It's been a heck of a couple weeks! I did interviews at NG with Kurt, the new intern and I met Happy Harry, The Swain, Egoraptor, Li'l Jim, Psycho Goldfish, Afro-Ninja, SardonicSamurai and a bunch of other great guys, interviewing most of them, and it all culminated with WizardWorld Philadelphia. Thanks to everyone who came out to the booth and agreed to talk on camera about their love and experiences for/with Newgrounds! (And sorry to the other cool folks I'm too lazy to link to. ;P)
My trip to California is coming together, with more smart, interesting and in some cases a bit famous people agreeing to be interviewed. I'm figuring out where I'm staying and when and how I can cram the most interviews into a month.

Also, today the final hominid sold! Sooo, they're gone now! You snoozed, you losed. Thanks also to everyone who helped out by buying those guys. Enjoy.

Finally, I also got my first user-submitted interview in the mail today. Find out how you can get a chance to be in the movie!

Get while the gettin's good.

Update: Holy crap, 3/4 of the toys are already gone! Literally! There's only like 20 left!
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To whom it may concern, you can now support this project by buying a limited edition Alien Hominid toy.There are only 100 units, and a bunch sold in the first 24 hours (thanks guys!) so if you're interested you'll want to grab one asap!

I'm currently getting ducks in rows for my trip out to SanDiego and the rest of the west coast. It should be an interesting summer, and I'll meet up with as many of you as I can at ComicCon and elsewhere. If our paths don't cross this August, never fear. Check out how you could still appear in this film!

cheers,
Nathan

UPDATE: I suspect Ill be accepting tapes until some time this fall. (September?)
Also, you don't have to PM me to ask permission to submit a tape. I want to see them! Go for it!

Over the course of making this film, I want to talk to as many Newgrounds fans as I can. So far I'm planning on doing this by meeting people at conventions and while I'm traveling around the country. But there are millions of you, and I can't get to you all. Even with this in mind, I'd like to open the interview process up to whomever wants to participate. Basically, I'm going to let you interview yourselves, film it, and send me the tape or DVD. At the bottom of this post there'll be a list of topics I would be asking you about if we meet in person. You can talk about some of them or all of them. (Tell me which ones you're using though.) If you want to give it a shot you can grab a camera and go to town. Can I guarantee that you'll be in the movie? Of course not. That's impossible for a variety of reasons. But I can tell you that you have as good a shot as anyone and will be judged solely on how interesting, insightful and or funny your comments are.

Some pointers and guidelines:
Picture: Try to use the nicest camera you can get a hold of. I won't discriminate on the basis of image quality, but it'd obviously be better if it looked nice.

Framing: Get yourself in a standard head and shoulders close-up if possible. You can either look right into the camera or look at a point slightly off camera to give the impression that you're looking at an interviewer. (Or for that matter, you could sit a friend down there and talk to them.)
Finally, try to sit yourself in front of something that's interesting but not distracting.
See examples below.

Sound: is almost more important than the image. Again, use the nicest mic you can and make sure your levels are good. Get a pop filter if you need to. I can cut away from or cover a bad image, but bad audio is unusable.

Length: Be concise, but natural. Relax. Plan at least a bit of what you want to say beforehand. Take some notes. Do multiple takes if you need to. Tape is cheap.
Try not to ramble. You might have the most delightful Newgrounds anecdote in the world, but if takes you 20 minutes to tell it, it just can't be used.

Release: Along with your tape, you'll have to send in a completed release form giving me permission to use the footage. You can download the release form here.

Where to send it all: Nathan Kuruna - Everything, By Everyone c/o Newgrounds 323 W Glenside Ave, Glenside, PA 19038 "Do I really have to mail in a tape or DVD?" Yes. "Can't I just put it on YouTube or something?" No. I can't use that in the film. I need to capture from a tape or DVD to achieve the necessary level of quality.

That might seem like a lot, but I think you can handle it. I believe in you! I always have!
Anyway. Seriously, I know you guys have a lot of interesting stuff to say and I'm looking forward to it. PM me with any other questions you might have.

Topics to cover:

Introduce yourself (include the spelling of your name)

How you found out about Newgrounds and the first movies/games you saw/played.

Compare and contrast Newgrounds to other content sites and online communities you're aware of or involved with.

