First bit of great news that I had been waiting for a few weeks to announce: the people who make The Sims love our show! They’ve created a playlist of our episodes and shared it on their Facebook page. We couldn’t be more grateful! It’s helped bring a new group of Simmers to our YouTube channeland we’re all giddy from the positive feedback. Thanks EA/Maxis! <3

Second bit of fun news: We’ll be streaming a Questions & Answers Google Hangout Live on YouTube, Monday, April 8th at 8 p.m. Pacific Standard Time! All Kickstarter Backers are invited to join. Simple message me your email address and I will invite you to the hangout. To keep things from getting too crazy, I will have to mute everyone most of the time until we’re ready for the next question.

If you just want to watch us live on Youtube (instead of joining the Hangout), be sure to follow us on Twitter. We will post the URL of the live video as soon as we’re up.

If you can’t make it, please post your questions or comments here on Kickstarter or on any of our The Real Sims videos. We’ll pick out the best ones to answer. See you Monday night! Remember, episode 5 of The Real Sims premieres Tuesday, April 16th.

Share This

There will be a video specifically about the creation of our costumes, but you’ll get a peak at our Dragon’s Lair cosplay in this wrap-up video I made for this week’s Geek Chic. Amanda (my Dirk the Daring) and I scoured WonderCon 2013 in Anaheim to find the coolest cosplayers that weekend. Check it out!

Share This

It has been a blast writing and directing this webseries show. I must say my favorite part is all the fun feedback I am hearing from fans of the game. A lot of Simmers out there. Woohoo (not to be confused with WooHoo)! One of our crew members, Adam Anderson edited this great piece chronicling the making of the first few episodes of the show. It’s called Gnome means Gnome. Silliness abounds!

Share This

I had a blast this year at WonderCon. Our Dragon’s Lair cosplay was a bit hit and Amanda did a great job impersonating Dirk the Daring. My Princess Daphne was also well-received though I had a few wardrobe malfunctions that required swift use of safety pins and fashion tape. Mostly it was because I kept stepping on my shawl and breaking my sleeve because of it.

While it was challenging to do camera work while in costume, it was kind of fun filming people filming me. Oh, I also want to thank Kathy Valdoria for her awesome costume skills. I bought the bathing suit, pantyhose and wig (and shoes). She did the rest. Well done, lady!

I am editing a nice montage of the cosplay to post on Geek Chic Thursday. Tomorrow is a behind-the-scenes video from The Real Sims so keep your eyes peeled over on the Kill9 YouTube Channel!

More pictures on the official Michelle Osorio Facebook page. :) 

Share This

Naughty behavior abounds in the fourth installment of my latest webseries, The Real Sims. What is the shady maid up to? Who is cheating on whom!? I’ve really been enjoying directing this show. Enjoy.

Share This

Gamer starlet, Jess Brohard makes her show debut in this episode where she meets Jeff for the first time. The shady maid is not amused. Parts of this episode were actually shot for the “pilot” Kickstarter pitch. I actually went back and filmed “pickup” shots to piece the whole living room scene together.

Please help us SPREAD THE WORD with these easy links:

• Share on Facebook
• Retweet

Be sure to follow Kill9 on Facebook and Twitter for updates on upcoming web series episodes and sketches.

Share This

Your weekly dose of a live-action soap opera based on The Sims! This episode was edited by Adam Anderson. Thanks, Adam!

Share This

Thanks to all 51 of our Kickstarter backers for helping make this happen. We couldn’t have done it without you. <3 <3 <3 Please watch and enjoy:

Share This

You may have noticed bright green profile pictures strewn about Facebook these days. This is part of a protest movement trying to raise awareness of the plight of the visual effects industry in America today.

If you were watching the Oscars, you may have noted that Life of Pi VFX Supervisor Bill Westenhofer was cut-off during his acceptance speech.  He was only able to say, “Sadly, Rhythm & Hues is suffering severe financial difficulties right now, and I urge you all to remember…” How fitting then that the music used to drown him out was the Jaws theme.

Many have turned their eyes to Rhythm and Hues which protested on-site at the Oscars that night. They have helped spark a movement to bring awareness to the fact that VFX people today are overworked, underpaid and losing jobs to overseas companies.

You can learn more about the movement in this Geek News Network article.

As a filmmaker and friend of plenty of visual effects people whom I see working long nights 6 days a week, this message is particularly moving to me. Especially as my friends Lawrence and his assistants Robert and Phred toil to deliver effects to me for my Star Wars JJ Abrams sketch and my upcoming Sims parody webseries, The Real Sims.

All of us work regular full-time jobs in the IT and video game QA fields. We spend our nights and weekends slaving over our passions because it is something we love to do. Yet, I try to compensate him as much as my budgets will allow. I hope one day these guys could do this work full-time if they so wished, but that becomes more of a pipe dream if the VFX industry in the US continues on its current path.

Check out the articles I linked. Do you think this is a cause worth backing? Do you think it’s better for business to outsource? Maybe a little of both? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Share This

My mom went to Vietnam and all I got was this awesome tee shirt! If you want to be wearing what is all the rage in Saigon* (the fashion capital of the world), you don’t necessarily have to fly there and seek out a street vendor (who will then refuse to haggle with you because you’re a foreigner)**.Now you can get an iPho shirt on Cafe Press, but I can’t make any claims as to the quality of the material or how well the text/logo is printed on top of it. I was pretty impressed with the nice, stretchy, form-fitting cotton the shirt I received touted.

Do you get the joke? Do you know what pho is? If you don’t, pho is a heeping, steamy bowl of noodly, brothy goodness that is to Vietnamese people what a sandwich is to Americans. You can get the beef or the chicken variety and it’s actually quite time-consuming to make at home which is why pho restaurants are very popular in Asian neighborhoods.

Nerd rage moment:Um, but isn’t pho spelled “phuh” and not “foe”? Kind of ruins the whole joke of referencing the iPhone.

OK. Yes, that’s true, but stop ruining all our fun, faceless Internet user.

Before I go, I also wanted to mention that Geek Chic is moving to Thursdays starting next week. Tuesdays will be reserved for Kill9’s web series shows beginning with the 8-episode parody series The Real Sims. That premieres  Tuesday, March 5.

See you next week!

-Michelle (and be sure to like us on Facebook)

* Yes. I know it’s called Ho Chi Minh City now, but my grandfather fought in the South Vietnamese army during the war so we all grew up still referring to it as Saigon, which they fled in 1975.

** Seriously, when I was there it didn’t matter that I could speak Vietnamese rather fluently. It’s just “not cool” to throw a bone to someone who doesn’t look legit there, I guess! So… as a lowly mud blood, I had to rely on my mom to bargain on my behalf. That was back when rip-off Calvin Klein shirts were all the rage though. My, things have changed. Pho-pride!

Share This