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Machinima In The Cantina
The Guardian Gamesblog has a post up with snippets from an interview with SWG fixture Javier, the mastermind behind the Cantina Crawl Machinima series. These short films feature Entertainers dancing and grooving to music, shot within SWG and edited by Javier. From the article: "Q: What are the unique benefits and drawbacks of making machinima in an online game? A: The benefits, I think, are the flip side of the same coin as the drawbacks. It's all about the other people playing the game. When you shoot a video in an online game, other people actually participate, and sometimes on a large scale. The resulting video is very special to those folks. They can also bring their own unique personalities and actions to the process, much in the way real actors do. The drawback is that, like with real actors, people are often unpredictable, and perhaps even more so in a game which they pay to play."
I had to look up Machinima. Essentially, they're recording an in-game scene, and using that as part of a sequence.
/dance, you'll start seeing 'mimicry' and repetition fairly rapidly.
Do the people in the shot know they're being filmed?
Technically you'd expect people to misbehave either way; some react specifically to the camera, and some just react to being in a crowd. I'll bet this takes a large number of shots...
You can bet that if people knew they were being filmed they'd want to be paid though; on the other hand, the privilege of being in the film (as mentioned in the article) might be payment enough.
It's certainly an interesting concept, and may in a way be more natural than animation or real actors, though you've always got the problem of people moving around in imperfect directions (not being in line with a wall, bumping off things a lot more - simply because it's a game with restricted movement control) and movements that are restricted to that of the game engine. For example - if you get a bunch of people in WoW to
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
Tell me about it. Seems like everytime I fire up the old Fraps program in World of Warcraft some jackass has to run across my screen shouting "Leeeeeroy Jeeeenkins!"
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Somebody call the CDC - the karaoke virus has mutated and jumped species from bars to MMO gaming!
After SWEP3, that ended my 30 year obsession with anything to do with the geekiest of pastimes. Now it is just tired and sad that there are people and companies that can't let go of this franchise and give it the death is sorely needs. It is time to stop the continued rape by Lucasarts of our money and lives. Find something new to fixate on.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Oh great, now I have to listen to some n00bs chatter about how they were an extra in such-and-such a movie.
If I wanted to hear that crap, I'd go to the bars in meatspace with my media-industry friends.
Machinima is pretty cool, but why can't a game just be a game?
The interviewee in the article is producing the machinima equivalent of reality TV... it's just ego-tripping by the participants.
While it's a phenomenon on SWG, I'd prefer to see machinima used as a production vehicle for scripted shows or movies. I've had enough "Real World" that I don't need a "SWG Virtual World" to get my reality TV fix.
Props to the machinima "directors" who actually create content that they film, taking full advantage of cheap (as-in-beer, not cheap as-in-floozie) animation software.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
from the article:
What do you see as the future of machinima?
We live in an age where creative minds are suddenly given outstanding...
blah, blah, blah. allow me to step in here and answer that question.
You can view some WoW machinima at www.warcraftmovies.com. Technically, all of the dance videos, PvP, and Boss Fights aren't considered machinima.
You can find some examples of "Machine Cinema" in the Story-Line section. Some are actually pretty funny (if you're a WoW Player), but lack lip movement when the character speaks. Other than that, body movement isn't too bad.
If you want lip movement for more "realism", check out www.machinima.com for Half Life 2 examples.
Am I missing something? All of the links are 403 forbidden?
I've always hated the term "machinima". Whats wrong with something self-explanitory like "realtime 3D" or "in game"? "Machinima" just sounds so pretentious- like they're trying to gain legitimacy through buzzwords.
Creating new term for something has advantages.
;)
It is easier to search for it, and refer to it, and if it is a well used and useful term, it often gets a fairly _precise_ and standard meaning.
There are good reasons why scientists/doctors etc make new terms that aren't in plain common english, even if it seems pretentious.
When people in their group use a special term, it is a lot less ambiguous what they are talking about.
When someone says "ventricular fibrillation" it is quite a specific term for "the heart is beating fast in an unsynchronized way that is not effective in pumping blood".
When someone calls something a dog, or canine. it's not just any furry mammal.
Your self-explanatory terms aren't precise enough. Just playing any 3D game would be "realtime 3D", but playing a 3D game does not make something machinima. I have little idea of what you mean by "in game".
When someone says machinima, you know it's not just any "realtime 3D". It is a particular type of "realtime 3D".
I dislike people changing the meanings of perfectly good words and using them to mean something else, when they already have existing words or could come up with new ones.
I think that's gay.
please the parent post meets the needed to be mod up.
-Woof woof woof!