Machinima has reached a critical point.

Traditionally Makers of Machinima have made films for a select audience, ie, players of the game they made the film from. This has been true for World of Warcraft, Second Life, Half Life and even IL2.

When we made Faith Hope and Charity we tried to cross this boundary and attempted to make something that would appeal to everyone. I believe we succeeded in the aim, but the audience was still not there.

So, why are there so many poor World of Warcraft films out there seemingly famous.

Simple, WOWC is played online by 15 million people, if only 7% of those people watch the film it gets views of over 1 million and it becomes famous.

So these films have a massive audience, and the critics have assumed it means they are good, they were wrong.

Now things are about to change.

At Cambridge these films were rejected out of hand by both the critics, and the audiences. Even the professionally made WOWC films were virtually booed off stage as absolute rubbish. The guys at the top who run this stuff have now realised that this can no longer continue.

A massive switch is going to happen in the following months which will try to encourage machinimators to stop making films for select audiences, and to start making main stream content with a good story. If they do not, they will get no recognition any more at either film festivals or by critics. Viewing hits will no longer cut the mustard, it will be content and story.

IL2 movie makers take note. Now is the time to start considering making films for more than the IL2 gamers. If your film has good commercial content, and a good story. It has every chance of getting fair commercial recognition on a par with any WOWC film.

Every one of the people who I spoke to at Cambridge is now convinced this is the way it is going to happen. This included Producers, Directors, Academy members, Industry professionals, the BBC and the critics.

Time to blossom fellers

With all of the people you rubbed shoulders with at the festival, BA, I'm wondering if FH&C has crossed any of their radar screens. If I may say so, I think it's still a standout production in the world of machinima. It's received recognition in some machinima-only festivals, but I'm curious to know if any of the non-machinima types in the film world have heard of or seen it and if so what they think.

Back to your topic--quality does tend to get noticed, but I think it's difficult for IL-2 films to break into the mainstream without human characters the audience can see and relate to better. Films about WWII planes flying around fighting probably aren't ever going to appeal to as wide an audience as FPS type games. With Moviestorm and similar software available now, that can start to change if filmmakers take advantage of it.

This is fantastic news, I think the responsibility of getting IL2 some more recognition really rests on the shoulders of us here in the forum.

GL2.

I can quite honestly say that EVERYONE I met at the festival knew of, and had seen, Faith Hope and Charity.

I was actually taken aback at some of the comments made about it.

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Originally posted by RAF-Blackace:
I was actually taken aback at some of the comments made about it.

Taken aback in a good way, I'm sure

Yes Joe, in a very good way.

I am a member of Twitter now, I follow/stalk all these guys all the time.

There is a serious conversation going on right now about this in the higher echelons of the machinima community on twitter.

This is what one of the leading lights and certainly a guy you should bow your head to had to say.

quote:

Amen to that. The whole machinima world needs a serious rethink, and a way to access and filter out NEW and appealing content from the streams, not just go with "it got 1m view in some hideous ubergeek community".

I would suggest that the public already watch good animation in their hundreds of millions, and all we have to do is make good animation. Sounds simple, is difficult, has to be done.

If you have not used twitter, I suggest you start, you can follow/stalk who you want and not get arrested for it

My Twitter name is RAF_Blackace, follow me.

Joined twitter, now who can I stalk

http://twitter.com/Russell90

What the machinima world needs is more sites like Joe90's Flight Sim Movies (or, best of all, a single site for the entire world of machinima) that vets films for listing. That would provide one-stop shopping for the unwashed masses who are only interested in the best of the best from whatever game engine. Were it not for the copyright issues involved, such a site, if done well, could be a moneymaker for some entrepreneur. Actually, it could be a moneymaker anyway--look at what YouTube and Napster did. They found it easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Well there's machinima.com of course, but all that does is give the totally wrong impression about what we think machinima is!

The best site I have seen that only shows the best machinima is www.machiniplex.net

Only Bill and Ted have made it on there from the flight sim genre, but there is an excellent collection of very good and creative general machinima.

quote:

What the machinima world needs is more sites like Joe90's Flight Sim Movies (or, best of all, a single site for the entire world of machinima) that vets films for listing. That would provide one-stop shopping for the unwashed masses who are only interested in the best of the best from whatever game engine. Were it not for the copyright issues involved, such a site, if done well, could be a moneymaker for some entrepreneur. Actually, it could be a moneymaker anyway--look at what YouTube and Napster did. They found it easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

That was exactly what gamerztheatre was all about, showcasing the best of machinima. My goal was to showcase movies that even mainstream audiences would enjoy.
I even offer HiDef streaming, and since Stage6 closed its doors it makes GT the only site that offers that.

But sadly, there seems to be little interest in great machinima. Machinima.com has promoted the release of seemly thousands of cookie cutter type machinima. But there is less and less good quality machinima coming out these days.

Due to dropping interest, I have had to allow members to upload frag movies, which have nothing to do with the initial reason for the site. But, they are the only ones to come by these days.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dissident_Canuc,

quote:

Originally posted by dissident_Canuc:

quote:

What the machinima world needs is more sites like Joe90's Flight Sim Movies (or, best of all, a single site for the entire world of machinima) that vets films for listing. That would provide one-stop shopping for the unwashed masses who are only interested in the best of the best from whatever game engine. Were it not for the copyright issues involved, such a site, if done well, could be a moneymaker for some entrepreneur. Actually, it could be a moneymaker anyway--look at what YouTube and Napster did. They found it easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

That was exactly what gamerztheatre was all about, showcasing the best of machinima. My goal was to showcase movies that even mainstream audiences would enjoy.
I even offer HiDef streaming, and since Stage6 closed its doors it makes GT the only site that offers that.

But sadly, there seems to be little interest in great machinima. Machinima.com has promoted the release of seemly thousands of cookie cutter type machinima. But there is less and less good quality machinima coming out these days.

Due to dropping interest, I have had to allow members to upload frag movies, which have nothing to do with the initial reason for the site. But, they are the only ones to come by these days.

I think the problem you face (and any site would face) is getting the word out that you exist. YouTube is the first place people turn to for this type of entertainment. Advertising is not an option, I realize.