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Machinima With A Political Voice 20

Posted by Zonk from the say-something dept.
Moe Napoli writes "While machinima has long promised itself as a way to democratize animated filmmaking, it might finally be finding its way out of the steady stream of crass comedy and frag videos. Filmmakers with a desire to express their political views are using machinima as way of articulating their perspectives. One film that's gaining a lot of attention for its political message is The French Democracy, a machinima about the suburban riots in France, and made with Activision's recently released game/machinima app, The Movies. Additional commentary about the film is also on Clive Thompson's Collision Detection and Paul Marino's Thinking Machinima."
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Machinima With A Political Voice More

Machinima With A Political Voice

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  • I knew people were going to take "The Movies" and make actual movies. Before, making machinima was hard and annoying. You needed a couple friends, a couple of X-Boxes, and a lot of free time. Now with this game, it has become so much easier to make machinima. I hope I see more political pieces like this. Maybe, just maybe, Machinima will be looked at as a higher art form...

    Probably Not...

  • I've seen Machinima before, and with a few exceptions, it's very obvious that they're using a video game to do this. I think The Strangehood(?) got around that, but this.... this was amazing. Like a low-fi CGI movie. How long did this take to script? To "shoot"?
    • FWIH, the film took about a week to script/shoot. The filmmaker purchased the game specifically to make this film - though having a game as part of the machinima application was the icing on the proverbial cake. ;-)
  • Your browser is not configured correctly to receive WMV streamed video Please refer to our FAQ [lionhead.com]
  • Seriously, what's the point? It's an oddly gesticulated recap of recent events. Think "dramatic renactment" from Unsolved Mysteries
    and you get the idea. Wahoo, or should I say Youpee (sic).

    • Re:This is news? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Ape_the_Dog ( 749745 )
      I think the news is that machinma can be used to spread political ideas now. Arguably, this is not the kind of movie I would watch for my own enjoyment, as the acting is a bit stale, but still, it's there now, and available to all - where before it was only available to those who really wanted to put a lot of effort into the thing.

      It's also not entirely a gesticulated recap of recent events, as the movie shows you what happened, but also gives you background stories to three characters lives - detailing whe
      • Oh I watched it (hence the misspelled French as a dig),
        and the ability to recognize it as a "dramatic reenacment".
        I want my 20 minutes back (it's 13 but the crap site setup
        ate additional time)
    • I just saw this and I think you're too kind. It's not only a boring recap, it's a boring recap that seeks to in some way justify the unjustifiable. Oooo, I spent a night in jail because of a stupid law or stupid cops, so now I am going to destroy the cars of my neighbors who had nothing to do with it! Lookee me, I am irrationally lashing out at society!
  • I'd just like to point out that France is not a democracy, but a republic. Thank you for your inattention.
  • I don't think Machinima will take off as a higher art form simply because it only has one basic look. It would be really interesting to see if the makers of The Movies could add more and more options for stylized looks (lighting, color schemes, action sequences, etc). Now that would be interesting.

    Also, I don't see why a live-action director couldn't simply use The Movies to layout their entire film before every shooting a single frame of film. This way, the director can visually articulate his vision to hi

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