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23/6/12
Hello there it's me again. Webmaster Mark. Or rather at the moment Director Mark. Yep I'm still directing the current episode as Gax hasn't yet kicked me off it for doing a bad job, means I must be doing a good job....right....RIGHT?Anyway, so yea still working on this episode and it's coming together really well. I've gotta say that it's an awesome experince to be on this side of the episode and see everything coming in as the guys do it and also being the one to say 'yay' or 'nay' to a particular piece. Not that there have been many 'nays'. The guys are doing a great job as always and are only getting better at it. I've got to admit to still going to Gax on the occasion to double check some things or see what he thinks of a particular bit, but normally all I get from him is either 'It's your episode' or 'What do you think?', which is really helpful...well it kind of is really in a weird way. If he says something like that, I go back, look at things again in a different way and sometimes go back to old versions or want to try something new. He may not accept it but he's a pretty good teacher really. I knew nothing about directing, didn't even know where to start when I got on this episode but after some good advice and scathing looks from Gax I feel more confident about what I'm doing, actually have the guys listening to my suggestions and would love to try it again in the next series....if I'm allowed.
Been checking out some stuff with the website too. Just some statistics from our host. Makes for some interesting reading. One thing that took me aback a bit was the fact that since we started the website on 02/04/11 to today, we've had 31134 visitors! These aren't unique visits just all visits to any of our pages, but it's way more than I thought we had, and It's nice to know that our work is something that people want to see and return to. Another thing I found out which didn't really suprise me is that we got our biggest influx of visitors in October. This didn't surpise me because we got a lot of feedback in October last year about the site because it was being used by a sixth grade class to learn about zombies and they found a lot of our links and useful and loved our animation, we also got other great feedback during that month, I mean who can stay away from Zombies at Halloween?
I'm also adding a few more pages to the website that will be live soon, something that will help you learn more about the team behind Todd. I'm going to go play with these pages now so I can get them up as soon as possible.
Laters for now.
28/5/12
We're back! Yep, the site was down for a few days because 1&1 decided we hadn't paid our bill....but this was only because they tried to take it from a non existent bank account. But that's sorted now, the bills paid, the sites back online and we're back to normality.
I was going to upload a blog over the weekend to update you on episode 5 progress but of course the site was dead so I'm doing it today instead.
Things are coming along....swimmingly! The guys are doing a great job as usual. All the cell and AVI work is done, now it's with Gax and Ecky for the WMV work. Gax is spending his time working on scenes with sound effects and dialogue and Ecky is working on the rest. So far we've got around 7 minutes of finished footage. Not sure exactly how much more is to come but to give you a bit of an idea, those 7 minutes are 16 out of the total 42 scenes so we're still a way to go yet, and this is still without music remember. Which of course is on it's way from Richard.
I think soon we'll be looking at putting together a bit of a teaser trailer for you guys to see once we've got enough footage to give you a proper glimpse into the HR problems Todd and the gang are having. So keep a look out for that pretty soon.
Other than that things are rolling on pretty well and we hope to start recording the rest of the actors dialogue in the next couple of weeks.
I'm off now to make sure the site is still working correctly after the downtime.
See you soon!
2/5/12
It's a new month so I think it's time for a new quick blog to let you know what's happening.
Episode 5 is coming along pretty damn good if I do say so myself. This directing thing is harder than it sounds but I think I'm doing ok. We're now up to creating the cells for each scene, Sam and Ecky are pulling it together pretty well, although we're missing Luke for this episode they're doing their best to bring up the slack. Sams storyboards are coming through thick and fast too. I'm hoping that pretty soon we'll be onto the avi and voice recording stage, but one stage at a time, we're not rushing this episode, aiming to get it the best one yet!
20/4/12
Hellooooooooooooo there!
Looks like I'm back again. As I'm taking on more responsibilities for this newest episode I find the need to tell you all about it more often, so I guess you can look forward to a lot more blogs from me talking crap as only a member of TeamTodd can.
