PromotingMachinima

Introduction

"The Art of War: Machinima Depictions of Warfare" is an exhibition of machinima films that feature different approaches to the subject of warfare.

Most popular online games are geared towards violent fantasies centered on virtual combat scenarios. The battlegrounds depicted in these games include historic battlefields, fictional modern war zones, and mythical or futuristic worlds. Despite the variation in setting, most of these games operate in essentially the same way: players choose a faction and fight the opposing team in order to capture control points or simply to score as many kills as possible. To some extent, these games glorify (or at least trivialize) war by turning it into a kind of virtual sport with no real consequences. In the world of video games, death has been downgraded to the level of a minor annoyance and has lost its permanence and its meaning. After death, the player can always either respawn or start the game over again. Furthermore, the avatars (virtual representations of humans) fighting one another are not real people. Therefore, we typically do not have an emotional reaction to the massive body count and carnage that these games encourage. In recent years, the gung-ho nature of these online shooters has been exploited by the U.S. army in their video game “America’s Army”, which is used to recruit gamers into the real armed forces.


Machinima filmmakers often use the diverse virtual battlefields of war games as settings for their work. Many machinima war films are un-critical of war and, in fact, glorify and even celebrate it with bombastic music and flashy visuals and action scenes. However, more complex works co-opt the war game (built for playful destruction) and use it as a medium to critically examine warfare, its absurdity, and its real human cost. In these pieces, the gung-ho discourse of the participatory war game is supplanted by (or molded into) an opposite, voyeuristic, discourse that forces the viewer to reflect on war, rather than concentrate on augmenting his or her kill count.

"Permeation Oilfields" by Tim Hylkema


Hylkema's "Permeation" is representative of many well-choreographed battle-scenes filmed within video games. There is no story, no characters, and no underlying message. The film refuses to treat the subject of war critically and instead depicts combat as cool and exciting through its use of bombastic action-music and flashy camera angles and editing. In this way, it could even be considered a trailer for Battlefield 2, the game in which this machinima was made. The filmmaker may not have been consciously trying to glorify warfare. In fact, he probably just wanted to make a visually interesting Hollywood-esque action sequence. However, his chosen aesthetic unquestioningly adopts the video-game approach of stylizing and trivializing war without considering its real consequences and cost.

Watch: [link]

Country: Netherlands
Game Engine: Battlefield 2
Runtime: 3 minutes and 20 seconds
Year Released: September 2007
File Size: 22.50 MB
File Format: .wmv
Resolution: 720 x 480
Language: None

"Ours Again" by Nathan Moller




"Ours Again" is a music video (set to Clint Mansell's theme from "Requiem for a Dream") about a WWII battle between Allied and Nazi forces over a village outpost.The film opens with Allied soldiers entering the village. Suddenly, the Nazis invade, massacre the Allied troops, and capture the town. Then, the Allies return, fight the Nazis, and recapture the village and we are essentially back at the beginning of the film.
"Ours Again" seems to take a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards warfare. On one hand, the cyclical structure of the movie seems to suggest that the battle was entirely futile. Two major fire-fights have occurred, large numbers of men have died, and yet nothing has changed---the film begins and ends with an American flag flying over the village. We can easily imagine that the back-and-forth battles over the village have been fought before the events of the film and will continue to be fought after the events of the film in an unending cycle of violence. We never learn why the village is so important. We just know that both groups of soldiers have their orders to capture the village at all costs and they will execute these orders unquestioningly. Furthermore, the opening somber music and the closeups of a cemetery, an angel statue brandishing a sword, and a Virgin Mary in the village church, hint at the cost of war and the ambivalence of religion which preaches peace but is often used as an excuse for violence.
On the other hand, Moller's film is a kind of celebration of WWII through its stylized action scenes (for example, a soldier dives out of a window and blows up a tank) set to Clint Mansell's soaring and exciting score. Yet, ultimately, by the film's end, the overwhelming feeling is not necessarily one of glory. The film subtly contrasts what was gained and what was lost and asks the important question, "In the end, was it really worth it?".

Festivals / Screenings: It was aired on G4TV's Cinematech, featured at the Lincoln Center in New York, and nominated in the "Best Off-the-Shelf Machinima" category at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival.

