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Machinima

January 01, 1970

For the company of the same name, see Machinima, Inc.

Machinima, originally machinema (/məˈʃiːnɪmə, -ˈʃɪn-/), is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words machine and cinema. According to Guinness World Records, machinima is the art of making animated narrative films from computer graphics, most commonly using the engines found in video games.[1]

Machinima filmed in Second Life

Machinima-based artists, sometimes called machinimists or machinimators, are often fan laborers, by virtue of their re-use of copyrighted materials (see below). Machinima offers to provide an archive of gaming performance and access to the look and feel of software and hardware that may already have become obsolete or even unavailable. For game studies, "Machinima's gestures grant access to gaming's historical conditions of possibility and how machinima offers links to a comparative horizon that informs, changes, and fully participates in videogame culture."[2][3]

The practice of using graphics engines from video games arose from the animated software introductions of the 1980s demoscene, Disney Interactive Studios' 1992 video game Stunt Island, and 1990s recordings of gameplay in first-person shooter (FPS) video games, such as id Software's Doom and Quake. Originally, these recordings documented speed runs—attempts to complete a level as quickly as possible—and multiplayer matches. The addition of storylines to these films created "Quake movies". The more general term machinima, a blend of machine and cinema, arose when the concept spread beyond the Quake series to other games and software. After this generalization, machinima appeared in mainstream media, including television series and advertisements.

Machinima has advantages and disadvantages when compared to other styles of filmmaking. Its relative simplicity over traditional frame-based animation limits control and range of expression. Its real-time nature favors speed, cost saving, and flexibility over the higher quality of pre-rendered computer animation. Virtual acting is less expensive, dangerous, and physically restricted than live action. Machinima can be filmed by relying on in-game artificial intelligence (AI) or by controlling characters and cameras through digital puppetry. Scenes can be precisely scripted, and can be manipulated during post-production using video editing techniques. Editing, custom software, and creative cinematography may address technical limitations. Game companies have provided software for and have encouraged machinima, but the widespread use of digital assets from copyrighted games has resulted in complex, unresolved legal issues.

Machinima productions can remain close to their gaming roots and feature stunts or other portrayals of gameplay. Popular genres include dance videos, comedy, and drama. Alternatively, some filmmakers attempt to stretch the boundaries of the rendering engines or to mask the original 3-D context. The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting machinima, recognizes exemplary productions through Mackie awards given at its annual Machinima Film Festival. Some general film festivals accept machinima, and game companies, such as Epic Games, Valve, Blizzard Entertainment and Jagex, have sponsored contests involving it.

History edit

Precedent edit

1980s software crackers added custom introductory credits sequences (intros) to programs whose copy protection they had removed.[4][5] Increasing computing power allowed for more complex intros, and the demoscene formed when focus shifted to the intros instead of the cracks.[4] The goal became to create the best 3-D demos in real-time with the least amount of software code.[6][4] Disk storage was too slow for this, so graphics had to be calculated on the fly and without a pre-existing game engine.[6][4]

In Disney Interactive Studios' 1992 computer game Stunt Island, users could stage, record, and play back stunts. As Nitsche stated, the game's goal was "not ... a high score but a spectacle."[6] Released the following year, id Software's Doom included the ability to record gameplay as sequences of events that the game engine could later replay in real-time.[7] Because events and not video frames were saved, the resulting game demo files were small and easily shared among players.[7] A culture of recording gameplay developed, as Henry Lowood of Stanford University called it, "a context for spectatorship.... The result was nothing less than a metamorphosis of the player into a performer."[8] Another important feature of Doom was that it allowed players to create their own modifications, maps, and software for the game, thus expanding the concept of game authorship.[9] In machinima, there is a dual register of gestures: the trained motions of the player determine the in-game images of expressive motion.[10]

In parallel of the video game approach, in the media art field, Maurice Benayoun's Virtual Reality artwork The Tunnel under the Atlantic (1995), often compared to video games, introduced a virtual film director, fully autonomous intelligent agent, to shoot and edit in real time a full video from the digging performance in the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary art in Montreal. The full movie, Inside the Tunnel under the Atlantic,[11] 21h long, was followed in 1997 by Inside the Paris New-Delhi Tunnel (13h long). Only short excerpts were presented to the public. The complex behavior of the Tunnel's virtual director makes it a significant precursor of later application to video games based machinimas.[12]

Doom's 1996 successor, Quake, offered new opportunities for both gameplay and customization,[13] while retaining the ability to record demos.[14] Multiplayer video games became popular, and demos of matches between teams of players (clans) were recorded and studied.[15] Paul Marino, executive director of the AMAS, stated that deathmatches, a type of multiplayer game, became more "cinematic".[14] At this point, however, they still documented gameplay without a narrative.[16]

Quake movies edit

 
A scene from Diary of a Camper, an early machinima production

On October 26, 1996, a well-known gaming clan, the Rangers, surprised the Quake community with Diary of a Camper, the first widely known machinima film.[17] This short, 100-second demo file contained the action and gore of many others, but in the context of a brief story,[17] rather than the usual deathmatch.[15] An example of transformative or emergent gameplay, this shift from competition to theater required both expertise in and subversion of the game's mechanics.[18] The Ranger demo emphasized this transformation by retaining specific gameplay references in its story.[19]

Diary of a Camper inspired many other "Quake movies," as these films were then called.[15] A community of game modifiers (modders), artists, expert players, and film fans began to form around them.[6] The works were distributed and reviewed on websites such as The Cineplex, Psyk's Popcorn Jungle, and the Quake Movie Library (QML).[20] Production was supported by dedicated demo-processing software, such as Uwe Girlich's Little Movie Processing Center (LMPC) and David "crt" Wright's non-linear editor Keygrip,[21] which later became known as "Adobe Premiere for Quake demo files".[20] Among the notable films were Clan Phantasm's Devil's Covenant,[20] the first feature-length Quake movie; Avatar and Wendigo's Blahbalicious, which the QML awarded seven Quake Movie Oscars;[22] and Clan Undead's Operation Bayshield, which introduced simulated lip synchronization[23] and featured customized digital assets.[24]

Released in December 1997, id Software's Quake II improved support for user-created 3-D models. However, without compatible editing software, filmmakers continued to create works based on the original Quake. These included the ILL Clan's Apartment Huntin' and the Quake done Quick group's Scourge Done Slick.[25] Quake II demo editors became available in 1998. In particular, Keygrip 2.0 introduced "recamming", the ability to adjust camera locations after recording.[25] Paul Marino called the addition of this feature "a defining moment for [m]achinima".[25] With Quake II filming now feasible, Strange Company's 1999 production Eschaton: Nightfall was the first work to feature entirely custom-made character models.[26]

The December 1999 release of id's Quake III Arena posed a problem to the Quake movie community.[27] The game's demo file included information needed for computer networking; however, to prevent cheating, id warned of legal action for dissemination of the file format.[27] Thus, it was impractical to enhance software to work with Quake III.[27] Concurrently, the novelty of Quake movies was waning.[28] New productions appeared less frequently, and, according to Marino, the community needed to "reinvent itself" to offset this development.[28]

Borg War, a 90-minute animated Star Trek fan film, was produced using Elite Force 2 (a Quake III variant) and Starfleet Command 3, repurposing the games' voiceover clips to create a new plot.[29] Borg War was nominated for two "Mackie" awards by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences.[30] An August 2007 screening at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas was the first time that CBS/Paramount had approved the screening of a non-parody fan film at a licensed convention.[31]

Generalization edit

In January 2000, Hugh Hancock, the founder of Strange Company, launched a new website, machinima.com.[32] Coined by Anthony Bailey in a May 1998 email to Hancock,[33] the term is a misspelled portmanteau of machine cinema (machinema) which was intended to dissociate in-game filming from a specific engine. The new site featured tutorials, interviews, articles, and the exclusive release of Tritin Films' Quad God.[32] The first film made with Quake III Arena, Quad God was also the first to be distributed as recorded video frames, not game-specific instructions.[32] This change was initially controversial among machinima producers who preferred the smaller size of demo files.[34] However, demo files required a copy of the game to view.[6] The more accessible traditional video format broadened Quad God's viewership, and the work was distributed on CDs bundled with magazines.[34] Thus, id's decision to protect Quake III's code inadvertently caused machinima creators to use more general solutions and thus widen their audience.[35] Within a few years, machinima films were almost exclusively distributed in common video file formats.[35]

 
Hugh Hancock founded Strange Company.

Machinima began to receive mainstream notice.[36] Roger Ebert discussed it in a June 2000 article and praised Strange Company's machinima setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias".[37] At Showtime Network's 2001 Alternative Media Festival, the ILL Clan's 2000 machinima film Hardly Workin' won the Best Experimental and Best in SHO awards. Steven Spielberg used Unreal Tournament to test special effects while working on his 2001 film Artificial Intelligence: A.I.[38] Eventually, interest spread to game developers. In July 2001, Epic Games announced that its upcoming game Unreal Tournament 2003 would include Matinee, a machinima production software utility.[39] As involvement increased, filmmakers released fewer new productions to focus on quality.[39]

At the March 2002 Game Developers Conference, five machinima makers—Anthony Bailey, Hugh Hancock, Katherine Anna Kang, Paul Marino, and Matthew Ross—founded the AMAS,[40] a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting machinima.[41] At QuakeCon in August, the new organization held the first Machinima Film Festival, which received mainstream media coverage. Anachronox: The Movie, by Jake Hughes and Tom Hall, won three awards, including Best Picture.[40] The next year, "In the Waiting Line", produced by Ghost Robot, directed by Tommy Pallotta and animated by Randy Cole, utilizing Fountainhead Entertainment's Machinimation tools, it became the first machinima music video to air on MTV.[42] As graphics technology improved, machinima filmmakers used other video games and consumer-grade video editing software.[43] Using Bungie's 2001 game Halo: Combat Evolved, Rooster Teeth Productions created a popular comedy series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. The series' second season premiered at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2004.[44]

Recent history edit

Main articles: Machinima, Inc.; Rooster Teeth; and Glitch Productions

In January 2019, Machinima, Inc., which had shifted its focus away from machinima-based content into general video game-related fare in its later years, abruptly discontinued their YouTube channels, with all their videos set to private.[45] This came shortly after then-parent company Warner Bros. (via its owner, Time Warner) was acquired by AT&T; leading to the subsequent formation of WarnerMedia.[46][47] On February 1, 2019, Machinima officially announced that it had laid off its 81 employees and ceased remaining operations.[48] The company stated that certain employees were being retained to work for AT&T's Otter Media holding company, and that Russell Arons was "assisting with transitional activities as she explores new opportunities".[48] The closure resulted in 81 layoffs from the company.[49]

An opinion piece from Wired UK blamed the company's collapse on an "obvious misunderstanding of what Machinima actually was, or what traditional media companies were even buying when they purchased a [content network]", with the possibility of future machinima distribution networks of that size emerging being slim.[45]

On March 6, 2024, Rooster Teeth general manager Jordan Levin notified employees that the company would close over the next several months. In an email, he cited reasons for the shutdown including "fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and monetization across platforms, advertising, and patronage", with it being reported that the number of subscribers to Rooster Teeth's "First" service had dropped to around one-quarter of their peak and that Rooster Teeth as a whole had been unprofitable for a decade. Then-parent Warner Bros. Discovery (formed from the sale of WarnerMedia from AT&T into a Reverse Morris Trust merger with Discovery, Inc. in 2021.[50]) would gauge interest in Red vs. Blue, and the studio's other intellectual property (including RWBY, and Gen:Lock).[51]

Within the timeframe between Machinima Inc., and Rooster Teeth's respective closures, Australian animator Luke Lerdwichagul would gain prominence from his Super Mario 64 and Garry's Mod-based comedy series, SMG4. He would eventually form the independent animation studio Glitch Productions with his brother, Kevin, while continuing to work on the series.[52][53][54]

Production edit

Comparison to film techniques edit

The AMAS defines machinima as "animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3-D environment".[55] In other 3-D animation methods, creators can control every frame and nuance of their characters but, in turn, must consider issues such as key frames and inbetweening. Machinima creators leave many rendering details to their host environments, but may thus inherit those environments' limitations.[56] Second Life Machinima film maker Ozymandius King provided a detailed account of the process by which the artists at MAGE Magazine produce their videos. "Organizing for a photo shoot is similar to organizing for a film production. Once you find the actors / models, you have to scout locations, find clothes and props for the models and type up a shooting script. The more organized you are the less time it takes to shoot the scene."[57] Because game animations focus on dramatic rather than casual actions, the range of character emotions is often limited. However, Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd state that a small range of emotions is often sufficient, as in successful Japanese anime television series.[58]

Another difference is that machinima is created in real time, but other animation is pre-rendered.[59] Real-time engines need to trade quality for speed and use simpler algorithms and models.[59] In the 2001 animated film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, every strand of hair on a character's head was independent; real-time needs would likely force them to be treated as a single unit.[59] Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd argue that improvement in consumer-grade graphics technology will allow more realism.[60] Similarly, Paul Marino connects machinima to the increasing computing power predicted by Moore's law.[28] For cut scenes in video games, issues other than visual fidelity arise. Pre-rendered scenes can require more digital storage space, weaken suspension of disbelief through contrast with real-time animation of normal gameplay, and limit interaction.[60]

Like live action, machinima is recorded in real-time, and real people can act and control the camera.[61] Filmmakers are often encouraged to follow traditional cinematic conventions,[62][63] such as avoiding wide fields of view, the overuse of slow motion,[64] and errors in visual continuity.[65] Unlike live action, machinima involves less expensive, digital special effects and sets, possibly with a science-fiction or historical theme.[61] Explosions and stunts can be tried and repeated without monetary cost and risk of injury, and the host environment may allow unrealistic physical constraints.[61] University of Cambridge experiments in 2002 and 2003 attempted to use machinima to re-create a scene from the 1942 live-action film Casablanca.[66] Machinima filming differed from traditional cinematography in that character expression was limited, but camera movements were more flexible and improvised. Nitsche compared this experiment to an unpredictable Dogme 95 production.[66]

 
The ILL Clan performs its machinima comedy talk show Tra5hTa1k with ILL Will in front of a live audience at Stanford University in 2005.

