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Home , Character animation, Machinima, QuakeCon, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

The Phenomenon Group members

Hans-Petter Ellingsen Kristian Jespersen Kenni Skafte Mortensen

Hand in deadline: 23 May 2007 at 3 pm. Course: Computer Culture Teacher: Miguel Sicart

The Master of Science study programme in Media Technology and (MTG), Semester Spring 2007 IT University of Copenhagen 1 Table of Contents

222 Introduction ...... 3333 2.1 Defining the machinima phenomenon...... 3 2.2 Methodology and theoretical approach...... 4 333 Historical overview of machinimamachinima...... 5555 3.1 Milestones ...... 5 444 Communities and genregenre...... 7...... 777 555 Case study: World of ...... 101010 5.1 Tales of the Past...... 11 5.1.1 Fifteen minutes o’ fame...... 11 5.1.2 Affordances and constraints ...... 12 5.2 Epic Flight Form ...... 15 5.2.1 Epic Flight Form – imbalanced classes ...... 15 5.2.2 Affordances and constraints ...... 16 5.3 Super Mario Bros. machinima ...... 18 5.3.1 Games as frame of reference...... 18 5.3.2 Affordances and constraints ...... 19 666 Conclusion ...... 212121 777 What’s on the DVD ...... 22222222 888 References ...... 23232323 999 Appendix A: Overview of machinima genres ...... 25...... 252525

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2 Introduction

As part of the course Computer Game Culture, at the IT University of Copenhagen, students were asked to write a report on a topic of their own interest and choice. The report should utilize and represent a more practical approach to the research of a game related cultural topic and should seek to apply theoretical knowledge taught in the course.

In this report we will examine the cultural phenomenon of machinima, to get an understanding of the communities and the creative climate in which machinima is produced i.e. in relation to cultural- and historical influences as well as technological affordances and constraints.

As part of our research we will exemplify the above by analyzing three different machinima films, made in the game (), from both a cultural and a technological point of view.

The machinima examples referred to in this report can be found on the enclosed CD (see Error! Reference not found. What’s on the DVD, page 22).

2.1 Defining the machinima phenomenon

There are many opinions and attempts to coin an exact definition for what machinima is. A quick search on the internet instantly reveals that the boundaries of what defines the medium are somewhat flexible. Apart from the fact that machinima (a combination of the words machine, cinema and ) is considered a type of , there exist some basic requirements, which seem to reappear in most definitions we have come across:

Machinima scenes are recorded in realreal----time.time. Recording in real-time means that what you see is what is being recorded, while it is happening. This does not rule out real world filmmaking since this is also shot real-time, but 3D animation films such as Monsters Inc. ( Animation Studios) can, however be ruled out since these cannot be considered as recorded or rendered in real-time.

Machinima scenes are recorded inside a virtual interactive environment. The environment in which machinima scenes are recorded is a virtual one that reacts to e.g. a users input. An environment that does not exist in the real world, but only inside a computer. There is no requirement to whether this should be based on two or three dimensional space, but usually the latter is the one preferred. There is neither a requirement stating that the virtual environment should be that of a 3D in particular, but usually this is also the case.

Seeing what machinima can be and knowing how its definition is taking shape around the phenomenon we believe that a broad definition is a good way to go. The requirements mentioned above state some essential elements of what define machinima – that machinima is filmmaking, recorded in real-time within a virtual interactive environment.

It is also worth mentioning such boarder cases as sequential art and still capture in games as influences and parallel forms of expression to machinima. Although not dependant on the same criteria as machinima, these forms of expression also use the game as a creative tool.

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2.2 Methodology and theoretical approach

In our research of the machinima phenomenon we will seek to apply knowledge acquired in class and from texts we have been presented to during the course. As part of our case study of World of Warcraft we will seek inspiration in the texts on the subject of technology studies such as “Knowing what to do” (Donald Norman, 1992) and “Where are the missing masses?” (Bruno Latour, 2002).

Both the texts pose a view on how technology and technological objects can be analyzed. In the case of the first text, Donald Norman divides an object into its affordances and constraints – what actions can you do with the object and which ones is it constraining you from. In doing so he points out that technological objects should in themselves signal users the proper usage of them. In the second text Bruno Latour introduces a somewhat similar way of breaking down and analyzing objects, but further explains that the same technological affordances can be favoring some users and discriminating others.

The above is of course a short and summarized description of the two texts and not at all exhaustive, but it points out the main areas that we find interesting. In our case study we will try to adopt this method of breaking down and analyzing the technological object at hand (the game) in regards to making machinima. We will identify what the affordances and constraints are in relation to how our chosen machinima films were made. And since we are only studying World of Warcraft machinima we should be able to make a good comparison of how the films have used the technology.

