The Elusive Machinma Pro

Caught over at Machinima Premiere, there's a pretty good article at 1up.com with a focus on the 'going pro' side of making machinima.

For run-of-the-mill machinimists, the answer is no. While most machinima videos get laughs from avid gamers, the clips are too amateurish. "Many projects feature bad writing with voiceovers made over a $5 plastic microphone," says Philip Debevoise, president of www.machinima.com. Debevoise's site, serving the machinima community for more than five years, has found some gems. "Some projects are as good as what's coming out of the top studios," he says.

The article covers many aspects of the possibilities of making machinima professionally and has a second page with a quick 'how-to' process presented by Rooster Teeth.

I thought the section on machima makers and the gaming industry was a little off sided, leaning toward a 'we don't think so' view from the gaming industry. I may be biased, but I find BioWare to be a company that is open to the machinima scene for future growth. After all, I was directly plucked from it and this is pretty much the reason why we are sponsoring the Machinima theatre at the Austin Game Conference.

Now one difference may be that my role as a cinematic designer at BioWare is a little different. I have both artistic cinematic responsibilities and technical responsibilities related to working with game engines to create cutscenes and digital actor conversations. My role is balanced between creative art and technical logic, which I believe to be an unique skill of the 'purist' machinima filmmaker (by purist I mean someone who really digs into the game engine to get the fruits of their vision, not being limited by 'what the game offers'). If the role at BioWare was more as a cinematic animator (working mainly within an app's like Max or Maya) then I wouldn't have got the job, because I would need a lot more training (read: schooling or job experience) to really be good at that. The cinematic designer role is more tailored to working directly in-engine, using assets provided by animators, artists and level designers to create cinematic scenes, a hands-on director of sorts. I feel really lucky that BioWare has a job so well suited to machinima makers and that I was able to get onboard and do this full time. My past work on machinima films has fully prepared me for this role (with a team of 5 now, where a little over a year ago it was about 1 full time and 1 part time person split between roles).

Ultimately, I don't know if the game industry will adopt a more Cinematic Designer type role across companies, or if the traditional animators and cinematic builders will be expected to adopt a more machinima type way of development. That is definitely one area I will continue to watch. Overall, I just wish the article had this persective as well.

Doesn't really matter though I guess. Just keep doin' what you love doin' and the rest will follow.