Short Machinima News

Bioware is secretly building a machinima army as they powerup with Dr. of Machinima. How many more before they get the full set? Either that or they are attempting to become the Pixar of game cinematics.

Machinima article in Popmatters. Interesting in that it does not talk about RvB, does talk about Half Life, Monad, and Civil Protection, and also does not mention intellectual property issues?

Cineaction - Machinima

A long article in Cineaction (have not read it before) on machinima (author at Recycled Cinema). It is one of the more intelligent articles on machinima I have seen recently.

Interesting, then, that the author never suggests future potentials. Is that set up for part II?

Film Quarterly - Machinima

Another journalistic article (actually, more scholarly) in Film Quarterly on machinima by Irene Chien (unfortunately no online copy - Sept. 2007). It covers Deviation and Red vs. Blue and I suppose introduces the academic film studies audience to machinima (although Film Quarterly says it's trying to bridge the journalistic and academic fields). A few little nuggets of information there that I had not seen before.

Online film star word game by Irene Chien (any other online presence?).

Cutting Edge Machinima

Not really.

The Edge has a three page article on machinima and a quick skim shows it to be better than most articles (they don't even mention Red vs Blue till page 2).

Sarcastic Gamer

This site is, as the name suggests, sarcastic as hell. Check out the parody of Microsoft's Surface Video (original, parody) or the fake news post about Michael Vick's Extreme Dogfighting game.

Sarcastic Gamer (via NewTeeVee).

Game Career Guide - Machinimist?

Game Developer Magazine has a decent piece on machinima, and as it is part of their game career guide the suggestion is that this is a future career path for those interested. Well researched, and with references, it's a decent article from undergrad Brian Shurtleff at Savannah who obviously takes his writing seriously (take that Esquire!).

IGN's REHASHED Machinima 101

UPDATE*

Apparently this article is a rehash (read copy/paste) of a previous article from 2006 (also from IGN). Therefore I removed all links to IGN. Shame on them. Shame on me for posting it. Fool me once...

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IGN.com has a short primer on machinima (via playgirlz). At least it's better than Esquire's (see previous post). But machinima HQ? Lol.

But even if you never make a single penny off your work, the most important thing that Machinima offers is a new way to enjoy the games that you've already invested time and money into.

Hmmm...is that so?

Esquire Does Machinima - Poorly

I have to say I'm not impressed with this article and after reading the excellent Escapist article awhile ago (see previous post), this one is a letdown. Not only that but it's wrong on a few 'facts':

But after years of being used for mindless entertainment, machinima has finally entered the political arena. Two weeks ago, Zarathustra Studios released a spot called "Fairgame" (watch it below), which uses Warcraft to make a point about the importance of fair trade.

Um...really? Get your facts straight. Strange Company released "Fairgame", not Zarathustra Studios. And 'mindless entertainment' and finally in the 'political arena'? Bah, I can write a better article than that.

Feel free to send a comment to the person responsible.

Escapist Magazine - Machinima

The Escapist has an absolutely excellent article on machinima (Allen Varney). Not only does it get everything right, it goes far beyond what you find in typical mainstream press (oh wow, you can make movies with videogames!). Discussing The French Democracy (see previous posts #1, #2) the magazine focuses on one key aspect of machinima: the copyright problem that is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Their suggestion is for an open source machinima platform. That really could be a killer app.

Not only was the article accurate but there were a few things that I hadn't seen elsewhere:

• some information on puppetry in other cultures
  
• the discrepancy between film and games themselves as an accepted form of artistic expression
• the larger problem of subversive cinema in reaching mainstream audiences
  
• ILM's Zvix previsualization tool sounds fantastic

I applaud articles like this. Now if only the mainstream media would read it.