Hello and welcome to the new Official Home of NSG Productions.

It’s taken a while but we are finally back online, with a new domain and new look page! You’ll no doubt immediately notice a few changes from the old format. Due to feedback or rather lack there off, I have decided to go for more of a blog type look as opposed to the sometimes confusing portfolio page that I used to have. Don’t worry all the old stuff is still here, I have just organized and categorized all the content into a more manageable way, hopefully you will agree that this is a much better format!

For those who are new to the site, well I started North Star Genesis about three years ago, while working freelance back then but this page represents part of my work in the field of Digital Media, I generally like to post about my 3D Graphics, Writing, Film and Video Making. So this is what you will primarily find here, however on occasion I also like to write the odd rant or two about other things which interest me..

For now the bulk of the revamp is completed, I just have one or two more sections to put up but these will be added over the course of the next week or so. In the mean time you can look around the different areas and let me know what you think..

Hope you enjoy your visit to my world of North Star Genesis.

Cheers
Mark M.

Now I’m sure I don’t need to tell you guys that this means real problems for a WordPress based website. As this would effectively mean that I would have to try to find every single IP address, for every plugin and service that WordPress uses. Well of course I said stuff this!  But of course I was not aware of this fact until I had already gone and transferred everything over. They even go far as to claim that they have an easy WordPress install. So i figured this host would be a  good place to set up shop as it were. Hah! Boy was I sure as hell wrong. Setting it wasn’t the problem but trying to use it properly sure was, this also meant that I was effectively screwed to transfer my domain again to another host because of having just moved there.  So to cut a long story short, I was not willing to pay them another dime. Just for the luxury of not being able to use my WordPress site properly…

Anyways I feel as though I was royally Punk’d but live and learn as they say and watch out for what you pay for! As you too could end up buying a whole lot of trouble. So this is basically why I have decided to move my site here because I am done with web hosts for the time being. I had a look around this place and really liked what I had seen. So I plan to just register a new domain upgrade after I finish transferring all my stuff here. Currently I’m still trying to shift  everything before they go and delete my old site. So you can expect to see things updating very quickly around here over the next day or so.

Cheers

Mark

This is our production of Larry Cohen’s original script for the film Cellular. It was specifically made for one my digital media class assignments.There are some noticeable differences in the opening scenes between the script and actual film version that you saw in theaters. Especially concerning the dialogue, although we even found that it was necessary to omit a few lines & scenes from our version, for the sake of pacing and continuity. However this is as close to the original script version that you can get. So the acting aside, you can be the judge which intro is more dramatic.

I hope you enjoy the film 

Copyright © North Star Genesis Productions

The last two are designs are larger versions of the mock comic book covers which I made, the first being my digital interpretation of Supergirl in 3D and last but certainly not least. A matte painting version of my good myspace friend Barocca as one of my original comic book characters.

All Artwork and Original Characters remain the properties of NSG Productions.
For Personal Use Only, No Copying, Editing Or Redistribution of Images.
Copyright © North Star Genesis

The top three being the older of the five, shows you just how far I have come when compared to the bottom two. In terms of both visual design, expression and quality of image. The latter being my most recent “The Last Daughter of Krypton” and my original character design “Lealla The Leopard Huntress” both of which can also be seen here in much larger format.

Click the thumbs below for larger view

All Artwork and Original Characters remain the properties of NSG Productions.
The Copying, Editing Or Redistribution of these Images is strictly prohibited.
Copyright © North Star Genesis

Over the course of a month, I tested the latest and greatest offerings from some of my favorite operating systems. Including windows and some others which I was not so familiar with. What follows was an exercise in what happened during the course of this trial period. using the exact same computer specs, internet connection and general programs which I use on a day-to-day basis. The results found were very mixed to say the least, leaving two easy winners, namely both Ubuntu and Debian. Although I have to say that in the end, Debian, was the very clear winner for me over all. As this was the only system which I tested that not only worked, but also out performed the others for its sheer stability in its use and quality of selected programs.

The video includes a small glimpse into some of the problems I ran into. However for time reasons, I have not included all of the systems I had tested. First up was the new Windows 7 RC1, I was not able to properly test this at all due to it being incredibly slow and unresponsive. The damn thing took a full five minutes to load from boot screen to the desktop regardless of what I did. This was in stark contrast to my previous experience with the Vista Beta which ran on my machine really smoothly without a problem. It was not exactly the new and improved example from Microsoft, that I had been lead to believe.

Now remember for the purpose of this exercise, I was approaching this from a new users point of view. So needless to say that I very promptly moved on, the next one I tested was the new Ubuntu Jaunty Jackolope 9.04 Linux Desktop OS. I got to say that I am largely impressed with one, with the exception of a couple of issues with non starter programs and ATI graphics drivers. However, this is a system that still rates very highly with me, especially because its suitability for new users to Linux. The next one I tried out was the KDE based distro Mandriva One, this is generally a really easy to use system and I think really deserves the title of being User Friendly. But this too proved to be short-lived when I discovered that the use of their graphical RPM installer application is not exactly a user-friendly experience. I ran into nothing but dependency issues as well as some weird and random graphics issues with my video card.

So once again, I decided to move on to the last distro on my list, Debian 5.0. This was to my surprise, an outstanding performer on my desktop computer. Not only was the system fast but the graphics driver as well as the usual desktop effects, were both simple and very easy to set up and install. Also all the programs which I normally use ran without a hitch and with no dependency problems in sight. This was as close a virtual utopia desktop experience as I could possibly get. Over all I have to say I’m very impressed with this OS, it’s painfully obvious that the time, which the Debian developers take to ensure they have a very stable release shows. With Debian, my desktop experience became a relatively painless one. So much so that I have permanently installed it to my computer. One thing my desktop trial did prove was, you really do need to try out a few shoes to see which one fits best. Having said that, I definitely recommend you check out either Ubuntu or Debian…

This video was also a great chance for me to play around with some blue screen effects, Where by I had set a challenge for myself to make a video with multiple color backgrounds while trying to maintain an even look throughout the video.. For the most part I’m pretty happy with the exercise, although now I’m maybe thinking that I am better off behind the camera than standing in front of it. lol