[artinfo] Machinima Workshop: Making Films out of Games

[Stefan Kosters - Mediamatic]

Machinima Workshop

14 | 15 | 16 | 17 March 2006 @ Mediamatic, Amsterdam

With a new Machinima workshop, Mediamatic traverses the
intersection of filmmaking, animation and game
development. This 4-day workshop, starting on the 14th of
March, takes place at Mediamatic on the 5th floor of the
Post CS building in Amsterdam.

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
gets to be a director. Because an in-game performance is
first recorded in 3D, everything is very flexible. In a 3D
recording (before it is turned to film), camera's can
still be added or can change their path, lights can be
changed, the characters can change their appearance or
disappear entirely. This brings high-end movie making
possibilities to the low-budget movie maker.

In this 4-day workshop small teams of participants will
make their own machinima movies, 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. Also, machinima will be looked upon from
a wider cultural perspective, investigating the impact of
gaming on visual culture.

This workshop is intended for filmmakers, animators and
gamers, who are interested in each others arts. Some
experience with playing video games is helpful, but not
essential. More information can be found on
http://www.mediamatic.net/machinima. For questions mail to
workshops at mediamatic.nl or call Klaas Kuitenbrouwer: +31 20 6389901.