The Days After

This machinima piece done with the GTA engine is getting a lot of buzz these days (Machinima Premiere and Machinima.com). The Days After uses some very nice cinematics and some very strong voice acting to tell a a decent story. Similar to what happened in 28 Days Later mankind is devastated by a viral plague (T40-X) . The film starts with one character, who goes by the name Bogart, musing on what it all means. I won't ruin the rest of the story so I highly recommend going and downloading it to see what happens.

The piece was crafted by Apollo Productions. On Machinima.com it looks like GTA is the only engine they use as they've done 3 pieces with that game, The Days After, Sundown, and Midnight. Since this piece was so strong, I downloaded the others to see what else they had done with GTA. The first thing I'll say, they really do like their long intros. The second is that they have obviously evolved as filmmakers with The Days After being their best piece by far. Midnight is what I would have expected from a GTA machinima: hip hop music, gang culture, cops, shootouts, etc. Sundown has more of a music video feel, with some pumping techno beats, what appears to be a B.A.S.E. jumper, and no dialog at all. Both show some nice cinematics and high quality work in the editing department.

It will be interesting to see what Apollo does next. Will they stick to GTA and try to make the most of that engine or move to something else? With their obvious expertise I suspect they will stay in GTA. The more interesting question to ask is where will they take GTA next? Will they push the boundaries of that game, hopefully far beyond what is expected, or go back to their roots? Their cross pollination with some other names in the machinima community (Overman did the music, Coyote Republic was the female voice actor) suggests some big things are in store for them.