This is my second entry into the 72 Hour Film Fest, but this year with a completely new team! Using friends and acquaintances through the Communications Department, Shepherd University, and friends from the “real world”, we composed an epic team of film-makers, actors, and other creative minds.

72 FILM FEST FEST

This year competition was tight, and out of the 50 other professional, amateur, and student teams, we did not take home any awards. However, we received a huge, positive response when screened at the 72 Hour Film Fest, and the viewers seemed genuinely impressed with our efforts.

Sadly, the entire team couldn’t make it, but those who did go had an awesome time. The hosts were funny, there was some really good films, and seeing the positive response to your film being screened is really awesome.

More info about the competition itself is available at www.72fest.com

BEHIND THE SCENES

This is the first film that I was truly the “filmmaker” of, and thus has taken more work than any of my other projects. Though that being said, collaboration was clearly a huge component. Our eight person crew pretty much non-stopped worked with each other for 72 hours straight, including a lot of eating and living together. Things got a bit hectic and stressful during the shoot, which would be largely attributed to lack of sleep and caffeine overload. However, with all the constraints and issues we ran into, things turned out remarkable well.

Here’s just a few issues that plague the movie:

1. Creative direction.
   We had so many ideas coming from so many places, that it was very hard to nail it down to a single, unified idea that everyone agreed on and liked. In the end, this wasn’t really possible, and I had to make some tough decisions. On retrospect, the idea was a bit too simple, and needed a bit more story to it… but we wanted to focus on the technical aspects and editing more than get stuck on the story, which we had spent all night working on (over six hours straight of brainstorming and writing).An interesting note is that Matt Embrey took one of our original ideas and adapted it into a rather cool graphic novel. It made me jealous that we didn’t actually make a film around it, as it was a pretty cool concept.
2. Finding talent.
   Though we had the “behind the scenes” guys all lined up and good to go, finding actors and on-screen talent was difficult, even extras. Laura, despite some misgivings about the script and zero acting experience, set aside her entire weekend to help us and was perfect for the role. I was amazed at how well she did with said zero experience. Then, Bryan came out of no where and offered to help us with his acting experience—which he had plenty of! His experience was vital to the entire on-screen performance, which was really quite awesome.Another issue was extras. We luckily filled up the party scene with enough extras to make it look real, and they did a great job of getting into their roles in a very short amount of time. Sadly, we couldn’t secure all the talent we wanted. We had to cut the “friend” (that you heard on the phone in beginning). The “friend” was originally supposed to show up to the dinner scene and transition into the party sequence. Instead, Laura and Bryan kind of “show up” at the party instead.
3. The weather = the lost scene.
   We originally had an entire sequence sub-titled “the bench scene” where the Male Actorwould wake up, reflect on the mistakes he made (in the first two), become frustrated, and then time would rewind. However, because it ended up raining on the second day of shooting, we couldn’t film any of these scenes.Instead, we ended on the “party scene”, which kind of changed the dynamic of the film. We wanted this party scene to be one short stop the entire night, which went Bakery Meeting, Dinner Date, Friends Party, and Bench Scene (reflection). Instead, it sort of made the film seem like it was leading up to the “party scene” each time, which was unintentional.
4. Technical failure.
   On the third and final day, my computer suffered a complete hard drive failure. This required almost half my day fixing and getting my computer working a new hard drive, with a new Windows install, while installing all my programs and assets as quickly as I could, and trying to save as much data as I could from my previous hard drive (which all my footage had already been saved on). Luckily, I was able to get everything working, but it set me behind by 8 hours… those were also with 4 hours that I was planning to sleep. Instead, I stayed up all night fixing everything and getting back on track… to only be left with 10 hours to completely edit, sound design, put together an entire film, and render it out.This was easily the most stressful thing that could happen to me, and running on no sleep made it three times as worse. However, there’s no excuses in the filmmaking business, so I buckled it down, got the work done faster than I ever though possible, and ended up being really impressed with the amount of editing I got done in less than 10 hours. To put that into perspective, we had over 2 hours of recorded footage.
5. The music.
   This was my largest disappointment and a personal oversight of mine. I was not a fan of how the film essentially felt like a “music video” because of the lack of dialogue and the over-bearing soundtracks (that swapped with different themes). I sort of added a small amount of time to work on music and sound after the movie was complete, and never really considered how big of an impact they would have on the film.The first song (Someone’s heart is broken) that played changed the tone drastically. What was supposed to be an awkward and somewhat shy guy not getting anywhere because he was too timid and the girl being slightly put off… ended up becoming a depressingpiece about a completely out-to-touch person and the girl was downright embarrassed to be seen with him. This entire theme of “sadness” or “depression” was way overplayed.The second song (Clash) was too intense. It worked, but completely contrasted the first piece too much, and the tempo was way too fast. It was too jarring, though it ended up being pretty funny at points.The third and final song (Friends Without Benefits) I felt fit perfectly, which is funny because I came across it more as a joke. My good friend Matt Myers is the lead singer of the band The Continuals, whom the song is from. The tempo was nice, it had a good buildup, and it really set the mood nicely. It also ended on a perfect note, and having a good ending is really key in short films.

