We're not dead. We are hypocrites though.

Hey everybody,

I guess I can really feel for Valve and Samsung now when it comes to horribly missing release dates. The final stages of post-production for Half have been gathering dust sadly, due to the fact that MVM's biggest and most expensive project is well into production. However, don't lose hope. Half will officially appear on Youtube in its entirety in late August of this year. Enjoy the soundtrack and the trailer until then!

Kurt Richardson

Half Soundtrack Preview

Hey everybody, I've been working quite hard at the musical soundtrack for Half. Here are some of the tracks from it that you can download for free from my musical project's soundcloud: Thanks for listening! Half will premiere on Youtube this Saturday! Kurt Richardson

At Last: The Trailer.

The Origins of Half

Hello everyone,

We have decided to start a video blog so that we can let you in on the project personally, and show clips from the film itself. We'll try to post these weekly and cover a lot of topics in the videos. Here is the first episode, about the origins of the project!

Amazon logo is copyright Amazon.com. Valve and Portal are copyright Valve. The music used in the episode is directly from the soundtrack for this film which is done by the electronic group Skyscape Paradise (skyscapeparadise.bandcamp.com).

Be sure to follow the blog to be able to get a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card!

Kurt Richardson

We'll fix it in post...

Those 5 words give me nightmares. There have been many times where we shoot a scene, it looks horrible, then we say, oh, "We'll fix it in post..." (post-production). I have learned a lot about visual effects from these experiences. I am proud to say that I am looking forward to releasing the trailer for the film in February and releasing the film itself in April. I had a wonderful adventure in post production today and it went something like this:
I had this video to work with:

Not very impressive quality-wise. The biggest problem however is the fact that what you see is the actual size of the footage! Yes, we accidentally shot 3 takes in one half standard definition or in layman's terms, half the quality of a VHS. This is the only footage I had to work with and I had lots of trouble deciding what to do.

In the end, I found a plugin for After Effects that actually can turn SD footage to HD which I desperately needed to complete the shot. After the conversion, and some high quality color correction, I came up with the following:

(Click to view in HD)

In the end, I was quite happy with the results.

Stay tuned for more news from MVM!

Kurt Richardson

Out of the Frame and into The River

Well Well Well, It's Christmas Eve already and here I am shivering at my PC working on the good old half movie. First of all, this is a shot in the middle of editing, half way completed. It looks awesome because it seems like Pat is leaping out of one video and into another. Quite cool. It's been quite busy so here is an update on what the MVM team is cooking up. We are excited to announce that production for "The Second Half" will begin in the early summer of 2012. Not only that, but half is still set for a release in May! There will be a public showing in Saline MI, as well as a way to order DVD copies. The thing about making a movie like half is that you have create a LOT of backstory. There is a lot of backstory for the film that is not told and there are many loose ends that require tying up at the end of the film, so we are creating a sequel. Jared, Pat, John, and I have learned quite a bit about film making from this project as well as other ventures that MVM does. And a lot of that was learning by doing. During the production of half we made mistake after mistake after mistake. But you know what? We never made the same mistake twice. So obviously, half is not going to be a cinematic masterpiece. It will still be awesome, just not quite as awesome as it could be if it wasn't a first attempt at film making. Enter "The Second Half." This film is going to be twice as long as half and have way more actors, as well as a developed storyline that fits quite nicely with half. The second movie is going to cost tons more than the first but the film will be quite worth it.

I hope that you find this update satisfactory, there will be a trailer coming in January...

Kurt Richardson

Thanksgiving Update

Hey there everybody,

I thought I might give you an update about what's been happening at Mountainside View lately. We have been working hard on Half while planning our future projects at the same time. I was really excited because it looks like the film will have a little bit of genuine aerial footage, which will spice up the movie some with some epic forest shots and whatnot. The title sequence has been fun to work on with a personalized title for every actor. Patrick, you are going to absolutely love yours. ;) Anyway, that's all for now, and I'll try to make another update again soon.

Kurt Richardson