The long awaited short is here!

One Night in the shadows is all it takes for most to die. Tonight, it will be all it takes to rediscover why he leads such a dangerous life and what he really left behind when he entered them.

Shadowrun: One Night is a movie short set in the cyberpunk/fantasy cross-over universe of Shadowrun. It is the second machinima by Digital Clockwork and their first collaboration with Black Bird Studio.

The movie is current available on Google video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9...752012951518570

The first Digital Clockwork project, the trailer to the written, but un-produced Shadowrun movie, is also posted there

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Digi...kwork+shadowrun


Anyone interested in more information concerning the movie should visit http://www.eralston.com/SR.html

Anyone interest in contacting me may do so at erik.ralston@gmail.com

LOL ... "the shadows have no fury like and armed woman scorned."

The movie plays, but only with the Google player, and it's so dark, I can't make out any details.

The video quality did get badly sacked after being put to google video, but then again it was machinima to start.

If you are having trouble seeing the movie, then, while the google player you should go to the bottom right corner and click the down-facing triangle. Make sure "smooth video" is ticked. If that doesn't do anything for you, set your video to its lowest resolution and set the video size to "original size" or "double size".

Alternatively, I could be educated on a higher quality upload site. I wouldn't mind as long as it didn't cost more than google video.

Nice choices of music. Very cool though the dark bits are too dark. Otherwise nice.

Why'd he leave the laser behind?

Alright, I love the idea of a Shadowrun video, and this is a good representative example of a run, I think.

But the movie falls flat on a couple of things:

1. The guards repetitive dialogue ("Shoot to kill!", etc). Having them say that five times just got really annoying after a while

2. For Ghost's sake, don't try to put dialogue over loud music and/or sound effects. It gets drowned out. I couldn't hear a lot of it when they overlapped. It would have worked much better if the gunshots, music and other sounds had been muted or even just lowered in volume while the dialogue went.

And just a side note - damn, are lasers really THAT powerful? Granted, that was a prototype, so it could've been more powerful than normal, but yikes!

Also, it would've been nice to see at least one metahuman in all that.

Awesome work! Any more videos planned in the future?

Was that done using a Max Payne engine? I'm sure I recognised some of the moves...

edit. Yup, it was.

Is security really stupid enough to be fooled by those disguises?

And what do I have to do to be a voice actor in Part 2?

If Emo gets to be a voice actor, then so do I!

I'd actually be pretty good at it too, if my old drama teacher is to be believed. She repeatedly told me that I was great at putting believable emotion into my voice, but that my movements were much too wooden. I figure that voice acting would be the best route for me if I ever get into the entertainment business, because hey, you should play to your strengths, and my strength is my voice. I can even speak French in a French accent, if you like.

Very cool!

The only problem I had with it was that sometimes, the volume on the dialogue -usually during an action scene- was kind of low.

Also, I love the choices of music. I have to ask, what is the song playing during the gunfight in the room with the pillars?

I'm glad for the response. Anyone who believes there should be more shadowrun movies, e-mail fanpro@ameritech.net and request fanpro suggest to wizkids that shadowrun could make not just an amazing movie short, but an amazing movie. Feel free to bring up the short.

The "fountain level" gunfight contains two songs, both by the same artist: "Within Temptation" (do some googling if you don't know). The first song is "pale" and the second is "Stand my ground". "stand" is also played over the credits.

Anyone serious about helping me with a sequel should try zipping over to my website and reading my Shadowrun Movie Treatment

http://www.eralston.com/downloads/Shadowru...n_treatment.pdf

My original intention was to get this story, or some variation, seriously produced as a movie

If that never happens then it will be revisited as being produced as a 3 part machinima (when I perfect doing cool things like making metahuman character models, directing techniques, and sound processing). When I go to do that, I will put out a casting call similar to the one I made for this short.

Projects in the near future for me are probably not going to shadowrun related, but as I said, I still have the real movie to make. I need to work on my technique as I move to Source engine so check my web site for progress from time to time.

Thanks a lot guys, I did it all for you

Extremely Nice!

Just wanted to add another congratz to the list.

*clap clap clap clap* Very good, especially considering how little time you had to work with. I didn't have much trouble with darkness, but the sounds overshadowing dialogue was a problem, and sometimes the camera spun just waaay too much at inappropriate moments. Also, the English guy started out a bit annoying, but by the end I was greatly amused by him.

Very good though. I should've bought popcorn before the show.

You seem to have a very Matrix-oriented view of SR. Knight is a phys-adept, the people in your movie do all kinds of shoot dodges, and he runs on a car while it rolls. You'd think that you'd find some other archetype for the main character that is more common in Shadowrun.

Matrix-oriented? Do you mean to say The Matrix in SR or do you mean that I seem to look at SR through the filter of the movie the Matrix?

