Free Greetingstorm iPad Moviestorm App

Happy Christmas from Moviestorm!

Enjoy an early Christmas present from Moviestorm with our free Greetingstorm app!

A fun way to create an animated video greetings card for your friends and family.

Get it from your App Store

Choose between a warm indoor scene with Christmas tree, presents and a blazing fire, or a snowy outdoor scene with friendly snowmen.

Both scenes include a screen that you can use to show photos of your family, holidays, school events or anything else that you want to illustrate your greeting with.

 

Looking for inspiration?

 

If you are looking for inspiration, check out the Pet Power Rankings by Nahton Studios on YouTube

Happy Christmas from the Moviestorm team!

2013 Harb40 Passion Competition winners announced

Moviestorm are pleased to announce the winners for the film animation 2013 Harb40 Passion Competition.

The competition urged contestants to make a film set to a specific theme of passion. There were some restrictions on content, but films could be made using any animation program, video game or live action technique.

Two films submitted using Moviestorm made it into the winners list and the top five.

The winning films receive software prizes and the creators were interviewed on The Movies On Air Radio show.

The competition has received other sponsorship from Sony and Reallusion.

Creator of the competition, Craig Harbison said:

"Animation programmes like Moviestorm, The Sims and iClone are taking over in the competition.

"One of the nice things about the prizes like Moviestorm is the winner is given a choice of a free user license or to receive credits to purchase more gaming assets and enhance their animation video skills."

Craig (Harb40) began experimenting with animation back in 2005 after playing a game called 'The Movies'. After following a website called The Movies Underground, he was introduced to other games animation tools such as Moviestorm. Today, Moviestorm is now one of his primary animation programmes. 

Winners List

Here is the official winners list:

1st Place
Biggstrek -- Haunter of the Dark -- made with iClone

2nd Place
Josephkw -- Pickman's Model -- made with MS

3rd Place
D.L. Watson -- Dichotomy -- Live action film

4th Place
Mystery Egypt -- Friends -- made with MS

5th Place
Nahton -- Your Brains -- made with The Movies

The winners were announced during the Machinima Expo on November 17th.

A list of all films submitted can be found here.

Craig Harbison added: "We also added a short story category this year. The top story was submitted by Richard Poshard, aka RPO.

"Along with some professional writing software he will receive a one year subscription to a Moviestorm themed bundle or 5000 Moviestorm points (if he is already subscribed) to either turn his work into a short video or help to illustrate the story or any other work he has done."

Sony Creative Software, HitFilm and Reallusion along with Moviestorm were the sponsors again this year for the video category and Scrivener, Reallusion and Moviestorm sponsored the short story category.

A list of all 4 stories submitted can be found here.

Further links

To find out more about the competition, visit http://www.harb40passioncompetition.com/ 
Visit the competition Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/211515672195252/.
You can also follow the competition on Twitter @Harb40PassComp

Education: A Cinematic Approach to Filmmaking with Moviestorm

Here at Moviestorm we are delighted to bring you a case study by Gerry Paquette, Game Development Professor at Algonquin College, Ottawa, Canada.

Mr Paquette discovered Moviestorm after searching for an filmmaking alternative for his students.

Here, he tells of his journey with Moviestorm and the effects it has had on his class, education and learning. 

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Video game cutscenes and cinematics are staged within computer generated environments populated by virtual actors whose performances are recorded using simulated lights and cameras. 

As experienced gamers, my students are inherently aware of this fact making it hard for them to justify all time and effort required in learning how to operate standard digital video.   

My efforts to resolve this inadequacy lead me to consider using machinima and further research along these lines eventually led me to Moviestorm - a tool which removes all these hurdles making machinima accessible to all.

My students took to Moviestorm quite readily thanks to its game-like features.

 

Popular features

 

One of the most popular modules was the Dressing Room where they quickly figured out how to create virtual representations of themselves and their classmates often with hilarious results as they pushed the various parameters for eyes, ears, and noses to their limits. 

Navigating within the Set Workshop and Directors View was equally intuitive through the use of the WASD keys commonly used in games. 

