osh10 featuring A Lighter Shade of White - "Mr Sheen"

Production Date: April 20th 2008
Genre: Animation / Music Video
Animated and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Music by: osh10
Length: 4 minutes
Synopsis: To mark its 10th anniversary, the whole A Lighter Shade of White web comic series is summarized in three and a half minutes to a jazzy soundtrack.

Isabella's Big Adventure - The Patisserie Pursuit

Production Date: November 4th 2007
Genre: Animation
Starring: Isabella (of course!)
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 5 minutes
Synopsis: Isabella's prize-winning cakes are making someone jealous...
Notes: First Isabella episode done in Flash at 720p.

Download web version (5MB)

The Most Powerful Person in the World

Production Date: May 16th 2007
Genre: Machinima / Arthouse
Conceived and Edited by: Thuyen Nguyen
Music by: Lackluster
Length: 5 minutes
Synopsis: A love letter to video games.
As featured at: Gamesetwatch, Kotaku, The Age, Newsweek, Destructoid, Major League Gaming, Ain't It Cool News...

Download web version (5MB)
Watch online at YouTube
Download high quality version at Archive.org (151MB)

Profile of Me and My Machinima Works

Charlie Drying, a student from RMIT, interviewed me about my machinima films and wrote about it as part of his film research course. Included in the write-up are Bookstore 2&3 and An Unfair War, and also a profile on yours truly. The essay is online now - or at least, I've just found out about it :) So please read someone else's take on me instead of reading my propaganda. Thanks Charlie!

MachinimOz

Details for An Unfair War at Silver Lake Film Festival

An Unfair War will be screened as part of the Machinima Shorts program this Sunday May 6 at 4:45pm. You can buy tickets online here.

For some reason I can't access the official Silver Lake site. Here it is anyway: http://www.silverlakefilmfestival.org/

An Unfair War at Silver Lake Film Festival

An Unfair War will be screened at the 7th Silver Lake Film Festival in Los Angeles, USA. The festival will be on May 3-12 2007 and is one of the top 5 festivals in the city according to L.A. Weekly. Big thanks to Peter Brinson for selecting my film to be part of the machinima program!

Watch "An Unfair War"

Check out the Silver Lake Film Festival site

Work and Play

Production Date: January 7th 2007
Genre: Comedy
Starring: Paul Callaghan, Kate Inabinet, Ian Malcolm, Garth Midgley, Heath Smith
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 9 minutes
Synopsis: A journalist comes to Beepford Games to do some research for a magazine article. As long as the employees behave themselves, everything should be fine...
As featured at: GameSetWatch, Kotaku, Sumea

Download web version (6MB)

Watch online at Revver

Work and Play Production Report

This past weekend, Sunday November 12th to be exact, I once again stepped into the world of live-action filmmaking with the shooting of Work and Play, the first of six episodes of my new sit-com. And it went well, with only one hiccup when someone forgot to turn on the microphone for a couple of shots.

You may remember me mentioning Work and Play previously (like, about a year ago). Back then, I had written a 30-minute pilot. Taking the same characters and setting, I wrote six new 10-minute episodes during these past few months. With Sunday's filming, there's one down; five to go.

Work and Play is set in a video games company. Managing Director Will (Ian Malcolm, Sup Homes?) wants to make Beepford Games the best studio in the world and hopes his employees are up to the task. There's Lead Artist Sanders (Paul Callaghan, Retrenchment Game) and his assistant Dave (Heath Smith), the cube specialist. Programmer and only woman in the company Catherine (Kate Inabinet, Bookstore). The somewhat reliable I.T. guy Michael (Thuyen Nguyen) and the totally unreliable sound guy Travis (Garth Midgley, Retrenchment Game), who also happens to be Will's nephew. With a game to make, a publisher to please, an awkward love triangle and talking plush toys(?!), will Beepford Games be up to the task?

Having already finished a rough cut of the show, I am very excited about it and am further encouraged and anxious to shoot the remaining five episodes of what I like to call Work and Play's "pilot season".

