blog: videos

Machine of Death deadline approaches

The deadline for submitting a story to Machine of Death Volume 2 is in less than two weeks!

If you’ve already submitted something (we’ve received over 500 stories so far), thank you! We’re absolutely thrilled that you’re a part of it! If you’re still working on yours, that’s fine, but be sure to send in your submission(s) by July 15.

And if you haven’t even started yet — are you plumb out of time? I don’t think you are, necessarily. I just wrote a piece on the MoD blog about how you can spin simple stories out of absolutely any piece of inspiration:

Improvisers are taught that whatever the scene starts being about, is what it’s about. If one person says “I’m hungry,” then the second person could say “Well, of course! You haven’t eaten for days!” And the scene would be about that person being hungry. Why are they hungry? What has prevented them from eating? A diet? A stomach trauma? Torture? Do they have a tapeworm?

The point is that there are infinite reasons why that person could be hungry. There’s no reason to place bricks anywhere else, because that simple declaration, “I’m hungry,” is enough. The entire scene can be built on top of it. The character’s hunger can be explored to reveal deeper issues — problems with relationships, or self-esteem, or conflicts with other characters in the scene. Thematic elements can arise. The scene has the potential to become emotionally resonant.

All this can come from just “I’m hungry” — if you will just dig into it, and keep digging. There is never any limit to how deep you can go on even the smallest detail. (Read the rest)

Also, I’m in San Francisco this weekend! We’ll be doing the Machine of Death theater show on Saturday, and I’ll be at the Renegade Craft Fair both Saturday and Sunday. Details on both events are here.

I’ve taken to driving to San Francisco, instead of flying. It’s an easier way to transport all my goods, although it does take a while and tucker a person out. To show you a little of what the trip is like, here’s a mini-documentary I made about the drive to and from Maker Faire, back in May! Each piece is about fifteen minutes long.

Malki Goes To Maker Faire ! PART 1 on Vimeo.

Malki Goes to Maker Faire ! PART 2 of 2 Vimeo.

Video: “Operation Santa” trailer

Hey gang! Here is a little holiday treat for you. Presenting the very first trailer I ever edited.

I made this in about 1997 — it was shot using any random camcorder I could borrow for an afternoon, and edited with multiple VCRs and sketchy audio software in a weeks-long process that would make anyone born after 1990 break down in tears.

Still, I’m strangely thrilled by it even today. Enjoy:

Direct link to Youtube for readers on feeds

(And yes, I recycled elements of this plot into a comic strip years later.)

My wedding poster, trailer, and epic cake

It’s been a few years since I last mentioned this stuff, so I’m gonna share it again for the benefit of new readers! Back when my wife and I were first engaged, we were both working in movie advertising. So naturally, after setting a date, the first thing we did was make a poster (above, click for bigger).

Then, we made a trailer:


‘Getting Married’ Trailer

(if you don’t have Flash, here are lo-res and hi-res QuickTime versions)

And being action-movie fans, we decided we needed an action-movie cake:

It was designed by me and created by Mike’s Amazing Cakes in Redmond, WA. Click the image for a closer look!

If you have further sinister curiosity about our wedding itself you can always look at some of our vaguely interesting pictures as well. But the main thing is the cake — I’ve seen it linked around the internet anonymously before, and I want to make sure it’s got an attribution attached to it.

By the way each tier was a different flavor

Two Minutes to Wondermark #544

Here’s a (time-lapsed) video of me creating the latest comic, “In which Jake gets a Leg Up”. The comic itself looks pretty simple, but I’m pretty proud of some of the subtle collage work that went into it.

If you liked that, here are some more “Two Minutes to Wondermark” process videos I’ve done in the past. I also often stream the comic-makin’ process live online — when I do, I always announce it on my Twitter!