Female students, in particular, seemed to appreciate the Sims-like interface used to control a characters movements and interactions with the set or other characters.

As an educator, one Moviestorm feature that I greatly appreciate is how it imbeds the classic “rule of thirds” composition guidelines into the user interface. 

 Rather than simulate real camera controls such as tilt, dolly, and pan, Moviestorm presents users with compositional lines attached to the characters which facilitates the placement of their bodies and eye levels within a picture plane that is subtly divided into thirds. 

Reflecting real-world limitations

 

A few students did experience some frustration when they realized that Moviestorm did not provide complete freedom in the manipulation of objects and characters which they are accustomed to having when working with regular 3D modeling and animation software. 

However, I found that these virtual world constraints to be a great benefit as they reflect the real-world limitations that need to be overcome when making movies.

There’s a lot of trickery involved in making the audience believe what in what is presented to them on the screen and many of the techniques developed for film are equally effective in Moviestorm.

 

Student examples 

 

The illusions of a character falling into a bottomless pit, for example, can be created in both worlds through the use of a green screen. One of my students needed to make his character appear as if he had been shrunk down to the size of an action figure. 

Just as in real filmmaking, the way he found to accomplish visual effect was to place the character onto a wooden floor and surround him with oversized desk props such as a lamp and computer.

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Working with virtual sets, rather expansive 3D environments, is also useful in terms of screen direction.
Since most sets feature just 3 walls, it’s practically impossible to place your camera in such a way that will break the 180-degree rule which must be adhered to diligently in order to keep the audience oriented in a scene.

 

Thanks to this new approach, I’m finally able to see cinematic results in the work produced by my students.

There’s nothing so rewarding for me then to cut them loose for their final assignment and watch as the group together to create engaging movies featuring gun fights, bank robberies, car chases, alien encounters, and even cast themselves as the struggling protagonists in a zombie apocalypse. 

The time and effort they put into these movies, often going above and well beyond my requirements, clearly demonstrate just how powerful a tool like Moviestorm can be in enabling learners.

 

Read this and other education case studies on the Moviestorm website at http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/hub/teaching/teaching_case_studies

Libertaria: The story behind the virtual opera, by composer Sabrina Pena Young

Award-winning composer and published author Sabrina Pena Young composes works heard in Asia, North America, Australia, and Europe.

In this exclusive guest blog post, Sabrina tells the tale of the story behind the virtual opera and why she chose Moviestorm.

"I've been wanting to create a film for a long time, and Moviestorm had the perfect tools that I need to make my dream of a sci-fi animated opera a reality.

Sabrina's work has been performed at venues like the Beijing Conservatory, the International Computer Music Conference, Miramax's Project Greenlight, the Athena Festival, the New York International Independent Film Festival, Art Basil Miami, Turkey's Cinema for Peace, and Pulsefield International Exhibition of Sound Art.
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The story behind Libertaria

In 2011 I started writing a story about a young geneticist that worked in a cutting edge facility that absorbed the energy from the ill and dying to make a new serum that rejuvenated the younger, healthy populace. In the short story, the scientist, orphaned at a young age, discovered that one of her test subjects was actually her mother.

The short story evolved over time and instead o ffocusing on the scientists, the young girl was placed in the genetics factory herself, escaping it to discover her addict father runs the resistance against the factory. With a hundred twists and turns, Libertaria tells the story with true operatic drama and sci-fi energy.

Libertaria is an opera for the Digital Age. Created with virtual characters in a computer-generated environment, Libertaria is easily disseminated through the internet and simple DVDs. An animated opera offers a lower cost than a full live production, although there has been acoustic versions of songs like Lonely Mother’s Cry.

In the end Libertaria is a groundbreaking opera experiment. Creating an opera for a fraction of a budget, an opera that requires no rehearsals to enjoy, appeals to the masses, and has a diverse cast of characters reflecting the global nature of our culture.

Libertaria questions our current sociopolitical reality and the actions of the government, it questions war and even family.

Libertaria challenges musically and ideologically and will change our time.

Production for Libertaria was entirely online. The cast auditioned virtually through Music Xray and other sites, the animators worked together using Moviestorm, communication continued through e-mail and facebook." 

