Thinking Machinima

EFF is looking to stir up some voices

2009-02-03T14:10:00.005-05:00

Yikes, it's been a while....

The EFF is looking to help those who have been subjected to YouTube's recent takedowns/audiodowns. Numerous machinimators whose videos were married to labeled songs have recently had their work either removed or silenced due to YouTube's somewhat faulty(?) ContentID system, which identifies certain materials as being infringing. Fred von Lohmann feels the targeted vids - machinima among them - are coming up as false positives due to a less-than-robust tool (it's identifying audio only - not video as well), and is hoping that YT jumps at the chance to rights the wrongs (aka fixing the system in place).

He further asks that anyone who has recently had a Machinima work removed or silenced should follow up with the EFF. Fred states there's no guarantee that they can help everyone affected by this past month's purge, but it's possible they can help a few. More at the EFF blog...

Machinima Fest Deadline Extended to Sept. 19th!

2008-09-08T11:13:00.004-04:00

The Machinima Festival has extended its deadline by a week - to Sept. 19th! If you're planning on submitting, you now have a bit more time to polish....but don't procastinate! 7 days goes by fast!

Hugh Hancock steps down from AMAS board

2008-08-27T22:34:00.003-04:00

Though most posts here are about Machinima in general, Thinking Machinima is also the official AMAS blog and requires me to make official AMAS postings from time-to-time. Today's posting is one - confirming Hugh Hancock's decision to step down as an AMAS board member.

The AMAS board has released a statement in regards to this event:
"As Hugh Hancock announced on the Strange Company blog, he has stepped down from the AMAS board. Since helping to co-found the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences in 2002, Hugh was an invaluable board member of the Academy. His contributions put the word "Machinima" into the cultural lexicon and helped shape the AMAS Machinima Festival to what it is today. We respect Hugh's decision to focus on his filmmaking and other areas of interest and wish him all the best in his future endeavours."

MachinExpo Announces a Call for Entries!

2008-08-09T09:41:00.006-04:00

Continuing the "Machinima is growing" theme: Our good friends over at the Machiniplex are organizing this year's MachinExpo - which takes place November 7th-9th, during the Festival Arcadia in Montreal, Canada.

The event, which will include Machinima workshops, panels and screenings, is in its 2nd year at the Festival Arcadia - a large videogame cultural center point in Canada. The Expo is seeking submissions to the screen at the event, and will select 5 entries for the Expo's Jury award, with a 6th award being given to one outstanding work of Canadian origin.

The full announce is below. The deadline is Oct. 6th, 2008, so between the Machinima Fest 2008 and the MachinExpo, you better put a move on it.

International Machinima Expo Call For Entries
July 29, 2008

The International Machinima Expo (MachinExpo) is now accepting submissions for its 1st annual showcase which will feature the best work by emerging and established machinima directors. Part of Festival Arcadia in Montreal, Quebec, the event takes place from November 7-9, 2008 at Place Bonaventure in downtown Montreal before an audience expected to exceed 20,000.

Sponsored in part by Machiniplex.com, the expo is organized by Ingrid Moon of The Machinima Roadshow as well as three other veteran machinima producers: Ricky Grove, Damien Valentine, and Phil Rice.

MachinExpo will feature workshops, panel discussions, live film premieres, and several hours of screening of machinima films from all around the world. A jury of professionals from the entertainment and video game industries will select five (5) films for a Jury Prize, with a special 6th film awarded a Special Jury Prize honoring one exceptional Canadian machinima film. There are no category / genre restrictions on submissions, and there is no entry fee. Deadline for submissions is October 6, 2008.

For more information, including submission guidelines and instructions, please visit www.machinima-expo.com, or contact expo2008@machiniplex.net.

Good luck everyone!

2008 Machinima Fest now accepting submissions!

2008-08-04T23:16:00.002-04:00

This year's Machinima Festival (taking place at Eyebeam in NYC, November 1st), has begun accepting submissions for this year's Mackies! If you havent submitted your Machinima work to this fest before, then by all means, hop to it and submit! You only have until September 12th!

Good luck to all the entrants!!!

Submit Your Machinima to the Cambridge Film Fest!

