{"id":253,"date":"2008-02-24T01:12:32","date_gmt":"2008-02-24T07:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=253"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:59:15","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:59:15","slug":"lights-on-at-dark-maze-studios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"Lights on at Dark Maze Studios"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"left\">So much for taking a breather! <strong>Ed Glaser<\/strong> and his team at <strong>Dark Maze Studios<\/strong> have rebounded quickly after the dramatic build-up to the release of their feature-length movie, <strong>PRESS START<\/strong>, back in September. During my interview with Glaser (see item: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=239\">12\/19\/07<\/a>), mum was the apparent word on future doings apart from resuming production on their Flash animated prequel\/sequel series, <strong>PRESS START: BONUS LEVELS<\/strong>, but clues gleaned from all over\u00a0virtual space\u00a0reveal a much more happenin&#8217; picture.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">A press release issued <strong>January 28<\/strong> announced that <strong>BONUS LEVELS<\/strong> would be relaunched as <strong>PRESS START ADVENTURES<\/strong> for viewing on mobile devices. Presented by <strong>ThunderSquid Incorporated<\/strong>, the series will feature 14 of the original cartoons and 10 brand-new episodes. Future stories will introduce &#8220;Zach Nimbus&#8221; (played by <strong>Josh Stafford<\/strong> in the movie), reveal the fate of &#8220;Count Nefarious Vile,&#8221; and feature the arch-villain &#8220;Lord Vlad&#8221; (to be voiced by video game veteran <strong>David Humphrey<\/strong>). <a title=\"Dark Maze Studios :: Home Page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.darkmaze.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dark Maze<\/a> and <a title=\"ThunderSquid Incorporated :: Home Page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thundersquid.com\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">ThunderSquid<\/a> will presumably post release dates on their Web sites.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Elsewhere, casual surfing on the official <a title=\"PRESS START :: Official Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pressstartmovie.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>PRESS START<\/strong> Web site<\/a> revealed that two prior Dark Maze projects had finally been committed to DVD: <strong>NIGHT OF ANUBIS<\/strong> and <strong>THE NOCTURNAL JOURNAL: ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY<\/strong>. Second monster-fest first, <strong>JOURNAL<\/strong> features a comedy team <em>a la<\/em> <strong>MST3K<\/strong> jawing over one of the many Mexican creature mash-ups originally imported to the United States by <strong>K. Gordon Murray<\/strong> (see item: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=240\">12\/22\/07<\/a>), while <strong>ANUBIS<\/strong> is an original production pitting students against a resurrected ghoul on the <strong>University of Illinois<\/strong> campus. (You are not going crazy, dear reader. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=248\">You actually <em>have<\/em> heard this one before.<\/a>) Both titles are available at reasonable prices on high-quality DVD-R. Although <strong>JOURNAL<\/strong> is bare-bones, <strong>ANUBIS<\/strong> is packed to the coffin lid with extras including the usual (commentaries, trailer, alternate cut) and the unusual (cartoon, full MP3 soundtrack, six (!) Mummy eBooks).<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Even <em>further<\/em> casual surfing on C-U&#8217;s edition of <strong>Craigslist.org<\/strong> revealed that Dark Maze is seeking thespians for a new live-action series for mobile viewing called <strong>NINJA HUNTRESS<\/strong>. Per the announcement, the plot concerns &#8220;a beautiful, katana-wielding Caucasian ninja known as Huntress whose sensei is murdered by an evil ninja clan for a piece of a mystic artifact. Huntress vows to avenge his death and recover all eight artifact pieces.&#8221; Shooting is expected to begin in April and last roughly one day per episode. Since no formal casting decisions have come down the pipeline, some roles may still be available; <a title=\"Write to Ed Glaser\" href=\"mailto:ed.glaser@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\">feel free to contact Glaser<\/a> and inqure.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Finally, my dear Watsons, simple\u00a0deduction has made it known that Glaser and Dark Maze associate <strong>Meagan Benz<\/strong> recently tied the knot amidst\u00a0all this madness. Congratulations to\u00a0Meagan and Ed!\u00a0I just have to wonder what in the world the wedding video looks like&#8230;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dark Maze Studios of Champaign, Illinois, has embarked on an itinerary of labyrinthine proportions now that their first feature, PRESS START, has been completed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production-updates","category-videos-du-c-u"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}