Berkeley sees machinima as "a strangely hybrid form, looking forwards and backwards, cutting edge and conservative at the same time".[67] Machinima is a digital medium based on 3-D computer games, but most works have a linear narrative structure. Some, such as Red vs. Blue and The Strangerhood, follow narrative conventions of television situational comedy.[67] Nitsche agrees that pre-recorded ("reel") machinima tends to be linear and offers limited interactive storytelling while machinima has more opportunities performed live and with audience interaction.[68] In creating their improvisational comedy series On the Campaign Trail with Larry & Lenny Lumberjack and talk show Tra5hTa1k with ILL Will, the ILL Clan blended real and virtual performance by creating the works on-stage and interacting with a live audience.[6] In another combination of real and virtual worlds, Chris Burke's talk show This Spartan Life takes place in Halo 2's open multiplayer environment.[6] There, others playing in earnest may attack the host or his interviewee.[6] Although other virtual theatrical performances have taken place in chat rooms and multi-user dungeons, machinima adds "cinematic camera work".[69] Previously, such virtual cinematic performances with live audience interaction were confined to research labs equipped with powerful computers.[70]

Machinima can be less expensive than other forms of filmmaking. Strange Company produced its feature-length machinima film BloodSpell for less than £10,000.[71] Before using machinima, Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum of Rooster Teeth Productions spent US$9,000 to produce a live-action independent film. In contrast, the four Xbox game consoles used to make Red vs. Blue in 2005 cost $600.[72] The low cost caused a product manager for Electronic Arts to compare machinima to the low-budget independent film The Blair Witch Project, without the need for cameras and actors.[72] Because these are seen as low barriers to entry, machinima has been called a "democratization of filmmaking".[73] Berkeley weighs increased participation and a blurred line between producer and consumer against concerns that game copyrights limit commercialization and growth of machinima.[74]

Comparatively, machinimists using pre-made virtual platforms like Second Life have indicated that their productions can be made quite successfully with no cost at all. Creators like Dutch director Chantal Harvey, producer of the 48 Hour Film Project Machinima sector, have created upwards of 200 films using the platform.[citation needed] Harvey's advocacy of the genre has resulted in the involvement of film director Peter Greenaway who served as a juror for the Machinima category and gave a keynote speech during the event.[citation needed]

Character and camera control edit

Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd list four main methods of creating machinima.[75] From simple to advanced, these are: relying on the game's AI to control most actions, digital puppetry, recamming, and precise scripting of actions.[75] Although simple to produce, AI-dependent results are unpredictable, thus complicating the realization of a preconceived film script.[76] For example, when Rooster Teeth produced The Strangerhood using The Sims 2, a game that encourages the use of its AI, the group had to create multiple instances of each character to accommodate different moods.[76] Individual instances were selected at different times to produce appropriate actions.[76]

In digital puppetry, machinima creators become virtual actors. Each crew member controls a character in real-time, as in a multiplayer game.[77] The director can use built-in camera controls, if available.[77] Otherwise, video is captured from the perspectives of one or more puppeteers who serve as camera operators.[77] Puppetry allows for improvisation and offers controls familiar to gamers, but requires more personnel than the other methods and is less precise than scripted recordings.[77][78] However, some games, such as the Halo series, (except for Halo PC and Custom Edition, which allow AI and custom objects and characters), allow filming only through puppetry.[79] According to Marino, other disadvantages are the possibility of disruption when filming in an open multi-user environment and the temptation for puppeteers to play the game in earnest, littering the set with blood and dead bodies.[80] However, Chris Burke intentionally hosts This Spartan Life in these unpredictable conditions, which are fundamental to the show.[6] Other works filmed using puppetry are the ILL Clan's improvisational comedy series On the Campaign Trail with Larry & Lenny Lumberjack and Rooster Teeth Productions' Red vs. Blue.[81] In recamming, which builds on puppetry, actions are first recorded to a game engine's demo file format, not directly as video frames.[82] Without re-enacting scenes, artists can then manipulate the demo files to add cameras, tweak timing and lighting, and change the surroundings.[83] This technique is limited to the few engines and software tools that support it.[84]

A technique common in cutscenes of video games, scripting consists of giving precise directions to the game engine. A filmmaker can work alone this way,[85] as J. Thaddeus "Mindcrime" Skubis did in creating the nearly four-hour The Seal of Nehahra (2000), the longest work of machinima at the time.[86] However, perfecting scripts can be time-consuming.[85] Unless what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editing is available, as in Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, changes may need to be verified in additional runs, and non-linear editing may be difficult.[85][87] In this respect, Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd compare scripting to stop-motion animation.[85] Another disadvantage is that, depending on the game, scripting capabilities may be limited or unavailable.[88] Matinee, a machinima software tool included with Unreal Tournament 2004, popularized scripting in machinima.[85]

Limitations and solutions edit

When Diary of a Camper was created, no software tools existed to edit demo files into films.[16] Rangers clan member Eric "ArchV" Fowler wrote his own programs to reposition the camera and to splice footage from the Quake demo file.[89] Quake movie editing software later appeared, but the use of conventional non-linear video editing software is now common.[90] For example, Phil South inserted single, completely white frames into his work No Licence to enhance the visual impact of explosions.[90] In the post-production of Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, Rooster Teeth Productions added letterboxing with Adobe Premiere Pro to hide the camera player's heads-up display.[91]

Machinima creators have used different methods to handle limited character expression. The most typical ways that amateur-style machinima gets around limitations of expression include taking advantage of speech bubbles seen above players' heads when speaking, relying on the visual matching between a character's voice and appearance, and finding methods available within the game itself. Garry's Mod and Source Filmmaker include the ability to manipulate characters and objects in real-time, though the former relies on community addons to take advantage of certain engine features, and the latter renders scenes using non-real-time effects. In the Halo video game series, helmets completely cover the characters' faces. To prevent confusion, Rooster Teeth's characters move slightly when speaking, a convention shared with anime.[92] Some machinima creators use custom software.[93] For example, Strange Company uses Take Over GL Face Skins to add more facial expressions to their characters filmed in BioWare's 2002 role-playing video game Neverwinter Nights.[93] Similarly, Atussa Simon used a "library of faces" for characters in The Battle of Xerxes.[94] Some software, such as Epic Games' Impersonator for Unreal Tournament 2004 and Valve's Faceposer for Source games, have been provided by the developer.[93] Another solution is to blend in non-machinima elements, as nGame did by inserting painted characters with more expressive faces into its 1999 film Berlin Assassins.[95] It may be possible to point the camera elsewhere or employ other creative cinematography or acting.[95] For example, Tristan Pope combined creative character and camera positioning with video editing to suggest sexual actions in his controversial film Not Just Another Love Story.[96]

Legal issues edit

New machinima filmmakers often want to use game-provided digital assets,[97] but doing so raises legal issues. As derivative works, their films could violate copyright or be controlled by the assets' copyright holder,[98][99] an arrangement that can be complicated by separate publishing and licensing rights.[98] The software license agreement for The Movies stipulates that Activision, the game's publisher, owns "any and all content within... Game Movies that was either supplied with the Program or otherwise made available... by Activision or its licensors..."[100] Some game companies provide software to modify their own games, and machinima makers often cite fair use as a defense, but the issue has never been tested in court.[101] A potential problem with this defense is that many works, such as Red vs. Blue, focus more on satire, which is not as explicitly protected by fair use as parody.[102] Berkeley adds that, even if machinima artists use their own assets, their works could be ruled derivative if filmed in a proprietary engine.[103] The risk inherent in a fair-use defense would cause most machinima artists simply to yield to a cease-and-desist order.[104] The AMAS has attempted to negotiate solutions with video game companies, arguing that an open-source or reasonably priced alternative would emerge from an unfavorable situation.[101] Unlike The Movies, some dedicated machinima software programs, such as Reallusion's iClone, have licenses that avoid claiming ownership of users' films featuring bundled assets.[99]

Generally, companies want to retain creative control over their intellectual properties and are wary of fan-created works, like fan fiction.[103] However, because machinima provides free marketing, they have avoided a response demanding strict copyright enforcement.[105] In 2003, Linden Lab was praised for changing license terms to allow users to retain ownership of works created in its virtual world Second Life.[106] Rooster Teeth initially tried to release Red vs. Blue unnoticed by Halo's owners because they feared that any communication would force them to end the project.[107] However, Microsoft, Bungie's parent company at the time, contacted the group shortly after episode 2,[107] and allowed them to continue without paying licensing fees.[108]

A case in which developer control was asserted involved Blizzard Entertainment's action against Tristan Pope's Not Just Another Love Story.[109] Blizzard's community managers encouraged users to post game movies and screenshots, but viewers complained that Pope's suggestion of sexual actions through creative camera and character positioning was pornographic.[110] Citing the user license agreement, Blizzard closed discussion threads about the film and prohibited links to it.[109] Although Pope accepted Blizzard's right to some control, he remained concerned about censorship of material that already existed in-game in some form.[111] Discussion ensued about boundaries between MMORPG player and developer control.[111] Lowood asserted that this controversy demonstrated that machinima could be a medium of negotiation for players.[112]

Microsoft and Blizzard edit

In August 2007, Microsoft issued its Game Content Usage Rules, a license intended to address the legal status of machinima based on its games, including the Halo series.[113] Microsoft intended the rules to be "flexible",[114] and, because it was unilateral, the license was legally unable to reduce rights.[115] However, machinima artists, such as Edgeworks Entertainment, protested the prohibitions on extending Microsoft's fictional universes (a common component of fan fiction) and on selling anything from sites hosting derivative works.[116] Compounding the reaction was the license's statement, "If you do any of these things, you can expect to hear from Microsoft's lawyers who will tell you that you have to stop distributing your items right away."[117]

Surprised by the negative feedback,[117] Microsoft revised and reissued the license after discussion with Hugh Hancock and an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[115] The rules allow noncommercial use and distribution of works derived from Microsoft-owned game content, except audio effects and soundtracks.[118] The license prohibits reverse engineering and material that is pornographic or otherwise "objectionable".[118] On distribution, derivative works that elaborate on a game's fictional universe or story are automatically licensed to Microsoft and its business partners.[119] This prevents legal problems if a fan and Microsoft independently conceive similar plots.[119]

A few weeks later, Blizzard Entertainment posted on WorldofWarcraft.com their "Letter to the Machinimators of the World", a license for noncommercial use of game content.[120] It differs from Microsoft's declaration in that it addresses machinima specifically instead of general game-derived content, allows use of game audio if Blizzard can legally license it, requires derivative material to meet the Entertainment Software Rating Board's Teen content rating guideline, defines noncommercial use differently, and does not address extensions of fictional universes.[121]

Hayes states that, although licensees' benefits are limited, the licenses reduce reliance on fair use regarding machinima.[122] In turn, this recognition may reduce film festivals' concerns about copyright clearance. In an earlier analogous situation, festivals were concerned about documentary films until best practices for them were developed.[123] According to Hayes, Microsoft and Blizzard helped themselves through their licenses because fan creations provide free publicity and are unlikely to harm sales.[124] If the companies had instead sued for copyright infringement, defendants could have claimed estoppel or implied license because machinima had been unaddressed for a long time.[125] Thus, these licenses secured their issuers' legal rights.[125] Even though other companies, such as Electronic Arts, have encouraged machinima, they have avoided licensing it.[126] Because of the involved legal complexity, they may prefer to under-enforce copyrights.[126] Hayes believes that this legal uncertainty is a suboptimal solution and that, though limited and "idiosyncratic", the Microsoft and Blizzard licenses move towards an ideal video gaming industry standard for handling derivative works.[127]

Semiotic mode edit

Just as machinima can be the cause of legal dispute in copyright ownership and illegal use, it makes heavy use of intertextuality and raises the question of authorship. Machinima takes copyrighted property (such as characters in a game engine) and repurposes it to tell a story, but another common practice in machinima-making is to retell an existing story from a different medium in that engine.

