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What is Machinima?

Published on March 16, 2009

By Kathy Craven

A rabbit dressed in a trench coat and fedora runs frantically down an empty road toward the edge of a cliff while being chased by a man wearing nothing but “I Love Sarah Palin” boxers. The rabbit throws himself over the edge of the cliff and—

“Cut! The edge of the road is uneven. And let’s do something about this light. Move the sun just a tad to the left.”

Within minutes the road is a perfect line of black asphalt and the sun rests in its new position.

Such is a morning of shooting on the set of the latest in the ongoing series of Tiny Nation produced by the Ill Clan Animation Studios, a leading machinima production studio that has produced work for CBS and major corporations.

Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah), a portmanteau that blends “machine” and “cinema” allows a filmmaker to create real-time movies utilizing 3-D technologies used in online-based virtual worlds. But what does that mean?

Imagine if filmmaking, animation and online virtual reality met in a bar and had a few drinks. The conversation loosens, prejudices fall away and they decide to work together. Filmmaking lends its craft of camera angles and lighting, while animation lends its ability to give life to imagination, and the virtual world lends its infinite amount of collaborative possibilities. Together they morph into machinima, where films are produced three times faster than CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) at 20% of the cost. Are we talking Pixar quality? No, not quite, or perhaps, not yet. It makes more sense to think of machinima as an augmentation rather than a replacement.

Image by Tiny Nation

Ill Clan Creative Director, Kerria Seabrooke directs Paul Jannicola, Director of Photography, in Second Life, an Internet-based virtual world where residents interact through their customized avatars in social, educational, entertainment, creative, and commercial settings. Footage is captured with motion capture software from the comfort of their home studio. Virtual sets and props can be created within minutes. Actors or “puppeteers” are controlled by humans located anywhere in the world but can be “on set” as fast as they can log in.

According to a recent Gartner Report, by the end of 2011 eighty percent of active Internet users will utilize a virtual world on a regular basis. One of the pioneers of virtual worlds is Linden Labs’ Second Life, a 3-D virtual world created by its users known as “Residents” that number in the millions and are located around the globe.

Residents are avatar representations of the real-life user, creation of which is constrained only by the imagination. The following key players illustrate the collaborative nature of machinima and its implications for educators, social advocates, and independent filmmakers.

Machinima and Social Advocacy

“Everybody says virtual worlds are about sex.”

Rita J. King

This thought ran through the mind of Rita J. King when she was first introduced to the idea of taking her successful investigative reporting career into the Second Life. King, Senior Fellow for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and CEO and Creative Director of Dancing Ink Productions, soon found there is so much more to this immersive virtual world.

During her early days in Second Life King’s avatar, Eureka Dejavu, met a Muslim woman in a synagogue. The woman explained that she had always wanted to experience what went on during prayer services but never did this in the real world for fear of persecution or causing discomfort because her traditional Muslim garb.

What followed was a quest. With a grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, King and Joshua S. Fouts, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and Chief Global Strategist of Dancing Ink Productions, set out to learn all they could about Islam by investigating and experiencing Islam within Second Life. They found that cultural barriers lessened and conversations went to a level of depth not possible in the real world.

The result of their quest produced “Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds”, a written report with policy recommendations for how virtual worlds can be used for understanding Islam along with five machinima videos, produced by the Ill Clan Animation Studios.

King believes that machinima and mixed reality media allow people to “participate in global conversation instead being given information.”

Machinima and Education

Image by Global Kids

Meet Global Kids, a New York-based nationally recognized leader in utilizing digital media to promote global awareness and youth civic leadership. Global Kids draws participants from twelve high schools for its after school virtual video project where students produce machinima in Teen Second Life, a sister site to Second Life that restricts access to users 13-15-years-old.

Students meet at the start of the school year to discuss global issues and travel to virtual international locations that would otherwise be cost prohibitive.

Rik Panganiban, Online Leadership Program Associate, says, “For example when discussing possible scripts students can start in a bazaar in Cairo.

“They have to think about what assets (sets and props) they will need to do that. They have to do research to learn what would be the right outfit, what sounds would we hear, what language would be spoken.”

Panganiban says in this collaborative environment the traditional top-down education model of teacher-to-student dynamic is replaced with peer-to-peer learning.

“This (creating machinima) is different than turning in a paper about education and racism that will be consumed by a teacher and given a letter grade only.”

Global Kids machinima has been screened their work online and by various festivals including, two films screening in the 2008 We the Peoples Film Festival in London.

Machinima and the Filmmaker

Molotov

A bald man dressed like a CIA agent with black suit, white shirt and black tie wandering barefoot states he has severed his “connection to the carbon-based world.”

Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey, directed by Douglas Gayeton, is the first documentary shot entirely in a virtual online platform and aired on HBO in May 2008. Molotov’s (the filmmaker’s avatar) journey crosses paths with a kaleidoscope of avatars presenting the visual representation of their real life inner self.

Gayeton, filmmaker and new media specialist, never met any of his subjects in the flesh. Special considerations apply when shooting in a virtual space such as not asking about the subjects’ real life.

Otherwise, Gayeton says, “Gaining trust with subjects in many cases is exactly the same as it is to win over a subject and make them want to part of the film in real life.”

The same filmmaking basics such as shot composition, skillful editing and even obtaining releases apply to making a machinima documentary as they would with live action.

Gayeton says the big difference is, “I shot the film entirely in one room in my farmhouse.”

He said he is surprised more filmmakers have not followed his lead.

“It puzzles me that people have seen the success I’ve had and not reacted with, ‘Wow! I’d like to do an entire film for HBO in my house.’”

Gayeton advises filmmakers interested in machinima to refrain from forcing a conventional genre of story into this virtual realm.

“Create new types of stories that reflect the medium. American cinema is about being experimental. ”

As for the fedora-clad bunny…stay tuned. Anything is possible.

Kathy Craven is an independent filmmaker, professor and author. Find out more about her at KathyCraven.com.

This article is available for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons license. It was originally published on MediaRights.org, a project of Arts Engine, Inc. This notice must accompany the article at all times.

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I think Machinima is a brilliant idea to combine filmmaking, animation and game development. I cannot wait to play with this.

Posted on 2010 08 24 by Louise Cooper

While this technology has a lot of promise, it still has a long way to go. I think it’s a great idea though. I have a brother who is really into this sort of stuff but has been unable to make any headway because of the high cost. This is a good alternative for people like him.

Carl
Accident Lawyer

Posted on 2011 02 10 by Carl