<< November 14, 2005 >>

The Future and Machinima

Stella and I stopped by the Machinima Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image on Saturday, and what we saw was, well, very* geeky, but also very impressive and speaks a lot to the future of entertainment.

   2005 Machinima Festival - The Not-Ready-For-Real-Time Players (left) and The Ill Clan (Right)

"Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies..." -- Machinima.org

What I enjoyed most was the live Machinima presentation put on by two different groups at the end of the day. The Not-Ready-For-Real-Time Players did a piece where the movements of the characters on the screen were controlled by the midi controls of a keyboard resulting in an on screen live, musical animated improv! The IllClan also put together a great live performance in a talk show format. The characters on the screen were being controlled, vocalized and improvised by the people on stage; it made for a really interesting experience, especially as the screen characters interacted with the audience.

What is clear to me is that this will eventually be the way animated and CG films are created. The efficiencies of costs, reshoots, etc. that come with Machinima are just to significant for this new art form to languish. But even more interesting is that in Machinima we are seeing some of the real creative possibilities that convergence has always promised.

More on Machinima at:
Machinima.org
2005 Machinima Festival
Red Vs. Blue
The Ill Clan

Posted by dmd on November 14, 2005 07:53 PM