Watch: [link]



Production Group: Mu Productions
Website: [link]
Internet Archive: [link]
Country: United States
Game Engine: Battlefield 1942
Runtime: 8 minutes and 42 seconds
Year Released: March 2004
File Size: 21.46 MB
File Format: .avi
Resolution: 700 x 400
Language: None

"An American Baby in Iraq" by Paul Henderson



Paul Henderson's machinima co-opts the highly stylized, Hollywood-esque, action-piece to make a statement about the absurdity of warfare. In doing so, he spoofs the majority of machinima action videos that refuse to treat war critically and instead portray it as glorious, cool, or fun.
In "An American Baby in Iraq", the American army drops a gigantic baby into an Iraqi village to eliminate the Iraqi insurgents. The film is a seamless mix of CGI animation (the baby) and machinima (the setting, vehicles, and soldiers are from the game "Battlefield 2"). The majority of the film is a long action scene, reminiscent of movies like Godzilla, in which the gigantic baby is destroying the Iraqis while the soldiers desperately try to fend him off with gunfire and tanks.
At first glance, the film's absurd premise seems entirely comedic. However, as the battle progresses, the film becomes increasingly disturbing. The baby stumbles around with large bloody holes in his chest due to the impact of tank shells. The baby also crushes Iraqis into streams of blood. Finally, at the end of the film a missile shaves off the top of the baby's head in slow-mo, killing him. The phrase "Born to Kill" is prominently written on the baby's head, a visual reference to the same phrase written on Private Joker's helmet in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket". Clearly, the meaning of the pieces rests in the symbol of the baby. Much like the contradictory symbols of the peace button and the phrase "Born to Kill" co-existing on Private Joker's military helmet, the vicious monster-baby is itself a contradiction.
Generally, a baby represents innocence. It is helpless, needy, and unable to defend itself. However, in this film, Henderson portrays a baby as a violent weapon. Perhaps, the baby is a symbol of today's youth culture, obsessed with the stylized violence of video games and Hollywood films. This is the generation of young men recruited through "America's Army" into the armed forces. The incongruity between the symbol of the baby and its unnaturally violent actions may also represent the innocent young men and women unnaturally molded by the army into machines of war. Alternatively, the gigantic baby could represent America ---big and powerful but ultimately childish and naive in its attempts to police the entire world.

Awards / Festivals : The film was nominated for four awards at the 2006 Machinima Festival including Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Virtual Performance: Puppeteering, and Best Editing.

Watch: [link]



Production Company: Rooftop Basement
Country: Ireland
Game Engine: Battlefield 2
Runtime: 6 minutes and 9 seconds
Year Released: August 2006
File Size: 15.19 MB
File Type: .avi
Resolution: 640 x 336
Language: English

For a comparison between this film and "Dead-in-Iraq", click here.

"Red vs. Blue" by Rooster Teeth Productions



"Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chroncles" is by far the most popular and famous machinima series ever made. In its 5 seasons (100 episodes), the series tells the tale of two opposing teams of armored soldiers engaged in a civil war in a desolate box canyon. The series is a parody of online shooter games and science-fiction films, as well as a satire on warfare. In fact, the first episode was released only one month into the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to the series' wikipedia entry, "Red vs. Blue" has received a lot of praise from soldiers fighting in Iraq who probably relate to its comedic take on the military lifestyle.
The first episode sets up the basic comedic premise of the entire series ---two teams of totally inept soldiers, engaged in a ridiculous war for no apparent reason. At the beginning of the episode, one of the Red soldiers asks "why are we here?". He does not understand why they are fighting over an insignificant box canyon in the middle of nowhere . Furthermore, there is no real reason behind the conflict. The soldier says, "the only reason that we set up a Red base here is because they have a Blue base over there, and the only reason they have a Blue base there is because we have a Red base here". This kind of circular reasoning is evocative of Joseph Heller's anti-war satire ,"Catch-22". Similar to Heller's novel, Rooster Teeth's work seems to argue that warfare is absurd regardless of the explanations concocted by the political or military establishment to justify it.
Throughout most of the series, the soldiers spend the majority of the time engaged in introspection or arguing amongst themselves rather than actually fighting. The totally undisciplined , inefficient, and unmotivated soldiers embodied in the figure of Halo's masterchief, the game's somber and stoic warrior, enhance the ridiculousness of the whole scenario.
Furthermore, the name "Red vs. Blue" conveys an "Us vs. Them" mentality that neatly places the characters into concrete categories, while ignoring any differences within each group. In fact, the armor of these soldiers do not necessarily conform to these classifications. For example, Grif is yellow even though he is a part of the "Red" team, and another character is pink. This type of inconsistency serves to reinforce the absurdity of the meaningless war between the Reds and the Blues.
A recurring joke about a dead teammate that returns as a ghost satirizes the impermanence of death in the video game world. If a character dies in "Red vs. Blue" he can easily return as a ghost, possess bodies and machines, or inhabit a new "robotic" body. In this way, Rooster Teeth cleverly illustrates how video games transform death into meaningless routine and ignore the cost of warfare.

