- 10 working days, during the two weeks of Easter break -
WITH STRANGE COMPANY
The Founding Fathers of Machinima here in Edinburgh;
Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies. In an expanded definition, it is the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development. Machinima is real-world filmmaking techniques applied within an interactive virtual space where characters and events can be either controlled by humans, scripts or artificial intelligence.
By combining the techniques of filmmaking, animation production and the technology of real-time 3D game engines, Machinima makes for a very cost and time efficient way to produce films, with a large amount of creative control.
Games are changing the nature of animation and filmmaking, and machinima techniques can be useful for instructional environments, serious game development, and education of next-generation filmmakers.
... that's me ;o)
In addition, I will write my essay for the Third Term of my First Year of Studies at the College of Art on Machinima.
My essay answers the following question;
"Why do visually based stories when filmed in a virtual world lose their believability?"
Below I have included some samples of what has been filmed using the Machinima techniques, enjoy!
| You Were Meant for Me | Anna | In The Waiting Line |
|---|
 watch |  watch |  watch |
| A music video made with "the Movies" for a parody version of Jewel's song "You Were Meant for Me". | Fountainhead's lyrical short film, chronicling the life of a flower in a gothic fairy-tale. Won 'Best Technical Achievement' at the Machinima Film Festival 2003. | "...Layer Zero 7's mesmerizing sound into the equation and you're looking deep into an enigmatically experimental visual experience that tells the story of a lonely robot's search for meaning and emancipation from the routine of daily existence in outer space." |
Or listen to director Paul Marino at http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060321/gdctv_01.shtml.
http://www.bloodspell.com
BloodSpell is Strange Company`s first feature-length Machinima animated film.
It is a story of a world where men and women carry magic in their blood, and spilling it can unleash terrible power.
... this production will be a milestone in the development of Machinima-based films. And I will be a witness of it, on the set!
Even the godfather of movies, George Lucas, known from Star Wars, has committed his company LucasFilm to Machinima as a recent article in BusinessNews highlights:
"There's a natural affinity between the fantasy worlds created in movies and video games."
"Fundamentally, movie people are all about shots. How they get to the shot, and the process that they go through, is new and different and there are unique challenges associated with that. But at the end of the day the final output is something that goes on film."
"In game development you're making a software application. It's code that needs to run on a piece of hardware. So that's a very fundamental shift in terms of what your output is."
"Pre-visualization, which is a big thing that George has been pushing lately. It's a tool that directors would use to quickly mock up the ideas of a story and see what's going to work. It's really like building up a preview of a movie in a video game world. Instead of using static story boards, you can really just get in and create 3D content and camera moves directly. It's the best example of the kind of collaboration we've got going on."
Source Business News: The New Force at LucasFilms
And what to think of making your OWN MOVIE, straight away on the Internet.
Visit The Movie Game - Scenemaker