2008-07-20T13:26:00.007-04:00

As Machinima matures, we're seeing more traditional film fests embrace the artform and include works in their programs and competitions. Reflecting this sentiment, Matt Kelland of Short Fuze/Moviestorm sends word of the Cambridge Film Festival, which is looking for additional Machinima works for their program. More of the down-low from Matt:

"We've finally got hold of almost all of the directors of machinima films we've selected for the Cambridge Film Festival, and asked them if we can show their work.

We do have some remaining slots, and we are now requesting submissions. If you have a machinima film which you would like us to consider, please email me at matt [dot] kelland [at] moviestorm [dot] co [dot] uk telling me where I can see your film and why you think we should show it. (Don't send me the film, just a URL!)

The 28th Cambridge Film Festival runs from 18-28 September 2008, and it's one of the three largest film events in the UK. The Guardian described Cambridge as “a match for the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals…” while The Times said that it “easily outclasses its metropolitan rivals”. The machinima stream will include four screenings, plus workshops and a debate."

The entry deadline is July 28th (09:00 GST), which is just a tad over a week away - so get hopping on that submission if you'd like your work considered for screening!

Valve's Left 4 Dead may have Machinima hooks

2008-07-17T10:54:00.003-04:00

Right from Kotaku: Valve's Doug Lombardi took a few minutes out of a busy E3 schedule to talk a bit about Left 4 Dead - Valve's zombie opus due for release in November. Beyond the usual can't-wait-to-see-what-Valve-is-up-to-ness, Lombardi explains in this interview that they're considering a movie mod post release...

More and more game developers are considering Machinima options for their games -and why not? Videos made from the games only serve as additional exposure of their product to those who might not otherwise see it.

2008 Machinima Fest site fades into view

2008-07-15T10:19:00.006-04:00

While I've been working on other projects (aka my full-time spot), the initial version of the 2008 Machinima Fest site has been launched. There's not a ton of info at the moment, but what has been posted is key - namely the list of this year's categories. Most of the cats are the same, but some have been renamed and some have been added.

Standing kudos to the team for putting it all together! And stay tuned for the Call for Submissions in the very near future!

Determining Fair Use for Online Video

2008-07-08T14:32:00.004-04:00

The Center for Social Media just released their latest project - A Code of Best Practices for Online Video. The results of their work is truly exceptional - helping to define acceptable approaches for user-created video.

The team involved with this project (members such as Mimi Ito, Henry Jenkins and Jennifer Urban) are extremely savvy -- not only the biz and legal takes in the online video space, but also of the content itself. Its an extremely well-rounded group, so their perspectives and experiences bring an unprecedented heft to the findings.

I haven't poured through the entire document yet (PDF), but having had some conversation with the team around Machinima in light of fair use makes things look pretty optimistic.

Congrats to the Code of Best Practices committee! I look forward to hearing more about their work in the coming future.

Sims 2 Machinima sells IKEA

2008-07-03T23:18:00.008-04:00

I'm still not sure what to make of this. Part of me thinks EA and IKEA are awesomely smart to cross-market their brands. And then there's part of me that is very unnerved looking at some of his own furniture within the generated walls of a Sims 2 household.

Actually, I think The Sims™ 2 IKEA Home Stuff is a really great idea. IKEA is the cheap, yet design-y furniture store that resembles one big DIY doll house, and the Sims2 is the digital manifestation of that same dollhouse. From that angle, the IKEA add-on pack was inevitable.

Whatever you might feel, I think its a great to see a full-up Machinima commercial helping to sell the end product. Not to mention how much happiness I find in watching the Sims struggle furiously with a BILLY bookcase and that one goddamn allen wrench.

Machinima Festival 2008: Save the Date!

2008-06-10T21:39:00.006-04:00

Sure, the logo's aged a bit while sitting in the window, but it looks like some initial plans are finally falling into place regarding the AMAS Machinima Fest 08!

Taking place the weekend of November 1st, 2008, the event will be hosted by cross-media think-tank/space Eyebeam in NYC!

More details will be coming soon (Call for Entries and the like), so stay tuned to the site for future updates.

Machinima Fun with GTA IV

2008-06-07T16:15:00.003-04:00

Now here's my type of mash-up: GTA IV with the ol' Police Squad/Naked Gun opener (proof of age req'ed). Comedy & cultural cross-over abounds!

