Greetings!

I hope the end of February is treating you all as well as it is us at QO. As I stare out the window at this beautiful (early) Spring day, I’m stuck inside finishing up the last bit of Sound Design for “Fall of the Xin”. Not that I really mind, really, I can’t wait for you guys to see this, it should be up next week! For a quick laugh, check our original “Fall of the Incans”.

Earlier this week we got the chance to attend a tasting event put on by Portland Marketing Representative Courtney Clarke for Dry Fly distilleries in Spokane, Washington. You might remember this name from an earlier post. Three of the of the four us (not me) got a chance to try their whiskey at the American Distillers Festival. But I got a chance to have try some of their gin. I'm not much of a gin drinker, but the gin and tonic I had at Cha Taqueria on NW 2st and Everett, here in Portland, was fantastic! Dry fly is a truly local business utilizing Washington wheat, and apples, along with quality Oreon juniper berries at a distillery in Spokane. If you get a chance to pick up a bottle of their Gin, I would suggest doing so.

We also started work in earnest on our DVD compilation. I am personally very excited about this. We're going to sell our DVD much like the compilation tapes of old, sold out of the trunk of your car - in a digital sense. The plan is to utilize Amazon's CreateSpace to sell them on the interwebs. While also allowing for a cheaper digital download without the "special features" (Just like a real DVD). Watch for more news on that in the coming month!

And finally we're all looking forward to the 500 cuts film, Forge screening on March 18, at the Clinton theater, 9pm. Forge was directed by our own Jason Windsor, co produced with Walker, assistant directed by yours truly, and KG pulled double duty as gaffer and key grip on set. I have been very honored to watch this film go through the whole post production process, and know how good it is going to be.

I also just wanted to say thanks, we had the most views this month as we have ever had. It's awesome that you guys are interested in what we are doing, and we hope to have more and more rad stuff to put up in the coming months.

Have You Seen (Heard) Me #5

If you've been around QOHQ at all in the past couple of weeks there is a good chance you've heard our newest "jam" (aside from the revival of The Knux's "Bang Bang.") These sweet grooves pumping out of our sound system are none other then the musical stylings of one, Johnny Polygon. On February 14, also know as Valentine's Day, Johnny released a new album, "Rebel Without Applause," FOR FREE! Johnny is a hip-hop artist/singer born in Oklahoma and now residing in Brooklyn. His latest album includes tracks from his "Group Hug" EP, as well as a bevvy of new tracks. Click the picture below, grab the tracks and give them a listen! We're sure you'll enjoy.

And why you're at it check out his new video for "Riot Song."

WE DID IT!!!!!

That's right everybody. Evidence of the Sasquatch is officially happening. We got a donation last night that put us well over the top, with 20 odd days left in fundraising! But we're not going to stop! We're going to keep posting, emailing and generally pushing our kickstarter page. We are so super excited, the extra money is going to go a long way towards higher production value.

If you want to know more about what's going on with our feature, Donate! Even if it's only 5 bucks, it helps us, and you will be privy to information and features and prizes that few others are.

In other news, KG and I (Eli) met with Sean from local hip-hop group Local Superheroes to discuss our aesthetic for the music video. Sean seems very pleased and we continue to move forward with that.

We also met with Tom McFadden Executive Director of the OMPA at his office. This was definitely a productive meeting and we were able to learn a few things, plus you'll soon see our name in Source Oregon, the production guide for the state of Oregon. Which is awesome.

We got some post production work done on our upcoming short, the latest in the "Fall of" web series entitled "Fall of the Xin Dynasty". Jason has really killed it with the After Effects work on this piece, and it's (in my humble opinion) tear-jerkingly funny. This one should be up around the end of this/beginning of next month. So be watching for that.

While there is more info on the Pre-Production front for ETS ("Evidence of the Sasquatch") I'm afraid that is confidential, unless you DONATE!!!!

QO Hearts you.

Happy Belated Valentines Day to everyone! I hope you had as spectacular a time as we all did! Valentine's Day on a Sunday with President's day on Monday!? All I can say is "4 DAY WEEKEND!". We got to meet with Luke Clements this week for Evidence of the Sasquatch. If you guys haven't seen him yet....You will. I'd love to tell you more about it, but that information is for donators only.