The case study World of Warcraft has primarily been chosen due to the extensive knowledge each of us has as a player and member of the World of Warcraft community since the games release in 12 February 2005.

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3 Historical overview of machinima

This section will give a historical overview of the major milestones of the machinima phenomenon. In order to accomplish the goals stated in the introduction it is crucial to have an understanding of which events have lead to where machinima is today. Especially with regards to how the creative climate was affected by technological affordances and constraints, and how this was utilized by the community.

It is stated in the introduction that this report wants to create an understanding of the cultural and historical influences of machinimators and the possibilities and boundaries of technological affordances and constraints. The following section will give examples of how a game had been designed with certain affordances in mind, only for these to be “broken” by a creative community, which utilized the game in ways not imagined by the developer. Although we have no conclusive evidence, i.e. developer interviews, we also introduce the possibility of- and likelihood for the game industry being affected by the trends of the community, which therefore had indirect impact on future game/engine designs.

The following is based on the groups own observations in combination with the historical walkthrough written by in his book 3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima with minor additions from Brian Shurtleffs paper 1 on GameCareerGuide.com, Gamasutra’s educational sister site.

3.1 Milestones

The first notion of machinima came when Danielle Bunten Berry created the game Modem Wars in 1983, where game demos could be recorded, not as , but as game instructions later to be replayed on any machine with the game installed. The whole notion of recording game play might have arisen to comply with wishes from in order for them to show off their skills.

In 1992, the game Stunt Island (Disney Interactive) was released. The game was built on a flight simulation engine and the goal was to create a diversity of stunt . The player could place props, planes and stunts and recordings to make little movies. Communities emerged which traded props and movies with each other.

In 1994 (id-) was released, which had an open architecture which allowed for modding, as well as demo recording possibilities in the same manner as Modem Wars . Modem Wars and Stunt Island might have been pioneers, but while these were merely footnotes of history, Doom had a greater impact on machinima history due to sheer popularity.

The main thing recorded in Doom was speed-runs, i.e. recordings of fast completions of levels, and this use of in-game recordings continued to be the primary use for the next few years until (id- software) was released in 1996.

1 Machinima: Bridging Games, Film, and Animation

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Using Quake, a clan named The Rangers recorded the first true narrative machinima called . It lasted less than two minutes and its story was about a number of players rooting out another player. They used the in-game communication, i.e. written messages, to create the narrative. The affordances of Quake had not been designed to encompass narrative machinima, but none the less, Diary of a Camper was to be only the first of many.

The term “machinima” had not been coined at this time, and these movies were normally referred to as Quake movies. Since Quake had a large amount of resources available to the player; custom-built sets, graphics, sounds and special effects, the possibilities for using the game as a narrative tool was far greater than its predecessors.

The Quake demo format was reversed engineered by a man called Uwe Girlich who created the tool, Little Movie Processing Center , which allowed its users to edit the in-game recordings, i.e. the saved game instructions. This is once again an example of breaking the constraints, although this time it was allowed by third party software, which took advantage of dormant affordances in the demo format.

In 1999 () was released which allowed for scripted camera movement, and had an open architecture. The game seemed to have been designed with affordances for narrative recordings, to comply with trends in the community.

The year after machinima.com was founded and the term “machinima” was coined. In 2002 the first machinima film festival was held at QuakeCon – a gaming venue event annually held in each year.

In 2003 a machinima finds its way to the mass media when the Quake 3 based music video “In the Waiting Line” is aired on MTV.

The music video was made by Fountainhead studios with the tool Machinimation which they themselves had created based on the Quake 3 engine.

The same year Epic Games released a tool called Matinee for their Unreal Tournament 3 game, which allowed for the user to easily create machinima films. They furthermore sponsored a $50.000 contest to create the best machinima with the game. Scripted camera movement in Machinimation To top off the events of a busy 2003 a fan of The Sims () used the in-game photo album mechanic to create a highly rated and successful comic book story.

In 2004 Rockstar Games also implements the camera feature in their game, GTA: San Andreas . It seemed quite possible that this was implemented to satisfy the machinima fans or fans of games as narrative tools in general.

This trend of sequential art, i.e. comic books, within the scope of the machinima culture, spreads to games which, in their design, had not entailed this as an affordance. None the less Christopher C.

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Livingston created the comprehensive comic, Concerned: The half-life and death of Gordon Frohman , using the Half-life2 named Garry’s Mod .

To finish the tour of machinima history, () should be mentioned. Released in late 2005, this game puts the player in the place of a movie studio owner. It seems the concept of the game is entirely inspired by the community surrounding the machinima phenomenon, and the design affordances allow machinimators to create intricate narrative stories and to share these with the community.

