Slashdot Mirror
Domain: machinima.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to machinima.org.
Stories · 16
-
Machinima With A Political Voice
Moe Napoli writes "While machinima has long promised itself as a way to democratize animated filmmaking, it might finally be finding its way out of the steady stream of crass comedy and frag videos. Filmmakers with a desire to express their political views are using machinima as way of articulating their perspectives. One film that's gaining a lot of attention for its political message is The French Democracy, a machinima about the suburban riots in France, and made with Activision's recently released game/machinima app, The Movies. Additional commentary about the film is also on Clive Thompson's Collision Detection and Paul Marino's Thinking Machinima." -
2005 Machinima Festival This Weekend
An anonymous reader writes that "Village Voice has a small article by Julian Dibbell about the Machinima Film Festival that takes place this Saturday (Nov. 12th) at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. The festival is also holding their annual awards on Friday night. For me, the highlight is their honoring David Wright for creating Keygrip (the program behind the creation of Quake movies like Blahbalicious and Operation Bayshield) - which is a nice nod to machinima's roots. " -
Half-Life 2 - A Canvas for Original Works
Moe Napoli writes "Nearly six months since its release, Half-Life 2 is not only making ripples for its being a great game, but also for the works being made from the game itself. Garry's Mod (aka GMod) is a extremely popular and fun "sandbox" modification for Half-Life 2, that allows you to play with the game's exceptional physics engine as well as pose characters, create Rube Goldberg-type devices and other physics phun inside of HL2. Taking advantage of GMod's character posing, the compelling and professionally produced Apostasy is an online comic that follows 3 characters from the HL2 universe and is interwoven within and around the game's original narrative. Still Seeing Breen is an excellent machinima music video created by intercutting the game events with a singing G-Man - ultimately displaying Valve's powerful FacePoser software (which comes with the game's SDK) and HL2's capabilities for machinima development (spoiler alert for those who haven't completed the game yet). It's really great stuff - I'm looking forward to what the next six months brings." -
From DM6 to Park City: Machinima at Sundance
Moe Napoli writes "Machinima producer/author Paul Marino recently posted on his blog that he will be attending Sundance later this month (Jan. 26th to be exact) to moderate a panel discussion about the rising artform of machinima (using 3D games like Half-Life 2 for filmmaking purposes). Amongst the panelists will be Red Vs. Blue/The Strangerhood creators Burnie Burns and the Rooster Teeth team (also featured in the Jan. 2005 issue of Wired), who will also present a live demonstration of how they produce their hilarious RvB machinima series. Pretty cool to see Sundance embrace this new form of independent filmmaking and even cooler to see how far it has come since some gamers started making Quake Movies." -
From DM6 to Park City: Machinima at Sundance
Moe Napoli writes "Machinima producer/author Paul Marino recently posted on his blog that he will be attending Sundance later this month (Jan. 26th to be exact) to moderate a panel discussion about the rising artform of machinima (using 3D games like Half-Life 2 for filmmaking purposes). Amongst the panelists will be Red Vs. Blue/The Strangerhood creators Burnie Burns and the Rooster Teeth team (also featured in the Jan. 2005 issue of Wired), who will also present a live demonstration of how they produce their hilarious RvB machinima series. Pretty cool to see Sundance embrace this new form of independent filmmaking and even cooler to see how far it has come since some gamers started making Quake Movies." -
Best Tools for Machinima?
