And so we come to the most intimidating part of writing MfD so far - I’ve got to write a chapter on filmmaking. Shots, framing, editing, the lot.
So that would be me attempting to compete with people like Chris Jones, Robert Rodriguez, Per Holmes…
Gulp
I’m a little indimidated. And to cap it all off, I’ve only got 5,000 words to do it in.
My current potential subject list for this single chapter is a little over 40 items…
I just heard something astonishingly cool about some Machinima stuff coming up in the latter part of this year.
Can’t go into details, but let’s just say that Machinima for Dummies might be a really complete one-stop shop for Machinima…
We’ve just handed in half the book, weighing in at a not-too-shabby 204 pages.
That’s tutorials for WoW and The Sims 2, information on organising a virtual shoot, legal info on Machinima, how to read an EULA, how to encode your film to all the various formats, how to set up a recording studio in your bedroom, our top 10 Machinima films and Machinima sites, making sets in various engines, colour theory, use of space, use of lighting, character design, and lots, lots more.
And there’s still half a book to go, with highlights like Medieval Total War 2, MovieStorm, introduction to camerawork, writing your film and lots more.
Bounce!
I’m not talking about phrases in the book here. I’m talking about phrases we used around it…
10. “That’s not a euphemism” Far too many things sound like euphemisms. That’s just an observation there.
9. “I think we might have gone a little over our page-count here.” Inaugurated in the very first draft of the first Sims 2 chapter, which at 17,000 words was maybe a little bit over our 5,000 word budget.
8. “We should really update the blog.” Sorry.
7. “Quick, look in another ‘Dummies’ book and see how they did it!” House styles are a good thing. And the Dummies house style is particularly fine.
6. “F—-ing Google Documents! Work!” It’s fantastic for collaboration, but it’s still … a little … buggle. Buggle! Swear-thump-thump-restart Buggy.
5. “Do you think we should have a chapter on insert engine here?” So many engines, so little time. And new ones keep coming out, the bastards.
4. “We need to write that as late as possible to ensure it’s still current.” So far, it appears we’re writing about half the book in the last week.
3. “Our editors rock.” No, we’re not sucking up here – they really do.
2. “Goddamnit, there are too many good example films for this chapter!” OK, here’s a proposition. You’ve got to choose one WoW film for the WoW chapter. Do you choose The Return, Edge of Remorse, Billy Maclure, Converse Ad, Hardware Store...
and the winner and still champion…
1. “OK, we’ll play a bit of World of Warcraft, then get back to writing.”
Hugh and I spent some time yesterday using Blizzard’s World of Warcraft to create a short film. I’ve not really experimented with WoW’s machinima capabilities up until now, so I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which we managed to achieve what we were looking for. We started storyboarding our basic idea at about noon. By five we were running off the first test render from our editing package. When you take into account the fact that a good hour of that time was dedicated to me tweaking a single tricky frame in Photoshop, that’s really impressive speed. We’ve still got to finalise the editing, and there’s virtually no sound laid on yet, but it’s still quick. We used a combination of live shooting (thank you to all the people we shoved out of the way on the European Steamwheedle server), and map viewer/model viewer compositing. The compositing method works far better than I had anticipated. There’s a little bit of trial and error involved getting the relative camera angles to correspond, and in the end it comes down to guesswork, but (as with a lot of machinima) it’s relatively painless to reshoot.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to put the finished film online sometime soon - it’s a promo for a well-known and ethically sound international charity, but it all takes place in Azeroth. Watch this space.
We’re just submitted six chapters, making up just over 25% of the manuscript. It’s seems incredible that we’ve written a quarter of the book already, but we really have
So far, we’ve written chapters that feature an all-round introduction to machinima (and to the book), set design and texturing, in-engine character design, directing, editing and distribution. We’ve been using The Sims 2 as an example engine for a lot of this content. Most of ours Sims 2 stuff is done now. I’ve got to say, I’ll be glad to see the back of it. It’s a wonderfully flexible and content-rich engine, but it’s just got too many quirks for me. I found myself spending most of my time trying to find away around seeming dead-ends than actually making a film. I know that’s true of all machinima, but it just seemed more prevalent with Sims 2 somehow.
We interviewed Michelle and Kheri from Brittanica Dreams on Monday (via the miracle of Skype, of course). We’re using The Snow Witch as one of our case studies, and we’re hoping to be able to interview other prominent machinimists later in the book.
