After short break we gladly introduce important eSports person - mccormic. Read the newest interview!
Greetings! Today we are here with Peter “mccormic” Kerulo, 23 years old guy from Hungary. He currently works for The GD Studio and Ironbelly Studios. Have you got something to add to it?
mccormic: Hi. City i was born is called Nyiregyhaza, east side of europe. I used to be a roller skater but i stopped it near 2 years ago cause an accident. When i got my first PC, first games I played were “Need for Speed 2 se” and “Motoracer”. But I played lots of “Sonic the hedgehog” on my Sega, and “Mario” on my Nintendo, so I’m a really old-school gamer.i got into gaming since i was born. I always enjoyed fast games by some reason,never could sit down and play CS or COD.
When did you start making movies instead of playing yourself?
mccormic: Good question. I guess when I started focusing on video creating more than gaming was around 2003 when I saw the movie "Promode Movement". I instantly fell in love both CPM and video making. I wasn't really capable to do awesome movements back then, but I tried to edit first time in my life, and after 3-4 hours I made “Redemption I”. I really felt noobish after releasing it so I tried to improve my skills, but it wasn't really the time when i wanted to go expert. Just playing around with basic editing to show off some defrag moves.I was more like still a gamer than a video editor back then. I only started really focusing on videos like 4 years ago. I extended my knowledge to some 3D editing software, 3D tracking, visual effects, etc.
Here is mccormic's fist movie ever
Does movie-making take much time?
mccormic: Actually its really hard to tell. There are weeks or months when I work a lot. And by a lot I really mean a lot. Like yesterday I made 4 Starcraft short videos. There are months when I barely start up any software. Especially pre-'12 I really just made community videos, and a few ones for work but since I work for the GD Studio everything sped up. I can say I do 1-2 somewhat videos every week. These are ofcourse sometimes 10 sec long ones, sometimes more than 5 minutes.
Community movies:
What is your biggest and most successful work so far?
mccormic: Well, I have to be honest. One is my well-known competition movie called “Moment”, that video is (was since pldx.com went down) the most viewed video of mine. I made it for a Dell moviemaker competition where all the movies had to be exactly 99 seconds. Technically that was my most complicated movie to do. I tried lots of new stuffs in it. Like some 3D "animation", implementing IRL scenes, using lots of After Effects expressions. Turned out to be pretty good :).
My other mentionable work here is the already linked Celestia. I made it to my friend "arcaon" while ago. That was my first movie where I tried to focus community even outside Quake and seems like I succeeded. I tried to choose music, demos, maps and colors to be in harmony during the full video. Where it didn't match, I corrected it which can be seen at the map "flashbacks". The video was choosen to be the best Quake movie of 2011! :).
Did your movies ever helped you to visit eSports events?
mccormic: Dreamhack Summer 2011, Dreamhack Winter 2011 and Dreamhack Summer 2012. James "2GD" Harding was looking for a video editor last April and ZeroQL suggested me. We got in touch, and I told him that I'll help him if he gets my ass to Dreamhack Summer '11. 15 minutes later I already had everything booked so I noticed its no-joke. After meeting him personally we decided to work together in the future so he brought me to the upcoming Dreamhacks too. And more to come! :).
So how is it working with one of the best studios in the world? Spending much time on it? Any interesting or hot background stories you can share with us?
mccormic: It's really good working with the guys. They have a lazy but pretty good group there. The best thing is, they don't really have rules in connection with streaming, so it give a whole different feeling to everything:). I met lots of guys from other studios and what I heard a lot is "our contract doesn't allow us to do this" which was kinda unfriendly to what we have there. Sadly, I don't spend too much time in the studio because I just recently finished my studies at the university. Though, I managed to spend my June in the house which was really awesome. We had “mouz.singsing” in the house when I arrived and he is even more fun in real life than on stream. I literally laughed my ass off those days. We also had awesome BBQ's thanks Weppas which is always a good change after the fast foods (yes, we mostly took fast foods). Oh, and I enjoyed the kittens a lot! During the first week they were in my room so I played non-stop with them. When I got there they could barely walk and when I left the house they were already jumping off tables. They grow so fast! It was good to see Semmler and Trance again and finally meet dApollo :). We always had some good stories. Like our first Dota2 game I played. It was one of the closest game I ever head and I messed it all up with a single unwanted key press and we lost. They still blame me for losing 80 minutes from their lives. The whole Dreamhack was good with the guys too. I can't wait to go back again.
Let’s move on to other studio you are working for, Ironbelly Studios. What are you doing for them, can you tell us more about this company, how come you started to do content for them?
mccormic: Ironbelly Studios is making puzzle based single player FPS game. I am always reading UDK forums and found out they were looking for advanced video editor so I sent em my CV and a Show Reel. They instantlyreplied they need me so I joined the team. Since the game is still heavily in development, I'm doing weekly or biweekly summary videos about what happened, how much we developed. Also I'm doing the company intro, the game intro and the trailers, teasers. There are not much I can show due it's really closed at the moment. But of course people can go to our page and check out our in-game screenshots, concept arts. Moreover we are doing game give-aways every week that everyone can participate.
