Only three short days before the Weekend Warlords documentary is released to the public! Dakota and I will be arriving at the Gates of Summer event on Saturday morning with signed, first-edition DVDs for all the participants.

The rest of you can get yours by mail. The Red40 Entertainment Online Superstore is open for business. There may be only one item on the shelf right now, but at least it’s a new release. Follow the new STORE link on the navigation bar above, or click here if you’re too lazy to move your mouse a few inches.

Here’s another clip you can watch while you’re waiting in line at the checkout counter:

High-res Quicktime version

Slightly lower-res MPEG version

In this clip, participants talk about the event and why they are attracted to Dagorhir while they set up camp on the first day of the three-day event.

Here you go folks — as promised, a clip from Weekend Warlords:

Ultra-high quality Quicktime version (34 MB) (get this one if you can handle it!)

MPEG version (18.7 MB)

Low Quality Quicktime version (4 MB)

Just click the link and it should open up if your browser is set up correctly. You could also save it to your computer and run it from there by right-clicking on the link and choosing "Save As…"  

A few words about what you are going to see:

Unlike some medieval enthusiast societies (like SCA), Dagorhir is mostly interested in physical battles. They gear up with armor and heavily padded weapons to face off across the field and hit each other in close combat. It’s a sport, not a roleplaying event — although some groups encorporate some elements of roleplay into it, to make it fun.

In this clip, you’ll get a taste of one of the very few "scenario" battles that were held that weekend. Most of the fighting that weekend was held in other events – the Rock-Throwing Tournament, the "Press Play" warm-up exercises, archery battles, man-on-man close combat, and large-scale combat pitting multiple teams against each other. It looked like so much fun, all of us on the crew wanted to participate.

I guess there’s a natural human inclination to beat each other with blunt objects.

The editing is coming along really well, and I’m looking forward to next weekend, when it will all be done and availalbe on DVD. We’re going to bring a huge stack of signed, Limited Edition DVDs to the upcoming Gates of Summer IV on the weekend of March 31 – April 2. Not that our signature is worth much, but it’s a little something special we can do for the group that so graciously allowed us to peer into their event and their lives. Dakota and I are looking forward to seeing everyone again — without cameras rolling.

I’ll post a few more preview clips up next week, along with ordering information!

It’s been a crazy week for me. I spent last week down in New Orleans, helping with hurricane cleanup. What can I say — it’s just terrible down there. So much work to be done that what WE did felt like a drop in the bucket. One guy I talked to said that if they had another bad hurricane season this summer, everyone might just give up. Right now, there’s lot of hope as progress on cleanup slowly moves along.

I was with a student group – total of about 26 people altogether. We split into teams of 9 and mucked out houses, stripping them down to the studs. Some of these houses have been sitting in water since Katrina six months ago. We were fully decked out with repirators, goggles, hazmat suits, boots, gloves, the works. I’ve smelled smells I’ve never smelled before. Hurricane and flood damage is so much different from tornado damage. With a tornado, stuff gets ripped apart and thrown around. But just add water, and you get everything in the house completely ruined, including the house that is still standing. Mold city.

It was fulfilling nonetheless. I’ll try to post some pics in a few days, as the dust settles from the week. I have a few important items to finish for class, but I’m hitting Weekend Warlords hard this week, as Gates of Summer 3 is coming up soon. I’ll have more on that in a bit, including another video clip for ya by the end of the week. Stay tuned!