This re-appropriation of established texts, resources, and artistic properties to tell a story or make a statement is an example of a semiotic phenomenon known as intertextuality or resemiosis.[6] A more common term for this phenomenon is "parody", but not all of these intertextual productions are intended for humor or satire, as demonstrated by the Few Good G-Men video. Furthermore, the argument of how well-protected machinima is under the guise of parody or satire is still highly debated. A piece of machinima may be reliant upon a protected property, but may not necessarily be making a statement about that property.[128] Therefore, it is more accurate to refer to it simply as resemiosis, because it takes an artistic work and presents it in a new way, form, or medium. This resemiosis can be manifested in a number of ways. The machinima-maker can be considered an author who restructures the story and/or the world that the chosen game engine is built around.[129] In the popular web series Red vs. Blue, most of the storyline takes place within the game engine of Halo: Combat Evolved and its subsequent sequels. Halo: Combat Evolved has an extensive storyline already, but Red vs. Blue only ever makes mention of this storyline once in the first episode.[130] Even after over 200 episodes of the show being broadcast onto the Internet since 2003, the only real similarities that can be drawn between Red vs. Blue and the game-world it takes place in are the character models, props, vehicles, and settings. Yet Burnie Burns and the machinima team at Rooster Teeth created an extensive storyline of their own using these game resources.

The ability to re-appropriate a game engine to film a video demonstrates intertextuality because it is an obvious example of art being a product of creation-through-manipulation rather than creation per se. The art historian Ernst Gombrich likened art to the "manipulation of a vocabulary"[131] and this can be demonstrated in the creation of machinima. When using a game world to create a story, the author is influenced by the engine. For example, since so many video games are built around the concept of war, a significant portion of machinima films also take place in war-like environments.[129]

Intertextuality is further demonstrated in machinima not only in the re-appropriation of content but in artistic and communicatory techniques. Machinima by definition is a form of puppetry,[132] and thus this new form of digital puppetry employs age-old techniques from the traditional artform.[133] It is also, however, a form of filmmaking, and must employ filmmaking techniques such as camera angles and proper lighting. Some machinima takes place in online environments with participants, actors, and "puppeteers" working together from thousands of miles apart. This means other techniques born from long-distance communication must also be employed. Thus, techniques and practices that would normally never be used in conjunction with one another in the creation of an artistic work end up being used intertextually in the creation of machinima.

Another way that machinima demonstrates intertextuality is in its tendency to make frequent references to texts, works, and other media just like TV ads or humorous cartoons such as The Simpsons might do.[134] For example, the machinima series Freeman's Mind, created by Ross Scott, is filmed by taking a recording of Scott playing through the game Half Life as a player normally would and combining it with a voiceover (also recorded by Scott) to emulate an inner monologue of the normally voiceless protagonist Gordon Freeman.[135] Scott portrays Freeman as a snarky, sociopathic character who makes frequent references to works and texts including science fiction, horror films, action movies, American history, and renowned novels such as Moby Dick. These references to works outside the game, often triggered by events within the game, are prime examples of the densely intertextual nature of machinima.

Common genres edit

See also: List of machinima works

Nitsche and Lowood describe two methods of approaching machinima: starting from a video game and seeking a medium for expression or for documenting gameplay ("inside-out"), and starting outside a game and using it merely as animation tool ("outside-in").[6][136] Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd similarly distinguish between works that retain noticeable connections to games, and those closer to traditional animation.[137] Belonging to the former category, gameplay and stunt machinima began in 1997 with Quake done Quick.[137] Although not the first speedrunners, its creators used external software to manipulate camera positions after recording, which, according to Lowood, elevated speedrunning "from cyberathleticism to making movies".[138] Stunt machinima remains popular. Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd state that Halo: Combat Evolved stunt videos offer a new way to look at the game, and compare Battlefield 1942 machinima creators to the Harlem Globetrotters.[139] Built-in features for video editing and post-recording camera positioning in Halo 3 were expected to facilitate gameplay-based machinima.[140] MMORPGs and other virtual worlds have been captured in documentary films, such as Miss Galaxies 2004, a beauty pageant that took place in the virtual world of Star Wars Galaxies.[141] Footage was distributed in the cover disc of the August 2004 issue of PC Gamer.[141] Douglas Gayeton's Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator documents the title character's interactions in Second Life.[142]

Gaming-related comedy offers another possible entry point for new machinima producers.[137] Presented as five-minute sketches, many machinima comedies are analogous to Internet Flash animations.[137] After Clan Undead's 1997 work Operation Bayshield built on the earliest Quake movies by introducing narrative conventions of linear media[143] and sketch comedy reminiscent of the television show Saturday Night Live,[144] the New-York-based ILL Clan further developed the genre in machinima through works including Apartment Huntin' and Hardly Workin'.[145] Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles chronicles a futile civil war over five seasons and 100 episodes.[145][146] Marino wrote that although the series' humor was rooted in video games, strong writing and characters caused the series to "transcend the typical gamer".[43] An example of a comedy film that targets a more general audience is Strange Company's Tum Raider, produced for the BBC in 2004.[147]

Machinima has been used in music videos, of which the first documented example is Ken Thain's 2002 "Rebel vs. Thug", made in collaboration with Chuck D.[148] For this, Thain used Quake2Max, a modification of Quake II that provided cel-shaded animation.[149] The following year, Tommy Pallotta directed "In the Waiting Line" for the British group Zero 7.[150] He told Computer Graphics World, "It probably would have been quicker to do the film in a 3D animated program. But now, we can reuse the assets in an improvisational way."[151] Scenes of the game Postal 2 can be seen in the music video of the Black Eyed Peas single "Where Is the Love?".[152] In television, MTV features video game characters on its show Video Mods.[148] Among World of Warcraft players, dance and music videos became popular after dancing animations were discovered in the game.[153]

Others use machinima in drama. These works may or may not retain signs of their video game provenance.[154] Unreal Tournament is often used for science fiction and Battlefield 1942 for war, but some artists subvert their chosen game's setting or completely detach their work from it.[155] In 1999, Strange Company used Quake II in Eschaton: Nightfall, a horror film based on the work of H. P. Lovecraft (although Quake I was also based on the Lovecraft lore).[156] A later example is Damien Valentine's series Consanguinity, made using BioWare's 2002 computer game Neverwinter Nights and based on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.[156] Another genre consists of experimental works that attempt to push the boundaries of game engines.[157] One example, Fountainhead's Anna, is a short film that focuses on the cycle of life and is reminiscent of Fantasia.[157] Other productions go farther and completely eschew a 3-D appearance.[157] Friedrich Kirschner's The Tournament and The Journey deliberately appear hand-drawn, and Dead on Que's Fake Science resembles two-dimensional Eastern European modernist animation from the 1970s.[157]

Another derivative genre termed machinima verite, from cinéma vérité, seeks to add a documentary and additional realism to the machinima piece. L.M. Sabo's CATACLYSM achieves a machinima verite style through displaying and recapturing the machinima video with a low resolution black and white hand-held video camera to produce a shaky camera effect. Other element of cinéma vérité, such as longer takes, sweeping camera transitions, and jump cuts may be included to complete the effect.

Some have used machinima to make political statements, often from left-wing perspectives.[158] Alex Chan's take on the 2005 civil unrest in France, The French Democracy, attained mainstream attention and inspired other machinima commentaries on American and British society.[159][160] Horwatt deemed Thuyen Nguyen's 2006 An Unfair War, a criticism of the Iraq War, similar in its attempt "to speak for those who cannot".[161] Joshua Garrison mimicked Chan's "political pseudo-documentary style" in his Virginia Tech Massacre, a controversial Halo 3–based re-enactment and explanation of the eponymous real-life events.[162] More recently, War of Internet Addiction addressed internet censorship in China using World of Warcraft.[163]

Competitions edit

Further information: List of machinima festivals
 
Matt Kelland of Short Fuze (left) and Keith Halper of Kuma Reality Games at the 2008 Machinima Film Festival with the Mackie award for Best Technical Achievement

After the QML's Quake Movie Oscars, dedicated machinima awards did not reappear until the AMAS created the Mackies for its first Machinima Film Festival in 2002.[164] The annual festival has become an important one for machinima creators.[165] Ho Chee Yue, a founder of the marketing company AKQA, helped to organize the first festival for the Asia chapter of the AMAS in 2006.[166] In 2007, the AMAS supported the first machinima festival held in Europe.[167] In addition to these smaller ceremonies, Hugh Hancock of Strange Company worked to add an award for machinima to the more general Bitfilm Festival in 2003.[168] Other general festivals that allow machinima include the Sundance Film Festival, the Florida Film Festival, and the New Media Film Festival.[165] The Ottawa International Animation Festival opened a machinima category in 2004, but, citing the need for "a certain level of excellence", declined to award anything to the category's four entries that year.[169]

Machinima has been showcased in contests sponsored by game companies. Epic Games' popular Make Something Unreal contest included machinima that impressed event organizer Jeff Morris because of "the quality of entries that really push the technology, that accomplish things that Epic never envisioned".[165] In December 2005, Blizzard Entertainment and Xfire, a gaming-focused instant messaging service, jointly sponsored a World of Warcraft machinima contest.[170]

Mainstream appearances edit

 
A scene from a machinima portion of "Make Love, Not Warcraft"

Machinima has appeared on television, starting with G4's series Portal.[171] MTV2's Video Mods re-creates music videos using characters from video games such as The Sims 2, BloodRayne, and Tribes.[148] Blizzard Entertainment helped to set part of "Make Love, Not Warcraft", an Emmy Award–winning 2006 episode of the comedy series South Park, in its massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft.[172] By purchasing broadcast rights to Douglas Gayeton's machinima documentary Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator in September 2007, HBO became the first television network to buy a work created completely in a virtual world.[142] In December 2008, machinima.com signed fifteen experienced television comedy writers—including Patric Verrone, Bill Oakley, and Mike Rowe—to produce episodes for the site.[173]

Commercial use of machinima has increased.[174][175] Rooster Teeth sells DVDs of their Red vs. Blue series and, under sponsorship from Electronic Arts, helped to promote The Sims 2 by using the game to make a machinima series, The Strangerhood.[174] Volvo Cars sponsored the creation of a 2004 advertisement, Game: On, the first film to combine machinima and live action.[176] Later, Electronic Arts commissioned Rooster Teeth to promote their Madden NFL 07 video game.[177] Blockhouse TV uses Moviestorm's machinima software to produce its pre-school educational DVD series Jack and Holly

Game developers have continued to increase support for machinima.[178] Products such as Lionhead Studios' 2005 business simulation game The Movies, Linden Research's virtual world Second Life, and Bungie's 2007 first-person shooter Halo 3 encourage the creation of user content by including machinima software tools.[178] Using The Movies, Alex Chan, a French resident with no previous filmmaking experience,[179] took four days to create The French Democracy, a short political film about the 2005 civil unrest in France.[180] Third-party mods like Garry's Mod usually offer the ability to manipulate characters and take advantage of custom or migrated content, allowing for the creation of works like Counter-Strike For Kids that can be filmed using assets from multiple games.

In a 2010 interview with PC Magazine, Valve CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell said that they wanted to make a Half-Life feature film themselves, rather than hand it off to a big-name director like Sam Raimi, and that their recent Team Fortress 2 "Meet The Team" machinima shorts were experiments in doing just that.[181] Two years later, Valve released their proprietary non-linear machinima software, Source Filmmaker.

