Ross Scott

I made an update. Unfortunately things are still not great. I'm going to try seeking some legal consultation somehow.

It's caused more stress over the past few months than almost anything I can remember over the past few years.

You answered your own question man.

I think Rage might be the closest I can think of recently. I'd say Bulletstorm had some punk elements to it, even if it might be a stretch to call it a punk game. Actually I was trying to go for over the top. I also wanted to establish that the Doom guy had a little bit different personality from Freeman. Freeman is a physicist who has some real mettle to him. The Doom guy is a space marine who is such a badass he gets kicked out of hell.

I don't think it's necessarily a reflection of Machinima as a whole, but I will say that the contract I've been shown in its current form strikes me as "evil." There's way more stuff in there that's been added than there was in the past, you can't attribute that to being overworked, it took more effort to add that.

Well in case there’s any confusion, yesterday was April Fool’s Day, so there are no episodes 1-6 of Doom Guy’s Mind, it was meant as a joke. One thing that’s no doubt confusing people is why this was up on Machinima.com’s channel. I’m just as surprised by that as anyone, as I still do NOT have a new contract with them and I am waiting to hear back from them. They decided to make an exception for me submitting a new video for April Fool’s Day, so that’s how Doom Guy’s Mind got posted. I actually thought for certain they wouldn’t resolve things in time, in which case I would have posted it on my own Youtube channel. Out of all the videos I’ve created however, I feel like this one is likely to appeal to Machinima.com’s target demographic more than any other. Working on Doom Guy’s Mind kind of made me nostalgic for “punk” games. There were a lot of punk games in the 90s. I feel even with the indie scene there aren’t enough punk games today, but that’s probably just me getting older. Doom was also the first video I’ve had to record realtime in a while, which is a challenge for my system, since I don’t have a SSD. With all the Source videos, I export the footage frame by frame, so it’s all perfectly smooth. I hate having to record in realtime, because one hiccup from a hard drive means the footage will start getting choppy. Also to clear up any confusion, this was NOT the Freeman’s Mind related side project I mentioned earlier, that’s still a work in progress. I hope to be able to announce that in a week or two. Besides that, I’ll be continuing work on future Freeman’s Mind episodes. I’ll make sure they eventually get released one way or another.

More on that tomorrow.

hell yeah

Shwd0jkvfc0 (Downloadable copy will be up later) Hey everybody, sorry for such a long wait on the next episode, but it's finally here. I think this episode turned out a little better than episode 6, let me know what you think. Also I think there's a glitch or something where Youtube is labeling this video as having offensive content, but that's an error because this video is totally not offensive.

Well I've been offered a contract and while I can't reveal anything in it here, all I can say is there's no way I can sign it in its current form. I submitted a list of revisions needed, I'm really hoping things can come to a sane solution.

It's a complicated issue. I really can't go into detail on it because of the contract, but here's the simple version of it: Machinima wants to change the terms of the contract. I need certain assurances before I can agree to it. If those can be met, great. If not, then I guess I will have to leave. Either way, I need communication with them. If I just leave without some sort of resolution with them, it could cause a whole extra level of problems that will make my life worse all round. I really do wish this could be happening faster, it's driving me nuts.

Once I have a contract, I'm going to document every exchange that's taken place between me and Machinima.com since December, with select quotes related to the situation. I won't be naming individuals or discussing specifics of the contract, but just how long this has been taking has become farcical. I want people to know exactly how this process has gone.

I was ready to RELEASE the next episode mid December. I'll wait until I actually have an official agreement with Machinima.com, but I may detail a play-by-play of how long this has taken afterwards. The analogy I've been making is the situation is kind of like having terrorists storm a building and take people hostage, then they say they'll kill the hostages unless the police give into their demands. So the police ask them what their demands are and the terrorists don't say anything. That's kind of where I've been almost 3 months now.

This is just a quick update to let people know I have finally had some real communication with Machinima.com and I THINK something is going to be able to be worked out so I can have more Freeman's Mind episodes out as soon as possible (assuming this post doesn't jinx everything). Besides trying to get ahead on FM episodes I'm also working on a side project that is directly related to Freeman's Mind (and no, it's not a different series) that I'll announce later. EDIT: I've been told today (Mar. 22nd) that there should be an agreement proposal sometime by the end of next week. While I can't discuss specifics, I'll keep making timetable updates as I get them.

