'Machinima: Red vs. Blue' by Daniel

Machinima (a portmanteau word for machine cinema or machine animation) is both a collection of associated production techniques and a film genre (film created by such production techniques). As stated in the Wikipedia.

To the mass of the world’s population Machinima is a new form of film genre, which has been brought to our attention by a company called “Rooster and Teeth Productions”. For who are the creators of the highly successful “Red V’s Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles”. The creators Michael Burns, Geoffrey Ramsey and Gustavo Sorola thought they were the pioneers of this new evolution. Not knowing that Machinima had originated as far back as the 1970’s and 80’s. The genre really came to the fore when true 3D game worlds were created in the early 90’s. Games such as Doom, Star Wars: X-Wing, MechWarriors 2 and the popular Quake had all limited recording features with the use of a controllable camera. The term Machinima was not born until early 1998.

Michael Burns had a burning question that needed to be answered. “Do you ever wonder why they call it a Warthog?” This question paved the way for an idea of a movie inside a video game, that game being Halo. The success that followed has just gone from strength to strength. Now currently in their forth season of “Red V’s Blue” and have created two new shows for our viewing pleasure. “Strangerhood” which was born in the year 2004 from the game Sims 2 and their latest epic “P.A.N.I.C.” which emerged from the game F.E.A.R.

Not only has it created a whole new genre for which writers and gamers can explore. But the possibilities are endless, with websites galore and forums for the fans to voice their opinions. The most famous being “Sponsors V’s Freeloaders” which is a fan-created video series based upon the “RvB” series. The series started because there were a lot of fans who were complaining because they weren’t given as much access to the video files as paying sponsors were. The RvB message board is where in the first episode was created.

As I’ve was looking through the information I stumbled across Production Company called “Raven’s Eye”. Who are going to make a movie from the new game Max Payne 2. On their website I’ve found jobs in all categories of Machinima. There were jobs from story design/story writers and story boarders to male and female voices.

The genre has also created Awards Ceremonies which have been hosted by Gamespy Magazine (highly regarded computer magazine) and the up coming 2006 Machinima Festival. There is even an Academy of Machinima Arts & Science which is a non-profit organisation. In which the board of directors meet once a month to discuss the best way to promote and increase the growth of this new genre.

Just by checking out the website www.machinima.com you can see how much this new genre has grown. There are communities and forums for people with all kinds of interest. With the games graphics and use of 3D imagery only getting better by the game, you can only imagine that the story lines will also be just as impressive. There is only one direction that Machinima can go and that is up.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

www.machinima.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sponsors_vs_freeloadrers
http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/machinima
http://www.machinima.com
http://www.freewebs.com/maxpaynemovie/peopleneeded.htm