Machinima on the front lines

Last year, during the Serious Games Summit in Washington, D.C. I had the pleasure of meeting the developers of America's Army - an FPS game sponsored by the U.S. Army. They had attended my presentation during the summit and invited me to stop by their booth to have a sneak peek at a Machinima they had recently completed. Having to catch a train, I was unable to screen their work but told them to send me a link once it was posted.

Today, I finally had a chance to catch the Machinima they produced. Simply titled Paul Smith Battle, the film shows the bravery exhibited by Sergeant First Class, Paul R. Smith who was killed while defending his squad in Iraq.

The film itself is well produced and shows off the graphics of America's Army very well (given AA is based on UT2004, I think it stands up well compared with BF2 and Call of Duty 2). It's a little too dramatized for my tastes (given the subject matter) but I can understand that the intent of the film is to focus on Sgt. Smith's acts of courage. However, what's most important about this work is what made Alex Chan's The French Democracy a critical point in the Machinima timeline. Paul Smith Battle is a retelling of the last moments of Paul Smith's life - by people who witnessed his actions first hand. The voice actors of the film are not the soldiers themselves (which would have been much more powerful), but it's their words/thoughts that are driving the piece.

Sgt. FC Paul R. Smith received the Medal of Honor posthumously for the bravery he exhibited in defending his friends. While a Machinima film doesn't fully honor Paul Smith's role in this life, it does commend his actions and shows a few more people the kind of man he was.