Machinima
Entry updated 17 November 2021. Tagged: Game, Theme.
Term used to describe films produced by recording the output from a Videogame as it is being played. This approach can produce visuals comparable in quality with those created by conventional computer animation techniques for considerably less effort, though clearly the choice of subject matter is affected by the nature of the game being used. Early examples of the form were created by players of Quake (1996) by adding (generally humorous) voiceovers to footage of carefully staged player-versus-player combat recorded in the game. The term itself was coined by Hugh Hancock (? -2018) by misspelling the earlier and less widely known "machinema", itself a neologism created by Anthony Bailey from "machine" and "cinema". Hancock popularized the new word by using it in the name of the website he launched in 2000, Machinima.com, which attracted a wider range of creators using a variety of games. A measure of fame was gained for the form with the release in 2003 of the first episodes of Red vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles (see Halo: Combat Evolved), an entertaining satire of First Person Shooter games. In the twenty-first century Machinima has become steadily more popular, both as an amateur art form and a way of creating promotional videos for games, with recent releases such as the Hollywood simulation The Movies (2005 Lionhead, Win; 2007 Mac), designed by Mark Webley, Adrian Moore, Peter Molyneux, including explicit support for its creation. [NT]
further reading
- Matt Hanson. The End of Celluloid: Film Futures In The Digital Age (Mies, Switzerland: RotoVision, 2004) [nonfiction: includes a chapter dealing with Machinima and Full Motion Video: pb/]
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