Machinima

April 13, 2009

By Joanna

Machinima is awesome. I feel cool just saying the word. But what--as a friend of mine recently asked me over chat--the hell is machinima? I wrote back with a knowing nod of my head: machinima uses 3-D rendering engines to produce computer animation. I was met with silence. She was at work and needed entertainment so I sent her the link to "Code Monkey."

Code Monkey, set to a Jonathan Coulton song by the same name, was created a couple of years back by a guy called Spiff. It's a virtual legend among players of World of Warcraft. In the intervening years, Spiff has produced quite a few WoW inspired videos, all of which have gained a lot of popularity amongst the gaming set. Spiff was kind enough to put up with a fan and explain the history of his videos.

How did you get interested in machinima with a WoW theme? I go into this on the "Ancient History" page of my site, but I originally saw someone else's machinima video for a Jonathan Coulton song, which germinated the idea in my head that any fan could just go ahead and make a video for an artist's music if they had the creativity and the tools. When I surveyed the tools I had available to me, WoW was really the only choice since I am a Mac guy and there weren't any other MMOs available for Macs at the time (well, Shadowbane was out for Mac, but that one sucked). Lucky for me, WoW was not only my only option, but it was probably also the best option for a number of reasons. WoW became immensely popular, which meant there was a large base of people who would potentially enjoy my videos. Jonathan Coulton himself has expressed surprise that there are so many people out there who like this game, that they'll spend time sitting around watching videos about the game.

Also very important was the fact that since it was so popular, fans of the game who were software developers made stand-alone apps like the WoW Model Viewer and Map Viewer that allowed people to view the game's assets outside the game itself. That meant that I could capture the video for each character separately and then combine them using special effects software like Adobe After Effects, which gave me a lot of creative control when making the videos (it helped that at the time, I worked for Adobe and could get all that high-end software for very cheap).

So, it was sort of a happy accident that I chose WoW for my videos and that WoW turned out to be such a big deal.

What kinds of songs are good for designing videos, and what kind are less useful?

There are many great songs out there about love, and rock and roll, and whatever. None of those are any good for me to turn into videos. Because my videos are essentially like silent movies, I need to be able to act out what's going on in the song, so if the song is all about how much a guy loves a girl, with verses full of stuff like "I love her", "I can't live without her", "she's my everything", and "what would I do without her", I would quickly run out of ways to show that in an interesting and compelling manner and my video would suck.

Contrast that with a typical Jonathan Coulton song, which tends to tell a story in a manner much like a three-act play. The first verse sets up the action, the second verse escalates the action, and the third verse concludes the action, usually with a clever twist. That's perfect for me, because it gives me a solid skeleton of a script that I can add my own twists and gags onto. The action moves along in the song, keeping the viewer interested. And Coulton songs are usually about something deeper than just the silly action that he's describing, which allows me to amplify the song's story by animating the action in a way that plays up or down the underlying meaning of the song. When I can do this successfully, I get emails from people asking, "did you make the video for that song, or was the song written for your video?". That is very satisfying to hear. :)

Not all Coulton songs work well for my kind of video, and there are definitely songs of his that I'll never be able to turn into a video. But hopefully he'll keep making the kinds of songs that I can.

What do you think Tom Cruise would say if he watched Tom Cruise Crazy? Do you think a roving band of Scientologists will come and destroy your computer?

I would hope that Tom Cruise would see my video as the satire it is and hopefully have fun figuring out the the movie gags I put in there, just like everyone else. I think he'd like it since there's nothing mean spirited in there, and as is typical with a Jonathan Coulton song, even though the main thrust of the song is making fun of Tom Cruise, there's an undercurrent of something else in there, some pity for a guy whose life has gone so far off the rails, and perhaps Tom could identify with the overblown character in the song (which would make sense, since that character is him).

I don't worry about the Scientologists. Now, if I'd actually dared to show a depiction of the alien god Xenu in the video, then they would have cause to declare fatwa on me, and I'd be worried. Or maybe I'm getting them mixed up with someone else.

What's the coolest thing for you that's come out of making these videos?

At first, the coolest thing was just the comments people were leaving on YouTube expressing how much they enjoyed the videos. It's quite a rush to have something you created be received favorably by people and for them to be so effluent with their praise. Posting a video and having people post comments where they say they laughed at exactly the points you'd hoped they would laugh is very satisfying.

But the absolute most coolest thing that's come out of making the videos was when, in 2007, Blizzard invited me to come to Blizzcon along with a handful of other machinima artists so we could sit at a booth and greet people and talk to them about machinima. I had never considered myself part of any "community" before that (I'm just a guy who makes silly videos because it's fun), but Blizzard itself seems to think that my videos are in the same league as the other top, top, top-level guys. Getting the invitation blew my mind and was quite an honor. It was also kind of a shocker to see that other people were taking more seriously than I had been taking myself, so I upgraded some of the tools I use in my videos, and started posting them with higher video resolution and stuff. Blizzcon was the point where I realized, "uh oh, people are watching me now". ;)

Since then, I've tried to keep in touch with some of those other machinima people, but I'm not doing a very good job. This last year, Blizzard didn't invite the group of machinimists back, so I had to scramble to find a ticket, and I ended up wandering around by myself the entire time alone. Very sad and boring. On the last day I discovered that all the rest of the "gang" had been hanging out together and staying up all night in the hotel rooms watching each other's videos, and they all said that if they'd known I was there, they would have invited me to come along. I have got to do a better job of hanging out with the "cool kids" next time.

To learn how to create a fabulous video of your own, follow Spiff's easy How To Make WoW Videos.

Comments

[john]

a) winnie, come over to the WoW side...
b) this is the nerdiest nerdabout post so far.
c) way to get the scientologists against us.
d) what level do i have to get to to fly planes in WoW?!!!!

[Maureen]

I think Winnie is ready to become a convert based on this post.

Love the story behind this great video and song!!!

[Liz]

Holy subculture! This is totally rad.

[dd]

I like the comments about songs that tell stories. Some of the songs from the '60's were great story songs (Leader of the Pack immediately comes to mind). Enjoyed the blog; love the site!

[Joanna]

@Winnie Buy the game and join our guild. We're somewhat hapless but funny.

[Winnie]

I don't play this game called WoW. Never even seen it in fact. But the videos are very funny.