bull.

If you made it to the (near) end of this long blog post, I truly appreciate it. Either you're a close friend, or someone who just genuinely enjoyed my prose and found the stories engaging (yeah right). Believe me though, it could have been ten times longer. I passed over the stories about nearly getting mugged for the camera equipment (twice), run ins with hobos, scaring people in Tempe while dressed as a superhero, hiding from Walt the groundskeeper while locked in an office at 4am, and many, MANY ingenious solutions to getting the film effects we needed while working on a shoe-string budget.

It was a blast.

After I sold my camera and equipment to "Ewokman" on ebay (screen name given, to protect identity, but mostly because "Ewokman" is a kick-ass name) this is the message he sent me:

"Just let me know when you get it shipped out with the tracking numbers. I will say that I'm very excited about it, I'm kind of jumping into film making for the first time, so I hope it works out for me."

I hope it does too.

The Umbrella Academy review

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY
This is my first comic review so please, bare with me.

This comic starts in, possibly one of the greatest way I think I have ever seen. It starts out with a large man wrestling a giant alien squid, the mans name is “Tusslin’ Tom” he preforms a “atomic flying elbow” drop onto the giant alien squid defeating him and earning a gold belt. This act of fantastic action/strangeness spawns forty-three gifted children to suddenly be birthed out of a handful of unlucky females around the world, the children are put up for adoption when a old man known as “Sir Reginald Hargreeves” who is also known as “The Monocle” drops everything and runs out to adopt as many of them as possible and only lands 7 of these gifted children. After a report to the press that his adopted sons and daughters will be the future savors of the world, he and the children vanish. One decade later Paris is in big trouble and needs the help of a talented group of children.

Now, when I bought the comic I expected it to have a straight forward story line but from what I gathered it jumps from when our heros are babies, to 10 year old's, then to adults living on their own and waiting to save the world again.

This left a dry taste in my mouth, I am now awaiting my next chunk of change I can Gleefully throw into Tfaw’s pocket so that I may read the next issues. The story, though feels like a rotting bridge, shaking in the wind ready to snap, somehow also sends the feeling of comfort in knowing that once you reach the end, and then you look back you’ll notice that there is enough support to make the cross back over it again. Or in other words, It is a interesting read though and slightly hard to understand, but if you look back at it once finished, you have a rush to the head making you want the next issues more.

The cover of this comic threw me off a tad, the cover holds three panels, all of which are rather colorful, yet the pages in the comic are often muted, more so on a gray scale with bursts of green and dark blue, You’ll find no Whinnie the pooh here kids, sorry.

The idea of the comic just reels me in, seven gifted children are brought into a world only to be called on to help save the world every decade or two. And one of them appears to be, not so gifted after all, or gifted in ways of writing anyways, Cursing her father for not caring about her due to the fact she has no powers, she yearns for the chance of revenge. Hook, line, and sinker.

This comic having solid writing, interesting story lines, and a perfect blah color scheme, makes one heck of a worthy comic. But the strange fact that Gerard Way is just mind boggling. I mean the singer of My Chemical Romance also writes comics? and award winning ones at that!?

Crazy, just crazy. Okay Cody Out!~

Umm, yes?

Oh my, why in the world would I be posting on here again? its been months since the last one. I am unsure of why I am but I would venture to guess it is because I like the idea of having a website to display my 3D and recent thoughts that are to long to post on Twitter. I have been making a new animation called sloth vs light bulb, learn more and hear my voice on the youtube video below.

Overdue post.

Yo, Cody here. Sorry about the lack of posts lately Tim and I have been busy. We filmed a short film with Josh for a ASU short film contest. The short film is about, well I'll leave the plot for you to see. The short will be put up on youtube by either the end of the week or sometime next week.

As for other reasons I have been to busy to post is I have been working a lot at my job and I found myself coming home to my Wii, first time in over a year that I find the Wii worth playing, of course it's Zelda: Twilight Princess, but that's besides the point. I also have been looking into holding off on my ps3 till the April price drop and in the mean time picking up a video card for my PC so I can render my 3D faster and so I can start editing my shorts in a real editing software instead windows movie maker. I also have been sucked into my photography lately, trying to find my style.