Although we have no proof of the intentions of the game developers, it seems that a variety of games are designed with machinima affordances in consideration. This “fact” combined with the increasing complexity, content in games and modern computer power, allows for people with a yearning for being a director to do so in their own home. The variance of games and the different affordances and constraints within them gives ample opportunities to choose the narrative tool which fits the nature of the project the best.

The above section has mainly revolved around the technological considerations surrounding machinima. The next section will try to look at the phenomenon from a more cultural aspect with relation to film-theory.

4 Communities and genre

As we have seen Machinima has been an active form of communication for some time. Although an underground community at first, it has grown into a multitude of different communities, fan bases and genres of machinima. To easier understand the social as well as historical context of a particular machinima we need to define the most common signifiers both in regards to communities and to the machinima form, its genre.

In film theory genres describe the relationship between the filmmakers and the audience, where the filmmakers are highly influenced by commercial success, thus building on previous tested formulas and genres (for example westerns) and thereby trying to anticipate what the audience would like to see. Quality is therefore not necessarily a criterion as Froncois Truffaut points out:

“when a film achieves a certain success, it becomes a sociological event, and the question of its quality becomes secondary” (Thomas Schatz, 1981, p. 4).

Hence the evolution of a film genre can be looked at as an indirect relationship between the filmmaker and the audience, were the filmmaker tries to meet and exceed the audiences expectations, thus forcing an evolution of the genres conventions or rules (Schatz, 1981).

But how does this relate to machinima where the films are hybrid forms (expression that is influenced by several mediums) of expression rooted in the games they were made in? First of all we need to look at the machinima communities, which act as both part of the audience and the filmmakers.

Common for all machinima communities, is the creative drive to make something more than the intentional gameplay represented in a given game. Having said that, we can divide the community into two basic forms: the machinimators and the game fans. The machinimators are the members of the community that are basically concerned with making movies with games, using and taking advantage of the different affordances found in games to create movies. The content of movies made by this community is very seldom self-promoting gameplay films, but more often narrative or artistic

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use of the game world (such as music videos). The game fans on the other hand produce a lot of the gameplay related e.g. PvP () movies, movies, but also narrative films set in the game world.

The machinima genres can be divided into two major categories mirroring these two communities; the game related and the non-game related machinima. That is not to say that the films in each genre are made consistently by the respective community i.e. non-game related films only being made by machinimators. We have already identified one genre as we talked about the communities, the player promoting gameplay films. These films are actual in-game gameplay videos captured by players to show off their skills as players, a kind of game documentary footage. Many of these videos use music video aesthetics (especially in editing and use of rhythm). Such videos are examples of a sub-genre within the category of the game related machinima.

On the other hand there are the non-game related films. Most often narrative machinimas are influenced by film i.e. remakes of film scenes as we find it in A Few Good G-men, a remake made in Half Life 2: Source (Valve) of the courtroom confrontation scene in A Few Good Men .

These films use the game world and the games to express something else than originally intended by the game designers. Non-game related machinima can also be non-narrative i.e. as music videos or abstract art films. These films extinguish themselves in the way that they intentionally try to break away from the constraints of the given game.

We see that machinima can further be divided into the more traditional narrative and non-narrative categories. These forms, in combination with the game and non-game related categories, four primary categories of machinima (shown in the top layer boxes of the hierarchy in Appendix A: Overview of machinima genres, page 25).

These two categories have several sub-genres that we know from film; music videos, trailers, short films, fiction films, documentary 2, art films and so on, which also have their own sub-genres like comedy or action for instance.

In addition we have the phenomena of gameplay produced machinima, most notable in the game The Movies . Here the central goal of the game is to produce motion pictures by running a studio and the player produced movies are shown as short films in the game. The matter of constraints and affordances in The Movies are thereby also influenced by the actual gameplay and performance of the player, creating a movie production simulation and a machinima tool at the same time. The Movies has therefore incorporated the machinima community aspect in its , even having a section on their website categorized by genre with player created movies.

Because the machinima made in The Movies are defined by the simulation rules and not by the game genre, strategy/resource management game, the machinima created within it, is less bound by any special game world or setting as for example World of Warcraft or similar games. The array of

2 Documentary is in the case of a machinima a fiction genre (in contrast to player promoting machinima) because it does not represent any actual real- or events, but uses rather the aesthetic conventions of the documentary genre as a way of narrating.

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machinima created within The Movies thereby have the potential to be wider than most other games, including everything from horror and sci-fi to political films as in made by a player called Koulamata, a political film about the real world French riots last year.

