Machinima In The Cantina 16
The Guardian Gamesblog has a post up with snippets from an interview with SWG fixture Javier, the mastermind behind the Cantina Crawl Machinima series. These short films feature Entertainers dancing and grooving to music, shot within SWG and edited by Javier. From the article: "Q: What are the unique benefits and drawbacks of making machinima in an online game? A: The benefits, I think, are the flip side of the same coin as the drawbacks. It's all about the other people playing the game. When you shoot a video in an online game, other people actually participate, and sometimes on a large scale. The resulting video is very special to those folks. They can also bring their own unique personalities and actions to the process, much in the way real actors do. The drawback is that, like with real actors, people are often unpredictable, and perhaps even more so in a game which they pay to play."
Machinima (Score:4, Interesting)
Do the people in the shot know they're being filmed?
Technically you'd expect people to misbehave either way; some react specifically to the camera, and some just react to being in a crowd. I'll bet this takes a large number of shots...
You can bet that if people knew they were being filmed they'd want to be paid though; on the other hand, the privilege of being in the film (as mentioned in the article) might be payment enough.
It's certainly an interesting concept, and may in a way be more natural than animation or real actors, though you've always got the problem of people moving around in imperfect directions (not being in line with a wall, bumping off things a lot more - simply because it's a game with restricted movement control) and movements that are restricted to that of the game engine. For example - if you get a bunch of people in WoW to
Re:Machinima (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Machinima (Score:3, Informative)
I got my start doing Machinima in Planetside. [joharisportsnetwork.com] The response that I got from the community was really impressive. I could give people about a week's notice and have a turnout of
Unpredictable (Score:4, Funny)
Quarantine Alert (Score:3, Funny)
Who cares (Score:2, Funny)
Reality MMO dreck (Score:3, Interesting)
If I wanted to hear that crap, I'd go to the bars in meatspace with my media-industry friends.
Machinima is pretty cool, but why can't a game just be a game?
The interviewee in the article is producing the machinima equivalent of reality TV... it's just ego-tripping by the participants.
While it's a phenomenon on SWG, I'd prefer to see machinima used as a production vehicle for scripted shows or movies. I've had enough "Real World" that I don't need a "SWG Virtual World" to get my reality TV fix.
Props to the machinima "directors" who actually create content that they film, taking full advantage of cheap (as-in-beer, not cheap as-in-floozie) animation software.
Re:Reality MMO dreck (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the point of having something if it is only used for what is supposed to be used for... what is the point of experimenting if it lets something be something other than twhat it is?
Re:Reality MMO dreck (Score:2)
My point is, I pay for it to be what it is intended to be[1].
Out-of-context stuff like this can negatively affect my gameplay experience, similar to the "Who likes System of a Down?!!?" comments.
On the other hand, maybe this has the potential of increasing the amount of Role-Playing going on in MMORPGs... perhaps people who are being recorded might be more likely to stay in character.[2]
[1] Then again,
The Future (Score:2)
What do you see as the future of machinima?
We live in an age where creative minds are suddenly given outstanding...
blah, blah, blah. allow me to step in here and answer that question [yayhooray.com].
403 Forbidden? (Score:2)
Machinima (Score:4, Interesting)
Some advantages (Score:2)
It is easier to search for it, and refer to it, and if it is a well used and useful term, it often gets a fairly _precise_ and standard meaning.
There are good reasons why scientists/doctors etc make new terms that aren't in plain common english, even if it seems pretentious.
When people in their group use a special term, it is a lot less ambiguous what they are talking about.
When someone says "ventricular fibrillation" it is quite a specific term for "the heart
Mod parent up! (Score:1)