Machinima for Dummies: Machinima Europe nominees - commentary

Machinima Europe nominees - commentary

Hugh "Nomad" Hancock — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:39:00 +0100

Whilst they aren’t up on the official festival page yet, the nominations for Machinima Europe, which is effectively the top Machinima film festival this year, have been announced over on the Machinima Europe Facebook group - you can also see them over at Machinima Premiere.

It’s a fairly broad list, with very few films receiving more than a few nominations. Four pictures/series have three nominations each - ‘Stolen Life’, ‘Faith, Hope and Charity’, ’Pictures of War 2’, and the series ‘Blink’ (which I can’t find online anywhere - anyone?). A further four have two nominations apiece: ‘Instinct’, ’Fallacies of a Stranger’, ’The Ballad of Black Mesa’ and ’BloodSpell’. Obviously we’re not unhappy with that last result - exactly the same nominations we got at the Machinima Film Festival last year, in fact!

The list is fairly heavy on new movies - I didn’t recognise about half the names of the films in the contest. And there are a few surprising names missing - no ‘Beast’, no ’ Morning Run Amok’, no ‘Inventing Swear Words’, no “Snacky’s Journal”, and nothing from Blizzard. On the other hand, last year at the MFF the nominations were a big surprise, and two of those surprises (Edge of Remorse and Bill et John 2) are now firmly seated in the Machinima hall of fame.

I’m looking forward to seeing the surprise winners this year.

It’s hard to tell what the engine mix is, given that I don’t recognise all the films, but my initial impression is that there’s quite a strong lean away from game-based Machinima.

Moviestorm comes out of the gate swinging, with two nominations for “Break Your Concentration” and “Mum’s Been To Iceland”. Obviously, ‘Stolen Life’ isn’t game-based (it’s made with a game development tool), and neither’s ‘Cuckoo Clock’, by Tom Jantol. There’s also very heavy Second Life presence, with at least 6 SL films in the contest - ‘Comcast Island’, ‘When The Postman Spits Twice’, ‘Dreamed Up’, ‘Better Life’, ‘Machinima Island’, and ‘The Grid Review’. The Movies, which I think falls under “isn’t really a game”, has at least two more representatives - ‘Instinct’ and ‘Fallacies’.

There’s also one film that is going to attract heated discussion, particularly if it wins: “Kung-Fu Glitch”, made using a 2D Commodore 64 game. I’m not sure what to think about that myself.

There’s a very limited showing from the Usual Suspects, engine-wise, aside from Second Life: 1 Halo video( ‘Halo Unyielding’), 2 Half-Life 2 vids (‘Ballad of Black Mesa’ and ‘Machinima! With Officer Dan’), 2 Sims 2 videos (a surprising single nom for Snow Witch, plus “Domestic Violence” by Ricard Gras) and 3 World of Warcraft vids (‘Azerothian Supervillains’ and two from the ubiquitous Oxhorn, ‘MtvU Commercials’ and ‘Hark! Hear the Wails.’). There are nearly as many SL vids as all the ‘usual’ top engine vids combined.

Finally, it’s very noticable that flight simulators are still remarkably strong engines to use to make Machinima, at least as far as awards go. That’s now two years in a row that one of the front-running nominees in the big Machinima festivals has been made using a flight sim - Bill et John 2 last year, and this year ‘Faith, Hope and Charity’ as well as ‘Pictures of War 2’. Oddly, the original Bill et John and the original Pictures of War were both nominees at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival!

Overall, it’s an interesting line-up. We’ll try to track down links for as many of the front-runners as we can - they’re interesting watching.

Good luck to everyone in the contest!

"Machinima Europe nominees - commentary" by Johnnie Ingram

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:24:44 +0100

@FLeeF - Pirates of Parallel Structure and 22 Short Films about Grammar (Thanks, Mark!)

"Machinima Europe nominees - commentary" by Hugh "Nomad" Hancock

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:33:37 +0100

Cool - correcting. Is it online anywhere, out of interest?

"Machinima Europe nominees - commentary" by Geuis Dassin

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:43:48 +0100

Hugh, my music video “You Hypocrite You” was created in Second Life. I’m going around trying to correct the incorrect release the festival folks did. Mannea is my company, but not the name it should have been released under.

"Machinima Europe nominees - commentary" by Hugh "Nomad" Hancock

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:50:26 +0100

I can’t find them anywhere. I suspect they were probably finished up just in time for the competition, and aren’t online yet.

"Machinima Europe nominees - commentary" by FLeeF

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:58:22 +0100

I would have bet money that Snacky’s Journal was going to make the finals for best series. The premise, the writing, the acting and the camera work are all top-notch entertainment.

I’d appreciate if someone could post links to where I could watch some of the other series. I can’t find Blink or Pirates of Parallel Structure anywhere on the web.

"Machinima Europe nominees - commentary" by Hugh "Nomad" Hancock

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:17:53 +0100

Ah, that explains it - they’ve got recamming. That’s very cool.

(Half-Life 2 has a similar tool, and such things have a long history within Machinima).

"Machinima Europe nominees - commentary" by MGV

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:16:33 +0100

Nice roundup, mate.

Funilly enough, I agree almost 100% with these nominations. Particularly the major ones. Of these, I’ve seen no machinima better.

It is worth noting on your last point that many flight simulators have a ‘replay flight’ function, as explained by the FHaC team on their website. This essentially lets you set paths for your ‘characters’ in real time then play it back and change the camera angles to suit your desired shot. I don’t think there’s any more powerful tool in the entire machinima universe to date!

Might explain a few things, is all.

MGV