All these genres and the different communities are tied together, but not in the sense of the classical Hollywood genre system. There are no dynamics between them driven by an economic perspective from the filmmaker’s point of view, which would also be highly problematic in most cases, because of strict end user licenses agreements prohibiting any commercial use of the games. There are on the other hand several influences both from the community, other media and the given game. First of all there is of course a heavy influence from film, as we have touched upon with the different sub- genres earlier. In addition there is a strong community that is working for better condition in games to create machinima.

The machinima community also works both as a creative and a normative community, producing and rating their work within the same game and machinima community. In many ways the self evaluating community takes the place of the classic Hollywood genre system in the sense that highly rated machinima is copied, and refined by the next generation of machinima films.

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5 Case study: World of Warcraft

In the previous sections this report has dealt with the cultural and historical background of the machinima phenomenon, as well as a look into the affordances and constraints of a variety of games and how the combination of the above affects the creation of machinima films. In order to exemplify our findings we have chosen to use a case study in which we, with basis in World of Warcraft, analyze three widely different machinima films with regards to cultural context, genre and use of affordances and constraints in World of Warcraft .

World of Warcraft has been chosen as the case basis, firstly because of the massive interest in the game which creates a very vibrant and productive community, due to the sheer amount of people participating. Secondly we have a lot of firsthand knowledge and experience about most aspects of the game as stated in Error! Reference source not found.found. Error! Reference source not found.found., page 4. Thirdly the massive multiplayer , MMO, aspect adds an interesting dimension to the making of modern machinima.

A downside to World of Warcraft as a narrative tool is, that you as the director lacks control since, it cannot be modded, i.e. personalized content cannot be added. Even though this is one of the constraints of World of Warcraft’s design, some parts of the community has, through use of post production and more importantly illegally distributed private servers with access to an editor, broken that constraint. The analysis of the Super Mario Bros. machinima on page 18 talks about this topic.

On the positive side, it’s quite easy to get started making machinima films in World of Warcraft since there exist an abundance of sceneries, a relatively large amount of animated emotes 3 e.g. wave, dance, shout, flex etc. Furthermore the aspiring director do not need to endure the hard learning curve of using more traditional machinima tools, i.e. open architecture games with editors, although these tools provide more creative freedom.

As previously stated, the group has chosen three machinima films as the analytical foundation for the case study. The machinima films in question have been carefully chosen for the following reasons;

Tales of the Past has primarily been chosen since it is strictly made in-game and is an excellent example of the affordances and constraints in the World of Warcraft game design.

Druid Epic Flight and The Mario Bros. machinima has been chosen based on a more cultural point of view. Epic Flight has been made by proficient machinimators and was interesting due to the way it resembles a political commentary, by commenting on an issue which the World of Warcraft community was/is discussing at the time, vis-à-vis the relative strength between the classes in the game, with one class in mind particularly. On the other hand The Mario Bros. machinima has been made with a private World of Warcraft server and has an interesting cross game reference, i.e. simulated Mario Bros in a World of Warcraft environment.

First we will look at Tales of the Past to clarify on the affordances and constraints of World of

3 Emotes are scripted , sounds and text messages that can be used by players to give more life to their i.e. /dance that makes your avatar dance and displays the text: “You (avatar name for others) burst into dance.” Warcraft . Tales of the Past is made with one man on top, a team of about five people, approximately 30 important actors and 400-600 extras. Second case is Druid Epic Flight which is a two person job with aid of a graphical artist and a few extras. Third case is a solo project.

5.1 Tales of the Past

The trilogy called Tales of the Past is made by a young Danish man called Martin Falch, and has achieved quite a bit of fame due to an article in the Danish newspaper Politiken and, more importantly, a theme program regarding online culture on the major Danish TV-station DR.

Just before the airing of the theme program, the movie had been downloaded 140.000 times which placed it in top-10 of the most viewed Danish movies of the year. This also earned the creator a temporary showcase on the front page of the official World of Warcraft homepage. Tales of the Past II have also been popular enough to be translated into both Polish and German.

Currently only two of the three movies have been completed, which allowed for a group member to participate in a recording for the third movie in the trilogy. This presented an opportunity to get a first-hand impression of the procedure in the creation of large scale machinima movies.

The Tales of the Past movies are epic stories with their narrative based on the World of Warcraft lore. It uses a large amount of locations and has used several hundred actors in the recordings. The first movie in the trilogy, which lasted 14 minutes, had no voice acting and only a single camera, whereas the sequel had a much higher ambition which is reflected by its duration of 41 minutes. The script was also much more developed in the second part.