An Unfair War Festival Screenings

An Unfair War will be screened at the following festivals (Updated):

• Animatu (Portugal) - In Competition
• Bitfilm (Germany) - Screening
  
• Holland Animation Film Festival (The Netherlands) - Screening
• Bradford Animation Festival (U.K.) - Screening - see below
  

You'll note that my call for Bitfilm votes in a previous post didn't help. Oh well.

All three film festivals will be on in November, but unfortunately I won't be able to attend any of them, being half way across the world and all. Oh well x 2.

Update

Richard Gras showed An Unfair War at the Bradford Animation Festival and said, "You'll be pleased to know that your work was shown as part of the Best New Machinima screening at the National Museum of Photography, TV and film in the UK and was the only one that got an ovation (it was shown number 2 in the reel)." Thanks dude!

An Unfair War at Bitfilm Festival 06

Germany's Bitfilm Festival has selected An Unfair War for their machinima competition. A total of 15 films are now viewable online at their website where voting will determine this year's winner. Obviously, it would be great if it was me.

Click here and vote!

What people are saying about An Unfair War:

• "This is a quiet, sincere, anti-war film that has an impact that you just don't find in the mass of machinima being produced in Sims2." - gToon, archive.org review
• "It's telling that machinima can be used to produce such poignant and dramatic stuff - I forgot I was watching polygons almost immediately." - julian, selectparks.net
• "5 stars" - Sims99.com Rating Average
• "He could be Iraqi, Lebanese or an Israeli ~ which is why this animation is so effective." - Allen L Roland
• "The content and delivery is very moving, despite being an animation." - guerrilla news network
• "Very thought provoking" - Dxvid, mprem.com
• "An unusually mature example of machinima." - Ed Halter
• "Moving... surprisingly emotive" - Cory Doctorow
  

Isabella's Big Adventure - The Greatest View

Production Date: August 22nd 2006
Genre: Animation
Starring: Isabella (of course!)
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 4 minutes
Synopsis: Isabella has a soccer date with an old friend.

Download web version (4MB)

An Unfair War - Post Mortem

I've received various emails and comments about my last film An Unfair War. Some supportive, some critical. While a topic such as war is inherently controversial, what most people agree on is that the film's setting is the ongoing American invasion of Iraq. Now, I will admit a major mistake as a filmmaker with regards to this. The film was intended to be ambiguous about its setting and character. It wasn't necessarily meant to be about the Iraqi war - it was meant to be about every war. There are three things in the film that link it too closely to Iraq for my liking:

• Timing - The film was released as the war was (still is) ongoing. Obviously, an anti-war film released during that war is seen as a direct reaction to it.
• Character - The film's only character looks like an Arab, or so I've been told. He isn't though - he's Simlish. He's a video game character (cartoonish, as opposed to the ultrarealism of, say, Unreal 3), made from default parts from The Sims 2.
• Dialogue - One particular line in the film reads, "I don't care if I'm 'defended' or 'liberated'." I'm pretty sure those words were used by the Bush Administration to describe their war at some point.

Other than those points, the film offers no real clue to its setting. There's no naming of a specific country or a nationality or a religion. It was intended to be ambiguous so that the viewer puts their own politics into it, and from that, defines the film's setting and character. That's also why there's no voice over - as the viewer reads the dialogue, they define what the man sounds like in their minds: his tone and accent. The film's ambiguity (should) allow it to apply to any war, because while the location and the participants may change, the message is the same: innocent people die. If I could do a George Lucas, I'd cut about 30 seconds of the film with reference to the points above.

In the end, this film isn't about President Bush or Iraqi insurgents or Hezbollah guerrillas or the Israeli government or Sudanese warlords or Chechen rebels; it's about the people who are counted in the 'collateral damage' column. People who die because they are born as they are, living in the wrong place and at the wrong time.

An Unfair War Makes Headlines

An Unfair War has started to appear all around the web at other sites besides mine! While you can find the film at Sims99.com and Machinima.com, I think the ball really got rolling when Boing Boing said some kind words about it yesterday. EP3.es has an article on it too, and while the text is in Spanish (and therefore unreadable by me), the Flash layout is lovely. How come text looks better in a foreign language? And perhaps not surprisingly, An Unfair War has popped up on YouTube... twice... and I had nothing to do with either!

