Luciferjones

AND THE FILMMAKER’S VIRTUAL IMMERSION
by Mike Jones
January 2005

[first published Metro Magazine. Issue #145. September 2005]

The modern era of digital video cameras and cheap home computer editing systems (that are more powerful than the Avid systems of six years ago and 1/10th the cost…!) is often lauded as the great digital revolution of the cinematic form; the delivery of cinema making tools into the hands of the masses.

But as exciting as this prospect of digital utopia is for many media creators there is still a huge wall of logistic and physical constraints for the filmmaker with a grand, imaginative vision. Locations, actors, public liability insurance, camera mounts, costumes, crew, catering, lighting and the ongoing desperate, and mostly feeble, attempt to get good location sound out of cheap microphones. The equipment has gotten less expensive and more portable but short of the o’ natural documentary, filmmaking is still a logistically intense process that invariably involves lots of money, time and minefield navigation.

The greatest ability humans have, the one that clearly marks us as the top of the food chain, is the ability to flexibly adapt. Human society, and its relationship with the technology it spawns, has a long and well established history of people finding their own uses for things that are often far outside the intended purpose set out by the creators. Adapting, altering and repurposing a tool for a new use is a customary tradition. It is this tradition of lateral thinking that is currently promising to deliver a new generation of filmmakers to whom the long suffered physical logistics of filmmaking are but a thing of the past.

Enter Machinima.

An amalgam of the words ‘Machine’ and ‘Cinema’, Machinima is an increasingly popular movie genre and production process (currently it can be viewed as both… but we’ll get to that shortly) that in many ways can be said to represent the very future of the moving image. Indeed the arrival of Machinima may, in years to come, be looked upon as the true digital revolution in media creation. A revolution that moved beyond the physical, economic and technological restraints so prevalent in media production as a techno-cultural form today, and firmly shifted filmmaking into the cheap, unrestricted and infinite virtual world.

So what is Machinima…?

According to the official Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences (yes indeed there is one… www.machinima.org) the definition of Machinima is stated simply as ‘Filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3D environment’ . Machinima movies are staged, performed and shot within the virtual 3D computer graphic ’spaces’ generated by existing computer games. Largely these are First-Person shooter (FPS) genre games pioneered by the seminal Doom (now in version 3 and quite terrifying if you’ve ever played alone at night in the dark with surround sound..!), Half Life2 and Quake III .

These games, and more particularly their software code engines for creating 3D spaces and avatars, have become the virtual sound stages for Machinima filmmakers. Scripts are written, actions storyboarded and players become actors controlling avatars within the game’s virtual space. The virtual camera through which action is captured is very often in Machinma production (although there are varying production/capture techniques) simply another avatar in the space through whose first-person perspective becomes our defacto camera. Our window to the virtual world.

Machinima films are most often (although not always) created by using a Local Area Network (LAN) to connect several PC’s or game consoles together to a single ’set’, each ‘actor/player’ controlling an avatar in that unified space. The ‘camera’, created by another machine on the network, has the output, showing their first person perspective as the view the audience will see; the virtual camera frame, sent as a video signal to a recording device. This could be as simple as a DV camera recording via analogue signal cable or direct to computer hard-drive via a video capture card. In other cases a pure virtual camera can be created that is divorced from a particular avatar’s POV but this often involves the re-writing or hacking of the game’s source code. Some older game engines are now open source so this option is not only available and viable but legal and not in breech of the game developer’s copyright.

For the uninitiated Machinima may seem like a fairly radical new media idea but in actuality it is the inevitable result of a long standing and ongoing game culture that actively promotes user proactivity in manipulating game experiences well beyond simply playing them. The process of ‘Moding’ avatars and environments for 3D games is not a new one and virtually all current 3D games make their software open to users for the ’skinning’ and ‘modifying’ of characters. This ‘moding’ extends to user-designed virtual environments and new game levels built from the tools of the game itself, predominantly for use in multiplayer, online gaming. Games once created and released to the game community very often take on a life of their own that can far outstrip the designs and intentions of the game’s creators.

This gaming tradition of user control, ownership and re-invention is at the core of Machinima as it allows the game engine to be exploited as a real-time filmmaking platform whilst not being restricted to the characters, environs and design aesthetic supplied by the games original designers. (subsequently not all Machinima is about beefy blokes blowing stuff up with big guns…) New characters, costumes, lighting, space, geography can all be created by users using simple, oftentimes free, software tools and tools of the game itself. The game simply becomes a virtual framework in which any given story and visual spectacle can potentially be staged and explored.

Logistics now out of the way the process of creating Machinima is remarkably like that of traditional filmmaking. The action is staged, actor/players ‘perform’, the camera is placed, panned, tracked and tilted, images are framed and composed, sequences captured. These digital rushes of virtual worlds are then edited, post-produced and released in an increasing diverse variety of forms; from streaming media and downloadable web video, to DVD, broadcast and even theatrical screening.