Machinima has also been used for music video clips. The first machinima music video to air on MTV is that of Zero 7's "In the Waiting Line" in 2003, animated in the id Tech 3 engine by Tommy Pallotta.[182] Second Life virtual artist Bryn Oh created a work for Australian performer Megan Bernard's song "Clean Up Your Life",[183] released in 2016.[184] The first music video for 2018's "Old Town Road", by Lil Nas X, was composed entirely of footage from the 2018 Western action-adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2.[185]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Records, Guinness World (2008). Guinness World Records 2017 Gamer's Edition. Guinness World Records. ISBN 978-1-910561-41-6.
  2. ^ Krapp 2010, p. 160
  3. ^ Harwood, Tracy G.; Grussi, Ben (2021). Pioneers in Machinima: The Grassroots of Virtual Production. Vernon Press. ISBN 978-1-64889-214-1. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d Marino 2004a, p. 5
  5. ^ Green 1995, p. 1
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Nitsche, Michael (2007). . dichtung-digital.de. Archived from the original on August 14, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2013.
  7. ^ a b Marino 2004a, p. 3
  8. ^ Lowood 2006, p. 30
  9. ^ Lowood 2005, p. 11
  10. ^ Krapp 2011, p. 93
  11. ^ Benayoun 2011, pp. 44–49
  12. ^ Benayoun 2011, pp. 50–54
  13. ^ Lowood 2005, p. 12
  14. ^ a b Marino 2004a, p. 4
  15. ^ a b c Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 28
  16. ^ a b Lowood 2006, p. 33
  17. ^ a b Lowood 2006, p. 32
  18. ^ Lowood 2005, pp. 13, 16
  19. ^ Lowood 2005, p. 13
  20. ^ a b c Marino 2004a, p. 7
  21. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 28; Marino 2004a, pp. 6–7
  22. ^ Machinima.com staff 2001; Heaslip 1998
  23. ^ Moss 2001
  24. ^ Lowood 2007, p. 179
  25. ^ a b c Marino 2004a, p. 8
  26. ^ Marino 2004a, p. 9
  27. ^ a b c Marino 2004a, pp. 10–11
  28. ^ a b c Marino 2004a, p. 11
  29. ^ . Newsarama.com. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved July 24, 2007.
  30. ^ . IF Magazine. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
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  32. ^ a b c Marino 2004a, p. 12
  33. ^ Lowood 2007, p. 183.
  34. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 30
  35. ^ a b Lowood 2007, p. 184
  36. ^ Marino 2004a, p. 13
  37. ^ Ebert 2000; Marino 2004a, p. 13
  38. ^ Marino 2004a, pp. 14–15
  39. ^ a b Marino 2004a, p. 16
  40. ^ a b Marino 2004a, p. 17
  41. ^ Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences 2007
  42. ^ Marino 2004a, p. 18
  43. ^ a b Marino 2004a, p. 19
  44. ^ Marino 2004a, p. 23
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  52. ^ Walker, Alex (July 26, 2019). "Inside The Mario House That SMG4 Built". Kotaku.
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  54. ^ "SMG4". Glitch Productions. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  55. ^ Marino 2004a, p. 1
  56. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 19–20
  57. ^ "MAGE Magazine". Retrieved September 24, 2015.
  58. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 78–79
  59. ^ a b c Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 24
  60. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 27
  61. ^ a b c Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 22
  62. ^ McMahan 2005, pp. 36–37; Marino 2004a, pp. 347–348, 362
  63. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 142–143
  64. ^ McMahan 2005, p. 37
  65. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 142
  66. ^ a b Nitsche 2009, pp. 114–115
  67. ^ a b Berkeley 2006, p. 67
  68. ^ Nitsche 2005, pp. 223–224
  69. ^ Nitsche 2005, p. 214
  70. ^ Nitsche 2005, pp. 224–225
  71. ^ Price 2007
  72. ^ a b Thompson 2005, p. 2
  73. ^ Thompson 2005, p. 2; Matlack & Grover 2005
  74. ^ Berkeley 2006, pp. 68–70
  75. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 80
  76. ^ a b c Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 82
  77. ^ a b c d Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 87
  78. ^ Marino 2004a, p. 349
  79. ^ Nitsche 2009, p. 113
  80. ^ Marino 2004a, p. 351
  81. ^ Nitsche 2009, p. 114
  82. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 90
  83. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 90–91
  84. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 91
  85. ^ a b c d e Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 94
  86. ^ Law 2000; Skubis 2000
  87. ^ Hancock 2000, p. 1
  88. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 129
  89. ^ Lowood 2006, p. 33; Wu n.d.
  90. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 114
  91. ^ Moltenbrey 2005
  92. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 131
  93. ^ a b c Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 78
  94. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 79
  95. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 130
  96. ^ Lowood 2007, p. 188
  97. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 96
  98. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 98
  99. ^ a b Varney 2007, p. 2
  100. ^ Quoted in Varney 2007, p. 2
  101. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 98–99
  102. ^ Sunder 2006, p. 309
  103. ^ a b Berkeley 2006, p. 69
  104. ^ Hayes 2008, p. 569
  105. ^ Hayes 2008, pp. 569, 582
  106. ^ Marcus 2008, p. 80
  107. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 99; Konow 2005, p. 2
  108. ^ Thompson 2005, p. 3
  109. ^ a b Lowood 2007, p. 190
  110. ^ Lowood 2007, pp. 188, 190
  111. ^ a b Lowood 2007, pp. 190–191
  112. ^ Lowood 2007, p. 191
  113. ^ Hayes 2008, pp. 569, 571
  114. ^ James 2007, p. 29
  115. ^ a b Hayes 2008, p. 570
  116. ^ James 2007, pp. 29–30; Hayes 2008, p. 570
  117. ^ a b James 2007, p. 30
  118. ^ a b Hayes 2008, p. 571
  119. ^ a b Hayes 2008, pp. 571–572
  120. ^ Hayes 2008, p. 572
  121. ^ Hayes 2008, pp. 573–576
  122. ^ Hayes 2008, p. 576
  123. ^ Hayes 2008, pp. 576–577
  124. ^ Hayes 2008, pp. 577–579
  125. ^ a b Hayes 2008, p. 580
  126. ^ a b Hayes 2008, p. 583
  127. ^ Hayes 2008, pp. 585, 587
  128. ^ Dogan 2012.
  129. ^ a b Frølunde 2012.
  130. ^ Burns, Burnie. . Archived from the original on November 27, 2010. Retrieved May 6, 2013.
  131. ^ Hawthorn 1993, p. 125.
  132. ^ Jacobs 2011.
  133. ^ Frølunde 2010.
  134. ^ Chandler, Daniel (2007). Semiotics: The Basics. London, England: Routledge. p. 200. ISBN 978-0415363754.
  135. ^ Freeman's Mind - Accursed Farms
  136. ^ Lowood 2008
  137. ^ a b c d Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 40
  138. ^ Lowood 2006, p. 34
  139. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 40, 43
  140. ^ Tuttle 2007
  141. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 43
  142. ^ a b Andrews 2007, p. 1
  143. ^ Lowood 2006, p. 37
  144. ^ Wilonsky 2002, p. 1
  145. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 46
  146. ^ Lankshear & Knobel 2007, p. 226
  147. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 46–47
  148. ^ a b c Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 66
  149. ^ Hanson 2004, p. 62
  150. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 66–67
  151. ^ Robertson 2003, p. 11
  152. ^ . Gameworld Industries. July 17, 2003. Archived from the original on September 30, 2011. Retrieved June 16, 2011.
  153. ^ Lowood 2007, pp. 187–188
  154. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 50–52
  155. ^ Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 50–51
  156. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 52
  157. ^ a b c d Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 54
  158. ^ Horwatt 2008, p. 12
  159. ^ Lowood 2007, p. 167
  160. ^ Diderich 2005
  161. ^ Horwatt 2008, p. 13
  162. ^ Horwatt 2008, p. 13; Gish 2008
  163. ^ Chao, Loretta (February 12, 2010). "'War of Internet Addiction' Wins Hearts and Minds in China". The Wall Street Journal.
  164. ^ Marino 2002
  165. ^ a b c Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, p. 69
  166. ^ Association of Machinima Arts & Sciences n.d.
  167. ^ Harwood 2007
  168. ^ (PDF). Bitfilm Festival. July 2008. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 20, 2009. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  169. ^ Osborne 2004
  170. ^ Maragos 2005
  171. ^ PC Zone staff 2004, pp. 12
  172. ^ Machinima.com staff 2006
  173. ^ Wallenstein 2008
  174. ^ a b Kelland, Morris & Lloyd 2005, pp. 58–59
  175. ^ Rooster Teeth[full citation needed]
  176. ^ Marino 2004b
  177. ^ "Red Vs. Blue: The Cash Is Always Greener". Forbes. December 10, 2006. Retrieved September 24, 2007.
  178. ^ a b . BusinessWeek. McGraw–Hill. August 20, 2007. p. 2. Archived from the original on August 13, 2009. Retrieved March 1, 2009.
  179. ^ Lowood 2007, p. 166
  180. ^ Musgrove 2005
  181. ^ McDougall, Jaz (August 26, 2010). "Valve want to make the Half-Life movie themselves". PC Magazine.
  182. ^ "Guinness World Records: First machinima music video to air on MTV". guinnessworldrecords.com. from the original on August 22, 2022. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
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  185. ^ Thier 2019.

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  • Marino, Paul (October 6, 2004b). . The Screen Savers. G4. Archived from the original on May 3, 2012. Retrieved March 26, 2009.
  • Matlack, Carol; Grover, Ron (December 19, 2005). . BusinessWeek. McGraw–Hill. Archived from the original on December 11, 2005. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
  • McMahan, Alison (2005). The films of Tim Burton: animating live action in contemporary Hollywood. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-1566-0. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
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Further reading edit

