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Your Face is a Saxophone, A New BitTorrent Powered Animated Series

Increasingly, content producers are adopting BitTorrent as a distribution platform. Zacqary Adam Green is one of the people involved in such a project, and he wantes to bring it to the attention of TorrentFreak’s readers.

“My team and I just released the pilot episode of Your Face is a Saxophone, an animated series about the advertising industry and people with inanimate objects for heads. It’s free to share, copy, modify, and released under Kopimi with CC-BY in the fine print, in case some paranoid lawyer wants something legally binding.”

“In addition to streaming it on YouTube, we’ve made it available on BitTorrent.”

“We’re taking a similar route to Pioneer One and raising money through Kickstarter to produce a full season. The difference between us and Pioneer One, of course, is that we’ve only started funding after finishing a whole pilot.”

More information is available at Yfias.com.

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  • Loulouherbert

    I tried to look for it, clicked the link..Piratebay says that there is no such torrent available…

  • Candysunshinejoy

    Okay the creative commons stance and anti-advertising thing is cool, but if your project still centers around getting in my face and asking for money, is that TRULY any different? You’re advertising this “please pledge” message just as intrusively, maybe more so, than the corporate advertising you’re so against, and then you have the arrogance to say, “If you don’t pledge, there won’t be anymore episodes.” Like I should give a shit? I’d rather you lower your production values, make a web comic or just not make anything at all if you’re going to shamelessly beg and attempt to shove that shit down my throat in the same guilt-trip manner.

    • http://plankhead.com Zacqary Adam Green

      I’m sorry that’s the impression you got from the pitch video. We don’t mention the fundraising at all in the actual episode, though. If you watch it or download it, there’s no mention of the funding at all.

    • Anon Ymous

      You really have the gall to complain about someone asking you to donate to something they worked on if you liked it? First, learn the difference between being against commercialism and “corporate advertising”, then learn the difference between asking for donations and advertising. Above all that, no one shoved that “shit” down your throat. You clicked the link to watch it. Now go away and start screaming at your mommy to give you some chocolate milk.

      • http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA

        Asking to donate is O.K.

        But then.. Asking to donate again…. then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…then asking again…

        Anon Ymous … Just my comment is annoying… see the comparison ?

    • Momo

      Hey, you watched the fundraising video and you’re wondering why they were asking for money?

      And seriously, they’re giving you their work for free, and instead of “thanks”, THIS is what they get?

  • Anonymous

    I watched it through and it was pretty funny. If this doesn’t work as an animation, i think it might as well work as a radio serial.

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  • DocGerbil100

    First, I’m not blowing 800MB on some dogfucker I’ve never even heard of – and certainly not on a bloody MP4. They need to do a 350MB Xvid. Second, I’m in at least two minds about this.

    On the one hand, I really want it to succeed as an example of torrent marketing.

    On the other, I find myself bizarrely resenting the fact that the idea of characters with inanimate objects for heads appears to have been lifted from Jamie Smart’s Fish-Head Steve – Jamie Smart being the comic-book writer / artist responsible for the magnificently-demented character of Looshkin, who’s image I’ve copied (or arguably stolen) for use as my current avatar.

    The pilot of the Fish-Head Steve cartoon is currently in the early stages of development and I have absolutely no idea if Your Face is a Saxophone will make it easier or harder for FHS to reach full production and distribution. I can only hope that it isn’t prejudicial.

    The fact that the inanimate-objects-for-heads idea seems to be the only thing they have in common is probably a good sign, but the lifting of FHS’s Unique Selling Point probably isn’t.

    Before anyone says anything, I am already agonisingly aware of the incredibly mind-bending levels of multi-layered total hypocrisy in this post. x_0

    (BTW: If you want to compare, Jamie Smart’s website is http://www.fumboo.com – it’s currently throwing a wobbly, possibly caused by lots more people viewing than normal…)

    • http://plankhead.com Zacqary Adam Green

      You’re right, there should have been a smaller XviD version available. Fixed: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6173090

      I hadn’t heard of Fish-Head Steve till now, but it looks interesting. However, to be honest, I actually lifted the inanimate-object-head idea from The Conquerer by René Magritte (or, more specifically, I lifted the idea of Plankhead from that, and later extended that to YFIAS).

