Machinima/Animation Tools as Dollhouse Bitchfests

Like kids working out interaction issues by playing with dolls or action figures. Instead of writing a letter to the editor, these played out scenes are definitely designed to make a point. The computed generated voices allows anyone to whip one of these up.

Normally this is something you would complain about to your friends or family (or complain ABOUT them to someone else). When you use an animation tool to complain about it to the world, what do you call it?

Complainimation.


One of the more famous examples, Cinematographer vs. Producer.
Discussed here.


Fireman vs. Cop

I tried to find some examples in other tools but had no luck.

Fascinating Series On Machinima, Video Games, and Art

Jenkins has three recent posts that come from curator Matteo Bittanti from the DIY Video 2010 event that was shown at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles LA consisting of selections of video game art, transformed video game art, and machinima. He is a research associate in humanities at Stanford and makes some fascinating remarks.

Did anyone within the machinima community attend this event? I do not recall any discussions on it.

Part One.

Part Two.

Part Three.

It is especially interesting as I had just watched this hour long performance art piece/stand-up comedy bit from the master of futurism, Bruce Sterling, at the Vimeo Festival, where his hour long diatribe on the future of video/internet/video asks and answers the question of what is coming next.

The Trashmaster

Of course is getting lots of notice, a feature length machinima shot in GTA:IV. How many full length machinimas is that now?

The filmmaker Mathieu Weschler is french, and this translated piece from a french website just kills me:

But of course once all these elements still had to add that the specificity of cinema, directing and editing of course! And there's the orgy, the film is a festival of all plans more inspired than each other, it's simple it never stops, tirelessly transcribing inner torments of his hero destroyed perfectly framed shot of plans of majestic shots ever free and zooms shattering when the action moves as it should be remembered that the film is a series of action scenes with dementia, of gunfights in the Heat of crossbred " John Woo-style " digested superbly (it honors, it is inspired, but never copy ...) of car chases race (the final sequence is unforgettable breadth, virtuosity and camaraderie ...) but also contemplative and dreamlike scenes to burst of beauty (the sequence of garbage collection , sublime!), all in an industrial environment blade-runneresque unforgettable ...

My kingdom for a babelfish...

I have only watched the first ten minutes, and I am really curious to know how it was made. So far it looks impressive.


The trashmaster (nouvelle version nouvelle voix-off !)
Uploaded by murakawa. - Check out more gaming videos.

Permanent Death

While reading a post about Minecraft (isn't that the media whore de jour), I found this mention of a machinima novel, 'Permanent Death'.

Thinking it strange that I had not heard of it before, I downloaded the pdf and started to read it. I am only a few pages into the document, but it is a fascinating read so far.

The author plays through Far Cry 2 with only a single life (hence the title) and captures the entire 20 hours or so of gameplay with a great pictorial (read screenshot) book of a whopping 391 pages!

I am instantly reminded of Freeman's Mind, the tongue in cheek playthrough that Ross Scott has been presenting for Half Life.

I am also reminded of Synechdoche New York.

Documentary? Fiction?
What are these constructs?
First person existential narrative?

Original post about Minecraft narratives that led me to this.
SLRC - Permanent Death.
Briefly mentioned here.

A New Voom Is In The Air

Lainy Voom that is with a new short Ctrl - Alt Delete.

Ctrl-Alt-Del from Lainy Voom on Vimeo.

This is absurdly humurous. Perhaps more so than any of the others. The sound at the end absolutely killed me.

NSF Funded Machinima Study

The cold dark lens of academia is about to be turned on machinima makers.

A study into large-scale collaborative works has been funded. One of the study subjects is WoW machinima?

Perhaps someone should invite them to the Machinima Expo?

First Person Project: The Jacknife Chronicles

Interesting machinima combining Half Life and Mirror's Edge (and Gary's Mod, and Portal just for kicks). Also covered here, here, here, and here.

Cory Doctorow - For The Win & Copyright Issues

Managed to see Cory Doctorow twice during a book tour promoting his latest novel, For The Win (of which I now have a signed copy), about gold farmers in a virtual MMORPG organizing as a union. The first was at a Baltimore book store where he gave a reading and then a Q&A with the audience that was highly entertaining.











The second was at the New American Foundation for a lecture on copyright and another long Q&A.

Video embed below.



Although often introduced as a prolific blogger (from Boing Boing) and novelist, his public speaking is extremely engaging. His energy when discussing issues around science fiction, copyright issues, creative commons, and corporate control of creativity is impressive.

Almost politic.

Cory for Prime Minister?

P.S. He mentioned that Fred Lohmann from EFF had moved to Google? I remember Fred's lecture on copyright issues at the 2006 New York Machinima Festival.

Now all I have to see is author Neal Stephenson and I will have seen a quartet of cool scribblers.

So What Do You Know About This Fox Machinima Show?

Found on NewTeeVee and more information on PlatformNation.

A 30 minute pilot using Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption assets.

Directed by John Hillcoat.

Coming out of the M.com Comedy Lab I mentioned in 2008.

Short Burnie Burns Interview @ SXSW 2010

Six minute interview with the creator of Red vs. Blue.

Spy vs Pyro

This is a brilliant cartoon spoof of Valve's Team Fortress 2, Half Life, and other video games in a twist on the various introductory videos Valve produced for the characters in the TF2 lineup.

Spy vs. Pyro.



Curious why Valve promotes something like this, but can't be bothered promoting machinima in general?

Play Machinima Law Conference Videos

Are now up (in Quicktime format) at the Stanford Law School. This was held last April in 2009. The notification of the conference was covered a lot, but since the videos went up months later there was little discussion on the content discussed at the conference.

If they have another, they should consider holding the conference in Second Life.

(Via MyClone).

The Escapist Article On Machinima

And as usual, the comment section of the article by readers is more entertaining than the original article itself.

Escapist: Hey-Kids-Lets-Make-a-Movie-Machinima

My Definition Of Machinima

################
# machinima defined
# author = bllius
# bandwagon jumped
################

if (machinima == punk) {
machinima = true;
}
else {
machinima = false;
}

exit;

A Decent Article On Machinima

Second Life: Video Production And Machinima. From Vizworld.

Not a bad little article, some funny insights into behind the scenes of live machinima TV ala The 1st Question (reminds me of some of the Machinima Expo problems).

So What Happened In Machinima In 2009?

What events occurred that you thought were noteworthy?
What didn't happen that should have?

Virtual Tiger Woods Getting Slapped by Virtual Mrs. Woods

So many jokes, so little time.

48 Hour Machinima Winners Announced

Poked my virtual self into Second Life last night to find 9 really great short machinima pieces made during the 48 hour film project.









Having participated in multiple 48 hour film festivals (surprisingly I never seem to make the machinima one), it was nice to see such great machinima made in that 48 hour time period.









The funny element to the evening was the fact that "Bobby the Baker" was the character that needed to be used in every movie. This made for some damn funny situations. As always, sometimes the required character becomes the main in the movie, and sometimes a supporting role.








Team Clark wrapped up a large parcel of awards with "Ring of False God". Congratulations to all the winners.

Augmented Reality - Machinima Live Sportscasting

Xbox 360 + EA Sports + NBA Game + Live Sportscasting + Machinima + Sportscaster = Augmented Reality - Machinima Live Sportscasting.

Video Link
Article Link

Love Is Back

And better than ever.

The procedural MMO I talked about before is presented in a 10 minute video by the creator.



The editing and in-world building tools look fantastic, as does the art and procedural generation. Who knew something that looks so simple could end up being so complex.

Bonus news, an alpha client is available for download and testing (no network).