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January 01, 1970
machinima, company, same, name, originally, machinema, real, time, computer, graphics, engines, create, cinematic, production, word, machinima, portmanteau, words, machine, cinema, according, guinness, world, records, machinima, making, animated, narrative, fi. For the company of the same name see Machinima Inc Machinima originally machinema m e ˈ ʃ iː n ɪ m e ˈ ʃ ɪ n is the use of real time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production The word machinima is a portmanteau of the words machine and cinema According to Guinness World Records machinima is the art of making animated narrative films from computer graphics most commonly using the engines found in video games 1 source source source source source source Machinima filmed in Second Life Machinima based artists sometimes called machinimists or machinimators are often fan laborers by virtue of their re use of copyrighted materials see below Machinima offers to provide an archive of gaming performance and access to the look and feel of software and hardware that may already have become obsolete or even unavailable For game studies Machinima s gestures grant access to gaming s historical conditions of possibility and how machinima offers links to a comparative horizon that informs changes and fully participates in videogame culture 2 3 The practice of using graphics engines from video games arose from the animated software introductions of the 1980s demoscene Disney Interactive Studios 1992 video game Stunt Island and 1990s recordings of gameplay in first person shooter FPS video games such as id Software s Doom and Quake Originally these recordings documented speed runs attempts to complete a level as quickly as possible and multiplayer matches The addition of storylines to these films created Quake movies The more general term machinima a blend of machine and cinema arose when the concept spread beyond the Quake series to other games and software After this generalization machinima appeared in mainstream media including television series and advertisements Machinima has advantages and disadvantages when compared to other styles of filmmaking Its relative simplicity over traditional frame based animation limits control and range of expression Its real time nature favors speed cost saving and flexibility over the higher quality of pre rendered computer animation Virtual acting is less expensive dangerous and physically restricted than live action Machinima can be filmed by relying on in game artificial intelligence AI or by controlling characters and cameras through digital puppetry Scenes can be precisely scripted and can be manipulated during post production using video editing techniques Editing custom software and creative cinematography may address technical limitations Game companies have provided software for and have encouraged machinima but the widespread use of digital assets from copyrighted games has resulted in complex unresolved legal issues Machinima productions can remain close to their gaming roots and feature stunts or other portrayals of gameplay Popular genres include dance videos comedy and drama Alternatively some filmmakers attempt to stretch the boundaries of the rendering engines or to mask the original 3 D context The Academy of Machinima Arts amp Sciences AMAS a non profit organization dedicated to promoting machinima recognizes exemplary productions through Mackie awards given at its annual Machinima Film Festival Some general film festivals accept machinima and game companies such as Epic Games Valve Blizzard Entertainment and Jagex have sponsored contests involving it Contents 1 History 1 1 Precedent 1 2 Quake movies 1 3 Generalization 1 4 Recent history 2 Production 2 1 Comparison to film techniques 2 2 Character and camera control 2 3 Limitations and solutions 3 Legal issues 3 1 Microsoft and Blizzard 4 Semiotic mode 5 Common genres 6 Competitions 7 Mainstream appearances 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External linksHistory editPrecedent edit 1980s software crackers added custom introductory credits sequences intros to programs whose copy protection they had removed 4 5 Increasing computing power allowed for more complex intros and the demoscene formed when focus shifted to the intros instead of the cracks 4 The goal became to create the best 3 D demos in real time with the least amount of software code 6 4 Disk storage was too slow for this so graphics had to be calculated on the fly and without a pre existing game engine 6 4 In Disney Interactive Studios 1992 computer game Stunt Island users could stage record and play back stunts As Nitsche stated the game s goal was not a high score but a spectacle 6 Released the following year id Software s Doom included the ability to record gameplay as sequences of events that the game engine could later replay in real time 7 Because events and not video frames were saved the resulting game demo files were small and easily shared among players 7 A culture of recording gameplay developed as Henry Lowood of Stanford University called it a context for spectatorship The result was nothing less than a metamorphosis of the player into a performer 8 Another important feature of Doom was that it allowed players to create their own modifications maps and software for the game thus expanding the concept of game authorship 9 In machinima there is a dual register of gestures the trained motions of the player determine the in game images of expressive motion 10 In parallel of the video game approach in the media art field Maurice Benayoun s Virtual Reality artwork The Tunnel under the Atlantic 1995 often compared to video games introduced a virtual film director fully autonomous intelligent agent to shoot and edit in real time a full video from the digging performance in the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary art in Montreal The full movie Inside the Tunnel under the Atlantic 11 21h long was followed in 1997 by Inside the Paris New Delhi Tunnel 13h long Only short excerpts were presented to the public The complex behavior of the Tunnel s virtual director makes it a significant precursor of later application to video games based machinimas 12 Doom s 1996 successor Quake offered new opportunities for both gameplay and customization 13 while retaining the ability to record demos 14 Multiplayer video games became popular and demos of matches between teams of players clans were recorded and studied 15 Paul Marino executive director of the AMAS stated that deathmatches a type of multiplayer game became more cinematic 14 At this point however they still documented gameplay without a narrative 16 Quake movies edit nbsp A scene from Diary of a Camper an early machinima production On October 26 1996 a well known gaming clan the Rangers surprised the Quake community with Diary of a Camper the first widely known machinima film 17 This short 100 second demo file contained the action and gore of many others but in the context of a brief story 17 rather than the usual deathmatch 15 An example of transformative or emergent gameplay this shift from competition to theater required both expertise in and subversion of the game s mechanics 18 The Ranger demo emphasized this transformation by retaining specific gameplay references in its story 19 Diary of a Camper inspired many other Quake movies as these films were then called 15 A community of game modifiers modders artists expert players and film fans began to form around them 6 The works were distributed and reviewed on websites such as The Cineplex Psyk s Popcorn Jungle and the Quake Movie Library QML 20 Production was supported by dedicated demo processing software such as Uwe Girlich s Little Movie Processing Center LMPC and David crt Wright s non linear editor Keygrip 21 which later became known as Adobe Premiere for Quake demo files 20 Among the notable films were Clan Phantasm s Devil s Covenant 20 the first feature length Quake movie Avatar and Wendigo s Blahbalicious which the QML awarded seven Quake Movie Oscars 22 and Clan Undead s Operation Bayshield which introduced simulated lip synchronization 23 and featured customized digital assets 24 Released in December 1997 id Software s Quake II improved support for user created 3 D models However without compatible editing software filmmakers continued to create works based on the original Quake These included the ILL Clan s Apartment Huntin and the Quake done Quick group s Scourge Done Slick 25 Quake II demo editors became available in 1998 In particular Keygrip 2 0 introduced recamming the ability to adjust camera locations after recording 25 Paul Marino called the addition of this feature a defining moment for m achinima 25 With Quake II filming now feasible Strange Company s 1999 production Eschaton Nightfall was the first work to feature entirely custom made character models 26 The December 1999 release of id s Quake III Arena posed a problem to the Quake movie community 27 The game s demo file included information needed for computer networking however to prevent cheating id warned of legal action for dissemination of the file format 27 Thus it was impractical to enhance software to work with Quake III 27 Concurrently the novelty of Quake movies was waning 28 New productions appeared less frequently and according to Marino the community needed to reinvent itself to offset this development 28 Borg War a 90 minute animated Star Trek fan film was produced using Elite Force 2 a Quake III variant and Starfleet Command 3 repurposing the games voiceover clips to create a new plot 29 Borg War was nominated for two Mackie awards by the Academy of Machinima Arts amp Sciences 30 An August 2007 screening at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas was the first time that CBS Paramount had approved the screening of a non parody fan film at a licensed convention 31 Generalization edit In January 2000 Hugh Hancock the founder of Strange Company launched a new website machinima com 32 Coined by Anthony Bailey in a May 1998 email to Hancock 33 the term is a misspelled portmanteau of machine cinema machinema which was intended to dissociate in game filming from a specific engine The new site featured tutorials interviews articles and the exclusive release of Tritin Films Quad God 32 The first film made with Quake III Arena Quad God was also the first to be distributed as recorded video frames not game specific instructions 32 This change was initially controversial among machinima producers who preferred the smaller size of demo files 34 However demo files required a copy of the game to view 6 The more accessible traditional video format broadened Quad God s viewership and the work was distributed on CDs bundled with magazines 34 Thus id s decision to protect Quake III s code inadvertently caused machinima creators to use more general solutions and thus widen their audience 35 Within a few years machinima films were almost exclusively distributed in common video file formats 35 nbsp Hugh Hancock founded Strange Company Machinima began to receive mainstream notice 36 Roger Ebert discussed it in a June 2000 article and praised Strange Company s machinima setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley s sonnet Ozymandias 37 At Showtime Network s 2001 Alternative Media Festival the ILL Clan s 2000 machinima film Hardly Workin won the Best Experimental and Best in SHO awards Steven Spielberg used Unreal Tournament to test special effects while working on his 2001 film Artificial Intelligence A I 38 Eventually interest spread to game developers In July 2001 Epic Games announced that its upcoming game Unreal Tournament 2003 would include Matinee a machinima production software utility 39 As involvement increased filmmakers released fewer new productions to focus on quality 39 At the March 2002 Game Developers Conference five machinima makers Anthony Bailey Hugh Hancock Katherine Anna Kang Paul Marino and Matthew Ross founded the AMAS 40 a non profit organization dedicated to promoting machinima 41 At QuakeCon in August the new organization held the first Machinima Film Festival which received mainstream media coverage Anachronox The Movie by Jake Hughes and Tom Hall won three awards including Best Picture 40 The next year In the Waiting Line produced by Ghost Robot directed by Tommy Pallotta and animated by Randy Cole utilizing Fountainhead Entertainment s Machinimation tools it became the first machinima music video to air on MTV 42 As graphics technology improved machinima filmmakers used other video games and consumer grade video editing software 43 Using Bungie s 2001 game Halo Combat Evolved Rooster Teeth Productions created a popular comedy series Red vs Blue The Blood Gulch Chronicles The series second season premiered at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2004 44 Recent history edit Main articles Machinima Inc Rooster Teeth and Glitch Productions In January 2019 Machinima Inc which had shifted its focus away from machinima based content into general video game related fare in its later years abruptly discontinued their YouTube channels with all their videos set to private 45 This came shortly after then parent company Warner Bros via its owner Time Warner was acquired by AT amp T leading to the subsequent formation of WarnerMedia 46 47 On February 1 2019 Machinima officially announced that it had laid off its 81 employees and ceased remaining operations 48 The company stated that certain employees were being retained to work for AT amp T s Otter Media holding company and that Russell Arons was assisting with transitional activities as she explores new opportunities 48 The closure resulted in 81 layoffs from the company 49 An opinion piece from Wired UK blamed the company s collapse on an obvious misunderstanding of what Machinima actually was or what traditional media companies were even buying when they purchased a content network with the possibility of future machinima distribution networks of that size emerging being slim 45 On March 6 2024 Rooster Teeth general manager Jordan Levin notified employees that the company would close over the next several months In an email he cited reasons for the shutdown including fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and monetization across platforms advertising and patronage with it being reported that the number of subscribers to Rooster Teeth s First service had dropped to around one quarter of their peak and that Rooster Teeth as a whole had been unprofitable for a decade Then parent Warner Bros Discovery formed from the sale of WarnerMedia from AT amp T into a Reverse Morris Trust merger with Discovery Inc in 2021 50 would gauge interest in Red vs Blue and the studio s other intellectual property including RWBY and Gen Lock 51 Within the timeframe between Machinima Inc and Rooster Teeth s respective closures Australian animator Luke Lerdwichagul would gain prominence from his Super Mario 64 and Garry s Mod based comedy series SMG4 He would eventually form the independent animation studio Glitch Productions with his brother Kevin while continuing to work on the series 52 53 54 Production editComparison to film techniques edit The AMAS defines machinima as animated filmmaking within a real time virtual 3 D environment 55 In other 3 D animation methods creators can control every frame and nuance of their characters but in turn must consider issues such as key frames and inbetweening Machinima creators leave many rendering details to their host environments but may thus inherit those environments limitations 56 Second Life Machinima film maker Ozymandius King provided a detailed account of the process by which the artists at MAGE Magazine produce their videos Organizing for a photo shoot is similar to organizing for a film production Once you find the actors models you have to scout locations find clothes and props for the models and type up a shooting script The more organized you are the less time it takes to shoot the scene 57 Because game animations focus on dramatic rather than casual actions the range of character emotions is often limited However Kelland Morris and Lloyd state that a small range of emotions is often sufficient as in successful Japanese anime television series 58 Another difference is that machinima is created in real time but other animation is pre rendered 59 Real time engines need to trade quality for speed and use simpler algorithms and models 59 In the 2001 animated film Final Fantasy The Spirits Within every strand of hair on a character s head was independent real time needs would likely force them to be treated as