Any resemblance to Matrix movies should really be blamed on the Matrixian penchant for borrowing from Chinese Action. For instance, shootdodging in Max Payne was based on John Woo movies, not the matrix. It is about the most interesting thing any of the MP2 character can do, aside from Mona's Cartwheel, so each were pushed toward the edge of overuse to make the movie interesting.

Shadowrunners are uncommon people. In fact, every other member of Knight's team in the movie is a metahuman AND they are an even 2:2 magic to mundace, so yeah, they're an odd bunch on the whole. However, in the cast of "goog guy" characters there is one of every noteworthy type of character:

Adept (Knight)
Decker (Abacus)
Rigger (Husky)
Mage (Shadow)
Street Samurai (Miko)
Shaman (Anna)

I pretty much just made that list and started assigning roles as I formulated the story. A different story would have dictated different assignments. For instance, SR:One Night. Not that one is given a clue in the movie, but Rollins is a badass because he has some non-obvious cyberware. If I had my druthers Tasha would have been an elven adept, but pointed ears was a technical issue. My Voice Director also wanted to mutate someone into an ork or troll, but that was impossible (though still a good idea).

I have lots of ideas about the movie. Do you use AIM? My name is ninjaphilosopher. If you friends me, we can talk at length.

Of course, in the RPG, these combats would take hours and hours to run.

Dude, Miko shouldn't have been able to slap Knight; physads beat samurai any day!!!

But just to name a nitpick of mine: how will you indicate that her slapping him is really, really strange? If you just slow-mo it, it'll just look stupid.

The underlying idea behind Miko would be that she has the prototype tech that's in the Cyberzombie and (not to ruin it for you) Knight spends most of that fight surviving by plotanium cajones alone. In that specific case (under 3rd ed, anyway), he would had to have been definitely superior in order to beat an aware opponent in a surprise round while he was relaxed.

I must admit that "the slap" turns out to be one of those throwaway comments that turns out to be central to conflict resolution ("like the shot of the cook in Hunt for Red October...") and those are always difficult to handle. I would say that a time distortion, it not explicityly slo-mo throughout, could be done without cheesification (especially if the slap did something like toss him into some sort of small aerial maneuver to recover); however, the character comment proceeding are really meant to clarify what happens. Overall, I have quite sometime before I am ever gonna get around to producing the movie (forthcoming announcements may explain why).

Are you always invisible on AIM or something? I've yet to see you

A few things bugged me:

1) Volume issues already mentioned

2) Camera panning way too much

3) Why on earth did he leave the laser?

Other than that and a few other minor things though, not too shabby. A thousand times (or more) better than anything I could do.

Does no one get that he came for the girl?

Maybe you can't hear it, but in the end he implies she is the reason he lives. Far more valuable than a ludicrously expensive laser...marginally...

"some reasons are worth more than money, not that love is reasonable"

That doesn't mean you throw the job and the payment out the window when all you have to do is bend over and pick it up.

You make it sound so unromantic

I'm not on IM that often; I should get on more often.

You mean like Shadowrun?

Well, I must contend that if Shadowrun were entirely about just getting the job, I wouldn't have played it for as long as I have.

Secondly, the model for the story was the Orpheus and Eurydice myth (exactly the same myth Max Payne 2 was based on), thus I think it wouldn't have driven home the message had he bent over.

Lastly, it makes the characters far more complex, and a bit more anti-heroic, if they're willing to blast through something like 30 guards just to lose two people in the process (if you count Phoenix) just to choose not to complete their objective.

I suppose the person you should really be noting here is viper. He would have picked up the laser before he left, I guarentee it.

I'm not saying there's no reason for romance in shadowrun, I'm saying that there's no reason that I can see to walk away from money and damage your reputation like that. I could somewhat identify with the character up until that point. He even said he'd do any run if you paid him, so obviously money is a concern.

In the end he says (in case the VO really really doesn't come through)

"The riches of the Shadows aren’t really paid in nuyen. It all comes down to reasons greater than money. Tonight, I found a new reason to live and two more reasons to kill. The cred just keeps me running; further from my past, nearer to my death, closer to the edge. Running until maybe I find a reason to stop."

How could he say that while picking up the laser? The cred is just a means to an end and is ancillary to his real goals, which he implies are redoubling his efforts to screw over Ares. What could have been really good: picking up the laser, thinking for a moment, then throwing it out the window and walking back to the t-bird, but that required far more acting that MP2 could have expressed.

OK I guess I could see a mentally deficient person walking away from lots of cash, even though they could use that cash to start doing whatever purpose their life just achieved. And if screwing over Ares is his new goal, how does letting them keep their toy achieve that?