Thanks everyone!

An Unfair War

Production Date: June 7th 2006
Genre: Drama / Machinima
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 5 minutes
Synopsis: From the middle of a warzone, an innocent man uses the internet to tell his story.
Screenings: Animatu (Portugal), Bitfilm (Germany), Holland Animation Film Festival (The Netherlands), Bradford Animation Festival (U.K.), Silver Lake Film Festival (USA)

Download web version (4MB)

Download high quality version at archive.org (32MB)

Transformers Jump!

Here's a physics and highlight reel using Atari's Transformers game which I made years ago but only now decided to share with the interweb. I guess you could call it Machinima, though quite unlike Bookstore 2 or 3 (see sidebar for links).

Why is it called "Jump"? Well, I guess you haven't heard of the famous Warthog Jump video (which you really should watch, even if you don't like Halo).

Apologies now for using the most-overused song in stunt videos (Blur's "Song 2") and a Michael Mann track (I was listening to Soulwax at the time)...

What I Did During the Holidays

Though the last post was almost 2 months ago, that doesn't meant I've been slacking off. Keeping busy as usual, and have actually managed to increase my output ratio dramatically.

I won't be making my recent projects available to the masses, as they are not mainstream fare. However, I wouldn't be me if I didn't acknowledge them in public for potential kudos.

The images are screen captures of the respective projects' DVD menu.

Promise

My friend Huy commissioned me to make a film for his cousin's wedding. A full day shooting and 5 tapes of footage later, a pretty good wedding video came out.

A Golden Journey

Another commission project, this one was for Huy's grandparents' golden anniversary. Fifty years is a long time. A definitive deadline and a slight hiccup at the last minute made things interesting.

Yes I Will!

Another wedding! This one was half-English, half-Japanese, located in the Yarra Valley under 30 degree summer heat. The flies were out in force.

Eiko's New Years Melbourne Fiesta!

My girlfriend's friend came to visit us over new years. This film is a 'visual postcard', or in other words, 'holiday video'.

tnfilmography2

When I've made enough films to fill out an entire DVD-R, I do a compilation disc with a vain picture of myself on the cover. This one is no exception!

Bookstore at 2005 ION International Animation and Film Festival

Bookstore 2&3 has been officially selected for this year's ION Film Festival! Unlike the Machinima Film Festival, Bookstore will be shown in its entirety thus making ION's screening the U.S. premiere!

It's times like this that I wish I could afford airline tickets...

ION International Animation and Film Festival 2005 selections

Bookstore at 2005 Machinima Film Festival

Bookstore 2&3 has been selected for screening at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival in November. No award nominations, sadly. It'll be in the comedy category (not surprisingly).

2005 Award Nominations and Selections

2005 Machinima Film Festival

I just posted my entry into this year's Machinima Film Festival. I cut Bookstore 2 and Bookstore 3 together into one 15-minute film. The new Frankenstein-esque version is imaginatively entitled Bookstore 2&3.

Here's to its success, hopefully!

Writing Update

I've recently finished writing two sit-com pilots, as I've found a lot of free time at work. The first, entitled Work and Play, was actually finished before Bookstore 3. Imagine Just Shoot Me but set in a games company.

The second pilot, which I completed last Friday, is Bookstore The Series. Yes, I believe there's still life in the adventures of Tom, Richard and Emily! I've added three new characters and given them a much bigger bookstore.

Both have been written in a no-commercial format, suitable for a cable channel or BBC/ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corp, not the American). Work and Play is a bit more character-driven, while Bookstore The Series is event-driven. Both have the same joke-per-minute ratio, however Bookstore The Series is more abstract (or wacky?).

I'm proud of both of them. Some of my most-competent writing yet.

Bookstore 3 ~ Harry Strikes Back

Production Date: July 25th 2005
Genre: Comedy / Machinima
Starring: Mark Angeli, Justin Halliday, Warren Hawkes, Kate Inabinet, Thuyen Nguyen
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 8 minutes
Synopsis: Tom, Richard and Emily are called into the Bookstore, unaware of the dangerous situation awaiting them...
Awards: Official selection, Machinima Film Festival 2005; Official selection, ION International Animation and Film Festival 2005

Download web version (6MB)

Download high quality version from archive.org (38MB)

Film Downloads Updated

I've uploaded new versions of my films. Instead of MPEGs, they're now in Windows Media format, which allows me to get more resolution at a lower file size. Yes, I've made it a bit more difficult for Mac and Linux users...

