Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug has died at age 95.  I find it incredibly depressing that this isn’t front-page news everywhere right now, especially after the news-mania Michael Jackson’s death caused.  Although I’m sure a lot of you don’t know who this is.

To put it simply, Dr. Normal Borlaug is credited with saving the lives of 1 billion people. That’s right, a billion. When the world was facing an epic hunger crisis in the 60s the scale of which we had never seen before, it was Dr. Borlaug’s work in agricultural science that allowed for higher-yielding, disease resistant crops to be developed and brought to struggling countries around the world.  It was because of him that food production in countries with high starvation rates quadrupled.

He is, in terms of numbers, one of the most important and influential people who ever lived.

Well, thanks Dr. Borlaug.

The FilmCow Master Collection: 200 Years of Excellence.

This is a mock-up I did in Photoshop, I haven’t actually gotten my review copy yet.  When I do I’ll post a picture of it for you all to see.

Well, testing of the DVD is complete!  I’m currently uploading the disc image to the manufacturing company, and as soon as that’s done all I have left to do is check the review copy they send me.

So, as long as nothing is wrong with the review copy we should be officially releasing on the 15th!  Hoorah!

A few more bits of information, based on questions I’ve gotten in the comments:

- The “behind the scenes” video is twelve and a half minutes.  Although only about two minutes of that is… “informative.”  The Charlie pitch is a bit under five minutes.

- The two exclusive animated shorts on the DVD are called “Hot Dogs” and “The Belly Button Fairy.”

- The DVD is going to be region-free NTSC.  Which means it’ll play on any DVD player if you live in an NTSC country (United States, Canada etc.)  If you don’t, you can play it on any computer that has a DVD drive, or your Xbox 360’s DVD player if you have a 360.  Or, of course, any NTSC-compatible DVD player.  At the moment I have no plans to make a PAL version.

- The DVD is going to be available to order online.  The company I’m selling it through takes credit-cards only.  It would be great if they accepted stuff like PayPal, but unfortunately they do not.  I’m looking into ways of integrating PayPal into the order process, but for the foreseeable future it’s going to be credit-card only.

A major part of the tests I wanted to do on the FilmCow DVD is now complete.  Today I checked how the DVD worked and looked on all of the DVD players I have access to, which includes my Mac, my Mac laptop, a PC laptop, a cheap DVD player, a portable DVD player, and the Xbox 360’s DVD player.  The disc worked perfectly on all of them, and the only thing I needed to fix was the coloration of some menus that looked a little funny on cheaper, high-contrast screens.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I’m planning on going through and watching every second of video and commentary to make sure there are no hidden issues or glitches I may have missed, and if all goes well I’ll be sending off for my first manufactured test copy on Monday.

So, only about a week and a half before it’s available for sale!

Well, more or less. I still have a day or two of testing and quality checking, and then I have to get a review copy manufactured and test that… but all actual material, menus and artwork has been completed, encoded and put together.

As long as nothing goes wrong in testing I should be sending for my review copy on Monday, and officially releasing it for sale within a week or so of that.

I’ll let everyone know when testing is complete!

Well, the DVD is on the edge of completion, and right now I’m expecting a September 15-20 release date. There’s about a weeks worth of work left to do on it, and after that I need get a review copy manufactured and tested.

Here is a final list of everything that will be on the disc.

Movies:

Llamas with Hats, Gods of Olympus, Detective Mittens: The Crime Solving Cat, John McCain and his Vegetable Friends, Ferrets, Dad Cop 2, Charlie the Unicorn, Charlie the Unicorn 2, Charlie the Unicorn 3, Charlie the Unicorn YouTube Live Promo, Charlie the Unicorn YouTube Live Video, Charlie the Unicorn Hot Topic Video (The Tomb of Horrors), Socksual Innuendoes, The Cloak, World of Dentists, Trapped in the Garage, and How to Play the Violin.

It totals out to 75 minutes of FilmCow videos. There are a few other movies that I wanted to include, but we ran out of space and I decided that keeping the special features was probably more important than being able to watch “Mr. Happy Face” on your TV.  As for special features, here’s what the DVD includes…

Special Features:

Two commentary tracks for each of the videos listed above. One serious, one… quite a bit less serious.  So that’s two and a half hours worth of commentary.

Dad Cop 2 Re-Edited: This is Dad Cop 2, only re-cut using all of the worst takes of every scene instead of the best takes.

Two exclusive cartoons, made just for this DVD.

Behind the Scenes: A rare glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes here at FilmCow.

Hurricane Charley Documentary: Me and my friend Gian riding out the storm back in 2004. One of the main suggestions I got for special features was “include old material”, so here you go. This was on FilmCow a long, long time ago but it was really low quality. SO, here it is in watchable-quality for the first time! I did some slight re-edits to fix a few technical problems the old video had.

The Charlie the Unicorn “Adult Swim” Video Pitch: This is the pitch, in its entirety, that I made to Adult Swim back in 2007 when they were interested in making a Charlie show.

Random Audio Pitches: These are short “pitches” I did for Detective Mittens, Gods of Olympus and Space Mission Alpha (the latter of which was never actually made.) Basically, these are short sections of dialogue being delivered in-character to give an idea of what the cartoon will be like.

And then there’s the menus, which we actually put some work into and think you’ll be amused by.  AMUSED.

Expect an “It’s Done” update in the next week!  WOOOP WOOOP.

It appears our German fanbase is growing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fKqQmtk9eU

I think this is now my favorite FilmCow-video remake.

"Yeah they only look like. Saves material."

If, by chance, you happen to be in the market for an accordion, I hearily recommend that you consider getting a used one from Liberty Bellows.

I just happened to need an accordion recently, and was lucky enough to stumble upon this great little company. They sell and rent used accordions (mostly piano-style), and best of all they have video recordings of each and every accordion being played so that you know exactly what it’s going to sound like before you buy it. Purchasing instruments online is always difficult, because you don’t get that “hands on” experience before buying that is often crucial in making a good choice. So being able to hear my accordion before I bought it was great.

Plus, accordions are ridiculously expensive, and getting a used one off eBay can be a serious gamble, especially if you’re new to the instrument. So seeing and hearing a used instrument is a good way to be sure it’s actually going to work when you receive it.

Their website is: http://www.libertybellows.com

Soooo… if you’re one of the ten or eleven people in America shopping for an accordion, give Liberty Bellows a try!

(No I’m not being paid to promote Liberty Bellows. I recently purchased an accordion from them, the accordion was great, the seller was great, and I figure a company in the business of selling accordions probably survives largely on word of mouth. So these are my mouth words.)

There hasn’t been anything particularly exciting to report on recently – the work I’ve been doing on the DVD has been mostly technical and boring.  But as an update: I just finished the main menu system and the majority of the encoding, and the commentary tracks and special features have been completed.  Right now I’m just finishing up the exclusive videos for the disk and then it’ll be ready for release!

By the way, for those wondering about my hand – everything seems to be back to normal now.  My doctor put me on some weird medication that made my face go numb, and then it turns out I’m allergic to that medication, and then it turns out my hand got better all by itself, so HOORAY.

In other news, my dog is asleep and dreaming of revolving doors.

TheTrueBlacky has once again made a fantastic German dub of a FilmCow video, this time Gods of Olympus.  Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEYRE7tMScU

Erstaunlich!