Since my last blog in which I announced I was becoming an Exec producer, I have now become the Director of episode 5, still with the aid of series creator and Overlord Gax, who is still doing some of the directing, but I'm basically in charge of where this episode is going which is kind of nerve racking. Luckily things are going pretty well so far. Most of the scripts have gone out, the story boards are being done, character and room designs are coming along nicely. I'm looking forward to when we start the animation stage and the actual production and putting together of the episode especially when it comes to adding the sound, music and voices. Of course I'm still working on the website and doing all the updating and such. And speaking of that, you may or may not have noticed, but there is a new page in the blogs section for one of our newest members of Team Todd, Paul. Paul is one of the voice actors who has recently come on board and does some of the additional voices in the show, these are usually engineer or 'red shirt' characters, but as this new episode has more characters he might actually be branching out to other types of character...we wouldn't want to type cast him now would we! haha. So if you want to check out his blog just head over to this page, his first blog is online now so check out what he has to say.
This weekend Gax, Ecky and Myself will be getting together to really get some of the episode 5 work nailed down and hopefully gain a few tips from the Creator about where best to go with our work. Ecky as you should know is one of our animators, but along with that he also does a lot of the design work, such as characters/rooms/items etc. And it looks, in the near future, like he too will become much more involved with the show as we go forward. So keep an eye out on his progress and on his blog.
Wow this has been a long blog, congratulations if you made it this far. I think It's time for me to upload this now and get ready for the long weekend of work ahead.
See you all soon!
14/4/12
I HAVE THE POWER!!!
Well a bit anyway...
Welcome to another blog from the webmaster and now Executive Producer of Todd. That's right, I've been promoted. This basically means that I will be taking a more active role in the production of the episodes. I have already been marking up scripts and passing them out to some of the voice actors, talking with the animators and taking pointers from Gax on how to get them to pull their fingers out and do the work haha. So far people are being nice to me and not causing me too much trouble but I'm sure if they want to be awkward they will be. It's awesome to finally be more involved and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will do OK and will be asked to do it again.
As you should already know, the episode we are working on at the moment 'Deus ex: Human Resources' is the last in this series, but don't worry we do have plans to continue on after this. More details will become apparent soon I'm sure.
I'm not going to give away too many details on what this episode is about, but I'm sure by the title that you's already guessed that it's about Human resources. Which, in Todds world is a crazed, power mad, other dimensional cult. And let's just say that they cause Todd a number of problems...
Anyway, I'm going to get back to work now messing with the website. I'm trying out something on my blog page as you may notice below, there is a new comment box. So you can comment on our blogs, ask us questions etc. Feel free to drop me a comment below. Get involved in Todd.
15/2/12
Hello and welcome back to my blog. It's been some time since I gave you and update on what I've been up to. Mainly because I've not really been up to much. The website has been ticking over nicely with minumal help from me, which in a way is nice because it means it's all finally working and doesn't mean I have to fiddle with it all the time, but it's a bit crap cause it means that I feel like I'm not really doing anything for the team anymore. But...I am now working more with Gax on the production side of the animation which is awesome! Not done much yet as we've just finished the current episode, but going forward I will be more involved with the animation guys and overseeing a lot of that which is going to be pretty fun I reckon, I just hope the guys go easy on me and don't give me a hard time for attempting to control them haha.
And like I just mentioned we've just finished work on Episode 4, which we got sent from Gax today. I've just watched it for the first time and as usual it's wicked! Lots of improvements that we build on from episode to episode so each one just gets better and better. I recently watched all the episodes from the start again (including the pilot episode that Gax created on his own) and it's brilliant to see the progress. I can see episode 5 being our best ever and don't forget it the last in this series, but I hear there plans for a second series, which I can imagine is going to be even better than this.
So the newest episode 'Satsuma' is released on the 19th March, so next Monday. Keep your eyes open for the announcement that it's online.
Roll on episode 5 'Deus Ex: Human Resources'!
27/1/12
I.AM.BORED. and alone on a Friday night as Jess has gone for a girly night out and I'm feeling way too lazy to get my ass out anywhere so I'm going to stay in, watch movies, eat junk, play with the website and quietly complain to myself about not having anyone to play with :) But that enough of me whining.....for now at least haha!