I could see Viper not picking it up, as he'd probably assume that his boss would. Maybe after a short argument the lead guy gets tossed out of the aircraft and Viper flies it back over to get the laser.

Maybe I should make a sequel just for that

Tossing it out of the window would have at least broken it.

Overall, I think Viper would pick it up just to rig a way to recharge the battery and use it as his main assault weapon from then on. Being much like Jane from Firefly, he'd probably name "her" as well.

Definitely make a 2 minute sequel with Viper beating the crap out of him and going back for the laser.

I was thinking more about an assassination attempt on Damien Knight, but I suppose I could dumb it down a bit...

What's your IM name, eralston?

eralston123 (eralston was taken, naturally)

But NinjaPhilosopher WASN'T. Therefore, I am better than you.

If arseface were not taken, would that make him better than me too?

Because obviously the need to hide behind a pseudonym is "awesome."

At the same time, if emo wasn't excited by obscure names, he might not be excited by obscure things like my screenplay.

FanGirl, the best word you could put in would be those spoken by your own voice. Record something and send it to me. It may be a while before I get around to SR: The Full Length Movie, but I have ~4 intermediary Machinima planned between now and then.

Plus, female voice actresses are hard to find (of quality anyway).

Ah, how I wished to have deep conversation about the subtext of my movie or grand visions for the future.....oh well, wasn't really playing to the strengths of the internet...should have asked for porn

Hey, I can easily do deep conversation; I'm just not on AIM that much. I'll go on tomorrow, okay?

And were you bitching deliberately to bait me into saying that?

I do suppose that is one concern.

One huge advantage of Black Bird Studio was their equipment. They were thoroughly professional in other respects as well, but high fidelity capture is irreplaceable.

If you try to capture at home, try this:
1) do it surrounded by sound absorbing material (blankets and curtains)

2) do it straight into a digital format (recording onto a computer with a quality microphone and sound card is good enough

3) do it with a quality microphone (they are not that expensive)

4) Try to get as much volume out of your voice as possible (I'm not saying yell, I'm just saying jacking up microphone volume can cause static)

If you are good, which I'm sure you are, the listener will be able to tell that through technical limitations

Thanks! I've realized that getting access to recording equipment is not that much of a concern for me, because I know nerds a-plenty and one of them is bound to have the tech I require. My only real worry right now is what I'm going to say in the recording: I've never auditioned for a voice-acting role before, so I'm not exactly sure what's expected of me. Perhaps the choice of words isn't all that important, but I want to make sure I do it right, you know? I'd like to read a monologue as opposed to just winging it, but the only good monologues I can think of are from Shakespeare, and Shakespeare doesn't mesh well with cyberpunk. Any advice?

I just thought of one really good option! Emo mentioned an interest in being a voice actor as well, so I might arrange for us to record a short dialogue or two together. Emo and I could show off each other's snappy timing and witty repartee and stuff, and we would be less nervous and awkward in the recording than we would be if we each did an individual recording.

My only concerning about auditioning as a pair would be if there were no witty repartee and one of you was chosen and the other was not. Otherwise, if you both believe yourselves professional enough to accept that possibility, it could really help your performance.

As far as what to say, Shakespeare is not really where it's at for a few reasons:
1) His words are not the vernacular thus I wouldn't learn what you "normally" sound like
2) His words are expressive on their own, meaning that the quality of your voice performance would be decpetive
3) His work is established as having a certain style of presenation that you are undoubtedly going to respond to in your performance (probably by emulating it)

Point number three will be true of anything you try to read that was not original dialogue; however, Shakespeare is an extreme case of presumed style.

You should select the dialogue from a movie or TV show that you enjoy, but not seen a million times (to prevent emulation). You should select snippets of different styles, try to touch upon:

1) Comedy (which is difficult)
2) Despair (which is very difficult)
3) Romance (Try to tell someone you love them with a straight face, I mean try it!)
4) Short lines (something you have to sell with your voice instead of your words, extremely difficult)

If you stil don't know what to do, I suppose I could come up with a scream sheet of possibilities

Files of any format (preferably a low-loss, but compact size) can be sent to erik.ralston@gmail.com

I definitely hope that you pursue this, if not to realize your dreams of voice acting, then just to have a lot of fun. I like working with new people (they're not tired of me yet) and you seem like people I want to work with

I really liked the audio track and the voice acting was really good as well. I'm not so sure about the animation? I think I would relegate this product to a audio play and that could be very cool. I'm not a super fan of Machinima so I'm biased....Excellent work though all in all.

All cutscene quality animation in MP2 was custom done for each cutscene. The general use animations in the engine are competently done, but boring.

Yet another reason why I'm finding a new engine

PS: Kryton "head shaped like a novelty condom" Kryton?