We made a little film called Redshift: Pursuit. It has now been annotated with all kinds of behind-the-scenes director's notes, and you can watch it here on YouTube.
Amazingly, something else happened about a year ago, when I teamed up with Ms. Jun Falkenstein and Ben Covi to create a machinima film in 48 hours or less. Wow, I don't think I've ever fit so many hyperlinks in a single sentence. Anyway! They did it again this year, and again, this year, I was obliged to help out! Sadly, we didn't quite make the deadline, but the end result was marvelously campy and fun. Watch for yourself!
Thanks for the eloquent update there, Kirlune. Really, I just got tired of seeing my old Sedrin Head dominate the log ad infinitum. But I digress. Blizzcon!
Our three-minute fantasy music video won 3rd place! It was so heart-pumping to hear my musical score piped through the massive convention hall. There were two other "music video"-style winners as well, and the grand prize went to the young machinimator X-Cross; I was very excited to see him in the spotlight (see previous post's comments). Without further ado, here are the winners!
And because there weren't any categories this year, the runners-up unjustly received no recognition from Blizz. I'll try to expand the following list as I discover who else had quality entries.
Now, regarding Warrior's Dream: Much like I did with Redshift: Pursuit, my entry for this year will be getting some additional work and polish before I release it. Right now, it plays like an action movie trailer. The final version should end up being quite a bit longer than three minutes. Watch my Twitter feed for updates on that process, and you'll find the final product here, and on all the usual distribution channels.
Before the raid on Anaheim: Heroic Laguna Art Museum
Not all that heroic, actually.
Our 5-man drove into Laguna Beach earlier this morning to partake of the exhibition offerings at the cozy Laguna Art Museum for 15g each. The majority of the space featured large prints of official artwork, as well as fan art and material for related products like books and comics. There were several vaguely WoW-inspired installations, which the docent strained to make relevant to us gamers. And then, at last, we came across the machinima screening room: more on that after the break.
What was most disappointing about the visit, though, didn't hit us until long after we'd left. We trekked north thence, to the convention center in Anaheim and beheld an indoor sea of bodies, snaking like an immense coil amidst white plastic chains. Naturally, we flung ourselves into it. A few hours later, we were each gifted with large boxes entombing chibi space marines, various glossy advertisements, the requisite Blizzard-label hand sanitizer and authenticator. But what, oh what, in such delightful set of gratuities caused our disappointment? Two-for-one coupons to the WoW exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum.
I nevertheless thought the visit was well worth it, though not all my guildmates agreed...
It came down to expectations, I guess. We were going to an art museum, and being an uncultured city boy, I was not surprised to see an awesome collection of stills on the walls. A few sculptures here and there. Even some videos. (And the most unique: one of the original AMD servers that WoW was developed on.) But at least one of us (cough) had different ideas for an awesome exhibition: one that focused less on the game as a medium, and more on WoW as a subject.
This was most apparent when we got to the machinima screening room (a nice and dark little room secluded just beyond the fan art room) where we saw that pretty much all of the non-Blizzard machinima selections were things like music videos and more abstract films. Dopefish and Olibith were well-represented, and we suspected that the museum may have stuck to European machinimators to avoid intellectual property issues. I don't mean to disparage those artists in any way, and it was awesome that machinima was included in the exhibit at all. But the selections focused on things you might see in any other kind of indy short (sex, drugs, music) and nothing that really included WoW or fantasy as a necessary component of the piece. I suppose it did feel like somewhat of a missed opportunity.
The bags are packed. The boarding passes are printed. The guild shirts have been received. And most importantly of all....
The machinima contest has been entered.
In three days, <slashdance> will send a five-man group into the cavernous dungeon of the Anaheim Convention Center. We'll be trying for quite a few achievements, and may just come away with some real-life phat lewtz. I'll try to update a few more times before and during the con itself, keeping news relevant to our films and the WoW machinima community.
See, what happened was, I receive this mysterious email saying someone new is following me on Twitter. Except ... I don't have a Twitter account! It turns out someone used my email address to create an account (why do people do this?). I promptly hijacked the account, changed the email on file, and left a nice note for the owner. And then, of course, it was necessary--quite necessary--to claim my own email address with my own Twitter account.
"Spontaneous" isn't perhaps the best word to describe the project, since it took me a few weeks to gather footage, then a few more to... well, you can read all the details on the film's own page. This is probably the first purely "for fun" machinima I've slopped together. Hope you enjoy it!
Oh. And some people are wondering, since this is essentially a trailer, when is "the movie" going to be coming? Well for that, I think I'll pull a Blizz and say, we will provide additional information as it becomes available.
You guys don't really think I plan this stuff out, do you?
My my my, the months go by! The good news is that I haven't had a cause to update much because I have been happily employed. The bad news is I haven't updated much. This shall change, and soon! We have something coming right around the corner, if I may tease thusly.
In the meantime, Redshift: Interlude has been uploaded to YouTube, complete with behind-the-scenes annotations, and available in HD streaming. Check it out!