Also we got the Fall of the Incan Empire Redux up on the Interwebs. If you haven't seen it yet check it out. This is the version we actually have the rights to. I mean, I'm sure the Roots were cool with us using their song, but Youtube was not. We're keeping the original Fall of the Incans, for live screenings. Speaking of... QO will be showing a couple shorts at Laurelwood's portion of "Bam Fest 2010". This festival caught us a little by surprise, but it seems like a perfect fit for us. It's Portland's Beer and Movies festival..."Hey I love those things!" you say? Well so do we. So come to the Laurelwood Annex at NE Sandy and 52nd this Thursday the 18th 5:30-10pm. They'll be tapping a new beer, so come give it a test, watch some shorts and have a good time with us.

In other news...It's really nice out. I know I have a tendency to write about the weather (see last year's Snowpocalypse blogs). But here it is February 15th, and it's nearly 60 degrees out. New York is getting snow dumped on it as I write this. Meanwhile every tree and flower I see is budding here in PDX. Haha, life really is better on the West Coast, but you probably knew that.

1000 views!

That's right everybody, 1000 views on the blog! Yay! Granted that's not really too much considering the size of the internet (it's big) but it's still an accomplishment for having a blog for about a year. Plus there was a time when we weren't getting any views at all. But it just goes to show if you just keep banging away at it. Keep writing, keep making work, keep doing your thing, people will start to check you out.

If you've been following the blog you know KG and I (Eli) will be making a music video for Local Superheroes. I'm personally super stoked about this, it's been a while since the last music videos. Which if you haven't checked them out, go see Selena and I's music videos with local musician and regular Quarter Orange contributor Andy Combs, Bloodship and Onion Farm.

Also on the feature front, as you can see by the widget on the right side of the screen, we are 79% funded! As stated earlier in the blog, we got a mention on the kickstart blog. So fundraising is going really well, and we've still got 39 days left!

We're in post on a new "fall of" video. I don't want to reveal too much other than to say that it's hilarious and you guys liked "Fall of the Incans", you will enjoy this one also. Also we are in talks with a friend of ours who is putting on a screening at the Laurelwood pub on February the 18th. We'll let you know more as more details are solidified, but Portlanders mark your calendars, I think it's going to be fun!

Once again thanks to all of our donation contributors and to all of our fans, we do this for you. Thanks for hanging out, and tell your friends about us!

QO on HTML 5 and FLASH

There has been a lot of talk on the web about HTML 5 and and the death of FLASH.  Most people will never really notice a difference but to us (the filmmakers) it can change our whole online distribution methods.

Right now we have to encode our videos two ways:

1. H.264 (commonly used (but not a "standard") codec)
&
2. FLASH (commonly used 'proprietary' codec)

Now, it really isn't a huge deal to encode both ways.  It just takes a little more time.  What we are having an issue with is being able to view our content from anywhere.  This includes at home on a desktop, on your mobile phone, and soon on other mobile devices (ipad, HP slate, joojoo, ect.)  Some of these platforms will support Flash, some will not.  We have been able to remain visible on the web by spreading our content across multiple outlets.

We understand the importance of quality, and want our content to look great however you view it.  Quality does not stop at the clarity of one fram though.  When watching a video on the web the experience begines when loading does, and can be lessened when a video is forced to pause and load/buffer.

Flash has been great for us because it offered small file sizes, which means our content can be viewed uninterrupted.  Great! But not all sites support flash now.

H.264 has been great for us because it offeres very high quality, but the file sizes are larger than flash.  That causes some content to load slower especially on mobile devices.

Sooooo.... what does all this really mean?  It means that content producers (like Quarter Orange) may never have a single standard to go by so we will have to act in a way that will best serve our needs.

What we will be doing in the next couple months is moving away from FLASH (sorry ADOBE, we still love you!)  Soon we will change to an HTML format.  This will make our site quarterorange.com viewable on any device.

We decided to make this change for a few reasons. The mobile revolution that is upon us and the ease of updating (not all of us at QO can do FLASH)


I do want to say that I dont feel FLASH will forever die.  I actually have high hopes for it in the document world.  Adobe has already implemented FLASH into PDF and the possibilites there can be endless.

I know this may not make much sense with my rambling and what not, so if you have any question please let me know!  Video is still waiting to break out on the web.

Have You Seen Me? #4

I was doing some research on creative uses of split screen in music videos the other night, and stumbled upon some pretty rad ones that I want to share with you.






I was researching this technique because Eli and I will soon be co-directing a music video for local rap group Local Superheroes, and we are still in the ideation phase of the project.

In other news, our kickstarter project was mentioned in the kickstarter blog as part as some kind of phenomenon of monster related projects.