Friday, December 21, 2012

Friday, December 7, 2012

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Sneak Peek!

A preview of background art by Tony Mitchell

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Alice Character Design

A guide for the animators on how to draw Alice in Flash

Friday, January 27, 2012

As in the case of making a mound, if, before the very last basketful, I stop, then I shall have stopped. As in the case of leveling the ground, if, though tipping only one basketful, I am going forward, then I shall be making progress. - Confucius

The Overlord Animated Series is moving forward - the wonderful and talented Celeste Dow and Tim Dunn are doing the voice record next week. Character designs and backgrounds are in progress. All is proceeding according to plan.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Sunday, September 18, 2011

THE OVERLORD - The Animated Webseries

It's on like Donkey Kong. We've just launched our crowdfunding campaign for Episode One of 'The Overlord' entitled A Perfect World. For all the details check the IndieGoGo website

http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Overlord-Animated-Webseries

Monday, June 13, 2011

Album Cover


We are close to finishing our awesome album release of The Overlord OCR. Here's a preview of 4 of the six tracks!


'A Perfect World'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yAWrZijAeQ

'Power Doesn't Care'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPdexiTb20

'Access Denied'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxfg5w4v9Gk

'Liberté!'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCtEmt8iP6s

Friday, March 18, 2011

Soundclouds

For your listening pleasure we now have two tracks available on Soundcloud!  "Liberté!" and "A Perfect World" are 2 songs that will be available on the upcoming full album release by Death by Deathray "THE OVERLORD"

 A Perfect World by Crackwalker

 Liberté by Crackwalker

Links:

http://soundcloud.com/crackwalker/a-perfect-world

http://soundcloud.com/crackwalker/lady_liberty

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Shooting update

We've been shooting the miniatures and a lot of the greenscreen elements that will go into making the opening sequence of the Overlord pilot episode: 'A Perfect World'. The new and improved Overlord costume looks great and Dan has the attitude of evil...

Thursday, July 15, 2010

It has begun!

At long last the pilot episode is underway, through a special arrangement with the Centre for Arts and Technology. Over the next three months we'll be putting together 'A Perfect World'. It's got a lot of composite shots and effects, more than you'd see in most webseries out there... more than you'd see in most broadcast television for that matter!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Screen test for Toxic Diamond effect



Work continues on pre-production for the pilot webisode of 'The Overlord'. I did a little camera test for an effect we want to use for the Toxic Diamond of Mumbutu. It worked pretty well.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Death by Death Ray - Rockin the Studio

We had a voice recording session this week with Christine Ellis (Lady Liberty) and got some great stuff for 2 songs, 'Perfect World' and 'Liberté'. This weekend the whole band is coming together again for more recording, finessing the 6 tracks for the upcoming release of 'The Overlord'!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Producing is hard

I used to think that producers didn't do very much. I would be down in the trenches, sweating over schedules and quotas and it seemed like producers just talked on the phone and sat in their office. I used to think that ... but now that I'm actually trying to produce something, I have a new appreciation for the job. Even a micro-budget production like this one seems to require a lot of effort to pull together!

Nothing happens without a producer... I suppose the writer is the start of everything, but the writer's words will go unread without a producer. It's like pushing a rock up a hill - it doesn't move on its own... not until you reach the top. Once you get it to a certain point, it should start to gain momentum and roll on its own. Then the challenge will shift from generating the forward motion to attempting to steer it. The play was sort of like that, but on a smaller scale.

Don't mean to sound down. Things are moving forward! Here's some pics of work in progress:

These are some of the buildings from the miniature for City Zero-Zero-One which is being built by the fabulous and talented Jessica Winton. They're in a rough state at the moment, but they are coming along nicely. I decided to go with miniatures rather than CG for the cityscape to give the show a more handmade feel - I have always been a fan of classic sci-fi. Doctor Who, Space 1999, Star Trek, The Starlost... there's a kind of magic that these shows managed to capture, which is a lot more difficult to pull off with computer animation.


Here's the new CCC eye, built by the steadfast and crafty Jim Edwards. In the play, the Central Control Computer was depicted as a giant mechanical eye, projected on a screen. Doing a movie requires me to think things out a bit more literally. I had to figure out how the CCC terminals would work in a practical sense within the world of The Overlord. I settled on this column idea - these poles would be seen throughout the city, each one supporting a gizmo that functions as a camera and a hologram projector.

That's the update for now. More coming soon!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Lunch Meeting

Had a lunch meeting today with some of the fine people that are getting on board to do the Overlord pilot. Looks like we'll be shooting the live-action stuff around late April. Good to have a rough date to work towards.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Overlord: The Webseries?


It's in the works. Pre-production is underway on a pilot episode which will be shot at the Halifax Campus of the Center for Arts and Technology. A crew is being assembled. Designs are being drawn. A new song is being written. We should be going to camera in the next few months or so. A more complete crew list will be forthcoming, but the cast should remain the same, with a few small additions perhaps.

Monday, December 14, 2009

DxDR: In the Studio!

Death by Death Ray was in the recording studio on Sunday Dec 13th down at the Centre for Arts and Technology. We had a great time and were quite productive, laying down rough tracks for 6 tunes. (Access Denied, Perfect World, Power Doesn't Care, Dead Wrong, Liberté, and the untitled cool jazz number).




Tim Jordan on Percussion

Jamie Jordan on Guitar

Dan Melvin on Bass

Jamie Jordan and Dylan Edwards discussing the future of metal

Jamie Jordan and Ryan Doucet setting up microphones

Tim Jordan's drums; all mic'ed up and ready to rock