ILM on the Machinima Path
Its a very clear future in some ways. Recently, ILM announced a new previs (previsualization, for the jargon-dry) called Zviz, using an approach that calls for "simple" as their target. The article about ZVis was written by Barbara Robertson, a writer who is no stranger to Machinima, having covered the very first Machinima Film Festival. In the article she interviews Steve Sullivan of ILM on the development of ZVis, who speaks about its development. The section that captures my eye is early in the two-pager: Barbara Robertson: What mandate did George Lucas give you?
Steve Sullivan: The mandate was broad. We knew a little about what he wanted from previous previs systems: It had to be simple, simple, simple— simple enough for George to use. He said, “Directors should be able to sit on the couch watching TV while they mock up their shots.” It gave us a certain focus. But the target audience was also 12-year-old kids. George wanted a system that could teach people how to make movies: something that changes how things are done. Later in the piece, Barbara mentions how Zvis is similar to Machinima (well, Machinimation is used, though I'm entirely sure if that's a confused relation, or pointing specifically at the tool). Steve mentions how ZVis reaches beyond what Machinima offers, which is very much on target (with the exception of the Movies, nearly all Machinima platforms are void of rudimentary filmmaking tools). There's no mention if/when Zvis will be released nor if it will ever be a public product, but its great to hear ILM having focus on Machinima (even if they don't specifically call it that). There's some missing points, but that could just be that the article doesn't dip in deep enough (which I'm sure is just an editorial decision). ILM making Machinima tools is a natural conclusion for their narrative & production pipeline. Not all Machinima artists want such tools - they are perfectly happy working solely in World of Warcraft because they want that context for foundation. However, for next gen democratized & net-collaborative Machinima artists who are searching for that blank void to fill, a high-profile focus such as ZViz is a very exciting development.
Under a week left! (and a bit of shameless promo...)
Ok, we're coming into the final stretch - the festival submission deadline in just under a week away! That's just about 120 hours from when we turn off the submission page and start reviewing works for nominations and selections. And hey, if you know of a work out there that you think might not have been submitted, contact its author and make sure they get it in! On another note, I was pleasantly surprised this week to find that my HL2 Machinima music video, I'm Still Seeing Breen, was nominated for this year's Bitfilm Machinima award. I'm honored to be a part of a large playing field of quality Machinima works, including newly Bioware employee Jonathan Perry's Inside the Machinima, the ILL Clan's Trash Talk, TF Stallkamp's The Fixer and David Riedel's At the End of Distance -- among a host of others. Now get over to their site and vote for your favorite Machinima work!
More news and fest stuffs to come...
Anachronox DVDs released!
In 2002, at the very first Machinima Festival, the very first "Best Picture" award was handed out to "Anachronox: The Movie" - a feature-length Machinima based on the game of the same name. Jake "Strider" Hughes, who was its producer and cinematics director, along with Tom Hall, Joey Liaw, Richard Gaubert and others from the disbanded Anox team, created the film from the game's extremely elaborate cutscenes - a futuristic gumshoe trying to save the known universe. Soon after its release, Jake had teased the Machinima community with a DVD version of the film ( which had only been previously available in chunks on Machinima.com), offering Anachronox in full, along with extras. As life has it, the prep of the DVD took some time and Jake moved onto several other game titles which ate up nearly all his free time (one being Whiplash!, the 2005 Mackies entry that gave Jake a Best Director award). Cut to September 2006: Jake announces that he's finally posted the Anox DVDs for those interested to download. You can find the two DVD iso torrents at Jake's site: While Anox's graphics might feel a bit dated (it is based on a modified Quake 2 engine, which originally debuted in 1998), the work still holds its own with great voice acting, a compelling script and excellent direction. I encourage those that are not bandwidth/storage space adverse to download while the ISOs are available.
Going Global: Machinimasia and Machinima Europe
With Blogger being inaccessible these past couple of weeks, I haven't been able to share some large news on the Academy front. This past summer we have been working with a number of like-minded Machinima folks on both sides of the globe to establish chapters of the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences in both Asia and Europe. After an immense effort by Bian Hee Kau and the rest of his team, Machinimasia was announced on August 25th in Singapore and along with it, their annual Machinimasia festival - the Asian counterpart to our festival here in the States. We're really excited about this development and are looking forward to all types of Machinima works from Asia. You can visit the Machinimasia website or read more about the event here. Of equal effort has been the work of Friedrich Kirschner ( Machinimag), Klaus Neumann ( Machinima Deutschland) and Xavier Lardy ( Machinima France) to establish Machinima Europe, announced at the Leipzig Games Conference last month. While the Machinima Europe chapter will most likely synch up with AMAS on the festival front, there's no doubt they will be staging their own Machinima-related activities in their section of the globe. Read more here (scroll down the page for ME news). These milestones of organization only resound the interest and momentum Machinima has experienced since its start 10 years ago. Congrats again to both teams and stayed tuned for further developments!
Hosting switch completed (I think)
We decided to shift our webhosting over to another facility as the previous host was slowly turning off necessary features for the Academy's sites. One of those specifically was my ability to make blog postings from Blogger. Unfortunately, the only alternative the provider was offering was a higher cost plan with same functionality we had earlier (plus a slew of features we didn't need). Seems silly given the multitude of hosting providers. With a wide range of webhost choices and the fact that hosting costs are paid out-of-pocket, switching over to a "Same Features, More Money" plan didn't exactly make sense. Anyway, we're now parked on a new host and hope to be here for a while. We're still moving over the SQL stuff (book.machinima.org is still down unfortunately), but the main site, the festival site and this blog are up and running (somewhat obviously). Every provider has its shares of ups and downs - hopefully there's more up on this side of town. Stay tuned for more news and site updates soon.
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