a single unit 59 Kelland Morris and Lloyd argue that improvement in consumer grade graphics technology will allow more realism 60 Similarly Paul Marino connects machinima to the increasing computing power predicted by Moore s law 28 For cut scenes in video games issues other than visual fidelity arise Pre rendered scenes can require more digital storage space weaken suspension of disbelief through contrast with real time animation of normal gameplay and limit interaction 60 Like live action machinima is recorded in real time and real people can act and control the camera 61 Filmmakers are often encouraged to follow traditional cinematic conventions 62 63 such as avoiding wide fields of view the overuse of slow motion 64 and errors in visual continuity 65 Unlike live action machinima involves less expensive digital special effects and sets possibly with a science fiction or historical theme 61 Explosions and stunts can be tried and repeated without monetary cost and risk of injury and the host environment may allow unrealistic physical constraints 61 University of Cambridge experiments in 2002 and 2003 attempted to use machinima to re create a scene from the 1942 live action film Casablanca 66 Machinima filming differed from traditional cinematography in that character expression was limited but camera movements were more flexible and improvised Nitsche compared this experiment to an unpredictable Dogme 95 production 66 nbsp The ILL Clan performs its machinima comedy talk show Tra5hTa1k with ILL Will in front of a live audience at Stanford University in 2005 Berkeley sees machinima as a strangely hybrid form looking forwards and backwards cutting edge and conservative at the same time 67 Machinima is a digital medium based on 3 D computer games but most works have a linear narrative structure Some such as Red vs Blue and The Strangerhood follow narrative conventions of television situational comedy 67 Nitsche agrees that pre recorded reel machinima tends to be linear and offers limited interactive storytelling while machinima has more opportunities performed live and with audience interaction 68 In creating their improvisational comedy series On the Campaign Trail with Larry amp Lenny Lumberjack and talk show Tra5hTa1k with ILL Will the ILL Clan blended real and virtual performance by creating the works on stage and interacting with a live audience 6 In another combination of real and virtual worlds Chris Burke s talk show This Spartan Life takes place in Halo 2 s open multiplayer environment 6 There others playing in earnest may attack the host or his interviewee 6 Although other virtual theatrical performances have taken place in chat rooms and multi user dungeons machinima adds cinematic camera work 69 Previously such virtual cinematic performances with live audience interaction were confined to research labs equipped with powerful computers 70 Machinima can be less expensive than other forms of filmmaking Strange Company produced its feature length machinima film BloodSpell for less than 10 000 71 Before using machinima Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum of Rooster Teeth Productions spent US 9 000 to produce a live action independent film In contrast the four Xbox game consoles used to make Red vs Blue in 2005 cost 600 72 The low cost caused a product manager for Electronic Arts to compare machinima to the low budget independent film The Blair Witch Project without the need for cameras and actors 72 Because these are seen as low barriers to entry machinima has been called a democratization of filmmaking 73 Berkeley weighs increased participation and a blurred line between producer and consumer against concerns that game copyrights limit commercialization and growth of machinima 74 Comparatively machinimists using pre made virtual platforms like Second Life have indicated that their productions can be made quite successfully with no cost at all Creators like Dutch director Chantal Harvey producer of the 48 Hour Film Project Machinima sector have created upwards of 200 films using the platform citation needed Harvey s advocacy of the genre has resulted in the involvement of film director Peter Greenaway who served as a juror for the Machinima category and gave a keynote speech during the event citation needed Character and camera control edit Kelland Morris and Lloyd list four main methods of creating machinima 75 From simple to advanced these are relying on the game s AI to control most actions digital puppetry recamming and precise scripting of actions 75 Although simple to produce AI dependent results are unpredictable thus complicating the realization of a preconceived film script 76 For example when Rooster Teeth produced The Strangerhood using The Sims 2 a game that encourages the use of its AI the group had to create multiple instances of each character to accommodate different moods 76 Individual instances were selected at different times to produce appropriate actions 76 In digital puppetry machinima creators become virtual actors Each crew member controls a character in real time as in a multiplayer game 77 The director can use built in camera controls if available 77 Otherwise video is captured from the perspectives of one or more puppeteers who serve as camera operators 77 Puppetry allows for improvisation and offers controls familiar to gamers but requires more personnel than the other methods and is less precise than scripted recordings 77 78 However some games such as the Halo series except for Halo PC and Custom Edition which allow AI and custom objects and characters allow filming only through puppetry 79 According to Marino other disadvantages are the possibility of disruption when filming in an open multi user environment and the temptation for puppeteers to play the game in earnest littering the set with blood and dead bodies 80 However Chris Burke intentionally hosts This Spartan Life in these unpredictable conditions which are fundamental to the show 6 Other works filmed using puppetry are the ILL Clan s improvisational comedy series On the Campaign Trail with Larry amp Lenny Lumberjack and Rooster Teeth Productions Red vs Blue 81 In recamming which builds on puppetry actions are first recorded to a game engine s demo file format not directly as video frames 82 Without re enacting scenes artists can then manipulate the demo files to add cameras tweak timing and lighting and change the surroundings 83 This technique is limited to the few engines and software tools that support it 84 A technique common in cutscenes of video games scripting consists of giving precise directions to the game engine A filmmaker can work alone this way 85 as J Thaddeus Mindcrime Skubis did in creating the nearly four hour The Seal of Nehahra 2000 the longest work of machinima at the time 86 However perfecting scripts can be time consuming 85 Unless what you see is what you get WYSIWYG editing is available as in Vampire The Masquerade Redemption changes may need to be verified in additional runs and non linear editing may be difficult 85 87 In this respect Kelland Morris and Lloyd compare scripting to stop motion animation 85 Another disadvantage is that depending on the game scripting capabilities may be limited or unavailable 88 Matinee a machinima software tool included with Unreal Tournament 2004 popularized scripting in machinima 85 Limitations and solutions edit When Diary of a Camper was created no software tools existed to edit demo files into films 16 Rangers clan member Eric ArchV Fowler wrote his own programs to reposition the camera and to splice footage from the Quake demo file 89 Quake movie editing software later appeared but the use of conventional non linear video editing software is now common 90 For example Phil South inserted single completely white frames into his work No Licence to enhance the visual impact of explosions 90 In the post production of Red vs Blue The Blood Gulch Chronicles Rooster Teeth Productions added letterboxing with Adobe Premiere Pro to hide the camera player s heads up display 91 Machinima creators have used different methods to handle limited character expression The most typical ways that amateur style machinima gets around limitations of expression include taking advantage of speech bubbles seen above players heads when speaking relying on the visual matching between a character s voice and appearance and finding methods available within the game itself Garry s Mod and Source Filmmaker include the ability to manipulate characters and objects in real time though the former relies on community addons to take advantage of certain engine features and the latter renders scenes using non real time effects In the Halo video game series helmets completely cover the characters faces To prevent confusion Rooster Teeth s characters move slightly when speaking a convention shared with anime 92 Some machinima creators use custom software 93 For example Strange Company uses Take Over GL Face Skins to add more facial expressions to their characters filmed in BioWare s 2002 role playing video game Neverwinter Nights 93 Similarly Atussa Simon used a library of faces for characters in The Battle of Xerxes 94 Some software such as Epic Games Impersonator for Unreal Tournament 2004 and Valve s Faceposer for Source games have been provided by the developer 93 Another solution is to blend in non machinima elements as nGame did by inserting painted characters with more expressive faces into its 1999 film Berlin Assassins 95 It may be possible to point the camera elsewhere or employ other creative cinematography or acting 95 For example Tristan Pope combined creative character and camera positioning with video editing to suggest sexual actions in his controversial film Not Just Another Love Story 96 Legal issues editNew machinima filmmakers often want to use game provided digital assets 97 but doing so raises legal issues As derivative works their films could violate copyright or be controlled by the assets copyright holder 98 99 an arrangement that can be complicated by separate publishing and licensing rights 98 The software license agreement for The Movies stipulates that Activision the game s publisher owns any and all content within Game Movies that was either supplied with the Program or otherwise made available by Activision or its licensors 100 Some game companies provide software to modify their own games and machinima makers often cite fair use as a defense but the issue has never been tested in court 101 A potential problem with this defense is that many works such as Red vs Blue focus more on satire which is not as explicitly protected by fair use as parody 102 Berkeley adds that even if machinima artists use their own assets their works could be ruled derivative if filmed in a proprietary engine 103 The risk inherent in a fair use defense would cause most machinima artists simply to yield to a cease and desist order 104 The AMAS has attempted to negotiate solutions with video game companies arguing that an open source or reasonably priced alternative would emerge from an unfavorable situation 101 Unlike The Movies some dedicated machinima software programs such as Reallusion s iClone have licenses that avoid claiming ownership of users films featuring bundled assets 99 Generally companies want to retain creative control over their intellectual properties and are wary of fan created works like fan fiction 103 However because machinima provides free marketing they have avoided a response demanding strict copyright enforcement 105 In 2003 Linden Lab was praised for changing license terms to allow users to retain ownership of works created in its virtual world Second Life 106 Rooster Teeth initially tried to release Red vs Blue unnoticed by Halo s owners because they feared that any communication would force them to end the project 107 However Microsoft Bungie s parent company at the time contacted the group shortly after episode 2 107 and allowed them to continue without paying licensing fees 108 A case in which developer control was asserted involved Blizzard Entertainment s action against Tristan Pope s Not Just Another Love Story 109 Blizzard s community managers encouraged users to post game movies and screenshots but viewers complained that Pope s suggestion of sexual actions through creative camera and character positioning was pornographic 110 Citing the user license agreement Blizzard closed discussion threads about the film and prohibited links to it 109 Although Pope accepted Blizzard s right to some control he remained concerned about censorship of material that already existed in game in some form 111 Discussion ensued about boundaries between MMORPG player and developer control 111 Lowood asserted that this controversy demonstrated that machinima could be a medium of negotiation for players 112 Microsoft and Blizzard edit In August 2007 Microsoft issued its Game Content Usage Rules a license intended to address the legal status of machinima based on its games including the Halo series 113 Microsoft intended the rules to be flexible 114 and because it was unilateral the license was legally unable to reduce rights 115 However machinima artists such as Edgeworks Entertainment protested the prohibitions on extending Microsoft s fictional universes a common component of fan fiction and on selling anything from sites hosting derivative works 116 Compounding the reaction was the license s statement If you do any of these things you can expect to hear from Microsoft s lawyers who will tell you that you have to stop distributing your items right away 117 Surprised by the negative feedback 117 Microsoft revised and reissued the license after discussion with Hugh Hancock and an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation 115 The rules allow noncommercial use and distribution of works derived from Microsoft owned game content except audio effects and soundtracks 118 The license prohibits reverse engineering and material that is pornographic or otherwise objectionable 118 On distribution derivative works that elaborate on a game s fictional universe or story are automatically licensed to Microsoft and its business partners 119 This prevents legal problems if a fan and Microsoft independently conceive similar plots 119 A few weeks later Blizzard Entertainment posted on WorldofWarcraft com their Letter to the Machinimators of the World a license for noncommercial use of game content 120 It differs from Microsoft s declaration in that it addresses machinima specifically instead of general game derived content allows use of game audio if Blizzard can legally license it requires derivative material to meet the Entertainment Software Rating Board s Teen content rating guideline defines noncommercial use differently and does not address extensions of fictional universes 121 Hayes states that although licensees benefits are limited the licenses reduce reliance on fair use regarding machinima 122 In turn this recognition may reduce film festivals concerns about copyright clearance In an earlier analogous situation festivals were concerned about documentary films until best practices for them were developed 123 According to Hayes Microsoft and Blizzard helped themselves through their licenses because fan creations provide free publicity and are unlikely to harm sales 124 If the companies had instead sued for copyright infringement defendants could have claimed estoppel or implied license because machinima had been unaddressed for a long time 125 Thus these licenses secured their issuers legal rights 125 Even though other companies such as Electronic Arts have encouraged machinima they have avoided licensing it 126 Because of the involved legal complexity they may prefer to under enforce copyrights 126 Hayes believes that this legal uncertainty is a suboptimal solution and that though limited and idiosyncratic the Microsoft and Blizzard licenses move towards an ideal video gaming industry standard for handling derivative works 127 Semiotic mode editJust as machinima can be the cause of legal dispute in copyright ownership and illegal use it makes heavy use of intertextuality and raises the question of authorship Machinima takes copyrighted property such as characters in a game engine and repurposes it to tell a story but another common practice in machinima making is to retell an existing story from a different medium in that engine This re appropriation of established texts resources and artistic properties to tell a story or make a statement is an example of a semiotic phenomenon known as intertextuality or resemiosis 6 A more common term for this phenomenon is parody but not all of these intertextual