Are you going to participate in ASUS ROG movie competition?
mccormic: Not really. First of all, I don't really have time to do movies for "myself". My weekly videos already taking up my time. And when I'm not working I'm trying to be with my friends, my girlfriend, or just chill. Mostly I can't be arsed to start up video editing softwares to any reason but work. Honestly nowadays I'd like to be a part of a jury more than entering a competition like this. Hopefully the GD Studio will make a video competition once :).
What soft are you using?
mccormic: Uhh, a lot...I hope I won't miss any :). So lets start: Sony Vegas, Virtual Dub Mod, Adobe After Effects, Cinema 4D, 3D Max, Corel Photo-Paint, Adobe Photoshop, Boujou. And I recently started learning Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer, The Foundry Nuke. I don't want to know all these softwares as an expert. It' just because I want to have some kind of sight to every possible well-known software I can in case I have to use them sometimes. And ofcourse I own them all legally! (Hehe...sure).
Wow, that's a lot! Did you learn all those programs yourself or maybe someone helped you? Or maybe you even used to visit some special courses for a while?
mccormic: I never ever visited any special courses. I learn everything on my own. I randomly watch a videocopilot or an aetuts+ tutorial now and then, but just in case there are some things I'm missing. For first I always try to find my own way to get my ideas true and if it fails (it never does :D) I google some tutorial. I never re-do them to avoid doing mainstream videos and effects that happens a lot lately. It's more like just getting new ideas. I also had the chance to talk with some really expert Cinema4D, After Effects and Sony user and even developer and most of them said everything I learnt by myself are really good! One guy said that some things I do in 3-4 steps can be done by a single click. But it felt good to have this kind of acknowledgement from the real "pros" :).
What videos are you working on currently?
mccormic: There is a "secret project" that I don't wanna spoil. But a hint i can say is, it's not necessarily Quake related, but whoknows :P. That is the only big project I'm doing right now. Wanted to pick up a few more videos but my limited time didn't allow me to do that so I stick to this one only. I can't even say ETA for that cause it includes lots of thing that I didn't learn yet. Hopefully it will be out at Dreamhack Winter '12 but I can't promise. I'll try to do my best for sure.
So we can’t expect new quake movie soon?
mccormic: No, not in the near future. There could be movies I cooperate with though. I got a few requests lately. I guess it was “ger1” who asked me to help him out.
You are usually try to create something different. Mixing Quake LIVE and Quake 3 in one video, not using enemy model, using low fps etc. Why do you do that?
mccormic: Most of the movies in TV and cinemas are made with 23.97 or 23.976frame rate. Even Blu-ray and 3D movies in IMAX. That's because the eye is captured at that fps, and above that frame rate its our brain that smoothens out the rest cause it can notice that the video is using more. I always wanted to work in the filming industry as a VFX artist, so I stuck around this FPS. As I noticed other moviemakers can't even handle number that aren'tdividable by 5, especially not something like 23.97. So the main difference is that they just want to make another Quake Movie until I'm trying to create a film with Quake content. That’s one reason I'm dropping enemy models. In this case the viewer has to pay more attention or feel like they are in the game to notice everything. Another big difference between the rest of the Quake movie makers and me is that, they focuson ESR community. Their rate, their comment are what counts. As I mentioned previously, I created videos that's focusing outside this community. Maybe I get a low rating on the site, and I get blamed by not using enemy color and using HQ effects but those are only about 2000 people. And from the 100 000 viewers I had for example on “Celestia”, that's really not much. Mostly people outside the Quaker world can even enjoy my movie and thats my goal. I could make a video including only Stermy and Noctis with low picmip and dubstep to get 11 out of 10 from Quakers but that wouldn't make me happy. It's like creating the movie SinCity with all the small details that only the ones can understand that read the comic. Would be hilarious. I hope we will see you one day doing CG-effects for worldwide famous cinema studios. It was very interesting to get such information from person like you.
I’m sure you have something interesting to say to video editors, who just started to work in this sphere, advices or some kind of motivation.
mccormic: For the ones who just want to stick to a community, you just continue doing what you do, they like it. If you are trying to reach other people or communities you should find a way to attract everyone. Might be harder but surely it will worth the effort. Also this way you are most likely to get a job in what you like! Oh, and if you are new to movie making, watch lots of tutorials but never remake them! :)
Any final shoutouts to all the lovers and haters, before we drop this out?
mccormic: Hehe, no shoutout for haters. Even though I already mentioned their works hidden between the lines :P. But I'd like to thank to “2GD” for getting me into the studio, and to “brugal” to supporting the QuakeLIVE movie maker community a lot! :)
Thanks for the interview Peter, can’t wait to see your future movies and released projects. CG is the future!
Where is mccormic: 
Youtube, 
own3d TV
Thanks to all our readers and keep an eye open for next interviews with famous casters.
