Machinima, Done Well

I have a feel­ing that most machin­ima is watched the way we watch a first piano recital, or a mid­dle school pro­duc­tion of Annie Get Your Gun

When the Mac­in­tosh com­puter intro­duced desk­top pub­lish­ing (DTP) to the world in the eight­ies, one wag observed that “Now every­one can cre­ate bad design.”

While we fre­quently applaud tools and tech­nolo­gies that promise to level the play­ing field, the fact of the mat­ter is that a good toolset is never enough. Good sto­ry­telling is a craft that is not eas­ily mastered.

Machin­ima pro­vides an excel­lent exam­ple. Fre­quently praised by every­one from advo­cates of open source to edu­ca­tional the­o­rists, I have a feel­ing that most machin­ima is watched the way we watch a first piano recital, or a mid­dle school pro­duc­tion of Annie Get Your Gun: With respect­ful indul­gence, and an eye towards poten­tial. Even the much vaunted machin­ima series Red vs. Blue from Roost­er­teeth is not funny inas­much as it is amusing.

One recent addi­tion to the world of machin­ima does lit­tle to change this state, but hints at a brighter future. It requires that we watch with that same indul­gent atten­tion, yes, but there is a sophis­ti­cated sense of move­ment and direc­tion (in short, ani­ma­tion) that is oth­er­wise lack­ing in most machin­ima. It is an effort that deserves atten­tion (even if the prod­uct ends up being only a music video).

The Craft of War: BLIND from per­cula on Vimeo Yahoo!.