Tues. May 29, 2012

It's been more than a year since my last blog post, so I don't think I need to tell you that we have been using Facebook and Twitter to publish most of our news and production updates. If you have yet to subscribe to us on your social website of choice, now would be a good time (Facebook, Twitter).

Website: Spit and Shine

For those of you who frequent our website, you may have noticed that for the past month, there has been none. In short, Microsoft's free website service became not-so-free, and so other alternatives were sought out. In addition, complications with the domain registrar Microsoft used arose, and their tech support was next to useless. But that's all over now, because upon transferring our domain name to a different service, it took me 15 minutes to do what I had been trying weeks to accomplish on the other service. In short, everything is back online, and you get a new and cleaner interface. Go check it out for yourself.

Shiny

Marlin episode 69

After some delays due to illness, we were able to record voices for Marlin the Elite episode 69. We will be able to reach our goal of releasing the episode before the end of the month, which means you should watch your YouTube subscription inbox.  That reminds me...

YouTube and Subscriptions

Apparently, YouTube has been going and deleting subscriptions for accounts that are inactive. We've lost about 40 subscribers thus far. If you have a YouTube account that you don't use that often, double-check and make sure you are still subscribed to us, or just click this link.

TPMAs

We recently closed voting for the 6th Annual Thomas Productions Movie Awards. As usual, we will reveal the winners on a special live episode on the TPCast. Once we know when it will be, we will announce it on Facebook and Twitter. Just a heads up, though: we will probably use Google+ Hangouts this time around (allows the event to be recorded and posted to YouTube), so if you want to watch live, you will need a Google+ account.

That's everything for now. I do hope I can motivate myself to post here more often, but if not, see you in another year.

Sat. March 5, 2011

Time for a quick production update! We filmed Marlin the Elite episode 57 today. Kevin came up with the idea for this one and has been pushing it ever since the move to Reach. Sort of like the Dental Dilemma episode, this one will further help integrate the main trio of characters into Reach. As of now, this episode is next in the production pipeline and will definatly be out in the month of March (most likely sooner than later).

In other news, we'll be releasing a new live-action video tomorrow. We filmed this one last month, but didn't get around to editing it until recently. It's a sequel to a video that we made at the beginning of 2010, so that might narrow it down for you.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who played in the TP Community Game Event we held this past Sunday. We had a lot more dedicated players this time, and led a full party for most of the event. In case you weren't able to make it (or just wanna catch a glimpse of yourself), I've been posting gameplay videos of some of the games (Team Slayer on Town & Team Slayer on Collision). I've got at least one more to post, so be on the lookout.

Layne out.

Thurs. Feb. 17, 2011

Guess who's back! It sure hasn't seemed like  half a year since my last blog post... actually it has. There's so much stuff that's happened in the last six months that I'll just list the most recent stuff.

Off Road Awesome:
At the end of January, we came out with a little machinima video called Off Road Wraith. It was picked up by padraig08 and posted on Halo.Bungie.org. A few days later, it made it onto Bungie.net (with a little helping hand), where it was received a little less warmly.

Editor's Note - It also demonstrates some of the worst singing I've ever heard. - Urk

Haters gonna hate. The majority of the comments on YouTube are very positive, and at the time of this blog post, has more than 14,000 views. Check it out for yourself.

New TPCast:
Along the same lines of this blog, it had been a while since we recorded a new podcast episode, and we finally got around to putting out a new one. In this latest episode, we review Halo Reach's multiplayer (maps in particular). We also speculate on the (now officially unveiled) Defiant map pack, and talk about future video plans. Speaking of which...

Future Video Plans:
Like we mentioned during the podcast, we filmed a new Marlin episode (which has since been captured and is being edited) and a new live action video, more specifically, a sequel to a video we did last year. Both are expected to come out this month if everything goes as planned.

Livestream + TP:
Back when it was still known as Mogulus, we created a account that played TP videos non-stop and was occasionally used to stream live events (mainly the premiere of a particular machinima series). Since then, the content has become out-of-date, unorganized, and the URL was a real challenge to remember (7h0mas_pr0duc7i0ns_inc, anyone?). So we created a new one. Now you can visit our fresh Livestream channel without killing your brian (livestream.com/thomasproductions), watch our awesome videos 24/7, or access the content you want on-demand. There's even a chat room for you guys to talk to each other! We'll be using it for live events as well, so you shouldn't forget about it.

And finally...

Website Fixes:
If you visited our website over the past couple of months, you probably saw that our Twitter and blog widgets were broken. Not anymore! Now you can see our latest posts and tweets on the front page!

Later, everyone (and when I say later, I mean in more 6 months).

Mon. Aug. 9, 2010

Enough of this hiatus crap! It's update time!

