Machinima - Spielbergs with a Joystick

securitas writes "The Toronto Star's Murray Whyte writes about the growing popularity of machinima as the birth of a new type of filmmaking and artform. The article largely focuses on Red vs. Blue but also discusses Jim Munroe's My Trip To Liberty City, in which 'Munroe adopts the genteel perspective of a Canadian tourist while meandering the seamy, violent streets of the game Grand Theft Auto.' The most interesting comment comes from the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences' Paul Marino who compares machinima to garage bands."

Quake Movies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Popularized massively by the quake videos, featured on GameSpotTV on ZDTV.

Re:Welcome to the new /.

[josh glaser]

I'm not saying group think is required. Some other people have said they didn't like Red VS. Blue, and that's fine - that's their opinion. But saying that everybody who does machinima is completely devoid of talent in a long list of areas is, well, flamebait.

It isn't that new

[Neko-kun]

Well, it just so happens that one of my friends goes to the California Institute of the Arts [calarts.edu] where there's a professor by the name of Eddo Stern who has been doing this since the early 90's...he then cofounded C-Level [c-level.cc] in 2001.

(oh, and here's the link [calarts.edu] to the page with the date of his latest lecture at CalArts, just search for his name...)

Re:Red Vs. Blue was good...but...

[ErikZ]

Actually, the later episodes are quite good. It would seem to me that you find them boring because they're not a "Gaming Comic" anymore.

With no "In jokes" left to get, you have a hard time relating to the episodes.

BTW, if anyone from Red vs Blue is reading this, I think your stuff is great. "A Message to the Scientific Community" is a personal favorite.

Re:Super easy movie making?

[starm_]

If you want good independent, film, animation, videoclip, go to: zed.cbc.ca

Some good ones are: this [zed.cbc.ca] this [zed.cbc.ca] very good [zed.cbc.ca] this [zed.cbc.ca] cookie monster [zed.cbc.ca]

Re:Record Function?

[NanoGator]

"I suppose it's possible if it's a modded Xbox, but, otherwise, I have no idea how they even got that idea. For an article on Machinima, you'd think they'd at least try to be accurate as to how the recording was done."

*sigh* I tried to be subtle...

Why is this so difficult to understand? They just hooked up the XBOX to a VCR. Voila! That's all they needed to do! The 'record function' was, in all likelihood, a misunderstanding by the author of the story. I wouldn't normally be so harsh but seeing as how they have to get the video into a computer at some point to edit anyway, I don't see why everybody's got a question mark over their head about the idea of XBOX having a 'record option'. For all we know, it was an inaccurate reference to a game mode you have to put HALO in in order to just sit around and watch the other players.

If you know how to hook up an XBOX to a TV, then you have all the prerequisite knowledge you need to know in order to make your own machima movie using any tv-based game console ever created, including the Atari 2600.

originally xbox? I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Originally conceived for the Xbox game console as an alien-splattering, intergalactic shoot-em-up, Halo is one of the most popular games of all time.

I think it was running on the Mac long before it ran on the Xbox (and is finally running on Macs again after MS delayed it's release for half a decade.)

http://www.macworld.com/1999/07/bc/18halo/

A little plug for a machinima movie i liked

[88NoSoup4U88]

'Anna' by Katherin Anna Kang (afaik, the wife of John Carmack) and Fountainhead Entertainment is great. It's a short story, and an opposite of most of the work out there : full of symbolism, and quite devoid of any testosteron driven 'kill kill kill'.

You can find more info, and a download link, right here : http://www.machinima.com/displayarticle2.php?artic le=411

Re:Record Function?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The 'record function' was, in all likelihood, a misunderstanding by the author of the story."

Uhm no shit, that's what the parent post was fucking saying.

Re:I loved the old quake movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Some other one I cant remember the name of that was 4 hours long.. :)

Nehahra, I suppose?

Re:Record Function?

[Re-Pawn]

From the redvsblue faq:
F.A.Q. [redvsblue.com]
Q: How do you make the videos?
A: This is by far the number one question asked in e-mail. We use a video capture suite by a fantastic company, Canopus. The card we use is a Canopus DV Rex M1. We also use a variety of software, including Adobe Premiere and a great (and cheap!)sound editing tool called Cool Edit 2000 (now know as Adobe Audition)...

So now you know - and knowing is half the battle..