Jet Set Zero » Jedidiah Mitchell

Sasha and Jennifer Get Sharp(ied)

Jedidiah Mitchell — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:00:15 +0000

So this one time there were some random girls following The Cobrasnake around at a club, and then they were on our blog, and then they saw my blog, and then they asked me to draw them and then one night I got drunk and I did.

AND NOW WE’RE ALL FAMOUS.

Episode 302: Starting on the Right Foot

Jedidiah Mitchell — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:27:25 +0000

WARNING! Fairly graphic images of needles and medical… stuff in this episode. Just so you know.

Matt broke his knee, but who cares? Jet Set Zero has a new cast member. Say hi to Nick.

Well, this one didn’t get done exactly when I thought it would, but here it is none the less! Thanks for being patient, I think these episodes are often worth the wait and this one is no exception. Not much to say about Starting on the Right Foot other than “enjoy;” I had fun making it (and naming it) so I hope you have fun watching it.

From the archives

Jedidiah Mitchell — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:30:25 +0000

This is going up on my other site, Drinking & Drawing, in the near future so I figured I should post it here too:

It’s my Bonushog shirt/poster sketch! Those of you who watched Season 1 in Vietnam should recognize the old rascal even in my lopsided freehand. I want a Bonushog shirt!

This is awesome:

Jedidiah Mitchell — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:05:25 +0000

This is my new favorite character on Jet Set Zero. I love this guy.
Also, Episode 302 on it’s way, probably Tuesday or Wednesday.

Behold! A Website

Jedidiah Mitchell — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:45:54 +0000

Behold! True Believers actually do have a website:

http://www.myspace.com/beholdtruebelievers

So that shows what I know. Go check it out, and guess which of the songs on their page I’m thinking of using next!

Oh Yes

Jedidiah Mitchell — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:34:54 +0000

At the risk of coming off like an Apple fanboy, I just have to post this image of a Windows 7 ad I snapped today on one of the tech blogs I read:

F.P.O. is a graphic design term which stands for “For Placement Only.” So who’s building with Windows 7? Apparently no one, yet.

H264 Color

Jedidiah Mitchell — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:50:20 +0000

So I’ve been playing around with compression schemes this week after noticing how washed out the color was in 301 — in the original footage it’s vibrant and on Vimeo it’s almost monochrome in some sections. After reading up a bit on how H264 handles color I ran some tests with our trailer:

Check that out. The bottom right is the original, the bottom left is the copy which is on Vimeo right now, the top right is a version of it compressed to 720p (instead of 1080p) and the top left is 720p at a higher bitrate. Going from 1080p to 720p at the same settings produced a video which a.) looks identical (and crappy) and b.) is actually a larger file size. That makes no sense.

Doesn’t matter though, as clearly the 720p at a higher bitrate (top left) is our winner for today. The files will be a bit bigger but they should stream exactly the same way on Vimeo. Now to try replacing 301 with that!

Episode 301: Always a Second Chance

Jedidiah Mitchell — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:08:55 +0000

Having escaped near disaster in Tokyo the team begins to recover in Seoul. Is traveling while working possible? Yes. Is it easy? No.

This is it, let’s crack the seal on Season 3: Seoul. About freakin’ time, if you ask me. It’s going to take me a while to catch up with the crew’s adventures, but hopefully you won’t find them any less entertaining now than they were two months ago when they actually happened.

Besides having new adventures in Korea we’ll be shaking up the format slightly with Season 3, adding a “Previously On…” segment to highlight interesting episodes which tie into the story, and making some changes to the overall editing style. Shout out if you see something you like (or don’t like)! We do pay attention, even though we can’t do much to fix things on our budget…

This episode features some new music, too: “This Uphill Battle is Going Downhill From Here” by Behond! True Believers. They’re a local Northampton, MA “band” but they don’t have a website. Actually, they don’t even really exist, but they sound good none the less. I’m hoping to make use of some more of their music soon.

Dear Vimeo,

Jedidiah Mitchell — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:18:58 +0000

You run a nice video hosting service. My favorite, by far. I have but one, teensy tiny complaint:

FIX YOUR GOD DAMMED VIDEO UPLOAD SYSTEM.

I have stared at this progress bar 3 times already today. Considering that it takes me a half hour to render an 11 minute episode, roughly 6 hours to convert it to H264, 45 minutes to upload it and another 45 minutes to convert before it’s ready to play, I spend a minimum of 8 hours just watching progress bars before every episode is live on the site. IT WOULD BE NICE IF YOUR UPLOADER DIDN’T FAIL AT 100% COMPLETE EVERY TIME.

Also, it would be nice if you could prevent this from happening EVERY TIME I STAY UP ALL NIGHT TO GET AN EPISODE LIVE AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE.

Thanks,

Jed

P.S: 301 is on the way.

Thanks, Tettix

Jedidiah Mitchell — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:37:30 +0000

I’ve been listening to Tettix for a couple of years now — since before he was Tettix, actually. Probably since the first time I heard Technology Crisis I wanted to animate something to his music, likely with giant robots. That never materialized for me and I always figured he’d say “no” when asked if a no-name could use his work uncompensated.

I think his music came up in conversation at the first ever Jet Set Zero production meeting back in Seattle and we all said “yeah, it would be rad to have that on the show,” then never did anything about it. After our success with Space Captain in Season 1 though, I started seriously considering contacting him. I thought it was going to be a difficult process of convincing him to let us use his music so when I got an immediate “sure, your show looks cool!” the next day I was left pretty confused with all my follow up arguments dangling in the wind.

Getting his music on the show has been great, but it was all seriously just a ploy to let me use Earth’s Assault on the Central A.I. in… something. I didn’t care how or in what context, I needed to work with that song. So thank you Judson, and thank you to all the other groups we’ve worked with over the past year. You’ve been a big part of making Jet Set Zero what it is today.

We’ll probably be using more of Tettix’s work in the future along with our ever growing roster of new musicians, so stay tuned and don’t forget to check out the artists’ pages!