It is now available on our website, vimeo, and YouTube.

We hope you enjoy it!

Starring Ricky Grove and Kevin “Xanatos” Cianek. Original score by Phil Rice, sound design by Ricky Grove.

“Frank has killed the psychopathic Vinnie Moretti, but his war with the mob has only begun. Hiding out at an old run-down hotel, Frank receives a mysterious call from his last ally, police lieutenant Kevin Mayfield. But Frank is a wanted man, pursued by both the cops and the mob and his risky meeting at Mayfield’s apartment may end in blood.”

After these screenings, Phil Rice will premiere his hilarious comedy First, in which I have a small voice-acting role as part of a cast full of machinima creators.

The 3-film premiere will take place over the course of an hour. Phil and I along with some cast and crew will be in attendance to discuss the films.  The event is open to the public, and requires nothing but a web browser to attend.  Its going to be a lot of fun and we hope to see you there!

Synopsis: Robert Bigham is a man fascinated by patterns. His latest obsession is an elusive serial killer the local papers have dubbed “The Gas Mask Killer”, but as Bigham begins to unravel the mystery behind the murders, the truth may be more than he can handle…

YouTube | Vimeo | ABP

Starring Mike Johnson. Original score by Tommy Kraft.

Ivy Film Festival 2010

This year I was co-programming director of the Ivy Film Festival, the largest student-run student film festival in the United States.  Me, co-director Zack Bornstein, and our programming staff was in charge of going through all film submissions, making the final selections for the festival, and choosing the winners. It was an incredibily rewarding experience and we had a great crop of films from talented filmmakers all over the world. For the third year in a row, the Ivy Film Festival also included a machinima segment (the Ivy Film Festival Machinima Competition) which took place online at Machinima.com. The panel of judges included Michael Nitsche (Georgia Tech machinima professor), Barbara Meier (Brown University animation professor), and award-winning machinima directors Phil “Overman” Rice and Kevin “Xanatos” Cianek. These judges determined the winner of the Jury Prize—Darren by Chat Noir Studios.

The rest of the festival took place from April 13-18 on the campus of Brown University and included student screenings, pre-release films from Sundance, and panel discussions with industry insiders.

Among the attendees were machinima directors Piece “Shippidge” Shipp (2009 IFF Machinima Contest Audience Choice Winner) and Kate Lee and Sherwin Liu of Chat Noir Studios (2010 IFF Machinima Contest Jury Award Winner).

ABP and Other Releases

We have been working on a variety of films in different mediums.

• Remote Warriors: This is a mashup video I made for a class at Brown University called Open Source Culture. The movie uses video and audio clips from a variety of sources to construct a video-essay about remotely piloted drone warfare and how this new technology is blurring the line between actual warfare and gaming.

• Clockwise: Part 1: Ricky completed the sound work and it is fantastic! Tommy Kraft is doing some finishing touches on a few special effects shots. Once he is done the film will be ready for release.

• The Pattern and God Complex: These are two live-action films I completed for a beginning film class at Brown University. They will be the first live-action films released under the ABP name. God Complex uses an Alec Baldwin monologue from the movie Malice to create a quick character sketch about a narcissistic surgeon who believes he is God. The Pattern was my final project for the film class and is written and directed by me and scored by Tommy Kraft. It is a psychological crime movie about a man tracking a serial killer. More details on the film later. Both films star my friend Mike Johnson and will be released shortly.

Personal Updates

We’re really excited that ABP member Michael “Spock” Pleasant is about to complete his tour of duty in Afghanistan and is expected to return this week. Congratulations, Spock! We are very proud of him and his service and are looking forward to working with him again on Clockwise: Part 2 this summer. He is an invaluable part of the team and we will be very happy to have him back!

I’m done with school for the year and home for the summer, so we are hoping to get a lot of machinima work done.

Simply click the big, red “Get Portal Now” button, or head to the store page for your free copy of Portal. http://store.steampowered.com/app/400

The competition is accepting machinima from any year, as long as it was made while the machinimator was a high school, college, or graduate student. Audience voting will whittle down the entries into a top ten. A second round of voting will determine the winner of the Audience Choice Award and a jury of machinima and media specialists will decide the winner of the Jury Prize. Both winners will be screened at the Ivy Film Festival in April.

This is a very exciting opportunity for student machinimators and I’m looking forward to seeing the submissions!

Stop, Rewind is our first machinima release since Clockwork (2008) and also our first ever HD machinima! In the coming days, we’ll be uploading and promoting the film on various websites. We hope you enjoy the film and please leave some comments! We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Also, look out for our upcoming post about the making of the film.