Henrik Bennetsen.com

I told in an earlier post about our Machinima event here at Stanford and now that it is over I thought I’d share a few thoughts on it. I have to say that I had been a little apprehensive about the fact that I was going to witness a live performance. Part of the excitement about live performance for me is basically that it has the potential to suck really bad (stop me if I’m getting too technical here).

This also makes it a lot more exiting when it’s good. And it was really good in fact it was great. Ill Clan members Matt Dominianni and Paul Jannicola both had experience from live improv comedy in New York and it showed. Their timing was good and their jokes made me laugh. They were backed up by Frank Dellario that handled the cameras and Paul Marino on sound effects.

The performance was a talk show called Tra5h Ta1k. The execution involved creating a 3D set and then using the Torque game engine to perform live with their actors; a slick host with a missile for a sidekick. Their virtual puppeteering was pulled off using game peripherals and clearly well rehearsed. The design of their characters had a really nice indie feel; good to see in an game industry that often seem to only too happy to be lost in the depths of the uncanny valley.

Before the show Paul Marino gave us the lowdown on the interesting story of Machinima. As author of The Art of Machinima and a long time practitioner as a member of the Ill Clan he knows his stuff. Interestingly I had seen pretty all the movies he brought forward as key machinima pieces, which lead me to reflect on how good the folksonomies of the internet actually are at highlighting things. Paul is also the creator of Still Seeing Breen a fantastic movie that combines music and games – certainly a few of my favorite things.

The day after the performance the Ill Clan came to class and answered questions from Stanford students. Then in the afternoon we had the scholarly panel. Not many were able to make it, but it still felt like a success. I thought that we had a really good discussion after my talk that followed two really interesting presentations by Matteo Bittanti and Michael Nitsche. Having the The Ill Clan there got us a really good mix of practical and theoretical perspectives on where Machinima is right now and might be going.

Looking back at it now I have had a couple of really cool days. With The Movies just out and films like the French Democracy starting to surface there is no doubt that Machinima is looking as potent and powerful as ever. Let me just quote Clive Thompson’s comment the aforementioned French flick:

The raw DIY feel of this project is more punk rock than anything anyone’s done with music in about 20 years.

For you that couldn’t be here the events were all taped and something should be made available online at a later point. I’ll let you know when I know. For now you can check my photos from the event.