Awards / Festivals: Season One won Best Picture, Best Independent Machinima, and Best Writing at the 2003 Machinima Festival. Season 3 won Best Indepentent Machinima at the 2005 Machinima Festival and was nominated for 5 other awards. Season 4 was nominated for Best Voice Acting and Best Writing at the 2006 Machinima Festival, but won neither award.

Press: The "Red vs. Blue" series has been featured in many newspapers and magazines. Click here for a list of their press appearances.


Watch Episode 1: [link]

Production Company: Rooster Teeth Productions
Website: [link]
Country: United States
Game Engine: Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2
Year Released: April 2003- June 2007
File Type: .mov and .wmv
Resolution: 720 x 464
Language: English

"Deviation" by Jon Griggs



"Deviation" was an official selection into Tropfest at Tribeca Film Festival in 2005. This honor made it the first machinima film ever to be accepted into a major film festival. "Devation" is the story of a group of soldiers who are planning an assault out of a sewer. One of their number, Macintyre, acknowledges that he is a game character and claims that they have done the same attack over and over again. He criticizes their plan as foolish and futile because they always follow the same strategy, the enemy is always waiting for them above ground, and they always get massacred. He insists that there is a way out of the ridiculous and seemingly endless self-destructive cycle, but the others ignore him. The leader of the group tells Macintyre that they must follow orders at all costs, even though he has never seen these orders or the people who wrote them.
"Deviation" examines the repetitive and mindless violence of a First Person Shooter (FPS) game, in this case, "Counter-Strike", as a metaphor for the repetitive and mindless violence of real-world warfare. Macintyre represents the voice of reason (and peace) opposed to a robotic militaristic mindset that requires an unquestioning acceptance and execution of orders. The writer/director, Jon Griggs seems to believe that this mindset is inherently illogical, absurd, and self-destructive.
Thus, near the end of the film, there are no good answers when the frustrated Macintyre asks, “Why do we do this, this constant killing and dying, over and over and over, why!?” . Instead one soldier replies, "What else can we do?" to which Macintyre yells, "Something! Anything!". The slavish adherence to orders has prevented the other soldiers from even considering the possibility of any alternative to combat. They are baffled by Macintyre's challenge to authority and consequently fumble with their words or give nonsensical answers to his important questions. Ultimately, they abandon logic, with disastrous consequences.

Here is a statement from the artist's own website:

"What started out as a novel (and inexpensive) way to tell a short, darkly comedic story took a turn towards a political statement about choice and the need for individual questioning of the status quo. As an avid games-player, I used the relatively unknown medium of machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development, to tell a story about one individual's attempt to break out of the cycle of futile violence that has been his sole existence. The film was shot using an online game environment and a cast comprised of four virtual actors whom I had never met in the real world. Using an ingame voice-chat program and a virtual camera I blocked, directed and shot the scenes using little more than a mouse, keyboard and a record button.

One definition of deviation is an expressed belief, within a totalitarian regime, which is not in accordance with official party doctrine for the time and area. Scrape away at the surface of Deviation and my hope is that you will see a message that holds relevance for all of us in these dangerous times of countrywide apathy and state-engendered fear."

Awards / Festivals: Official Selection Tropfest@Tribeca 2005. Nominated for 7 awards at the 2006 Machinima Festival including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing, Best Editing, Best Independent Machinima, Best Voice-Acting, and Best Sound Design. Winner of Best Sound Design and Best Voice-Acting.

