Machinima is the art of making film inside the real-time 3D virtual environment of a video game engine. By treating the in-game viewpoint as a camera, the gamespace becomes the set, the characters turn into actors, and the gamer becomes a director.
This 4-day workshop is about making films in game environments in the first place, but we’ll also take a look at ways in which games-as-tools can be used in live performances, interactive story spaces and more.
In this workshop participants will make their own machinima movies or game based projects, guided by experienced machinimamakers and animators. The trainers will cover all the practical topics, like designing 3D sets, creating character interactions, re-camming, virtual lighting and camera scripting. But also we will look at machinima as a wider cultural practice, investigating the impact of gaming on visual culture.
The exciting thing about the new cultural practice of Machinima is that it changes the way we look at games: it turns them into tools. From the point of view of a machinimaker, games are not so much a programmed experience, but more like a box of lego: stuff to build and experiment with, and to produce ones own scenario’s, next to those of the original designers.
This workshop is intended for filmmakers, animators and gamers, who are interested in each others arts and other mediaprofessionals who are interested in and game-based projects. Some experience with playing video games is helpful, but not essential.
Trainers & speakers
Friedrich Kirschner (D) – renowned machinima-maker, chief editor Machinimag.
Friedrich’s Machinima series Person 2184 won him awards for best Technical Achievement and best Visual Design at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival, and has been showcasted at numerous others. Also, he is teammember of the Ars Electronica Center and the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences.
Daniël van Gils (NL) – programmer, interaction designer, media educator.
Daniël is an independent designer and programmer who mainly work s in the field of culture. Besides guiding participants through aspects of 3D animation, level design and sound in 3D spaces, he will demonstrate his brand new MIDI-driven machinima tool (if its finished on time!)
Jonas Hielscher (D) – designer interactive / educative game installations
Jonas founded z25.org, an organization that supports young new media artists, and has built a range of interactive performance and gaming installations. He ran a Sims2 Machinima workshop at the last Cinekid Festival.