A bit of distraction at the moment. My nose is to the grindstone on some demo stuff for work, but the blog update is still in play (and hopefully soon as Rodica's been having a hard time posting stuff). Enjoy!

Working, working, working

2008-04-16T11:52:00.001-04:00

This week's blog entry is more status than news. I'm revising the blog's design and overhauling the backend - which is an uncomfortable switch from Blogger to Wordpress. There are pros/cons to such a shift, but I think Wordpress is a much more flexible system - a number of my fave sites use (Free Pixel, Overman's blog, The Animation Podcast, etc.) and provides a lot of support by way of community development and discussion. It wasn't an easy decision and took a fair amount of testing to make the final call. The one pretty large task is backing up the previous years Blogger posts and whipping them up into something that WordPress could then digest and display. Thankfully, it can be done-but does require some coaxing.

So tech decisions, along with the hitting the design reset button a few times, had slowed the effort quite a bit. However, things are now moving forward and I hope to have the blog relaunch sometime in May, along with some guest bloggers putting in a appearance or two.

2008 Make Something Unreal Contest!

2008-04-04T11:33:00.001-04:00

Some cool news on the Machinima front. Epic Games has announced their latest Make Something Unreal Contest - an Unreal Tournament 3-fueled follow-up to their 2005 contest of the same (that one was based in Unreal 2 tech). This latest contest, offering $1 million US in cash/prizes, and sponsored by Intel, also includes a Machinima category (in phases 2-4).

The 2005 MSU competition gave us great Machinima works such as Tom Palmer's bot, Folklore Studio's Scrap & Friedrich Kirschner's The Journey.

I highly encourage anyone working in Machinima (or thinking about working in Machinima) to enter. The competition might be tough no doubt, but a fruitful experience as well. More info is available at www.makesomethingunreal.com

Machinima Loses a Pioneer: Peter Rasmussen

2008-03-12T12:35:00.001-04:00

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this blog post. About 15 minutes ago, I received word that Peter Rasmussen, director of the award-winning, groundbreaking Machinima work, Stolen Life, has passed on.

I'm not entirely sure what to say or how to say it. Peter and I exchanged mails just a few weeks ago and I promised him that I would show up for his next Machinima meet-up in Second Life. Peter and I tried arranging a similar get-together a LONG time ago in Counterstrike. It wasn't the greatest of successes then but it was fun converting the game into a community space with someone half way around the world.

I'm sure there's more to say here, but I think I just need to sit with this a bit more.

This Would Never Happen at Black Mesa

2008-02-15T14:59:00.000-05:00

I'm probably one of many who fell in love with the game Portal - it has an insane combination of crazy puzzles, wicked game design, and incredibly cute characters. There are a lot of great machinima pieces out there on the turrets, the companion cube, etc., but the one I included above is strangely reminiscent of the brilliant Red vs. Blue dialog.

Score another one for Garry's Mod and for the machinima creators, the Leet World! Sadly, I have yet to be able to load their site.

Will Wright on Spore Machinima

2008-02-12T17:55:00.000-05:00

Quick blip: N'Gai Croal interviews Will Wright on Spore -- and asks it plain and simple:

Croal: What are the machinima tools like within Spore?
Wright: We have that built in throughout the game where you can capture game footage at any time, photos and stuff. In the Creature Creator--this is another thing we went down the path of, "What would we really want to do with this?"--I can design a creature, have them play all these animations, move them around on either a set backdrop or a black screen which is essentially a green screen, so I can actually mix it in with other footage, and composite it. There's also a one-button upload in that moviemaking feature to YouTube. So I can actually make a movie in the game, and with one click of the button upload it onto YouTube. Again, this is where we wanted it to blend from the game world to the world of Web content so that it felt like this game was another creative tool pouring into some of these sites. Plus you can take pictures, email them to your friends, and all that stuff within the game.

Get the full down-low of Will's interview at Croal's blog.

Reminder: 24-7 DIY Video Summit at USC

2008-01-24T13:18:00.000-05:00

Regular readers of this blog will remember a posting I made last year mentioning the 24-7: DIY Video Summit at USC. Well, we're nearly at that point on the calendar -Feb. 8-10th. I will be presenting a selection of Machinima works, along with several other curators , who will each present works from their respective crafts. The event, will have quite a few great speakers on hand as well, including Prof. Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins and Joichi Ito.