So tonight I'm just making a few tweaks here and there and adding a few little touches to the guys' blog pages nothing major but at least it'll keep me occupied, that and talking a LOT of crap on Twitter.
Just realised while I'm doing this that this is my first blog of the year, my last being on New Years Eve. This year has been pretty good so far. Fairly busy, but good. I've done quite a bit of behind the scenes work on Todd recently, including promotional and website stuff. As we've recently just got the newest script through, I've also been working with Gax to get some more cast and members of TeamTodd. Mr role on the series will be becoming more involved in the next few weeks and I'm really looking forward to the challenge.
So as the others have said, be sure to keep an eye out for updates on episode 4.
I'll see you all real soon as I better get back to website playing....with...yea....bye!
31/12/11
Hey there folks, I hope you've had a great holiday so far and as it's the last day of the year 2011 I thought I'd be the one to give you all a quick update as to what we've been upto the past couple of weeks and what we've got planned for the new year coming.
So as you know we released Episode 3: Vending Vidi Vici a couple of weeks ago and since then we've been kinda quiet, this doesn't mean we've gone. We're still here working away in the background but we have all had some time off over the Christmas period after a long year of hard work on the show. So what's happening with episode 4 you may well ask. So far our writer Colin is still working on the script so at the moment there is nothing else to be done in regards to that, the animation/design/planning/music guys are all waiting for the script to be handed over to Gax for review before they can move forward and start their work. Having spoke to a couple of the guys of the holiday I can safely say that they are ready on the blocks raring to jump into the episode. Speaking myself I can also say that I'm looking forward to the coming year and where we may go Todd and the rest of the gang. We only have another 2 episodes to do for this series but I do hear rumblings of a 2nd and some of the ideas that are banging around for it sound pretty damn sweet, so that's yet another thing to look forward to in the coming year.
I spoke to Gax recently about this and I can now say that we will also be looking for more people to join TeamTodd, so if you're interested just head over to the application form, fill it in and we'll go from there.
Over the break I have rewatched all 4 episodes we've so far released (including the pilot) and it's great to see how far we've come in such a short time, Todd is now a year old and everything seems to be coming together. The animation is improving, the voice acting is awesome and the things I'm most impressed with the improvement of is the music, props go out to our Musician Richard Ireland for his hard work and great musical talent. I always feel that in film or animation that the music is the thing that ties it all together and this certainly the case with Todd.
What are my plans for the new year? Well I'll be continuing my work on the website and I'll be getting more involved with other aspects of the show so look forward to hearing a lot more from me.
Right, so, it's new years eve, so I'm off to prepare for tonight. A few of us are going round to Gaxs new flat for a new year/house warming do. Rest assured the Jack Daniels will be flowing freely.
So on that note I'll leave you for now and wish you a Happy New Year from myself and the rest of TeamTodd.
See you on the other side!
19/11/11
Playing with the website again in my usual way so thought I'd do a bit of a blog while I'm at it.
It's been a long week for me this week, been coming down with a bad cold, working long shifts and barely had any sleep but I'm hanging in there and just getting as much relaxation time in this weekend as I can, got an extra day off on Monday too so it's even better.
I'm not making any major changes to site today just doing a couple of little coding tweaks here and there, had a few issues with formatting in certain web browsers, and for once it wasn't Internet Explorer! I know, I'm as shocked as you! But this time it had been Firefox that's been causing all the problems, it seems that as they're now bringing out updates and new versions every month or so there is always something in the new version that our website just doesn't like. It looks like gone are the days when Firefox was the recommended browser and Myself and Gaxs browser of choice, you'll now more often than not see us using Google Chrome of Fenrir Sleipnir these days both excellent browser and easy to use with none of the mess that IE and Firefox has become these days. Anywho....that's enough of a rant on browsers for now.
So what's happening in the world of Todd? Episode 3 is coming along very well from what I've seen and heard and it sounds like we're very close to a release date being set for it which is something to look forward to.