The massive nature of the project raises some interesting issues with regards to actor control and hardware problems, i.e. how does the communications between director and actor function, and how does the gathering of several hundred players affect game performance and thereby recordings. Apart from the MMO issue this report will take a look at the affordances of a massive game world and a well developed game lore, and how this influence the creation of a narrative machinima as Tales of the Past. This relates to the use of in game events in certain scenes, e.g. taking advantage of World of Warcraft events such as reindeers at Christmas time or pumpkin head at Halloween.

5.1.1 Fifteen minutes o’ fame

The first and most dominant type of machinima films are the ones with promotional intent, that being either a PvP film, as mentioned in the genre section page 7 , to show off skill, or just to create awareness of the player or his/her guild. The original machinima of the director was made to promote his guild by creating a story-line driven machinima with his guild as the primary ingredient. After getting positive feedback on that, he wanted to work on a more serious narrative which ended up with Tales of the Past . Martin Falch says on his website:

“The series originally started out as a guild promotion movie for my guild, Eden Aurorae. However, as it got popular, I decided to continue and make my second storyline movie, Tales of the Past, which was indeed a way more serious project than the original guild movie.“ (Falch 2007)

It seems like the goal of the project shifted from guild promotion to a more personal creative challenge.

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Another aspect of Tales of the Past is the vast amount of extras that more than willingly spend time on being in the movie. Glancing through the Tales of the Past forum, it springs to mind that very many people want to join in on the fun. It certainly has an element of “Fifteen minutes of Fame” in it. Martin Falch further says that a large number of people send him emails with a picture of their virtual character with hopes to get a more renowned role in the film. He also often has to pose for screenshots next to fans in-game. Since there is value in virtual fame, the action of participating in a machinima as Tales of the Past is also given value by many players.

After these brief considerations on the machinima community’s effect on the creation of films, it is time to look at the more technological and film making aspects of machinima.

5.1.2 Affordances and constraints

MMO hardware considerationconsiderationssss In Tales of the Past one of the most important means to give a sense of grandeur is massive fight sequences with hundreds of participants, which, with basis in World of Warcraft , means hundreds of players who all connect to a server and runs to a specific location. This puts tremendous strain on the server and causes lag and crashes. The fact that, in these fight sequences, many players use spells which also graphically adds to the strain on the server. This is one of the main constraints of real- time MMO machinima recordings, since it creates jagged recordings, which breaks the suspension of disbelief immediately. Also unforeseen events might occur that will delay recordings.

“When doing the final battle scenes, the horde was supposed to charge into the alliance. What happened, though, was the horde charging past all the alliance and off the edge and into the water below, practically killing half the horde army!” (Falch 2007)

Falch talks about an event in the recordings where the visual update of the position of each player’s avatar in the game was so slow, that a number of actors continued off a cliff, causing them to die, delaying the recordings. For the recordings of a fight scene in Tales of the Past II , a group member went to the recording location, and experienced this effect first hand. The server crashed more than 10 times in 1½ hours and the delay was Players gathered for recording at all times noticeable (see recordings on enclosed DVD, info on page 22). In-game MMO recordings allows only a certain amount to join in.

MMO director considerations But even as constraining as this might be, the advantages are also immense. The game allows for many people acting in front of a camera without having to script any predefined behavior. Since World of Warcraft also have a large amount of character visual variations, no work to create textures or models is necessary, if the setting of the film coincides with the setting of the game that is. The fact that real people, through their virtual alter ego, are actors in the movie, unforeseen events are bound to happen. This can both work as a positive, bringing the scene to life, or as a negative with

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players not acting in accordance with the wishes of the director. Furthermore the open nature of World of Warcraft allows so-called , players trying to annoy other players, to disrupt the scene by attacking the camera man or otherwise interfere with the recordings. In Tales of the Past the director had, in some scenes, groups of extremely well equipped players standing guard in the periphery, killing anyone who tried to approach, but this only works to a certain extent. The gathering of many people also draws other players, who do not know a movie is being recorded, to see what is going on. There are a few examples of this in Tales of the Past II , e.g. a low level character attacking the actors while they are riding in columns and trying to ignore the attack of the character.

Another thing that is difficult to control, when recording in a virtual setting like World of Warcraft , is that communication is limited to text only, and communications between the opposing forces in the game is eliminated in the design of the game. This drastically hampers with the communications between director and actors. In the case of Tales of the Past , the director used a (VoIP) voice over IP program, to communicate with a number of other guild leaders, who then passed on the commands in the individual guild chats, which eliminated the information clutter that otherwise, would have existed. If the control of all actors should have been strictly through the World of Warcraft prescribed channels, the lack of control would have rendered large scale recordings impossible.

