Machinima Europe 07: Another milestone in the Machinima timeline

I'm back from the whirlwind trip that was Machinima Europe 07 and what a blast it was. De Montfort University put together an outstanding event - no doubt, due to the extraordinary efforts of Ricard Gras, Toby Moores and Tracy Harwood. Ricard, Tracy and Toby performed Herculean efforts to in order for the fest to be a successful as it was. Much props to them - we could use a few more Ricards, Tobys and Tracys in the Machinima community.

The event kicked off with Friday's presentations to local area students. Here, myself, Hugh Hancock and Johnnie Ingram (Machinima for Dummies), and Toby did our best at explaining, demonstrating and giving time to play with Machinima. On Saturday, we had a similar schedule - this time presenting for the public. Here I presented my "Ten Years of Machinima (and then some)" as well as Hugh's leading up Bloodspell's premiere. Additionally, Burnie Burns and Jason Saldaña of Rooster Teeth Productions (Red vs. Blue) showed off some of their commercial work, as well as a vid produced especially for the Machinima Europe 07 fest.

Saturday night's award event was fun, end-to-end. Ricard Gras lined up The Sancho Plan as the evening's entertainment, which combine live percussive performance with real-time triggered anims. They put on a really great show. The awards presentations were fun as well - with a good mix of unknowns and well-known Machinima works walking away with the top honour. Rodica collected links to each of the winners, which I've posted below (thanks, Rodica!)

• Best Story: The Snow Witch - Britannica Dreams
  
• Best Commercial: When the Postman Spits Twice - SL-Inworld Productions
  
• Best Technical: Machinima Island - la.interactiva
  
• Best Experimental: Cirque du Machinima: Cuckoo Clock - Tom Jantol
  
• Best Sound: Innocent Minds - James Dubose
  
• Best Student: Machinima! with Officer Dan - Amorphous Blob
  
• Best Series: The Grid Review - the ILL Clan
  
• Best Visual Design: Stolen Life - Nanoflix Productions
• Best Direction: Stolen Life - Nanoflix Productions
• Best Picture: Stolen Life - Nanoflix Productions
  

The evening continued with lots of celebration. Frank Dellario and myself were interviewed, amongst others, by Hugh and Johnnie for the Machinima for Dummies podcast. However, I believe we disqualified ourselves from inclusion as being in an extremely inebriated state. We chose to share not our top 5 favorite Machinima moments as requested by Hugh and Johnnie, but our moments related to Machinima, which quickly turned into extremely M-rated exchange. I guess Laphroaig has a way of making things even the most terrible of stories less terrible.

Sunday's programming dipped into the deeper waters of Machinima, where we discussed Machinima's mainstream potential and looked at Machinima as digital performance. The day ended with Friedrich Kirschner's live performance, which involved creating and sending a Moviesandbox postcard of-sorts to his girlfriend Hannah, who was sitting remotely on Skype. Great stuff, once again by one of Machinima's masters...

All-in-all it was spectacular. We had a great time, had a chance to see one another (and some for the first time - hey Doc, Xavier and the Lit Fuse team!) and share our love for a common practice. It was an incredible experience and acts as a momentum for the Machinima Fest 2008. For those of you who couldn't make it out - stay tuned on news for next year and set aside some time on your calendar - I'm sure you'll have a blast too.