i swear we're making episode 9 // update

     HEYYYYYYYY uhhhh long time no see??? SORRY!!!! I just wanted to hop here on this little blog because it's been A WHILE!!! And I feel BAD about that!! Let's see here.... Episode 8 came out in OCTOBER?? The last blog post was in DECEMBER??? Sorry sorry sorry!!! I really had hoped to have Episode 9 out faster than the gap between 7 and 8, but that was honestly a bit unrealistic considering that Episode 9 has shaped up to be a much bigger episode than any that have come before it!
     To give an idea of what I mean by that, the average Flying By Wire script sits around 7-12 pages long.. Episode 9 made it all the way to 23 pages! It's kind of a turning point for our little show, so I wanted to make sure we took the time to make sure everything was right. On top of that, the episode has basically every character we've seen in the show so far show up at one point or another, which as you can guess has made doing the machinimating part harder! 
     And on top of THAT, I personally had a VERY BUSY start to 2026, which has really only recently (slightly) slowed down. Trying to coordinate the schedules of myself, Kip, and Ethan to do body acting has been a nightmare but I THINK we're figuring it out. Soon enough, I'll just have multiple TVs and monitors hooked up around my desk and look like a hacker from a 90s movie or something so I can just do it all myself! (I KNOW I SHOULD BE BETTER AT ASKING FOR BODY ACTORS BUT I AM SCARED OF BEING BAD AT DIRECTING PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW AS WELL!!!!!!)
     BUT DON'T WORRY!! Despite the challenges of the world against us, mellohyelloh prevails! We've gotten a good chunk of filming done so far, and voice acting has been fully recorded for the episode! And unlike I usually do, I'm being smart and actually starting to edit the episode despite not having all the footage done! This will really speed up the rate that the episode can come out once we finish filming. If you're asking for a percentage of what we have done... well I'd say I DUNNO! I was never good at math, I stopped taking it in 11th grade.

    OK OK OK so there are some ACTUAL updates I can give here.. if you don't keep up with some behind the scenes stuff from our DISCORD, we have some casting announcements! Due to some scheduling conflicts, we ended up having to recast for the mysterious villain EAGLE, and we held some auditions over a couple weeks back in February (I think? I'm not fact checking). And while it was announced previously, I'd like to make it official here and welcome MEGALODON 302 to the Flying By Wire family as he now takes on the role of Eagle! He killed it with his lines, and you can get a glimpse of his other work on his YouTube (where he's been posting some great Voice Acting Rewinds!)
     Eagle is not the only role being recast going forward, because next we should talk about everyone's favorite AI, EMILY! Emily was previously done using some TTS tools, and I talked about it briefly in the Episode 8 BTS blog that I had to recast her because the original TTS started requiring MONEY (AND THAT BLOWS!), but what blows even more is that the TTS we switched to after updated and started using GENERATIVE AI!!! GROSS!!! So we decided to take jobs away from AI and bring on a real human to bring Emily to LIFE!

     Everyone welcome JAXBEETLE (ever heard of SPITEBOX?) to the family! Jax will be voicing Emily from here on out and I gotta say, I'm very very excited to have both Jax and Megalodon on the team! Both of them seemed to get exactly what I was wanting from their performances and do a killer job in episode 9! Can't wait for you all to hear them! (And thank you both, your help makes my work MUCH EASIER!!!) 
      We've got some other collaborators helping with Episode 9, but I will announce THAT when we're closer to the episode being done!! There's gotta be SOME surprises, right??? I think right now, we should be hoping for a late April/May release for episode 9? But who knows!! Maybe sooner! Maybe later!!! In the meantime, we have had a few shorts that went up during this little inbetween period if you missed those!

     Started this little mini series on the shorts side of our channel, where you can watch the Flying By Wire cast teach you how to do a variety of things! I really really love how these came out, and have a few more in the pipeline! I'm hoping to get Episode 9 out first before working on those, but if the wait gets any longer I might try pumping them out to have something going up on the channel. I used to be really against shorts honestly, but then I realized I could use them to make fun little tiny ideas like these!! NOW I HAVE A NEWFOUND APPRECIATION FOR THEM!!! Alongside those, there's been some little videos going up on my Twitter, little looks into the machinimating side of Episode 9..

     And since I KNOW you're wondering "what ska song is that, Yelloh?" , it's SORRY, WE STEAL by THE ARROGANT SONS OF BITCHES

     As you can see, everything is going SMOOTHLY!!! Below I'll also include a few little screenshots I've taken over our few filming sessions to get yourself some MORE PREVIEWS of Episode 9! These haven't been edited yet, so they'll probably look a tiny bit different when the episode comes out, but you get the idea it's Halo, not rocket science!

     Ok we're getting close to the end of this, but before I go, I wanted to feature a few machinimas I've really enjoyed over the last couple months! I had done a little section like this in the last end of year blog, and it was a lot of fun to go rewatch and collect a few videos I enjoyed!

WELCOME TO NEW MOMBASA by FLAG DROPPED PRODUCTIONS
     I had randomly stumbled upon this channel recently through one of their other videos (which adapted a story from the Halo Graphic Novel in machinima which was very cool!), but this video was RIGHT up my alley. I love in universe bits like this, they really nailed that tourism ad vibe, and it was great to see so many spots from the games be included in this. I'm also a Superintendent fan, so I'm always happy to hear about New Mombasa. 

RELOAD by SPOOPY
     I've always loved Spoopy's videos, and he really pushes what kind of edits and things you can include in Machinimas. I just REALLY love the punch and him holding up the phone, they work so perfectly for the bit the video is about. Incredible performances from both Spoopy and Magpie Leon in this too!

TRAINING DAY by SERPENT STUDIOS
     Serpent Studios recently welcomed on a few new members to their team, and that came alongside this video of LadyRed and Nikki learning how things operate over there. Loved getting to see all the members in the team get their own little spotlights, and it helped make me realize that we here at mellohyelloh might not be THAT dysfunctional... also i hear Viper comes out tomorrow, not confirmed but you didn't hear it from me!

A HEALTHY HEART by SPITEBOX STUDIOS
     SPEAKING OF SPITEBOX, they recently released this little Guard Duty sides video, featuring a Health Inspector coming to check on the Guard Duty gang's base. I just really love these characters, and I think this video does a great job at showing all of them off, especially Miller. It's a tragic love story you'll have to see to believe. Also if you ever heard of CRASH (it's this little indie show, pretty underground), you might recognize some voices in this one! 

     OK THAT IS IT FOR REAL!!! THANKS FOR READING MY ENDLESS APOLOGIES AND EXCUSES FOR EPISODE 9 NOT BEING DONE!!! I'm gonna go and lock myself to my computer so I can continue editing now, hope to see you soon! I SWEAR I will not be playing Marathon... that would be... foolish...

- YELLOH // LOGAN