productions are intended for humor or satire as demonstrated by the Few Good G Men video Furthermore the argument of how well protected machinima is under the guise of parody or satire is still highly debated A piece of machinima may be reliant upon a protected property but may not necessarily be making a statement about that property 128 Therefore it is more accurate to refer to it simply as resemiosis because it takes an artistic work and presents it in a new way form or medium This resemiosis can be manifested in a number of ways The machinima maker can be considered an author who restructures the story and or the world that the chosen game engine is built around 129 In the popular web series Red vs Blue most of the storyline takes place within the game engine of Halo Combat Evolved and its subsequent sequels Halo Combat Evolved has an extensive storyline already but Red vs Blue only ever makes mention of this storyline once in the first episode 130 Even after over 200 episodes of the show being broadcast onto the Internet since 2003 the only real similarities that can be drawn between Red vs Blue and the game world it takes place in are the character models props vehicles and settings Yet Burnie Burns and the machinima team at Rooster Teeth created an extensive storyline of their own using these game resources The ability to re appropriate a game engine to film a video demonstrates intertextuality because it is an obvious example of art being a product of creation through manipulation rather than creation per se The art historian Ernst Gombrich likened art to the manipulation of a vocabulary 131 and this can be demonstrated in the creation of machinima When using a game world to create a story the author is influenced by the engine For example since so many video games are built around the concept of war a significant portion of machinima films also take place in war like environments 129 Intertextuality is further demonstrated in machinima not only in the re appropriation of content but in artistic and communicatory techniques Machinima by definition is a form of puppetry 132 and thus this new form of digital puppetry employs age old techniques from the traditional artform 133 It is also however a form of filmmaking and must employ filmmaking techniques such as camera angles and proper lighting Some machinima takes place in online environments with participants actors and puppeteers working together from thousands of miles apart This means other techniques born from long distance communication must also be employed Thus techniques and practices that would normally never be used in conjunction with one another in the creation of an artistic work end up being used intertextually in the creation of machinima Another way that machinima demonstrates intertextuality is in its tendency to make frequent references to texts works and other media just like TV ads or humorous cartoons such as The Simpsons might do 134 For example the machinima series Freeman s Mind created by Ross Scott is filmed by taking a recording of Scott playing through the game Half Life as a player normally would and combining it with a voiceover also recorded by Scott to emulate an inner monologue of the normally voiceless protagonist Gordon Freeman 135 Scott portrays Freeman as a snarky sociopathic character who makes frequent references to works and texts including science fiction horror films action movies American history and renowned novels such as Moby Dick These references to works outside the game often triggered by events within the game are prime examples of the densely intertextual nature of machinima Common genres editSee also List of machinima works Nitsche and Lowood describe two methods of approaching machinima starting from a video game and seeking a medium for expression or for documenting gameplay inside out and starting outside a game and using it merely as animation tool outside in 6 136 Kelland Morris and Lloyd similarly distinguish between works that retain noticeable connections to games and those closer to traditional animation 137 Belonging to the former category gameplay and stunt machinima began in 1997 with Quake done Quick 137 Although not the first speedrunners its creators used external software to manipulate camera positions after recording which according to Lowood elevated speedrunning from cyberathleticism to making movies 138 Stunt machinima remains popular Kelland Morris and Lloyd state that Halo Combat Evolved stunt videos offer a new way to look at the game and compare Battlefield 1942 machinima creators to the Harlem Globetrotters 139 Built in features for video editing and post recording camera positioning in Halo 3 were expected to facilitate gameplay based machinima 140 MMORPGs and other virtual worlds have been captured in documentary films such as Miss Galaxies 2004 a beauty pageant that took place in the virtual world of Star Wars Galaxies 141 Footage was distributed in the cover disc of the August 2004 issue of PC Gamer 141 Douglas Gayeton s Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator documents the title character s interactions in Second Life 142 Gaming related comedy offers another possible entry point for new machinima producers 137 Presented as five minute sketches many machinima comedies are analogous to Internet Flash animations 137 After Clan Undead s 1997 work Operation Bayshield built on the earliest Quake movies by introducing narrative conventions of linear media 143 and sketch comedy reminiscent of the television show Saturday Night Live 144 the New York based ILL Clan further developed the genre in machinima through works including Apartment Huntin and Hardly Workin 145 Red vs Blue The Blood Gulch Chronicles chronicles a futile civil war over five seasons and 100 episodes 145 146 Marino wrote that although the series humor was rooted in video games strong writing and characters caused the series to transcend the typical gamer 43 An example of a comedy film that targets a more general audience is Strange Company s Tum Raider produced for the BBC in 2004 147 Machinima has been used in music videos of which the first documented example is Ken Thain s 2002 Rebel vs Thug made in collaboration with Chuck D 148 For this Thain used Quake2Max a modification of Quake II that provided cel shaded animation 149 The following year Tommy Pallotta directed In the Waiting Line for the British group Zero 7 150 He told Computer Graphics World It probably would have been quicker to do the film in a 3D animated program But now we can reuse the assets in an improvisational way 151 Scenes of the game Postal 2 can be seen in the music video of the Black Eyed Peas single Where Is the Love 152 In television MTV features video game characters on its show Video Mods 148 Among World of Warcraft players dance and music videos became popular after dancing animations were discovered in the game 153 Others use machinima in drama These works may or may not retain signs of their video game provenance 154 Unreal Tournament is often used for science fiction and Battlefield 1942 for war but some artists subvert their chosen game s setting or completely detach their work from it 155 In 1999 Strange Company used Quake II in Eschaton Nightfall a horror film based on the work of H P Lovecraft although Quake I was also based on the Lovecraft lore 156 A later example is Damien Valentine s series Consanguinity made using BioWare s 2002 computer game Neverwinter Nights and based on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer 156 Another genre consists of experimental works that attempt to push the boundaries of game engines 157 One example Fountainhead s Anna is a short film that focuses on the cycle of life and is reminiscent of Fantasia 157 Other productions go farther and completely eschew a 3 D appearance 157 Friedrich Kirschner s The Tournament and The Journey deliberately appear hand drawn and Dead on Que s Fake Science resembles two dimensional Eastern European modernist animation from the 1970s 157 Another derivative genre termed machinima verite from cinema verite seeks to add a documentary and additional realism to the machinima piece L M Sabo s CATACLYSM achieves a machinima verite style through displaying and recapturing the machinima video with a low resolution black and white hand held video camera to produce a shaky camera effect Other element of cinema verite such as longer takes sweeping camera transitions and jump cuts may be included to complete the effect Some have used machinima to make political statements often from left wing perspectives 158 Alex Chan s take on the 2005 civil unrest in France The French Democracy attained mainstream attention and inspired other machinima commentaries on American and British society 159 160 Horwatt deemed Thuyen Nguyen s 2006 An Unfair War a criticism of the Iraq War similar in its attempt to speak for those who cannot 161 Joshua Garrison mimicked Chan s political pseudo documentary style in his Virginia Tech Massacre a controversial Halo 3 based re enactment and explanation of the eponymous real life events 162 More recently War of Internet Addiction addressed internet censorship in China using World of Warcraft 163 Competitions editFurther information List of machinima festivals nbsp Matt Kelland of Short Fuze left and Keith Halper of Kuma Reality Games at the 2008 Machinima Film Festival with the Mackie award for Best Technical Achievement After the QML s Quake Movie Oscars dedicated machinima awards did not reappear until the AMAS created the Mackies for its first Machinima Film Festival in 2002 164 The annual festival has become an important one for machinima creators 165 Ho Chee Yue a founder of the marketing company AKQA helped to organize the first festival for the Asia chapter of the AMAS in 2006 166 In 2007 the AMAS supported the first machinima festival held in Europe 167 In addition to these smaller ceremonies Hugh Hancock of Strange Company worked to add an award for machinima to the more general Bitfilm Festival in 2003 168 Other general festivals that allow machinima include the Sundance Film Festival the Florida Film Festival and the New Media Film Festival 165 The Ottawa International Animation Festival opened a machinima category in 2004 but citing the need for a certain level of excellence declined to award anything to the category s four entries that year 169 Machinima has been showcased in contests sponsored by game companies Epic Games popular Make Something Unreal contest included machinima that impressed event organizer Jeff Morris because of the quality of entries that really push the technology that accomplish things that Epic never envisioned 165 In December 2005 Blizzard Entertainment and Xfire a gaming focused instant messaging service jointly sponsored a World of Warcraft machinima contest 170 Mainstream appearances edit nbsp A scene from a machinima portion of Make Love Not Warcraft Machinima has appeared on television starting with G4 s series Portal 171 MTV2 s Video Mods re creates music videos using characters from video games such as The Sims 2 BloodRayne and Tribes 148 Blizzard Entertainment helped to set part of Make Love Not Warcraft an Emmy Award winning 2006 episode of the comedy series South Park in its massively multiplayer online role playing game MMORPG World of Warcraft 172 By purchasing broadcast rights to Douglas Gayeton s machinima documentary Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator in September 2007 HBO became the first television network to buy a work created completely in a virtual world 142 In December 2008 machinima com signed fifteen experienced television comedy writers including Patric Verrone Bill Oakley and Mike Rowe to produce episodes for the site 173 Commercial use of machinima has increased 174 175 Rooster Teeth sells DVDs of their Red vs Blue series and under sponsorship from Electronic Arts helped to promote The Sims 2 by using the game to make a machinima series The Strangerhood 174 Volvo Cars sponsored the creation of a 2004 advertisement Game On the first film to combine machinima and live action 176 Later Electronic Arts commissioned Rooster Teeth to promote their Madden NFL 07 video game 177 Blockhouse TV uses Moviestorm s machinima software to produce its pre school educational DVD series Jack and HollyGame developers have continued to increase support for machinima 178 Products such as Lionhead Studios 2005 business simulation game The Movies Linden Research s virtual world Second Life and Bungie s 2007 first person shooter Halo 3 encourage the creation of user content by including machinima software tools 178 Using The Movies Alex Chan a French resident with no previous filmmaking experience 179 took four days to create The French Democracy a short political film about the 2005 civil unrest in France 180 Third party mods like Garry s Mod usually offer the ability to manipulate characters and take advantage of custom or migrated content allowing for the creation of works like Counter Strike For Kids that can be filmed using assets from multiple games In a 2010 interview with PC Magazine Valve CEO and co founder Gabe Newell said that they wanted to make a Half Life feature film themselves rather than hand it off to a big name director like Sam Raimi and that their recent Team Fortress 2 Meet The Team machinima shorts were experiments in doing just that 181 Two years later Valve released their proprietary non linear machinima software Source Filmmaker Machinima has also been used for music video clips The first machinima music video to air on MTV is that of Zero 7 s In the Waiting Line in 2003 animated in the id Tech 3 engine by Tommy Pallotta 182 Second Life virtual artist Bryn Oh created a work for Australian performer Megan Bernard s song Clean Up Your Life 183 released in 2016 184 The first music video for 2018 s Old Town Road by Lil Nas X was composed entirely of footage from the 2018 Western action adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2 185 See also edit nbsp Animation portal 3DMM Computer animation Computer generated imagery The Flying Luna Clipper 1996 in machinima 2003 in machinima 2004 in machinima 2005 in machinima 2006 in machinima 2007 in machinima Overwatch and pornographyNotes edit Records Guinness World 2008 Guinness World Records 2017 Gamer s Edition Guinness World Records ISBN 978 1 910561 41 6 Krapp 2010 p 160 Harwood Tracy G Grussi Ben 2021 Pioneers in Machinima The Grassroots of Virtual Production Vernon Press ISBN 978 1 64889 214 1 Retrieved April 23 2021 a b c d Marino 2004a p 5 Green 1995 p 1 a b c d e f g h i j k Nitsche Michael 2007 Claiming Its Space Machinima dichtung digital de Archived from the original on August 14 2014 Retrieved May 6 2013 a b Marino 2004a p 3 Lowood 2006 p 30 Lowood 2005 p 11 Krapp 2011 p 93 Benayoun 2011 pp 44 49 Benayoun 2011 pp 50 54 Lowood 2005 p 12 a b Marino 2004a p 4 a b c Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 28 a b Lowood 2006 p 33 a b Lowood 2006 p 32 Lowood 2005 pp 13 16 Lowood 2005 p 13 a b c Marino 2004a p 7 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 28 Marino 2004a pp 6 7 Machinima com staff 2001 Heaslip 1998 Moss 2001 Lowood 2007 p 179 a b c Marino 2004a p 8 Marino 2004a p 9 a b c Marino 2004a pp 10 11 a b c Marino 2004a p 11 DEUX EX MACHIMINA BORG WAR DOING TREK CON Newsarama com Archived from the original on September 29 2007 Retrieved July 24 2007 See an Unauthorized Animated Star Trek Feature Film IF Magazine Archived from the original on September 27 2007 Retrieved July 19 2007 Borg Wars for next generation of movie makers Nashua Telegraph Archived from the original on August 19 2007 Retrieved July 19 2007 a b c Marino 2004a p 12 Lowood 2007 p 183 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 30 a b Lowood 2007 p 184 Marino 2004a p 13 Ebert 2000 Marino 2004a p 13 Marino 2004a pp 14 15 a b Marino 2004a p 16 a b Marino 2004a p 17 Academy of Machinima Arts amp Sciences 2007 Marino 2004a p 18 a b Marino 2004a p 19 Marino 2004a p 23 a b Onanuga Tola January 27 2019 The collapse of Machinima is a stark warning to YouTube creators Wired UK ISSN 1357 0978 Retrieved April 3 2023 Chmielewski Dawn C Hayes Dade November 21 2018 WarnerMedia Owned Machinima To Become Part Of AT amp T s Otter Media Deadline Archived from the original on November 22 2018 Retrieved November 22 2018 Spangler Todd August 7 2018 AT amp T Buys Out Chernin Group s Stake in Otter Media Variety Archived from the original on October 11 2018 Retrieved November 22 2018 a b Hipes Patrick February 1 2019 Machinima Is Shutting Down With 81 Staffers Laid Off Deadline Archived from the original on May 30 2019 Retrieved June 3 2019 