Why Moviestorm?

"I enjoy using Moviestorm because it is very intuitive, affordable, and easy-to-use. As someone with a film and music background, it was easy to jump into animation head-first using Moviestorm's excellent tools and simple platform. 

For my film Libertaria: The Virtual Opera I needed to use a program that could quickly lip sync over an hour of original vocal music, and Moviestorm was up to the task with the help of talented Moviestorm animators like Kera Hildebrandt. 

The easy integration of Moviestorm footage with third-party software like Final Cut and the use of settings like Cel Shading helped Libertaria: The Virtual Opera have a distinct graphic novel with epic visual effects for a micro-fraction of the cost. 

The Moviestorm community is invaluable and incredibly supportive, even volunteering time and talents towards production. Moviestorm made my dream a reality. I look forward to using Moviestorm for many years to come."

More information

What:  World Premiere Screening of LIBERTARIA: THE VIRTUAL OPERA, by Sabrina Peña Young

Where: Calvary United Methodist Church, 301 1

When: 3:00 P.M., Saturday, October 5th

Cost: $10 Donation. FREE admission for students (w/ID).

Contact: Call the church office at 561-585-1786 or email shoreclare@aol.com

Further links

Artist Website: http://sabrinapenayoung.blogspot.com/

Official Film Website: http://virtualopera.wordpress.com/

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQqnHt3a-Oo
Soundtrack : http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sabrinapenayoung4

Baby Machine from Libertaria (Rough Cut) Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8x4ZUw-_oo

Opening Credits (Rough Cut) Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdNH5rxpsQ

Becoming a successful filmmaker with Moviestorm

Here at Moviestorm we are inspired by stories of success, and how our software helps users to become successful filmmakers.

We are pleased to share the news that popular filmmaker D.L Watson has won an award for his film 'The Unspoken' at the Oregon Independent Film Festival.

The popular 2011 movie starring Nick Pemble and Erika Antonsen scooped two awards for the 'best short film' category and also 'best actor in a short film'.

D.L Watson said:

"Moviestorm was very useful when shooting The Unspoken. I needed to figure out how to shoot a conversation inside of a car - maintaining the 180 degree rules, and to test out some visual literacy I had learned.

"I think any indie filmmaker out there needs to give Moviestorm a try. It's fast, easy, and will ave you money and time."

'The Unspoken' is hidden from public viewing but will screen at Clinton Street Theater in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday September 22nd.

The Red Carpet and Awards Ceremony will be Saturday, September 21st at the Clinton Street Theater and tickets for the entire festival, including the screening of the short film can be purchased here.

D.L Watson created the screenshots of film 'The Unspoken' and storyboarded using Moviestorm.

  "Instead of paying actors to come on set and block it out in real-life, I quickly was able to duplicate the scene in Moviestorm in the comfort of my home.  The great aspect about Moviestorm is I can quickly set up a scene, apply some quick animation and set-up a camera. Even better, I can even get a preview of what focal length I need lens-wise to get the look I'm going for. Having this information helps me save time and money on set."     

The trailer for 'The Unspoken' can be seen below.

 

Additionally, D.L Watson's 2010 short film 'The Letter' has been recently remastered in HD. The Letter was shot live action and storyboarded using Moviestorm. The video can be seen in HD quality below.

Further links

D.L Watson in a previous case study with Moviestorm: http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/hub/professional/professional_case_study_dl_watson
D.L Watson's Moviestorm page: http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/?u=D.L.%20Watson
More about D.L Watson: http://www.dlwatson.net/

Cafe Insomniac - from Moviestorm animation to novel

 

Cafe Insomniac - from animation to novel

A popular Moviestorm animation titled Café Insomniac has now been officially released as a novel that is available for download on Amazon, Kobo and the iBookstore. This is the brief story of its journey from Moviestorm animation to novel by its creator Mark Capell.

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Discovering Moviestorm

"I remember coming across Moviestorm just after I'd finished directing a TV series. I needed a fresh creative outlet and thought about making a live-action short film, but I didn't want to have to deal with the logistics.

