real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsmachine'' and ''

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

''. Machinima-based artists, sometimes called machinimists or machinimators, are often

fan labor Fan labor, also called fan works, are the creative activities engaged in by fans, primarily those of various media properties or musical groups. These activities can include creation of written works (fiction, fan fiction and review literature), ...

ers, 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 Game studies, also known as ludology (from ''ludus'', "game", and ''-logia'', "study", "research"), is the study of games, the act of playing them, and the players and cultures surrounding them. It is a field of cultural studies that deals with a ...

, "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." The practice of using graphics engines from

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedbac ...

arose from the animated software introductions of the 1980s

demoscene The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...

,

Disney Interactive Studios Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher owned by The Walt Disney Company through Disney Interactive. Prior to its closure in 2016, it developed and distributed multi-platform video games and interac ...

' 1992 video game '' Stunt Island'', and 1990s recordings of gameplay in

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...

(FPS) video games, such as

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

's ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...

'' and '' Quake''. Originally, these recordings documented

speedrun Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit glit ...

s—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 A blend is a mixture of two or more different things or substances; e.g., a product of a mixer or blender. Blend Blend may also refer to: * Blend word, a word formed from parts of other words * ''Blend'' (album), a 1996 album by BoDeans * ...

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 Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, cast ...

. 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 Pre-rendering is the process in which video footage is not rendered in real-time by the hardware that is outputting or playing back the video. Instead, the video is a recording of footage that was previously rendered on different equipment (typic ...

computer animation. Virtual acting is less expensive, dangerous, and physically restricted than

live action Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ...

. Machinima can be filmed by relying on in-game

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

(AI) or by controlling characters and cameras through

digital puppetry Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production, but has ...

. Scenes can be precisely scripted, and can be manipulated during post-production using

video editing Video editing is the manipulation and arrangement of video shots. Video editing is used to structure and present all video information, including films and television shows, video advertisements and video essays. Video editing has been dramatical ...

techniques. Editing, custom software, and creative

cinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to foc ...

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 A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

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 A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...

,

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...

and

Jagex Jagex Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge, England. It is best known for ''RuneScape'' and ''Old School RuneScape'', both free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-play ...

, have sponsored contests involving it.

History

Precedent

1980s software crackers added custom introductory credits sequences (intros) to programs whose copy protection they had removed. Increasing computing power allowed for more complex intros, and the

demoscene The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...

formed when focus shifted to the intros instead of the cracks. The goal became to create the best 3-D demos in real-time with the least amount of software code. Disk storage was too slow for this, so graphics had to be calculated on the fly and without a pre-existing game engine. In

Disney Interactive Studios Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher owned by The Walt Disney Company through Disney Interactive. Prior to its closure in 2016, it developed and distributed multi-platform video games and interac ...

' 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." Released the following year,

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

's ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...

'' included the ability to record gameplay as sequences of events that the game engine could later replay in real-time. Because events and not video frames were saved, the resulting

game demo A game demo is a trial version of a video game that is limited to a certain time limit or a point in progress, which leads to the player buying the game if they liked it. A game demo comes in forms such as shareware, demo disc, downloadable s ...

files were small and easily shared among players. 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." Another important feature of ''Doom'' was that it allowed players to create their own modifications,

map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...

s, and software for the game, thus expanding the concept of game authorship. In machinima, there is a dual register of gestures: the trained motions of the player determine the in-game images of expressive motion. In parallel of the video game approach, in the media art field,

Maurice Benayoun Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔) (born 29 March 1957) is a French new-media artist, curator, and theorist based in Paris and Hong Kong. His work employs various media, including video, computer graphics, immersive virtual reality, th ...

'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'', 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. ''Doom''s 1996 successor, '' Quake'', offered new opportunities for both gameplay and customization, while retaining the ability to record demos. Multiplayer video games became popular, and demos of matches between teams of players ( clans) were recorded and studied.

Paul Marino Paul Marino (born March 10, 1980) is a film director, producer, animator, voice actor, and author currently focused on machinima, the art of using engines from video games to create films. He is a co-founder and the executive director of the ...

