More screenshots

Here's a screenshot of another new character... likely to appear in episode six.

Our Most Recent Episode Yet!

Coming Soon to a Google Video Link Near You

As you've probably surmised, there is no new episode today. Sorry, thems the breaks, you got two last week.

Fear not, however, as a new video is nearing completion and will likely be completed and uploaded some time in the next 24 hours. Not a formal episode within the series, but nonetheless related. New characters too...

An Ever Growing Audience

I'll have exact numbers for opening weekend tomorrow morning when Google updates their reports. Suffice it to say the size of the audience has been nothing short of astounding. Episode Two was approaching 1,000 views only six hours after its release (almost purely through word of mouth, as this blog and www.whatisthekochtopus.com had registered barely over 100 views combined by then).

Then, of course, Lew Rockwell blogged us yesterday and interest really exploded. That's generated a ton of new traffic not just for the videos embedded in the blog entry, but for the official site as well. Indeed, it even generated dozens of views for Koch Hit 1 and 2, and a handful of downloads of the audio commentaries thereof (which can be found here).

Late Night Double Feature

Episode One:

Episode Two:

Two episodes with one blow?

As I mentioned before, episode two is completed...

Rather than staggering them out, I think I'm going to put them both out at once tonight.

A little bonus

I made a bonus Koch Cycle wallpaper file. You can get it below:

http://www.whatisthekochtopus.com/kcwallpaper.jpg

An Update

Just thought I'd check in and let everyone know that Episode Two is officially completed... so we're on schedule to start releasing. Episode One hits this Friday, so be sure to check in nice and early. Episode Two will hit the following Friday. I'm still hoping to get Episode Three done in time to keep it going on a weekly basis. The last two are shaping up to be pretty long (though they're on hold now that I'm working on three), so there's definitely going to be at least a one week gap there, maybe two (which for symmetry's sake makes more sense, then we could re-release 4 one Friday and 5 the next Friday).

Right now though, just assume there is no firm release schedule past episode two... I think I can get three done in time, and I'll update when its firm, see you guys on Friday for Koch Cycle Episode One: Rothbard Rising.

In the meantime, why not watch the trailer again?

On the Koch Cycle

As those who have visited the official site already have discovered, my prequel project has gotten a bit more ambitious. Instead of a single movie, we're going to have 5 (actually 7 if you count the two Koch Hit movies).

Koch Hit will henceforth, at least in the context of the broader series, be known as Koch Cycle Episode Four: A New Hope. KH2 will be Koch Cycle Episode Five: Wrath of Koch. Episode one is virtually all finished, but given so many people are busy with ASC I'm leaning towards waiting until next week to put it out there. Its not just that though, I want to make sure Episode Two is finished too so I can put it out in a timely fashion. Episodes One and Two are very episodic, and it just won't do to make you guys wait too long after a cliffhanger ending.

Optimally, I want to put one out every Friday. Realistically, I might need to take a week off between Episode Three and Episode Six, though I might put together an Episode Four Director's Cut for that week with the deleted scenes restored. Maybe I'll toss in a teaser/trailer for Episodes Six and Seven as well...

Six and Seven are what I'm really looking forward to making. I've got rough outlines for both all written, and I think they'll be a good cap for the series. The prequels... they're fun, and its a good chance to fill in backstory for the uninitiated, and put a more cinematic spin on some of the events we're all familiar with... but you guys basically know what happened.

The Trailer

Below is the new trailer. The website mentioned therein, http://www.whatisthekochtopus.com/ is going to have all sorts of details soon, but I'm not going to have time to get to that tonight. Still, no reason you can't watch the trailer now.

Screw Side Projects

I guess I'm going to just go headlong into the prequel since nothing simpler is coming to mind and I'm actually starting to piece together in my head where I want the prequel to go. I created a brand new character, even shot some preliminary footage (no hints yet).