Then I came across Moviestorm — animation software that didn't require traditional animation skills. I could just concentrate on making the most of my directing skills. I couldn't believe my luck.

The journey

I started with a couple of short films. After that, I started thinking of ideas for series. That's when I came up with the idea for Café Insomniac. I wasn't sure how it would develop, but I was enthralled by the mystery of the original premise — an insomniac gets lost in the space between dreams and reality.

In the spirt of experimentation, I didn't plan anything. I wanted to make the series as surreal as possible. No idea was too wild. And I was lucky to find some great voice actors among the Moviestorm community.

The response from people who watched it was overwhelming.

A couple of years on from the last episode of Café Insomniac, I wrote a novel, a thriller, that shot past The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to reach the top of the Amazon crime and thriller charts. I was committed to writing.

And after finishing a couple more books, I rooted around for my next idea. A little voice suggested that Café Insomniac wasn't finished, that I'd only touched on the surface of Justin's strange world. Café Insomniac became my next novel. 

Story development

Has Café Insomniac changed since those experimental days? Well, yes, quite a lot. The storyline is different. There are new characters. In some ways it is stranger than the original series but also makes more sense. If you read it, you'll see what I mean.

And in the novel, the story of Café Insomniac is told entirely from Justin's point of view. This allows the reader to get inside his mind, to feel his fear and confusion, as events unfold and become ever more strange.

Why Moviestorm?

But the guiding slogan from those Moviestorm days has remained the same: "I don't know what's real and what isn't. And which is most dangerous."

Without the Moviestorm version of Café Insomniac, I don't think I would have had the courage to attempt a full-length story with such an outlandish premise. It was thanks to the software and the positive reaction from the Moviestorm community that I could embark on writing the novel, thinking, hey, this might just work."

Cafe Insomniac is now available for download from Amazon, Kobo, and the iBookstore. There is a special promotion on Amazon for the first few days at 99p.

Further links

More about Mark Capell

Official website

Buy Cafe Insomniac

Other books by Mark Capell

'Animation as a killer marketing tool, and Moviestorm's role' from the New York Film Academy

Moviestorm are pleased to promote a post from the New York Film Academy, which explores the history of animation, it's role as a marketing tool, and Moviestorm's role in advertising and marketing.

By Zeke Iddon, lead content consultant for the New York Film Academy

For decades, animation has been a major vehicle for advertisement. In fact, animated commercials actually predate animated features by many years. In the early 20th century, when Vaudeville was giving way to silent movies, animated ads for various products were often shown on the big screen, accompanied by sales pitches. By the time Gertie the Dinosaur, the first character-based animated feature, came to the screen in 1914, audiences were already accustomed to animated marketing messages.



As animation became more advanced, commercials continued to be important. Today, many well-known mascots and beloved advertising campaigns are delivered through animation: From talking M&Ms to the GEICO gecko, many brands have created iconic advertising campaigns through the use of animation.

Why Animation is So Effective for Marketing

Part of the reason why animation is so valuable for marketing is that it interacts with the brain differently from real-world imagery. Animations are a type of caricature that exaggerate the features of their subjects. The resulting combination of bright colors and simple shapes can be instantly absorbed by the brain, making animation extremely adept at triggering an emotional response.

Today, animation is just as relevant as it was a century ago. If anything, it's even more vital than it used to be as a generation of tech-savvy web users has little patience for text. The fast-paced, simple-to-digest nature of animation makes it very appealing for many businesses.

Of course, there are a few other reasons why animation is a popular option for marketers:

• Animation is not constrained by the limits or reality, allowing messages to be delivered through a more symbolic or fanciful approach than would be possible in live-action commercials.
• Unlike static print advertisements, animation can tell a story and capture the viewer's attention through motion and sound.
• Animated commercials age more gracefully than those featuring live actors, who can quickly become dated by clothing, hairstyles or other factors.
• Animation appeals to a wide segment of viewers, and it's possible to direct a marketing message at several demographics at once.
• It's simpler to brand animation than live-action advertising. Many of the mascots that serve as brand spokespeople have been “alive” for more than 50 years thanks to clever reimagining.