   In a related note, I’ve actually gone and made a music video for The Continuals song, Friends without Benefits, just because I liked it so much. Boom.

By no means am I trying to highlight only the negatives, but the hurdles that we had to overcome to make this entire film in only 72 hours were quite daunting. That being said, not only was this a huge personal challenge, but it was awesome working with such talented and motivated people. I really cannot thank my fellow filmmakers, actors, crewmates, and everyone who was involved enough, nor could I imagine working with more talented and driven people. These guys are legitimately awesome people, and despite the stresses involved with making a film, I had a hell of a time doing it.

CREW

• Bryan Staggers – Lead Actor
• Laura Bradel – Lead Actress
• Daniel Jones – Director
• Steven Schellinger – Lead Producer
• Stephen Wittkamper – Production Manager
• Matt Embrey – Director of Photography
• Aaron Rock – Creative Director
• Peter Rush – Sound Director

MUSIC

• “Someone’s Heart is Broken: For Fireproof Babies” by SackJo22 (First song)
  http://ccmixter.org/files/SackJo22/33501
• “Clash” by visualgroove (Second song)
  http://audiojungle.net/item/clash/53032
• “Friends without Benefits” by The Continuals (Third song)
  www.myspace.com/continuals
• “Together Tonight” by joymback (Time Reversal song)
  http://soundcloud.com/johnsbd/joymback-together-tonight-100

LOCATIONS

• The Devonshire Arms Cafe & Pub in Shepherdstown, WV
  http://www.facebook.com/TheDevonshireArmsShepherdstownWV
• Shepherdstown Sweet Shop Bakery
  http://www.wvbakery.com/

SPECIAL THANKS TO

• Megan Camilletti
• Benjamin Dyke
• Sage Ober
• Danielle Corsetto
• Brian Filon
• Alex Jones
• Samantha Gough

SOFTWARE

• Adobe Premiere CS5
• Adobe Soundbooth CS5

EQUIPMENT

• 2x Canon T2i
• 1x Canon 60D
• 2x 50mm 1.8 Lenses
• 1x 15-85mm Lens
• 2x 500 LED Lights
• 1x 96 LED Light (portable)
• 1x Light Reflector
• 1x Boom Mic + Boom pole
• 1x Zoom H4N
• 1x Zoom H1
• 1x Rode VideoMic

I’m also finally publishing a bunch of blog posts that have been sitting around as drafts for awhile. They’re somewhat incomplete (there was more stuff I wanted to add to them), but I figure this site needs a bit of a content update, so just getting them out for the masses to enjoy.

In the meantime, here are some big projects I’m working on:

• A new online tournament system built for e-sports events.
• A new, invite-only gaming community that is “friends only” and require referrals to enter.
• A major update to Games Cast TV, making the interface way more modern and hopefully with a few new features to boot!
• My Game of the Year 2011 picks… I never posted anything for 2010! I might go back and do a “quick and dirty” 2010 update.
• An update to Sector Network, including the long-awaited Sector Network Newsletter.

Want to get involved in any of these projects or something new? I’m just an e-mail away. mattc0m@gmail.com.

Cheers,
Matt

World-class coverage team
James “2gd” Harding, Alex “Jehar” Popa, and Steve “GreasedScotsman” Huff will be providing top quality commentary of the Quake Live tournaments.

Higher quality than ever before
QuakeCon, for the first time ever, is streaming at 720p. Don’t take our word for it, tune into the coverage beginning Thursday at 1pm CDT (19:00 GMT).

Ad-free coverage
Enjoy the QuakeCon experience ad-free through own3D.tv and their world-class video cstreaming platform.

