Latest Blog Posts - Myndflame

Project Collab, Part 2

no.spam@gameriot.com (Paus) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:26:04 -0500

Hello again!

Lets talk about the Machinima Collab again. In particulair about the "Warcraft Sounds" theme that was choosen as the winner in the last blog.

It has come to my understanding that, the Theme’s I had given to you to concider, well, that one of those theme’s already was made by Irdeen and Hans-Henrik.
See here:

Hans-Henrik
Irdeen

This was brought to my attention by Whowho Himself! Followed by this quote:

---

“Hoi hoi Paus! Being the handsome Night Elf I am I've got plenty of feedback to give you on your latest anoucement of the two themes you want

Firstly I'm very impressed that you're approaching it thinking "What's approachable?" and looking for things with segments (Although I do wish you told us this before hand so we could think about this for longer) and now I see why you shot down Radio Gaga, not enough segments!

The Warcraft Sounds idea is a great idea, relevant to our viewers and our cause and an effective parody of Warcraft, but it's such a great idea it's been done before an awful lot; Irdeen in him self has created two of these, and there is a handful of ones laying about on Warcraft movies that were made by people new into the field (It's handy for them as it doesn't require script witting or voice actors) so really my trouble with it is that it's something every one has seen 6 times before and the colleb should be something original.

Like A Boss: Is a great song! It certainly gave me a chuckle when I first saw it. It is also original! There's been a few lonely island adaptions, but I think we would be the first to do Like A Boss, and it has more segments than a millipede. Buuuuuuuut, all thought it is original it doesn't seem relevant to the cause: Machinima/WoW.

Ofc that sounds terrible, as both songs have what we need but not all in one place. I also don't have anything to suggest as a replacement at this moment (I'll give it plenty of thought and will have something to you soon I promise) but I know you wanted feedback and voting on a poll didn't seem nearly constructive enough for me.
Yours; that guy who never writes reviews on time.”

----

I want to delve in this quote a little. I keep hearing this from artists about our Collab: “It doesn't seem relevant to the cause: Machinima/WoW”

Well, is that necessary? Does a Machinima have to follow a certain cause? Is it an unwritten rule I am not aware of? ☺ I want you guy’s opinion on this one below.
But I share your concern WhoWho, and I thank you for that comment.

Where was I.. Oh yeah, I didnt know if the voters were aware of these machinima’s. Thats why I brought it up.

This made me think "How can we then be Original?". And with the help of Origano, we tried to make the choosen theme a bit different. We thought the Warcraft Sounds theme is great for a Collab, but just recreating the jokes with different artists wouldnt be enough. So Origano came up with the idea to make it more original.

This is an example of that idea:

The idea was to recreate a certain scene with 2 persons. A troll talks with an Undead person. The Troll asks something, to which the Undead responds with a flashback to one of the “Warcraft Sounds”.

This is a very basic explenation. But if you can let your imagination flow and come up with a concept, im sure it would work out. Only downside is is that we need to have voice actors for the “inbetween” scene’s. And that the main part of the whole joke has been repeated a lot recently in Machinima’s.

But you can go even further with that. I’m assuming you know Family guy. If there is something Family Guy is known for, its the random “Flashbacks” they get while sitting on the coach watching the TV.

So we can go as far as recreating family guy with a Tauren as Brian, Stewie as a Gnome, Lois as a female human, etc. Then positioning those in a normal houshold setting, talking about something which triggers random “Warcraft Quotes”, or even “Family Guy Quotes”. Remember, this is just an example.

So, if we can take this idea this far, im sure we could even take it further. The main concept is now this: Recreating existing jokes, but put them in a different setting.

Well, we can choose to limit ourselves to only warcraft related things, or we can broaden our horizon with maybe famous Movie quotes. Recreating your favorite scene in your favorite movie. I think that this is the direction we need to go with this.

I hope you understand and digg this new approach. It gives more freedom for the different artists and not only does “Warcraft Jokes” which are already done before.

The only thing that kind of bothers me is that it now looks a lot like Never Stay Tuned. So we wouldnt score in the originality factor. But that wont be important if there are great scene’s being made.

Another downside is the length of a scene. Im sure you have thought about this while reading this blog. It seems like a scene now would take a lot longer to make. I can hear you think “Hey! But we signed up for the creation of a 4 – 12 second scene”. Yeah, you are very right about that. Thats why we can implement a system for this.

It goes like this. Every machinimator picks 1 scene of something they want to machinimate.
Now pretend we go forward in time to an E-mail that i’ll mail to the Machinima Artist, about the choosen scene’s.
Everyone will be notified of who is intrested in doing what. And every Machinima artist needs to write after their choosen scene, with how many other machinima makers it would take to complete it.

For example:

Name: WhoWho
Scene: Fight Club Insomnia Scene
Length: 19 Seconds
Do you need help: No.

Or another example of a longer movie:

Name: Paus
Scene: Eyes Wide Shut Masked Ball Scene
Length: 2 minute and 30 seconds
Do you need help: Yes. I need someone for part 0:12 till 0:26. Leave the rest up to me.

Name: BaronSoosdon
Scene: 2001: A Space Oddesey Black Monolith Scene
Length: 1 Minute (I’ll cut the scene’s). Need someone for the sleeping monkey’s beginning.

Etc.

Now, there are some things that could happen with these examples in the Next mail, where everyone decides if they want to help a machinima maker creating a scene together.

Whowho’s example: He said he can take care of it all by himself. So no problem there.
Paus’ example: Apperently no one liked this idea. So it will be forfeited.
BaronSoosdon’s example: 3 Artist want to work with Baron. But he said he needed only 1 Artist. So he will pick one out of the three. It’s his decision because it is his idea ☺

I think we’ve been far enough into the future now. The reason I mention this is that I just want to give you an idea of how it would work out.

But we can take it even one step further! To make it original again, we can do the following:

We can pick a theme for a Movie setting. For example:
Mafia movies only. (Godfather, Goodfellas, etc.)
Tarantino movies only. (Pulp Fiction,
Scenes from only 1 movie (The Dark Knight, Fight Club, etc.)

Or series:
House only.
Heroes only.
24 only.
Lost only.

Etc.
That way we keep a theme which will make something much more origninal as a whole. If its a succes, we can do a theme like this every few months. So it would have a continuity.
So, I ask you know, to vote in what you guys prefer to do.

You can choose from:

- Warcraft sounds (The original idea)
- Anything you like to make (From Warcraft Sounds to A scene from Fight Club)
- A certain movie theme only. (Mafia, Chick Flicks, B movie’s, etc.)
- A certain serie’s theme only. (Like, House only, Lost only, etc.)
- A Director’s theme only. (Like, Stanley Kubrick only, Micheal Bay only, Tarantino only, etc.)
- An actor’s theme only. (Like, Will Smith only, Brad Pitt only, Tom Hanks only, etc.)
or
- An Machinima parody. See whowho's third post in the comments section for the general idea.

Im going with the Movie theme only for this one, allthough I also would love to see a Director’s theme only. I think both would be great and bring a new set of “Movie style” or “Theme” to the Machinima World.

Also I would like to hear about regarding the possibility that this whole Collab project is getting off course, because we need the “Machinima\WoW cause quest completed!”. If that is the case, if the majority thinks like that, than I’m sure above examples wouldnt be what what they first thought it to be.

And one more thing i would like feedback on is the "Lets do a big scene with more then one machinima artists" idea.

Well? What do you guys think? Is this the direction we need to go in?

I am very, very curious.

The Votes:

Movie theme - 8 Votes (Farinar, Paus, Bonkey, Legs, BaronSoosdon, Pinkhair, Chaosvex, Ollgabopi)
Machinima parody theme - 3 Votes (WhoWho, Giordano, Mushanga)

Origano’s latest Achievement!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Whowho) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:36:17 -0500

Who had a plan? I did. And what was that plan? To take off all my cloths and to run through the set of The Achiever 3 naked and to ruin as many shots as I possibly could. Why? Fame and fortune! Eventually SOME ONE will pay me to put my clothes back on and now there’s a movie with my face (and other things) on the interwebs!

So Origano approached me recently and said “Moo, moo, moo, moooooo!” Which probably meant;

“Whowho you smexy son of Elune!

Write me a review!

Your naked march ruined my movie,

Do it or I’ll sue!”

Or possibly he was complimenting me on my Antlers…

Origano’s latest Achievement can be found here!

It’s a comedy! I like comedies: Comedies make me laugh. I also like Machinima: Machinima if full of community rich references! So I’m happy to see this Machinima, as it’s sort of a return to the classic Warcraft Comedy, y’know, a comedy set in the World of Warcraft game’s setting, and not come bizarro world.

A few months ago I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were WoW Machinimas that took the mickey out of the WoW Machinima community? Also, don’t my antlers look nice?” Well I was absolutely right, but I’ve missed the likes of the classic comedy, things like The Grind and Snacky’s Journal. The Achiever is very much in that vein, and is much welcome return to the format.

As for the comedy it’s self; it goes up and down. Some things I didn’t find funny, some things I smiled at, and two things were so funny I got to do my rarely heard “Belly Laugh: It’s pretty loud” laugh. Origano announces at the beginning of the film that the comedy is very silly. That’s true; things constantly flying through the air and crazy things happening in the background. But there were other great comedy points: there where game jokes in there some were; Origano managed to mock his own dramatic techniques at times and the jumping-jack level of seriousness is the core of comedy: If you try to be serious in a comedy, no doubt it’s for lolz.

So the comedy comes in at different levels, you might find some of it disinteresting, but it’s worth sticking to for the gems. It wasn’t all as funny as it could be though, because Origano is still shaky on his editing skills. There were patches of silence, the comedic timing was often off, and the music was good hit/bad miss at times. Having talked to Origano he admits that his comedic effect needs work, but I think at the moment it’s only because he’s limited by his Machinima experience.

The editing lets the movie down at times. Voice acting wasn’t as clear as some people would like and subtitles are a certain must for the next movie (Although Almighty Farseer’s voice was so good I wish he could voice act for blizzard, because Jaina really could do with a new voice actor) the camera was so shaky it made me picture a tauren holding a cam recorder and running through Azeroth going “Zoom! Zoom!” And general sound would love some more attention.

This is my favorite part of the review, the bit where I get to talk about me!

A wonderful thing is happening in Machinima; me! (Someone PLEASE tell me when I start taking this vanity thing too far ^^) I’m suddenly appearing in a raid group of machinima. As we can see from this typical scene of Baronsoosdon’s Sex Gnomes And Videotape:

I think Origano’s target audience for this movie was actually me; I laughed so hard each and every time I saw myself it came very tempting to vote 5/5 on warcraft movies (Something I never do, you should be proud of your 3.5/5!) But there’s something odd. Now I’ve appeared naked on the internet many a time Erunno can confirm this but never, NEVER without my shoulder mounted moon wells and antlers, when I saw that I didn’t even have the right hair I almost raged my typewriter into my monitor!

But Origano assured me that this is all part of the plot, and that I would make a heavy presence in the 4^th movie where I gain my iconic clothes and film star smile! What I’m picturing is an over the top super-hero-getting-dressed montage just from me getting the Shave and Haircut achievement, only to interrupt myself when I see my reflection and start signing “I’m too sexy for my Antlers”. But let it be known! No other Machinimarist will get away with presenting Whowho without antlers or Moonwell shoulders!

... apart from Paus’ red Whowho.