Things have been very busy around here lately. We're prepping/planning/editing multiple videos at once. It's exciting, and a little overwhelming at the same time. Here's what we got on our plate:

• Detective Awesome 5 (yeah, it's coming): We filmed what we could around here before we go on location again.
• Marlin Ep. 51: We filmed that yesterday, so it's all ready to capture once we finish up Detective Awesome.
• New video series: We're expanding a video we made a while back into a series of shorts. We filmed a total of 13 episodes while we were off filming Buffy and the Tuesdays. Starting this week, we will be airing new episodes on Sundays. Have an open mind. It's probably not what you're expecting.
• Halo News 4: Kevin has written a script for it. We're gonna try and squeeze filming in after Detective Awesome and Marlin 51.
• Reach launch machinima: I've had an idea for a while of a standalone machinima we could make before the all-mighty Halo: Reach launches on September 14. If things aren't too crazy, maybe it can happen.

Quite a lot. You're some lucky folks. You've got some good stuff coming your way.

TP Community Game Event:
Surprise, we're having another TP Community Game Event for you all. It's going to take place on Friday, August 13, 2010 at 1:00 P.M. (Pacific Standard Time). Watch this announcement video to see how you can join in on the fun.

Social Networking Plug:
It's that time again when we plug our Twitter and Facebook pages and tell you to follow/like them, but this time, we have a new addition. Detective Awesome now has a Facebook page and his own Twitter account. Be sure to check it out. I'm sure he has a lot of awesome stuff to say.

And that wraps things up for now. See you in another two months!

Fri. June 4, 2010

Not too much new stuff to report, but thought I better make a post (it once again has been a while). We put out a couple new videos since my last blog post: Sean Connery's Gaming Corner - Halo 3: ODST, In the Beta, and Halo News - May 2010. I was hoping In the Beta would be posted on Bungie.net, but I guess they just don't like the Village People. We also put out a new podcast episode, where we talk about the Reach Beta and review Iron Man 2 and Prince of Persia.

As for what we're working on now, it's just Marlin episode 50. We're getting close to voice over time. It won't be too long now before you will see it on your screen. Keep an eye out on our Twitter account for a release date. Until then, here's a screen shot of what I'm editing:

And that's it for this update. Smell ya later!

Sun. April 25, 2010

Welcome blog followers! It's time for another long overdue update!

Yesterday we held our live episode of the TPCast where we unveiled the winners of the Fourth Annual Thomas Productions Movie Awards. I must say it went rather well. We actually had some people tune in (unlike last year). For those of you who missed out, the episode has been posted to the TPCast feed. It's an hour and thirty+ minutes long and 80+ megabites (compression is for wimps), so if you're desperate for hard drive space, you might just wanna listen through the handy player on the website.

In other news, we had the 2nd Marlin the Elite fan episode about 2 weeks back. I must say, what with my mic going out and all, it went rather well. Thank you to those who came and participated. So when are you gonna be able to see the fan episode (in HD, I might add)? Sometime around May/June.


Looks just like my family portrait.

Now for video news. We released Marlin the Elite Episode 49 and a live-action video called Kyle the Axe Murderer. You might note that the Kyle one has a pretty shnazzy tune. Guess what? You can download the extended version of that song free of charge from our website.

Another video we released is Light at the End, a short machinima I made to test out the shiny new HD capture device that is the Hauppauge!. On a whim, I submitted it to Bungie.net, and wouldn't you know it, they posted it! Halo.bungie.org soon followed and posted it to their site. The video now has almost 10,000 views; that's a lot for little old us. Thanks Bungie.net, you continue to be awesome.


It gives me the warm & fuzzies inside

Our next video is coming out on Wednesday. What is it? Well lets just say we're not quite done with ODST.

Now for a little bit of house cleaning news. I made some slight tweaks to the website. The Coming Soon page is now gone (I didn't update it) and the Featured page is gone (didn't have much of a purpose). The pages listed under those that I deleted have been moved up to the main navigation menu. Who knew we had a calendar and made original music! Well now you do thanks to us. Another change I was thinking of making is getting rid of the search bar on the main page. It doesn't seem to work, and me being my website savvy self, I don't know how to fix it. It runs on Google Custom Search, so if someone wants to help figure it out, be my guest. If not, expect it to go bye bye.

Now we've come to the end of the blog post. This is the time where I usually tell you to follow us on Twitter. This also the time when you say to yourself, "Layne, I'm already following you on Twitter". So instead of rehashing that, I'm telling you to fan us (or I guess it's "Like" now) on Facebook. Just like on Twitter, our latest news is automatically posted there, sometimes even faster than our Twitter account. We have 24 followers. Lets make it 25. Peace out.

Thurs. March 18, 2010

Hey y'all cool cats! Seeing that it's yet again been over a month since my last post, I thought I better break the ice once again. This is the point in the post where I tell you that if you really want more content, you should follow our Twitter account. We update that puppy so much more often than this blog (wish it weren't so, but it's a fact).

