Longtail Studios: A Great Place To Work

Cool video showing the team (and myself) working hard and having fun!

A Great Place To Work from Dale Furutani on Vimeo.

Halifax: Year 1 Video

Just a collection of videos I’ve taken over the past year in Halifax with my phone.

KD Halifax Video

As promised, the video of Kristina’s visit has been uploaded and here it is!  A great week!

I still can’t get over how clear my iPhone 4 video is! This entire video was shot, edited and uploaded from my PHONE!

Techsploration

So about 2 weeks after the film crew who shot the video in my previous post were in, another film crew came to Longtail Studios to shoot a different video.  This one focused on a co-worker of mine, Tina, who encouraged women to work in the video game industry.  That video just went up too!  More cool footage of my workplace, and I have a couple cool cameos in this one too!  Check it out!

Check out the video!

Nova Scotia–Your Studio Belongs Here!

A few months ago we had a film crew come in and shoot some footage at Longtail as part of an initiative to show the advantages Nova Scotia offers the video game industry.  It features Silverback Studios and ourselves, Longtail Studios!  The video finally went up.  It’s filled with great shots of Halifax, and Longtail Studios and all the cool people I work with, and I made it in a few scenes too!  Check it out!

A great guy I work with, our Technical Director, Sandeep, narrates the Longtail section!

Dancers

Playing Dance On Broadway at the SMU Career/Science fair a few months ago. My co-worker Clifford posted pics on Facebook, followed soon by a video…

The Catalyst

Spent this morning reading through the old blog I kept during my road-trip back in 2008.  I can’t even fathom how much I’ve changed since then, as a result of that trip.

For years I’d felt the need to do something drastic, I felt trapped in my own life.  At first it was a North American month pass for VIA Rails, and eventually it evolved in to a road trip.  I invited my friends to come, and they agreed, but backed out at the last second.  Although at the time it hurt, I decided to go anyway and it ended up being better that way.  I needed to redefine myself, and you can’t do that with anyone watching.

During the weeks leading up to it, everyone including my closest friends and family tried to talk me out of it.  The Dale they knew could not handle something like this, especially alone!  They were just concerned, because it was so unlike me.  It was a big thing to do alone, it was intimidating and risky.  Not what I was known for.  And even though I had my own doubts as well, I stayed determined, and when the time came I got in my car and drove headlong into those doubts.

It’s no exaggeration to say that none of my major accomplishments could have happened without those 2 weeks alone on the road.  During those 2 weeks a seed was planted.  I started to suspect I was capable of much more than I’d originally thought.  During those 2 weeks I saw things I never thought I’d see, did so many things I never could have imagined myself doing, it made me realize all those limitations I’d placed on myself were illusions.

Suddenly I felt restless in my old life.  I knew I wanted more.  I decided to move to Edmonton for a change of pace and to get out of debt.  I never would have seen that as a possibility before the road-trip, but now it was something I had no doubt I was capable of.  Then working in the videogame industry watered that seed, and that suspicion grew into a conviction.  I was capable of so much more than I’d given myself credit for, and life had so much more to offer than I’d let myself see when I lived in doubt.

Reading that blog was a revelation.  In one of the entries before I hit the road, I wrote that I’d wanted this road-trip to be one of the most important things I ever did, a “spiritual odyssey, an existential exodus.”  And that’s exactly what it was.  Now I live in Halifax, I’m in a career I love and I’m climbing it fast, I welcome every new adventure presented to me with excitement.

I had no idea the places that road-trip would lead me, years after I thought it was over.  I end this entry with a quotation from that old blog:

“Well, even though I have enough money to make it to the East Coast, it wouldn’t leave enough time to properly enjoy the cities remaining on my trip, especially Montreal and Toronto.  So it looks like this is as far East as I make it for now.  But I’m sure I’ll make it out there some day!”

Rome: 3 Dreams Of Black

A few years ago I had just moved in with my cousin Bill in Edmonton and started my job at BioWare as a QA Term Tester.  I was realizing this was the industry I was meant for, and was really excited about it.  Many nights when I’d get home I’d talk Bill’s ear off about how exciting it all was for me.  He gave me great career advice and of course shared my passion and we often talked about random ideas or directions we’d like to see the medium of gaming take.

One idea I’d had for a while was for a band to release a “game” as a music video.  A heavily scripted, interactive scene set to the band’s new song.  It had a lot of artistic potential.  Well a band finally did it, and they did it well.  They took it one step further with adding user generated content to it, so it’s not just interactive but networked.  I love seeing gaming as a medium branch in new directions and try new things. 

Please check out the “video”!  All you do is move around the mouse when the icon changes to look around and effect your environment.  It is meant to be run in Google Chrome.

P.S.
A video of the making of:

Making the interactive video.

