No need to get out the pitchforks,
The Forums will be down Saturday March 30th for updates and maintenance.

Edit: The forums have been updated and are live again, We’re still tweaking some features which may result in temporary interruption of service.

-David Donaldson (web admin on Accursed Farms)

This is just a quick update to let people know I have finally had some real communication with Machinima.com and I THINK something is going to be able to be worked out so I can have more Freeman’s Mind episodes out as soon as possible (assuming this post doesn’t jinx everything). Besides trying to get ahead on FM episodes I’m also working on a side project that is directly related to Freeman’s Mind (and no, it’s not a different series) that I’ll announce later.

EDIT:

I’ve been told today (Mar. 22nd) that there should be an agreement proposal sometime by the end of next week. While I can’t discuss specifics, I’ll keep making timetable updates as I get them.

Unfortunately I still have no update on releasing new videos (speaking of which, if someone wants to make me an offer on Freeman’s Mind or Civil Protection, go ahead and email me). In the meantime, I’ve mainly been doing freelance voice acting work, but I want to work on future videos, whenever they come out. There are two key areas I could really use help in:

WEBSITE DESIGN / PROGRAMMING:
I’ve been wanting to make updates to the site for over a year now, but don’t have web programming knowledge myself. Some of the things I wish to do are update the FAQ, add extra info fields to the episode pages, and have some sort of Wordpress plugin system so I could manually generate new episode pages myself, etc.

AUDIO EDITING:
I have had some great audio editing help in the past, but it’s a real dice toss as to whether anyone will reply if I need help with a video. I’m looking for someone to add in sound effects, do some general reverb processing, and volume balancing. If you have examples of previous work you’ve done, please send me a link to them.

- - -

If you’re interested in helping in either of these positions, please contact me at [email protected]. They will have to be volunteer positions since I’m currently in Ramen noodle territory myself. For audio editing that I use, I will put you in the credits of the video, and for website help, we’ll find a way to credit you somewhere on the site.

Also I’d like to add that if you are interested in helping, try to sound semi-professional. If I get an email like this:

“
ya ill fix ur site wat u want

-Sent from my iPhone
“

it doesn’t inspire confidence in me as to your abilities. I’m old-fashioned like that.

I unfortunately still have no news on when / if I can upload new videos on Machinima.com. In the meantime, the whole situation has been making me nervous financially since I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve tried applying for an additional job, but haven’t had much luck yet. In the interest of me being able to pay rent in the future, I am now offering my services provided someone out there is interested in hiring me for something. Here are some areas people may want to hire me for.

VOICE ACTING:
I can do any voices you’ve heard in the existing videos, plus I’ve also recorded a voice acting reel as a sampler for additional voices I can perform:

Voice acting reel for Ross Scott (MP3, 4MB)

Please feel free to spread this to anyone you think might have an interest in hiring me.

SCRIPT WRITING:
Writing is generally one of the lower paid categories in movies in general, but I thought I would list it as a possible option anyway. I’ve obviously done a lot of comedy writing which you see in the videos, though I’m not strictly limited to that. I am likely to be a poor candidate for any dramatic dialogue however.

SOURCE ENGINE ANIMATION / MACHINIMA VIDEOS:
I’m really not anticipating anyone hiring me in these areas, since even at minimum wage, I couldn’t even afford to pay myself the hours I normally dump into machinima videos; animation can be incredibly time consuming. I also have some experience animating with the Unreal 3 / UDK engine, however I’m far less experienced with it than I am with Source.

- - -

As for how much I’m charging, it kind of depends on what people want me to do. I found this article indicating how much voice actors typically earn, but I’m guessing most of those numbers are far beyond what I qualify for. Also it’s worth mentioning that I can’t do any jobs directly related to Civil Protection or Freeman’s Mind until things are resolved with Machinima.com, sorry.

I was hoping my next post on here would be a new episode, but unfortunately that’s not happening. Last week I found out by accident that Machinima.com is planning to change the terms of their contract with me. This may jeopardize every video I’ve released so far and all future ones. Or it may not. I’ve been finding it difficult to get an answer either way and the only thing I know right now is that I won’t have an answer before the start of 2013 at the earliest. I can’t give any more specifics than this because of contract reasons, but this situation has been frustrating the hell out of me, because until I have this resolved, I can’t release any more videos and I’m sure people are waiting on more.

Just so you know, episode 45 of Freeman’s Mind is DONE. I’ll probably be done with episode 46 before I hear anything from Machinima.com again. I promise I’ll do everything I can to get these out as soon as I can without having legal action taken against me or losing all rights to the videos.