Okay, I have to admit, I had no idea what Pecha whatzit was either until I received an email from the NJ Chapter coordinator of IGDA, Sean R. Scott, asking me if I would like to participate by talking about my press experience as it relates to the game industry. The concept is simple enough: Each of the seven presenters must show twenty images (using Powerpoint or Keynote) and explain each image within twenty seconds. That may sound like a lot of time but I assure you it isn’t, especially when you don’t know what you’re going to talk about!

It’s been relatively recent that I have started to cover games and game companies (thanks to joining IGDA) but out of the 134 stories I have written to date, only six can really be labeled as “game oriented.” That left me with fourteen empty slots to fill. What to do…?

Eventually time won out over preparation and I had to kludge together a rambling presentation about the growth of my website, my continuing struggle to make ANY kind of a adventure/sci-fi film in NJ and what games inspired me to create a Transmedia IP, before I even knew what transmedia meant.

When all was said and done I received a polite applause (we all did) but I came away knowing deep down that I lost focus in presenting my ideas. Now that I have a better idea of what is expected, I think I’ll be able to do a more interesting presentation for the next time. All in all, it looks good on the resume.

I’m back with another interview (in the same week)! This time, I talk with brothers Tom and Joe Costantini, co-founders of Two Animators! LLP, located in Hamilton NJ. Having refined their natural talent for drawing through art and design studies while in college, Tom and Joe now utilize Flash to push their creative envelope.

www.futureincite.com

As promised, here is another story before the end of the month. This time, I interview Director/Writer John Launchi about the process and pitfalls of making his first feature film “Laid Off.”

www.futureincite.com

I had the opportunity this weekend to work as grip for an IEEE.TV interview shoot. As for the webzine, I’m currently transcribing the next interview, and waiting for images and videos from two other interviewees. With any luck I’ll have something to post before the end of the month…

Things have pretty much stalled with the webzine at the moment; one story is in limbo, I’m waiting for another interviewee to respond to an email interview and yet another article is dependent on the delivery of some key images and videos from the contact person. To further add to the backlog, I have three more interviews to conduct before the month is out.
In addition to the above, I’m slowly re-designing the website in Dreamweaver CS4 and I was surprised to learn that Adobe hasn’t incorporated some of the brilliant features that were included in GoLive CS2.
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Tom and Joe Costantini of Two Animators! LLP in Hamilton Twp, NJ. More on them and their company soon!

So I’ve been in contact for some time now with video console game industry professional about doing an interview and after about two months, things have suddenly gone awry. Apparently, although the person agreed to the interview and even answered the questions, the company’s PR department has taken exception to this free publicity and have not given permission for its release. Now, from my POV, none of the questions I asked could even in the most remote possibility have been damaging to the company in anyway so I must conclude the answers must have been very candid. I’m not sure if this particular story will ever see the light of day, but I’m working on quite a few more that, with any luck, will be published before the end of the month.

Ok, I admit it. After all these years, tonight was my first time inside the Stone Pony. I was camera one on a two camera shoot for a new musician. We were supplied with Sony HD Z1U camcorders: camera two was to be hand held in the crowd, while I was stationed in the booth with the DJ, tied in to the house mixer for sound.

Two problems arose almost immediately: The artist wore a super white shirt that positively bloomed in the viewfinder everytime he stepped into the light and the bass drum was so “intense” that the camera lens actually vibrated with each “boom.”

The shirt situation was easily solved by riding the aperture as the artist walked into and out of the light, but the vibrating lense? Without an isolated shockmount platform, there really wasn’t much we could have done with what we had. The Stone Pony management does not allow tripods on the dance floor so we couldn’t relocate there and the producer wanted to have camera one as the master shot, so that negated using it as a second handheld.

Note to self: If you are going to shoot in a club, either budget for an isolated/shockmount platform to rent or purchase or have more than one handheld/iso camera on the scene for extra coverage.

Located in Asbury Park, Susan Pellegrini’s multi-faceted company, Synergy Productions, produces commercials, promotions, live events and provides AV/IT systems installations. And while all of that pays the bills, she still manages to find time to produce original short films. You can learn more about Susan and her company here:

www.futureincite.com

Hi Readers,
No, this is no April fool’s joke. Apparently the most used search word was “bikini.” Why? Readers from around the world used that word to find my archived story about the D1GP and the ubiquitous bikini contest pictures I shot. Who knew?

Overall, March has proven to be a banner month for the webzine/blog. Over 6000 readers visited. I would like to thank the readers in France, UK, Japan and Hungary for their growing presence and look forward to doing stories in their respective countries sometime soon.

Thank you all for sticking with me. I realize my output is slow in this fast paced world but I do my best to give you something that is worth the wait.

The Garden State Film Festival is eight years young this year. Headquartered in Asbury Park, the festival came a month earlier this time and was set up among seven venues. It was my first time attending all three days and it was worth the effort. Check it out here:

www.futureincite.com