Reader for Machinima Workshop

Theoretical readings

3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima (2004)

By Paul Marino
The industry bible for emerging Machinima filmmakers. It covers the latest technology in filmmaking, from the history of Machinima, who the major players are, and where the Machinima movement is going. By providing numerous hands-on projects, including topics on developing actors, preparing sets, adding special audio and visual effects, using post production techniques and game engines, this book shows readers how to expertly create, edit, and view their own films.

Machinima: Making Animated Movies in 3D Virtual Environments (2005)

By Dave Morris, Matt Kelland, Dave Lloyd
This book offers an in-depth look at where machinima has come from, how and where it is being employed, and its future. It provides a practical walk-through of the machinima movemaking process -- from screenwriting techniques and storyboarding through character design, lighting, sound effects, and closing credits.

Machinima: Filmmaking’s Destiny (2004)

By Paul Marino
Short article which provides a brief overview of the fields touched by machinima: games, filmmaking, 3D animation, software and hardware development. By showing the different states of research on all these fields, Marino signals a need for better and standarized tools for producing machinima.

High Performance Play: The Making of Machinima

By Henry Lowood, Stanford University
This paper is concerned primarily with the earliest machinima projects. The game performance and high-performance technology that yielded a new medium for linear storytelling and artistic expression is described and theorized by Lowood.

Virtual Actors Who Can Really Act

By Ken Perlin
"When we think of "acting" in computer games, we tend to use a lower standard than the way we think of acting in live action films or theatre. Why is acting in computer games so bad? This is an important question because we will only be able to develop compute games into a more psychologically mature narrative medium when we can imbue them with actors that audiences can believe in." And in this article Perlin tries to present a method for (machinima)producers to make virtual actors more believable.

Is Realtime Real? Part 1

By S.D. Katz
In this first of two articles on machinima by S.D. Katz, he argues that recently we arrived at a turning point in the production of machinima. By introducing breaktroughs on both the hardware and software front, Katz explains how the possibilities, but even more the flexibility for making machinima have been greatly increased.

Is Realtime Real? Part 2

By S.D. Katz
Second of two articles on machinima by S.D. Katz with a more critical approach than the first article. Central question is what makes machinima, machinima? Are they machinima, because a game engine is used for their production, in the real time rendering process or in the absence of the traditional practice of keyframed animation?

Machinima for the Masses (2006)

By Annalee Newitz
Article on the Lionhead game: The Movies which lets players run a movie production company, but more importantly: lets players make their own machinima movies in the game. Movies which can be posted online in a thriving community which is growing everyday with more and more machinima.

Interview with Paul Marino (2005)

Interview with machinima-guru Paul Marino. Marino talks about the unique aspects of machinima, fashion in machinima, commercials and machinima and about the future of machinima.

Machinima makers

Submarinechannel.com

Documentary film shot entirely inside Second Life. Submarine is a hybrid broadband production and content creation studio based in Amsterdam.

Rooster Teeth Productions

A production group from Texas that created the popular Red vs Blue series (based on the Halo games), The Strangerhood episodes (based on the Sims), and, more recently, the mini-series PANICS (based on F.E.A.R.).

Strange Company

This Edinburgh-based company develops independent machinima films and series, as well as commercial projects for clients such as Electronic Arts, Merck, and the BBC. Also, they are the driving force behind Machinima.com.

Machinima.com Affiliates

Machinima places on the web - websites, blogs and archives

A list of familiar and less familiar Machinima production companies.

Machinima.com

The web's biggest Machinima community holds a large collection of Machinima articles, tools, tutorials, fora and, of course, movies.

The Machinima Archive

The Machinima Archive is a collaborative effort of the Internet Archive, the How They Got Game research project at Stanford University, AMAS, and Machinima.com. The archive is dedicated to the academic investigation and historical preservation of the emerging art of machinima.

AMAS

The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS) is a New York headquartered non-profit organization established to promote, organize and recognize the growth of Machinima filmmaking and filmmakers.

Machinima Film Festival

Paul Marino's random insights into machinima and its related subjects.

3DFilmMaker.com

Ken Thain’s news site on machinima and related topics.

Machinimag

Online magazine covering informative interviews and reviews on machinima.

Blizzard Xfire World of Warcraft Movie Contest

Machinima events

The Machinima Film Festival presented by AMAS.

Thinking Machinima

The World of Warcraft Movie Contest presented by Blizzard Entertainment and Xfire. The contest involves entrants producing movies using the Blizzard Entertainment MMORPG World of Warcraft game engine to create imaginative movies in the three main categories of Dance, Comedy and Drama.

Machinima LIVE!

Weekly PODcast for machinima filmmakers and enthusiasts.

Bitfilm Festival

International festival for digital film and new media. In 2003 Bitfilm organized Europe's first competition for Machinima films.

subgamers.com

Online social network for the new generation game players.

Machinima tips and tricks

To change the screen resolution with which Sims2 captures video, do the following:
There are 2 EA Games-folders on your PC: one in program files and one in MyDocuments (where the videos will be stored).
Go to the one in MyDocuments > Sims2 > EAGames > config > VideoCapture.ini
There you can change 640x480 in – for example – 1024x768