, executive director of the AMAS, stated that deathmatches, a type of multiplayer game, became more "cinematic". At this point, however, they still documented gameplay without a narrative.

''Quake'' movies

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. This short, 100-second demo file contained the action and gore of many others, but in the context of a brief story, rather than the usual deathmatch. An example of transformative or

emergent gameplay Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics. Designers have attempted to encourage emergent play by providing too ...

, this shift from competition to theater required both expertise in and subversion of the game's mechanics. The Ranger demo emphasized this transformation by retaining specific gameplay references in its story. '' Diary of a Camper'' inspired many other "''Quake'' movies," as these films were then called. A community of game modifiers (modders), artists, expert players, and film fans began to form around them. The works were distributed and reviewed on websites such as The Cineplex, Psyk's Popcorn Jungle, and the Quake Movie Library (QML). 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 Non-linear editing is a form of offline editing for Audio editing, audio, Video editing, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified an ...

Keygrip, which later became known as "

Adobe Premiere Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software application (NLE) developed by Adobe Inc. and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. First launched in 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro is a success ...

for Quake demo files". Among the notable films were Clan Phantasm's ''Devil's Covenant'', the first

feature-length A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

''Quake'' movie; Avatar and Wendigo's ''

Blahbalicious Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''ma ...

'', which the QML awarded seven Quake Movie Oscars; and Clan Undead's '' Operation Bayshield'', which introduced simulated

lip sync Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , the same as the word ''sink'', short for lip synchronization) is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. Audio for lip syncing is generated th ...

hronization and featured customized digital assets. Released in December 1997, id Software's ''

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to '' Quake''. The game's storyline is continued in its ...

'' 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''. ''Quake II'' demo editors became available in 1998. In particular, Keygrip 2.0 introduced "recamming", the ability to adjust camera locations after recording. Paul Marino called the addition of this feature "a defining moment for chinima". With ''Quake II'' filming now feasible,

Strange Company Strange Company was a group of machinima creators and distributors based in Edinburgh, Scotland. They are known in the medium as the longest-standing machinima production company, having produced machinima films since 1997, and for creating th ...

's 1999 production ''Eschaton: Nightfall'' was the first work to feature entirely custom-made character models. The December 1999 release of id's ''

Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing prima ...

'' posed a problem to the ''Quake'' movie community. The game's demo file included information needed for

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

ing; however, to prevent cheating, id warned of legal action for dissemination of the file format. Thus, it was impractical to enhance software to work with ''Quake III''. Concurrently, the novelty of ''Quake'' movies was waning. New productions appeared less frequently, and, according to Marino, the community needed to "reinvent itself" to offset this development. ''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. ''Borg War'' was nominated for two "Mackie" awards by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. 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.

Generalization

In January 2000, Hugh Hancock, the founder of Strange Company, launched a new website, machinima.com. A misspelled contraction of ''machine cinema'' (''machinema''), the term ''machinima'' was intended to dissociate in-game filming from a specific

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

. The misspelling stuck because it also referenced

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

. The new site featured tutorials, interviews, articles, and the exclusive release of Tritin Films' '' Quad God''. The first film made with ''

Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing prima ...

'', ''Quad God'' was also the first to be distributed as recorded video frames, not game-specific instructions. This change was initially controversial among machinima producers who preferred the smaller size of demo files. However, demo files required a copy of the game to view. The more accessible traditional video format broadened ''Quad God''s viewership, and the work was distributed on CDs bundled with magazines. Thus, id's decision to protect ''Quake III''s code inadvertently caused machinima creators to use more general solutions and thus widen their audience. Within a few years, machinima films were almost exclusively distributed in common video file formats. Hugh Hancock

Machinima began to receive mainstream notice. Roger Ebert discussed it in a June 2000 article and praised Strange Company's machinima setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "

Ozymandias "Ozymandias" ( ) is a sonnet written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). It was first published in the 11 January 1818 issue of '' The Examiner'' of London. The poem was included the following year in Shelley's c ...