What the Achiever 3 had and Achiever 1 through 2 didn’t have as much of was plot. I was happy to see an A and B plot! A being the quest for the achievement and B being the Over Achiever’s exploits, the trouble is I don’t think the two plots where stitched together all that well: Once oregano was looking for the big jump the Over Achiever got completely forgotten. I also think the transitions between the two plots needed more editing magic juice: Almighty Farseer is ramping up the into for their star, he points, and we see a Titan night light, and I think “Huh, how is that thing going to be able to do the Hallow’s end achievements?” and then I completely forgot that I didn’t know who the Over Achiever’s star is.

What I would like to see from the next one.

First of all: 100% more antlers.

Secondly, people being waaay to dedicated to Achievements. You know how people take our game (Haha you just lost it) too seriously? I would love to see this represented in the Achiever; incredibly over the top Achievement pep talks, people shouting “For the Achievements!” before rushing to their doom, people really taking some time consider if the “Cut off your own arm” achievement is worth doing.

With this big movie Origano has secured his self (Although uneasily) on the spot of some one that has a promising Machinima series. I give you Origano a thumbs up and say you should certainly stick with this and make sure I have many more cameos.

Flattered and honored.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Farinar) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:23:46 -0500

http://www.wow.com/2009/11/03/wow-moviewatch-dr-mcnab-destroys-halloween/

That's right, "Dr. McNab Destroys Halloween!" was featured on WoW.com today, one year after its release. I must admit that I am flattered and happy everytime a movie of mine gets featured and Dr. McNab still has a place in my heart, right beside the Peasant and right above my love for old horror movies.

Here's a dedication. To you, my dear friend, Dr. McNab, I ask you this: Are you ready to destroys christmas!?

That's right! I'm considering a McNab christmas movie - a follow-up to this newly found oldie of mine. I still haven't fully developed the idea but I hope that I'll get to make it.

Top 6 WoW comic's I'd respecc feral to see as Machinima

no.spam@gameriot.com (Whowho) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:27:05 -0400

Before I go into my article let me talk about the goings ons (The article is down there V for people that don’t like to hear about me)

So I’ve been slacking, it feels good.

In other news! The majority of my good chums in #Machinima have taken a vendetta into making me the most famous wow character ever. I approve of this! Sadly, Leeroy Jenkins will not admit that the whole whelps thing was my idea, so expect a large amount of movies showing flimsy (Yet lovable) representations of me.

In addition I am now addicted to Twitter. I have high hopes for the bird that’s twittering my tune, so please come check me out when you find the time (You’ll need a bucket of it; I’m not one to shut the heck up) So look at me here -> http://twitter.com/WhowhoMoonglare

Anywho! Time for the article.

The top 6 WoW Comics that should be adapted into Machinima.

You should be aware that the WHOLE point of top 10 lists are to be outrageously opinionated and wrong to evoke a comment from you at the bottom of the article, so keep in mind, you are completely encouraged to hate me for this list and to e-mail links to internet shock sites as long as you tell your friends about how wonderful/disgraceful I am. (On Twitter!)

This is what happens when I let one of my inspired ideas slip in #Machinima: every one badgers me until I get of my pile of twigs and make it! But I want to write this anywho as I am a real WoW comic fan. I just don’t get a chance to write reviews of comics (Again, because I’m slacking) and since we’ve seen X-Cross’s “A day in the Life” it’s been proven that wow comics can slot into wow Machinima like a sword into a dragon’s flank.

So here are the Top 6 wow comics that should be adapted into Machinima.

#6 Warcraft Legends.

This is somewhat an honorable mention as Warcraft legends is an official and professionally made collection of stories, which means it has an unfair advantage (Like Ogre sumo-wrestlers, something I want to see implemented in 4.0) but all the same it has something I look for in a Machinima: short-to the point stories, so characters driven the transports have backstories and motivations; and a respect for the Azeroth setting and lore so thick you’d think you where still playing wow.

If I were to make a Machinima series it would be Redshift meets Warcraft:Legends, and it’s not that big a task; the stories are short and sweet (Apart from the long and bitter Trag story) and I would not grow sick of watching it over and over.

#5 Ding!

This maybe nostalgia from my part, but Ding! was a punch line filled story of the most bloiting rude and dislikable Undead Warlock ever to dare call himself “Kissybear” The character was fun and surprisingly didn’t get old, and even received some development when he re-rolled horde. The humor was also cleaver and showed a quirky appreciation of WoW’s ins and outs.

Ding! died a sloppy, slow, and overall unpleasant death, which means a dash of closure would be very nice; “Kissybear: The Machinima!” would be a most welcome winter’s vale gift. All I want to see is Kissybear isolating all his friends, family, battlemasters, and generally all of mankind in the search of the tea bagging emote.

Tea bagging, bleh, such a nasty habbit.

#4 WoW Eh?

How could we say no to a WoW Eh? Machinima? How could we say anything other than “Humnima Humnima Humnima Humnima Humnima Humnima!”? The comic has shifted through various forms over the past year, but I really think at this point it just gets better and better. Cadistra spends every inch of the comic every week to poke happily at any holes that can be found in the World of Warcraft (I also hear she's a user of twitter!)

But I just can’t wrap my head around how “WoW Machinima Eh?” would work; all that animated life and energy that is put into WoW Eh’s characters would be lost in WoW’s models. Like the best of WoW Comicers, Cadistra has explored the face of Azeroth WoW doesn’t show us (Worgen using the internet, Elune lazily looking down from her cloud and just about everything Kissless manages to do in every panel)

Well if we can’t get a short WoW Machinima Eh? I will settle for (Read: Sell my soul, forsake the druidic path, and buy a hell hound as a pet) a cameo in WoW Eh?

Pleeeeeeease?

No?

Well, dreaming is a druid specialty.

#3 The Battlemasters

The Battlemasters has only seen 10 pages, but I have fallen head over raid-heals googoo gaga interested in it. Something that’s very lacking in wow’s fan comics and machinima is a serious, character driven, story that doesn’t feature them major lore figures that are always trying to steal the lime light. The Battlemasters is achieving just this! I think… it has only been 10 pages.

In other words: The Battlemasters is more or less Redshift meets Warcraft:Legends, I’m just irked it’s a comic and not a Machinima. I’d welcome a Battlemasters Machinima with more open arms than Lady Vashj (She’s the one with six arms right? Eventually I’ll run out of these wow themed similes)

#2 Dark Legacy

Goes without saying- Next!

#1 Flintlocke’s guide to Azeroth / Flintlocke vs the Horde.

Not only is it funny; well written; full of fun personalities; the perfect parody of the average wow group; and a story with one of them rare things: a final punch line, Flintlocke one and two is something so iconic to wow’s community that if “Flintlocke in a Machinima” where to get made there would not be a soul watching it that wouldn’t be able to laugh at the re-appearance of the much loved characters.

(If you’re saying “what’s Flintlocke?” right now, please keep that to yourself ^^ as that proves that I’m so out of touch with wow’s community I might as well start making things up)

The Machinima Oligopoly: 3D Animation

no.spam@gameriot.com (Giordano) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:33:46 -0400

There comes a time when even the best of machinima gets outdone by another machinima. Years ago it probably was the use of Model Viewer, then probably professional-end effects from high-end programs like After Effects. Now, its custom animation, or, 3D animation.

The definition of machinima varies from person to person and even “officially” it has a couple of differences.

Such as in Wikidictionary, it’s defined as: “The rendering of computer-generated imagery using low-end (real time) 3D engines such as those found in video games, as opposed to the high-end, complex 3D engines used by professionals.”

The popular definition from Wikipedia: “the use of real-time three-dimensional (3-D) graphics rendering engines to generate computer animation

and the basic definition from Urban Dictionary: “The art of using a pre-rendered gaming engine and making it into a film.”

It’s interesting how we went from a strictly low-engine games only definition to a broad free-for-all definition. So…which one’s the correct one?

Well, that depends who you ask. Currently, there is a schism between those in favour of 3D and those against it. Those against it will like the Wiki-dictionary definition. Those in favour of it will like the Urban Dictionary definition. The debate over the true definition of machinima (which will allow or not allow 3D animation) may continue on forever, but I want to make at least a temporary ceasefire.

The primary concern of 3D machinima is directed towards newcomers into machinima. People fear that our “industry” is advancing too fast, into the realm of Hollywood professionalism, and this will create a high entry barrier into machinima. Think of it like an oligopoly: the top four or five machinimators make a machinima with the best effects and 3D animation. Naturally, because of it’s eye candy, it’s going to be a hit. More and more people raise their viewing standards and when they see a standard edited movie (not totally newbie, but not totally well edited neither) they refuse to see it. This means the “little guy” can’t advance through the machinima world while the big players (aka “the Elite”) get all the attention.

So what can the little guys pass through the high barrier of entry? How can they break up the machinima oligopoly? They could go through a violent revolution or they could use a story and time to their advantage. That’s right, time.

The Advantages of Non 3D Animators

One major advantage anti-3D animators fail to realize is the gift of time. But first, lets talk about story. People always say stick with the story and effects won’t be a problem. That’s good and all, and I most certainly agree, but it’s like picking a girlfriend: sure she may be the smartest, well-mannered, most compatible girl you ever met, but if it got no beauty to it, it’s ain’t gonna happen. It’s a sad truth, but human beings need a somewhat attractive* mate and it’s a sad truth that a machinima needs to look somewhat good. (*standards vary).

Like standards are needed in a girlfriend, standards will be needed in a machinima. You cannot expect you can and will date every hot girl in your school/workplace, but you can guarantee someone pretty is going to be your girlfriend one way or another. Machinima needs to have a good standard of editing/effects quality to become popular; story alone won’t get you there. Imagine the best story ever told and it looked like this:

You’d probably wouldn’t of watched it in the first place or liked it. It’s like a library book: Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Okay, then why did you pick the ones you checked out? … Exactly.

The Second Advantage: Time

3D animation is way above a decent quality standard. But what they fail in is in time. Time can be used to beat the oligopoly and become a successful machinimator if you are quick enough. You see, it took Percula eight months to make Blind, a fully 100% 3D animated machinima (which totally pissed me off, too many Alliance deaths!). It’s hailed as the best machinima by some, the most over-rated machinima by others, and some don’t even consider it a machinima! No matter where you stand in the issue, 8 months to make 7 minutes of machinima is way too long. But it covered for its lengthy production time by making it 100% 3D animated.

In eight months Percula made a movie. In eight months, Oxhorn made seven. That’s a impressive comparison, 7:1. Starting with Red Snapper and Inventing Swear Words in Feburary 2006, he continued to make the Taruen Kilt and Birth of the Forsaken byMarch 2006, and finished it off with Inventing Swear Words 2, the Anti-Elf Anthem, and the 12 Days of Winter Veil in December 2006. By making several less quality (effect-wise) movies, he had an increased chanced at getting noticed. If the first one failed to break through the “newbie zone” he could make six others were as the big player only could make one.

Oxhorn could be described as an extreme example, but the logic still rests. By the time a big player makes a 3D animated movie you, as the newcomer/less experienced machinimator, can make at least a couple of good ones. You can outrun the 3D animator by making several less quality ones with a good story and decent/good editing and effects.

What if the big machinimator doesn’t purely use 3D animation, but 15% of their movie is? You still got an advantage: generally the level of custom animations is higher than the best non-3D editing and effects, which the big player will still use and it still takes more time than the standard quality to make.

Time is the advantage; so keep at it!

In the end, its not 3D animation that is killing machinima, it’s people’s attitudes.

Viewers: Don’t dismiss the machinima of newbies and lend out constructive criticism if asked.
Machinimators: If you want to become something, keep trying to advance. Don’t say “It’s arlight, lets stop.” Keep advancing. Listen to advice, ask for it too, try out new tactics, don’t think because the big players are big you can’t join them; it’s a matter of strategy (time). But most importantly, be legit: Don’t do machinima and expect to become big if you’re just doing it because you saw Arby ‘n the Chief or Tales of the Past 3 and thought it was cool. To advance you need to LOVE doing this. I think that will push you forward better than anything else can.