Below are the event details - but also visit the 24-7: DIY Video Summit site as well as their blog.

24/7: A DIY VIDEO SUMMIT
February 8-10, 2008
School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

Conference web site: http://www.video24-7.org
Blog: http://diy.video24-7.org/

Registration is nearly full for the the academic panels and the
workshops. The video screenings are free and open to the public.
Please help us spread the word about this event.

24/7: A DIY Video Summit will bring together the many communities
that have evolved around do-it-yourself (DIY) video: artists,
audiences, technology providers, academics, policy makers and
industry executives. The aim is to discover common ground, and to
chart the path to a future in which grassroots and mainstream,
amateur and professional, artist and audience can all benefit as the
medium continues to evolve.

This three-day summit features:

SCREENINGS OF DIY VIDEO
On February 8 and 9, there will be screenings of DIY video that are
open to the public. These will feature curated programs on design
video, activist documentary, youth media, machinima, music video,
political remix and video blogging. The video program will culminate
in an evening program and reception on February 9 that will draw from
all of these video genres.

ACADEMIC PROGRAM
Registered attendees will have access to the academic program on
February 8 and 9 that features panels on The State of Research, The
State of the Art, DIY Media: The Intellectual Property Dilemma and
DIY Tools and Platforms. Featured speakers include Yochai Benkler,
John Seely Brown, Joi Ito, Henry Jenkins, Lawrence Lessig, and Howard
Rheingold.

WORKSHOPS AND BIRDS-OF-A-FEATHER MEETINGS
On February 10, the day will be devoted to practical and hands-on
workshops for registered attendees on topics such as intellectual
property, media creation, distribution and new-media design tools.
Attendees will also have the option of organizing their own birds-of-
a-feather meetings to connect with other attendees.

As it was mentioned, we would really appreciate spreading the word about the event (and tell 'em Paul sent ya!). Thanks!

WeGame: A (Better?) YouTube for Gamers?

2008-01-19T13:47:00.000-05:00

WeGame launched just a short while ago, with a tag line of being a "YouTube for gamers". With the recent advances of machinima into areas increasingly closer to mainstream media, I immediately had two questions. Feel free to chime in:

1) For serious machinima, does it make sense to key into an audience of gamers-only?
and
2) Are you tempted to switch?

To put things into perspective, you do get some perks with WeGame. The site actually distributes their own recording software, for free. Furthermore, they have streamlined the process of uploading clips - as you shoot videos, they are immediately available in a little dashboard. You can then upload to the WeGame site. The agile software encodes the video for you and uploads it.

Another bonus: I have not seen the usual compression artifacts that you typically see with YouTube.

I'd love to hear other people's experiences with WeGame. The final quality of my test video made me very happy. I'm curious to try uploading some QuickTime or Windows Media machinima and see how it measures up.

This Weekend: Sleepless in Second Life

2008-01-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

This weekend marks the start of an exciting film event in Second Life. The famous 48-Hour Film project that tours the world is reaching a virtual world. On Friday, January 11th, contestants will be given a character, prop, and line of dialog as base for their machinima. Then, the teams have 48 hours to turn around a complete production.

More information from the 48-hour film Second Life site:

"The competition kicks off Friday, January 11th, at 4:00 p.m. Second Life Time (7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) with a representative from each team meeting in Second Life to receive a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialog to be worked into their film.

Teams have until Sunday, January 13th, at 4:30 p.m. Second Life Time (7:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) to submit a completed entry.

On the following Wednesday and Thursday (January 16th and 17th), screenings will be held "virtually" in Second Life at the New Globe Theater." [To teleport to the event location, click here]

There should be some cool short movies coming out of this contest, hopefully they will also be posted on youtube so we can all watch (outside of Second Life).

Telltale brings the holiday special (and innovation) to Machinima

2007-12-21T12:30:00.000-05:00

One machinima production that I've often wanted to write about, but became equally-oft sidetracked is Telltale's wonderful Sam and Max series. Yesterday (December 19th), they released their Sam and Max holiday special, Sam and Max Nearly Save Christmas, which I found to be a great hoot as usual. The episode, built from the Sam and Max Ice Station Santa game, weighs in at a bit over 20 minutes (an interesting length, given a typical TV half-hour show is 22 minutes long).