Favorite content / artists

How/why Newgrounds and its community keeps your interest and gets you to come back.

Anything you'd like to say about The Behemoth's games (Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, Dad 'N Me)

Impressions of Tom Fulp / NG Staff (Ever met them?)

Are you an artist or other content creator? Talk about your work.

Collaboration on Newgrounds

How have you seen the internet evolve over your lifetime? How has NG evolved with it?

Where do you get your entertainment media (tv, movies, games, music etc) and how has that changed over the course of your lifetime?

Any delightful anecdotes you might have regarding the site or content?

Crazy rumors and speculation.

The future of Newgrounds and online entertainment

Intellectual property/copyright issues

Freestyle / random comments about NG / say whatever you want to add

What I'm up to:
I was around Newgrounds for April 1st, getting some documentation of the Chinese government's influence on operations. Good times, decent footage. I even helped with a flash animation of my own, which I tried to make as adorable and inoffensive as possible. :)
I'm also making my San Diego plans along with the rest of the NG crew.
Finally, I'm now working on an as yet Top Secret fund raising project for the film. Suffice to say, it'll be a chance for users to kick in some dough and get something very cool in return! Watch this space in the coming weeks for more.
Although in truth, you don't have to wait that long to toss a few bucks into the project. Check out Everything-By-Everyone.com for more info.

Oh, plenty. After ComicCon, I hung out with the guys at NG headquarters while I scheduled more interviews and helped out with the Tank Awards. I interviewed fans of the site and filmed Tom's talk at a local college. I went and interviewed smart folks who know a lot about the internet in Boston and Baltimore. I even visited the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard!
Not too shabby. I've got almost 50 hours of footage and interviews now. That's nothing really, a drop in the bucket. But it's about time to start transcribing...

Also, if anyone has info/pictures/footage of the Newgrounds Party in Philly, be sure to let me know. I know it's out there!

Check out Everything-By-Everyone.com for more about the film.
And congratulations to the winners of the 2008 Tankies!

NYC ComicCon is awesome! I'm sure it's even more awesome when you're not carrying 50lbs of camera equipment, but still! I met Tystarr and Dr. Shroud who gave some great remarks on camera and check out this shot I got of the Castle Crashers! Maybe the highlight of my trip.

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Does anybody know these guys?

Lots of great interviews in the can after my trip to NYC. I attended ROFLcon and then went on to interview:

- Mike Reiss, writer for The Simpsons and creator of The Critic. Why? Because he's also written online Flash cartoons for Icebox which was a site that tanked in the early 2000s.
- Rex Sorgatz, prominent blogger and social media guru. He's got his finger on the pulse of the web.
- Ross Snyder - you may remember him as the guy who wrote the original NG Portal and an essential figure in the site's history
- Nina Paley, an amazing Flash animator and cartoonist who made an entire feature film in Flash. Also a compelling spokeswoman for copyright reform.
- Lloyd Kaufman, founder and president of Troma Films, one time web host of Newgrounds. He's also a huge independent media advocate.

Everyone was fantastic and provided tons of insight, delightful anecdotes and words of support.
Next stop, Philadelphia!

Howdy. So yesterday I attended ROFLcon, a delightful collection of internet people. I saw and shot some very cool presentations, learned some interesting things about the future of online video programming and shook hands with the guy who created the font "Comic Sans" which, despite what you may have heard, was not based on the handwriting of Charles Schulz but on the lettering in Alan Moore's Watchmen. Neat.
Tomorrow I'm off to interview a writer for arguably the most famous TV show ever.

Howdy folks. So the news at the moment is that there's a new mini-site up at Everything-By-Everyone.com (the title of the film). At this point it just has a little intro to what I'm doing, a short bio of me, and a button for support. Also, a link to this news page which I think will be the main news blog for the project.
Also very exciting is that I have a man in London shooting the NG UK meetup. Sooo if you run into Luka, (he's the guy with the camera,) tell him your story, talk about what you dig about Newgrounds and Flash, etc.
I'm going to NYC in a couple weeks to attend ROFLcon and interview some interesting people. I will say that they include a brilliant Flash artist, a writer for one of the most popular TV shows of all time, and the founder of an independent film empire. Good times!

Nathan