Thank you for reading this lengthy article; it’s been brewing inside of me for quite a while now.

-Nicolas Giordano

Chef Films

An Undiscovered Genre?

no.spam@gameriot.com (Erunno) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:01:13 -0400

No pictures and links until the Gameriot blog system is fixed!

There is a lot of talk about drama, action, music and comedy machinima. Then there are some minor genres like experimental, hybrid and silent machinima and mixed genres. But even after several years of WoW machinima there still seems like no one went with the idea I'm about to present. Sounds crazy, looks crazy and it is crazy but people watch it anyway!

Sorry for last weeks missing article but I rather skip a week than keep on throwing out horrible unthought rants that have no meaning or "message" at all.

Okay, so what has big eyes, gets you seizures and carries a 30ft long swords? Anime! Yes, I'm crazy. But stop for a moment and remove all that is wrong with Anime. Wierd cosplayers, Naruto (sorry, but I want you to die in hell), the horible dubs and cheap "repeat scenes". Well, the last thing is kinda a part of machinima.

PS: I'm not all-knowing when it comes to anime but I enjoy a good series from time to time.

It has the looks...

Okay, now that we removed all that is horrible in anime, let me explain how I see a "genre merge" as a good idea. Warcrafts graphics were never "realistic", in fact the polygon count of the games models is somewhere on the level of Quake III Arena. And that game came out in 2002 or something? Because of the low-poly count most of the visuals are relying on textures. And this gives Warcraft its catoonish look. And makes it almost a perfect engine for an anime like machinima. If the Sims can do it why can't we with our "childish" MMORPG.

Another similarity between WoW and Anime are the females. Call me silly but every female part of a species looks at least female-ish if not sexy for some standarts (I can't believe I'm writing this...). Another thing that might fall into this category are weapons, or should I say... "30ft long Claymores!" and ridiculous shoulderpads. Its huge, its silly its something that the Japanese have a fetish for by the looks of it.

Last but not least, the techniques we have available. If you ever watched an anime (mostly older. Try searching for "Slayers anime" on youtube) you might have noticed some of the cheap tricks they sometimes use. Still pictures, repeating animations and "instant movements" (No idea how the term for this is but imagine a character 1 standing and the moment some other character says something stupid character 1 changes his pose into a facepalm). All this things are really easy to re-create in warcraft machinima.

And we can easily do horrible voice acting too.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Machinimato!

So, why is there no such thing? There kinda is... AFK players use some of the "anime tricks" in their machinima. But there hasn't been any machinima that copied anime and not just took it as an inspiration. We see the occasional sweat tear or an "angry" vein on a characters head but I still wait for someone to use the classic anime expressions (most of them also used in smileys... ^ ^, >_< , -__-, °_°, :3, etc.) on the characters faces instead of leaving the generic face on.

As you might have guessed the most viable genre merge would be comedy and anime since the classic anime "events" are mostly comedic. Everything more serious would actually look like a completely normal machinima.

But why should we actually do it? To be honest, why not? We already every genre or style of filming turned into machinima version, so why not butcher cartoons too?

Critical Flaw - Live Action/Machinima Pilot

no.spam@gameriot.com (Ian Beckman) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:49:20 -0400

Come support the newest web show I directed and edited:

The short story is its about two gamers living together, discovering life with video games pretty much embedded into their minds. It's goofy and will make you laugh! Tell your friends to watch. The more you tell us you like it, we'll possibly make more!

-Ian

"Lok'tar, Warlord!" "Umm, I think so sir." "Oui, j'aime a cheeseburger."

no.spam@gameriot.com (Giordano) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:50:38 -0400

Hello, hello fellow Machinimators/machinima fans, and you're in a voice actor recruitment page!

Two characters are needed to be filled, for my upcoming machinima Trev and Eroth: Episode I - Desperate Measures. My voice acting friend and I tried to do these parts for our selves, but they sound too alike the other characters we are doing; so, I need some help. And I hope you're willing to volunteer.

An important note to know, if you try out for a part and get it, be aware these characters will appear throughout all four episodes. I'll need you again in the future, then once more again, and one last time after that.

Our first position is
Warlord Tar'lok

Warlord Tar'lok is the Secretary of Internal Military Affairs of the Horde. During the war against the Lich King, Tar'lok's job became boring; most of the Horde troops were in Northrend freezing their ***** off. But, some notable things the secretary did before the war was the crackdown of Burning Blade and Shadow Council within Orgrimmar, squad missions through Dustwallow Marsh, and the defense of the Crossroads from constant low-leveled Alliance attacks.
--
Tar'lok is a fiercesome orc warrior, bound by honor and loyalty to the Warchief. If you want to take up this part, you will need to have a strong orc voice, one showing strength but with wisdom as well.

LINES: "I can't do that... I'm loyal to Warchief Thrall and the Horde."
"Charlie...nothing is going to happen this summer. The war is still going on, the economy is in the trash... nothing's gonna happen..."

Our second position is
Charlie

Charlie is the secretary and paperworkboy for Warlord Tar'lok. He manages the Warlord's schedule and files. Unlike the Warlord, Charlie isn't a grim, strong, leader of the Horde. Rather, he is an innocent, optimistic taruen geek. While the economy is going downhill, Charlie looks at the bright side. During the chaos of war, Charlie likes to focus on other things like playing video games or browsing 4chan (which would be a contradiction of "innocence"...).
--
Charlie doesn't need to have a deep, taruen voice. Any moderate geeky-type voice will do. A voice that shows followship, not leadership; a voice that's optimistic, not pessimistic. The nerdy-ness of his voice doesn't need to be extreme, but notable.

LINES: "I have faith in our economic secretary! (He looks at the side and the secretary isn't there.) Um, where's the economic secretary?"
"Wow, sir! Maybe you should take a vacation!"

Our last position is
Nap

Bonjour from the Alliance! Nap (short for Gnomeregan's greatest hero: Napoleon Blownapart), is a corrupt Alliance government official. Showing a keen interest in the Grand Marshall candidate, Simply O, he plans to use him as a symbol of hope in dark times to get elected, and then, make him his puppet. Nap, no matter how small he is, has a grand obsession in power and wealth; but undergoes it secretly and with patience. In the end, he wins.
--
Nap is a french-accented gnome, renowned for his height as a powerful government official. He sounds somewhat innocent to the things going on, but inside he's aware of his plans. The most important factor in trying this part, is that you must have a good french accent.

LINES: "Rather, I introduce to you, monsieur, PWN Squad!" (Pronouced pown, not letter by letter.)
"We will leave you for your breakfast monsieur, and return for your inauguation in three hours."

=============================
Send any auditions (or questions) to NicolasGiordano@live.com, put it up in Megaupload and give me the link, or contact my AIM: NicolasJGiordano. Files are to be send in .mp3 or .wav preferably. There's no limit on how many characters you try out for only your skill. Thanks for reading this and hope you find at least one position interesting!

Aion machinimaking: Pros & Cons vs WoW

no.spam@gameriot.com (BaronSoosdon) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:46:29 -0400

I've been outta WoW for a while, playing Aion.

Naturally, I have been machinimaking with the game and studying what it can and can not do in terms of film making.

At the time of writing this, my highest level character is 15. I've got a lot to see in the game.

There is currently no model viewer at all, so this little comparison is based only on ingame filming.

Pros:
- The game is pretty, the models are detailed and beautiful
- There are lots of sliders to customize your character
- Emotes! The selection of emotes is a bit bigger and more diverse than WoW
- You can make machinima by yourself, but as for actors - you need to use NPCs, the talking animation of your character and the npc character keep on looping
- Just like in WoW (macros) you can bind the emotes to your buttons

Cons:
- To run the game on pretty settings, you need quite an epic PC
- The emotes can only be done when standing, ie. you can not talk while walking or sitting
- The camera. It's very a bit stiff compared to WoW, there are complaints about this
- To make a more character-filled machinima, you need people to help you (ie. body act)
- Chaining of emotes is not currently possible (unlike in WoW where you can press the buttons and emotes follow each other nicely)

Conclusion: There is potential in Aion machinima. People just need to start experimenting and learning about benefiting from the possibilities and overcoming the limitations.

I am working on an Aion machinima - it will be a mix of Unlimited Escapism and a music video. You can read more about it here: http://www.baronsoosdon.com/2009/10/my-first-aion-machinima-preview.html

So Baron took me to France

no.spam@gameriot.com (Whowho) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:04:43 -0400

[Warning, the following review is written ENTIRELY in character, the review it self is hidden in a jibber jabber of me talking about how awesome I am. You might just want to equip your soulbound socks, because this review might just blow them off!]

As soon as you hear a certain meme repeating it’s self over and over again you know you’re in for something by a certain Soosdon. [Link]

So I was enjoying my vacation, I was sitting on Darkshore’s beach one night watching the waves washing in and away, and the tranquil lights of Treldrasil twinkling in the distance. When BARONSOODON drove a BOAT onto my foot! I’m a night elf! My feet are already big enough to plant and farm parsnips on! I don’t need a boat to make them ANY BIGGER!

So I ask Baron why he was on a F**king boat, and he said that he and his flippy floppies wanted a review for his NEW machinima! So I told him that he can bugger off back to his apartment In The Mountains because I’m on holiday!

Then he managed to say (With great effort as his primitive orchish tusks kept him from talking in anything other than references and in jokes) That I’d be in the movie.

After painting Baron’s house, buying him an epic mount, and announcing him the second sexiest guy on Azeroth in thank you I walked down to his set to have not one, but FOUR cameos (One of them is very tiny, I’ll have you know that I am NOT a tiny man! I’m 8 feet tall and purple)

Baron was all “Let’s go to France!” And I was all “Oh no no no, France is full of French people, I gave the French people a bad review and now I’m perma-banned from their forums”

But baron said something about turning into gnomes or something and that’s when it became obvious to me (Because I’m smart y’know) that this wasn’t just a documentary but an adventure! The bending between documentary fact and crazy ass fiction was due to Baron being dammed cleaver about narrative, also, the Troll Voodoo stuff we ate down in the air port terminal might have had something to do with it.

On the motorbike trip Baron was talking to me in Orcish, which is a horrible language where each and every word is to do about how they killed Cenarius and how fun it was. The gits. But, remembering that time he tried to speak Darnassan to order a hot dog and it came out as “Hay! Blowing up the world tree sounds like a great idea!” It was nice to hear him talking directly to me without shame of his ugly ascent.

It was on the trip that he told me that we were going to a party for Obilith, I was relieved to hear that the event had something to do with a Machinimaster as us working together enriches our community and keeps a distance between us and the dirty riffraff that is the muggles who would get their dirty hands all over my fabulous antlers.

France it’s self was a funny place! I managed to stay there all day without giving some PvE movie guy a bad review causing him to puke in his toilet! Before I got to the party I needed to pay some people to tell me how awesome I am (As I do each morning) But! Not having any Euros I had to rob a stray gnome of his cloths, hat and 160 gold. With my ego filled I explored France to see that it was very much like home! Except with some tacky differences like that pointy tower supper glued to everywhere, I found this quite amusing and charming and really made me question what was real and what was not and what Baron had feed me that morning. Despite the visual crazyness *ahem* Le Crazyness, France felt a lot with home, more so when the homely Rickroll approached me on the street, ah I could be back in Darkshore e-mail pictures of myself to Baron for all I knew, it was nice to find something familiar in this strange new place Baron had taken me.