Seasonal event with fireworks and graphical event at completion

Setting Creating a large scale narrative machinima film using World of Warcraft in a setting that differed a great deal from the game setting would be close to impossible since personal content cannot be added. This is indeed a constraint worth mentioning, but as with many other things, this can be used to the directors’ advantage in some cases. If the film setting corresponds to the game setting, World of Warcraft offers a large variation of scenarios, many props, monsters, weather effects and visual events. The image above shows a screenshot from a scene in Tales of the Past II which takes advantage of a yearly seasonal event in World of Warcraft where fireworks are everywhere. In another scene a funeral ceremony is taking place in which the director takes advantage of a certain graphical event which is triggered by completing an in-game quest. Using these premade events gives a lot of special effects to the director without having to spend much time on them. The clothing of the characters also adds a great deal to the feel of Tales of the Past II , since it is possible for many players to buy the same outfit and thereby create the impression of an army.

Character and facial animation The predefined animations and expressions in World of Warcraft machinima films are far greater than most other in-game recorded machinima, i.e. Red vs. Blue () which is made in ( Studios), where no facial expressions and only minor character animations are present.

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But even though these predefined animated emotes are available in World of Warcraft , it is hard to create a believable correlation between the audio and the animations, especially with regards to speak. An excellent example of good facial and can be found in the machinima A Few Good G-men , which was made with the Half-life 2 engine which allows for facial animation. In World of Warcraft it is possible to achieve semi good results, but it involves a lot of editing which is noticeable. Once again it is about weighing the needs against the time that should be invested in order to achieve it.

Camera control There is one thing that World of Warcraft camera controls are good at with regards to machinima, and that is a steady target camera control. Having the camera positioned at a fixed position of the character regardless of movement is a powerful tool, but the shortcomings are obvious when it comes to free camera movement. The result is often jaggy especially when zooming. Another affordance of using an MMO as your narrative tool is of course the possibility of several cameras recording the same action simultaneous, since each player can work as a camera man, which later eases the post production.

Sound and music The soundscape of World of Warcraft is solid and has a lot of quality, but lacks the variation needed for a film soundscape. Most machinima films in World of Warcraft add audio to the movie later and use little or no in-game audio. With regards to Tales of the Past Falch writes on his website that no sounds were recorded in-game.

Post production Very little post production has been done to Tales of the Past except for editing and adding sound. When analyzing the film only two scenes look like they have been reworked. A solar flare has been added when the main character dies in a blaze of glory, and a few layers of graphic has been added together to give the impression of a man riding a dragon, which is not an in-game mechanic of World of Warcraft .

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5.2 Epic Flight Form

Produced by Myndflame , a pure World of Warcraft machinima studio, Epic Flight Form is satirical narrative game related machinima. It is structured as a movie- or game trailer commenting on the class imbalance in World of Warcraft with regards to druids.

Myndflame is, according to their own website, the leading producer of World of Warcraft machinima in the world with over 1 million downloads per month. Their core team consists of two members, Clint & D.W. Hackleman. Clint is behind the production, sound, music, and business relations while D.W. focuses on the visual aspects, including editing, , and special FX. In addition they use Kris Haughey and Amanda Baker as voice actors on several of their projects.

Their productions include several award-wining machinima films most notably Movie Contest in 2006 with five first place awards and one second place. “Best Direction” nomination in the 2006 Machinima Festival, and a winner in the 2005 Blizzcon Movie Contest. Their machinima include genres such as commercials (Xfire commercial), both long and short, in machinima terms, narrative films, fiction series and trailers.

Myndflame also have a clear agenda in regards to their relationship to the community and game designers. In their “about Myndflame” section they write:

“The heart of this organization needs leadership. And we wish to take that position, but not alone. I have worked to create a committee of members to join us and represent the Machinima community to bring proposals to game and software developers, publishers, and marketing agencies to help steer them in the right direction.” (Hackleman 2007).

This shows the strong community and the initiative to form a working relation between the game industry and the machinima community. Myndflame takes, as one of the most popular machinima producers, the role of representative and leader of the machinima community for World of Warcraft .

5.2.1 Epic Flight Form – imbalanced classes

Epic flight form is, as mentioned, a trailer structured much like a game trailer, which again borrows heavily from movie trailers, which we will return to later. The content is highly fan- or game related, revealing Blizzards “true” intensions of giving the druid class extreme abilities making them superior to the other classes.

The joke here is twofold, druids have in some regards become excellent at all the different talent builds 4 they can have, making other classes obsolete, which is a common perception the community,

4 Talents is a sub-class system (each class has a particular system) in World of Warcraft which gives the player one talent point for each level from level ten upwards to place in three branched talent trees. The amount of points at max level forces the player to choose a talent build in one of the three trees or a hybrid build (equally divided among two or three trees).