      • DocGerbil100

        Thank you for the Xvid! I’ll give it look and much obliged, Mr Green. :D

        Re: inanimate-object-heads – yes. That’s fair enough then – and thank you for being more polite than my comment warranted. You’re a gentleman, sir. :D

        Now that you mention it, I recall having seen the same painting myself and I’ll be surprised if Jamie Smart hasn’t seen it. I’ll leave my earlier comment to stand unaltered, as a monument to my crass, drunken stupidity of the night. :P

        PS: anyone know a good hangover cure? ;P

        • http://plankhead.com Zacqary Adam Green

          Try drinking a lot of Gatorade or something similar. Sugary and electrolytey.

          This is not an endorsement of Gatorade™®®®™™ brand sports drink.

        • DocGerbil100

          Thank you, Mr Green. :D

          The UK doesn’t have Gatorade as far as I know. We do have a foul-tasting drink called Lucozade that sounds similar (assuming it’s still on sale), but it will make you say prayers to the porcelain goddess long before it cures a hangover. :P

        • http://plankhead.com Zacqary Adam Green

          Try drinking a lot of Gatorade or something similar. Sugary and electrolytey.

          This is not an endorsement of Gatorade™®®®™™ brand sports drink.

        • http://plankhead.com Zacqary Adam Green

          Try drinking a lot of Gatorade or something similar. Sugary and electrolytey.

          This is not an endorsement of Gatorade™®®®™™ brand sports drink.

        • http://plankhead.com Zacqary Adam Green

          Try drinking a lot of Gatorade or something similar. Sugary and electrolytey.

          This is not an endorsement of Gatorade™®®®™™ brand sports drink.

      • DocGerbil100

        Hi, Mr Green. No idea if you’ll actually see this comment after a week of silence in here, but perhaps you’ll check your dashboard replies and see it. It seems to me that my hung-over apology of last week was a little half-hearted – just to be clear, I do properly apologise. I finally got around to actually watching the cartoon, so here are some thoughts.

        It’s not bad for a pilot – not really laugh out loud funny, but I had a few chuckles. For anyone reading, it’s worth a look. I think the show suffers somewhat from two things:

        • the low-tech animation, which can be distracting at times (too many essentially static, undetailed shots where really the only thing on screen is just a very simply moving head and arm) and also makes it difficult to get a sense of characters living and working in a concrete environment (obviously, I’ve no idea how similar or different a full production might look);

        • and from the inanimate-object-heads themselves – the lack of facial expression makes it very difficult to get a handle on and identify with the characters. I’m not sure how you might address that without going into Disney/Pixar territory.

        I’ve no idea if this has attracted enough interest to go further, but if a full series is to really have legs, I think there’s a couple of things that might serve it well (they’re just suggestions that suit my tastes, by the way – I sincerely don’t mean to tell you how to make your own show):

        • Show us the fruit of their labours, somehow, and how it affects their world. Office sitcoms are essentially bottle-shows and it’s hard to root for a character if you don’t know what they’ve really achieved beyond a high-five at the table. One of the things that made Better Off Ted work for me (if not enough other viewers to save it from cancellation) was the Veridian advertisements – it gave a sense of the company and it’s characters accomplishing something, even if what they accomplished was completely screwy or incomprehensible;

        • Show us their world, as well as ours. They’re very surreal characters in a surreal environment, so play that up as one of the show’s strengths – give us pet cats with electric-fans for heads coughing up xylophones, environmentalist campaigns to stop high-rise office-buildings from tap-dancing too loudly at night, give us the third reich attempting to exterminate the international lightbulb conspiracy, whatever. It wouldn’t be appropriate to post a spoiler here, but that bit at the end of the scene where one character’s having a smoke is the moment that made me laugh properly – it’s that scene that took the show out of the mundane and into “I’m glad I watched this” territory.

        That’s all I can think of right now. Thanks very much for making this show for everyone and thank you very much indeed for sharing it so freely – it’s genuinely appreciated. I wish you the best of luck with the project. :D
        .

  • Mrbalingkit
  • Mrbalingkit
  • Ifarted

    seem aload of crap

  • Ifarted

    seem aload of crap

  • http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

    I pledge to share files freely for the benefit of humankind and any sneaky aliens that might be spying on us (yes, that includes the MAFIAA monsters and people with a head that looks more weird than Zac’s).

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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