What You've All Been Waiting For!!

It's here. It's time. It's part five of Animus Cross Season II and let me tell you, it is quite revealing! :P Thanks to Ravenous Studios for their hard work and to our latest addition to the cast, Christian James (Vicky Vixen web series).

Our travelers, Henry, Judith and Sarah have been through hell on their way to Animus Cross and there's no going back. Their lives are forever changed after the events in this episode.

So, I hope you all enjoy the latest addition to the Animus Cross story. As always, comments are welcome here on the blog or over at our Facebook page.

Thanks,
A.L. Steen
writer\director

Animus Cross Series II, Episode 2 Profiled in WebseriesToday.com

Our friends at WebseriesToday.com posted a great little write-up on the release of Episode 2 and our steadily increasing audience at their site today... click here to read it!

As the press release says, we've been amazed by the response this second series is getting from viewers around the world - be sure to spread the word to all your friends and family! You don't want them to miss out, after all...

Episode 2 of Series II is LIVE

Hey everyone

The second episode of Animus Cross Series II: "Hell For The Company" is live at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR-1_pCuMbw! Head on over and take a look - and be sure to let us know what you think on our Facebook Page.

Looks like Henry's desperate chase after Nathan has left Sarah and Ethan vulnerable to attack... And has drawn he and Sarcous into a deadly situation!

Spread the word to all your friends... We'd love to hear what you (and they) think of Episode 2!

So much Animus...

If you missed the launch of "Hell For the Company" Part I at the end of April, be sure to catch up on our YouTube and MySpace channels before Part II goes live at the end of this month.

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback on the second season of Animus Cross. You can leave your comments and creative criticism here on the blog, on the forum or at our new Facebook page.

Also, I've gotten quite a lot of requests from actors to be considered for future Animus fun. I'd like to thank you all for your interest. Please feel free to send your headshot and resumes to info@animuscross.com

In the meantime, a HD version of Part I will be up on our Vimeo page soon. Be sure to keep your eyes out for an Animus Cross "Hell For the Company" Part II teaser trailer!

Animus Cross Series II Launches April 28!

The wait is finally over! Mark your calendars, everyone - Series II of Animus Cross, "Hell For The Company," launches next Wednesday April 28. New episodes will be released at http://www.animuscross.com/ on the last Wednesday of every month.

What can you expect from Series II? Here's a little taste!

Join us at www.animuscross.com next Wednesday for the launch of Episode 1 - and be sure to sign up for our Facebook Fan Page so you're always "in the loop" with all the latest news on the series.

See you next Wednesday...

"Hell For The Company" Was a Hell of a Ride!

It's official, we made it through! Principal photography on Animus Cross "Hell For The Company" wrapped several days ago and we are looking forward to getting into the editing suite.

With four new cast members (Curt Hanson, Christian James, Ira Kortum and Mercedes Rose), a group of nasty gnarly stunt performers and several new crew members, the days were quite a bit longer than the first season of Animus. However, as promised, I believe that the action is quicker, bigger and better and the characters are more developed. The moving pictures are super pretty with the help of the Canon Eos 5D MII and the new Canon 7D.

Coming on board this time around were award winning photographer, Andy Batt, sound man extraordinare, Brian Mazzola , AC Galvin Collins and special effects makeup artist, Amber Arpin. Along with the help of Christina Kortum at Ravenous Studios, Chris Calvert and Zac Goodwin we've got one hell of a show to bring you near the beginning of next year!

A big thanks to Kelly Jo Horton at The Portlander for the wonderful article on our show. Also to Harold Phillips for his help spreading the word through press releases. Thank you my friend, you are a life-savor!

As always, thanks to Cindy and David Steen for once again doing everything, all the time (aka, producing). You're both amazing people and I'm so very lucky to call you my parents.

To returning cast members Harold Phillips, Trish Egan, Jeff Hime and Kathryne Bukowski, your continued support means the world to me. :D

And to all the stunt performers who jumped on board this time around. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Each of you brought a new level of production value to the series.

Mr. Buxbaum, you are my greatest love and without you, Animus Cross would not exist.