Roberts Samuel February 4 2019 Machinima is closing and 81 people have reportedly been laid off PC Gamer Retrieved April 3 2023 Hayes Dade May 17 2021 David Zaslav And John Stankey Outline Plans For Merging Discovery And WarnerMedia Addressing Future Of Jason Kilar CNN Streaming Deadline Hollywood Retrieved May 17 2021 Spangler Todd March 6 2024 Rooster Teeth Is Shutting Down After 21 Years Variety Retrieved March 6 2024 Walker Alex July 26 2019 Inside The Mario House That SMG4 Built Kotaku Asarch Steven January 26 2022 The trippiest gamer on YouTube reveals the one line he ll never cross Inverse Retrieved March 31 2024 SMG4 Glitch Productions Retrieved April 21 2024 Marino 2004a p 1 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 19 20 MAGE Magazine Retrieved September 24 2015 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 78 79 a b c Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 24 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 27 a b c Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 22 McMahan 2005 pp 36 37 Marino 2004a pp 347 348 362 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 142 143 McMahan 2005 p 37 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 142 a b Nitsche 2009 pp 114 115 a b Berkeley 2006 p 67 Nitsche 2005 pp 223 224 Nitsche 2005 p 214 Nitsche 2005 pp 224 225 Price 2007 a b Thompson 2005 p 2 Thompson 2005 p 2 Matlack amp Grover 2005 Berkeley 2006 pp 68 70 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 80 a b c Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 82 a b c d Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 87 Marino 2004a p 349 Nitsche 2009 p 113 Marino 2004a p 351 Nitsche 2009 p 114 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 90 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 90 91 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 91 a b c d e Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 94 Law 2000 Skubis 2000 Hancock 2000 p 1 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 129 Lowood 2006 p 33 Wu n d a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 114 Moltenbrey 2005 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 131 a b c Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 78 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 79 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 130 Lowood 2007 p 188 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 96 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 98 a b Varney 2007 p 2 Quoted in Varney 2007 p 2 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 98 99 Sunder 2006 p 309 a b Berkeley 2006 p 69 Hayes 2008 p 569 Hayes 2008 pp 569 582 Marcus 2008 p 80 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 99 Konow 2005 p 2 Thompson 2005 p 3 a b Lowood 2007 p 190 Lowood 2007 pp 188 190 a b Lowood 2007 pp 190 191 Lowood 2007 p 191 Hayes 2008 pp 569 571 James 2007 p 29 a b Hayes 2008 p 570 James 2007 pp 29 30 Hayes 2008 p 570 a b James 2007 p 30 a b Hayes 2008 p 571 a b Hayes 2008 pp 571 572 Hayes 2008 p 572 Hayes 2008 pp 573 576 Hayes 2008 p 576 Hayes 2008 pp 576 577 Hayes 2008 pp 577 579 a b Hayes 2008 p 580 a b Hayes 2008 p 583 Hayes 2008 pp 585 587 Dogan 2012 a b Frolunde 2012 Burns Burnie Red vs Blue Episode 1 Script Archived from the original on November 27 2010 Retrieved May 6 2013 Hawthorn 1993 p 125 Jacobs 2011 Frolunde 2010 Chandler Daniel 2007 Semiotics The Basics London England Routledge p 200 ISBN 978 0415363754 Freeman s Mind Accursed Farms Lowood 2008 a b c d Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 40 Lowood 2006 p 34 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 40 43 Tuttle 2007 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 43 a b Andrews 2007 p 1 Lowood 2006 p 37 Wilonsky 2002 p 1 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 46 Lankshear amp Knobel 2007 p 226 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 46 47 a b c Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 66 Hanson 2004 p 62 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 66 67 Robertson 2003 p 11 Postal 2 Features In Music Video Gameworld Industries July 17 2003 Archived from the original on September 30 2011 Retrieved June 16 2011 Lowood 2007 pp 187 188 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 50 52 Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 50 51 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 52 a b c d Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 54 Horwatt 2008 p 12 Lowood 2007 p 167 Diderich 2005 Horwatt 2008 p 13 Horwatt 2008 p 13 Gish 2008 Chao Loretta February 12 2010 War of Internet Addiction Wins Hearts and Minds in China The Wall Street Journal Marino 2002 a b c Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 p 69 Association of Machinima Arts amp Sciences n d Harwood 2007 The Bitfilm Competitions PDF Bitfilm Festival July 2008 p 3 Archived from the original PDF on March 20 2009 Retrieved February 27 2009 Osborne 2004 Maragos 2005 PC Zone staff 2004 pp 12 Machinima com staff 2006 Wallenstein 2008 a b Kelland Morris amp Lloyd 2005 pp 58 59 Rooster Teeth full citation needed Marino 2004b Red Vs Blue The Cash Is Always Greener Forbes December 10 2006 Retrieved September 24 2007 a b The Future of Machinima BusinessWeek McGraw Hill August 20 2007 p 2 Archived from the original on August 13 2009 Retrieved March 1 2009 Lowood 2007 p 166 Musgrove 2005 McDougall Jaz August 26 2010 Valve want to make the Half Life movie themselves PC Magazine Guinness World Records First machinima music video to air on MTV guinnessworldrecords com Archived from the original on August 22 2022 Retrieved August 21 2022 Megan Bernard Clean Up Your Life HD December 31 2015 Archived from the original on November 17 2021 via YouTube Oh Bryn January 8 2016 Clean up your life by Megan Bernard Archived from the original on February 24 2016 Thier 2019 References editAcademy of Machinima Arts amp Sciences May 15 2007 Who We Are Academy of Machinima Arts amp Sciences Archived from the original on August 14 2009 Retrieved February 27 2009 Association of Machinima Arts amp Sciences Machinimasia Festival in Singapore Association of Machinima Arts amp Sciences Archived from the original on April 15 2011 Retrieved March 11 2009 Andrews Marke September 27 2007 My Second Life brings virtual world alive on TV The Vancouver Sun CanWest ISSN 0832 1299 Archived from the original on June 11 2008 Retrieved February 24 2009 Benayoun Maurice 2011 Open Art 1980 2010 Paris France Nouvelles editions Scala pp 44 55 ISBN 978 2 35988 046 5 Berkeley Leo 2006 Situating Machinima in the New Mediascape The Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society 4 2 65 80 ISSN 1449 0706 Retrieved March 3 2009 Diderich Joelle December 16 2005 French film about riots draws applause USA Today Associated Press ISSN 0734 7456 Retrieved February 16 2009 Dogan Stacey 2012 Parody As Brand Stanford Public Law doi 10 2139 ssrn 2170498 S2CID 153909034 Ebert Roger June 2000 The Ghost in the Machinima Yahoo Internet Life Ziff Davis Archived from the original on August 18 2000 Retrieved March 27 2009 Frolunde Lisbeth 2010 Understanding Machinima Applying a Dialogic Approach PDF Abstract for Workshop at Magleaas 2010 Roskilde University Retrieved May 6 2013 Frolunde Lisbeth 2012 Animated war Perspectives on resemiosis and authorship applied to two DIY film projects Convergence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 18 1 93 103 doi 10 1177 1354856511419918 S2CID 55372687 Gish Harrison 2008 Trauma Engines Representing School Shootings Through Halo Mediascape Spring 2008 ISSN 1558 478X Archived from the original on July 5 2009 Retrieved April 14 2009 Green Dave July 1995 Demo or Die Wired Vol 3 no 7 ISSN 1059 1028 Retrieved August 12 2007 Hancock Hugh September 30 2000 Machinima Cutscene Creation Part One Gamasutra CMP Media Retrieved April 20 2009 Hanson Matt 2004 The End of Celluloid Film Futures in the Digital Age Hove England RotoVision pp 60 67 ISBN 978 2 88046 783 8 Harwood Tracy October 15 2007 Hot Picks Machinima BBC News BBC Retrieved February 27 2009 Hawthorn Geoffrey 1993 Plausible Worlds Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780521457767 Hayes Christina 2008 Changing the Rules of the Game How Video Game Publishers are Embracing User Generated Derivative Works PDF Harvard Journal of Law amp Technology 21 2 567 587 ISSN 0897 3393 Retrieved April 20 2009 Heaslip Stephen May 9 1998 Blue s News May 9 15 1998 Blue s News Retrieved March 18 2009 Horwatt Elijah 2008 New Media Resistance Machinima and the Avant Garde CineAction 73 74 8 15 ISSN 0826 9866 Archived from the original on September 20 2008 Retrieved April 13 2009 Jacobs Tristan November 11 2011 The virtual puppet in the Machinima movement discovering virtual puppetry in the 3D performance space of videogames South African Theatre Journal 25 1 35 44 doi 10 1080 10137548 2011 619719 S2CID 190835795 James Geoffrey November 2007 Machinima Microsoft and Money Games for Windows The Official Magazine 12 28 30 ISSN 1933 6160 Kelland Matt Morris Dave Lloyd Dave 2005 Machinima Making Movies in 3D Virtual Environments Cambridge The Ilex Press ISBN 978 1 59200 650 2 Krapp Peter 2010 Machinima of Games and Gestures In Nitsche Michael Lowood Henry eds The Machinima Reader MIT Press pp 159 174 doi 10 7551 mitpress 9780262015332 003 0011 ISBN 978 0262 01533 2 Krapp Peter 2011 Noise Channels Glitch and Error in Digital Culture Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press doi 10 5749 minnesota 9780816676248 001 0001 ISBN 978 0 8166 7625 5 Konow David September 24 2005 The Cult of Red vs Blue TwitchGuru Tom s Guide Publishing Archived from the original on December 31 2006 Retrieved March 4 2009 Lankshear Colin Knobel Michele 2007 Researching New Literacies Web 2 0 Practices and Insider Perspectives E Learning 4 3 224 240 doi 10 2304 elea 2007 4 3 224 S2CID 145696689 Law Caryn September 2000 The Nehahra Project GameSpy Spotlights GameSpy Archived from the original on October 11 2008 Retrieved May 4 2009 Lowood Henry 2005 Real Time Performance Machinima and Game Studies PDF The International Digital Media amp Arts Association Journal 2 1 10 17 ISSN 1554 0405 Archived from the original PDF on January 1 2006 Retrieved March 22 2013 Lowood Henry 2006 High performance play The making of machinima Journal of Media Practice 7 1 25 42 doi 10 1386 jmpr 7 1 25 1 S2CID 191359937 Also as Lowood Henry 2007a High Performance Play The Making of Machinima In Clarke Andy Mitchell Grethe eds Videogames and Art University of Chicago Press pp 59 79 ISBN 978 1 84150 142 0 Lowood Henry 2007 Found Technology Players as Innovators in the Making of Machinima PDF In McPherson Tara ed Digital Youth Innovation and the Unexpected PDF The John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning Cambridge Massachusetts MIT Press pp 165 196 ISBN 978 0 262 63359 8 Retrieved January 27 2009 Lowood Henry 2008 Game Capture The Machinima Archive and the History of Digital Games Mediascape Spring 2008 ISSN 1558 478X Archived from the original on April 8 2009 Retrieved April 12 2009 Machinima com staff January 20 2001 Showcase Blahbalicious Machinima com Machinima Inc Archived from the original on December 8 2008 Retrieved August 13 2007 Machinima com staff November 15 2006 Make Love Not Warcraft Q amp A with Frank Agnone J J Franzen and Eric Stough machinima com Machinima Inc Archived from the original on August 19 2007 Retrieved September 25 2007 Maragos Nick December 15 2005 Blizzard Xfire Announce Machinima Contest Gamasutra United Business Media Retrieved March 18 2009 Marcus Todd Davis 2008 Fostering Creativity in Virtual Worlds Easing the Restrictiveness of Copyright for User Created Content PDF New York Law School Law Review 52 67 92 ISSN 0145 448X Archived from the original PDF on September 24 2015 Retrieved May 3 2009 Marino Paul July 12 2002 The Machinima Film Festival 2002 Machinima com Machinima Inc Archived from the original on June 17 2007 Retrieved February 27 2009 Marino Paul 2004a 3D Game Based Filmmaking The Art of Machinima Scottsdale Arizona Paraglyph Press ISBN 978 1 932111 85 9 Marino Paul October 6 2004b The Wonderful World of Machinima The Screen Savers G4 Archived from the original on May 3 2012 Retrieved March 26 2009 Matlack Carol Grover Ron December 19 2005 France Thousands of Young Spielbergs BusinessWeek McGraw Hill Archived from the original on December 11 2005 Retrieved February 19 2009 McMahan Alison 2005 The films of Tim Burton animating live action in contemporary Hollywood Continuum International Publishing Group ISBN 978 0 8264 1566 0 Retrieved April 30 2009 Moltenbrey Karen November 2005 Out of Character Computer Graphics World 28 11 24 28 ISSN 0271 4159 Moss Ben March 28 2001 Showcase Operation Bayshield Machinima com Machinima Inc Archived from the original on June 17 2007 Retrieved March 23 2009 Musgrove Mike December 1 2005 Game Turns Players Into Indie Moviemakers The Washington Post D01 ISSN 0190 8286 Osborne Toby December 1 2004 Ottawa International Animation Festival 9 22 26 04 Take 1 13 48 Canadian Independent Film amp Television Publishing Association 42 ISSN 1192 5507 Nitsche Michael 2005 Film Live An Excursion into Machinima In Brushoff Brunhild ed Developing Interactive Narrative Content Munich High Text Verlag pp 210 233 ISBN 978 3 933269 92 8 Nitsche Michael 2009 Video Game Spaces Image Play and Structure in 3D Worlds Cambridge Massachusetts MIT Press ISBN 978 0 262 14101 7 Retrieved February 1 2009 PC Zone staff April 2004 Reinventing the Reel PC Zone 140 12 13 ISSN 0967 8220 Price Peter October 16 2007 Machinima waits to go mainstream BBC News BBC Retrieved February 17 2009 Robertson Barbara April 2003 Films of the Future Computer Graphics World 26 4 10 11 ISSN 0271 4159 Skubis J Thaddeus October 20 2000 Directors Notes The Seal of Nehahra Machinima com Machinima Inc Archived from the original on October 23 2009 Retrieved August 25 2006 Sunder Madhavi November 2006 IP3 Stanford Law Review 59 2 257 332 ISSN 0038 9765 Thier David April 9 2019 Apparently Old Town Road I Got The Horses In the Back Is A Red Dead Redemption 2 Music Video Forbes Retrieved December 30 2021 Thompson Clive August 7 2005 The Xbox Auteurs The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved February 17 2009 Tuttle Will July 12 2007 E3 2007 Halo 3 Saved Films Preview Xbox 360 Team Xbox IGN Entertainment Archived from the original on September 14 2007 Retrieved September 25 2007 Varney Allen March 13 2007 The French Democracy A machinima smash raises questions about art and copyright The Escapist Themis Group Archived from the original on April 12 2009 Retrieved March 18 2009 Wallenstein Andrew December 18 2008 TV vets Machinima laugh it up The Hollywood Reporter 407 49 7 ISSN 0018 3660 Retrieved February 1 2012 Wilonsky Robert August 15 2002 Joystick Cinema Houston Press Village Voice Media OCLC 29800759 Archived from the original on July 18 2008 Retrieved March 25 2009 Wu Andrew Who s Who in Quake Planet Quake GameSpy Archived from the original on June 26 2008 Retrieved August 23 2008 Further reading editGreenaway Peter Peter Greenaway amp Expert Panel Select 48 Hour Machinima Contest Winners Hamlet Au New World Notes Retrieved September 30 2010 Mazalek Ali Nitsche Michael June 13 2007 Tangible interfaces for real time 3D virtual environments Proceedings of the international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology ACM International Conference Proceeding Series Vol 203 New York City Association for Computing Machinery 155 162 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 70 3690 doi 10 1145 1255047 1255080 ISBN 978 1 59593 640 0 S2CID 2559639 Picard Martin 2007 Machinima Video Game As An Art Form Loading 1 1 Canadian Game Studies Association Archived from the original on February 15 2012 Retrieved May 8 2009 Reid Christopher 2009 Fair Game The Application of Fair Use Doctrine to Machinima Fordham Intellectual Property Media amp Entertainment Law Journal 19 3 831 876 ISSN 1079 9699 Retrieved May 10 2009 Salen Katie Zimmerman Eric 2003 Rules of Play Cambridge Massachusetts MIT Press ISBN 978 0 262 24045 1 Retrieved March 1 2009 Veigl Thomas 2011 Machinima On the Invention and Innovation of a New Visual Media Technology Imagery in the 21st Century Cambridge Massachusetts MIT Press pp 81 94 doi 10 7551 mitpress 9780262015721 003 0005 ISBN 9780262015721 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Machinima Machinima at Curlie Machinima at the Internet Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Machinima amp oldid 1225213452, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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