A quick couple of trips...

I just returned from the Austin Game Conference, where we showcased the latest in Machinima films for the conf attendees at the now-standard AGC Machinima Theater. Thanks again to all the filmmakers who allowed us to show their work during the conf.

It was fun to be in Austin again (this time, with the weather actually comfortable) and I even purchased a cowboy hat for myself. Yes, it was the touristy thing to do - and no, I won't post any pics of yours truly wearing said hat.

At the conference, I sat in a number of great panels including, "Who Owns My Lightsaber?"- moderated by my good friend Prof. Beth Noveck, with panelists Prof. Edward Castronova (Indiana University), Raph Koster (CCO, Sony Online) and Dr. Greg Boyd (Kenyon & Kenyon). The panel covered the various topics of property rights within MMOs, with the panelists giving their take on EULAs and the illusion of user ownership. Bottom line: under current law and agreements, you own nothing associated with your account in a MMO. The panel ultimately created more questions than it answered (obviously) - but it was a compelling hour to say the least.

One very entertaining session was the MMO Rant on Friday afternoon. On this panel was Brian Green, Jessica Mulligan, Jeff Hickman and Gordon Walton - all of who are key figures in MMO development. The panel was filled with several LOL moments around MMO development, with panelists (and some audience members) making good points along the way. Unfortunately, the call to arms issued by the developers never struck paydirt, and it sometimes devolved into a bitch session for those who took the floor to kvetch about their own particular area of angst (Steve Jackson, who sat in the audience, found opportunity to rave about the lack of adequate game documentation - however, he sounded like someone still developing in 1988). Still it was a fun session to end the conf on, if only for the color commentary by the not-so-reserved panelists. Here's to Jessica Mulligan's "You Suck!" barb directed at any standing in her line of fire.

Next up, I attend the Serious Games Summit in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to give the lowdown about Machinima to G-men and women.

Quick Austin anecdote: Here's one for the "lives crossing paths" chapter of my autobiography; I was having dinner with some friends at Chuy's on my last night in the city, when I went to the front desk of the restaurant to arrange car service for transport back to the hotel. As I was speaking with restaurant hostess, I was suddenly shoved aside by a well-dressed gentleman. Before I had the chance to get up in his face with my best Brooklyn-fu, ex-President Bill Clinton walks into the restaurant, looks at me and says "Hi, howya doin'?" and then heads straight past me into the restaurant. What Clinton was doing in Austin having a heavy tex-mex dinner post-heart-op, is beyond me, but I hope his Secret Service detail keeps a defib on standby. It was good to see him and that he's keeping his diet in check, though he should call more often.

Machinima from the inside out...

This past couple of days, I had the pleasure of attending New York Law School's State of Play III, which held to its usual standards of great panels, intriguing presentations and, of course, social connectivity (though I missed the pub crawl that came to a crashing halt in a Karaoke bar -then again, maybe its better that I missed it).

I also had the honor of, once again, presenting a Machinima Fest teaser to attendees of SoP, which manifested itself in the shape of a 20+ minute reel, highlighting Machinima films from the past year. I'm not sure if it was the new-found respect for Machinima over the past year, the quality of the films, or the way I edited together the reel, but the audience response was much more positive this year than it had been in the previous two years that I presented. My sense is that it was probably a combination of the three factors - leaning heavily on the film-quality quotient.

During my visit, I was able to speak with the folks from Linden Lab - the company behind Second Life. One obvious item of discussion was using SL for Machinima purposes. I've always felt Second Life has a lot of potential for Machinima creators. There's lots of room for customization (characters, animations, etc.), in-engine scripting and, probably its largest asset, the end user retains IP rights to his/her Machinima. Its not without its problems however. Second Life is first and foremost, a virtual community platform. T0 this, server load and data collection/distribution are the experiential priorities. So whereas, your Sims 2 Machinima creator is expecting 60 fps out of their brand spanking-new NVIDIA 6800 Ultra, you might be able to obtain the same fps in SL - but it depends on a number of variables: the amount of data the server is currently chewing on, your connection, your hardware, etc. Thus to say, a creator is bound to experience shifts in FPS during their SL production - not exactly the smooth constant a director expects when crafting a film. And while MMOs are subjected to similar variables, SL allows for the uploading of user-created content - which can impact the speed of which SL can render out the space at a consistent level.

Still, some are creating some really cool Machinima in Second Life, which will warrant some to consider it as a future platform for their productions. As part of my SoP reel, I ended the reel with one of the finer pieces of Machinima made in SL, a documentary titled Ideal World. Produced and directed by Glenn Thomas and Brad Henderson, the doc focuses on the users of Second Life and how it plays an important role in their lives. One element that elevates Ideal World is that there's a real filmmaking sensibility about the work - which I feel is in part, due to the SL world being as much a subject matter as the people in the film. Beyond Ideal World, there are others SL-based Machinima works - some of which, were covered earlier this year on Machinima.com - here and here - articles created by Hugh Hancock and SL reporter Wagner James Au, who writes for the New World Notes blog. Speaking with Linden Lab (specifically with Philip Rosedale and David Fleck), they see the potential of using SL for Machinima development, and are keen to offer stronger support for Machinima creators.