Complete QuakeCon coverage
Tune in for interviews with pro gamers, tournament admins, QuakeCon staff, developers, and more. We will be providing exclusive behind-the-scenes video in the tournament, expo, and BYOC areas, capturing the complete QuakeCon experience. Finally, cap off your QuakeCon experience with video coverage of the main ballroom events, featuring the keynote and Saturday’s Tournament Finals Party.

Connect with QuakeCon

own3D.tv
Our exclusive page for the live stream. Tune in starting Thursday at 1pm CDT (19:00 GMT)
http://www.own3d.tv/quakecon

YouTube
View videos from around QuakeCon all in one official destination.
http://www.youtube.com/quakecon2011

Twitter
Get the latest updates from the coverage team.
http://twitter.com/quakeconcvg

Other official announcements will be available at http://twitter.com/quakecon

Facebook
Follow us on Facebook for the latest updates & even participate in the Community Choice Award Poll.
http://www.facebook.com/quakecon

Give us feedback
We are committed to answering your questions and addressing your concerns while we’re at the event. We want to give you the best experience possible, and here’s how.

• Google Moderator
  This is the primary way to submit feedback, ask questions, and even submit question to ask the professional gamers in the tournaments.
  http://goo.gl/mod/pHKd
• IRC Chat
  Join us on irc.quakenet.org on #quakecon. This channel is specifically used for the live stream coverage, but still can be used for general QuakeCon discussion!

In a nutshell: it’s a website that provides live broadcasts of competitive matches and community-related events. Our streams are top-tier, professional grade, the commentary is also spot-on and occasionally comical, and we have a commitment to interact with our community.

The founders of Brink TV have a lot of experience with these professional “shoutcasts” (another word for broadcasting live games with commentary). We come from Enemy Territory TV, which is a site that provided that exact same service for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars in 2008.

The original founders of ETTV Steve “GreasedScotsman” Huff and Matt “Mattc0m” Richards are working hard on the development of Brink TV right now, with long-term members Ben “FishStix” Goldhaber, Slava “Uncle Joe” Markeyev, and Alex “Jehar” Popa all having a hand in the project as well. These guys have worked on Quake Live TV, Games Cast TV, and even the original Enemy Territory TV. They share a love for e-sports and live broadcasting especially.

We’re excited to bring entertaining, live events and matches to the Brink community. And we’re just as excited to play Brink ourselves. Look for an event on May 10th that will allow everyone to participate. We’re interested to hear what you think and how you’d like to get involved, feel free to toss us an e-mail at contact@thebrink.tv.

Join us around the web!

• Forums
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Steam
• #brinktv on GameSurge or QuakeNet IRC

View below the break for the history of this project.

Fun Facts about Enemy Territory TV (ETTV):

• Originally founded by Mattc0m (that’s me ), he had a lonely audio-only shoutcast that was used in tandem with “ETQW TV” servers. You watched the game from your own POV while listening to the audio shoutcasts.
• GreasedScotsman was soon to join, quickly becoming the Lead Shoutcaster. We were not able to provide live video, however, GreasedScotsman uploaded high quality VODs to the site, which became a huge success around the ETQW community.
• The staff grew exponentially, having around 16 staff members by the time we ended our operations and moved to QLTV.
• Was heavily involved with Splash Damage and the competitive ETQW community, ETTV shoutcasts became one of the most entertaining aspects of ETQW competition near the end of its lifespan.
• We attended QuakeCon 2008 as the Official ETQW Broadcasters. This was our first QuakeCon event as a team, and has gone every year since then as QLTV.

The old ETTV is online and all VODs are online! Check it out at: http://enemyterritory.sectornetwork.com/

Post-ETTV Projects

• Quake Live TV was launched on May 13, 2009. Nearly identical to ETTV, it was a shoutcasting organization focused on Quake Live. It quickly became the #1 shoutcasting crew in North America, and our brand is recognized throughout the Quake community. We’ve attended QuakeCon 2009 and 2010 as QLTV.
• Games Cast TV is currently in beta. While not a traditional “shoutcasting” company, it is instead a nexus of all e-sports broadcasters. From StarCraft 2 to Quake Live to Heroes of Newerth, there are competitive communities spread around the ‘net who have their own, professional-grade shoutcasters. And this brings them all together, with over 40 partners on the site, you instantly can see what sort of e-sports broadcasts are going on at any time of the day.