Unfortunately I still have no update on releasing new videos (speaking of which, if someone wants to make me an offer on Freeman's Mind or Civil Protection, go ahead and email me). In the meantime, I've mainly been doing freelance voice acting work, but I want to work on future videos, whenever they come out. There are two key areas I could really use help in: WEBSITE DESIGN / PROGRAMMING: I've been wanting to make updates to the site for over a year now, but don't have web programming knowledge myself. Some of the things I wish to do are update the FAQ, add extra info fields to the episode pages, and have some sort of Wordpress plugin system so I could manually generate new episode pages myself, etc. AUDIO EDITING: I have had some great audio editing help in the past, but it's a real dice toss as to whether anyone will reply if I need help with a video. I'm looking for someone to add in sound effects, do some general reverb processing, and volume balancing. If you have examples of previous work you've done, please send me a link to them. - - - If you're interested in helping in either of these positions, please contact me at [email protected]. They will have to be volunteer positions since I'm currently in Ramen noodle territory myself. For audio editing that I use, I will put you in the credits of the video, and for website help, we'll find a way to credit you somewhere on the site. Also I'd like to add that if you are interested in helping, try to sound semi-professional. If I get an email like this: " ya ill fix ur site wat u want -Sent from my iPhone " it doesn't inspire confidence in me as to your abilities. I'm old-fashioned like that. EDIT: I've received a bunch of offers since I made this post, so I'll probably be covered once I sort through it all.

Maybe it isnt....but I am trying to analyze the situation from a viewer standpoint since well there are alot of Machinima.com Directors who are being kept in the dark on wtf is going on...especially if they have been a partner with Machinima.com for a long time, so to see this happen.....aswell as the constant layoffs from alot of departments that Machinima.com has had for a while....it seems like the Machinima filmmaking industry aswell as gaming in general are starting to fall flat if it was on the stock market....it looks like it is going downhill instead of up Here's what I can say: Machinima.com wants to do major changes to my contract regarding payment and rights to the videos. Some of this would be positive, some of this would be negative. I need to discuss the specifics of this with them so I can make an informed decision one way or another. This is what I've been trying to do since this news was dropped on me mid-December. Having any communication on this has been very difficult. Meanwhile, all videos are on hold and everyone is frustrated, me more than anyone.

No way, I can't last that long with that level of indecision. I was told "try to have something by the end of the week" 16 days ago and "couple more days" 9 days ago. I've sent 2 follow-up emails since then. Believe it or not, this is progress compared to what was happening in December / early January.

It's an annoyance for sure, but the alternative is just releasing videos now, then having my whole Youtube channel nuked on miscommunication a few weeks from now (I would assume) once they get around to everything. If I don't sound more outraged, it's because this isn't the first time for me that Machinima has taken a long time to get something done. I'm probably most upset that I was notified of the changes until a week before I could submit my last video in 2012.

Some news: I finally got in touch with Machinima last week, they want to make an offer, but it's still taking them a while to put it together, so I'm still in the dark about what's going to be happening. In the meantime, I still can't release new vides until this is settled one way or another. I plan to, but the outcome of negotiations with machinima may determined how that happens. I have some more information now than when I wrote that. I think it's very unlikely the series will be permanently jeopardized anymore, with or without Machinima, but this is still a mess until it gets resolved. It does, I'm not an employee there, I only was for a few months in 2009. I still get some income from them, plus communication has been going so slowly, even if I stated over and over again I wanted to leave, it would probably take them a few weeks to actually make it happen. No, it's not that simple at all or anything that has been posted here.

Actually $3,000 represents more money than all existing donations combined. Because there are consequences for releasing a video without having discussed this first. They're not UNWILLING to talk, they're just taking a very long time to establish communication with. If I were to just release a video without any communication first, I'd say it's probable that my personal Youtube account would be flagged and taken down by Machinima. here would probably be a lag time on it too. If I discuss it first, then I can have a clear course of action for releasing future videos. It's more complicated than this. Again, it's a matter of communication. The rights aren't a clearcut thing, but I can say they don't own them all outright. HOWEVER, if I just start releasing new videos, communication at Machinima is such, that I think my Youtube account could get banned by ANOTHER department at Machinima not even in communication with the one I'm talking until the whole thing got resolved weeks / months later, creating a big mess in the process. Also I've gotten some good voice acting offers so far, I'll be working on that until the Machinima.com mess gets sorted out.