Bookstore 3 Finished, But...

I started making Bookstore 3 months ago. I'm fairly quick when it comes to making films, but due to various reasons, this one took quite a while. I had to re-record dialogue because of differences in sound quality between the recording sessions. I was going to do a live-action sequence to put after the credits, but I eventually dropped that idea. Then my video editing software decided not to play nice and would stop exporting for no good reason.

But it's done now.

However, between the time I wrote Bookstore 3 and finished the film, there have been some world events that (unfortunately) reflect badly on the film. Serves me right to strap a bomb to one of my characters, I suppose.

At the first public showing last night, no one seemed to mind, or indeed notice. I'll put a disclaimer on the film anyway, just to cover my bases.

Bookstore 3 Update

Dialogue's done and processed. Shots are edited. Music still to be finalized.

I'm having real problems trying to export the film. The computer keeps crashing half-way through. It's annoying the hell out of me, but hopefully I can get at least a rough cut sans colour grading ready for the weekend.

Bookstore 2 in PC GAMER UK Magazine

Bookstore 2 ~ A Reunion of Sorts is featured on the coverdisc of this month's PC GAMER UK magazine as part of their monthly machinima showcase. Additionally, the original live-action Bookstore has been included as a bonus.

PC GAMER is Britain's best selling PC games magazine. Issue 149 is available now across the UK, and the rest of the world in shops that import the magazine.

Click here for a scan of the magazine article.

City of Lies Scores 6 Nominations

City of Lies, Collective Noun Filmworks' entry into this year's 15/15 International Film Festival, scored an impressive 6 award nominations!

• Best Actor
• Best Actress
• Best Director
• Best Cinematography
• Best Editing - me!
• Best Drama

The awards will be announced at the Gala Night on May 21st. Last year, we won Best Comedy for our film Stripsearch.

RG2 Production Report 3

Here's the situation - I finished doing a rough edit of RG2 and realized that it wasn't very good. That is to say, the film wasn't doing what I thought it was going to do. I couldn't quite figure out what the problem was.

It was then that my number 2 girl Kate shone a light on my problem:
THUYEN: "I think the film's not very good."
GARTH: "Really?"
KATE: "What film is this?"
THUYEN: "Retrenchment Game 2"
KATE: "Isn't it just about killing people?"

Ah yes, isn't it just. I thought it would be cool to learn more about the characters and the backstory. But after watching my rough edit, I realized that it isn't cool - it's kinda boring. The spirit of RG isn't about talkie-talkie - it's about action and killing.

So, back to the drawing board. I'll salvage what I can from the footage I've already got, but expect a completely new change...

RG2 Production Report 2

Yesterday was the second of RG2's filming days. All of Paul and Liz's scenes were done. Only two scenes left and filming is wrapped up and post-production begins...

RG2 Production Report

I finished Day 1 of shooting on my newest film today: RG2. It should be fairly obvious as to what RG2 stands for. A good day's work was done with more shooting to do next weekend hopefully.

Greets to Justin, Garth and Clare for their help, and Craig for his apartment!

Machinima.com Again

Wow. Bookstore 2 is now on the front page of Machinima.com as a Featured Show! Thanks guys!

http://www.machinima.com

For more Bookstore 2 info, please check out my original post.

Machinima.com

Bookstore 2 has been listed at Machinima.com, the premiere site for all things machinima.

Check it out here.

Project Greenlight Again

Well, the Top 50 of the Project Greenlight Australia competition was announced... but I didn't make the cut. Oh well. I could probably bitch about it, but there's not much point really.

Anyway, congratulations to Justin, who did manage to make the Top 50. At least one of us Collective Noun Filmworks members caught the eye of the professional script reviewers.