". At

Showtime Network Showtime is an American premium television network owned by Paramount Media Networks, and is the flagship property of the namesake parent company, Showtime Networks, a part of Paramount Media Networks. Showtime's programming primarily includes t ...

'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 ''Unreal Tournament'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the '' Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and late ...

'' to test special effects while working on his

2001 film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first installments of the ''Harry Potter'', ''Fast & Furious'', ''Spy Kids'', '' Monsters, Inc.'' and ''Shrek'' franchises, and ''The Lord of the Rings'' and '' Ocean's'' tri ...

'' Artificial Intelligence: A.I.'' Eventually, interest spread to game developers. In July 2001, Epic Games announced that its upcoming game ''

Unreal Tournament 2003 ''Unreal Tournament 2003'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes, and published by Infogrames under the Atari brand name. The game is part of the ''Unreal'' franchise, and is a sequel to 1999's ...

'' would include Matinee, a machinima production software utility. As involvement increased, filmmakers released fewer new productions to focus on quality. At the March 2002

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tuto ...

, five machinima makers—Anthony Bailey, Hugh Hancock, Katherine Anna Kang, Paul Marino, and Matthew Ross—founded the AMAS, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting machinima. At

QuakeCon QuakeCon is a yearly convention held by ZeniMax Media to celebrate and promote the major franchises of id Software and other studios owned by ZeniMax. It includes a large, paid, bring-your-own-computer ( BYOC) LAN party event with a competitiv ...

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. 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. As graphics technology improved, machinima filmmakers used other video games and consumer-grade

video editing software Video editing software, or a video editor is software used performing the post-production video editing of digital video sequences on a non-linear editing system. It has replaced traditional flatbed celluloid film editing tools and analog video ...

. Using

Bungie Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington. It is a studio owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones afte ...

's 2001 game '' Halo: Combat Evolved'',

Rooster Teeth Productions Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warne ...

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.

Mainstream appearances

Machinima has appeared on television, starting with G4's series ''

Portal Portal often refers to: * Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel Portal may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...

''. MTV2's '' Video Mods'' re-creates music videos using characters from video games such as ''

The Sims 2 ''The Sims 2'' is a 2004 strategic life simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the second major title in ''The Sims'' series, and is the sequel to ''The Sims.'' The game was released for Microsoft Windo ...

'', ''

BloodRayne ''BloodRayne'' is a media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series originally developed by Terminal Reality and published by Majesco Entertainment which began with the game of the same name in 2002. The franchise ...

'', and ''

Tribes The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

''.

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...

helped to set part of "

Make Love, Not Warcraft "Make Love, Not Warcraft" is the eighth episode in the tenth season of the American animated television series ''South Park''. The 147th episode overall, it first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 4, 2006. In the episode, nam ...

", an Emmy Award–winning 2006 episode of the comedy series '' South Park'', in its

massively multiplayer online role-playing game A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

(MMORPG) ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

''. By purchasing broadcast rights to

Douglas Gayeton Douglas Gayeton is an American multimedia artist, filmmaker, writer, and photographer who divides his time between a farm near Petaluma, California and Pistoia, a medieval Tuscan town. Along with his wife, Laura Howard-Gayeton, he directThe Le ...

'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 A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

. In December 2008, machinima.com signed fifteen experienced television comedy writers—including

Patric Verrone Patric Miller Verrone (born September 29, 1959) is an American television writer and labor leader. He served as a writer and producer for several animated television shows, most notably ''Futurama''. Schooling and pre-television career Verrone g ...

, Bill Oakley, and

Mike Rowe Michael Gregory Rowe (born March 18, 1962) is an American television host and narrator. He is known for his work on the Discovery Channel series '' Dirty Jobs'' and the series '' Somebody's Gotta Do It'' originally developed for CNN. He hosted ...

—to produce episodes for the site. Commercial use of machinima has increased.