In truth however to fully understand what Machinima really is, and moreover what it potentially represents, it is more useful to discuss what Machinima is not? Why Machinima, rather than simply being a new take on an old idea, represents some very new filmmaking concepts that may have far-reaching effects?

First and foremost Machinima is not, by any accurate definition, Animation. The English Dictionary describes animation, in the context of movies and cartoons, as “a film made by photographing a series of still drawings giving the illusion of movement” . Certainly a Machinima film can look enormously like Toy Story and Shrek in the context of being a film not of real-world live action but one made of 3D computer graphics. But that’s where the similarities end, for the means of their production are fundamentally different. Means of production, in this instance, being the only true way to define an animated film from a live-action one because other discerning factors, such as story, genre and style can, for all intents and purposes, be just as readily adopted by either medium.

Regardless of whether an animated film is created from photographed, hand-drawn sketches or 3D computer graphic models moved with keyframes, both are drawn from the less media technology specific definition of the term ‘animate’, meaning “to give life to” . Without wishing to be overly semantic the implication here is that the source of the image for an animated film is not ‘live’ to begin with (as it would be in a live-action film where presumably the actors are managing to breathe and walk at the same time…) Rather the image source for an animated film is static and must be animated, movement by movement. 3D graphics and keyframe animation technology certainly reduce the need to draw each and every one of the 24 frames per second but as any 3D animator will tell you the process is no less time consuming or painstaking. Certainly it is not done in ‘real-time’ as it is in Machinima.

With this in mind Animation can be seen as not involving the ‘capture’ of a moving image but rather the ‘creation’ and ‘construction’ of a moving image. This distinction is crucially important in order to understand where Machinima fits in the bigger picture of new media development and its potential impact on wider filmmaking aesthetics and production techniques.

Machinima films are certainly made of the same polygon-based, 3D graphics of contemporary computer animated films but beyond this single similarity there is virtually no other links between Machinima and animation, instead everything else about Machinima production directly resembles live action film. Machinima may take place inside virtual computer game-generated environments but it is none the less a live action process that is performed and captured by a ‘camera’ in real-time and employing much of the same visual tenants and cinematic grammar of a regular movie. Camera placement, lighting issues, takes and retakes, actor/players forgetting cues and missing their marks, blocking and composition, the 180 degree rule, eye-line matching. All these factors, issues and considerations for the live-action movie director are every bit as relevant in the virtual world of Machinima.

Machinima Aesthetics: Genre or Processes?

What do these Machinima films look like and what stories are being told? Invariably the narratives, ideas and imagery explored by a new form like Machinima are going to be dominated by the sensibilities of the form’s first users. In the case of Machinima this means movies being made by gamers seeking to replicate their personal game experiences in a less interactive and more cinematic manner. The seminal PC game from 1995, Mech Warrior 2 , is credited as the first game to introduce a controllable, 3rd person perspective, camera for the recording of in-game scenes. In effect this was simply a way for gamers to capture dynamic action replays of their finest gaming moments to use as bragging rights with fellow gamers, but it was, none the less, the genesis of the idea of staging actions within a game environment and capturing the images in real-time as digital movie file.

This understanding of Machinima’s origins however raises the issue as to whether Machinima is more New Genre than New Media. Certainly the bulk of current Machinima movies are clearly related quite specifically to the games from which they derive. The most successful and well known Machinima works being the ongoing web-cast series Red vs Blue which has subsequently seen both DVD compilation release and theatrical screening at the recent Sundance film festival. The Red Vs Blue website receives some 750,000 downloads each week and the show’s producers have been lauded by huge corporations such as Microsoft and Electronic Arts to do promotional episodes and commercial productions.

Red vs Blue is a definitively absurdist Machinima series that chronicles the mis-adventures of soldiers from opposing teams playing ‘capture the flag’ in Blood Gulch Gorge. Red vs Blue is made using the multiplayer incarnation of Halo2 which color-codes soldiers on opposing teams with respective red or blue armour. The simple premise for Red Vs Blue is that between where the heavily narrative driven Halo left off and it’s sequel Halo 2 picked up, a brief (and comic) civil war took place between two factions of the previously united army of humans. In this context the virtual world of the game is being invoked by the filmmakers not just in regard to the CG environs and avatars on a technical level but also in regard to the invented narrative world of the game which has its own history and sociology.

Machinima of this type can certainly be seen as fitting within a particular, and quite specific, genre of filmmaking, one that is not just created using the tools of a computer game but which moreover centres on reflecting, exploring and parodying the game experience itself; game aesthetics and gaming culture.

Other examples of this predominant type of genre-based Machinima include films such as Anachronox: The Movie which is a linear cinematic retelling of the games own playable narrative. Essentially Anachronox: The Movie is the Machinima version of what Hollywood does to games in adapting them as live action films. Prime examples being Tomb Raider and Resident Evil . Anachronox tells the game’s story using the game’s own engine as sole production tool. Carefully staged and captured virtual live-action scenes are inter-cut with the games own ‘cut-scenes’ (the non-interactive narrative sections of game that generally denote chapter or game stage points) to produce a singular and non-interactive movie narrative experience.