Spoiler Alert!
This machinima includes various reveals tied into the Ice Station Santa game.

Telltale deserves some major props for this series. They are one of the few developers, if not the only, who are creating high-quality Machinima episodes in tandem with their game episodes - both of which assist each other in generating overall visibility. I had the pleasure of meeting with Telltale CEO Dan Connors at this year's GDC and he gave me some insights into Sam and Max's production. There are two teams developing content - a game dev team putting together the gameplay episodes, plus their machinima team, which produces their work using all the in-game assets/animations with their own custom Machinima tool. The entire Sam & Max series, is extremely polished--with clever writing, rewarding gameplay and a great visual aesthetic.

The Sam and Max franchise was long overdue for some love and Telltale has really stepped up in that regard. Not only have they revitalized a great property, but they're also paving the way into new territory - one I hope more game developers consider. These grand steps aside, I'm seflishly looking forward to even more Sam and Max machinima in the coming year.

New TF2 Machinima tools on the way?

2007-12-13T12:29:00.000-05:00

An interesting blip over on ShackNews: it sounds like Valve will be releasing some new machinima-focused/friendly SDK tools that were used in creating their "Meet The ____" series of shorts around Team Fortress 2. The post by a Valve employee (signed Robin - I'll assume it's designer Robin Walker) makes mention of the tools, though its timeframe is a bit indefinite (sigh). He doesn't get into specifics around what tools these will be, but I imagine they're most likely pipeline/middleware stuff that allows transparent production between Maya/XSI and Source.

With Hammer/ModelViewer/FacePoser already supporting TF2, that seems to be the missing link in the SDK. However, this blogger is hoping for something more along the lines of Demo Editor/Smoother 2.0 or the like.

The ILL Clan Speaks in Second Life - Will You Be There?

2007-12-09T22:46:00.000-05:00

The ILL Clan, makers of Tra5hTa1k and some recently renowned machinima in collaboration with the Electric Sheep Company (including CSI:NY), will be speaking to a Second Life audience on December 14th at 9 AM Pacific time. Some of the speakers include Frank Dellario, Matt Dominianni, Paul Jannicola and Kerria Seabrooke. For your convenience, click here to teleport to the event location.

For those of you who don't use SL very much, I highly recommend testing your voice capabilities early on to make sure you can both hear and talk using your headset. Occasionally, it takes some time to troubleshoot and you may miss out on participating in the conversation. There is a nice video tutorial on setting up your audio by the Eduserv Foundation or you can check out the voice feature wiki.

Thanks, Rik!

Free Pixel: Sex in Machinima

2007-12-06T13:05:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post about a new entry into one of my fave blogs, Free Pixel. Prof. Michael Nitsche speaks about sex and Machinima - how the subject matter is extremely polarized with either nary a mention, or the full-on explicit.

Read on...

Machinima for Mourning

2007-12-03T10:30:00.000-05:00

One of the virtues I often share about Machinima is how easy it is to reach. Because of this accessibility, it gives people - often not filmmakers by trade or practice - a platform for expression.

This Halo 3-based machinima, posted by Skatedawg27, retells the horrible events of this past April, taking place at Virginia Tech.

Definitively a successor to Alex Chan's The French Democracy from a couple of years back. And brings with it the same unanswered questions about Machinima as form of creative expression: Are the lines between the reflective and subversiveness too blurred? Can we watch a video made in Halo 3 and really feel the impact of the subject matter?

A couple of blogs have surfaced over the last 24 hours with their views on this video and it seems to have resonated for both. For me, it puts picture to the events but strangely, I'm not personally moved by the machinima (even with manipulative music in place) - though the video footage of Cho himself is still profoundly impactful and I find the video as a whole hard to watch. However, I found The French Democracy to be a much more powerful piece, simply because it was Alex Chan's POV and it was created soon after the actual event (which also brings up the question of how time impacts reception).

Granted the student probably wasn't looking to create a subjective work and wanted to let the objectivity be the storyteller - so points for that. Ultimately, I find it rather interesting short and can understand how some would find a message if they were looking for one.

There's a healthy discussion happening over at Hawtymcbloggy.com about the video. Whatever your take, kudos to the filmmaker and his Criminal Justice class piece for giving us all something to consider.