Follow the thoughts of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a 27 year old physicist and neurotic individual. In this episode, Freeman manuevers around a giant monster, wanders deep in Black Mesa, and gets stuck.

Youtube

Machinima.com streaming

640x480 WMV (76MB)

Well here’s the latest episode, one of the most difficult episodes for me to produce to date, due to the recording situation. It looks like that’s getting resolved however, so hopefully the pace should pick up sooner on that. It’s anyone’s guess though as the computer they salvaged for me completely died on Thursday, but rumor has it there’s a laptop I can continue working on. Also I apologize in advance if the video looks a little choppy on Youtube. With the exception of FM14 and Morning Patrol, every single video I’ve submitted to Machinima.com has been uploaded at the incorrect framerate on Youtube. Maybe someday this will get fixed.

Progress continues on the next CP episode. I’m determined to release that before Halloween and will likely be working on weekends as well to make sure that happens.

EDIT:

I’ve been informed that the Youtube version is far darker than it should be, this does appear to be true. This is bad, since this is already a darker episode in terms of lighting. I don’t know why the brightness was reduced, but it wasn’t my fault this time. I recommend either watching the streaming version on Machinima.com or downloading the WMV version.

Well I’ve got some more news on several items:

FREEMAN’S MIND:

A new episode should be coming out before too long, but progress has been extremely slow. While I was told there would be audio recording accommodations before I accepted the job, they have been very sketchy. I had to record episode 15 sandwiched between 2 offices where other people are working and making noise, much of it carries through the walls, plus there’s a smaller echo in the room, and I’m next to a busy hard tile hallway that can pick up noise from halfway across the building. Recording at home is no longer an option, so as a result, I’ve had to work during off hours at the office in order to record. Even then, the cleaning crew makes a lot of noise, so I can’t reliably record anything until after about 9pm when things tend to remain quiet. Machinima has plans to relocate several of the offices soon, so I’m hoping the recording situation gets resolved.

CIVIL PROTECTION AND PILOT EPISODE:

I’m continuing to work on both of these and hope to have the next CP episode out sometime in October.

MISSING DOWNLOADS:

Several of the downloadable copies of the videos keep getting deleted at random from the Machinima servers. No one has been able to give me a clear answer as to why this keeps happening and from what I can tell, restoring these only to have them get deleted again is going to be a losing battle. The good news is, the host for this website (AMT Studios) says they have tons of bandwidth, so hosting new videos here shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve since restored the links for Freeman’s Mind episodes 5,6, and 8, and Civil Protection: Halloween Safety. I’ll replace more links as they become a problem or I get around to it.

- - - -

Also I’ve been trying to get this information added for almost 2 weeks, but I think the people working on the website are having problems with it, so I’m just going to post the information here until it’s officially part of the site:

SUBTITLES:

I’m no longer accepting new subtitles at this time. I plan to again at some point in the future, but I’m so far behind on updating the existing ones, piling on more is just going to overwhelm me. I still intend to support as many as I can, but I simply need to catch up on what people have already submitted first.

FAQ UPDATE:

I’ve been emailed these particular questions many times now, here are the answers for everyone:

Q. How do you do pullups in Freeman’s Mind?
A. I have cheats enabled and have “noclip” mode assigned to a hotkey.

Q. How do you put away your weapon in Freeman’s Mind?
A. Originally I was switching to another weapon covered with invisible textures, but since then, one viewer has informed me of the command “impulse 200”, which can put away the weapon.

Q. Can I have your permission to do a new series in the Freeman’s Mind format for another game?
A. You don’t need my permission to do this. I’m not the first person to come up with the idea of putting words in other character’s mouths. I don’t plan on doing another show in the

Hey everyone, no new videos I’m afraid, but here’s a news update. I’ve successfully relocated to Los Angeles, it’s about what I expected. Machinima had several new hires besides me and wasn’t fully prepared for everyone, so I haven’t really had a computer to work on for the past 2 weeks. My own computer arrived from moving a couple days ago, so I can at least resume working on some things. I still don’t have a place to record audio however, so for now this means no new videos that requires me to voice act. In light of that, I’m focusing on the pilot episode I mentioned (where I won’t be a voice actor) and a partially completed Civil Protection episode where my dialogue was already recorded a long time ago. I’m sure the audio situation will get resolved eventually, everyone seems interested in me continuing Freeman’s Mind especially. In the meantime, here are some things I’ve learned about LA that I didn’t already know:

-Cars actually yield the right of way to pedestrians here. This is a very alien concept to me.