Rooster Teeth Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of W ...

sells

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

s of their ''Red vs. Blue'' series and, under sponsorship from

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

, helped to promote ''

The Sims 2 ''The Sims 2'' is a 2004 strategic life simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the second major title in ''The Sims'' series, and is the sequel to ''The Sims.'' The game was released for Microsoft Windo ...

'' by using the game to make a machinima series, ''

The Strangerhood ''The Strangerhood'' is a comedy series created by Rooster Teeth Productions. The series is produced primarily by using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from video game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. The animation ...

''.

Volvo Cars Volvo Cars ( sv, Volvo personvagnar, styled VOLVO in the company's logo) is a Swedish multinational manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Torslanda, Gothenburg. The company manufactures SUVs, station wagons, and sedans. The company ...

sponsored the creation of a 2004 advertisement, '' Game: On'', the first film to combine machinima and

live action Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ...

. Later, Electronic Arts commissioned Rooster Teeth to promote their ''

Madden NFL 07 ''Madden NFL 07'' is an American football video game based on the NFL that was published by EA Sports and developed by EA Tiburon. It is the first in the video game series to debut for the PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles as launch titles and the ...

'' video game. Blockhouse TV uses

Moviestorm Moviestorm is a Real-time computer graphics, real-time 3D animation app published by Moviestorm Ltd. The software is available to and used by people of all age groups and appeals to those with a diverse range of backgrounds and interests, from ...

's machinima software to produce its pre-school educational DVD series '' Jack and Holly'' Game developers have continued to increase support for machinima. Products such as

Lionhead Studios Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the ''Black & White'' and ''Fable'' series. Lionhead started as a br ...

' 2005 business simulation game ''

The Movies ''The Movies'' is a business simulation game created by Lionhead Studios for Microsoft Windows and ported to Mac OS X by Feral Interactive. Players run a Hollywood film studio, creating films that can be exported from the game. ''The Movies'' wa ...

'', Linden Research's virtual world ''

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...

'', and Bungie's 2007 first-person shooter ''

Halo 3 ''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the ''Halo'' franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' and continued in ...

'' encourage the creation of user content by including machinima software tools. Using ''The Movies'', Alex Chan, a French resident with no previous filmmaking experience, took four days to create ''

The French Democracy ''The French Democracy'' is a 2005 English-language French short political film made by Alex Chan using computer animation from Lionhead Studios' 2005 business simulation game ''The Movies''. The plot centers on three Moroccan men who turn to ...

'', a short political film about the 2005 civil unrest in France. Third-party mods like ''

Garry's Mod ''Garry's Mod'' is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of ''Garry's Mod'' has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to freely manipulate objects. Other ga ...

'' 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 A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...

CEO and co-founder

Gabe Newell Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), nicknamed Gaben, is an American businessman and the president of the video game company Valve. Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early ...

said that they wanted to make a ''

Half-Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...

'' feature film themselves, rather than hand it off to a big-name director like Sam Raimi, and that their recent ''

Team Fortress 2 ''Team Fortress 2'' is a 2007 multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to the 1996 ''Team Fortress'' mod for '' Quake'' and its 1999 remake, '' Team Fortress Classic''. The game was ...

'' "Meet The Team" machinima shorts were experiments in doing just that. Two years later, Valve released their proprietary non-linear machinima software,

Source Filmmaker Source Filmmaker (often abbreviated as SFM) is a 3D computer graphics software toolset published by Valve for creating animated films, utilizing the Source game engine. Source Filmmaker has been used to create many community-based animated shor ...

. Machinima has also been used for music video clips. The first machinima music video to air on MTV is that of

Zero 7 Zero 7 are an English musical duo consisting of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. They began as studio engineers and in 1997 formed the group Zero 7. Their debut album, '' Simple Things'', was released in 2001 in which their song " Destiny" stayed ...

's " In the Waiting Line" in 2003, animated in the

id Tech 3 id Tech 3, popularly known as the ''Quake III Arena'' engine, is a game engine developed by id Software for their video game ''Quake III Arena''. It has been adopted by numerous games. During its time, it competed with the Unreal Engine; bot ...

engine by Tommy Pallotta. ''

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...