At the party venue it’s self I found Baron again and he was explaining to me about the event, it was very interesting! But then he stopped because he thought he might bore me and wondered over to Paris to past the time. I of course followed him so that I had someone I could ask about how wonderful I am without the need of a French phrase book. We quickly bumped into an adventure with two gnome girls that Baron asked me to film for his private Machinima collection. It was a fun event and lightened the mood greatly.

We returned to the party venue and saw Obilith there in person, and it was weird seeing him outside of the Model viewer studio: he was real, and actually had his famous purple cloths. I felt like Baron had given me an insight into the secret life of a Machinimaster. Baron pointed out all the fun things that were going on at the party and made it seem really appealing! I would certainly come again next year and join in, but Baron stopped me from playing with the gnomes because he was busy showing me snippets of his own movies, and I was happy to have an insight to his upcoming project concerning XT-002.

BECAUSE I’M GOING TO BE IN THAT MOVIE!

Then it was time for the event to end and to go back to that country that I live in. (You’re not going to find out where I live that easily) I really enjoyed the trip with Baron as I got to see him exercise the things that make him so iconic in a new and interesting way! I hear he has plans of making a second documentary some when in the far future, I hope he’ll take me with him to where ever he’s going again.

Unless it’s Aion! Blegh!

EDIT: So I got back to my log cabin on a cliff in Darkshore, only to found that Baron had posted pictures of me with a cow on the internet! I have no idea where they came from, they are obliviously fake as I am NOT smiling in them and I always look murderously handsome! I am loyal to my Kodo Dona, and as far as I am concerned this is the end of the matter.

Project Collab, part 1

no.spam@gameriot.com (Paus) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:38:23 -0400

So! We are back again! The Machinima Collab. There are more people interested in this then I Thought. Already 12 participants that want to participate!
That means, that if everyone does about 8 seconds of animation, we would have a 01:30 long Machinima! Thats already pretty great, isnt it?

A lot of people have asked me the following: "Paus, what will the song be we are gonna Machinamate?". Well, that is the wrong approach to look at this collab. A collab is mainly about the working together process. And the theme we will create out of it. Not per-se the song. It could be a part of it, but it is not necessary.

Anyway, lets get to the examples that I and some of you have come up with.

Example number 1:
Title: Like a Boss
From: The Lonely Island
Link: The Orignial

Explanation: I have picked this example because it is very easy to give a certain Machinima maker a segment of this song. Because there are a lot of individual stand alone parts that are easy and fun to make!

Segmentation: It would go like this: There is a big first part, a lot of individual segments and a big last part.
We could give a certain Machinima maker the big first segment and the last big segment. This will be done by one Machinima maker because that would be logical. Because those 2 parts need to look the same, else the audience could get confused if both parts don't play in the same setting. That means one of you (or me) would make an animation of about 20 seconds.

Now we have the middle part of the song with a lot of different segmentations. I think everyone here can choose if they want only 1 small segment or 2 segments. Also, if this song is picked out as a favorite, I will then make a list of who does what. It could be possible that you or someone else is not happy with the given part. It is up to you to arrange a trade with another unsatisfied customer. I'm not gonna ask you all at the same time what part you want, because there is a high probability that everyone will pick the same segment, and that would leave us nowhere .

The downsides of this theme: There are curse words in this theme. And knowing WoW.com, they dont like that, so it probably wouldn't be featured there. But im sure WCM, Wegame and here on Myndflame, people wouldn't mind that much.

Example number 2:
Title: Warcraft sounds
From: Blizzard, Warcraft III
Link: Warcraft sounds and Warcraft sounds 2

Explanation: There are a lot of terribly funny sound clips inside Warcraft III. From "Jaina in the morning" to "DARKNESS, called. But I was on the phone so I Missed him. I tried to *69 Darkness, but his machine picked up. I yelled "Pick up the phone Darkness!" But he ignored me . Darkness must have been screening his calls…"

Segmentation: Etc. There are A LOT of amazingly fun shorts in there. A lot of those shorts also have a connection with each other. Like the demons with phones. It's fun to have a small story connection in the movie.
Whats so great about this, is that no one in the Machinima world made a Machinima about this, yet. There are very small segments (of about 3 seconds) and very long segments ( around 45 seconds), so there is room for everybody!  This example would look a lot like Olibith's "Never stay tuned", only we didn't come up with the jokes this time. But that wouldn't make it less fun to watch!

The Downside: People may already know the jokes. That could be a downer, but reinventing them with great animation could make it much more cooler and alive!

Anyway, watch the link above. If we go for this example, there would be enough material everyone can be happy with.

--

So. What do you guys thing? The main question is, which idea do you like the most? Or you think they both suck?

Vote now for the best idea in the comments:

If you like example number 1, type: LIKE A BOSS!
If you like example number 2, type: WARCRAFT SOUNDS!
If you like neither of the 2 examples, type: THEY SUCK!

The example with the most votes will be chosen. And you will have to participate, even if you don't like one example as much as the other. If you really don't like both idea's, don't like them enough making you not want to participate anymore, send me an email or hit me up on mIRC.

I think most will like 'em though

--

In a few days, when it seems like everyone who wanted to vote, has voted, I'll then make another blog, writing in detail what needs to be done for this particular video. So stay tuned!

One more thing. If you aren't on the contribution list, and you still want to be, well, it is possible. You just have to wait a few days before we know if we can let you in. For example: There are only a limited amount of contributors needed for the short "Like a Boss". But for Warcraft Sounds, there's a lot of room for more contributors. Just wait it out

Second thing. I made a bio of every contributor so far.

Lets get to know our contributors a little bit better:

Paus
Mushanga
Wello
Farinar
Origano
Bonkey
RedEyeLobine
Irdeen
Erunno
Giordano
Diddle
Ollgabopi

Shows we hava a lot of talent in our team!

This should be great!

--------

The Votes

Like a Boss: 2
Warcraft sounds: 5
THEY SUCK!: 0

WoW Machinima Collab!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Paus) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:38:51 -0400

It is time for a new era in Machinima. And its called a Collab.

Defenition:   "Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor"

I guess it looks a lot like Olibith's "Never stay tuned" movies. But this Collab I want to create with you goes a bit different.   We use 1 song with a certain theme. This song will be segmented in more parts. (So lets say, we have 10 Machinima artists who would like to contribute, we would have all 12 seconds of animation with a song that takes 2 minutes). Or, if we have song that includes a lot of meaningful lyrics, we could segment the lyrics and give it to a Machinima artist who can animate it.

Lets make it a bit clearer. Pretend that, we as a group, have chosen the song "Rick Astley - Never gonna give you up". And there are 10 Machinima artists who have made a chronological segment, then I will fit those pieces back together so that we have a full blown animated Rick Astley Machinima song in the most creative way ever conceived!

Another example. We could use a song without any lyrics, but set the theme to "Lets kill Whowho in as many ways as possible". We then segment the song in different segments and send out the assignment to our Creative Machinima Artists of Awesomness (CMAoA).  And whats best is, this takes almost no effort to make. It is a group proces. I mean, making about 8 - 16 sec of animation, "how hard can it be?". And the result is an awesome full blown Machinima movie where you can be proud of!

Exactly!

So sign up now! Let our combined Creativity of Awesomness be known to the world. We shall star and shine on WCM, Wegame, WoW.com, Myndflame and im sure other Awesome websites.

This is just a wake-up call. In my next blog post we shall announce the people who are gonna contribute and the song and theme we shall use. But be quick, there is a limit to Machinima artists who can join (Unless it would be fun to have over 120 Machinima artists to make each a 1 second segment of animation for a 2 minute song).

Some other rules:
- Anyone can join!
- You have 1 month to create the animation.
- You must put your name somewhere on the screen during the whole animation so the audience knows who made it.
- Stay true to the theme that we are gonna set up.
- Send me the file in .mov .wmv .mpeg etc. It's all good. But I'd rather have it in .mov.
- You can use sound effects in your file. Don't put any music under the video.
- The resolution of the segment must be 1280x720 (720P)

If you have a suggestion or idea on what type of Collab we should make with what song, just reply to this blog.

If you want to participate you can hit me up on mIRC in #Machinima (Talk to Paus) or mail me on wklopping@gmail.com.

---The Awesome List of Contributors---
Paus
Mushanga
Wello
Farinar
Origano
Bonkey
RedEyeLobine
Irdeen
Erunno
Giordano
Diddle
Ollgabopi

Adventures of Puff & Lilpuff - Episode 9

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:09:48 -0400

Lilpuff wins a popularity poll on Myndflame.com winning the bet against Puff so Lilpuff chooses an insane way of destroying Puff's record player.

Dragonized Origin

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kalshnutz) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:35:51 -0400

So, Bioware released their Character Creation earlier today for their upcoming game Dragon Age: Origins(HERE is a link for those who have missed it), and of course, me being interested in the game just had to try it out, and it left me amazed, "It's actually pretty much like the Character Creation in Oblivion!". What that means is, I'm going to have a hard time actually creating a character that doesn't look like a giant freak, so I'm real glad that they actually released this before the release of the game, now I have lots of time to fine tune my character.

It will be great fun to play Dragon Age when it's released now the 5th of September for us Europeans, you lot who live in the US and A will enjoy it two days ahead of us.

Onto another topic, as you can see above, it's about the newly released Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

As a first word, I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by Dragon Rising when I first played it. It's certainly not the game I expected, and neither is it the game it should be, with the "Operation Flashpoint" title in it.

To start with, the menu is as flashy as ever when Codemaster started with the cool looking menus' back when they released Colin Mcrae: DiRT. It shows the grittiness of war in the background with the dark shadows of soldiers and the ever moving smoke, even the theme in the menu is sad, I don't know where it comes from, but all I know is that it's folk music, most probably a Chinese one. You can listen too it here below.

So, onto the actual gameplay. Dragon Rising aims itself towards a more mature audience with it's gritty feel. War, is dirty and dangerous. One bullet can kill you... But there is also a flaw in this, sure, one bullet can kill you... as long as it hits you in the head, which is a very small chance of actually hitting, unless you play hardcore mode, which disables all hud and makes the enemy aim a tad bit better.

While your enemy is good at aiming the gun at you but they could use some better help at actually aiming the sight on you, since 3 enemies can spew bullets at you, but not actually hit unless you're less than 20 meters from them, that's when they start spraying and have a better chance at hitting.

You, yourself also need to be an awesome hitter, unless you want to waste loads of bullets, since by any reason an enemy can take 4-5 bullets to the body until he goes down, sometimes dying, sometimes in a incapacitated mode, in which he's lying on the ground screaming and can get revived by the magical needle which removes all wounds. The funny thing here is, the enemy, and your teammates can get revived like this, but you yourself can't.

Still, when you get into a firefight, it can get really intense really fast.

For instance, I was doing a mission where I needed to rescue downed friendly pilots, while it didn't happen that much when I was actually looking for the pilots, but after I found them in a village rather far from where I started to search, it got really intense, with enemy airborne units got flown in with transport helicopters and enemy cars pounding me with machine guns.

Intense, and fun, that's the way I like it.

In the end, Dragon Rising is a really good game, it's sad that Codemasters slapped "Operation Flashpoint" on there and called in a sequel just to gain more attention and more buyers for the game when they could've just stayed with "Dragon Rising" or come up with a better name.

Still, I'd recommend this game for anyone who likes mainstream, arcade-ish games, with a touch of realism.

Battlefield: Lag Company

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kalshnutz) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:38:00 -0400

So.. I'll try this Blog thing out. What to blog about? Well, I wont rant about my everyday horrible daily life. So I'll rant about my everyday horrible daily gaming instead. So here's what happened today.