And some exciting news for me and the series is I may...that's I MAY becoming even more involved and doing more work on the show than just the behind the scenes and website building, I won't give too much away yet but I'll certainly keep you guys up to date with any more exciting related news.
For now I'll leave you be and get on, Jess and I are about to stick a DVD on and in the usual TeamTodd tradition, it's a zombie flick! haha We can never resist!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks :)
11/11/11
Hello again and welcome to my latest blog, I hope you make it to the end.
I meant to do an update when we first uploaded the freshly arranged site but just never got around to it. So here’s an update on what’s new and exciting in the world of webmastering on Todd. You’ve probably noticed already what’s new on the site but I’m going to tell you anyway! haha! One of the things that I really like is that we’ve now included the music page on the site so we can showcase the music from the show, including the themes and ambient music. It was something Gax and I were intent on including on the site when it was rebuilt because the tracks work well as standalone music and you don’t get the most of them when watching the episodes, we’ll update the page with music from each episode as they are released and I really hope you enjoy listening to it. I don’t think there is anything else that is new on the website, most other content has been rearranged, hopefully to make things a little easier to find and make more sense when you’re navigating the site.
What else have been upto? I’ve been helping Jess with some of the admin work and also some of the shop stuff she’s working on. I’ve also been catching up on some of the TV I’ve missed lately, such as Haven, The Walking Dead and Bones but I’ll keep quite because our benevolent Overlord Gax is still behind haha
I’m going to get back to whatever it was that I was doing before I decided to type this.
Oh and by the way, if you didn’t already know, there’s a brand new trailer preview for Level 3: Vending Vidi Vici now online on Todd’s YouTube channel check it out now. Not long to wait now before the episodes released either so I hear.
Laters
23/10/11
Hello and welcome back to my blog fellow Toddites!
It’s been a busy weekend for all at Todd HQ there’s been a lot going on. Jess has been working on the new Todd shop, trying to bring you some new and unique gift ideas. Gax and Ecky have been creating cells for episode 3, which I believe is coming along very well (there will be a blog from Ecky being put up shortly). And I have been doing my usual of messing around with the website. Myself, Gax & Jess had a bit of a get together on Friday night with takeaway and we were discussing the website and some things that we want to do with it. A couple of the things we talked about have been put up already, things that will make it easier for fans to find our pages all over the web for example, the ‘Like’, ‘Follow’ and ‘Subscribe’ buttons on the homepage. I will be working on the site again today so hopefully I’ll be able to put a few other changes up in the next few days. I like to do a couple of hours testing whenever I make changes like this just to make sure that all the formatting works and it doesn’t get screwed up. Unfortunatley Internet explorer doesn’t much like our website as it tends to screw up formatting randomly even though when tested it works fine and still works fine on all other browsers (I test on the newest versions of Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer & Gax’s favourite Sleipnir)
I’d also like to say how happy I am with the recent visitor count to the site, We’ve had more daily visitors recently that we have ever had, which is just awesome! This could be in part to our recent addition to Zombie Epoch’s ‘Web’s Best Zombie Sites’ Poll on their website. We’re at number 17 so far, so if you like the site head over there and vote for us. But be sure to check out the other sites in the running, there are some pretty damn good websites on there.
One last thing I’d like to add is a thank you to several people who have recently sent either myself or Gax an email with some really nice feedback on the website and the series. It’s great to see that our hard work is appreciated and is entertaining people in the way we intended.
We all hope you continue to enjoy the series, I’ll see you all real soon!
8/10/11
Hello to you all
Doing a few updates to the website again.
You may have noticed we now have Google adverts on the site, recently we got our application for Google Adsense accepted (after months of waiting) so we can now put ads on the site and hopefully make a bit of extra revenue. We do seem to get some strange ads displayed, but we get some pretty cool ones too, for example the one that appeared during the week for essential zombie supplies.
Other than the ads of course there have been other updates to the site. We’ve got an all new TeamTodd application form online over on the TeamTodd page, so if you want to apply to be a part of it all them just fill it in and send it off. There are a few other minor tweaks here and there happening as well, but nothing that is too noticeable, I’m mainly going through the html code and trimming bits out that aren’t needed or streamlining it a little so it runs a bit smoother for you guys.
