Pushing the Envelope

Its no secret that Anarcho-Pacifist Films has been using the custom scriptwriter option in The Movies to create our work. That's been getting increasingly limiting... and since the 4th movie we've been going post-production in iMovie HD to create deeper, longer films. But even then, its not hard to see we're hitting a wall. That's going to become even more apparent when our seventh movie is released, tentatively this Friday.

Lovingly crafted Lew Rockwell avatars and off-beat scripts are good for a laugh, but with the same couple of dozen generic sets and ready-made scripted actions, its almost impossible to avoid repeating ourselves. 10 minute films are no small achievement when one is using the built-in machinema option tacked on to the video game, and as each of our first five movies was markedly longer and more complex than the last, and movie six was a marked pullback because frankly, trying to shoehorn complexity onto this model gets tiresome. Movie 7 will be approximately as complex as Movie 5, maybe slightly more... it is not, as some have suspected, the eagerly anticipated "Open Issue" movie that we promised before, that's temporarily shelved until the expansion pack enables some of the more complex stunts we need. But its rapidly becoming time for a change.

I'm not saying we're gone with The Movies, because its still a nice application for simple films, and there will no doubt arise occasions when its a perfect medium. These characters are popular, and took a long time to create, we're not ready to retire them just yet. Simply put though, its not enough by itself anymore.

In the upcoming days, we'll be making some decisions regarding what direction to go with future projects, and of course putting the finishing touches on Movie 7. Stay tuned.