In line with social networking, we launched a TP Facebook Fanpage recently. Some of you may know that we have a Facebook group. Well the group's out and the fanpage is in. Reason? The fan page has the ability to update automatically whenever we post a new video or tweet a new tweet. If fact, some of you may be reading this very post on Facebook. If you aren't, please fan us. Our first goal is to get to 25 fans (mainly so we can get a custom URL for the page). Let's make it happen.

So what has been happening? Well, we put out some new videos as usual, including one little gem for St. Patties Day. If you haven't seen it yet, it's never to late. We also dropped a new podcast episode (episode 62 to be exact). We discuss the latest tidbits on Halo Reach, review a couple games, trash one, read some emails (yes, you read that correctly), and announced the 4th Annual Thomas Productions Movie Awards. "Wait", you say. "What was that last part?". Well I'll tell ya!

Every year we have hold the Thomas Productions Movie Awards. It's where you, the viewers/readers/listeners/whatever you are, get to vote on which of our videos you liked the most from the previous year. Just click here to go submit your vote (1 vote per person please). The deadline for submitting is April 18 at midnight. So get those votes in sooner than later. We will announce the winners on a special LIVE episode of the TPCast (date & time to be announced).

Lastly, a bit of Marlin news. Episode 48 is out the door and on the you tubes, and work has begun on episode 49. Expect 49 sometime in April. Remember we're trying to space things out a bit. We hope to have episode 50 out around May/June. Speaking of episode 50, we're cooking up something special. Nothing official quite yet, but you guys should love it.

Anyways, that's the post. Surprisingly long considering I'm writing this at such a late hour... or maybe that helps... oh never mind.


Why on earth is Layne wearing so much green?

Sun. Feb. 14, 2010

Hello one and all. Happy Valentine's Day to you. We decided to pick today to dump our newest stuff, so lets get right to it.

We have a shining new video out for you called "Forbidden Love". Trust us, it's not what you think. You'll like it. Of course, we've released a few other new videos since my last blog post, like The Audition Show, Groundhog, and Marlin the Elite episode 47. All of them deserve some love today.

We've also got something for you that you might not have been expecting...a new podcast episode! Yes, that's right, we recorded episode 61 of the TPCast. As you can imagine, it's brimming with all our thoughts on the latest Halo: Reach news. Plus we review the new movie Wolfman and a littel video game known as Modern Warfare 2. It's 1 hour and 20 minutes long, so you should be able to squeeze a lot out of it. There's only one thing we ask from you: send stuff in! Seriously, send anything in and we'll read it. Podcast@thomasproductionsinc.com. Or if you're the more vocal type, you can leave a voicemail at 208-474-2690.

Now one thing I haven't yet mentioned is a new "mini-series" (I guess you could call it that) dubbed Marlin the Elite Highlights. It's basically taking clips from Marlin episodes 1-30 and putting them on YouTube. This description should help better understand:

As you may know, we've been creating Marlin episodes for quite a while now, and many of the original episodes (1-30) had to be taken off of YouTube because of copyright crackdown. I found that it was a shame that these awesome classics had to be sort of "shunned" if you will. So while we can't show the full episodes on YouTube, we can show you clips from the episodes, hence "Marlin the Elite Highlights". I thought it would be great to at least put up some clips to draw the attention of more casual fans. Look for more Marlin Highlights coming soon!

So there you have it. We'll be spacing these out through the spring and summer, so keep an eye on our channel. And that's about it! Hope you cats have a happy Valentine's Day. Don't eat all that chocolate at once... wait... never mind.


Wouldn't you know it, we actually had a shooting script for our Valentine's Day video (courtesy of Kyle).

Thurs. Jan. 21, 2010

Hello everyone, and welcome to two-oh-one-oh! Got lots of exciting stuff to talk about, so let's get to it.

Our most exciting piece of news (at least to me), is that we now have our own Wiki! Kyle was able to create it a few Saturdays ago. It's basically a little Wikipedia just for Thomas Productions stuff. Go and check it out here! We've been slowly adding articles for our videos, and you can help! If you see that we don't have a page yet for your favorite TP video, you can make it! If you find that a page is out of date or has wrong information, you can edit it! We're really hoping it'll take off.

Next up, we got some new videos that we've released: A Message from 2010, The Tige, and My Pet Monsta. Another video is coming tomorrow, and we've got one more video we're still working on. Plus, we did happen to film a new Marlin. No set date for that yet, just sometime in February. So there's lots to look forward to.


A photo that may or may not be from our next video.

Also, a few things to note. Lemon Man now has his own Twitter account! Do him a favor and follow him. In fact, follow all TP related Twitter accounts. You can find a list of all of them here.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! We finally recorded a new episode of the TPCast. We talk about video game stuff like ODST and Halo Reach, plus what we're up to. So please check it out.