The rest of the guys, well, the animation side anyway are getting ready to start work on episode 3, and having seen what they’ve managed to do with episode 2 I’m really looking forward to the third.
One other things I thought I’d mention is our placement on a website poll that is a vote for the best zombie web sites online, so far we place at #35 so if you like the site and Todd in general then head over to http://zombiepoch.com and vote for us here
I better get on, see you all soon and keep watching Todd the Zombie :)
10/9/11
Well hello again friends and fellow Toddites!
Just updating the website so figured I’d put a bit of a post up here while I was at it. It’s been a very busy time for us around here lately, what with the usual Todd work, promotion and now myself and Gaxs new project Angry Sloth Entertainment which is ticking along very nicely, if you’ve not already done so be sure to swing by the website especially as Todd is the featured project for September, so there are lots of fun things to come, including exclusive pictures, interviews with the team and more.
I’m gong to leave it there for now and get these changes for this site up. Enjoy your weekend!
28/8/11
Well we’re here again, me writing a blog and (hopefully) you reading it.
It’s been quite a busy time here at TeamTodd for the past couple of weeks, we’ve been working on Level 2, promoting and working on our new funding campaign over on IndieGoGo If you’ve not seen it yet click on the link and if you’re feeling kind then you can contribute and help us produce Todd.
In other news, the new project that myself and Gax have been working on, which Gax announced the name of the other day is going live in 5 days and we’re very excited about it. In case you missed it, the name of the project is Angry Sloth Entertainment and we will be bringing you the best in Webertainment, which is our term for media based on the net. We will be showcasing new talent, promoting existing media and even producing our own, and Todd will fall under that bracket. So keep your eyes out on Thursday 1st September when Angry Sloth will go live! We have built a website and YouTube page for Angry Sloth which will go live on the 1st and a Twitter account @AngrySlothEnt which is alive now so if you’re on Twitter you can follow that account to get updates on the project.
I think that’s it from me for now, I’m off to play with the website in strange ways.
See you soon and I hope you keep enjoying Todd
13/8/11
Well hello there!
So it’s been a while since my last blog, the last one being just after the Team came back from the Film & Comic Con last month.
Quite a bit has happened over the past month, some good and some not so good. But lets concentrate on the good shall we? Level 2 of the series is coming along nicely from what I can see, the animation is done all that is required now is for voice and sound effects to be put on. Things have slowed down on this due to several problems that the Team has had over the past few weeks, but we’re battling through them. Gax made me temp Overlord again so that he had some time to sort some things out so I’ve a good opportunity to work a bit closer with some members of the team that normally I wouldn’t, and see them work which has been a great experience.
In none Todd news, you may have noticed the countdown clock on the homepage, this is related to Gax and my new project that is coming in September which will be a lot of work for use both but we’ve put a lot into it already so we think it’ll be worth it. We’re not releasing any information about it yet except to people that are involved directly with the project. However, we have been talking about slowly releasing bits and pieces of information throughout the next couple of weeks, so look out for those.
So I’m off to do some work on the website for the new project, so I’ll leave you be for now to enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Until next time!
M
10/7/11
Hey!
I’m writing this just as we got back from London and the Film & Comic Con that happened this weekend, before I go into any details I’d like to say it was f!£$”%^ brilliant!
We headed down there on Friday night, as Gax had paid for the tickets and such we others said we’d drive... kinda regretted that about halfway down there haha! Never had such road rage in my life! I was so close to ramming someone... grrrr but we got there in once piece after Meg and Jess’s karaoke and my road rage, and all this while Gax was asleep in the back seat pretty much all the way there, when we parked up at the hotel we were very tempted just to leave him there and see how long it took him to realise haha but we were nice and woke him and checked into the hotel. We had a quiet night in the hotel bar/restaurant and what we class as a TeamTodd meeting until around midnight, we talked about Level 2, some of the new character ideas and some of the stuff that we want to try and include in the episodes.
