en-us Machinima Excellence http://litfusefilms.com/ admin@jphantom.com (c)2007 Lit Fuse Films http://www.litfusefilms.com/images/about/image.jpg http://www.litfusefilms.com/ It is with great pride that I am able to say that Lit Fuse Films has finally received an award. Yesterday, at around 8:00 PM in Hamburg, Germany, Rob and Michael were called up on stage to accept the First Prize trophy in the Machinima category at the Bitfilm 2008 Digital Film Festival. Funny Story, Litfuse started  because Ben, Rob, Mike, Lars, and I all teamed up to create Maintenance Man for the first Bitfilm Digital Film Festival.  were it not for Bitfilm, litfuse probably would not have existed to begin with. We didn't bring home any medals last time, though we did get both Second and third place with Maintenance Man and Ballad of Black Mesa. But things have come around, and Lit Fuse Films has won our first major award from the competition that started it all. Although, I really have to give my special thanks to all the fans who supported us for this competition, and from the beginning. For, if it was not for you all, this would not have been possible.For more updates on the ongoing adventures of Robert and Michael at Bitfilm, stop on by the blog. Stay tuned. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/07/10/victory_comes_home/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/07/10/victory_comes_home/ zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST For some fun 32 player TF2 action, head on and fill up the Lit Fuse server using I.P 208.43.48.161:27015. Also as a side bit to fill out this news here's what's happened and happening in the past and coming weeks. Lit Fuse Films turned 1 on the 23rd of JuneRob and Michael (me) are attending the BitFilm Festival in Germany Rob and Zach are preparing to move to Canada in the coming month/sMichael and Zach have been practising using the Unreal engine for Machinima use, so far we're pretty content with it and hopefully will be releasing some Unreal videos soon.The Machinima Festival 2008 is happening at New York City on the 1st and 2nd of November and we'll be there. Check the blog more often if you don't already, it's fun, I think it is anyway... http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/06/28/tf2_32_slot_lit_fuse_server/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/06/28/tf2_32_slot_lit_fuse_server/ michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Today I once again have the pleasure of presenting to you a new movie. You should really go ahead and just digg it right now. Also the music is now available. Jill's SongFocusing specifically on a single therapy session and a single monologue, Jill's Song is a different kind of entry in the machinima genre. We've got no space marines or wacky humor here; just a guy who has got some major problems. It is the result of a lot of hard work, and some incredibly talented folks, coming together for what I can only describe as "a warm up". I can assure you that those who stay along for the full ride will be treated to a taste of things to come. We are not done with this character, not by a longshot. I have to give special praises to Ricky Grove, whose performance in the video can say more about my appreciation for his help than anything I can say about him here. and VOTE FOR DENNIS. voting time's getting slim and we need every last star. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/27/the_written_word_a_song_a_shiver/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/27/the_written_word_a_song_a_shiver/ zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST A couple of weeks back both Robert Stoneman and Zachariah Scott went to Edmonton in Canada for a job interview with the games company Bioware, We've both just been informed that they've given us the job as Cinematic Designers! This does impact on Lit Fuse Films with Machinima progress! But we are hardcore! so do still expect high quality Machinima from us both! So a well done to us!! just shows that doing something you greatly enjoy and dedicate yourself too will get you to some pretty awesome places!Also DENNIS!  http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/16/rob_and_zach_go_to_bioware/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/16/rob_and_zach_go_to_bioware/ steinmann Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Hey all,We have been experimenting in a couple of game engines from Unreal to Second Life, Machinima wise.Second Life is interesting both the actual way of how the online world works and making Machinima.Where people take it VERY seriously from having weddings to kids!! I've decided just to create an experimental Machinima music Video! Machinima in Second Life has just really started up! So promoting Lit Fuse into Second Life we hope to leave a mark as one of the top Machinima studios within Second Life just like we've done with HL2 and Garry's Mod!It's Lit Fuse SL Machinima! so here we are:Dancing's EasyIn other news to do with Second Life, Ignis Solus won a lovely award for the Best Original Sound Design at theOnline Machinina Film Festival Awards Ceremony Zachariah picked up the award in the virtual world. Thanks to our very talented music composer Larsa, the award really goes to him! so TO LARSA!!!!The award can been seen at our online shop in Second Life here:Visit the ShopAlso take some time to vote for DENNIS. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/13/dancings_easy/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/13/dancings_easy/ steinmann Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Hello All!Rusty Whispers - Dennis got nominated for the Bitfilm Awards 2008 in the category Machinima! If you've enjoyed Dennis in the past, you can vote for him on the site! VOTE HERE. The audio on the voting page is out of sync for some silly reason so if you want to see Dennis in his full glory, head to his PAGE. When you vote you will need to sign up, this takes 20 seconds, I'm sure that's not too demanding! plus when you vote you get automatically get entered into a prize raffle.Lit Fuse Machinima wise, we have got a couple of Machinima's coming out VERY VERY soon! so stay tuned! both myself and Zach went to Canada so we've been busy for a week or two. Also expect some classy Machinima from Michael.k.Clements in the near future!! all good stuff! http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/08/bit_film_awards_2008_dennis/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/05/08/bit_film_awards_2008_dennis/ steinmann Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Well, it's been a damned long time. Shamefully long, but we're back in business. This time, with yet another example of our probably unnatural fetish with melons. You can check out our new release, MELON 3, to see what I mean. Make sure to watch until the very end.For a more in-depth post on the subject of this release, head on over to The Blog, but be warned, a wall of text awaits. Get the music from our music store! http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/02/28/grab_life_by_the_melons/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/02/28/grab_life_by_the_melons/ zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST We were approached about 3 months ago by Matt Pellett of Xbox World 360 magazine and asked us if we would like to have 5 of our greatest videos put on the DVD. We of course said yes, but it's not been the first time we've been in a magazine, though it is the first an editor contacted us about it. I'd like to thank Matt for giving us an entire section of the DVD to ourselves, we were in representing the Orange Box. We'd like our money now VALVe. Just kidding.. but seriously.. we should talk. We can contact him for any future productions, which shouldn't be too long now (you'd know this if you read the blog). http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/01/23/magazines/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/01/23/magazines/ Michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Everything Filipe makes looks awesome! Look at that background image he made just for this news post, it's incredible.Anyway, for like a week now we've been 'breaking' in the new music feature that many of people have been asking for, mostly for Ignis Solus music but still asking none the less. To properly announce this joyous occasion, we decided to create a little promo video to go with the full announcement.Check our Extras page for all of the download/stream links, or just skip ahead to our YouTube stream. stage six stream is being a bit buggy right now. Thanks to Brad, Josh, Lars and Filipe for helping me put together the music page and hope you guys like the music and promo.We'd also like to bring back some attention to the recently launched Lit Fuse blog that we mentioned earlier. when we first announced it there wasn't a whole lot worth reading, but the place is much more happening now. We've even posted some clips that were considered lost forever. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/01/06/listen_or_die/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2008/01/06/listen_or_die/ Michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST http://www.gameriot.com/contests/blackbird/12eqAHYvrc/ vote for mysfit. he needs every single vote he can get!  he's in the middle of a very high stakes competition and together, we can help one humble machinima maker have a very happy holiday. Please, have some kindness in your heart, and support mysfit by going to this link, and voting for his machinima entry "GLaDOS vs BLACKBIRD". just press the little plus sign, and you're good to go.Edit: Thanks to all those who chimed in and supported one of our community members http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/12/27/quick_vote_for_mysfit/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/12/27/quick_vote_for_mysfit/ zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good time and to try and help with that good time, we're bringing you a new site update which I mentioned in the blog.We have created a short Holiday video for you all to enjoy, which can be found in the Extras movie page. Think of this as our little holiday treat. So be sure to watch our Holiday Notice 2007! Anyway here's a short list of the main things that have been added:New 'Apple' like poster layout for the movies page, if a movie is new or has been updated, the poster will have an image saying New or Update.Movie player, the nice cinema skin that is now customisable for our own specifications, so keep an eye out in the future for different looking skins.Blog, anything we feel like posting we put hereNicer feel to the news pageHighlights at the bottom, sort of our internal adverts to highlight something such as our ventrilo server.Major thanks to JPhantom for coding it all, Filipe for designing and thanks to Jimbom for slightly helping out. Have a good christmas. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/12/24/lit_fuse_christmas_update/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/12/24/lit_fuse_christmas_update/ Michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Hey guys, it's been a while since we've done anything right? Yeah we've had a bit of a break for the past few months but all will be explained later.The staff decided to create a blog together, a lot like Garry's blog, where we can post about things about Lit Fuse but also about our lives and any other things that we fancy posting about. Could have Lars post some segments of music in there, could have Filipe showing what he's been drawing lately and could (and does) have info on what's going on with our filming.It's just started out but hopefully you guys will jump in there and bookmark or rss feed it and get what we have to say first. Zachariah has posted what's basically been going on with us during this break but I for one think it's going to ramp up again shortly with the website upgrade which aswell has been posted on. Stay tuned. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/12/23/lit_fuse_blog/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/12/23/lit_fuse_blog/ Michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST today is sadly . . . not a new movie day.We apologize for being a bit dead lately. I had something planned for halloween, but about 5 days before the 31st of october. I suffered a complete hard drive failure, and lost a massive pile of work, scripts, videos, choreographed scenes, and personal data. I've basically recovered the capacity for work, and I can promise that there IS some great stuff in the pipe. it'll just take a little longer to get done. In other news, we were recently contacted for a podcast interview by Phil Rice, who runs the overcast podcast and I reccommend ya'll head on over there and give it a listen, if you're curious as to how things run around here. I sound like a frog, I blame it on my posture during the interview. Also, a friend of mine, Ross Scott, who runs the series "Civil Protection" , managed to put out a pretty insane halloween episode of CP titled "Halloween Safety" and I promised to give it a link. He's put a ton of hard work and love into the episode, so make sure you watch it all the way through! Good things are coming! don't despair! - zachariah  http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/11/12/podcast_tastic/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/11/12/podcast_tastic/ zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Hey guys, we know it's been a little bit since we made our last post/video but that's down to waiting on the SDK for Portal/TF2 and HL2:Ep2, also other things factor into it but I'd say that's the majority of it.  Anyway, short story of it, like a few weeks ago we got invited to the Machinima Europe, we didn't win but we had a great time with Roosterteeth and Paul Marino and the other machinima groups that were all supportive of us.Have yourselves a gander at this video now, oh and by the way, I'm the fatty :D Click here to Filefront it. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/11/01/machinima_europe_festival_video/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/11/01/machinima_europe_festival_video/ michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST  ***ANNOUNCEMENT***now that orange box is out, if anyone would like to game with some of the lit fuse crew, you can find our TF2 server at this ip: 87.117.208.14:28500 it's dead quiet right now and could really use some action.   It's new movie day. Today's film is a piece by the title "Ignis Solus". You can check it out here. Ignis Solus is latin and roughly translates to "burn alone". This film is a bit of an experiment in Improvised machinima, and I'd like to think we managed to get something worthwhile out of the attempt. Also of note, as far as we can tell, this is the first machinima produced using Team Fortress two that wasn't made by valve. If you enjoy the video, please, take the time and head on over to Digg and give the video a vote. It only takes a minute to register, and voting for us can mean an additional 10,000 to 50,000 views: every vote counts. In other lit fuse news. We sadly did not win the bitfilm awards competition, However we came criminally close, with Maintenance Man taking second place, and Ballad of Black Mesa taking third. Thank you to everyone who voted, we put up a good fight. But that's not all in contest news, in just 5 days our own Robert Stoneman, Michael Clements, and Jordan Brindle, are heading over to Leicaster to attend the first ever "Machinima Festival Europe" where the Ballad of Black mesa is up for nominations in the categories of "Best Sound" and "Best Experimental". ***SITE GOT DUGG. TRAFFIC AHOY***so we managed to get up onto the front page of Digg videos, which is currently bombarding the site with traffic. A big thanks to all of you early diggers who helped make that possible. we couldn't have asked for a better response. The traffic to the site has been crashing Lit Fuse Films for quite a while now, and not just lit fuse films, but the server it is hosted on, as well as it's sister site phwonline. So if you're having trouble with the site, its cause we're just getting too much traffic. it should clear up in a day or so. Until then, thanks for all of your support.    