I figured that it was time to play Battlefield: Bad Company earlier today. Bad Company, for the Playstation 3, yes I know I own a PS3 but not a 360. Either way, I did as normal, joined a random Gold Rush server. And it's here, as I get into the server, I notice something wrong. I must have, somehow joined one of EA's American server.

I know you can't check pings or anything, but the lag was horrible, it's comparable to having 5K latency while playing WoW.

I could hardly shoot anyone, so I hard to rely on people standing still to actually get in a shoot on someone, and when I stopped walking or running, I would always be "dragged" backwards a meter or so, and lastly, it was almost impossible to change weapon or gear. If I wanted to change to the pistol (I was playing Recon the entire match) I would have so swap it 4-5 to actually get it up, highly annoying.

Here comes the fun part, in the end, I ended up as Most Wanted Player, with a 100 points more than the second Most Wanted Player. I also earned several new awards, including Recon silver and gold patch. So this laggy server ended up being the good part of the whole session.

So then, that's all for today, it's half past 11 here now, so I'll get of and get a good nights sleep.

Also, I'll try and get a better header as fast as I can get my arse up to install Photoshop again.

Ulduar By Jack By Jack. (Update x1)

no.spam@gameriot.com (Whowho) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:22:14 -0400

Movie link!

Yep, that’s the tile on WarCraft Movies ^^ you can’t blame Jack for making sure his name goes onto it, there’s a never weave sack of Uldaur movies, some of which have Cranius raping- err, rapping in them!

Anywho! This is a PvE movie! Which means it has not place on Myndflame what so ever, but it still deserves an article as it’s a PvE movie that I like. Now I like many things: Long walks on the beach; running through enemy cities on a kodo mount naked; pestering Machinimasters for hours on end for cameos/interviews/comments on my reviews/pictures/home addresses, but I rarely feel a PvE movie can engage me in any way other than that sad sinking feeling you get when you fall into a bottomless pit. (In Memoriam: Retubution) but Jack seems to pull it off.

The older stuff that looks like this!

Burning Crusade The Movie (By Jack) was the first PvE movie that I actually really enjoyed. Jack presented the trip through T5 and T6 not only through truly epic editing and music work but with a general sense of a grueling journey. We followed ManThrall and NelfAkama through the bleak Outland landscapes and dungeons and it all lead towards Both Illidan and ManThrall’s deaths. Just like real raiding!

There was a story, but it was kept loose and easily ignored, it was only there to make the encounters more intense and real. (Which is he complete opposite of what I normally go for in a Machinima, but if the explosions are meaningful I’ll gladly enjoy them)

I wasn’t all that impressed with the sunwell adaption’s (Infact there were a few PVE Sunwell videos with a Jack feel to them, good thing to, Jack knows what he’s doing and is a good guy to look up to) So I looked towards the inevitable Uldaur movie with hopeful glowing eyes.

Voice Actors! There's two of them!

The most notable thing about Ulduar By Jack By Jack compared to The Burning Crusade The Movie is that Jack has made use of his own voice actors! Which, seems like both a good thing and a bad thing. Firstly we are spared having to have Major Lore Figures crammed into the bodies of us mere mortals, and Jack has more freedom with what he can have his characters say, I looked forward to dramatic conversations with raid bosses. But a big scary thought is that: Jack speaks French, I speak English, will all the great lines be lost in the translation?

I’m really not certain; I just can’t make up my tiny elvish mind about whether I like the voice acting as a whole. I liked Christopher M. Grant; Christopher M. Grant filled the dramatic role of the raid leader realy well! Sounding both intellectual and dramatic at times. I did not like Genna A. Bain, she’s got a lovely voice, but the soft genital soothing smoothie that is her voice just doesn’t fit when a 20 foot tall mechanical 3 year old is smashing you for play time.

The divide between the two voice actors is widened by the strange way that Christopher get all the really good lines and Genna all the really bad ones. “Biggest” “Huge” “Strange” “Size” The way her character talks is very flat, and her introductory narration to the movie is the weakest part to it I think. But then Christopher says “Is every one ready?” And I practically burst out of my chair! But then sat down very quickly when Genna said “I am.”

“We can bring the beast down, and put the beast down!” Is a great line, it just puzzles me how Christopher’s character is written so well but Genna’s isn’t. By the time Genna got to say “After winter, comes spring!” I just said yuck and ignored her completely from that point on. But both the characters are over shadowed by the hilarious Brann as him self. Jack had a great library of Brann sound files to work with and he made him perfectly cheesy as the comic relief of the movie. While Christopher held the pep talks Brann held the dramatic banter with the raid bosses and it worked so well! Still Jack does make good use of his voice actors and the little bits where they try to figure out what to do before each fight was nice, although was a tad short of epic at times.

The fights themselves!

Jack perfected the presentation of the boss fight long ago; his editing his shots the directing but most of all the sound of the fight. Jack makes great choices in music that set the tone of the fight, be it victory or despair, but he also links it to the movement of the fight, the boss slams the ground and the drums start playing, the music goes quiet just as the boos utters it’s iconic line. Maybe it’s all coincidence. I am very glad that he’s moved away from the comic book like over blown footage he cut into his Sunwell movie, sure it’s fun to see flying mages turning pit lords into dust, but it just chucks a Kodo sized spanner into the movie. It’s The Tale Of The Past syndrome of turning your characters into super heroes, I’m glad he went back to his Burning Crusade ways.

Over all the only thing Jack did wrong with this was Gemma’s character. But I still think Jack can go further; as it rarely felt in the movie that the Characters where ever actually going any where, dramatically or emotionally. Not that they should be going anywhere far emotionally: This is a raid video and an emotional storyline will do nothing but give it multiple personalities disorder. But there still needs more over arching presences, a stronger build up to the final encounters and a change in the characters; Yogg-saron is meant to be messing with our raiders minds but not much attention is given to it in the first half. The second half was good, what with all the working towards entering the big boss room, it kept it in the forefront of our minds, but it was all exposition, in the end I just wanted ominous silent shots of the big scary door.

I would certainly expect a kick ass Icecrown movie from Jack once 3.3 is here (Or possibly 4.0, these things take time) I would also hope that Christopher M. Grant to stay with the guild and a focus on Magni, Varien, Tirion, Morgrain and Jaina (They will be no substitutes for Brann though) but most of all in Icecrown I want a big fat build up to the Lich King. The whole of Wrath has been leading up to that battle and so should Jack’s Icecrown movie I’d say. I would even go so far as to suggesting the 5 mans get a look in, as apparently we’ll be seeing old Lichy in that as well.

Should the characters have an emotional commitment to killing Lichy? It would be nice and help that build off and have a nice pay off at the climax of the film, but the revenge story is just so cliché now. If Jack tries it he should think of something original, like his character wanting to kill Arthas because he’s a great big Thrall/Jaina shipper.

On a side note: There Was No In The Mountains Reference In The Entire Movie!! Jack SERIOUSLY dropped that ball on that one.

UPDATE EDIT!

After talking Gemma, or Intricacy as we all know her, she's informed me that her and Chris have both signed up for the next movie! Which is good to know. She also agreed with me on the subject of her part being poorly written, or more so translated, saying that for Icecrown: "Hopefully I can have a word with them about the script"

I feel really smug right now about getting a mini interview ^^ Sure it's because she thought I was calling her a bad VA, but I'll take what I can get.

A Plethora of... Nothing

no.spam@gameriot.com (Erunno) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:14:10 -0400

You don't get it? Click the picture...

Erunno was a lazy bastad this week and did no research. Therefore he brings you the power of randomness and throws out some small rants which wouldn't get big enough for a stand alone article anyway.

Weeks are too short once you're studying again... All I did this week regarding machinima was checking if theres anything new on Myndflame and watching some random TF shorts that got linked to me. But the show must go on... However I'm asking myself for who I'm actually making the show.

Hallowe... wut? Erm, Horror Machinima

Now theres a "holiday" that the West commercialized to it's maximum. Half of Europe seems to "celebrate" it (though I don't know if they also run around as Powerpuff Girls and demand candy from house to house). My parts of Europe don't get the holiday (thank god) and keep to our traditional ways of celebrating... Setting piles of wood on fire and drinking red wine (or cviček, if someone is a wine knower).

Um, what? Oh right, machinima. Together with Halloween come the horror movies and machinima is not immune to it... Only problem is that I'm normally WTFing instead of being "scared" when watching them. The only movie that (in my opinion) is entitled to call itself a horror machinima are The Orchard and one other that I can't remember the name of... It involved a girl eating a man. Yeah I know, I'm horrible.

Anyway, my point is; WoW isn't really the best game to create horror movies. At least not the classic "boo" movies. Horror movies that seemed to work always had a psychological aspect to it. You do not scare people by making them see scary things, you make them afraid of the unknown. Not the visuals should be scary but the audio, the story. Something thats so f-ed up that you can only sit there and think "His father, did what? His daughter?! Into the chimney?!?!" The most effective way to scare people is to make them realize that they're not safe even behind their own four walls. And I heard that small children can be freaky as hell too. Except Orc children, they're just silly.

But Halloween also brings some entertaining comedy shorts, or remakes of "popular" Halloween songs... Best if you check out Myndflames Halloween Machinima You Should Know.

Rocking out Machinima

Okay, I lied at the beggining. Ths topic might get some more attention in the future.
Music is a vital factor in movies. It mostly sets the paste, range of emotions and takes care of the atmosphere. Many machinimators (including me, for now) use the WoW music and other orchestral scores. In the drama category at least. Comedy and, um, music videos use a completely different pool of music. From Techno, Polka and Emo metal (harhar) to retro game music (hell yeah). The qustion some people are asking themselves is "is it good that machinima uses music that doesn't fits the world?"

First off, Azeroth has his own Trash Metal band *a group of neck beard readers yell "Heavy f*ucking Metal! Woooooooo!"*, second; Azeroth is based in a steampunk-like universe. We've got tanks and airplanes! Why not have Gnomish techno music? And third; It's machinima and not a Lore documentary.

Original warcraft music adds to the immersion in a way, but at the same time it gets dull after you've heard the same range of music in the fifth machinima today. It's the same with the rest of the music. But after hearing Linkin Park for the 25th time in a newcommers machinima, all you can do is facepalm and get some Aspirin.

Machinimators have the right to do whatever they feel is best for their work. If they think that a bass guitar solo riff is better than the Song of Elune, great. If they've rather play ZZtop in the background than the Stormwind intro, more power to them.

I'm still waiting for a machinima using nothing but David Bowie music (yup, I live in the 70's and 80's. Thank my father for that).

Whowho, statistics and completely irrelevant rants

Some of you might have read it, Whowho is making a pause in blogging. I knew this would happen since he seemed like he was on speed when talking about articles. But now with Whowho gone we have no one to write machinima reviews with a spoon of grammar errors... I hope Farinar can cover that, or I will be forced to write that... And I'm a bastad when it comes to reviewing other peoples stuff. Anyway, hope you get back soon Whowho.

Statistics! That's a fun thing (and a subject I have to learn. Woooo... *sigh*). This blog is connected to Google Analytics and its really fun to watch stuff like where my readers come from. This way I know that I can't make any Croatia jokes and that I have Ozzies reading my blog (Ozzy, ozzy, ozzy! Oy, oy, oy!). And France is slacking. Guess I can compensate the Croatian jokes with jokes about French then.

Also, if you for some reason like this rants, feel free to subsrcibe or maybe even donate a few cents for encouragement via. Paypal to verya_atan@msn.com. Sounds like a cheap way to get money, and it is. But I'd like to see if blogging (and machinimating) can actually help me fund my study to some extend. Or I'll be forced to alphabetically arrange papers for a company. And this means less Erunno for the internetz.