'' virtual artist Bryn Oh created a work for Australian performer Megan Bernard's song "Clean Up Your Life", released in 2016. The first music video for 2018's "

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", by

Lil Nas X Montero Lamar Hill (born April 9, 1999), known by his stage name Lil Nas X ( ), is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He rose to prominence with the release of his country rap single " Old Town Road", which first achieved viral popula ...

, was composed entirely of footage from the 2018

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

action-adventure game ''

Red Dead Redemption 2 ''Red Dead Redemption 2'' is a 2018 action-adventure game developed and published by Rockstar Games. The game is the third entry in the ''Red Dead'' series and a prequel to the 2010 game ''Red Dead Redemption''. The story is set in 1899 and f ...

''.

Production

Comparison to film techniques

The AMAS defines machinima as "animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3-D environment". 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 Inbetweening, also known as tweening, is a process in animation that involves creating intermediate frames, called inbetweens, between two keyframes. The intended result is to create the illusion of movement by smoothly transitioning one image in ...

. Machinima creators leave many rendering details to their host environments, but may thus inherit those environments' limitations. 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." 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. Another difference is that machinima is created in real time, but other animation is pre-rendered. Real-time engines need to trade quality for speed and use simpler algorithms and models. 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. Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd argue that improvement in consumer-grade graphics technology will allow more realism. Similarly,

Paul Marino Paul Marino (born March 10, 1980) is a film director, producer, animator, voice actor, and author currently focused on machinima, the art of using engines from video games to create films. He is a co-founder and the executive director of the ...

connects machinima to the increasing computing power predicted by Moore's law. 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. Like live action, machinima is recorded in real-time, and real people can act and control the camera. Filmmakers are often encouraged to follow traditional cinematic conventions, such as avoiding wide field of view, fields of view, the overuse of slow motion, and errors in continuity (fiction), visual continuity. Unlike live action, machinima involves less expensive, digital special effects and set construction, sets, possibly with a science-fiction or historical theme. Explosions and stunts can be tried and repeated without monetary cost and risk of injury, and the host environment may allow unrealistic physical constraints. University of Cambridge experiments in 2002 and 2003 attempted to use machinima to re-create a scene from the 1942 live-action film ''Casablanca (film), Casablanca''. 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. ILL Clan presents Tra5hTa1k at Stanford

Berkeley sees machinima as "a strangely hybrid form, looking forwards and backwards, cutting edge and conservative at the same time". 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 ''The Strangerhood'' is a comedy series created by Rooster Teeth Productions. The series is produced primarily by using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from video game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. The animation ...

'', follow narrative conventions of television situational comedy. 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. 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. 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. There, others playing in earnest may attack the host or his interviewee. Although other virtual theatrical performances have taken place in chat rooms and MUD, multi-user dungeons, machinima adds "cinematic camera work". Previously, such virtual cinematic performances with live audience interaction were confined to research labs equipped with powerful computers. Machinima can be less expensive than other forms of filmmaking. Strange Company produced its feature-length machinima film ''BloodSpell'' for less than pound sterling, £10,000. Before using machinima, Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum of Rooster Teeth Productions spent United States dollar, US$9,000 to produce a live-action independent film. In contrast, the four Xbox (console), Xbox game consoles used to make ''Red vs. Blue'' in 2005 cost $600. 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. Because these are seen as low barriers to entry, machinima has been called a "democratization of filmmaking". Berkeley weighs increased participation and a blurred line between producer and consumer against concerns that game copyrights limit commercialization and growth of machinima. Comparatively, machinimists using pre-made virtual platforms like ''

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...

'' 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. 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.

Character and camera control

Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd list four main methods of creating machinima. From simple to advanced, these are: relying on the game's AI to control most actions,

digital puppetry Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production, but has ...

, recamming, and precise scripting of actions. Although simple to produce, AI-dependent results are unpredictable, thus complicating the realization of a preconceived film script. For example, when Rooster Teeth produced ''

The Strangerhood ''The Strangerhood'' is a comedy series created by Rooster Teeth Productions. The series is produced primarily by using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from video game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. The animation ...

