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News

2/10/2002
After almost two years I got around to updating the site. I've been getting alot of email to that effect. Sorry for being away for so long. We took a year long break after the last update in 2000 and the whole crew has had alot of personal issues to deal with before we were ready to come back to this project. The internet bubble bursting didn't help us either. Some of our "Angel" investement was coming from that neck of the woods. We do plan to get this movie finished. It just might take a few years longer than we thought. Hang in there.

5/07/2000

Plastic Pixel has joined the About.COM affiliates program.

7/05/1999 Just got Adobe GoLive and took the plunge to update the site with this new software. GoLive still has alot of bugs but hopefully Adobe will iron it out. Now that I have GoLive, I can add some snazzier elements to the design like rollovers and style sheets.
As for the animation, we are moving along again. Nearly all of the dialog is recorded for the first episode and I am working daily on a draft version of the tape that has dialog over the storyboards. This will establish timing and hopefully draw out any problems with the story.

Regular visitors will notice the Trademark symbol everywhere. Although I should have done that two years ago I was forced to add them after uncovering evidence that someone was trying to hijack the trademarks for fun and profit at my expense.

3/17/99 Wow! Too many things have happened since the last site update. All voice actors have been selected! I'd like to welcome Cheryl Paserman(Michiko), Michiru Kaioh (Mitzy) and Eimily Martin (Miranda) to the cast. Another major development is that I (Mark) have relinquished my duty as lead artist and keyframer to the VERY talented Jerry Caraway. Jerry's excellent drawing skills and phenomenal style convinced me that he would add a certain look to the animation that would have been missing. This let's me spend more time producing, directing and coordinating all of the things that need to come together. I've added some of Jerry's sketches to the gallery and you should see some more of his work here soon.

9/19/98 Did a major re-vamping of the website. The style now reflects a vision I have developed for the Plastic Pixel character. I'm very pleased with the Nine Inch Nails/Cyberpunk looking theme now.
The backdrop is a scan of a circuit board that was then color corrected along with other manipulations in MetaCreations Painter5. It was then made seamless by using another Painter feature.

The script is done! It's 100 pages long and the final animation should average 1 minute per page. I have divided the story into four 25 minute episodes. My original idea was to tell the story in 30 minutes but that was simply not achievable with the story as it evolved. I will be offering a limited edition printing of the script as soon as it is registered with the screenwriters guild. Send Email if you want to get on the waiting list to order one before everyone else.

After talking to numerous friends I have determined that the title "911 to the Fourth Power" is too much for a title. The name of the project has been shortened to "The Fourth Power" and the logo redesigned.

8/9/98 Doing a little re-vamping of the website.
The last six months have been a roller coaster ride! We proudly showed some short clips of two 3D sets. The amazing part was that we rendered the flythroughs at HDTV (1920x1080) resolution as part of Sun Microsystems server-based HDTV playback hardware.

Now Mark and Nyles are back to focusing on pre-production issues. I am currently taking my chicken scratch storyboards and other notes and putting it into an acceptable screenplay format. I am on page 34 of an estimated 90 pages. This should be done by August 30. I will make a limited run of signed and numbered scripts available to any collectors out there.

I have also joined the Amazon.com partners network. My "Stuff" page will have a list of books and music I've found helpful during the development of this project.

Once the script is done, I plan to do the official storyboards. These will also be made available in a HTML format and a bound collector's edition.

2/21/98 Added an AVI of an animated Plastic Pixel logo with music on the studio page. Check it out!

2/16/98 Ok. I finally got some sleep after preparing for and attending FanimeCon at Foothill College in Los Altos, CA. What a great con! The dealer's room was packed full of great stuff and I bought my share, including "Whisper of the Heart" on laser disk to add next to my "Kiki's Delivery Service" also on laser disk. I met with the creators of "Gremlin Trouble", an American produced manga. I highly recommend it! I also met with Shawn the Touched of White Radish who is the reason I am doing anime. I saw his stuff a few years ago and steered my talents into producing anime. I see a trend here. I talked with the great people at Beaman Company. Hi Micky! I just finished updating the web site. I don't want to disappoint all of you who came here looking for something cool and different in anime. I pushed out two AVI files for some of the anime I am doing. Tell me what you think. I also updated the CGI page and promise to put out some AVI's there soon too. And one last thing... Check out the new image for 911⁴ on the studio page. Then you will know why I didn't get any sleep last week!

1/11/98 My winter vacation really put the damper on progress but I am going to try and get more stuff out onto the web site. My friend John Giannangeli will be doing the music for 911 and will be spending February and March in the Bay Area (he lives in Colorado). Hopefully we can get some composition done and put a few wave and MIDI files out for you to hear. So far the music style will be inspired by Sarah McLachlan who's music has inspired most of the scenes I have written so far. I still haven't ruled out licensing one of her songs, Vox from her album Touch for the title song though. My next goal is to get some of the storyboards out onto the web site and do a new promo image of the 911 title featuring all of the characters. Once that is done I will try to offer a limited edition T-shirt with the image. I don't plan to add any more characters to the line-up. This is it folks! Now I am ready to begin the story!!!

1/11/98 Added Mitzy Maehehm character and new image for Myles Meddleton on the Characters of 911 page.

10/17/97 The 911 project is moving along! We have most of the characters worked out. We're still working on the villain. About 25% of the story boards for the first 30 minute episode are done. We will begin on the scratch video version soon. This involves taking each story board panel and adding a scratch dialogue track to it. This will be composited in Adobe Premier. This piece will allow us to work out any character introduction issues and let us see if the shoreline makes any sense to outsiders yet.

10/17/97 - Plastic Pixel launches the web site!