This is a short film by Home Video Productions: International, a student group of filmmakers and creative types at Shepherd University. It was entered in the Frederick, Maryland 72 Hour Film Fest. It won the “Head of Class” (Best Student Film) award and was one of 5 nominations for “Best of Fest” out of over 40 other films. More info at www.72.fest.com.

Do yourself a favor, set it to 1080p (or at LEAST 720p), go grab a cup of coffee or pop some popcorn, then enjoy the short 5 minute film.

Synopsis: A young lady wakes up from the repetition of a melancholy life as she rediscovers her past love of art and it shakes her very reality.

Technical Specs: Used 3 Nikon lenses (wide angel, 50mm, and telephoto). Used 2 Canon T2i, Zoom H4N, boom pool, slider, tripod w/ fluid head, and more. Used LED and florescent lighting.

Software: Adobe Premiere & After Effects CS5 for all editing, post-production, animation, and sound design.

Credits:
J. P. Schmidt – Director – http://vimeo.com/user864373
Anthony Bellissimo – Editor – http://anthonybellissimo.com/
Matt Richards – Producer – http://www.mattc0m.com
Ashli Chesire – “Amy Jackson”
John Meeker – “Mr. Clark”
Hans Mertens – “The Gentlemen”
Stephen Wittkamper – Assistant Producer
Thom Huenger – Composer – http://www.myspace.com/thomhuenger
Cody Cheesebrough – Music Producer – http://www.myspace.com/erikgoestogermany
Justin McKenzie – Sound
Joey Diaz – Camera Operator – http://joeydiaz.carbonmade.com/
Zack Shelly – Equipment Coordinator
Sarah Crickenberger – Assistant Screenwriter

The presentation took approximately 40 minutes and there was roughly 20 students in attendance.

First, I explained the importance of having a solid web presence, an expansive social media outreach, and how it’s important to reach new students. I just covered some of the basics, from a business standpoint, just how important having a good website and presence is to the success of an organization.

At this point, I showed them Social Media Revolution 2 to further emphasize the importance of social media in regards to reaching new students.

From there I dug into the meet and bones of setting up a social media presence and using basic web services for their benefit. I discuss Google Calendar (as well as Google Voice, Blogger, YouTube, and all the rest of relevant Google services), Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts, how to set up a poll or survey, and how to setup special events. I spent roughly 10 minutes going over the basics, with the handouts providing links to all the resources.

From there it turned into a discussion about social media and its presence in the attendee’s life. We discussed some brief ideas how an organization’s events can reach to incoming students. From there we flipped gears and focused on designing a website. Again, it followed the layout of the handout, and I provided some basic insight to the very basics to get a website running. Hopefully some will utilize those fancy new templates that are sprouting up for their own club or organization.

I really focused on how easy it is to find resources on the internet. You can set up a large portion of your web presence with zero coding knowledge. I showed examples of how simple and easy it was, and gave them the tools to start their own journey to re-design their web presence.

Another vital point, and a point I’d been mentioning throughout the presentation, is the importance of teamwork. Combing the skills and talents of an organization is important to the success of its website. Using a graphic designer, illustrator, photographer, writer, or marketing gurus to help out on every aspect on the website is hugely important. It’s so important to great a group effort and work as a team to make a truly kickass website.

Before concluding, I showed them the video Did You Know 4.0 and asked the question: “What’s the point? Why do all this work on a website, especially for a small organization?”

I hoped the video painted a decent picture, but being educated on the Internet is vital. Not only to your personal growth, but having this sort of knowledge is vital to growing as a professional and for the real world.

The closing statement was:

Ask yourself: how is this not worth it? Being able to show employers and companies that you’re comfortable on the web, with social media, and have experience putting it all together? You have a perfect opportunity to learn these technologies, make mistakes, and then get better at it. This is the way the world is heading, so why not give yourself a head start?

I fully encourage that you go out there and attempt to reinvent your digital presence. Put a team together. Put in the work. And while you’re at it, try having a little fun.

Thanks for your time.

Boom. And I’m out.

As some of you know, I’m the founder, webmaster, graphic designer, and guest shoutcaster over at QuakeLive.tv. Quake Live TV runs very much like a business, but we’re all volunteers and our costs are paid for by donations (thanks to an awesome, supportive community).

So what is Quake Live TV? Well, it’s an organization that broadcasts live, competitive video game matches with some of the top professionals. While a lot of our coverage is of community-run events, a lot of our coverage is of the professionals competing in high-level tournaments. We’ve covered over 1,000 competitive matches in our one and half years of operation, with some of our more popular live broadcasts reaching thousands and thousands of live spectators simultaneously. In the past year, we’ve had over 400,000 visitors on our website.