By far the hardest part of the writing process has been the editing: going over work you’ve already written (often days or weeks ago), and formatting it correctly, correcting the bad spelling and terrible grammar, and deleting the run-on sentences such as the one that you’re currently reading. Not only is it dull, tedious work, but it brings you down to earth with a nasty splat. The lines of witty prose and elegant discourse of you which you were so proud when you composed them last week are exposed to the harsh light of day. And let me tell you, oftentimes they do not look good.
The more you edit, the more depressed you get. It’s 21:30 over here, and Hugh and I have only just finished work for the day - a day which consisted largely of editing. I’ve almost lost the will to live, - but it’s finished, dammit.
“For Dummies” publisher announces “Machinima For Dummies”, a Do-It-Yourself guide to using the latest computer graphics technology to make the next Hollywood blockbuster – on a zero budget.
Wiley Publishing is pleased to announce “Machinima For Dummies” (ISBN-13: 9780470096918; $29.99; Pub Date: July, 2007), a DIY guide to using “Machinima” technology, based on computer games, to produce 3D animated motion pictures at a fraction of the cost of conventional filmmaking.
Written by Hugh Hancock, one of the founders of the Machinima movement, and Johnnie Ingram, former editor of Machinima.com, “Machinima For Dummies” will explain, step-by-step, how to go from playing computer games on your PC or Playstation to using those very same games to make movies on the scale of “Lord of the Rings” or “Star Wars” – all in your own home on a zero budget.
“Machinima is a very new movement in filmmaking, and a very exciting one,” says Hancock, who coined the term “Machinima” with programmer Anthony Bailey in 1998 to give a name to the new movement. “Thanks to amazing technology coming out of the computer games industry, it’s now possible for anyone – a sixteen-year-old in their bedroom, a housewife working in between looking after the kids – to make films telling stories of a scale that can rival the greatest Hollywood blockbusters.”
“Machinima is such an exciting amalgamation of topics we publish on in the For Dummies series– graphics, gaming, writing and storyboarding, digital movie editing,” says Melody Layne, Acquisitions Editor at Wiley. “ It's really exciting to see players pushing the outer edges of gaming and turning it into a medium for artistic expression. We want to be a part of it.”
“Machinima For Dummies” will provide practical details on how to make films with Machinima in a variety of ways, from “live” puppeted filming in Massively Multiplayer games to program-like “scripting” languages. It will provide an introduction to scriptwriting, storyboarding, cinematography, and all the practical details needed for any filmmaker, in an easy, step-by-step format with practical, real-world examples drawn from popular culture.
Hancock has high hopes for the book. “With ‘Machinima For Dummies’, it is my hope anyone, anywhere will have enough information to finally create the story they’ve always dreamed of. Hollywood be damned.”
“Machinima For Dummies” will be released in Summer 2007 from Wiley Publishing.
About Hugh Hancock
Hugh Hancock was one of the two people who coined the term “Machinima”. Since 1997, he has worked as a producer and director in this new field of animation, working on over 16 films. He is the founder of www.machinima.com and a founding member of the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences.
Hugh has lectured on Machinima on three continents and was described by the Hamburg International Film Festival as “the guru of the Machinima movement”. Currently he is nearing completion on the episodic feature film, BloodSpell, available now from www.bloodspell.com
About Johnnie Ingram
Formerly a professional theatre director, Johnnie retrained in computer sciences in 2004, before joining veteran Machinima production company Strange Company. Since then, he has become one of the mainstays of the Machinima community, working as Editor of Machinima.com, 1st Assistant Director on BloodSpell, and commentating on Machinima in magazines and online.
For Dummies®
With near universal name recognition, more than 150 million books in print, and over 900 + topics, For Dummies is the world's bestselling reference series. With loyal customers around the globe, For Dummies enriches people’s lives by making knowledge accessible in a fun and easy way. Described by the N.Y. Times as “more than a publishing phenomenon, but a sign of the times,” For Dummies span every section of the bookstore, covering everything from health to history, music to math, sports to self-help, technology to travel, and more. The Dummies brand has expanded into new products and categories with an extensive licensed product line, including fitness and hobby DVDs, grilling kits, business software, cleaning products, automotive kits, craft kits, and apparel. For more information, visit Dummies.com. For Dummies is a branded imprint of Wiley.
Hello, and welcome to the MfD blog.
If you haven’t heard, we’re writing a book for the lovely, lovely For Dummies guys, all about how to make Machinima. That’ll be over 400 pages of Machinima goodness for you lucky, lucky people.
And we’ll be blogging it here, sharing our experiences, trials, tribbilations, and bits from the book or bits that just wouldn’t fit in.
Enjoy!