To all you lovely viewers... please stay tuned. This is going to be fun!

-A.L. Steen

May Day! There's a New Interview!

Happy May Day everyone!

It's a beautiful morning here in Scappoose, OR and the second of three cast\crew interviews are up and ready for viewing at animuscross.com. Thanks so much to Trish Egan and Dave Steen. It was good fun, but could have done without my silly face! :P Haha, I'm not a big fan of seeing myself on camera, but Trish and dad looked wonderful. I love hearing Trish tell stories. She has such elegance and a glorious voice. Both she and dad have great presence. I'm so looking forward to really digging into the lives of Judith and Pastor Carver.

Once again, thanks to Mercedes Rose for the great questions (LOVE the site update). Thanks to mom, Jerry and Kathryne for being our crew for the interview. Dad, once again, a nice edit. Thank you.

Have a bright day everyone and enjoy!

Cast Interviews with Mercedes Rose.

It is a bright and sunny day here in PDX. As I sit here at my computer, I look out at the river and it reminds me of the GREAT cast interviews we did a few weeks ago with the lovely Mercedes Rose using this same river as our backdrop! The first of three interviews is now live on the Animus Cross Website. Look for the new button on the main page.

Thank you again for the wonderful interviewing, Mercedes! It was a lot of fun and we hope to involve you more in future Animus Cross endeavors. Check out Mercedes' online radio program, The Quasi-Glamorous Life, the ups and downs living as a working voice-over talent and actor.

Also, please check out the Animus page on the StoryGas blog. StoryGas is, "a place on the web for people who work in, and fans who watch, online drama... " Here you'll find lots of online shows, some you've probably not been watching, but might want to check out!

A big thanks to Harold Phillips and Dave Steen for all their hard work in recent days. We'll get there, I'm sure of it!

Take care and I hope it's sunny where you're at!

-A.L.

The Animoose is Loose!

Hey all,

Head on over to the Animus Cross website to check out our Animoose in the episodes section. The moose was named Oscar after he stopped production for about fifteen minutes to head down to the lake to have himself a drink. We tried to take advantage of his appearance by putting him into a scene with Jerry Buxbaum and Jeff Hime, but he proved to be more of a distraction to the shot than anything, so sadly, we had to cut him out. Now here he is in his own little clip, with a few extra bloopers thrown in for good measure. Have fun and keep checking the site for updates! Thanks and happy spring!

-A.L. Steen

Thank you all!

Sorry for the delay in blog posts everyone. I have about a million stories milling around in my jumbled little brain and wind up being a horrible journal keeper! Excuses aside, I wanted to thank each and every person who viewed Animus Cross, passed on the link or wrote about us! The hits to the site this month have blown away all previous months. We have several new opportunties for the show and the new site has been well received. Thanks dad! Please be sure to keep checking back for new additions to the site.

I am quite confident that the story will continue with some even more exciting twist and turns... maybe even a glimps at our nighttime attackers... :P I've spoken a bit about that subject to RAD special effects make-up artist Christina Kortum, so keep your fingers crossed for us folks.

We really had a bunch of fun with this show and I'm looking forward to putting the characters through some new tortures... uh, I mean experiences.

Have a wonderful weekend,

A.L. Steen

p.s. In previous posts I have neglected to give my lovely sister Laura Steen credit for some of our behind the scenes photos! Thanks sister Lou, you rock!

-A

A Family Affair

Part 4 of Animus Cross, "Hell Runs This Way" is now in the hands of Troy Gunter, our sound designer. Dad (Dave Steen) is hard at work on the new site. Speaking of dad, episode four will be the premiere of his character.

It's never easy having crew members double as main characters in a story, especially when one of those crew members is the only other guy in your grip\electric\camera department! One of my only regrets during the shooting of Animus was that we didn't have a designated still photographer or behind-the-scenes camera. I would have loved to capture Dad and Jason running stingers, setting lights, building dolly track, moving generators, swapping P2 cards and choreographing the many camera moves, all by themselves for the most part. We were very lucky to have Joe Aimonetti visiting with his camera!