'' using ''

The Sims 2 ''The Sims 2'' is a 2004 strategic life simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the second major title in ''The Sims'' series, and is the sequel to ''The Sims.'' The game was released for Microsoft Windo ...

'', a game that encourages the use of its AI, the group had to create multiple instances of each character to accommodate different moods. Individual instances were selected at different times to produce appropriate actions. In digital puppetry, machinima creators become virtual actors. Each crew member controls a character in real-time, as in a multiplayer game. The director can use built-in camera controls, if available. Otherwise, video is captured from the perspectives of one or more puppeteers who serve as camera operators. 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. However, some games, such as the Halo (series), ''Halo'' series, (except for Halo PC and Custom Edition, which allow AI and custom objects and characters), allow filming only through puppetry. 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. However, Chris Burke intentionally hosts ''This Spartan Life'' in these unpredictable conditions, which are fundamental to the show. 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''. In recamming, which builds on puppetry, actions are first recorded to a game engine's demo file format, not directly as video frames. Without re-enacting scenes, artists can then manipulate the demo files to add cameras, tweak timing and lighting, and change the surroundings. This technique is limited to the few engines and software tools that support it. A technique common in cut scenes of video games, scripting consists of giving precise directions to the game engine. A filmmaker can work alone this way, 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. However, perfecting scripts can be time-consuming. 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. In this respect, Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd compare scripting to stop motion, stop-motion animation. Another disadvantage is that, depending on the game, scripting capabilities may be limited or unavailable. Matinee, a machinima software tool included with ''Unreal Tournament 2004'', popularized scripting in machinima.

Limitations and solutions

When ''Diary of a Camper'' was created, no software tools existed to edit demo files into films. Rangers clan member Eric "ArchV" Fowler wrote his own programs to reposition the camera and to splice footage from the ''Quake'' demo file. ''Quake'' movie editing software later appeared, but the use of conventional non-linear video editing software is now common. For example, Phil South inserted single, completely white frames into his work ''No Licence'' to enhance the visual impact of explosions. In the post-production of ''Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles'',

Rooster Teeth Productions Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warne ...

added letterboxing (filming), letterboxing with Adobe Premiere Pro to hide the camera player's head-up display. 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 ''Garry's Mod'' is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of ''Garry's Mod'' has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to freely manipulate objects. Other ga ...

'' and

Source Filmmaker Source Filmmaker (often abbreviated as SFM) is a 3D computer graphics software toolset published by Valve for creating animated films, utilizing the Source game engine. Source Filmmaker has been used to create many community-based animated shor ...

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. Some machinima creators use custom software. 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 (2002 video game), Neverwinter Nights''. Similarly, Atussa Simon used a "library of faces" for characters in ''The Battle of Xerxes''. Some software, such as Epic Games' Impersonator for ''Unreal Tournament 2004'' and

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...

's Faceposer for Source (game engine), Source games, have been provided by the developer. 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''. It may be possible to point the camera elsewhere or employ other creative cinematography or acting. 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''.

Legal issues

New machinima filmmakers often want to use game-provided digital assets, but doing so raises legal issues. As derivative works, their films could violate copyright or be controlled by the assets' copyright holder, an arrangement that can be complicated by separate publishing and licensing rights. The software license agreement for ''

The Movies ''The Movies'' is a business simulation game created by Lionhead Studios for Microsoft Windows and ported to Mac OS X by Feral Interactive. Players run a Hollywood film studio, creating films that can be exported from the game. ''The Movies'' wa ...

