Nerd Arts

Download Trailer for Stolen Life

Directorial Statement

STOLEN LIFE is a script written in the tradition of film noir, with PI in the leading role as the detective, and KIERU, in the supporting role as the femme fatale. Of course the twist here is that both characters are robots, and the film is not set on 20th century planet earth, but instead is played out on a far flung asteroid, some time in the future.

For me the appeal of the script lies with the clever juxtaposition of a well-worn genre and all its attendant conventions, with an entirely new world. In considering the direction, I aim to find a balance between honouring the conventions of the film noir genre and play with and against these conventions in both the performance and the stylistic look and feel.

In terms of story, the compelling mystery of the accident and Faraday’s “death” draws us into the complex web that is the bots’ desire for autonomy.

Although the film is 3D animation, the directorial approach to the performances is not that different from live action. The back stories of the characters, their motivations, inner conflicts, desires and obstacles will be explored and communicated to the actors. With animation, and especially here where the characters are not human, voice becomes even more important in communicating character. I will be spending a lot of time with the actors getting the tone and performance right, finding the balance between the film noir archetype and a more naturalistic delivery. My goal in directing the voice records is to create entirely dimensional characters, with humanesque needs, desires and motivations, even if embodied by robots.

In terms of the style and design of the characters and location the use of Machinima poses particular challenges. Whilst the images will not have the high resolution of animated feature films such as those being produced by Pixar (Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Nemo), the graphic quality and attention to camera angle, movement, editing and soundscape will more than compensate for any reduction in visual detail. Lighting and design will follow the film noir style and the use of music and sound design will be employed to create a rich and ambient sound track. As demonstrated in KILLER ROBOT, a strong script more than makes up for low production values.

Ultimately what Machinima allows Peter and I to do is to make an animated feature film based on a compelling story, with strong characters who engage, entertain and move us, for a very low budget. In terms of professional benefits, STOLEN LIFE pushes us into an exciting new medium that hones our existing skills and challenges us to discover and develop new ones. I am very excited about working on STOLEN LIFE and see it as a quantum leap in my work as an animation director.

Jacqueline Turnure

stolen life

The Adventures of Bill & John were produced using the Lock On: Modern Air Combat fighter simulation game.

Bill and John have taken home many accolades, and recently were awarded four awards at the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences’ 2006 Machinima Festival, among them was the award for best picture.

The videos are a parody of a wide variety of American films featuring fighter jets. These would include Top Gun, Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Download Adventures of Bill And John for free from their site

nsider: One of the things that really made StarCraft stand out when it was first released was the epic scale of events unfolding over the course of the original game and the Brood War expansion, told in large part through the game’s cut-scenes and beautifully crafted cinematics. Of all the possible scenarios for a cinematic teaser, why did you decide to focus on the genesis of a marine?

Nick Carpenter: The idea of turning the creation of a marine into a cinematic has been on my mind ever since we started working on the cinematics for the original StarCraft. When you click on that button to build a marine, what does that mean? Actually showing the marine being built gives us an exciting opportunity to show that in the StarCraft universe, even something that’s normally very mundane can have a truly epic feeling to it.
Continue with Nick Carpenter Interview

Nick Carpenter

(watch Pierce Portocarrero’s Game Over)

NEW YORK (Real Life)
Pierce Portocarrero, the man behind the award winning machinima series “Game Over” has landed a job at Virtual NBC.

Portocarrero created Game Over in the online fantasy world Second Life. It didn’t take long for some execs at NBC to hire Portocarrero. After watching his seven minute film they gave him the chance to direct the pilot for a nine episode comedy series which is also set to be taking place within the confines of Second Life.

The plot for the new series is based upon a family which has been seperated geographically because the kids are off at different universities. The only time that the family begins to enjoy together is within second life.

The title of the new series is yet to be determined. And the new machinima based series which has been likened to a second life version of the simpsons is set to premiere within the confines of second life.

American beauty presented as machinima utilizing the Sims video game engine.

The ILL Clan is a machinima production team based in Brooklyn, New York City. The clan has produced a number of machinima shorts, as well as several live performances at film festivals, often interacting with the audience. Their work often makes heavy use of improvised dialogue. The team has featured in numerous articles in various media (mainly print. Perhaps their best known works are the films featuring their characters Lenny and Larry Lumberjack. More recently they have been commissioned to do short works for cable television channels, such as MTV2 and Spike TV. Their latest production is a series called Trash Talk with ILL Will.

The current members of the ILL Clan have recently joined the Electric Sheep Company, the world’s largest builder of virtual worlds, serving as their machinima division recording mostly in the virtual world of Second Life. Since joining ESC, the ILL Clan has produced a television promo for CBS’ “Two and a Half Men” which appeared on CBS during the Super Bowl XLI pre-game show. The company will retain their brand and IP, and continue producing original content including bringing their machinima talk-show, Tra5hTa1k to Second Life.

link

“I think one of the changes of our consciousness of how things come into being, of how things are made and how they work…is the change from an engineering paradigm, which is to say a design paradigm, to a biological paradigm, which is a cultural and evolutionary one. In lots and lots of areas now, people say, How do you create the conditions at the bottom to allow the growth of the things you want to happen?” –Brian Eno

Back in 2002 the Walker Art Center held an exhibition entitled “Transforming Play:Family ALbums, and Monster Movies”

link to exhibition

Winner Best Visual Design 2002 Machinima Film Festival.

Nods for: Best Sound, Best Technical Achievement

Selection: Dig.it ‘02, BitFilm ‘03, OIAF ‘04, and featured in countless articles.

By Brad King

Video-game developers have long tried to integrate the sights and sounds of cinema into their games, with mixed results. So an emerging group of directors has instead turned to making stand-alone films.

These directors won’t use cameras and sound studios, nor will they hire actors. Instead, they will use complex software applications designed to power video games, as well as computer-generated characters.

It’s called machinima, and if all goes well for the up-and-coming development studios, it will be coming to television next year.

Machinima happened because game developers could not figure out how to bring Hollywood to the computer. For instance, innovations like live-action scenes, during which a player might watch a two-minute clip that moved the plot of the game forward but didn’t allow the player to participate, brought game play to a screeching halt.

Despite the lukewarm success of the “cut scenes,” developers continued to push the boundaries of gaming technology. However, the advances couldn’t bridge the gap between interactive game play and passive movie viewing. But id Software’s first-person shooter games — Castle Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake — would give machinima filmmakers the tools they needed to create video-game movies.

These games, often graphically violent and highly popular, rely on a special game engine that defines the rules of environments where players will interact with each other. Engines handle everything from the artificial intelligence of computer-controlled characters to player movement and 3-D graphics.

Continue Article here

Eric Linden has created a free PDF file complete with step by step, and tips on making Machinima utilizing Second Life.

link to PDF file