On a side note We would like to say sorry for wasting so much time on the podcast. Turns out Tim needs a adapter that costs a pretty penny so he is currently unable to buy it, but as soon as he gets it we will try and do a weekly or every two weeks podcast update. More than likely on Saturdays.

Food: A Tasteful Documentary. The first draft is nearly done, Tim and I have agreed on a cool idea of me writing the script then I send it to him, then he re-writes it, then comes to my house we re-re-writes it one last time. We will update on the film once the writing is done and filming has begun.

And I guess the end, um, Happy Valentines day!

"To Phantom Sloth From OBEY"

So yesterday I hear my brother say, "To Phantom Sloth" in a low voice behind me as I played Banjo-Kazooie, I turned to see him holding a large envelope addressed to my nickname/gamer tag so I snatched it from him and opened it up, and behold the kick ass CD that we shall know as Obey the Altar Native: Obedience Cool.

The CD came in a small green paper slipcover with two words, "On iTunes" Of course I finished my race in Banjo-Kazooie then tossed the green slipcover and placed the cover in a CD Case giving it a well earned home.






I put the CD in my xbox and listened to all 22 tracks. Upon the listening I heard the ones I already love like "Radio Flyer" and "Written in blood", but listening to the CD has opened a new wave of Great songs like "Altar Native" and "High Noon Shadow". I had a moment of strange timing, I had thought to myself "Wow, this is great i cant believe how well he makes the rhymes works yet they really should rhyme at all." and then suddenly their song Cursive started playing, in the song he says "Why does every single rhyme I write go and flow together like i was spitting in cursive?" Haha strange.

Anyways, the new CD is currently on iTunes for a crazy low amount of $10 dollars! Thats a great deal seeing how if you bought a single song it will cost 99cents, so $1 X 22 = $22 so don't be a douche if your gonna buy a song think twice because they rule the mic and you'll end up wanting other songs, be smart now and buy the whole CD.












Oh and Obey if your reading this, next time do me a favor, sign it yo.

~Cody Out

realthemovie.com

So finally, the site for "Real: Documentary of a Superhero" is live. Still got some kinks to work out, and some things to add, but for the most part, it's up. Check it out at: realthemovie.com.

As you can tell from reading the homepage, this site is the main way I'll be raising funds for the film. Why have I put so much effort into making promo stuff for the film, well before the actual start date? Because I'm trying to build up a presentation. A "proof of concept" for what the film will be. Why? So I can get your money.

That's the way I'm attempting the fundraising. Donations. On the site I've laid out my plans in full, and if someone thinks its interesting, they can give any amount.

Of course, the main course of action into making this plan actually work is exposure. So spread the word, aight?

Peace.

Interesting.

Sup yo, Cody here with some interesting bits of info.

The other day I was hanging out with my good friend Josh when I had noticed something about the way he was talking about making a cup of coffee, paying no mind to it at first he later talked about making a sandwich, when suddenly the idea hit me, Josh is the best person I can find to play the lead in my short film "Food: A Tasteful Documentary.".

Yes, I feel your pain. Being left in the dark about something so, delicious. "Food: A Tasteful Documentary." is a short film I am currently writing. Though the final draft for the short film will be written by both Tim and I, I am the main writer due to getting the idea for the film one day while being held in a trance of sandwich making. We plan on shooting the film as a side project sometime this year, hopefully in the next few months.



Surprise! I bring to your attention yet again one of my 3D side projects, "Boxes: To something higher" When I had got the idea about six months ago I had no plan on where to take the idea, But yesterday I had sat down and messed around with a box, and from there I had made a box/man, giving me a story for the short film I call "Boxes: To something higher".



The Gofio Podcast will be made sometime soon, Tim bought me a new headset for Christmas so now Chris and I are perfectly good to record. Tim will be getting his very soon. The Podcast will include info about the Gofio team's short films/Feature films, game reviews, recent movies watched, and anything else we deem good enough to be brought up, for example the cake we will be eating on my birthday (Jan 7th).

And for your parting pleasure, Obey The Altar Native is going to be playing live in Tuscan on the 22nd and 23rd, they have asked me to make up a short video for them while they are on stage, and of course I'm going to the concert so why not do them a favor?

Cody Out!