15/15 International Film Festival

Another frantic day of film-making started and ended on Saturday for this year's 15/15 International Film Festival. This is the fourth time Collective Noun Filmworks have participated, and this year we were only 20 minutes late - a record! (The lateness actually due to city traffic from the AFL match at Telstra Dome).

For those keeping score, our entry is called City of Lies.

Project Greenlight Australia

I just got word that my entry into Project Greenlight Australia has made it into the Top 100! Pretty good, considering the odds were 7:1 (there were about 700 entries).

Project Greenlight is a competition started by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, where the winner gets one million dollars to make a film. They make a reality TV show around the film's development.

A partner in crime from Collective Noun Filmworks also got his script into the Top 100. Congratulations!

Project Greenlight Australia site

Japan Story Two

Production Date: February 20th 2005
Genre: Travelogue
Starring: Thuyen Nguyen, Kayoko Mukai
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 11 minutes
Synopsis: Return to Japan for a little Christmas cheer, New Year's reflection and one more bout of karaoke.

Download not available - sorry!

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

I entered Isabella's Big Adventure on the High Seas into the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's short film competition today. However, considering what happened to Bookstore last year (it didn't make the cut, yet an unfunny and joke-less black & white non-comedy unbelieveably kicked off the screening night), I'm not expecting the judges to welcome Isabella with open arms...

Bookstore 2 - Slightly higher quality version available

A slightly higher quality version of Bookstore 2 ~ A Reunion of Sorts is now available here:
http://www.machinima.com/PHPBB/viewtopic.php?t=3787

Or if that doesn't work, try here:
http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=Bookstore_2

Bookstore 2 ~ A Reunion of Sorts

Production Date: February 6th 2005
Genre: Comedy / Machinima
Starring: Mark Angeli, Lincoln Flynn, Justin Halliday, Warren Hawkes, Kate Inabinet, Thuyen Nguyen
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 8 minutes
Synopsis: Tom wants to know what happened during Richard and Emily's date. Meanwhile, Harry finds two common souls with him in prison...
Awards: Machinima of the Month, PC GAMER UK Magazine June 2005; Official selection, Machinima Film Festival 2005; Official selection, ION International Animation and Film Festival 2005

Download web version (6MB)

Download high quality version from archive.org (37MB)

Isabella's Big Adventure on the High Seas

Production Date: October 31st 2004
Genre: Animation
Starring: Isabella (of course!)
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 4 minutes
Synopsis: A rich casino on water, a cell of modern pirates and one determined girl!

Download web version (3MB)

Japan Story

Production Date: October 3rd 2004
Genre: Travelogue
Starring: Thuyen Nguyen, Kayoko Mukai
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 33 minutes
Synopsis: Spend a few weeks in Kobe, Japan as we follow the director's adventures with cakes, natto and naked onsens.

Download not available - sorry!

Retrenchment Game

Production Date: May 31st 2004
Genre: Thriller
Starring: Lincoln Flynn, Garth Midgley, Paul Callaghan, Ian Malcolm, Andrew Symons, Rod Green
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 7 minutes
Synopsis: The Retrenchment Game is simple. The last person alive gets to keep their job.
Awards: Official selection, Sour Grapes Film Festival 2005

Download web version (5MB)

Bookstore

Production Date: March 14th 2004
Genre: Comedy
Starring: Mark Angeli, Kate Inabinet, Justin Halliday, Thuyen Nguyen
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 9 minutes
Synopsis: Two friends, a shoplifter and an attractive workmate come together to talk about life, love and professional wrestling.
Awards: Opening film, Sour Grapes Film Festival 2005

Download web version (6MB)

Isabella's Big Adventure in Space

Production Date: December 31st 2003
Genre: Animation
Starring: Isabella (of course!)
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 4 minutes
Synopsis: While bowling a perfect game, Isabella is kidnapped and sent into space to retrieve a mysterious artifact from the moon.

Download web version (3MB)

Isabella's Big Adventure in the City

Production Date: November 3rd 2002
Genre: Animation
Starring: Isabella (of course!)
Written and Directed by: Thuyen Nguyen
Length: 4 minutes
Synopsis: Isabella spends a fun-filled day in the city.

Download web version (3MB)