'' 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..."Quoted in 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. 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. Berkeley adds that, even if machinima artists use their own assets, their works could be ruled derivative if filmed in a proprietary software, proprietary engine. The risk inherent in a fair-use defense would cause most machinima artists simply to yield to a cease and desist, cease-and-desist order. The AMAS has attempted to negotiate solutions with video game companies, arguing that an open source software, open-source or reasonably priced alternative would emerge from an unfavorable situation. 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. Generally, companies want to retain creative control over their Intellectual property, intellectual properties and are wary of fan-made, fan-created works, like fan fiction. However, because machinima provides free marketing, they have avoided a response demanding strict copyright enforcement. 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''. 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.; However, Microsoft, Bungie's parent company at the time, contacted the group shortly after episode 2, and allowed them to continue without paying licensing fees. A case in which developer control was asserted involved Blizzard Entertainment's action against Tristan Pope's ''Not Just Another Love Story''. 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. Citing the user license agreement, Blizzard closed discussion threads about the film and prohibited links to it. Although Pope accepted Blizzard's right to some control, he remained concerned about censorship of material that already existed in-game in some form. Discussion ensued about boundaries between MMORPG player and developer control. Lowood asserted that this controversy demonstrated that machinima could be a medium of negotiation for players.

Microsoft and Blizzard

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. Microsoft intended the rules to be "flexible", and, because it was unilateral contract, unilateral, the license was legally unable to reduce rights. 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. 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." Surprised by the negative feedback, Microsoft revised and reissued the license after discussion with Hugh Hancock and an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The rules allow noncommercial use and distribution of works derived from Microsoft-owned game content, except audio effects and soundtracks. The license prohibits reverse engineering and material that is pornographic or otherwise "objectionable". On distribution, derivative works that elaborate on a game's fictional universe or story are automatically licensed to Microsoft and its business partners. This prevents legal problems if a fan and Microsoft independently conceive similar plots. 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. 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. Hayes states that, although licensees' benefits are limited, the licenses reduce reliance on fair use regarding machinima. 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. According to Hayes, Microsoft and Blizzard helped themselves through their licenses because fan creations provide free publicity and are unlikely to harm sales. 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. Thus, these licenses secured their issuers' legal rights. Even though other companies, such as

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

, have encouraged machinima, they have avoided licensing it. Because of the involved legal complexity, they may prefer to under-enforce copyrights. 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.

Semiotic mode

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. 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. 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. 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. 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 Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of W ...

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" 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. 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, and thus this new form of

digital puppetry Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production, but has ...

employs age-old techniques from the traditional artform. It is also, however, a form of

filmmaking Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, cast ...

, 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. 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 (video 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. Scott portrays Freeman as a snarky, Antisocial personality disorder, 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

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"). Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd similarly distinguish between works that retain noticeable connections to games, and those closer to traditional animation. Belonging to the former category, gameplay and stunt machinima began in 1997 with ''Quake done Quick''. Although not the first

speedrun Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit glit ...

ners, its creators used external software to manipulate camera positions after recording, which, according to Lowood, elevated speedrunning "from cyberathleticism to making movies". 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. Built-in features for video editing and post-recording camera positioning in ''

Halo 3 ''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the ''Halo'' franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' and continued in ...

'' were expected to facilitate gameplay-based machinima. 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''. Footage was distributed in the cover disc of the August 2004 issue of ''PC Gamer''.

Douglas Gayeton Douglas Gayeton is an American multimedia artist, filmmaker, writer, and photographer who divides his time between a farm near Petaluma, California and Pistoia, a medieval Tuscan town. Along with his wife, Laura Howard-Gayeton, he directThe Le ...

's '' Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator'' documents the title character's interactions in ''Second Life''. Gaming-related comedy offers another possible entry point for new machinima producers. Presented as five-minute sketches, many machinima comedies are analogous to Internet Flash animations. After Clan Undead's 1997 work '' Operation Bayshield'' built on the earliest ''Quake'' movies by introducing narrative conventions of linear media and sketch comedy reminiscent of the television show ''Saturday Night Live'', the New-York-based ILL Clan further developed the genre in machinima through works including '' Apartment Huntin''' and '' Hardly Workin'''. ''Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles'' chronicles a futile civil war over five seasons and 100 episodes. Marino wrote that although the series' humor was rooted in video games, strong writing and characters caused the series to "transcend the typical gamer". An example of a comedy film that targets a more general audience is Strange Company's ''Tum Raider'', produced for the BBC in 2004. 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. For this, Thain used Quake2Max, a mod (computer gaming), modification of ''

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to '' Quake''. The game's storyline is continued in its ...