Halloween Machinima You Should Know

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:13:05 -0400

Each year the Machinima community celebrates their favorite holidays, and Halloween is no exception! Many of the top producers have submitted short stories including our own in-house collaboration, "A Hallow's End Special" with voices from Drewbie, Macheath, Oxhorn, Ian Beckman, Jesse Cox, Candace Holly, and Matt Greenberg.

Myndflame's A Hallow's End Special

For more great Halloween movies, check these out!

Keep up the great work guys, and have a Happy Halloween!

SGAV: Preview Poster

no.spam@gameriot.com (BaronSoosdon) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:10:43 -0400

I got invited to a gnomish RP-event in a French RP realm, thanks to Olibith!

So I filmed this documentary about it.. (it's still in the making).

Facts:
- it has Whowho in it
- it will be narrated in Finnish (by me)

Think before you add People on MSN (extersise)

no.spam@gameriot.com (Mrbayn) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:50:58 -0400

Irdeen and I we're Chattin' (about Girls OFC) but then all of a sudden Irdeen said that some guy added him and that he wants to work with him.
I asked what he made, i dunno maybe its Baron Soosdon or what, "Zvi productions" Irdeen Said.

I decided to Google it, and i found a huge Camera team, Hum looks good, Untill Irdeen linked me his youtube Channel. what i saw then didnt fit with the things i had seen on Google. I watched some little parts of his vids and it made me laugh a bit, not that i whas good but i saw some typical things, he didnt know about Keying and Otherstuff. it made me feel a bit sorry. Poor kid.

Don't think im a big guy or what, no, im new in machinima and i just really like to talk with people who are into it, trying to learn, At some point added him on MSN. He asked me to work with him.

The things he told me was reather odd. it Scared me!! I have read things that you wont suspect from a 12 year old, and my little hearth broke, he lie'd just to get into machinima, soon i found out that Irdeen got a bit pissed, wich i totally understand, a 12 year old telling you that he got laid by a 18 year old (with really gross details!) and much and much lies he told me.

I Asked him to stop lie'ing and he went offline. 3 days later he whas totally out of machinima, He is going to HTML, asked people if they can make a HTML Portal (a bit like Myndflame and Wegame, A site where you can upload Vids and pics) for 200 bucks, Im sorry but it made me ROFL very hard.

Kiddo, if you read this stick to one project.

Succes,

Mrbayn

Little kid in the big machinima world.

The Last Machinima Gaga article.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Whowho) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:39:41 -0400

…for a while.

I’ve been in a state, missing deadlines, releasing articles with out screenshots I’ve scrawled over with MS paint; booting up the internet and then not instantly logging into #Machinima; I don’t even watch all the movies uploaded to Warcraft Movies under Machinima anymore, just the rated stuff! If I didn’t keep my antlers so immaculate wouldn’t recognize my self in the mirror.

But I’ll be dirty dirty gnome before I let my blog fizzle out, I’m going out with a bang! Hopefully one with so much bang that I get over my burn out and have an article ready for Thursday! So, y’know, when I say for a while, I mean a month tops.

…or maybe a day if Paus figures out my true identity and arrives at my door stop with the thumb screws.

So here’s the bang I’m going out on! The Article I’ve always wanted to write!

WHY REDSHIFT IS BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU PUT TOGETHER!!!

And here’s the article I’m ACTUALLY writing for today:

The Gnome Chewer Collection!

Gnome Chewer is the personality in the Machinima community that knows how to get the most out of WoW.exe files. Gnome Chewer can make characters alive in ways we’d never expect someone to, and through that create some truly memorable works.

And some works that are just bloiting rubbish, but we quickly forget about them.

And as Gnome Chewer is back after his long absence this is the perfect occasion for a silly long article.

Humble Beginnings

The collection starts with the humble beginning of February 2007, so we can feel sorry for the author for struggling at first so we don’t hate him at the end of the collection for being a smart arse.

Gnome Chewer started where anyone else would: Taking audio from movies, trailers, commercials, and putting a WoW visual to it. His first movie, Men In Black 2 was such so same old that it could have fit into the Same Old Machinima Home For The Elderly, and his two next movies GEICO and Teen Witch Rap looked like more of them same same old normal machinima, but did have hints of the trade marks that would later make Gnome Chewer very identifiable.

Unlike MIB2 Gnomechewer put the wow people into the modern world, and most of all put up Modle Viewer Made Posters, seeing a blood elf sitting in first class is a tantalizing glimpse at what’s to come from gnome chewer. In Teen Witch Rap he again does something generic, but for some reason that is beyond mere mortals and sober people he added an extra layer by turning it into a VCR video. In retro spec it should have been obvious that Gnome Chewer has a thirst for giving media a presence in his… media.

A mind blowing wrench in the machine

Then, up and down the internet, minds were blown: In Memoriam Northwatch Hold. Literally, brains splattered on walls, PC monitors got all gookie. What? You didn’t hear about this? If it happened why wasn’t it on the news? Because every news channel producer in the world was a fan of machinima, the entire race was wiped out for a day and THAT is why you didn’t hear about this movie killing millions of people with its awesome-ness.

Okay, so that’s a wincy bit of a hyperbole.

But the movie really grabbed the community’s attention. I still think to this day that Gnome Chewer produced the most striking opening ever given to a Machinima by making the opening look like a bucket of rubbish. And it’s just so cleaver: At the beginning we can see the jittery fraps work, the names over the characters and clumbsy fades to title screens that plagued the low quality Machinima of the time. Watching this opening the viewer has no doubt that was she or he is looking at is a group of players playing world of warcraft.

But then it all dissolves. We see a lone guard stumble upon the carnage that we, the players, have put on northwatch. He stands there in shock with his back exposed for 13 seconds. Gnome Chewer knows what’s going to happen, we know what’s going to happen, heck, even Illidan could have seen these coming and he managed to get betrayed by every living being he ever met.

Gnome chewer holds the moment and lets the music, oh sweet elune the music! fade over the image of the dyeing man at rest, and he is pulled upright into the body of his living self. In that moment the game has gone, no more task bars, no more fraps, no more guild names with typos. We’re now in Azeroth. We’re shown all these photos and documents that Gnome Chewer created from scratch to show this man’s life in a completely new way, and well done! The photos and documents are all that’s left of this man now, and in the actual game these things don’t even exist. It’s really powerful to see both Azeroth and the Guard being expanded on in this striking visual way.

I say Machinima is the art of coupling the familiar with the alien, this is exactly what I mean.

I could say the memorable devolve from fraps to something more symbolizes Gnoemchewers change into some one who goes far beyond the norm, but that’s not really true, he never truly leaves the poorly made frapsed opening as he never feels the need to use voice actors or scripts, although he claims this is because he sand every one he’s ever met sounds like a maul with a cold I think it’s because he’s found his footing in this style of Machinima. A footing so firm he could build a theme park on it.

Odd Things!

There wasn’t really a massive follow through of uber Machinima, before Gnome Chewer’s next Big Block Buster he toyed with things as all artists must. The movies where by no means perfect, or some not even good, but they are all oddly memorable.

The last action crusader was just a fun joke, but did show Gnome chewer’s fascination with the scarlet crusade for the first time. The shaman video is just, really odd. But I think that’s the point, it’s just a shame it isn’t a good point. All the same it explores and expresses a culture in wow, in much the same way Northwatch explored the NPCs of Northwatch, (something he will do a lot of) these are shamans. Shamans are weird.

The Unjoy of Death is nice, sweet. It also seems like a continuation of Northwatch, but a good one. Thanks to Gnome Chewer’s soon to be loved crazytalk, a ghost of a man laments the unjoys of death by possessing other dead things that still remain. Pictures of him self, statues, and also nature: the grass, the sky. Poetic.

RIGHT! Good stuff again!

Gnomechewer created a kick ass warcraft war movie about kicking warcraft ass in time for 2007’s Christmas! Action! Blood! (Gnome chewer loves blood, and because of this movie I love that he loves blood) All war movies need the cliché war marines that are uniform yet absolute bad-***** with opinions and back stories that are all exactly the same! But Gnomechewer sticks to his no voice acting policy and instead gives us the bad-ass marines in his own way. The best part of the movie in my opinion is when we see the dwarf pilot’s locker. If you’re asking your self what is the Gnome Chewer flavor? It is a dwarf’s locker with a poster signed by Gimli: Gnome Chewer’s art within Machinima. Horde Kills scratched into the metal of flying machines; writing inspirational messaged with draenei blood, a poster behind Warcheif Thrall’s throne Promoting, Warchief Thrall.

Trivia: We see a hall way walk that’s almost identical to the GIECO advert and a small hint at a future movie with a please stand by screen displayed.

It’s a romp in Gnomechewer’s unique presentation of Azeroth!

Less testosterone filled is The Crimson Sisters Of The Scarlet Flame which shows Gnome chewer diving into an exploration of the scarlet crusade with a little inspiration from Warhammer 40K. Gnome chewer uses his grainy old movie look, which almost makes it feel like this Machinima is a documentary or a political film within Azeroth. With the aid of his grainy camera and red colour pallet Gnome chewer takes a real good look at the zealot feel of the scarlet crusade, which he’s perfect for: He can make promotional posters, zealots love promotional posters. Horray! Gnome Chewer draws out the film, giving it a slow feel which is both a blessing and a curse to the Machinima.

Gnome Chewer dose say that this is one of his “What if” Machinimas, but it does seem to hit the nail on the head with the hammer that never lies. Sure the scarlet crusade isn’t all female, but other than that it’s true, the Warhammer 40K reverences aren’t there because Gnome chewer’s lazy, they’re there because it’s a good parallel.

Ballard of the Blood sail is like The Crimson Sisters, but completely different. Not only has it got a completely different subject, it has a different tone and presentation. Gnome Chewer explores the blood sails and the steamwheel cartel in much the same way he did for the Scarlet Crusade (Y’know, gore n’ stuff) but he goes about it completely differently: this is a harsh pirate tale of pirate life (Most of Pirate Life consists of Pirate Death) Confiding it to a comic book was such an original and bizarre idea; although the life of the blood sail is fun with all the bar wenches and pillaging, it’s not very comic when you get caught and hung. Gnome Chewer has a fun sense of humor ^^

Standing in the way of control is a machinima that from its release has really been stuck in my head. For some reason I remember Moo-money’s Movie Watch article on it too, weird huh? I like it not just because it is something that it so different visually, but because it’s a celebration of us! The common adventurer that saves the day on a daily basis. Gnome Chewer addresses us in much the same way he did in Northwatch, but this is a happy happy thing was you let the music and art and action remind you of how awesome you are at saving the world.

(Unless you count that time you killed that innocent person in Dragon Blight or brought the most evil being from military history back to life in shadowmoon valley)

Addressing the common wow player and saying “OI! This is you!” is just a great thing I just don’t know why more people don’t try to do it.

Cookies 4 u is nice. Lower city gets the Gnome Chewer attention. Alliance and horde getting along, world peace in lower city, woo!

Trivia: We see Gnomechewer’s fascination with Keal’thas for the first time, and more hints towards his Pilgrims plight film. Also, space Dwarf is never seen again.

(Notice as I get later into Sunday night my review get shorter?)

The Best Gnome Chewer Movies!

…are conveniently both made in the summer of 2008 (This is all in chronological order by the way) First of is one of the absolute Gnome Chewer Classics:

There Will Be Cannibalism. Gnome Chewer’s gore potential is realized as he has Forsaken chewing on a captive; not only that but Gnome Chewer’s internal media (posters n’ stuff) takes a second step as he makes puppets! We know there must be puppets in wow, has blizzard bothered to show us any? No! Gnome Chewer goes the extra mile. Not only does he show us a media with in Azeroth we’ve not seen enough of before, he shows us an aspect of a culture we’ve not seen before: Forsaken being bloiting evil and having sadist fun as they eat their captive. Gnome Chewer can touch upon things Bizzard just can’t, and because of it he’s managed to sum up the Forsaken race to a T in just one Machinima.