Whilst this style of self referential Machinima (one that denotes Machinima as a specific genre with strict tenants of not just style but also content) is currently dominant, there is also most certainly a growing experimentation of the form as a universal cinematic production tool capable of exploring any given topic, style or genre.

There are numerous examples of filmmakers using game engines as a canvas but avoiding adherence to the roots of the Machinima genre producing films about the games they’re playing. Fredrich Kirschner’s award winning short film The Journey , a moody, expressionist film using shadowy images in soft landscapes reminiscent of works by the likes of animators such as Gerald Scarffe, in no way draws imagery from, or feels connected to, game culture and the gamers perspective. The Journey, to the viewer, looks like a work of stylized, abstract animation and yet it was produced using the Unreal Tournament 2004 game environment (a typical first-person shooter game centered around violent destruction of opponents with enormous guns). The Journey bares no visual resemblance to Unreal Tournament and instead was crafted by populating the game engine with custom created digital assets; shadowy humanoid figures, large reflective mirrored surfaces and soft rolling hilly landscapes in muted gray tones.

With more and more Machinima works like this finding their way to larger and larger audiences (both online and off) we can see the evolution of the form away from being a specific genre built on the telling of very particular stories with a rigid set of visual characteristics and themes, to a more universal production tool capable of flexible application to any given production and narrative aesthetic.

The adaptation and adoption of technology is invariably a two-way street. Whilst Machinima was born out of the age old practice of people finding their own uses for things outside of the developers intentions, it certainly doesn’t take long for the developers to re-invent their tools and adopt the DIY adaptations of their target user base as part of the core functionality of their applications. The astoundingly popular game (and for those that have played; highly addictive) The Sims2 fully adopted the unofficial practice of using its predecessor, The Sims , as de-facto movie making engine. The Sims2 has built-in movie making tools that not only function to record a game session as a linear movie sequence (much as MechWarrior 2 had done some nine years earlier) but actually present this ability as a separate tool of the software independent of the game itself. In effect you don’t have to play the game to make a movie. Stages can be created, cameras directed and actors movements blocked, all to be ‘filmed’ in real time via virtual camera.

Sensing the public enthusiasm for this type of media creation and wanting to build publicity for the system to existing Machinima makers and enthusiasts, the company behind The Sims2, EA Games, went so far as to commission the creators of Red vs Blue, Rooster Teeth productions, to create an original comedy series using The Sims2 engine. Known as The Strangerhood the series presents all the genre and stylistic trappings of any contemporary American TV comedy show. Staged much like a sit-com The Strangerhood tells the story of an eclectic ensemble of characters all suffering from amnesia and who find themselves trapped in a neighborhood they cant leave struggling to work who they are and why they’re there.

For the most part much of The Strangerhood, replicates a ‘live-action’ TV show using much of the same visual language and narrative structures. By the same token however, The Strangerhood, as with many other Machinima movies, doesn’t hesitate to play with and exploit the unique properties of virtual filmmaking and the virtual camera. Frequently the camera moves in ways that a physical camera could not. The very first episode of The Strangerhood opens with a forward tracking shot across the front lawn of a suburban home, between the bars of the front verandah railing and in through the keyhole of the door. This shot represents a physical impossibility for a ‘real’ camera but clearly represents the visual sensibilities of the virtual filmmaking environment. It is a camera movement that is exclusive to non-physical filmmaking. American filmmaker David Fincher has created similar work such as his 2002 film Panic Room which regularly constructed shots composed in 3D computer graphic environments and merged with live action film in order to have the camera move through impossible spaces such as through walls and keyholes. Rather than The Strangerhood drawing upon work such as Fincher’s for inspiration it is rather the other way around where non-physical filmmaking, found naturally and organically in computer game environments; the camera freed from physical constraints to move and follow action anywhere, is forcing change in the visual sensibilities of conventional live-action filmmaking. In an age where more money is spent on computer games than video rentals and Halo2 took more money in its first day of release (US$125 million) than any movie has ever grossed with an opening , this profound shift in visual expectations is only set to increase and further blur the line between live-action, physical filmmaking and filmmaking using virtual environments, actors and cameras.

Aside from the effects on visual language and viewer acceptance, Machinima also holds a unique position to continually maintain its technological edge and visual quality. Machinima filmmaking will always look as good as the latest games. With the gaming technology sector widely regarded as leading all other media technologies for accelerated development, the future for Machinima looks bright. It is certainly not hard to imagine that within ten years directing and producing feature films entirely within virtual real-time environments, that are indistinguishable from ‘real’ films in regard to photo-realism, is more than a distinct possibility. That said, the unshakable popularity of cartoons throughout the past seventy five years of cinema may well show that the future of Machinima is not pre-determined to march invariably towards photo-realism. More likely it is that Machinima will firmly stamp its own visual aesthetic on other forms of media and force fresh change in how we perceive the cinematic form both as viewers and participants.

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