2/10/2002		After almost two years I got around to updating the site. I've been getting alot of email to that effect. Sorry for being away for so long. We took a year long break after the last update in 2000 and the whole crew has had alot of personal issues to deal with before we were ready to come back to this project. The internet bubble bursting didn't help us either. Some of our "Angel" investement was coming from that neck of the woods. We do plan to get this movie finished. It just might take a few years longer than we thought. Hang in there.
5/07/2000		Plastic Pixel has joined the About.COM affiliates program.
7/05/1999		Just got Adobe GoLive and took the plunge to update the site with this new software. GoLive still has alot of bugs but hopefully Adobe will iron it out. Now that I have GoLive, I can add some snazzier elements to the design like rollovers and style sheets. As for the animation, we are moving along again. Nearly all of the dialog is recorded for the first episode and I am working daily on a draft version of the tape that has dialog over the storyboards. This will establish timing and hopefully draw out any problems with the story. Regular visitors will notice the Trademark symbol everywhere. Although I should have done that two years ago I was forced to add them after uncovering evidence that someone was trying to hijack the trademarks for fun and profit at my expense.
3/17/99		Wow! Too many things have happened since the last site update. All voice actors have been selected! I'd like to welcome Cheryl Paserman(Michiko), Michiru Kaioh (Mitzy) and Eimily Martin (Miranda) to the cast. Another major development is that I (Mark) have relinquished my duty as lead artist and keyframer to the VERY talented Jerry Caraway. Jerry's excellent drawing skills and phenomenal style convinced me that he would add a certain look to the animation that would have been missing. This let's me spend more time producing, directing and coordinating all of the things that need to come together. I've added some of Jerry's sketches to the gallery and you should see some more of his work here soon.
9/19/98		Did a major re-vamping of the website. The style now reflects a vision I have developed for the Plastic Pixel character. I'm very pleased with the Nine Inch Nails/Cyberpunk looking theme now. The backdrop is a scan of a circuit board that was then color corrected along with other manipulations in MetaCreations Painter5. It was then made seamless by using another Painter feature. The script is done! It's 100 pages long and the final animation should average 1 minute per page. I have divided the story into four 25 minute episodes. My original idea was to tell the story in 30 minutes but that was simply not achievable with the story as it evolved. I will be offering a limited edition printing of the script as soon as it is registered with the screenwriters guild. Send Email if you want to get on the waiting list to order one before everyone else. After talking to numerous friends I have determined that the title "911 to the Fourth Power" is too much for a title. The name of the project has been shortened to "The Fourth Power" and the logo redesigned.
8/9/98		Doing a little re-vamping of the website. The last six months have been a roller coaster ride! We proudly showed some short clips of two 3D sets. The amazing part was that we rendered the flythroughs at HDTV (1920x1080) resolution as part of Sun Microsystems server-based HDTV playback hardware. Now Mark and Nyles are back to focusing on pre-production issues. I am currently taking my chicken scratch storyboards and other notes and putting it into an acceptable screenplay format. I am on page 34 of an estimated 90 pages. This should be done by August 30. I will make a limited run of signed and numbered scripts available to any collectors out there. I have also joined the Amazon.com partners network. My "Stuff" page will have a list of books and music I've found helpful during the development of this project. Once the script is done, I plan to do the official storyboards. These will also be made available in a HTML format and a bound collector's edition.
2/21/98		Added an AVI of an animated Plastic Pixel logo with music on the studio page. Check it out!
2/16/98		Ok. I finally got some sleep after preparing for and attending FanimeCon at Foothill College in Los Altos, CA. What a great con! The dealer's room was packed full of great stuff and I bought my share, including "Whisper of the Heart" on laser disk to add next to my "Kiki's Delivery Service" also on laser disk. I met with the creators of "Gremlin Trouble", an American produced manga. I highly recommend it! I also met with Shawn the Touched of White Radish who is the reason I am doing anime. I saw his stuff a few years ago and steered my talents into producing anime. I see a trend here. I talked with the great people at Beaman Company. Hi Micky! I just finished updating the web site. I don't want to disappoint all of you who came here looking for something cool and different in anime. I pushed out two AVI files for some of the anime I am doing. Tell me what you think. I also updated the CGI page and promise to put out some AVI's there soon too. And one last thing... Check out the new image for 911⁴ on the studio page. Then you will know why I didn't get any sleep last week!
1/11/98		My winter vacation really put the damper on progress but I am going to try and get more stuff out onto the web site. My friend John Giannangeli will be doing the music for 911 and will be spending February and March in the Bay Area (he lives in Colorado). Hopefully we can get some composition done and put a few wave and MIDI files out for you to hear. So far the music style will be inspired by Sarah McLachlan who's music has inspired most of the scenes I have written so far. I still haven't ruled out licensing one of her songs, Vox from her album Touch for the title song though. My next goal is to get some of the storyboards out onto the web site and do a new promo image of the 911 title featuring all of the characters. Once that is done I will try to offer a limited edition T-shirt with the image. I don't plan to add any more characters to the line-up. This is it folks! Now I am ready to begin the story!!!
1/11/98		Added Mitzy Maehehm character and new image for Myles Meddleton on the Characters of 911 page.
10/17/97		The 911 project is moving along! We have most of the characters worked out. We're still working on the villain. About 25% of the story boards for the first 30 minute episode are done. We will begin on the scratch video version soon. This involves taking each story board panel and adding a scratch dialogue track to it. This will be composited in Adobe Premier. This piece will allow us to work out any character introduction issues and let us see if the shoreline makes any sense to outsiders yet.
10/17/97	-	Plastic Pixel launches the web site!