I feel like this is a good time to go into this chapter of my life, being that a relative trailer just launched (see that guy at the very beginning with the flag? That's me with my iron man halloween costume in front of a green screen like 4 years ago!)
A great friend of mine, Jon Finger, is really good with 3D and compositing work; and he was also a huge fan of a game called Natural Selection. He also went to the same college as me and submitted videos to that college video contest that I entered into. Except his work always won, and my work always left people scratching their heads with, "what the f#%k was that??".
Afterwards we ran into each other on campus and got to talking about video stuff and hit it off and became good friends. I was a little burned out on finance classes and had a tough time spearheading my own stuff, so I dedicated my free time to hanging out with him and his crew, and helping them do whatever. It was a ton of fun, and I really encourage anyone who's into video stuff to find people with like interests in the craft, stick with them, help each other out, and you'll learn more than you would from any text book.
I digress. He was really into a game called Natural Selection, and actually started helping the company that is currently making the second game, make behind the scenes videos. He also had a chance to make a teaser trailer, and a fan film using the early assets from the game.
He cast us -- as bad as actors as we are -- to play the parts of the soldiers, and help with all around production (this was bare-boned, I think there was only like 4 of us working on this).
Anyway, I got to play the part as "tough guy soldier" Bazon, and as bad as I am at playing it, I have to admit I had a lot of fun gritting my teeth and grunting.
This was a lot of fun, and it's a gem in my memory signifying a more relaxed time of my life where my agenda wasn't career oriented, or paying the bills, or branding, or ego; it was just to have fun doing stuff that we all collectively love -- pure raw enthusiasm.
Here's the final fan film video below (interesting fact about this -- there was only one costume. We shot our scenes separate and were composited together. None of us are in the same scene together).