'' that provided cel-shaded animation. The following year, Tommy Pallotta directed "In the Waiting Line" for the British group

Zero 7 Zero 7 are an English musical duo consisting of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. They began as studio engineers and in 1997 formed the group Zero 7. Their debut album, '' Simple Things'', was released in 2001 in which their song " Destiny" stayed ...

. 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." Scenes of the game ''Postal 2'' can be seen in the music video of the Black Eyed Peas single "Where Is the Love?". In television, MTV features video game characters on its show '' Video Mods''. Among ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

'' players, dance and music videos became popular after dancing animations were discovered in the game. Others use machinima in drama. These works may or may not retain signs of their video game provenance. ''

Unreal Tournament ''Unreal Tournament'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the '' Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and late ...

'' 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. In 1999,

Strange Company Strange Company was a group of machinima creators and distributors based in Edinburgh, Scotland. They are known in the medium as the longest-standing machinima production company, having produced machinima films since 1997, and for creating th ...

used ''

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to '' Quake''. The game's storyline is continued in its ...

'' in ''Eschaton: Nightfall'', a horror film based on the work of H. P. Lovecraft (although Quake I was also based on the Lovecraft lore). A later example is Damien Valentine's series ''Consanguinity (Buffyverse), Consanguinity'', made using BioWare's 2002 computer game ''Neverwinter Nights (2002 video game), Neverwinter Nights'' and based on the television series ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series), Buffy the Vampire Slayer''. Another genre consists of experimental works that attempt to push the boundaries of game engines. One example, Fountainhead's ''Anna (2003 film), Anna'', is a short film that focuses on the cycle of life and is reminiscent of ''Fantasia (1940 film), Fantasia''. Other productions go farther and completely eschew a 3-D appearance. 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. 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 politics, left-wing perspectives. Alex Chan's take on the 2005 civil unrest in France, ''

The French Democracy ''The French Democracy'' is a 2005 English-language French short political film made by Alex Chan using computer animation from Lionhead Studios' 2005 business simulation game ''The Movies''. The plot centers on three Moroccan men who turn to ...

'', attained mainstream attention and inspired other machinima commentaries on American and British society. 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". Joshua Garrison mimicked Chan's "political pseudo-documentary style" in his ''Virginia Tech Massacre'', a controversial ''

Halo 3 ''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the ''Halo'' franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' and continued in ...

''–based re-enactment and explanation of Virginia Tech shooting, the eponymous real-life events. More recently, ''War of Internet Addiction'' addressed internet censorship in China using ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

''.

Competitions

Matt Kelland and Keith Halper at the 2008 Machinima Film Festival

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. The annual festival has become an important one for machinima creators. 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. In 2007, the AMAS supported the first machinima festival held in Europe. In addition to these smaller ceremonies, Hugh Hancock of

Strange Company Strange Company was a group of machinima creators and distributors based in Edinburgh, Scotland. They are known in the medium as the longest-standing machinima production company, having produced machinima films since 1997, and for creating th ...

worked to add an award for machinima to the more general Bitfilm Festival in 2003. Other general festivals that allow machinima include the Sundance Film Festival, the Florida Film Festival, and the New Media Film Festival. 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. Machinima has been showcased in contests sponsored by game companies. Epic Games' popular Make Something Unreal (contest), 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". In December 2005,

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...

and Xfire, a gaming-focused instant messaging service, jointly sponsored a ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

'' machinima contest.

Notes

References

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—Also as: ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* * {{Authority control Machinima, Animation technology Articles containing video clips Emergent gameplay Film styles Works based on video games

History

Precedent

''Quake'' movies

Generalization

Mainstream appearances

Production

Comparison to film techniques

Character and camera control

Limitations and solutions

Legal issues

Microsoft and Blizzard

Semiotic mode

Common genres

Competitions

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links