Whether a business is planning to launch a full-scale marketing campaign with animated advertisements or just wants to take advantage of animation to jazz up some existing informational materials, there are plenty of compelling reasons to use animation for your business.

The Cost of Animation: A (Potentially) Limiting Factor

If there's one thing that prevents many businesses from taking advantage of animation in their marketing campaigns, it's cost. A simple live-action ad featuring a single talking figure in a business setting may be boring, but it's affordable. Animation can be more labor-intensive and costly, especially if outside vendors must be hired to complete it. When businesses do try to cut corners on animation, the results can turn off potential customers who are accustomed to higher-quality work.

Animation is expensive because it's labour-intensive. Whereas a static image for a print ad must be drawn only once, animation requires 24 illustrations per second of film. It takes a staff of 15 artists approximately three months to create a single half-hour animated television show. Despite the many benefits of animated advertisement, that sort of expense simply isn't in the budget of many businesses.



Fortunately, there are a few solutions that can help make animation more affordable for marketing departments. Computer-generated animations are not as labor-intensive as traditional cel-shaded animation, and audiences are growing increasingly accustomed to the 3D-rendered look in animation. In addition, talented illustrators from places like the NYFA are constantly entering the workforce, willing to apply their degree-level skills for a comparatively inexpensive graduate wage.

In many ways, video games have paved the way for improvements in animation, and some creative players have learned to modify existing animations from games into completely new products through an artform called machinima.

Moviestorm takes advantage of some of the technology behind machinima to enables artists to create unique animated features. The software is affordable and intuitive, and it offers the first video-sketch tool. 

Users can utilize the content packs offered in the download and customize them to suit their needs, and affordable bulk licenses are available for business use. If you're curious, you can try a free 14-day sample and see whether Moviestorm can provide the advertising solution you've been looking for.

Making better movies with Moviestorm

We've written a lot on the main blog recently about how you can use Moviestorm to practice film techniques. Several people contacted us to ask whether we had any specific examples of how to do it. I’ve therefore been putting together a collection of simple exercises you can do to learn specific techniques, under the working title Making Better Movies with Moviestorm.

These exercises are all fairly adaptable. Generally, you don't need any particular packs or content: any version of Moviestorm will do. Most of them work on the same principle: take a single scene, and film it in several different ways. You can use the same scene over and over again if you want - I often use a short scene from one of Per Holmes's training DVDs, and another, slightly longer one, from a parody soap opera I was working on some years ago. This is actually a pretty good way of working, as you can focus explicitly on the one aspect you're practicing, and reuse much of what you've previously done; sets, characters, recorded dialog, and so on. You'll also develop an increasing empathy with the scene, and you'll find each take getting better and better, rather like a musician practicing the same piece over and over. When you've worked your way through several exercises, you can compare all the different versions with your first attempt, and see what you've achieved.

These exercises aren't specific only to making movies with Moviestorm. They're standard techniques that apply to all forms of film. For example, one focuses on filming a scene without moving cameras, and then filming it again but allowing the camera to move. Another requires you to shoot the same scene with and without extras. You can then take what you've learned to any other film-making medium - full CG animation, live action, or whatever. The advantage of using Moviestorm is that you can practice when it's convenient for you, and you don't need to assemble a cast and crew each time. And if you're not happy with what you've done, you can easily go back and do it again and again until you're satisfied.

Each exercise takes somewhere between an hour and an evening, depending on what's involved and how long you want to spend on it. Each one uses a standard format:

• Technique: what you’re going to focus on
• Purpose: why this is important
• Preparation: what you need (typically, the type of scene that works best for this)
• Exercise: what you do
• Review: analysis of the two versions and how they differ
• Followup exercises: more things you can try to develop this technique

I‘ve so far written up about half a dozen of these, with around ten more sketched out. Before I release them, however, I want to make some videos that will show what each exercise is highlighting (i.e. the same scene filmed with locked and moving cameras), and possibly create some downloadable Moviestorm movies that you can use to get going.

We’ll probably release these exercises initially through the blog, then we’ll collate them on the Web site. If there’s demand, we’ve been talking about putting them into an ebook for wider release.