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the machinima is hence trying to exaggerate this opinion in the extreme giving druids i.e. the “class eliminator” ability to terminate the other obsolete classes. On the other hand it is also an ironic comment to that popular opinion, in the way that Moonkins (one of the druid talent builds) are portrayed, with “with the power to destroy creatures in a single blow”, killing a level 1 girl in Stormwind, which obviously is not that a great achievement.

5.2.2 Affordances and constraints

Let us take a closer look at the structure and aesthetic choices to identify how Myndflame deals with the affordances and constraints of World of Warcraft and how this influences their way of making machinima.

As in movie- or game trailers, Epic Flight Form , uses a voice-over or narrator to convey a message. The initial shots complement or highlight what the narrator is conveying as shown in the picture to the left. These pictures, which mostly consist of tracking- and panning shots, place us in the capitol city of the night elfs, one of two races that can choose druid as a class. The montage of shots also strengthens the build of tension, the flow of the camera movements indicate a journey towards the On screen text highlight narrator revelation, further enhanced by the rapid zoom at the end of the build-up revealing the true intensions for the druid class. This rapid zoom is without doubt done in editor software as with the text messages.

The true intension for the druid class is first of all, the transformation of Moonkins (spell caster druids) into Boomkins “with the power to destroy creatures in a single blow”. The editing rhythm suddenly becomes more rapid, splitting the screen into four split-screens, overwhelming the viewer with information and movement as seen to the right. The rapid cutting not only serves as an aesthetic choice but also takes advantage of the in-game emotes in World of Warcraft . These emotes can be seen as both an affordance and a constraint in that they give an array of different avatar animations at disposal to the player (affordance) but at the same time these animations cannot be altered to suit the particular scene (constraint). By using rapid Split-screens setting the pace cutting, and short scenes, the filmmakers can

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easier customize the usage of emotes. The zoom out to show the level 1 girl slain is an example of this, showing a human avatar doing the /gasp emote perfectly timed with the zoom.

The second intension is the feral druids, another talent build focusing on melee combat, ability to tank 5 five gorillas. Again they use irony, as five gorillas are kind of puny, which depends on your level of course, which is not addressed at all making it more absurd. We see a wide-angle shot of the feral druid tanking five gorillas and then a cut to an animation of a gorilla framed on an abstract background. This image is heavily influenced by Japanese , framing the character on a background that is abstract, but still creates a feeling of motion with the ripple animation in the background.

The anime aesthetic is also used in the third part where the Epic flight form of the title is finally revealed. The flight form is shown as a static model, while the background is morphing and moving to indicate motion. Spiritwolf, a colleague of Myndflame that specializes in sequential art, created the model. The flight form is totally exaggerated: gargantuan, with dual blaster cannons, 500% speed, class eliminator and city incinerator.

The use of anime aesthetic frees the filmmakers from the use of avatars as camera positions in the game, as in Tales from the past . The models can thereby be placed anywhere in the game environment.

Camera and editing Myndflame uses a wide range of angles, and type of shots that make their movies look more cinematic than your average World of Warcraft machinima. Panorama shots, tracking, zoom-in and outs (rapid), close-ups, reverse shots, split screens etc. all makes Epic druid flight form more fluid and gives it a professional feel. In addition the montage also enhances the narration (voice over).

Sound and music Myndflame makes all their music themselves and you can actually buy the soundtracks online. They also produce music for other machinima producers. As with Tales from the Past , all sound is post production.

5 “Tank” or “tanking” means a heavy armored class that draws the attention of enemies on him/herself to focus the impact of attacks away from other light armored classes and make it easier for healers to focus their healing.

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5.3 Super Mario Bros. machinima

The Super Mario Bros. machinima is a remake/look-alike of the famous Nintendo game series featuring Nintendo’s official mascot Mario. Mario has appeared in many games and different settings since his debut in 1981 in the game Donkey Kong. The Super Mario Bros. machinima features a Mario look-alike, running and jumping as in the well-known Nintendo games, but set in a World of Warcraft environment.

The “Mario” of World of Warcraft with composited power-up

The machinima is made by a 16 year old Slovakian high school student named Michael, who releases his movies under the name Losos Records. There are several interesting aspects related to this machinima seen from both a cultural and technological perspective, which have made it successful and viewed more than 1.5 million times from YouTube alone. There does not seem to be any deeper thoughts about the making of the machinima, other than he simply enjoys making movies and has it as a hobby.

Super Mario Bros. machinima differentiate itself from other World of Warcraft machinima in the way that it is created. The levels shown in the film and their composition, which resemble that of Mario games, are clearly not found anywhere in World of Warcraft . It must therefore be considered as one of the few, if not the only, machinima created with a modified version or some modification of the original World of Warcraft .

