Machinima Info Barf #6

Another huge collection of links all packed with vitamins and minerals.

Previous Info Barfs (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5).

Festival news:

There actually is some machinima being shown in the western hemisphere (see my nanorant on European machinima festivals).
The Second Life Community Convention in Chicago (Aug 24-26) will have a machinima track led by Moo Money.
Blizzcon announced the machinima winners for their contest in Ca. Oxhorn had an extensive post-fest writeup.

Interesting that the two large conventions/events holding machinima are both about virtual worlds/MMORPGs. Would you ever see something like this for The Sims, The Movies, Half Life? With all of these eSports events going on, why don't they showcase some machinima too?

Other festival news.

The International Fertility Film Festival will accept machinima (bizarre).
Bitfilm announces nominees. Now if only they would link the damn movies.

eSports:

New WoW observer mode discussed. Will it help sell eSports to the lay audience? Will it help in machinima?

Games:

A brief report on modding at TechNewsWorld including mention of Microsoft's XNA, and Sony's LittleBigPlanet (bringing modding and development to the consoles).
Unity game engine developers are having a dev contest. Interesting that it is for the Mac.
The Game Innovation DB. Who came up with what first?
Top 100 indie games at GameTunnel and 50 good indie games at Tigsource, and a list of linux games.

Machinima news:

Borg wars report at Nashua Telegraph.
Interview with Alexander Winn (The Codex, The Heretic).
Siggraph 2007 blog briefly mentions motion capture integration via iClone3 and animazoo's consumer-priced mo-cap suite.
Global Kids receiving a Macarthur Foundation award is awesome news. They will also be at SLCC.
Moviestorm to sponsor Mobile Jam Festival. Impressive looking creative festival.

Machinima/Video Clips:

Some referential machinima.
Overman noted that Officer Dan is back. In the extended Machinima vs. Frag Video, there's a riff on Deviation at the beginning.
Someone has cut up This Spartan Life and Red vs. Blue.

Other clips.

This looks like a discussion of machinima in German.
The Information Machine. 1957 cartoon about information.
Fatal Mortality - gamer riff on famous characters from movies and Mortal Kombat. Bizarre. Watch Rainman vs. Jules.
FonejackerTV. Bizarre animated prank calls. Odeon cinema. Flat to rent.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

Apparently someone liked my idea of having multiple YouTube videos playing at the same time so much that they created a site for them (ok, it was already there and I just discovered it). There's even a blog dedicated to split screen cinema.
Lance Weiler from The Workbook Project is interviewed extensively at Knowledge@Wharton. There's a lot of information here on digital distribution and how indie filmmakers can succeed.
A bloody expensive camera presented at Sci-Foo that can capture enough information to produce a 3D image. Forget the mapping potential, imagine capturing the "real world" around you and being able to reproduce in a virtual world.
Save a film. Upload it to the archive.
Digital screens expanding.
Marketing Harry Potter in Second Life (Hollywood Reporter, New World Notes). Successful or not? There has been a lot of discussion lately on whether Second Life is useful for marketing or not, including an article in Wired.
A list of free music sources (free and Creative Commons) for podcasters. Of interest to filmmakers too?
SFGate has an article on Charles Ferguson who made "No End In Sight", a documentary on Iraq. Internet millionaire decides to focus his life.
Anyone heard of Frameforge 3D previz and storyboarding software?