http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/10/08/ignis_solus/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/10/08/ignis_solus/ Zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST At last! I let this one sit for a while, as I wanted Combine Nation 2 to get it's share but here it is and I hope you enjoy:Daniel lives in a dead & lost bunker, Rusty Whispers follows his daily routine and life in his weird world. Open the door to Daniels world here. In TF2 news, Lit Fuse Films now has it's own TF2 16 player server hosted in the UK, Click here for information. So if you're up for losing agaist the LitFuse staff then join the server! If you find the server is passworded, it's because we are using it for filming and such.Also we have a Ventrilo Server, so if you'd like to chat to the the team or use it with your mates to play TF2 then please do join!   http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/09/28/rusty_whispers_daniel/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/09/28/rusty_whispers_daniel/ Steinmann Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Episode 2, of Combine Nation, is at long last here. It's taken a bit longer than we anticipated, due in no small part to new releases like Bioshock and Team Fortress 2 [beta]. Nonetheless, the next installment in the Combine Nation series has finally arrived. I present to you, Combine Nation: Episode 2. We also have some behind the scenes time-lapses of two of the big effects elements in Episode 2, so once you've watched it, head on over to our newly created Lit Fuse Films: Behind the Scenes Stage6 profile. Of course, we wouldn't be so lazy as to spend 4 weeks on something without having a little extra to show for it, so we've also added a fun little promo ad titled "Do your Part!" over on the extras page. And finally, in contest news, I have two contest-related announcements to make. First, Lit Fuse Film's "The Ballad of Black Mesa" has been nominated in the Machinima Festival Europe awards, under the categories "Best Sound" and "Best Experimental;" so cross your fingers and hopepfully we will win. Secondly, and more importantly, both Maintenance Man and The Ballad of Black Mesa are open for voting in the Bitfilm Awards competition, so if you haven't laid down a vote for each, we urge you to head over there and do so. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/09/23/combine_nation_blowout/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/09/23/combine_nation_blowout/ Zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST At long last, we present to you, the public release of Lit Fuse Films' latest creation. Maintenance Man. Here's a quick rundown. Taking place in parallel to the events of Half-Life 2: Episode 1, one man is tasked with repairing the combine citadel even as it collapses, hilarity ensues. Like all Lit Fuse productions, this film was a collaborative work between quite a few talented people. Weighing in at just over twenty minutes, I can testify that quite a bit of work went into this film. From the amazing soundtrack by our talented composer Lars Erik Fjosne, some awesome voice talent and soundscape editing by Robert Stoneman, stunning visual enhancements by Ben Hundley, this film goes down as a true, team effort.I would also like to point out that this film is a finalist in the Bitfilm awards competition. The contest is now in it's Public voting stage, so please, we encourage you to visit THIS LINK and take a few minutes to register and vote for us. Lit Fuse films has also qualified for voting with their film "the Ballad of Black Mesa" so if you're registered to vote for us with one, try to give the other a vote as well. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/08/31/maintenance_man/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/08/31/maintenance_man/ Zachariah Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST Zachariah Scott has been hard at work on his new series of machinima called Combine Nation. "In this inaugural episode of combine nation, we recieve our first introduction to a few of the characters, as officer Bundles and Lieutenant Tibbles investigate a possible civil disturbance." 'We'd like to give thanks to all of the fine folks who helped launch this show and hope to produce many more in the following months. -Zachariah' So go watch Episode 1 of Combine Nation (in High Def) and just for a heads up, Episode 2 is fully under way so please check the website and the forums to keep on track with everything. Also for wallpapers for Combine Nation from Filipe, check out this and his folder. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/08/19/combine_nation_episode_1/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/08/19/combine_nation_episode_1/ michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST MAINTENANCE MAN OFFICIAL TRAILER!!!!!!! Maintenance Man has been done for over a month now but we've HAD to keep it to ourselves because it was entered into the BITFILM Machinima awards and yes we're in there. The official release date for the video is August 30th, so PLEASE come back on that date to watch it and vote for us to win BITFILM, a vote for us is a vote for HL2, GMod and ... us. For now here's the Maintenance Man trailer, click away and tell your friends. http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/08/16/maintenance_man_official_trailer/ http://litfusefilms.com/news/2007/08/16/maintenance_man_official_trailer/ michael Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 PST