And that my friends is it for now. See you whenever!

Wed. Dec. 23, 2009

Kevin & Layne in "Sunset Old Folks Home"

Hey! Long time no see! About time I made another blog update. We've got a few new videos to wrap up 2009 in style: We have Marlin the Elite episodes 45 & 46 and a new live-action video called Sunset Old Folks Home. We even have the shooting script for you to take a look at.

We had planned to do another podcast before the end of the year, but Kevin has a cold, so we are unable to record. Who knows, maybe we'll feel like recording one over the break.

Also, we recently had another TP Game Event. Very fun as usual. You can check out video from one of the games here.

Now I know it's a little to late for Christmas present suggestions, but if you happen to get some cash this holiday season, might I suggest the TP Store? You can get a nice shirt or mug with our logo on it. No pressure of course :)

One last thing. There's only 1 thing we want for Christmas, and that's some more Twitter followers. So follow the TP Twitter account. It gets updated as soon as we post a new video or podcast or blog post.

So that's it. Have a happy holiday season guys! I'm gonna go eat a cookie.

Wed. Nov. 4, 2009

Well, I figured you've gone on long enough without a decent update. So here it is!

New VidAwesome:
Since my last blog post, we've pumped out 2 releases: Detective Awesome and the Day Job Whodunit and Marlin the Elite - Episode 43: Space Invasion. Both are very good (if I don't say so myself) and deserve a watch.

Upcoming Plans: Due to the little setback with the Xbox (it red ringed), we are very behind schedule on our Marlin episodes. Seven more episodes by Christmas is a tall order, especially considering there are only about seven weeks left. We're going to do everything in our power to try and make that happen, but no promises. And this tight schedule pretty much means you can kiss a 2009 episode of Project Blackknight goodbye. Besides Marlin, we have another live-action video in mind. We're working on the script, and it's turning out pretty funny. If we follow through, you can expect to see it sometime next month.

Game Event = Win (even without Kevin & Kyle):
We recently had our second Community Game Event this past Sunday, and it was just as good as the first. Thanks to everyone who was able to come! The only thing that could have made it better was the presence of Kevin & Kyle, who were sadly absent. Don't fret though. We'll have another one this year with all of us.

Website Troubles:
Some may have noticed that the home page of our website is lacking in the "What's New" department. We're having some troubles with the HTML. Hopefully, we can get it solved pretty soon. If you're fuming that you can't get out blog and Twitter updates straight from our homepage, blame Microsoft.

And Speaking of Twitter...
Follow us on Twitter! No, seriously. Follow us. We post updates pretty often, some even contain exclusive and fun content. For example:

"TP Fun Fact: All the footage filmed for Marlin the Elite Ep. 43 took up approximately 26.08 gigabytes of hard drive space."

And our special Halloween present to you guys, a cool Lemon Man wallpaper:



So check out our Tweets. Please?

Also, if you're a Twitter user that has access to the Twitter Lists Beta, you can check out our TP Twitter Accounts List. It has all of the Twitter accounts that are somehow related, like my Twitter, or our band's Twitter. This feature should become available to everyone else eventually, so don't worry if you can't access it now.

MachiniAwesome:
While surfing Twitter, I came across this thing called the MachinExpo. Basically you submit a piece of machinima that you've made, and if the judges think it's good enough, they'll include it in a special online screening. And if the judges really really like you're video, it could be nominated to win an award. Well of course I had to submit something. I sent Friend their way and waited for a reply. Turns out they liked it, and will be screening it along with 40 other machinimas (chosen out of a pool of 150+). But alas, it didn't receive an award nomination. Still, it's something, and from what I can see, we were the only Halo machinima chosen.

The MachinExpo will be taking place on Sunday, November 22 in the game Second Life. Now I don't have play Second Life or know much about it, so I won't be attending. If you do however, consider dropping by. The specific time and location has yet to be announced, so stay tuned to the MachinExpo website for further details.

Update Go Bye-Bye:
So that concludes this surely record-setting update. Make sure you're tuned in to our YoyTube channel. You never know when something might pop up.

Sun. Oct. 11, 2009

In case you haven't been following us on Twitter, I thought I'd better give a little production update.

Our plan was to start filming Marlin episode 43 last week, but unfortunately, the Xbox we use to film on decided to Red Ring. So it's been sent off to be repaired and should be back within the next week. In the meantime, I've started some post-production work on a live-action movie we filmed back at the beginning of September. We hope to have it done by the time we get the Xbox back so we can start work on Marlin right away. Expect a trailer in the coming week.

Another bit of news, you might have noticed that our YouTube channel has been switched over to the new layout. Feel free to message us and tell us what you think of the color scheme.

And with that, I leave you with a sneek-peek photo from our new live-action movie.