I have no clue how long its going to take to make or whether I'm making one prequel or two (I have two titles in mind and probably more stuff than I could practically put in a single episode). Since its been so long since I've done anything and people are starting to forget (I'm sure they'll remember if they snag a copy of the DVD) about the whole thing I'd really like to toss a teaser/trailer out there sometime in the middle of shooting. You guys like teaser/trailers, right?

Limitless Possibilities

Sometimes the ideas come faster than you can type them, other times you can sit here for hours and nothing comes.

Lately I'm having a hard time deciding on a next video. Its not that my head is totally empty... indeed, I've had one idea that's been running through my head all day.

Here's the problem: its totally undoable in my present setup, and totally unrelated to libertarianism. Its more something one would do with a proper animation program like the one I bought last month. Sadly, I'm still fairly early in the tutorial stage of that, and nowhere near ready to tackle something that complex.

So I sit here... writing dialogue, sketching character models, on something I might never get around to making. And yet, I can't bring myself to put the idea aside for a minute to make more of the machinema style videos that are what's getting me my audience. At least I got the DVDs out the door before I ran into this block.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring some better ideas for a short video I can make. I'd really like to dive into some actual production this weekend, which is something I haven't gotten to do in quite some time. I'll keep you posted.

Finally Finished

DVD production really takes forever. Thank God for the DVD label applicator I got off Amazon.com. I finished this morning though, now I can finally get back to making new movies. Probably I'll do another side project before tackling the prequel headlong.

Hopefully it'll get more positive reaction than Universalizability did. Though part of me wants to be a total contrarian and make Universalizability 2: Electric Boogaloo.

So much to do

There's really an amazing amount of work involved in the creation of a DVD... this in spite of the fact that 99% of the content going on it was already created. Seriously, I don't recommend it as a hobby and I don't intend to tackle such a task again unless I'm damned sure its warranted.

But its nearing completion. All but a couple of the videos have been cleaned, exported, and the layout for the DVD itself is designed. I still have to pick out a song for the menus, but I've narrowed it to just a few choices. The big task remaining is to burn however many discs I plan to send, try in vain to get my five year old inkjet printer to spit out some labels that will actually work, and get all this over to the post office in a timely fashion. Sometimes it seems like I'll never make it!

Oh, that picture up there is from one of the deleted scenes. I spent the better part of the afternoon getting those cleaned up (and finishing one which was only partially shot). I'm really starting to regret that I didn't include those scenes in the original Koch Hit, because they look better than I remembered them.

Presidents Day Bonus Content

Wrath of Koch with Directors Commentary

A "shame-on-me" weekend

I felt really uninspired this weekend, so other than a little work on the DVD labels I didn't accomplish much. Still plenty of time to get this thing finished I guess.

As I mentioned on the commentary track I uploaded on Valentine's Day... I recorded a track for Koch Hit 2 as well. It sort of got interrupted by a phone call but I managed to cobble together a half-way decent version. I'm still debating whether to use that or record a new version... but I guess there's no reason to keep this version a secret at any rate.

Not sure when I'll get time to upload it, but keep an eye out.

Valentines Day Bonus Content

Koch Hit: With Director's Commentary

Actually (Movie 1 - I Can't Drive 55: The Stephan Kinsella Story)

It was exactly one year ago today Anarcho-Pacifist Films was born. To celebrate, here's one of those movies very few people have seen... the first in the series. We've sure come a long way.

A very busy week

I did some recording today... I'm really hoping to have some Valentines Day bonus content up, nothing special just a little something... but its really predicated on my having time somewhere in the next 48 hours to get it together.

Still working on research for the prequel, there's tons of great stuff out there, I'll talk more about that when I have some time.

As the excitement dies down

The number of views for Koch Hit 2 really surprised me. While the first one started off really slow and sort of spread around over the course of a week or two, the sequel seems to have created a stir over its opening weekend. It does seem to have quieted down now though, and so its time to start looking forward at future projects.

There's lots of stuff I'd really like to do, obviously the promised prequel has to be written, new characters designed, etc. I'm also putting together some other stuff that hopefully will take less time. Keep an eye out for updates.