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.

Got Machinima? Enter FMX!

One of the premiere animation fests in Europe, FMX, has issued a call for entries for their annual competition (of which, Machinima is one of their new categories). More from my friend Moritz below (and English-ified a bit by yours truly):

Call for Entries - Realtime Film Festival

The *Realtime Film Festival* will take place from May 2 to 4 in Stuttgart, Germany, as a part of the FMX conference for animation, effects, games and postproduction (http://www.fmx.de) and the Stuttgart Festival for Animated Film (http://www.itfs.de).

The Realtime Film Festival deals with the artistic challenges through current realtime graphics and screens the most interesting Demos, Machinimas, Cut Scenes, Flash Animations and VJ Visuals of the past year.

You can submit your work in the following categories:

Cut Scenes

Films and sequences which are part of computer or console games based on realtime technology like intros, trailers etc.

Flash Animation

Films in the SWF format, using realtime features of Macromedia Flash (eg. Actionscript, tweenings)

Machinima

Movies shot in real time with game engines

Demos

Small EXE programs that make the computer generate 3D animations in realtime

VJ Visuals

Realtime shows by VJs mixing visuals live to the music (please send in a showreel that documents your live performance)

And, finally, the submission form.

Winners will be rewarded with different attractive prizes.

I'm sure the FMX '06 will be a blast again and recommend you attend if you live in that part of the world (there's a chance that I might even make it out there this year). In any case, if you've crafted a Machinima you're extremely proud of (I hope you Mackie winners/nominees are paying attention), hop to it and enter.

Call for Papers: The Machinima Reader

This was sent to me just prior to the 2005 holidays, and I'm only getting around to posting it now.

Dr. Henry Lowood (Stanford) and Prof. Michael Nitsche (Georgia Tech) have submitted a CfP for the Machinima Reader, to be published later this year. A quote from their posting:

The Machinima Reader will assemble the first collection of essays to critically review the phenomenon of Machinima from a wide variety of perspectives.

Machinima is on the verge of stepping beyond its chaotic mix of artistic, ludic and technical conceptions into established traditions and vocabularies of contemporary media. As machinima invents itself, the flexibility of its form poses an interesting challenge to academics as well as artists and critics. We want to offer an inaugural reader for the further development and critical discussion of Machinima, one that charts its growth from several angles and also provides a foundation for critical studies in the future.

Abstracts are due by April 6, 2006, with final essays (5000-7000 words) to be submitted by July 2006. Submissions should be sent to michael.nitsche at lcc.gatech.edu and lowood at stanford.edu.

Good luck to those submitting - very much looking forward to this.

Canned Column: Obligatory Predictions of 2006

We're two weeks into the new year and I think we can get the year's predictions just under the wire. Without further adieu, here's my predicitions for Machinima-related events for 2006. Some of these are a bit prophetical, and others fall into the "eventual and obvious" category.

1. Buzz around Machinima will continue into 2006, and then slow as we enter 2nd quarter of the year.
   
   
2. A Machinima will be created that will stir up legal matters/IP issues around Machinima in general (akin to the RIAA item of 2005, only for real). Though this could counter prediction #1.
   
   
3. Next-gen Machinima software will be announced, possibly from an existing software developer. This could be either a new product entirely, or an existing package with Machinima-like features rolled out.
   
   
4. Mods from The Movies community will continue the growth of using that game for Machinima development. Disclosure: This is somewhat already in play with the new MED and Max Import/Export tools on the horizon.
   
   
5. Lionhead will release an expansion pack for the Movies, clearly targeting their Machinima users. However, Lionhead will continue not to include the word "Machinima" in any of their press/marketing.
   
   
6. The 2006 Machinima Festival will be the largest yet.
   
   
7. More mainstream acceptance/visibility for Machinima. The measure of this will be the inclusion of the term "Machinima" in a more casual context.
   
   
8. Console developers will key into Machinima as another platform feature (Disclosure II: this is already happening somewhat with RvB episodes in XBox Live Marketplace).
   
   
9. More Machinima artists will be approached about commissioned works.
   
   
10. First Machinima series produced for broadcast television will be announced. While some works already meet some of the criteria of this prediction (Strangerhood Studios, Fresh Baked Videogames, Heavy.com etc.), this prediction is about a full-up Machinima series ordered (and marketed) for a broadcast television audience.
    

We'll revisit these in December and see how many of them actually hit the mark. Anyone taking bets?

2005: A Year in Motion

As we wave good-bye to 2005 and usher in 2006, I think we can look back upon this previous year as being a watershed one for Machinima.

January 2005

• Machinima panel at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival
• Make Something Unreal Contest Winners announced (Machinima finalists include: The Journey, Bot, Sparked Memory and Scrap)
  

March 2005

• Machinima presentation: Georgia Tech's Living Games World Symposium honoring Will Wright
  
• Academy presents the 2005 Festival and Machinimation 2.0 at the GDC
• Heavy.com debuts God of War-based Pimp My Weapon Machinima series
  

April 2005

• Machinima presentation: Harvard Law's Signal/Noise Conference

June 2005

• First Machinima appears in MTV2's Video Mods season premiere (ok, this is a bit of a personal highlight)
• The second Machinima-related publication, Machinima: Making Animated Movies in 3D Virtual Environments, is released

July 2005

• IFC broadcasts the first commissioned Machinima series for US television (Rooster Teeth Productions' Strangerhood Studios).
• Randall Glass' A Few Good G-Men is released (the first of three viral Machinimas in 2005)
• Machinima site RPGFilms.net is/is not targeted by the RIAA.
  

August 2005

• Machinima is featured in the New York Times Magazine, "The X-Box Auteurs"
  
• Machinima presentation: 2005 Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival
• This Spartan Life is released (2nd viral Machinima)
  
• Machinima presentation: Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria)
  

September 2005

• Machinima presentation: MIT's Comparative Media Studies Lab
• Rooster Teeth debuts P.A.N.I.C.S., Machinima series based on VU game F.E.A.R.
  

October 2005

• Machinima presentation: NYLS' State of Play III: Social Revolutions
• Machinima presentation: 2005 Austin Game Conference

November 2005

• Machinima presentation: Serious Games Summit, Washington, DC.
• Heavy.com announces Machinima series lineup
• 2005 Machinima Film Festival/Machinima Awards (articles include Wired.com, CNET.com, MTV.com and Village Voice [1 & 2], interview on G4's Attack of the Show)
• The ILL Clan debuts their new live Machinima show, Tra5h Talk, at the 2005 MFF.
  
• Game-cum-Machinima-app, Lionhead Studios' The Movies is released.
  

December 2005

• Alex Chan's The French Democracy, arguably the year's most viral Machinima (and a seminal point in the Machinima timeline) is widely covered, with articles appearing in the Washington Post, Associated Press, Business Week (articles 1 & 2), MTV.com as well as numerous blogs.
  
• Machinima presentation: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Fair Game)
  
• Machinima presentation: Stanford
• First Machinima podcast, Machinima Live!, debuts
• XFire and Blizzard announce major WoW Machinima competition.
  

...damn.

I'm not sure how 2006 will hold up in light of all of the accomplishments of 2005, but if we achieve even half of what was covered in 2005, it will be another whirlwind year. A special thanks to Ken Thain and Jonathan Perry, who sites provided quick research for this review.

There's several blog drafts in the queue (including the sequel to this post - my 2006 predictions!), and hope to have these posted before the end of the week.

A happy and healthy New Year to everyone!