To sum it up: we’re the #1 broadcasting organization in North America Quake Live coverage, and we’re slowly becoming one of the more reputable names in eSports.

While some people scoff at the idea of playing video games professionally, some do pretty well. For example, Anton “Cooller” Singov (who is coming to QuakeCon) has made more than $130,000 in his career. Sure, he’s not going to be able to retire on winnings from professional gaming, but it’s still a good chuck of cash. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Singov

For those of you that are curious as to what competitive gaming is all about, I wrote a four-page magazine article that details the ins-and-outs of the scene.

Page 1: http://mattc0m.com/College/Spring%202009/Magazine%20Writing/page-1.jpg
Page 2: http://mattc0m.com/College/Spring%202009/Magazine%20Writing/page-2.jpg
Page 3: http://mattc0m.com/College/Spring%202009/Magazine%20Writing/page-3.jpg
Page 4: http://mattc0m.com/College/Spring%202009/Magazine%20Writing/page-4.jpg

Back to the big news:
Quake Live TV is going to be the exclusive broadcaster of QuakeCon 2010.

So, what is QuakeCon? What does this mean?

Here’s a snippet of the Press Release:

Quake Live TV, a community-run broadcasting organization, is set to provide exclusive video coverage of QuakeCon 2010. QuakeCon, the largest LAN party in North America, is hosted annually in Dallas, TX and is home to the Intel® QUAKE LIVE® Masters Championship. Known as one of the most prestigious gaming tournaments worldwide, this year boasts a prize pool of over $50,000. After three years of main-stage action QUAKE LIVE® remains a top choice for competitive gamers.

Check out the rest of the press release on GamesIndustry.biz. I actually wrote the majority of the press release.

Essentially, QuakeCon is a big deal. Biggest LAN in North America, biggest free LAN in the world, and it hosts thousands of gamers at the event with tens of thousands tuning into the coverage from around the world.

My company is going to be that coverage.

I’m really happy to go there and be working alongside my fellow founders Steve “GreasedScotsman” Huff and Ben “FishStix” Goldhaber. These guys are legit. Also along with our promotion to the official coverage team means we get comped rooms, VIP passes, interviews with Bethesda and id Software execs, and a lot more really cool things.

In fact, if anyone has any questions for id Software, Bethesda Game Studios, Splash Damage, Respawn Entertainment (the founders of Infinity Ward, the guys who made call of Duty), Arkane Studios, or any of the pro gamers… let me know!

Anyway, I’m super excited about this and just wanted to share it. Hopefully you guys tune and I have your support!

Matt “Mattc0m” Richards
www.quakelive.tv

Check out this slick video. I think you’ll enjoy it — it’s just over a minute long!

The film was created by a team of people (everyone is acting), and every person in the film I had to cast and direct. I acted as the director, sound designer, film editor, and essentially put the entire production together. Sadly, the ending nor beginning was every fully finished. Watch it now:

Tell me what you think!

YouTube Description:
This is a remastered version of a Battlefield 2 action movie I created in 2006 and published in 2007.

Note that this movie contains scenes 3-6. Scenes 1, 2, and 7 were never completed, and thus there’s not a real solid beginning nor end to it. The ending, especially, is very abrupt.

The video was originally created in Windows Movie Maker, with the first remastering using Vegas 7.0. The current version was edited in Vegas 8.0. Music is from the Blackhawk Down Soundtrack.

Some of the footage was recorded with low resolution, so some of the visual are a bit pixelated. This is not my fault as I cannot re-render the original footage, so just bare with it.

To download the crisper (but less visually exciting) original video, use the following link: http://www.fileden.com/files/2/mashtu…

If you enjoyed this film, remember to subscribe!

Thanks,
Mattc0m
www.mattc0m.com

I designed a set of cards for a maternity company called Haute Momas. It offers two coupons on the back of a card, with a pretty standard stock photo for the front. Still, it turned out pretty darn good – I am a bit fan of the color scheme I selected. Has a very professional, yet light “smoothness” to it.

View Full Album

This next set is from a flyer for a theme week for Program Board (an student-run organization that organizes and programs all the events on campus). I was experimenting with a lot of new colors, and it turned out pretty damn slick.

Getting correct colors for the printing was pretty challenging, but it turned out very eye catching and I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from it.

Tell me what you think of both projects!