Work In Progress

So I am working on the Machinima documentary for University and I am suffering major qaulity issues when I save from WoW Modol Viewer and when trying to bluescreen. I soldier on! I have mostly been playing with ideas and seeing what I can actualy achieve. However working through a puppeteering method of Machinima single-handedly may be difficult - looks like I will be employer some fellow players with this before the time is through!

The current Dissertation title stands as:

Machinima - An examination of the new driving force of Internet animation and film-making with specific reference to the World of Warcraft MMORPG.

In the documentary I will cover the progressive history of Machinima starting from the original demo formats from Doom and Quake and the now expansive communities and modding that allows Machinimators to produce the high quality films we see today through games such as Unreal Tournament, Battlefield, Halo, World of Warcraft, etc. These peices will be produced using mostly montage and footage as reference, such as Diary of a Camper and Quad God.

Other information to be covered in the documentary will include Mods, Genres of Machinima, Machinima in TV/Music/etc. How it compares to more traditional forms of production (particularly animation) and finally how Machinima has become one of the most popular forms of interntet animation and film-making. I will be predominately using modern Machinima produced in WoW as myself will be using WoW.

As mentioned I am going to use a 'film company' working on set to help explain some of the dynamics and technical bits of Machinima making. This includes the director, actors, crew, etc. each addresses appropriate areas of the process. And because they are essentially producing a movie I am going to try and work a short trailer to this movie within the credits of the Machinima, and if I can after my University year is over I want to continue making it into a full Machinima. So to amuse and indulge myself I have made some film posters to the upcoming movie, Avatar! Of course, through the achinima documentary we will only see the production side of Avatar.

After an ancient relic of Azeroth, the Carcer Stone is stolen from the ruins of an old temple the world of Azeorth finds istself at the mercy of one of the most powerful Demons of its past, Hasael.

Under orders from the King of Stormwind the young priestess Orwyne Hopeseek seeks out the missing relics of the old world. Enlisting the help a group of mercenaries under the command of Aldren Eagleheart, son of the shamed Gustov Eagleheart, once hero of the alliance.

Unleasing the demon trapped with the stolen the undead mage Phexides Rotbottom taps into power beyond his darkest dreams and helps lead Hasael's army into the mortal world.

Other than self indulgence, these sort of designs will allow me add to my required portfolio of ideas and designs, as well as production notes, script, storyboard and development of my work.

So my documentary will not lack in terms of visuals I am creating a host of characters to, well, host the information. The main host will be a young female gnome named Clinker who will be the predominant voice over and visual representative on screen.

Other characters for the Machinima, including the Avatar character sheets can be seen here.

I have to admit that my ideas for this project are endless but I will have to swallow my pride and admit there is only so much I can do, and, after all, the documentary is only meant to be 15-20 minutes long. I will just have to keep all my enthusiasm for other projects!

Stay tuned for more work in progress images and, if all goes to plan, trailers and snippets of the video work!

Also, keep an eye out for my work on the 'Rogue's Do It From Behind' video contest from Blizzard. If I can concentrate on this between or after my dissertation I would like to make a serious entry... I have plans in mind for this (although the song itself is terrible :| )