Red vs. Blue Makes Green

Allen Varney writes in this week's edition of The Escapist about the beauty of Rooster Teeth's machinima, why Red vs. Blue is as good as it is, and why there is money to be made in this burgeoning art form. From the article: "Often, by the time we hear of fortunes being made in a new way, it's already too late to get in. But in machinima, the barrier to entry remains absurdly low, the need for professionalism desperate. If you're funny or interesting, can voice-act well, and produce reliably over the medium term - and you don't quit - there's absolutely nothing blocking you from success." I'm rather fond of some of the supremely odd Machinima based in World of Warcraft - such as Illegal Danish -Super Snacks or the Switcher videos. Any machinima you'd like to recommend to your fellow users?

Not exactly machinima but

[WilliamSChips]

Concerned [hlcomic.com] is really awesome.

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[LiquidCoooled]

Shame its just about to finish.

Buddha mode off...

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[WilliamSChips]

Indeed. Hopefully he'll come up with some other idea(but not Episode One because he has repeatedly said he's not doing Episode One--something Portal-based perhaps?) and he'll start another comic.

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[Broken scope]

Oh god, portals is just ripe for his humor... Hehe.

Oh its about games

[mnmn]

I thought it meant when you leave communists by themselves they will get seasick.

Copyright issues?

[Flentil]

Can anyone explain the copyright barriers that might be involved in making a movie using a game engine and game characters like they've done? Unless it's a parody of said game, I don't think it comes under fair use and could be copyright infringement. Or am I missing something?

Re:Copyright issues?

[MuNansen]

I'll give the cliffs:

- Game companies don't care if you make the machinima..heck, it's even free advertising for them.

- Some productions, like Tra5hta1k by the ILL Clan, use cheap engines (Torque) that you can afford to buy the rights

- Red vs. Blue was found by Bungie, and they arranged for Rooster Teeth to get the rights to their product, so they can sell t-shirts, DVDs, etc. This so far is a unique case. Other Halo machinimas have been turned down by M$, most likely thanks to the upcoming movie.

- Most machinima can't make money directly, but there's an increasing potential for careers in the industry. Recently both Blizzard and BioWare have hired from the machinima community (I'm one of the hires ;P), and I imagine there will be more. Companies have also gone to machinima producers to create content without joining the company.

Double Cliffs:

- Is it legal to take any game, make machinima out of it, and sell it? NO! Has there been any lawsuits yet? No. Has there been cease/desist requests? Yes, a couple that I know of. Asking the legal questions regarding machinima don't get solid answers because there are no solid answers yet. We're still in its infancy.

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[RM6f9]

How would one go about getting voice work in this field? (Where would I send a demo tape or ten?)

Re:Copyright issues?

[MuNansen]

www.machinima.com

www.mprem.com (Machinima Premiere)

www.sims99.com

www.warcraftmovies.com

These are some of the larger community sites. Or you could try finding productions you like, and contacting the producers themselves. At this stage, machinima is above no one ;)

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[RM6f9]

Thank you!

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[GrizlyAdams]

(Disclaimer: I own the hosting company TSL uses.)

This Spartan Life has been working with Microsoft, and with the recent movie fall through, they will likely secure DVD rights.
I can't comment too much on it since I'm only their hosting provider. Yesterday I had to setup a user account for Microsoft with ftp access to their site so I think thats a good sign.

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[MuNansen]

That's good news. I haven't talked with Chris in a while, so I'll have to be sure to ask him at the festival.

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[skorch]

IANAL but I believe there are also some Fair Use protections that allow for you to use copywrited material for purposes of parody, and in some cases satire. A pretty good breakdown of it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_and _parody/ [wikipedia.org]

So long as you're using the machinima for comedic purposes, you're usually good. You're safer if you're using it to make fun of the game itself, but so long as the company that owns the product in question isn't particularly letigious you're usually in goo

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[ClamIAm]

IANAL, however I think the key issue here is probably that of "derivitive works".

Case 1: you take a game and use its stock art to create your film. I'm pretty sure you'll get smacked down in court with this method unless you clear it beforehand, or there's some loophole in the game's EULA or something.

Case 2: you take a moddable engine and make all new art, or use capital-f Free art. I think there's less chance of getting sued here, however it's a very grey-looking area, and IANAL, so yeah.

Of course, ther

Machinima Festival Nominees

[MuNansen]

Here's the nominees for this year's "Mackies," at the Machinima Film Festival in November. Most of the nominees are up on GameVideos.com. I would definitely suggest "Bill et John." http://festival.machinima.org/mackies.html [machinima.org] (Shameless self-plug: My productions got three nominations) http://www.themureview.com/ [themureview.com]

Pwned life

[Jim Hall]

I still like Battlefield 2: The Pwned Life [google.com]. :-)

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[Das Modell]

That movie is very funny.

As far as machinima goes, I'm stuck in the past. I've barely seen any machinima since Quake. What little I've seen of Red vs. Blue hasn't impressed me all that much.

South Park Machinima

[crotherm]

South Park did an episode [youtube.com] where they were playing WoW and much of the episode was Machinima. As usual with Matt and Trey, it was great.

A Machinama I Made

[jakek812]

I made a machinema one, I made it in a game called "The Movies", which I highly recommend as a beginner tool to anyone that wants to make a machinema. You can check it out at http://youtube.com/watch?v=2tHLjnAsYrg [youtube.com] other than that the only machinema I've ever seen that was very good is Red vs Blue, which is absolutely superb, so go watch it if you havn't already.

Teh Internet is 4 PRON

[Truman Starr]

I'm not sure if this counts, since the audio is all taken from Avenue Q, but I've always loved the WoW version of "The Internet is for Porn". http://youtube.com/watch?v=jhTxRssxfuI/ [youtube.com]

-Matt

WoW Machinima

[Artaxs]

Illegal Danish was first featured on Xfire's WoW Machinima Contest. The second WoW Machinima contest is just now wrapping up. Winners will be announced friday, but you can see all the finalists here [xfire.com]. We'll be hosting a free event at Stanford University on Thursday evening with a panel of Machinima movie makers including Ezra from Rufus Cubed (who did the Machinima in South Park's WoW episode) and the guys from Myndflame (who did Illegal Danish) will be there as well!
/end shameless plug

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[Jesterboy]

Sorry, this is slightly OT. The videos are pretty good, but the best part is getting around XFire's login requirement: I can't believe they put "loginrequired=1" in a simple GET request! On such a high profile site, that's just horrible.

does the quake the movie count?

[cyrax777]

I remember a friend showed me a movie done with quake 1 and this was back in 1999 or so.

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[MuNansen]

I'm sure it does. And if you're referring to "Father Frags Best," then it was made by the guy that did "Male Restroom Etiquette," the current YouTube sensation.

Restroom etiquette

[franksands]

I find this [youtube.com] one very good. And educational to boot.

Actually

[Tancred]

Yellow and blue makes green. Red and Blue makes purple.