Machinima is about making films in the realtime 3D environments of computer games. In this dense four-day workshop, participants will learn skills from 3D animation, film-making and game design to become DiY (Do-it-Yourself) machinimakers. Accessibility: This workshop is intended for filmmakers, animators and gamers who are interested in each other's arts. Some experience with playing video games or film editing is helpful, but not essential.
About Machinima
The exciting thing about the new cultural practice of Machinima is that it changes the way we look at games: it turns them into tools. From the point of view of a machinimaker, games are not so much a programmed experience but more like a box of lego: stuff to build and experiment with, and to produce one's own scenarios, next to those of the original designers. This workshop is about making films in game environments in the first place, but we'll also take a look at ways in which games-as-tools can be used in live performances, interactive story spaces and more.
Workshop Approach
In this workshop, traditional film-making techniques are combined with real-time scripting within a virtual environment. Participants • will make their own small Machinima production. They will be guided through the process by experts from the fields of game design and animation. Besides technical instructions on set design, character creation, re-camming and post production, we will focus on the cinematic and artistic possibilities of shooting film in 3D engines.
Speakers
• Friedrich Kirschner (Austria) - renowned Machinima-maker, chief editor of Machinimag
Friedrich's Machinima series Person 2184 won him awards for Best Technical Achievement and Best Visual Design at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival, and has been showcased at numerous others. Also, he is team member of the Ars Electronica Center and the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences.
• Daniël van Gils (the Netherlands) - programmer, interaction designer, media educator. Daniël is an independent designer and programmer who mainly works in the field of culture. Besides guiding participants through aspects of 3D animation, level design and sound in 3D spaces, he will demonstrate his brand new MIDI-driven Machinima tool.
• Jonas Hielscher (Germany) - designer interactive / educative game installations, co-founder z25.org: Jonas founded z25.org, an organization that supports young new media artists, and has built a range of interactive performance and gaming installations. He ran a Sims2 Machinima workshop at the last Cinekid Festival.
More information?
Visit the Mediamatic website at www.mediamatic.net/machinima
Email: workshops@mediamatic.nl, or call Klaas Kuitenbrouwer at tel +31 20 638 9901