It's a good thing we didn't have an on-set wardrobe person. They would have been pulling their hair out watching dad do all those things in costume, just before stepping in front of the camera! Of course, Jerry was doing the same thing; coodinating stunts and special fx while in full costume. At least his wardrobe was a lot more rugged and held up to all the abuse.

When I speak of wardrobe, I have to give so much credit to my mom, Cindy Steen. She was amazing! She helped me keep track of all the costumes and even found time to sew a shirt, a vest and Sarcous' leather tunic! When it comes to leather clothing, the high prices are definately reflecting all the labor put into each peice. All said and done, I think we spent less than $200 on the materials to make the tunic. The time mom put into it would have jacked that price up considerably!

I don't think you can tell from this post that this production was a family affair, can you? :P Not all the family was blood however. I've been very fortunate in my career to meet folks who have become family through the trials of production. I think we added some more on this show too.

Thanks everyone for a great time. I can't wait to get back on set!

-A.L. Steen

It’s all in the edit.

Animus Cross “Hell Runs This Way” Part 3 went live on the 5th of January and is being very well received. We have a little surprise for those viewers wanting more; during the latest edit, we realized that we could get a 4th episode out of the deal! Essentially, this buys us another month to gather funds for future episodes of Animus Cross.

So fans, please help us spread the word!

With a bit of hard work, the new website will coincide with the uploading of the 4th part of Animus. The new site will bring you great information, access to this blog and some fun freebies!

There’s some new music in the latest episode, done by our own Troy Gunter. Please take a peek at the Quickskits page for more of Troy’s fun work!

I’ve had a few comments about the structure of Animus Cross that I’d like to address. I’ve been told it looks like a television pilot (Thank you! :) ), that it doesn’t look like other web series. Again, I thank you. We wanted to be different, not only with the content of the story, but with the quality of the video. Animus Cross is a serial in the old style (think old Doctor Who's :P ) NOT an episodic like the majority of tv and web shows you see today. What does that mean exactly? Simply put, episodes are stand alone stories where as serials have a story arc that spans several episodes and\or an entire season or series.

Why did I go with the serial format? Well, to be completely honest, I write better that way. That’s not totally an excuse, as a growing writer I will someday try my hand at an episodic story. Not Animus, not this time. The serial format really seems to fit the old timey feel of our show and so far has rewarded us with many ‘I wanna see more!’ comments.

So that is that. Thanks again for all the kind words about the show and please stay tuned!

Hope you have great successes in 2009,

A.L. Steen

Every time you stop...

We get closer and closer to a dream come true.

Animus Cross, our new web series set in a dark 1867 Inland Northwest, is the result of three years in development. Those years seemed very long with the 'should we's' and 'shouldn't we's' bouncing back and forth between myself (A.L. Steen) and myself. Oh yeah, and the whole not having a lot of money thing...

It all started coming together very quickly after the filming of The Outbreak. Chris and Lynn Lund put together a great cast and I used their show as a screen test. Harold Philips, Trish Egan and Kathryne Bukowski fit the characters I'd written like gloves. Add stunt coordinator extraordinaire\lead actor Jerry Buxbaum and an amazingly talented actor from Nashville, Jeff Hime and we had ourselves a boat load of talent!

I'm not sure what I would have done if our Director of Photography, Jason Satterlund had turned me down. He is just one of the many people who became a guiding force behind Animus Cross. His talent is inspiring and he really does make pretty pictures. It wouldn't have happened at all if not for Dave and Cindy Steen (mom & dad). They never hesitated and their intense support is unfailing. Not to mention they worked their butts off on camera, grip, wardrobe, locations, editing, website, financing, lifting, carrying, smiling and sooo much more that I could take an entire blog post to list.

And then there's Jerry. The love of my life and the one who keeps me forever moving forward toward my dreams.

Thank you to all who participated in Animus Cross. We wouldn't have done it without you. I hope everyone enjoys the first part of, "Hell Runs This Way." There's two more after this and hopefully a full "season" to come!

With joy and hope,

A.L. Steen - writer\director\producer

p.s. to check out the who did what, see our blog on our Myspace page!