Oh! And isn’t the music good? It will ruin your mind trying to figure out where you’ve heard it from you know. That’s the beauty of the perverce tune to the perverce content, Notice how Gnome Chewer pretends to have removed even gorier scenes? It all so evil the video quality it’s self seems to have decayed! Love Gnome Chewer work. I want that Scarlet Crusade poster on my wall.

The Best Ever Gnome Chewer Movie:

Is gone.

Sorry! Copy write and all that, it got pulled down.

…

What?

You’re still here?

…

Okay-Okay, just because you’re such good readers, I did some searching and found a site that still had it: http://vimeo.com/1215719 You better leave a constructive comment after this!

Okay so it’s Vimeo and didn’t take much searching but it was a goodly 5 minutes. Time is Money and Money is limited edition Whowho action figures!

Back In Your Head!

It’s post modern Azeroth! The media, the face book pages, the internet! Azeroth’s internet! Photo booth pictures! Photographs! Videos! Gnome chewer when full out and showed us Jaina’s relationships not only in a completely new and original way (How many times do I have to say original before it seems run of the mill?) but also stunningly well. The song isn’t that good, but the video shows us in silent dignity the troubles the characters go through, and we don’t even need to see a lot of it: We don’t see all the gossip and scandal we associate with today’s high profile relationships, but show us a magazine with a picture and quote on it and there you go!

Gnome Chewer en-riches his settings with more than action. Gnome Chewer’s characters leave their marks, and the marks alone speak louder than any voice actor could (You’d damage the microphone for one thing)

I could give Gnome Chewer my opinion on what will help him make a good machinima (He wasn’t lying on his recent return when he said he was rusty) but really all he needs to do is sit down, level an alt and see what parts of the game interest him enough to expand. In fact any Machinimator could do it, just ask your self what parts of Azeroth exist but aren’t shown to you by Bizzard.

BROTHELS DON’T COUNT BONKEY!

... but if you really want an idea: Ugly Keal'thas stalking an unknowing Jaina whist singing this. It's just, creepy; Ugly Keal'thas creepy.

Yeah, I know I’m only half way through his movies (His good movies, you should see the things I’ve skipped) But this is already the 5^th page! Right, this is certainly a big enough bang (Blowing up the world tree? Hmmm, maybe next time I take a brake) I’m going to hop on my epic mount and spend a holiday in Booty Bay and enjoy the fruits of this year’s Brewfest for a while, keep the Machinima community warm whilst I’m gone!

(Notice that out of all my articles it wasn't until the first last article that I finally figured out how to use the Myndflame head line colours ^^ I was just having waay too much fun to notice!)

There is no unmute button!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Erunno) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:54:44 -0400

I told you there was no button!

There is a lot of people in the world. There is also a lot of people on the internet. A lot of those internet people are gamers, and many gamers also watch machinima or videos related to the games they like (Frag, PvP, PvE, exploit movies and so on...). But what people don't think about is that there are gamers in the world who do not have the advantage of hearing or seeing stuff as they should. I'm talking about disabilities that affect certain gamers and machinima viewers.

Todays topic is one of the more difficult ones. Before I continue I want to assure you that I do not want to insult anyone. Theres a lot of talk about being 'politically correct' but to be honest I do not really understand that democracy crap... And English is not my first language either.

But I will still try and present you the issue in a more 'entertaining' way... I doubt you're here for serious stuff and charts.

Silence of the Lambs

The first disability that is of interest to machinmators is obviously hearing impairment or deafness. Let's refresh our mind and remember that machinima uses already present resources from games. In our case, we use the same emotions all the time. Characters cannot lip sync with the text, unless we use Crazytalk or any other puppeteering software to move lips. Because of this deaf people cannot hear the conversations and audio events (mr. obvious...), nor can they read from the characters lips.

To research the issue a bit more, I've managed to find a few deaf person who watch machinima and had a little chat with him. What they noticed the most is the decrease of subtitles during the past few years. While the visual and audio look of machinima advances, the subtitles disappeared, possibly since they affected the overall video quality of the film.

When asked about body language it was pointed out that even though the emotions repeat themself, the mahinimators still manage to capture feelings in certain cases. Of course they also say that it can sometimes be really difficult to understand some emotions since the emotion might have been triggered by an audio event. An issue are also characters who talk with their backs pointed towards the viewer, making it even harder to connect the subtitles with a character.

Overall the WoW machinima comminuty is not such a bad place for hearing impaired. There are quite a few really good silent machinima and some machinimators even provide scripts and subtitled versions just for them.

However theres still quite a few things that can be done. For the start, many more machinimators could release their 'voice acting scripts' or perhaps even release a subtitle file together with the release of the movie. Another thing that can be done in the subtitles themself is connecting the text with the character (example: Orc: -I think we have a problem. Troll: -Oh really...? ) or even pointing out audio events ( *A big explosion is heard in the distance*).

Or we could just add Gnomes who do sign language in one of the corners.

The Official Gnomish Sign Language... This one stands for "What the f*ck?!"

Every movie is a Noir movie

Another disability that is present in our viewership is colourblindness. While generally not a big issue (except that there are colours missing), being colourblind does not interfere with machinima that much.

Until we reach the abstract machinima and colour filters. The use of extreme colour changes and/or the colour aspect of the visual just screwing up with you can sometimes cuase trouble to colourblind people. Too dark or too bright colour schemes can also sometimes be a problem.

However I was assured that WoW machinima in particular doesn't has any big issues since the style that the game itself uses is quite friendly to colourblindness. So in the end, there are no real problems regarding this...

Space for improvement

Back to hearing impairment. The biggest issue currently is the lack of subtitles. But this is one of the easiest things that we could master.

Not only that we can make machinima more attractive to deaf people, we can also create subtitles for the non-English audience with ease. Sites like WarcraftMovies, Machinima.com or perhaps even Myndflame could add a subtitle archive open to contributions and additions like real movies have. People could easily access or add subtitles for various languages (why only have English subtitles if fans would be eager to add Danish, German, Russian, Chinese... ). Then a viewer would just need to download the subtitles he wishes to have and open it together with the movie in RealPlayer or VLC Player. Perhaps the streaming sites could even add youtubes annotation system, but to use it for subtitles.

Yes, theres not a lot of talk about such disabilities in this community... which doesn't mean they do not exsist.

Thanks to Bigglesworth Production, JustMK, Beegless, Peter and Miky for helping me with the article!

Whowho Sick

no.spam@gameriot.com (Whowho) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:54:08 -0400

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Whowho!

Whowho?

Whowho!

Whowho.

That's right

Whowho just wrote a poem ^^

Anywho, I've caught what ever crazy thing Erunno had so now my how system has collapsed in on it's self due to one ***** of the planned time table being filled with bed rest. I'll be back on my comically huge Night Elf feat with a review soon enough!

Oh, the poem is misleading, I'm enjoying the experience of illness, just not with a smile as my mouth tastes funny at this moment.

Farinar's Freaking Facebook Fanpage!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Farinar) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:29:38 -0400

Hi and welcome a lil' short post!

I just made a fanpage for myself, so if you have a facebook page and you want to show how much you love me, then go and become a fan of me!
It's not really fancy at the moment, but it will be in due time!

Check it out here

Illinor: The White Drake preview

no.spam@gameriot.com (Erunno) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:15:35 -0400

*sigh*

I was thinking about doing this for a long time but I felt like it's a bad idea since personally I hate the "look at my awesome project" from some wannabes (not pointed at anyone of you) showing the worst pictures and ideas in a douchebagish way.

So lets just get over with it...

Lot's of pictures after the break.

Illinor: The White Drake

After some horrible name ideas I thought about, TWD: Forbidden Affection, TWD: The beginning and Drake Wars: A new Hope I just "updated" the name of the original test movie by adding the main (kinda) protagonists who at first had no name planed at all. Thus Illinor: The White Drake was made.

Now the project itself. I never wanted to make anything big out of it and I won't proclaim this movie being the second comming of Christ in machinima. The project started out as simple expansion to expand the story of the "Dragon-assassin" seen in the test video and is now growing into the classic Erunno movie (dull, long and wierd... classic), however there are always innovations in a new movie and this time it's no difference.

The movie will be a silent drama/action movie. At first I was planning on having a narrator but that, after some testing, was cancelled. Currently I'm using the 4th version of the script (yes, I've scratched 3 different stories already) and am still working on an ending. One of the ideas in storytelling is to not show who really is the bad guy. The actions might look like character A is the evil one but after a "flashback" or later on in the story, character B ends up as evil while A was in truth good. Same goes for events. Minor time manipulation might also have a role in the movie (blame Chromie and the Bronze Dragons).

Also since it is a silent movie there is some experimenting with photoshoped still images like in The Demise and use of some custom and modified skins.

And the music? Lets just say I'll make this project my personal playlist like Tarantino does. You'll see the reason more down the article. I've got quite some inspiration from music for this project so I really have the urge to also implement it.

And what kind of music?

80's Rock, mainly. And some Metal. No, not metal like Dragonforce and this new age stuff but something like Metallica (Nothing Else Matters) and Iron Maiden (Fear of the Dark)... However I'll not fill the whole movie with such music, a majority will still consist out of orchestral music. But certain scenes will have a sniplet of rock/metal, fitting to it.

There are also plans of getting an original score for the movie, but I highy doubt I'll be able to get it. But, who knows.

The Story

Won't spoil much yet but what you can quite obviously read from the title the story involves a White Drake, or to be more exact, Illinor, a white dragon (Not albino. Though I use that model). In the "original" White Drake you saw a drake cloaked as a Night Elf killing of another cloaked dragon together with a black drake. The whole action was accompanied by Chromie of the Bronze Dragons since the assassination took place in the near past.

In this movie, I actually explain who the hell is that white drake assassinator and his black drake companion (that Dreanei chick). Where did he come from? Why is he white? Why is he an assassin? Why is he hanging out with that black drake? The movie will pretty much follow his "childhood" and first contact with that Dreanei.

Illinor, the Mary Sue

Heres is the the most interesting part of the whole post. The movie will not be a machinima. Instead it will have elements of a Hybrid-machinima.

I'll give you a moment to chill out.

Yes, Erunno is making a Hybrid-machinima. A "niche" technique. It's not my first hybrid-machinima though. I've already made one however it was never released due to quality issues. It was my last film made on my old PC. Once I've seen the lovely resolution I could get with the new rig (tested with the already mentioned White Drake test movie) I never looked back.

Some of you might remember my dream I told a while back:

Thanks to the awesome skill of Soul Reaver (not sure if I can use his real name here so we'll stick with the nickname) I've recieved a model... And it looks freakin' amazing. A quick summary of the idea is that I wanted to have a third form for Illinor. Something fresh instead of a "morphed" arm into a dragon claw (as seen in the short). The inspiration was taken from the Dragonborn in D&D.

Here are some development pictures:

All starts with sketches and ideas... Then Soul Reaver makes his magic fingers dance.

Final model. Only some minor texture fixes left.

A mildly photoshoped image of the new model. Also my avatar.

Of course there are issues that come with such an idea. The obvious ones like Will it look good? and Will animations actually blend in with the "official" emotes? I'll do all I can to make it as seemingless as possible. If I fail, I can still give a nudge to X-Cross, Soul, Pinkhair or any other machinimator. Since everyone and his mother did this!