Watch: [link]


Production Company: Hardlight Films
Website: [link]
Country: United States
Game Engine: Counter-Strike
Runtime: 6 minutes and 7 seconds
Year Released: 2005
File Size: 73.10 MB
File Type: .mov
Resolution: 640 x 480 (with H.264 codec)
Language: English

"June" by Brian Berdnt (aka Feisar)



Brian Berndt, the creator of "June", is a member of the Georgia Tech Machinima Group directed by Professor Michael Nitsche . Berndt's film adopts the dystopian setting of the popular shooter game Half-Life 2 in order to portray the tragic cost of warfare. "June" is the story of a medic who reflects on happier times after seeing his lover gunned down by enemy forces.

The film opens with a protracted, very game-like, battle sequence between Half-Life 2's Rebel and Combine factions. However, it soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary machinima action video. The director focuses our attention on a female medic's death which plays out in slow-mo as her lover looks on in horror. The rest of the film is a sequence of memories of a more peaceful time when the two lovers were united and happy. Thus, Berdnt cleverly exposes the tragedy of war by constrasting it with idyllic depictions of love and peace.

Berdnt humanizes his characters through his excellent use of Half-Life 2's Faceposer tool, which allows the user to manipulate the facial expressions of game characters and thereby simulate emotions. Thus, we are able to identify with the main character and feel his pain even though there is no dialogue in the entire film. In fact, this absence of dialogue reinforces the universality of the film's central theme --- the tragedy of loss--and enables the film to be experienced in exactly the same way anywhere in the world.


Watch: [link]


Website: [link]
Internet Archive: [link]
Country: United States
Game Engine: Garry's Mod (Half Life 2)
Runtime: 9 minutes and 22 seconds
Year Released: Oct. 2005
File Size: 46 MB (LQ), 118 MB (MQ), 224 MB (HQ)
File Type: .wmv
Resolution: 640 x 480 (HQ), 480 x 360 (LQ and MQ)
Language: None

"An Unfair War" by Thuyen Nguyen



Thuyen Nyguyen's "An Unfair War" is a machinima made in the popular game "The Sims 2". Unlike many other game engines featured in this exhibition, "The Sims 2" is not inherently violent and instead focuses on controlling the lives of avatars called Sims. Nevertheless, the game has spawned a vibrant machinima community producing films on diverse subject matter, including warfare. Nguyen's "An Unfair War" has been lauded throughout the machinima community as one of the most powerful anti-war machinima films despite (or perhaps because of) its simplicity.
"An Unfair War" is about a man who remains alone in a war zone, after his family has fled, typing on his computer his thoughts and fears about the world that he sees collapsing around him. The film employs a minimalist aesthetic to critique warfare. All of the action takes place within one tiny room and there are no explosions, flashy visuals, or music. Instead, Nguyen's machinima effectively uses sound effects of shooting, airplanes, bombs, and explosions to create the sense that his nameless protagonist is in the middle of a war zone. Similarly, the filmmaker chose to use subtitles, rather than spoken dialogue, to represent the text that the man is typing on his computer. Both the use of subtitles and the refusal to mention any specific nations give the film a universal quality.
It is impressive how compelling the film is considering the fact that it is almost entirely an avatar typing on a computer. When the camera does move away from the protagonist, we are given shots of family photos and an empty crib--reminders of the human cost of war and its impact on this particular family. Nguyen successfully builds the tension and feelings of dread and urgency by progressively raising the volume of the sounds of war and shaking the protagonist's room. It is as if the war itself is attempting to drown out his questioning and critical voice.
The power of the film comes from Nguyen's simplification of war down to a personal, yet universal, story of an innocent war victim trying to make sense of the mindless violence around him. The message of the film is summed up by the ending quote by Mahatma Gandhi, "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?". The cause of war is unimportant. What matters most is the human cost.

Festivals / Screenings: Animatu (Portugal), Bitfilm (Germany), Holland Animation Film Festival (The Netherlands), Bradford Animation Festival
(U.K.), Silver Lake Film Festival (USA)

Watch: [link]


Production Company: Devinquest
Website: [link]
Internet Archive: [link]
Country: Australia
Game Engine: The Sims 2
Runtime: 4 minutes and 59 seconds
Year Released: June 2006
File Size: 12.11 MB
File Type: .avi
Resolution: 480x270 DivX color
Language: English (subtitles)

About the author
Harrison Heller (aka "Nefarious Guy") is an American machinima director. His team, "Amorphous Blob Productions", is best known for the "Machinima! With Officer Dan" series. He is currently a student at Brown University.

Contact: amorphousblobproductions[at]gmail.com