White Paper Assignment: Title: Small Screen Big Ticket – Why Machinima is good for Hollywood & the Movie Industry
Authors: Tom Brophy, Paul Fleck, Andy Gniadek
Problem: Advantages of machinima for the aspiring, no-budget filmmaker are obvious in its cost efficiency and fast production turn around. So how can big budget Hollywood capitalize on the growing popularity and practical usefulness of machinima?
Thesis Summary: Machinima is the blending of 3D gaming engines and environments, musical orchestration, professional voice over talent and realistic animation and cinematography to create high quality short films. Most of this machinima is derived from the video game (XBOX, PS3, etc… ) industry and online 3D environments (WarCraft, Second Life, etc…).
Hollywood has embraced the video game market as a successful creative partner, spawning many successful games titles from movie titles, such as Terminator 3, The Godfather, Scarface, and several James Bond based games, and a large numiber of others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_based_on_films
This collaboration has also produced many hit movie titles that originated from video game titles; The Resident Evil series, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy, Doom, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter I and II, Super Mario Bros., Tomb Raider, House of the Dead, BloodRayne, DOA: Dead of Alive, Wing Commander, Pokemon. There are currently over 44 in production: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games
Machinima is the next logical step in the progression of this partnership. We are beginning to see a proving ground of sorts evolving from what was at first just good clean “geek gaming”. Aspiring filmmakers are using the new technology to demonstrate their knowledge of production techniques, without first having to have their ideas green lighted with much needed financial backing.
The production cycle, from initial concept to distribution, can take as little as days, rather than years. With online dissemination tools such as You Tube, MySpace, an iTunes filmmakers have free marketing and distribution tools at their fingertips.
Sounds like the yellow brick road to leading to your first million right? So why is no one making money from machinima?
Hollywood has an incredible opportunity to capitalize on the market using its already established relationships with other industries to create avenues for lucrative interaction. Legal issues between game companies providing these engines for creation and those artists now looking for ways successfully market their products for a profit are looming.
Hollywood and its major players have a unique position in that they have the ability to choose the direction in which machinima may grow. The ways in which the industry chooses to utilize the technology will be a major factor in the direction of the technology.
Website: Machinima.com; Machinima.org
Experts:
Paul Marino: Co-Founder Director of Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences; Co-Founder of ILL Clan, leading machinima production group.
On the 3D world end, it is hard to identify someone as expert as if it is a qualification. Expert in this area is based more on general experience with machinima. With that in mind, one can make the case for quite a view individuals.
ESSENTIAL READING: Get on the Internet and find as many machinima as possible.
Lights, Joystick, Action: Masters of Machinima; Macphearson, S. Atomic; 2005 Issue 49, p42-46, 5p
MACHINIMA AND THE FILMMAKER’S VIRTUAL IMMERSION. By: Jones, Mike. Metro, Winter2005 Issue 145, p134-137, 4p
WEBSITE: www.youtube.com, any MMO website. (Worldofwarcraft.com, everquest2.com)
Plans for Annotated Bibliography:
Go into the library databases and search articles that deal with Machinima at the same time.
Research Plan:
Andy: video gaming / 3D world research – examples of machinima, numbers of users, size of market
Paul: film industry research – creative information, market size, etc…
Tom: General reseach on machinima, games, film, etc…
Schedule: get it done ASAP.
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