However a way more bigger issue is actually the character himself. Will he end up as a Mary Sue character? He has all the attributes that Mary Sues have; he is unique in the look, powers and stuff he does...

I really hope not. I created Illinor around the idea that his uniqueness is also his weakness, curse. He never lived a normal dragons life, he was raised to kill by the Dragonflights, he is being rejected by the other dragons because of his colour... He is (literally) a mutation. A freak. On the outside he is a cold killer who has the ability to transform into a dragonoid (besides a mortal disguise and his true drake form) but in the inside he is a crushed soul. He seeks his own identity, he just wants to be... loved.

Release date: Definitely not in 2009. 2010 is highly possible (unless I cancel the project)

Walk of Fame #1: The Kodo Egg

no.spam@gameriot.com (Farinar) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:49:56 -0400

Watch the Kodo Egg by Ollgabopi here

I know what you're thinking: "The Kodo Egg was great.. but revolutionary? Nuh-uh."
Well, that's a matter of opinion and I believe this fine piece to be somewhat revolutionary as it is currently the only machinima I know of to be based off of a poem and to have a moral which shines through. While some machinimas have a moral, they can often be quite difficult to understand to find, but in The Kodo Egg it's pretty straightforward.

As said before, The Kodo Egg is based off of a poem by Hans Christian Andersen, a danish writer who has also written The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling. The poem's original name was "The Woman with the Eggs" and was about a woman, who has a bag of eggs. As she walks back home she thinks about how these eggs will help her get things like a farm, more hens for more eggs and so on. However, she unfortunately falls on her way back home, shattering all the eggs.

The machinima itself is pretty much the same way, except that it is about kodos rather than hens. Ollgabopi has managed to change an old piece of work, which may not seem relevant today, into a piece that we can understand, interpret and perhaps chuckle at.

While the editing and voice-acting may not be revolutionary the way of telling the story surely is so original that it has to be copied by someone at some point. The idea of taking a real-life text and putting it into the WoW world is a great way to tell a story and get a morale at the same time.

When you've watched the movie, you sit back and think about it. You have actually learned something - not selling the bears hide before the bear is shot. Basically, do not have too high expectations of something. It may turn out otherwise or the eggs might crack. In the machinima, the man starts crying over his egg. Not only because of his wasted work with carrying that all the way from the Barrens, but also because all his dreams and expectations now lie shattered in front of him.

A damn fine piece and revolutionary in it's own way.

- Farinar

Are you interested in becoming a guest author and write a fine article on any machinima-movie that YOU think is revolutionary? Well, throw me a PM here on Myndflame and we'll figure something out. Write how long you've watched machinimas, what machinima you want to write about and why you think it's revolutionary. It's important to note that this blog is not for reviews, but interpretation and honoring a fine piece of work, that was revolutionary in some way, which has either been forgotten or has it's own page in the history book of Machinima.

What is Walk of Fame?

no.spam@gameriot.com (Farinar) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:57:32 -0400

Hey all!
Welcome to my new blog "Walk of Fame!" Sorry for the chabby layout, but the blog is brand new! This is where I (Farinar), and hopefully some guestwriters later on, will write about influential machinimas in a fun and hopefully interesting way. Influential machinimas do not have to be popular or have super editing. A movie can still be great and have somewhat of an influence on the community by having a good and deep story.

The articles themselves will be quite different from each other. Some of them might be an analysis of the movie's story while others about something else. This blog is made to put more focus on how WoW machinima has evolved through time - from 2004 and to 2009, where we are now.

You want to join us for the ride?
Then let's go!

Monotonous Entertainment?

no.spam@gameriot.com (Erunno) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:18:09 -0400

It's pure eye-candy!

Life is unpredictable, a bunch of 0 and 1 are not. Machinima, or in this case, WoW machinima is based on making collages out of various clips and character animations. But how long does it take until everything starts feeling the same?

Alright, it's 9 am. and I'm writing an article. What the hell, eh? I'll be early today since I have plans for tonight *shakes a bottle of Vodka and a Game Controller* and monday. But before I fall asleep after a night of Drunk gaming with some friends I'll talk to you a bit about how boring WoW machinima can be!

/point, /say, /laugh... profit

Remember this? This were the first methods of doing WoW machinima. You had a character, made a few emote macros, hid the UI and pressed away. They you recorded the emote string and added subtitles, music or a voice. And that was pretty much it. Doesn't really sound award winning, does it?

Thats because it wasn't.

Go to Warcraftmovies or Youtube and search for some of the really really old machinima (like Wish Upon a Paladin, thought there are many better examples). It's quite unimpressive to watch such movies today but back then it was the method. You did not had model viewer or map viewer, yet alone the idea of having a private server for machinima sounded crazy. But the monotomy wasn't "noticed". It was because of the game itself. World of Warcraft was for many people their first real MMO and seeing a game used as a filming tool looked out of this world.

New short films were released daily, most of them consisted out of simple character movement or "hidden" PvP recordings with an added story and audio. Some of those classics still have some kind of a charm and nostalgic value. But compared to todays methods they look like a joke.

Or do they?

This is how machinima used to look. Not really interesting.

Chroma Keyer, Levels, Color Balance... eye candy

Fast forwarding... Now WoW machinima uses advanced methods for editing. No more Windows Movie Makers, no only-ingame footage and no random Nightwish tracks (oh wait, we still got people who do such things). Today we use only the most professional editing tools accessable to public (legally or not, I will not discuss about this today), model viewer, private servers and other software to rip the game apart and music that is actually fitting and not overused or dull.

But over all the improvements and innovations we still use the same core. We are not changing machinima, we're masking it. Building new things over the old. The game remains the same and with it the resources remain the same. We still use the same emotions, characters, locations... In the end, all we're doing is adding an extra colour filter, a more interesting camera position/layout and accompany it with professionally edited audio.

We're still doing collages with the resources we have available only that we make it look more cool and interesting.

Machinima in the present. Lots of post editing but the core is the same

Hybrid-Machinima, the futuuuuuuuuure!

No. I'll just say it before some smart pants starts complaining in the comments. 3D animations are interesting to see however they are not a future for machinima itself. Custom 3D animations is kind of a niche thing in WoW machinima. Every well known machinimator tried it and most of them were not happy with the result. I will not say that the method is crap, easy to do or wrong. I respect the Hybrid-machinima community so far they stay in their own territory and don't claim to be the new "it" of machinima. They're on equal ground with the classic WoW machinima, they're a sub-genre with their own "standarts".

In my eyes I see the hybrid and classic machinima going hand in hand. After all, our general public is made out of people who play, enjoy and (in some way) identify themself with the game. We're not making films for the elitists (here, happy now?) sub-communities who deliver this content.

What is the conclusion?

Machinima in general is described as "A method of delivering fast and simple entertainment to a specific audience, mostly people playing the same game or sharing the same interests". So in general monotomy is expected at the very start. We do not waste millions of dollars to get the message trough. All it needs is a "talking" character head and some voice acting and streaming it on youtube. I mean, if things like 300 remix have such a huge fanatic audience, why can't talking heads?

What I would like to point out is the word speed. Machinima is (in general) seen as a fast method of making entertainment. It is also speed that is guility for some of the monotomy. The faster something you can make, the easier it is, the more people do it and more you have to entertain yourself. Comparing WoW machinima with another game like Call of Duty or Halo makes us look the least monotonous and slowest machinima community.

We will always stay monotonous in a way, since it is in the nature of machinima. But damn, we're trying not to be!

METAL GEAR SOLID: PHILANTHROPY RELEASED!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Caruu) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:58:42 -0400

Thanks to Shirochan for the post earlier, I had some problems connecting to the site.
A movie I sound designed and subbed got today released:

Three years of overall production time has come to a close. It was both challenging and great fun from beginning to end.

It has been a privilege to have worked on a movie with so much love for its lore and its fundamental characters.
A great movie for fans by fans; hailing visual characteristics of the franchise to music and sound design.

You can download this movie and subtitles for your language here: www.mgs-philanthropy.net

At the end here, I would like to thank Hybrid Two for bringing me along in such an epic journey for a movie about a game that is so close to my heart.
Thank you Aaron Frensley and Daniel James.

And of course, thank you all in Hive Division.

*Takes the Oscar and runs off the stage*

Oxhorn’s latest

no.spam@gameriot.com (Whowho) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:36:27 -0400

The Story of Thunk.

AH-HAhaHAhaHAhahAHahaHAHaha-Hohehoheho-heehee-ah-hahahaha-Ah-HAHAHAHA! *Chuckle*

This entire 1.2 pages of this article could just be me laughing, but we all know that if there’s some one I can rely on to create Machinima that I can analyze so much even Shakespeare would be jealous. (Shakespeare, or as his homies call him: Milk Shake, would have reached a far bigger audience if he toyed with Machinima, not so smart after all huh?)

First off, this movie is FUNNY. If funny was rotting flesh Oxhorn’s house would be in dire need of regular cleaning. Why is Thunk’s biography funny? Every character Oxhorn creates are not only brilliantly written, but all manage to be both intelligent and stupid. Oxhorn can not resist thrusting the self-defeating life theory gag onto his characters and a bloiting good job he does to (‘And I Hate violence! I’ll Kill you!’). His satire always acts towards a moral and I almost missed the moral as I was laughing too hard to hear it.

Second off, Oxhorn’s short shorts series (If anyone ever manages to nail oxhorn to the ground please tell me where you left him, as I so badly want to interview him about this amazing series) has swelled it’s self with so many great gags and characters that Oxhorn is now reaping the benefits with the funny scythe. So many in-jokes, ones you can see coming and you almost cry with anticipation of the punch line, and ones you just can’t see coming until they floor you. Yep, Oxhorn rewards you for following his series with jokes so good they make watching Orcs In Space worthwhile.

Some other thing I love about this movie is that it is long! It starts off with a great build up to the punch line, but it just keeps on running and we are treated to a moral on accepting other people’s selves and ideas that would have brought a tear to my eye if they weren’t all ready filled from laughing. Oxhorn dose like his morals, and that possibly the best thing about him, every machinima he crafts makes the world just a little bit nicer.

Oxhorn narrates the tale him self, and it’s something I’ve not heard him do to this existent. The narration keeps the long story rolling when Thunk is alone and has no one to share dialogue with. His narration reflects a lot of his own character, I would not be surprised to hear that the narrator was meant to be Brandon M. Dennis him self: The narration give the Machinima a Jackanory mock children’s story feel to it. The narration, even if I feel is the weakest part of the Machinima, personified Brandon’s happy but witty out look and brought him closer to his characters than we’ve ever seen him before, he must really love Thunk to stick around even after he took a massive dump in Orgramar.

Oxhorn certainly knows where he’s going with his series; he constantly filling it with people and cross-overs that he can use to show us his unique and delightful look at the world, and he does it all whist being comically appealing and visually iconic. Sadly this meens that he’s done NOTHING WRONG in his latest movie, I can’t criticize it! This means I can get away with being in a perfectly good mood for all of my article! Now that Oxhorn has moved away from his Inventing Swear Words series (Which I felt seemed a tad forced at times) he’s doing what he does best: Creating a rich population of characters.

Why bother writing a review of something every one saw on Monday if I don’t offer any constructive advice? Well Oxhorn is so experienced at Machinima-making at this date all I certainly can’t give him any pointers, (Other than: Give me an interview please?) all I can offer him is praise he deserves.

Thunk and his long deserved story is a celebration of Oxhorn’s brand and a great gift of laughs we’ll be asking for again soon enough.

Oh, did I mention that I found it funny?

In unrelated news: GnomeChewer is back! Finally an excuse to write an article on the most artsy of Machinimators!