Just to clarify one point:
Hugh and Johnnie have both worked on the website Machinima.com in the past. However, neither have been involved in administration of that site for over a year, and they have no control or influence over any aspect of site policy there.
As of 3/5/07, no films by Hugh or Johnnie are hosted on Machinima.com.
Thanks! We now return you to your regularly-scheduled madness.
The second part of the extended “Overcast” interview is now available.
In this part, Hugh and Johnnie gradually sober up with the aid of strong coffee, and talk about MovieStorm, copyright, AMAS, and more. At one point Hugh remembers channeling the spirit of a famous dead comedian, but hopes he was imagining that.
(No, we haven’t listened to it yet. Tomorrow.)
I understand that Johnnie’s blogging this one too, it’s 2:18 am, and I’ll probably write more about it in the near future, so for now I’ll just say -
We’re done. We’re f(*&(ing done. The last few days have been a bit of a slog, and we’ve still got a whole lot of review, updating, editing and cutting to do, but we have now, officially, written the bugger.
Wewt.
It’s half-two in the morning, and neither Hugh nor I are capable or abstract thought, but it’s done.
Hey, look Mum - I just wrote a book!
We’ve worked so late tonight that, even here in Scotland, all the pubs are closed. Celebration will have to wait until tomorrow.
You’d better all buy this book when it’s released, as well as buying two or three spare copies to give to friends. We’ve put in some serious effort for you people.
And now … bed.
It’s truly amazing just how much rubbish we’ve written in some of our first - and even second - drafts. In this latest pass over the Medieval II Total War chapter, we’ve corrected everything from “me love you long time” level grammar, to sentences so convoluted they’d be illegal in a government document, to statements that were Just Plain Wrong.
Also, we now have less than a hundred pages to edit this evening. If it wasn’t 21:30, that would be more reassuring.
One down, five to go!
We’ve just finished the edit on the first of our chapters for today. I like to think of it in the above terms, because “One chapter down, five to go” is much better than the more-exact “Six pages down, a hundred and eleven to go!”.
HELP STOP TRAPPED IN HUGH’S FLAT STOP SEND FOOD STOP MAYBE PARAMEDICS ALSO STOP PLEASE MAKE IT STOP
Five chapters to edit today. We’ve been working on editing for 25 minutes now, and already Johnnie has just shouted at Open Office to “F(&! OFF WITH YOUR F-$&ING FORMULAS! THAT’S A WORD!”. Oh, and somehow whilst documenting the Medieval II: Total War Battle Editor, we missed a button.
It’s going to be a long day.
[UPDATE - Five minutes later:
“Add “Lipsynch” to the m(&f(*&(( dictionary, or I will add “buttslap” to your OWN PERSONAL LEXICON!”
Johnnie and spellcheckers do not work well together. ]
Our editor has just sent us her edits for a few of the chapters we’d already submitted. One gloriously tactful comment stood out in particular:
Authors: I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think this is a word. Please rephrase. Thanks.
Oh yes. We’re churning out the good stuff now.
“Hugh, stop making machinima. We’ve got a book to write.”
Johnnie, buried deep in Google Docs.
[Some context - Medieval Total War is very, very addictive to make Machinima with. The phrase “I’ll be right with you - just want to take one more shot!” has been uttered more than is reasonable in the last few hours.
MovieStorm has a similar effect. “Ooh, look, a new balaclava model” rapidly became “Er, I think I’ve got the first five minutes of a pilot for the new series of ‘24’”. - Hugh]
[EDIT I’ve closed comments for this post, because it was turning into the World Spamfest Championships. If you really desperately need to say something about it, just comment on another post and I’ll move it - Johnnie]
If you want to hear what happens when two Machinima experts are taken out for many drinks by another two Machinima experts, and are then interviewed by a (counts on fingers) fifth Machinima expert who is not nearly as trolleyed as the first two Machinima experts, you may wish to hear this week’s Overcast.
Or, to put it another way, You Know What We Did Last Tuesday.
Or, yet another, here’s the Overcast we recorded with Phil “Overman” Rice last Tuesday, in the middle of the madness that was the MfD Roadtrip. Enjoy. We haven’t listened to it yet - I’m waiting for Johnnie to get into the office to do so. So we have no idea how much of a collective idiot we made of ourselves.
UPDATE: Now we have, and it’s quite good. There’s a good chunk of us talking about the book, our writing process, and what we’re covering. There’s also a lot of us being rather the worse for wear.
In other news, with two days to go before the deadline for the book, we’re staggering through a fairly startling workload. We completed the MovieStorm chapter yesterday (which was… dense. And long.) and today we’re on to Medieval Total War. It’s War. It’s Medieval. And it’s pretty darn Total.