-I’m honestly amazed Taco Bell can survive out here in light of the competition.

-There seems to be an unspoken stigma here against people who ride the bus. Lucky for me, I don’t care.

-An old Indian name for Los Angeles translates to “the valley of smoke.” I consider this more accurate than “the city of angels”

-It’s easy to see why there were power shortages here a few years ago when many power lines buzz erratically so loud I’m expecting sparks to be shooting out from them.

-I’m starting to see why some art directors for videogames consider making everything look brown to be realistic.

Hey everyone, big news, I’m being hired to work full time for Machinima.com! While some of you may not care about that, this is likely to be good news for everyone who’s a fan of the videos. My official job title will be “segment producer” and will entail a lot of what I’ve already been doing (making my own videos), and also acting as a technical advisor for Machinima.com’s other projects, especially those that use the Source engine. Some may consider this as me selling out, and that could be, but I don’t think it will impact the videos negatively. I’ve discussed the job offer with them at length and I’ll still get to write and direct my own material and have final edit, and you’ll still get to watch the videos for free. The only real limitation they may impose on me is to have my longer episode ideas (which I haven’t gotten to yet anyway) split up in more of a mini-series format. However, they’re also cool with me distributing the final, unsplit version of those episodes to be watched as I would have intended, so I see this as a non-issue.

In case it’s not clear, Civil Protection WILL continue, as will the pilot episode I’m working on, as will Freeman’s Mind (though this one is more up to you, FM has become more of a fan-service for me than something I would continue without your interest), so none of this should jeopardize more videos coming out in the future. While nothing is quite certain, Machinima.com is offering me support to produce the more involved episodes like CP. I may actually have animators assisting that I can work with locally, which could be worth its weight in gold to me. While I think it’s possible I may actually have less time to work on the videos than I’ve been putting in, the additional help may make up for that.

Part of this job will entail me moving near Machinima.com’s headquarters, which is located in Los Angeles, California. I’ve currently been living in semi-rural Virginia, so this move may be similar to “The Beverly Hillbillies”, except that they were rich. I’d like to make it known that just because I’m working for an official company now, does NOT mean I’ll be getting rich from it. On the contrary, the cost of living in LA is monstrous. I anticipate a 1 bedroom apartment in the region will take up roughly half my income, and I’m going to be giving up my car and taking the bus to economize further. Also I can’t say LA is my first choice of places to live as I prefer forests, fog, cold climate, etc., but this could be a dream job for me otherwise. The level of creative control I’ll be getting is quite rare, something even most professional directors don’t get.

Finally, I may find I regret saying this, but I know NO ONE in the LA region. I don’t want to promise anything in case you’re a psycho (and not the fun kind), but if you live in that general area (I don’t know where I’ll be living yet, but M.com is located in the Hollywood area), are in a similar age range (I’m 26), and are interested in meeting me, go ahead and send me an email and tell me about yourself. It could take me quite a while to get back to you as I’ll be very busy initially and will have limited internet access, but I’ll try and respond to everyone who can write in complete sentences. If it helps (and I guess I have to stereotype here) here are some types of people I tend to get along with: artists, philosophers, intellectuals, easygoing people, goths, metalheads, horror movie fans, and people into surreal stuff in general. Bonus points if you’re willing to buy me food. Also if you smoke, I may not want to hang out with you much, simply because I hate the smell of cigarettes; it’s nothing against anyone personally. As for my own personality, I’m not sure how to describe myself, I’m maybe a little bit like a watered down cross between Mike and Dave from Civil Protection. Freeman’s Mind is more just acting. If you just think of me as some sort of goblin in a workshop, I think it’s hard to go wrong with that image. And for those that care, here’s a picture of me from last year, though lately I’m looking more like a musketeer or Guy Fawkes.

That’s all for now! There will be a delay on all videos while I relocate, but hopefully things can pick up soon after that.

Ross

P.S. I’ll try and get the broken download links for FM back up when I get a chance.