Red vs. Blue Makes Green

Allen Varney writes in this week's edition of The Escapist about the beauty of Rooster Teeth's machinima, why Red vs. Blue is as good as it is, and why there is money to be made in this burgeoning art form. From the article: "Often, by the time we hear of fortunes being made in a new way, it's already too late to get in. But in machinima, the barrier to entry remains absurdly low, the need for professionalism desperate. If you're funny or interesting, can voice-act well, and produce reliably over the medium term - and you don't quit - there's absolutely nothing blocking you from success." I'm rather fond of some of the supremely odd Machinima based in World of Warcraft - such as Illegal Danish -Super Snacks or the Switcher videos. Any machinima you'd like to recommend to your fellow users?

Comments

Not exactly machinima but

[WilliamSChips]

Concerned is really awesome.

Oh its about games

[mnmn]

I thought it meant when you leave communists by themselves they will get seasick.

Copyright issues?

[Flentil]

Can anyone explain the copyright barriers that might be involved in making a movie using a game engine and game characters like they've done? Unless it's a parody of said game, I don't think it comes under fair use and could be copyright infringement. Or am I missing something?

Re:Copyright issues?

[MuNansen]

I'll give the cliffs:

- Game companies don't care if you make the machinima..heck, it's even free advertising for them.

- Some productions, like Tra5hta1k by the ILL Clan, use cheap engines (Torque) that you can afford to buy the rights

- Red vs. Blue was found by Bungie, and they arranged for Rooster Teeth to get the rights to their product, so they can sell t-shirts, DVDs, etc. This so far is a unique case. Other Halo machinimas have been turned down by M$, most likely thanks to the upcoming movie.

- Most machinima can't make money directly, but there's an increasing potential for careers in the industry. Recently both Blizzard and BioWare have hired from the machinima community (I'm one of the hires ;P), and I imagine there will be more. Companies have also gone to machinima producers to create content without joining the company.

Double Cliffs:

- Is it legal to take any game, make machinima out of it, and sell it? NO! Has there been any lawsuits yet? No. Has there been cease/desist requests? Yes, a couple that I know of. Asking the legal questions regarding machinima don't get solid answers because there are no solid answers yet. We're still in its infancy.

Re:Copyright issues?

[MuNansen]

www.machinima.com

www.mprem.com (Machinima Premiere)

www.sims99.com

www.warcraftmovies.com

These are some of the larger community sites. Or you could try finding productions you like, and contacting the producers themselves. At this stage, machinima is above no one ;)

Machinima Festival Nominees

[MuNansen]

Here's the nominees for this year's "Mackies," at the Machinima Film Festival in November. Most of the nominees are up on GameVideos.com. I would definitely suggest "Bill et John." http://festival.machinima.org/mackies.html (Shameless self-plug: My productions got three nominations) http://www.themureview.com/

Pwned life

[Jim Hall]

I still like Battlefield 2: The Pwned Life. :-)

South Park Machinima

[crotherm]

South Park did an episode where they were playing WoW and much of the episode was Machinima. As usual with Matt and Trey, it was great.