We're pleased to announce that PLAYHEM has joined our wonderful team of sponsors who are helping us complete the feature documentary Star Nation about the exploding eSports industry surrounding StarCraft II. Playhem's sponsorship will fly our director, Justin Agnew, out to Europe to cover some Europe's most prestigious tournaments, including DreamHack and HomeStory Cup. We will be covering the thriving European eSports scene to help convey a global community dedicated to professional gaming.

Playhem is an online network in which friends compete in video and computer games for head to head matches and full scale tournaments for cash, points or prizes. To join the network, visit Playhem's official website, Facebook page, and Twitter account!

It's a bit of a hazard to make a documentary about a game you love. You're sure to get sucked into the game periodically while trying your best to maintain discipline in producing the film and contributing back to eSports.

Before I get into all that, Star Nation is preparing to fly out to Europe to cover the European eSports community and WhiteRa's home town in the Ukraine. Our story for the documentary has now focused into what could be an epic story line, and we're eager to continue getting this footage. We plan on releasing more specifics about this in the next few weeks, so keep your eyes open.

Until then, we're combing through our existing footage (currently at ~130 hrs), organizing barcrafts, fundraising, and trying to make ends meet. Ah... the life of a documentary filmmaker...

I'm a busy guy. Producing Star Nation is almost a full time job. The rest of the time is devoted to my other film projects (DMT: The Spirit Molecule, commercials, developing narrative features, etc.). Most importantly, "happy wife, happy life." So, I don't really have much opportunity to play SC2. The first time I did placement matches in Season 4, I was mistakenly placed in Silver. I stopped playing for a while. Then the next season I was appropriately placed in bronze. I've been battling to get into Silver ever since. Well, it happened!

More celebratory rambling after the jump.

Over 500 people showed up at the IPL/SXSW showcase match between White-Ra and Stephano! The Lone Star Clash is happening THIS WEEKEND. With $10,000 in cash prizes, you need to tune in to see all the great action from players flying in from everywhere! BarCraft Austin exploded last month with 270 people coming out for the MLG Winter Arena. The next one is on Sunday, March 25th for the MLG Winter Championships.

It's all about Austin, TX this month for us. See more info on each of these events, including a 360 degree panoramic shot I took at SXSW, after the jump!

It's been nearly 1 year since the inception of this project.  It was about this time last year when I made the move to Austin, TX and began playing with the idea of starting work on a StarCraft documentary.  I half remember the drunken conversation I had with a software exec from Seattle during a SXSW party who convinced me I should make the plunge.  Two weeks later I was taking a Grey Hound bus to Dallas to find out more about the professional gaming scene surrounding SC2 that I knew very little about.

Season 5 is coming up, and I wanted to give a quick update with where we are in our own SC2 journeys. When I met Justin, he was a Gold league Zerg. I started playing SC2 in September - Season 3, placed in Silver as Protoss when I should've been placed in bronze (my first placement match tanked the game). I believe I won a total of 3 games out of 35 ladder games. Then Justin and I got slammed with IPL, MLG, San Francisco, BlizzCon, Blizzard HQ, and MLG again. Whew... it was a good run, but there was no time to play. A few weeks ago, I did my Season 4 placement matches and got placed into bronze like I should've been all along. I've played 6 or so ladder games and won three games. Now that Season 5 just started up, I need to play my placement matches again. Let's see what happens! I need to play more, but the documentary comes first.

Justin told me last night that he got promoted to platinum! Fantastic considering how much he's focused on the doc.

We're excited to announce that Star Nation got accepted into IFP's Fiscal Sponsorship program!

"After debuting with a program in the 1979 New York Film Festival, the nonprofit IFP has evolved into the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, and also the premier advocate for them. Since its start, IFP has supported the production of 7,000 films and provided resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers’ voices that otherwise might not have been heard. IFP believes that independent films broaden the palette of cinema, seeding the global culture with new ideas, kindling awareness, and fostering activism."

IFP member success stories include such films as Blue Valentine, Mad Hot Ballroom, Born into Brothels, and many more.

Click through to see how the IFP Fiscal Sponsorship will help Star Nation.

I'm currently out in Beijing happily visiting my family and eating amazing food but also lamenting that I can't be in Guangzhou for the IEM tournament where Idra is tearing it up. In the meantime, I've set up a proxy to check up on Facebook, YouTube and IMDb.

Speaking of, we're now ranked 3,259 which drops us slightly below Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (a 2011 documentary), but we're still the top unreleased doc! I'm amazed that you guys helped keep our numbers that high. I half expected it to drop down into the 6-digit range which is common for most independent films.

Justin and Rick are out at IPL this week and then flying straight to MLG. While they're out there, can you help us keep our imdb ranking up? Share the link with your friends a couple times this week! Post in the message boards at the bottom of the profile.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2056704/

Thanks guys!

*edit - If you haven't bought a White-Ra t-shirt yet, please put in your order soon! If we need to add to our t-shirt order with the screen printing company, then I'll need to let them know soon.

Order here: http://starnationmovie.com/support/ or to the right

The "More GG, More Skill" t-shirt sales are now LIVE in the Support Page or to the right. All proceeds will go towards the making of the Star Nation documentary - specifically to cover StarCraft in Europe. We've found professional crew in Europe who are also huge StarCraft fans to help us with the shoot. This helps lessen the cost to fly over, but we'll still need to cover transportation, room and board for the crew around Europe. We're hoping to get White-Ra's story and cover the exciting European tournaments!

Here's the updated t-shirt design from Gaven (with a tweak from Justin):

If you're curious, the design will be printed on this quality t-shirt:

http://www.tscapparel.com/product/0202tc/tultex-fine-jersey-tee.html