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."

Comments

Record Function?

[RexHowland]

In Burns's house in Austin, Tex., they gather to `shoot' the episodes using the game console's record function.

Is my Xbox missing something, or is this a lovely little piece of misinformation?

Re:Red Vs. Blue was good...but...

[mstra]

I guess it's like anything else. You can remove the barriers to entry, but you still have to know how to tell a story.

It's great that things like DV and Machima have made it easier for movies to be made without millions of dollars in budget...but as we should all already know - having a lot of gear and money to throw at a bad story doesn't make for a good movie. And you can have the crappiest production values in the world (Clerks), but if the story is compelling, that doesn't matter. If you've got a good story and know how to tell it, you can shoot your film on one of those old Fisher Price camcorders that recorded on audio cassettes.

That being said, I have always found the work of ill clan to be pretty entertaining and well done. Perhaps it's because the creators are all skilled improvisors and know how to tell stories. Or maybe just because I think lumberjacks are inherently funny.