Still, Machinima creation in SL remains largely untapped, save these few teams who see potential. "Why is this?" I was asked. I believe the majority of first-time Machinima productions are made as a comment on a particular game. Someone plays WoW to all hours, building a character and developing relationships with others in the game, as well as with the game as a whole. At some point, the player might express themselves by creating a Machinima film based on this context - thus, a Machinima made from "inside-out." The game seeds the thoughts, which spurs the gamer to move from viewer to producer. This can also be seen in the films themselves - films made with their own audience in mind, including in-jokes or references to those in-the-know of the game. This would also stand to reason why new Machinima filmmakers tend to remain inside their own community.

Second Life, on the other hand, is largely content-popluated by its own community. And while there are particular quirks and idiosyncrasies to Second Life, the environment is largely germinated by ideas from our real-life world. And thus, the experiences within SL are user- created, and not broad-stroked like in a typical game (WoW=fantasy-setting, Halo=Marines on a mission, etc.) To this, Second Life would appeal to those Machinima creators that are intent on creating Machinima with a personal vision - not those who are intent on exploiting an existing context (unless you're making the aforementioned documentary). With this example, SL Machinima could be considered Machinima "from the outside in."

Linden Lab has hinted at upcoming changes to their software, some of which may make Machinima production much more alluring to the non-game-specific Machinima filmmaker. I hope to share the whitepaper authored by Nathan Moller with the folks at Linden Lab so they can get a sense of what Machinima filmmakers are hoping for in next-gen Machinima software.

Tomorrow's the day!

Yep - October 6th! The deadline for the Machinima Film Festival competition (aka "The Mackies"). I haven't checked in with Frank yet, but there's been daily deliveries of entries for the last week and some. I wonder what tomorrow's drop off will look like (Frank, you may need some help at the door).

Btw, as someone has emailed me - Still Seeing Breen is not entered into the festival competition. For some that's an obvious statement, but as I've been asked about it, I felt should mention it in just in case there were others who had the same question. We'll might show it during the fest, however.

Really looking forward to what works we've received/we'll receive. This year's going to be pretty damn exciting if I must say so myself.

3D apps do the-warm-and-cozy-together

Holy smokes - now this is some big, though not specific, Machinima news.

Autodesk, the corporation behind 3D Studio Max, has acquired Alias, the corporation behind Maya. The two 3D applications make up the majority of the 3D software market. From the cost of $182 m for Alias, this is definitely a deal for Autodesk. I would assume that Alias was cash-starved.

My sense of all this is that the 3D app market is still expanding, though very slowly - and its demanding a lower cost product. Softimage's move into the under $500 space is a good indicator of this. Rather than splinter the market for decreasing sales of high-cost product, they'll focus on lower-cost versions - and merge resources (hence, corporations) to handle such market flux. What does it mean for Machinima? It could be that we can expect legacy developers (AutoAlias) to enter the Machinima realm - whether through existing products offering Machinima features or creating new products targeting Machinima filmmakers. Regardless, things are bound to become very interesting.

More as it surfaces. Wonder what Papa Max and Mama Maya's children will look like...

Mixin' it up at MIT

I just returned from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and it was truly a blast. I was the guest of Profs. Beth Coleman and Henry Jenkins - presenting Machinima at several forums within the Comparative Media Studies program. MIT is a terrific place (an obvious statement for those who know MIT, but once you're there and in the thick of it, it's even more impressive), if I had a chance at a "do-over" of my education, it would be my first choice for sure. The great part of my visit was to discuss Machinima with various levels of students - from undergrads to graduates - and faculty as well. I was there for only about 36 hours, but my one full day in Cambridge was a lot of fun - I even got in a screening of "Corpse Bride" in with a couple of cool TAs, Ivan and Jeff.

A good portion of the Q&A session after my presentations revolved around the legal issues of Machinima - specifically, how do Machinima filmmakers sidestep the legal aspects of creating derivative works, that surely still belong to the game developer/publisher. I presented Machinima at the Signal2Noise conference at Harvard earlier this year, which looked at this, and have spent some time at Prof. Beth Noveck's IP Class at New York Law School around the same subject matter. In fact, one of her students, Etienne Dor, has written an excellent paper around the subject matter, which I recently had the chance to review. Clearly, these matters are not going away any time soon. In fact, they're only going to get more focus as Machinima expands. I am optimistic however, that some of the dust will settle with new licensing structures, but it's still a murky outlook.

Deadline Reminder! less than one week to the Machinima Film Festival October 6th deadline!