Apologies for the long stretch of no updating. Admittedly, my mind hasn't been on machinima much, due to my prolonged job hunt (which itself is a full-time job) and of course, the hectic holidays. Speaking of which, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope everyone got some phat lewtz from under the tree. I myself received a rather intriguing surprise from Santa:
Based on some of the feedback I got, some people were unaware that our recent "Redshift: Pursuit" was NOT the first in the series. I decided we had to rerelease the first episode, and have done so on YouTube:
And what YouTube release would be complete without annotations! You'll find all sorts of inane trivia, etc, to marvel over. Of course, if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to just disable the notes and enjoy the show.
Jun Falkenstein (of Stone Falcon Productions) and Ben Covi (of Oblivious Films) recently teamed up to take part in the 48-Hour Film Project's Machinima segment, where you naturally are tasked with creating a short machinima film in its entirety within 48 hours. I was happy to be a part of it by orchestrating music for the piece, since the genre that the team pulled was musical.
Creating any sort of film in 48 hours is not easy. Jun and Ben's work, I think, ended up campy and hilariously insane as a result. I certainly think my music arrangements could have been much better, but part of the fun is the mad rush to produce something--anything--that will work. I'll definitely consider participating in a more major way next time the contest rolls around.
I finally got around to uploading and updating the playlist on our music page. It now includes every single piece I've written that's been featured in a <slashdance> production. Enjoy!
Finally, the wait is over! I've finished up adding the extra footage and final touches on our BlizzCon entry, and it has been released for public consumption.
It's available in full-resolution HD 720 on Vimeo, so I highly recommend watching it there. If you prefer faster, lower-quality streams, I will be updating alternative locations on our own Redshift: Pursuit page. And today, WarcraftMovies.com has us in the spotlight! The feedback has been pretty positive so far; I especially appreciated hearing comments acknowledging the preponderance of in-game footage I used. Yep, our puppeteers are the hardest of core.
Now comes the daunting prospect of continuing the series. Time to rally my crew, and keep an eye out for any other motivated individuals who might have the time and talent to help us on. If that's you, don't hesitate to drop me a note (comment here or contact me directly).
A little disappointed returning from Blizzcon. Machinima was officially on the docket for all of about five minutes, which was during the contest segment (of course), to announce winners. Here are the results:
My crew was a little bitter about Blizzard's categorization of all the nominees, which pitted Jun's (always) amazing work against our own, but I'm perfectly happy with the three winners. They definitely deserved it for what was clearly some very hard work. I only wish Blizz gave 'em a little more than five minutes and a statue (not that trophies aren't awesome).
It's nearly 3 in the morning, and I've only managed to snag an hour of sleep before we're out the door to the airport. I think I underestimated just how much I've been anticipating this trip! My stomach's been doing flip-flops, much to my chagrin ... and now I have hiccups. Hopefully all that goes away before the flight. Or at least before the con. Or at least before anyone comes up to talk to me.
And I'm very much looking forward to seeing some fellow machinimators there! Jun Falkenstein, Oxhorn, Drewbie, Ian Beckman, Myndflame ... we'll all be wandering around aimlessly wondering where the machinima booth went. It'll be a blast. Probably won't see any further updates until the 12th, since I won't have Internet access there.
Meanwhile, wish our latest movie the best of luck in the contest! If you haven't noticed, we've produced a rather nifty trailer for it.
Major BlizzCon movie contest coming up, so naturally, what was my instinct? Work on something else! (Again!)
This was for the August contest over at WeGame.com: Joust Venture (or here on YouTube, with annotations, though I haven't added anything interesting just yet). Yes, when I realized the contest was open to any game ever I had the epiphany: marry my old flame with a new hobby and bam! 8-bit machinima goodness!
In the meantime, work on Redshift 2 progresses nice and steadily. The final comps for each scene are about halfway done (meaning the video track is almost completely finished! whew!). After that, it'll be time for all sorts of fun audio work. Plenty of time until the 25th due date, mright? Of course I'll have to post some sneak peeks of some sort here before then. Also, keep in mind that the version of Redshift 2 being submitted for BlizzCon is a slightly shorter, less nuanced version than that which I plan to complete later.
I saw the new annotation feature on YouTube and simply couldn't resist. I've updated our music video "Frame of Mind" with a good speckling of production trivia and inane comments. And who wouldn't want to read those!
One of the biggest obstacles in keeping my projects on schedule is resisting the temptation to play more Lich King beta than necessary. I did, however, stumble upon a really neat way to preview the new environments for people who didn't get into the beta ... through Photosynth. I took over 400 screenshots of Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight...
All the other machinimators have been kicked out! Bow to your new overlords!
... well, not really. We've archived the site's old content, but from now on Filmcraft.org is exclusively the official home for the <slashdance> machinima team. The old site wasn't getting any use whatsoever, and there are manyothermachinimacommunities we can recommend to new and veteran machinimators alike. In the meantime, expect some exciting new announcements to surface soon right here; there are a number of projects <slashdance> has in the pipes.