-75% Wisdom

Got my wisdom teeth out yesterday.  I’d been dreading it for a while.  I bussed to work in the morning, and at noon I walked down the street to the dentist.  I was really nervous.  I knew I was being sedated with laughing gas, but the dentist gave me 3 Ativan to calm the nerves.  I took them and sat in the waiting room.  By the time I was up, about half an hour later, I was high as a kite.  When I stood in the waiting room to walk in, I almost fell flat on my face.  They led me to the dentist chair and gave me the gas…

Man, I was GONE.  I remember they had a radio playing but to me it sounded like the same 2 second loop getting louder and quieter.  I was awake for the entire procedure, but completely wasted.  I actually remember feeling my wisdom teeth being broken in half and slipping out of my gums.  I remember thinking “Wow, this really hurts” but I was so high I didn’t care.

I don’t remember much after that.  Around 9:30 I found myself watching Arrested Development in my bed, drinking an Iced Tea.  I don’t remember how I got home, putting on the DVD or anything.  This morning my downstairs neighbors told me they’d witnessed me get home yesterday.  Apparently the cab had pulled into the driveway and the driver had sat there for 5 minutes waiting for me to get out.  I guess I was so out of it the driver finally got out of the car, opened the back door, unbuckled my seatbelt and practically carried me to my front door.  Then, according to the neighbors, I took over a minute to unlock the door.  I don’t remember any of it, but when I looked on my phone this morning I did find this video:

I don’t remember this at all, but I guess I had the hiccups!

Now begins the healing process.  It’s not so bad, the pain isn’t bad unless I don’t take some ibuprofen.  A few weeks ago I went grocery shopping and picked up a ton of pudding, yogurt, jello and ice cream.  Still, I’m really missing real food.  And smoking.  I can’t smoke for at least a few days.  I’m going to try quitting since I can’t smoke for a few days anyway, hopefully it sticks!

Dance On Broadway PS3 Release Party

Friday was the release party for Dance On Broadway PS3.  Ended up having a fantastic night.  After work we all went for drinks at a bar before making our way to a place called Hamachi House.  It’s one of those Japanese restaurants where they cook the food right at the table in really entertaining ways!  Had a total blast.  Got pretty drunk on sake and rye & cokes!

After the dinner John (the producer) gave a speech commending everyone for their hard work on the project, saying goodbye to a few friends moving on to other endeavors and welcoming some new friends.  One of the designers, Kim, made everyone some awesome plaques to commemorate their work on the project.  Really appreciated it, and love having it on my desk next to my PC.  It’s especially cool that it says Quality Assurance Lead, and not Term Tester!

After that everyone proceeded to get very drunk and have a great time.  I’ve been at Longtail for 7 months, and it admittedly took me a while to feel at home, but the release party was a great time with some great people, I’m lucky to be a part of it!

At one point we realized we recognized the guy at the next table.  It was Victor Garber from Titanic!  He was also the Dad in Alias.  We bought his table a bottle of wine, trying to be all cool, but he ended up leaving before the table got the bottle.  Smooth.  I’m sure the rest of the table appreciated it though!

Afterwards a group of them headed to club, but I’ve never been much of a clubber, and was feeling pretty beat by then anyway, so I caught a cab home.  I was pretty drunk when I got home and Ryan thought it was riot.  A great night!  I got a video of a few parts, check it out!

Winnipeg Trip Video

Just finished uploading the collection of videos I took while in Winnipeg.  I love that this video was shot and edited on my iPhone 4, and all the photos from the trip were taken on it as well.  It’s better than the point and shoot camera I used to use.  Technology has come a long way!

Good times!  Was a great visit.

Making Of Dragon Age II Part 1

The first part of Dragon Age 2’s Making Of video.  As much as I love where I am now, I miss this team and franchise.  Good times!

Dragon Age 2: Making Of

The video is a little cut off on my blog, but is totally watchable.  If you can see it in all it’s glory, in HD at Gamespot.

Interview With AJ & Sandeep

An interview with 2 of the guys I work with at Longtail Studios!

AJ and Sandeep do their thing!

Finally Here

I moved in to the new place on Thursday!  The move was pretty painless, Ryan, my new roommate, helped.  The new place is SO much nicer.  And the area is waaaay better too.  The first night after moving in we ordered some pizza and rented videogames.  Life finally feels real here.  I’m not some shadow of myself trying to survive.  I actually had fun, and felt like myself.  Maybe it’s because until now my weekends were sitting alone in my apartment, not speaking a work until I was back at work on Monday.  Making a new friend and living with someone is 2 birds with one stone!  Over the weekend we caught a movie, and Ryan still hadn’t checked out downtown so we did that as well.