wrinkledshirt asks: "As a former Creative Writing major with a huge interest in film, I've been thinking about trying to get into Machinima (com, org, and wiki sites -- basically, using game engines to make movies). Probably the most famous use of it for the Slashdot crowd right now is Red vs Blue, which makes use of Halo, but up until recently, most of the other options have involved FPS game engines, which would require a huge investment in time so as to create non-FPS-genre content for non-FPS-genre movies. Now that Sims 2 is here with its video-recording feature (and the promise of more contemporary realism in the expansion packs) and with Pete Molnyeux's The Movies coming out in 2005, is it possible that an amateur writer could make the Machinimatic movies of his or her dreams? Plus, what would the best tools be? What machine would you need? Would any single game engine help you create your own Citizen Kane?" -
Snoop Dogg Gets Out the Vote
Moe Napoli writes "Using footage from the PC game True Crime: Streets of LA, a small collective of artists created a 'Vote or Don't Bitch' Machinima PSA with True Crime star Snoop Dogg as the center of the minute long spot. Premiering last evening at the start of New York Law School's State of Play II conference, the PSA is highly critical of the Bush Administration and even has Snoop run-over by a Bush-Cheney van at the end. While everyone may not agree with its message, I feel it's another clever use of machinima for creative expression." -
Lorne Lanning On Real-Time CG & Machinima
ILL Robinson writes "Just finished reading a great interview with Oddworld president, Lorne Lanning, over on VFX World. In the interview, Lorne speaks of the latest in real-time 3D technologies and Machinima, and how it relates to not only game graphics, but also how it will impact filmmaking in general. He also speaks about Epic Game's latest engine, Unreal3, and how powerful and impressive the latest Epic Games engine is." -
Machinima Gets MachiniMag, G4-Ed, ILLer Still
ILL Clinton writes "A few notable events in the world of real-time moviemaking within 3D game environments, otherwise known as Machinima-- The Hamburg, Germany digital film festival, bitfilm, has added Machinima as a submission category. Also a new online magazine, MachiniMag recently launched. G4TV is airing, Ours Again by Nathan Moller. Plus, the ILL Clan has announced that their new Machinima series will launch this month, you can see a funny outtake clip from the production involving killer elevator doors. (as my name suggests, I work with the ILL Clan.)" -
Machinima - Spielbergs with a Joystick
securitas writes "The Toronto Star's Murray Whyte writes about the growing popularity of machinima as the birth of a new type of filmmaking and artform. The article largely focuses on Red vs. Blue but also discusses Jim Munroe's My Trip To Liberty City, in which 'Munroe adopts the genteel perspective of a Canadian tourist while meandering the seamy, violent streets of the game Grand Theft Auto.' The most interesting comment comes from the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences' Paul Marino who compares machinima to garage bands." -
Epic Announces Unreal Contest Machinima Finalists
ILL Robinson writes "Epic Games has annnouced the finalists to the Machinima competition of their Make Something Unreal Contest. Some of the finalists are definitely worth a look -- my current faves being The Tournament by Friedrich Kirshner, The Showdown by Accelerated Pictures, and Lucky Man by James Hamer-Morton. Epic has also announced that they're pushing back the deadline on the Machinima category to Phase 4 so that the filmmakers have more time to polish their works. Congrats to the latest round of finalists!" -
Fountainhead Boss On Machinima Perils
Thanks to Machinima.com for their interview with Fountainhead Entertainment boss Katherine Anna Kang, in which the ex-id software biz person discusses their "independent production company that specializes in documentaries and animation... our specialty is Machinima" - that is, "filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment", often involving videogame engines. Kang laments: "I'm sad that Machinima isn't as popular as I thought it would be by today... the one thing that worries me is that Machinima will be seen as a hobby and not taken seriously, and that very much annoys me." She also mentions: "We may open-source an academic version of [in-house movie tool] Machinimation in the very near future." -
Red vs Blue Sweeps Machinima Awards
TheNomad writes "The Machinima Film Festival 2003 is over, and the results from the awards are in. Red Vs Blue swept the awards with 3 awards for "Best Independent Film", "Best Writing" and "Best Picture". Katherine Anna Kang's firm Fountainhead did very well too, with wins for "Best Direction", "Best Commercial Machinima", "Best Technical Achievement" and "Best Visual Design". Most of the films are available now, and there is a whole bunch of coverage of the event (with pictures) over at Machinima.com." -
Machinima Festival Discussed, Picks Announced
Thanks to HomeLan Fed for their interview with Machinima Academy director Paul Marino about the nominees for the 2003 Machinima Awards, honoring "filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment." Those up for awards include the ever-popular Red Vs. Blue, and more than one title from the commercial machinima company Fountainhead Entertainment, and Marino makes the interesting claim that "the holy grail of rendering systems is real-time rendering - and after that point, the creative language shifts and becomes more like filmmaking where shots are recorded in real-time." -
Academy Awards Of Halo Videos
An anonymous reader writes "With the ever-increasing popularity of Halo videogame fan-videos and machinima, Cobaltnova.com has launched the first ever Rockets on Prisoner awards: 'Cobaltnova is proud to present the first annual Rockets on Prisoner awards that recognize outstanding achievement for Halo related movies. And you get to pick the winners!'. With the nomination process already complete, the online voting will continue until midnight (PST) on August 9th, before a certified public accountant will announce the winners. Those expected to do well include Randy Glass, maker of the famous Warthog Jump, the increasingly popular FTC collective, who have 6 incredibly funny and fresh videos, and, of course, the well known fan favorites Red vs Blue. Most of the videos can be found for judging by flipping through the six nomination categories, or numerous mirror sites." -
Machinima Festival and News
Hugh Hancock writes: "Machinima (real-time 3D film-making in game engines, what used to be called 'Quake Movies') has a bit of a grab-bag day today -- the New York Times (registration, blah) is running an article on it, prompted by the announcement of the first Machinima-only film festival, sponsored by NVidia!"