Frank and Dale

More of season 2 coming...

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:31:36 GMT

Just a quick reiteration that season 2 episodes will be irregular. We have written all of the scripts, and recorded most of the audio and video, but final editing/rendering might mean an episode every week or even every couple of weeks. But rest assured, they are coming.

EPISODE 2x01: Close calls

Thu, 08 May 2008 12:24:06 GMT

Frank and Dale have a close call.

May 8th is FAD day!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:33:53 GMT

Yes, almost a year* in the making, Frank and Dale season 2 begins irregularly on May 8th, 2008.

* Well, when we say a year...

Season 2 in progress

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 02:12:55 GMT

This is just a confirmation that we are doing a season 2 of Frank and Dale. In fact we're in the middle of production right now. It will still be a couple of months before it comes out, but please stay tuned, keep suckin' on the ol' RSS feed, and tell as many friends as you can.

End of season 1

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 13:29:23 GMT

And that, dear friends, is the end of season 1, and as you can see, we managed to tie up all the loose ends. ;-)

We are already planning season 2, which will be bigger, better and have several new characters. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed season 1, please take the time to drop us a line, or make a comment, and more importantly, tell your friends about us! We apologise for the lateness of the later episodes, and we're already working on how to better balance our production schedule.

We're going to have a month or two break now, while we launch a sister project we've had in the works for quite some time, Bonny & Clyde, and then come back for season two of Frank and Dale. If you enjoyed F&D, you'll probably enjoy B&C.

Thanks for watching. Give us some feedback! :-)

EPISODE 16: DUTY CALLS

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 08:48:09 GMT

Where are we, what are we doing, who's in charge, who are all these people? War, ultimately, is all about two men convincing other men to kill each other. So let's just get it over with...

Rank and Pale

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:41:08 GMT

Well, what do you know. Seems like the thick end of season 1 continues to be a scheduling problem. While one of our three main production crew is currently swanning around Europe, the remaining two, when just about to put an episode together, ended up falling sick.

Yes folks, we've ended up missing a week. Frank and Dale will return however, with the final few episodes of season 1. And yes, we are planning a season 2.

EPISODE 15: VIENERVURST

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:50:27 GMT

Otto and Henrik wait for ze tank.

Yes, another night time episode. Don't worry, it gets light again soon.

EPISODE 14: SYNCHRONISED

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:40:51 GMT

Frank and Dale wait for dark, then they wait for first light.

EPISODE 13: BRUCKE

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 08:52:03 GMT

Terry and Jase are trapped on the wrong side of the river.

Low bandwidth feed

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:28:08 GMT

We now have a low bandwidth QuickTime version of each episode, averaging around 2.5MB in size, compared to the average 30MB for the standard high quality version, and an RSS feed to match. We're thinking of a 3gp version if anyone is interested.

EPISODE 12: HANGETITTEN

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 01:16:43 GMT

Otto and Henrik start to panic.

A week's break

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:49:30 GMT

Unfortunately we had a data corruption this week, and we lost parts of the vocal track we'd recorded for this week's episode. I've not been able to recover the file, so we'll have to skip a week and record it again for next week.

Also, we've had a couple of requests for a low bandwidth feed, so we'll have that up in a couple of days as well.

And finally, as we approach the end of our first season, we'd love more feedback on what you enjoyed, what you didn't enoy, what should happen, and what shouldn't happen. Tell us what you think.

Again, our apologies for not having an episode out this week. Trust us, we're just as pissed off as you are. See you next week!

EPISODE 11: TURBOT

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 04:48:26 GMT

Frank, Dale and Kev investigate the exploding bridge.

EPISODE 10: BANG

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:08:31 GMT

Henrik is off to take a look, while Otto patiently waits.

Our releases might get a bit irregular over the next few weeks, as we head interstate for other commitments. But we shouldn't be any more than a day or two late.

EPISODE 9: BRIDGE

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 09:34:58 GMT

Dale, Terry and Jase finally meet up with Frank and Kev.

EPISODE 8: OTTO UND HENRIK

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 02:49:09 GMT

While Frank and Dale search for each other, Otto and Henrik expect company.

EPISODE 7: TERRY

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:59:48 GMT

Dale is still searching for Frank, and comes across Terry and Jase. Maybe they can help?

EPISODE 6: THUNDER

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 09:02:14 GMT

Frank meets an old friend.

The studio where we record our audio, had some noise problems this week, so unfortunately the audio isn't as good as we'd prefer. Although it's probably hard to tell with all the MG fire. :-)

EPISODE 5: SHELLING THE FIELD

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:06:36 GMT

While Frank stops to think, Dale heads off to find the source of the shelling.

Yes folks, with this episode (really the second half of the previous episode, but who's counting), we're back to our regular release schedule.

Out takes

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:13:55 GMT

Unfortunately our house move continued up until yesterday, which means we missed our release date for episode 5. Instead of releasing it in the middle of our "every Friday" cycle, we're putting out a couple of out takes to satisfy you, with episode 5 coming out this coming Friday instead.

Here's a tip, don't try moving two houses into a single smaller house in only a few days. Nuts.

EPISODE 4: BUNUEL

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 04:02:19 GMT

Frank and Dale discuss their predicament.

This was supposed to be a much longer episode, but an impending house move has intervened. Please consider this episode and the next, as two halves of the same written episode. Make sense? Now, back to the house move...

EPISODE 3: FEAR

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 04:24:40 GMT

Frank and Dale come face to face with Fear.

Various improvements

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 04:02:30 GMT

Over the last week or so I've made a few improvements to various things.

First off, there's now a Windows media feed at http://www.frankanddale.com/wmv.xml, which is also listed at the top of the page with the QuickTime and iPod feeds. Note that the QuickTime version of each video is always the highest quality, due to the hoops I have to jump through to get the iPod and Windows versions encoded.

Next, I finally found a way to remove all the game artefacts from the screen, there's a console command which removes everything except the actual 3D modelling and the green target circle used for movement destinations. Originally I was having to orientate the camera so that all the little blue selection tags that each unit had over them, were out of shot, which was very time consuming, and limited the sort of angles and framing I could do. From now on, about half way through episode 3 and onwards, I can pretty much "block" most scenes (position and move characters) as the shooting script dictates.

Speaking of blocking, all the movements are done in single player mode, so there's only one version of the game running, and all the blocking is done on that one machine. The editing is therefore pretty important to maintain the continuity of movement. None of this easy multiplayer blocking here! Yeah I know, I'm making it hard for myself. No matter.

And finally, I'm still not doing many close ups, because the mouth movements are all hand edited, and not too realistic. Hey, I'm not an artist OK. It will get better over time, but for now there's very few.

EPISODE 2: KEV

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 06:59:03 GMT

Frank and Dale meet a new friend, and find that the situation in Normandy isn't exactly what you'd consider as standard invasion operating procedure.

EPISODE 1: FIELD

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:55:51 GMT

This is the first episode of Frank and Dale. Enjoy!

We'll be releasing a new episode every Friday, so stay tuned by subscribing to one of the feeds at the top of the page. We should have a Windows Media Video feed by the end of next week.

Tell us what you think, what should change, and what should happen next.

Site opens

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:32:40 GMT

Welcome to the Frank and Dale web site. Frank and Dale is a web based machinima series, using the Relic Entertainment Company of Heroes game engine.

Written and produced by Richard BF, Aggmedia and the team at A Walk in the Black Forest.

The first episode should be released in the next few weeks.