We headed to the on Saturday morning, I’ve never been to one before like the others have, My head nearly exploded! I had no idea where to go first but luckily Gax has a sense for wandering around aimlessly with no idea what to do.... so we did that haha! We saw some cool people, Meg nearly had a heart attack with all the Doctor Who guys that were there and it was all we could do to stop her stealing a Dalek. We went and met Christopher Lambert which was awesome! I mean c’mon! Highlander and Raiden! Some of the other cool people we met were, Christopher Lloyd, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Clive Barker and Tom Sizemore and many many more! It was all kind of an awesome blur really, it all went way to quickly, before I knew it it was closing time and we were heading off for food and drink. When we got back to the hotel Meg and Gax headed back up but Jess and I had late night drink in the hotel bar and had a really nice long chat, something we’ve not done for quiet a while.
On the Sunday we headed back to the Con for a few hours to see what little we didn’t get to see the day before, it was a bit quieter so we got to have a good wander round and even met Kenny Baker the guy who was inside R2D2 so it’s little wonder why we missed him on Saturday :P
So now we’re back up in the North alive and well and ready to get back into work, Gax was talking on the way back up off getting straight into some cell work when he got back so expect some exciting updates soon from him.
As for me, I’m doing this blog and going to bed :)
See you soon Todd fans!
25/6/11
Just been doing a few tweaks on the site so figured I’d do a little blog. It’s been quite a crazy week both for me personally and for the work I’m doing with TeamTodd. The personal stuff wasn’t all that exciting just quite a few birthdays and also had some family visiting so been a bit slow updating things on the site and such but hopefully this week I can get caught up with it. I’ve been making a few notes and drawing a few things up for the changes that I plan on making to the site some of which I look at now and don’t really understand haha but never mind maybe next time I look through them I’ll know what the hell I was on about.
I’ll get back to tweaking now, bye for now
19/6/11
Hey Todd fans! I’m writing this even though I know it won’t be uploaded yet but I thought it would give me a bit longer to type what I mean rather than rubbish! :)
Hopefully the site will be back online on Monday and you’ll get to read this...
I just wanted to let you about some exciting things I’ve got in the works for the website.
Photo Gallery - Todd character & location designs for future levels, plus fan art
Discussion forums - so fans of Todd can share their comments/ideas
StreetTeam page - for Todd StreetTeam members to login and update progress and promotions
General logins - for exclusive updates and swag
I’ve got a few more ideas too but I figured this was enough to be going on with for now. Hope you guys will like the changes that are coming and don’t forget you can always email me your comments/suggestions at anytime to my Todd email which is Mark@ToddtheZombie.com
see you soon!
23/5/11
just a quick blog again from me, Minion Mark.
Had a slight issue today as some of you may have seen from posts on our Facebook page. I ‘accidentally’ somehow stopped being able to upload things to our ftp which hosts the website, which is why the blogs that should have been put online during the day today on my lovely day off have now only been uploaded at gone 6pm after spending all day digging I finally found the problem and just as The Overlord called to ‘sort it out’ I got it back up and running, so woohoo for me and in your face Overlord! haha (sorry) Hope you enjoy the uploads & updates from today and I’ll be back soon.
6/5/11
It’s ALIVE!!!! Level 1 of Todd the Zombie is online now! Check it out on YouTube or here on the website.
Enjoy!
30/4/11
Woke up at a stupid time for a Saturday so figured I’d get started on some of the updates to the website that myself and Gax were discussing the other day, one of which being this here blog section which should give a nice insight for the fans of Todd into the everyday goings on for the Production team of Todd.
Got a lot of other ideas for the site but for some I’m having a couple of problems putting them online. Among the things on the list are additions such as a photo gallery, forums and more interactive stuff for you guys out there. If you’ve got any suggestions of things you’d like to see just drop us a line at TeamTodd@ToddtheZombie.com we’re always happy to hear suggestions from our fans.
Make sure you come back regularly for some more of my exciting blogs about the website, Todd and other random crap that goes through my strange brain.
And now to upload what changes I’ve made and it’s off to a BBQ to soak up some sun, beer and burgers.
See you soon!
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