While we were downtown I did some window shopping and found some nice clothes I want get, namely a really nice jacket.  And now that money is freed up, I’m looking into joining the gym down the street from work.

		New Place! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I seem to be caught up on all my expenses as well, so I FINALLY have money again.  It was pretty bad for a while with all the initial moving costs (remember I moved TWICE).  But money is freeing up and I have actually quite a bit of spending money left over on each check now.  I finally get to see the money of my new job.  And I’ve decided I’m going to park my car.  I finally got around to calling to switch my car insurance to Nova Scotia and they wanted to charge me 250$ a month!  I paid 150$ in Alberta.  I rarely use it as it is, like maybe three times a month.  And that’s usually for grocery shopping, and Ryan said I can just tag along with him when he does his grocery shopping.  The odd time I do need a car I can just pay for a cab.  There’s no way I’ll use 250$ a month in cabs, so I’m still saving money.  Still, I love driving, never thought the day would come when I voluntarily gave up the right.  We’ll see though, I can always change my mind and insure it later. 

In the meantime I don’t mind taking the bus.  The view from the bus stop outside our place is amazing!  We living up on a big hill so we get an amazing view of Halifax.  Especially at night when all the city lights are glimmering below.

The one downside of not driving is no road-trips.  But I suppose I can rent a car, it’s not too expensive.  Next Spring I’ll probably do that so I can go on a mini-roadtrip to Prince Edward Island, it’s only about 4 hours away.  I’ve always wanted to drive across the Confederation Bridge.

But ya, life is feeling so much better out here.  Having a friend and roommate, living in a nice place in a nice area, and having spending money again all add up to make things much more manageable.  Life was pretty dark for a while, but I’m really beginning to enjoy life out here.

So on that note, I leave you with a video tour of the new place!

Peggy’s Cove

(If you’d rather see the photos in an album, click here)

Yesterday I decided to finally make a point to see the ocean.  I’ve lived on the East Coast for over a month now, and winter is coming fast, so it was now or never.  I’m so glad I did!  I stopped at a few places, but Peggy’s Cove really took the cake for the nicest place.  It was honestly a life moment as I sat at the edge of a cliff with my legs dangling over the Atlantic as the waves crashed below.  I took some nice photos and video of it.

On a side note, I took the video on my new iPhone 4.  I just got it cause my old phone couldn’t hold a charge anymore, and since I was eligible for a hardware upgrade, I barely paid anything for it!  When I got home I took the videos off my phone and could not believe the quality!  It’s true 720P HD video!  I ended up editing the video right on my phone using iMovie, so keep in mind while watching that this was shot and made entirely on a PHONE!

The Catalyst

Check this out.  Linkin Park member Joe Hahn directed a music video for their newest song The Catalyst.  It’s the main song used in the Medal Of Honor advertisement campaign.  Music with movie tie-ins is old news, but we’re only really seeing it begin to happen for gaming now.  Eminem did it for Call Of Duty: Black Ops, we did it, regrettably, with Marilyn Manson for Dragon Age, Linkin Park now with the new Medal Of Honor.  But this is the actual music video for the song, and it’s made up of game footage and live action featuring the main character from the game.  This much is new for gaming/music tie ins.  I can tell they were going for something more poignant than a simple music tie-in business deal.  Not sure if they achieved it or not, will have to watch it a few more times.  What do you think?

Halifax Video

A collection of videos I took in Halifax. Pretty uneventful honestly, as any time I actually met someone interesting I put the camera away and chatted with them, but none the less, got some cool scenery! And there is a scene of a guy having a cinder block crushed on his testicles by a sledge-hammer. So, you know, there's that...

Kristina & Olga’s Trip: The Epic Movie

I mean, it WAS a pretty epic week…

Chad and I both miss them a lot :(

Moving Day

 

Sorry for the lack of entries.  Been a very busy week.  Had to pack up all my stuff and move it to the new apartment by myself, then wake up at 6:30 AM the next morning to pick up Chad in Saskatoon (and of course get surprised by a blizzard on the way, in late MAY), get all his stuff into the apartment, then do furniture and grocery shopping, clean my old place up and get the last of my things, and finally get set up in the apartment.  We still don’t have internet either, so don’t expect many blog posts until this weekend.  But I’m taking some of my break to write this and add pics and video from the experience.  Enjoy!  The video has a tour of the new place once it was all set up!  Chad and I are quite happy with it!

New Level! DM-Rooftops

I completed my second Unreal level, this time using the UT3 editor instead of the UDK editor.  It’s a rooftops level, a bit of an homage to the old Duke Nukem levels I used to make.  In the end I learned a few important lessons while making this level about what to decide on before starting the level, and what can be decided on the fly.  There are definitely some things I’d change if I were remaking the level now.  But live and learn!  Pix and walkthrough video included:

And the video: