The Universe Surrounding the International Post-Apocalyptic Franchise, Depleted
Author: Jeremy Hanke
The editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine, Jeremy Hanke helped spearhead the World of Depleted Creative Community to give creative personalities of all types the chance to explore a world they could help build together.
Before we shipped out the Day 419 DVD from Amazon.com, we wanted to see exactly how the layout would look when it was printed, as this is the best way to make sure your layout is exactly the way you want it.
Our audio people at Oakwood Sound Design had recently discovered a local printer that they were very impressed with called, Quality Duplication. (I know, the name is not unlike Lexington’s #1 China Buffet. However, much like the restaurant I just mentioned, we were wise not to discount them due to their name!) I had a chance to meet with John Hendershot, who runs the company, and he printed up some proofs for us, which were very impressive. As such, I think we’ll be doing all of our speciality DVDs with him! (As an added bonus, his rates are incredible on multi-disc sets, which is an area that CreateSpace/Amazon.com have big problems with.)
So, here is the proof test below. The print looked great and allowed us to find a few layout errors in our design that were simple to correct once we knew how they’d show up.
For folks who’ve been waiting to get their hands on the Day 419 DVD, I’m excited to state that we’ve finished the artwork up for the DVD and are in the process of mailing them off. Shortly they will be available for purchase at Amazon.com and CreateSpace.com .
For our fans, we’re excited to let you know about some really great DVD-Rom features that are included with the DVD, to give you extra bang for your buck when you put it into your computer!
Included will be:
Day 419 wallpaper backgrounds, plus never before seen WoD faction backgrounds
Digital versions of the Day 419 novella in both PDF and ePub
PDF of the secret Day 419 epilogue
High rez T-shirt designs for two World of Depleted factions
PDF of the secret Blood of Martyrs script
The entire MP3 album of “Skeletons of Depleted” by David Todd Singleton
Three different HQ songs from the official Day 419 sound track
The Shooting Script for Day 419
2 Mid-Attack Radio Announcement scripts
The secret spy footage of Gavin Hesterdale
And more!
As always, I want to thank our fans and fellow contributors for your patience and enthusiasm! We really couldn’t do our part of this without you!
Depleted: Day 419 Cover (Initial design by Craig McDaniel. Photography by Nate Eckelbarger. Featuring: Kat Carney, Eric Henninger, and Tim Smith)
Our fans have been excited about the new Contributor Beta which we’ve been working hard to get up and running. While it’s not quite yet ready to be revealed, we are now ready to release the anticipated novella adaptation to the Depleted: Day 419 film. For folks who wanted to know more about what drives Jenna Whitmore, you’ll now get a chance to see more of where she’s coming from, what drives her, and what connections she has with Gavin’s visions and the Neo-Palidins! (And, if you haven’t yet seen the Day 419 film, be sure to check it out at the Viking Depleted Page or on our YouTube Channel! )
If you’d like to read through it, you can download the .PDF right here: Day 419: Novella (PDF)
Members of the Dark Dreamer faction get a special treat, as they have access to the .EPUB version of the Novella at no charge. If you haven’t signed up and gotten approved, you can still come and check out the Dark Dreamers and get in on some of the cool secret access that they have within the world!
Image Courtesy of Artemis Addams, 2011.Cincinatti's trendy new goth club, The 86 Club, was where Gothicon occured.
Those of you who’ve been following World of Depleted for awhile have doubtless noticed that with some of the new contributions coupled with some of the in-house story arcs have had a decidedly Gothic feel to them. From the prophetic seer Gavin Hesterdale and his visionary Dark Dreamers to the brutal and shrouded NIR and their penchant for crucifixes to the bloodthirsty Reapers and mysterious Bloodborn to the cloistered Order of the Steel Rood to the fact that this is referred to as the Black Sandbox, few people have failed to note the presence of Gothic symbolism and imagery throughout the World of Depleted.
Fenix in an abandoned rooftop!
With themes that are extremely evident to many in the Gothic community, it made a lot of sense to chat with some of them. As I’ve always felt a kinship with the Gothic mindset, when I had three different people talk to me about Donna Sheey, a woman who was spearheading the Cincinatti Gothicon, a special invitation Gothic event, I felt like I had to chat with her. When I got her contact info and called her up, we had a marvelous conversation and I immediately felt a kindred connection with her. As we talked over the next few weeks, she felt that our work with World of Depleted would have a definite connection with some of the folks who would be at Gothicon and invited me to come up, have a table at the conference, and chat with those who attended.
Smon Bjorn, of the Indie band, Dark Valentine, showed how the right wardrobe combined with a Depleted background can be perfect together!
Gothicon was held in Cincinatti’s amazing new86 Club, a Goth Club that bridges an old mortuary (which still has a crematorium) and an old movie theater (that last showed films in 1977 with the then-released Star Wars). Complete with a few older areas that are still totally Depleted-style, the Goth club was incredible. However, more incredible than the club itself were the people! Whether the Gaelic term “cymbrogi” or the more modern term “kindred spirits” is used, they both mean those who are essentially cut from the same soul cloth and that’s exactly what I found here. People with cutting intellect, brilliant creativity, and truly wicked senses of humor! (During the Conference, the streets around the club were almost abandoned, which was very strange for downtown Cincinatti until we heard from one of the local restaurant owners that a rumor had spread that we were all vampires. The locals had decided to stay safely inside until they were sure we were all gone! Now, I have no reason to believe anyone at the conference would’ve spread such a rumor, but that didn’t keep any of us from finding it rather hysterical!)
Niko rocked some of the tribal fashions present in Depleted and showed that there's more than black and red in the Gothic arsenal.
Amongst the very cool people I met were a 16 year old girl who goes by Niko who’s already written a post-apocalyptic novel, a makeup artist that has worked on both films and TV shows called Drakke, and a brilliant prop creator named Thom who combines studies of the supernatural with complex physics like string theory. All had fascinating ideas to discuss and Thom is already working on new props for the World of Depleted after we met this weekend!
One of the most touching young men that I met this weekend goes by the name of Zion and he’s a classical singer with a fascination for scoring. We sat down and chatted about a lot of the hard elements we were exploring in Depleted and he really connected with the material and the brutal world we were portraying.
Shortly thereafter I discovered that he was one of the featured speakers, talking about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As I sat down to listen to his testimony, I discovered that he was one of the people who survived a brutal shooting at the Colorado Springs YWAM in December 2007. He literally saw one of his best friends shot to pieces before his eyes by Mathew Murray (who would escape the complex and show up a day later with a thousand rounds of ammo to begin gunning down people leaving a New Life Church, until he was shot and killed by an off-duty female security guard). Miraculously, Zion was the only person in the section of the building he was in who wasn’t shot. As such, he was able to get to his cell phone and alert an entire group of people from the hall, who were returning from a bowling trip to get as far from the complex as possible and to call the cops. The call literally saved the lives of everyone on that outing, for, when they received the call, their van was just about to pull into the parking lot of the YWAM building where the enraged Mathew Murray had managed to lock himself out of and was desperately looking for anyone he could kill in his rage. Without that call, the YWAM shooting would have made Columbine pale in comparison.
To say that I was left with chills is the understatement of the year. Zion went on to talk about how the stress and anxiety doesn’t catch up with you until time passes and you delve into the things you’ve repressed. Over the course of 3 and a half years he’s battled through what happened there and, even as soon as of 3 weeks prior to the conference, had a nightmare so vivid that he somnambulatorily tried to throw himself out a second story window. Thankfully, he woke to find himself hanging out the broken window and was able to pull himself back in safely! While undoubtedly extra steps have been put in place for the future, he went on to say that these night terrors have become rare and the rest of his recovery has been coming along very well. He credited his relationship with God for many of the miraculous things that happened to him and the fact that he could now begin to look into the future more than a few months!
As he completed his talk, it was almost as though the entire room started to breathe once more. I was privileged to have heard his story and to be reminded again of the things we must endure long after we’ve “survived” something horrific. Obviously, as we look at a world like Depleted, Zion’s story is a reminder to me that no survivor gets to where they are unscathed. It’s self-evident that his words will not leave me the same in my personal life, but, more than that, I shall also take his words with me into the Black Sandbox and, perhaps, someday, Zion may join us there, as well. Only time will tell!
For folks who’ve been enjoying Fred Koskin‘s work of late, you can take joy in the fact that a brand new episode in the Shards of Glass Saga is now up! Packed with new factions like the Copperheads and Order of the Steel Rood, you’ll also learn more about factions like the Reapers, Skinners, and Travellers!
If you haven’t signed up as a contributor yet, it’s super easy to do and you’re able to download the .PDF versions of any of the contributor stories, in addition to just reading them on the site!
With no further ado check out the newly canonized:
If you’ve enjoyed the story so far, you can check out the exciting conclusion today!
F0r those who’d prefer to watch it without ads and all in the original format of a single piece, we have a special right now where we have dropped the price on our rental to only $.99 USD (or comparable in other monetary units)! For those who choose to rent it, you’ll get a special download of “I Want to Destroy Something Beautiful.” Folks who have already rented Day 419 and choose to re-rent it to show their support, they will unlock an extra track, the special pro remaster of “Save Me” by Stacey Lux.
We appreciate all your patience with this element of World of Depleted and hope you all enjoy it!
To Watch the Serial elements or to Rent the entire film through Distrify, go to:
Many fans have been wanting to hear more music from the amazing zero-project and we are now pleased to let you know that his music is now available for you to listen to and download! Signed up ontributors will be able to use his music in their projects free of charge, as zero-project has chosen to sign a special derivative use waiver. Folks who wish to include soundtracks that include zero-project’s music may do so, although standard Contributor payments will apply!
Michele Yamazaki's new book features a segment on using Twixtor which mentions how it was used in Depleted: Day 419.
Folks who’d like to see how we did some of the tricks in the new Day 419 film can find out in the new book from Michele Yamazaki, Plug-in To After Effects, which unveils the power of third party plugins in After Effects, like Twixtor which we used for most of our slow-motion effects in Day 419. In the book, Michele included a piece I had written about how we used Twixtor effectively on Day 419! (I just got my copy of the book and am eager to see all the other cool things hidden in the pages! For filmmakers, getting a book on how to make cool special effects is sort of like when you were a kid and you received a book on how to do magic tricks! You just knew that everyone around you was going to be amazed when they see what you come up with!)
If you’d like to pick up a copy yourself, you can got to the Plug-In to After Effects Amazon page and purchase one! (And, if you’d like to buy a book I wrote WITH Michele, you can also pick yourself up a copy of GreenScreen Made Easy and learn how to do cool greenscreen effects!)
Cofer Black had information about how cyber attacks will be able to truly escalate the damagae that can be done recently. (Image courtesy of CNN News)
As you all may know, there is a great mystery about the Stuxnet virus as it relates to the Gavin Hesterdale Journal. Additionally, cyber-attacks are one of two elements that are laying the groundwork for the Internet Kill Bill–a piece of legislation that has been in the World of Depleted mythology since we started crafting it over a year and a half ago. (It wasn’t called the Internet Kill Bill, but the effect of the U.S. President being able to shut down the internet in a time of terrorist attack was definitely part of the story arch.) Well, now Depleted: Day 419’s star, Kat Carney, has been doing some Jenna Whitmore-style sleuthing to find out more about how cyber-attack is laying the groundwork for the Depleted future.
In a recent article from CNNTech, the Black Hat Hacker conference was covered, which was led by Cofer Black, an EX-CIA analyst who had predicted the 9/11 bombings and other dangerous events that came true. While occasionally Black Hat Hackers are benevolent (as seen in the case of Egypt, where they were giving ‘Net access back to those who had had it removed), most Black Hat Hackers cause mayhem as a way to bring down the establishment. (While their methodology is different, they subscribe to similar beliefs to the Knights of Xeno, exchanging KoX hatred of tech for hatred of secrecy.)
In the article, Black went on to say about Stuxnet (and the potential it could open up):
“I’m here to tell ya … the Stuxnet attack is the Rubicon of our future,” he said. “I don’t necessarily understand how this was executed, but the important points are (that) it was really expensive, so a nation-state had to be involved.”
When nation states are involved in cyber hacking, they’re hiring a huge number of “cowboys” (or, as those of you familiar with hacker slang, “samurai”). Normally, these are hackers that consider themselves “neutral” (or, occasionally, “gray hat”), which actually makes them mercenaries. Digital guns for hire, they are usually hated by both black and white hat hackers. Normally they’re employed by corporations, because their skills and lack of scruples are best utilized on a more controllable scale. If nation states are resorting to using them more, then you can expect to see even more strong retaliation from countries for whom they are used against. Which of course, brings us back to the Internet Kill Bill once more!