5.3.1 Games as frame of reference

Apart from the technological aspect, which we will look into later, Super Mario Bros. machinima is also interesting due to the fact that it is a film, featuring a remake of a classic game, created in another and quite different game.

In classical filmmaking, references from one film to another i.e. in , is something well known and much used; from “You can’t handle the truth” to “Do you feel lucky, punk?” These famous sentences and their associated icons are something instantly recognized, also if put in a different

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relation. Mario is similar and is an icon known, and recognized by many people – especially ones who had access to a computer while growing up. A machinima like Super Mario Bros. is interesting to people because it makes a reference to something people already know and something that many has an emotional attachment to. With that in mind, this machinima also requires that viewers know about World of Warcraft, and preferably have played it, in order to really appreciate the film.

It is an interesting point that some game icons, like for instance Mario, are so widely known that they can be used as references and push some of their magic onto the referring medium. The happiness of two well known games combined in a machinima can be a cocktail for success.

5.3.2 Affordances and constraints

Technical considerations Being able to modify and build up the scenario used in the machinima is something that is only achieved by having access to a private server or some editing software for World of Warcraft . It is not something that comes bundled with the game, and is not something intended from the developer’s side – it is a modification. However, using such modification technology can obviously break the intended constraints of the game design, since it makes the filmmaker able to create his own levels and settings.

CharacterCharacterss and animation The machinima uses in-game characters, which is on one hand seen as an affordance, but on the other hand can also be seen as a constraint. For example, no custom (self made) characters have been added and the Mario character has little resemblance with the original. In-game character movement such as running, crouching and jumping is used. It is clearly an affordance that animation and movement can be used directly, but again there are constraints as well. There are several places in the film where movement has been added afterwards such as when Mario dies near the beginning. He is lifted up in the air and dropped out of the screen. World of Warcraft constrains the filmmaker from imposing this type of movement.

Camera control The camera is fixed on the right side of the character pointing in towards the side of Mario, which is the typical side-scrolling point of view. The freedom of camera movement in World of Warcraft is an affordance, since you can move the camera to any position and make it stay there although only relative to the . In the end of the machinima there is however a point where the camera makes a fast zoom into the back of “Mario” and out to the side-scrolling view. We do not see this as something you can do in-game and believe that it has been added afterwards, which means that it is a constraint in regards to the in-game camera.

Sound and music No in-game sounds or music has been kept in the machinima since the original sounds would not match the Mario theme. It is, however, seen as a constraint that the filmmaker has to add them afterwards and not simply be able to swap the existing sounds with new Mario sounds.

Post production Super Mario Bros. machinima uses quite a lot of post production, which is mainly necessary due to the constraints in World of Warcraft .

Intro animation with Losos Records’ logo and Mario start-up screen is added to the beginning of the machinima. On top of the actual scenes recorded in World of Warcraft , coins, power-ups and bullet

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animations have been composited in. This also goes for the special animations where Mario dies and where he goes into the sewer. Scenes have been edited together and music and sound effects have been added to the entire mix. Credits have been added to the end of the machinima.

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6 Conclusion

The focus of this report has been on investigating the creative climate in which machinimators must maneuver. It seems, that both influences of traditional film art, as well as current trends within the community, affects the embrace of certain genres in relation to others. Since economic motives play little, if any, role, it is the creative challenges and/or self serving motives which entice machinima development and progress of the phenomenon. The self serving reasons are by far the most predominant at the moment, where gamers, using games as tools, are able to show of skills or present/brand their guild/clan. These films has as a primary focus on creating notoriety within the game community, and must be categorized as having origin in the game fan culture. Other machinimators, on the other hand, are more interested in the creative process of filmmaking, and belongs to the machinima fan culture in general, where the game in question is of less importance. There are of course many people who are interesting in the use of games as narrative tools, but are devoted to a specific game though. The move from self serving motives to a creative urge usually shifts the intended audience from hardcore gamers to a wider range of people, especially when talking about classical narrative films. Exceptions of course exist i.e. in shape of game specific films with a comment on in- that can resemble political commentaries.

When thinking of games as narrative tools, it has been important in the scope of this report to deal with a look at the possibilities and boundaries the machinimators face. We have looked at the works of Norman and Latour to find a methological basis for the research. Norman introduces the notion of breaking technological design into a list of affordances and constraints. By exemplifying using World of Warcraft, we have mapped the game affordances and constraints and put other games into perspective as well.

To summarize, the affordances and constraints of World of Warcraft as a narrative tool is good for beginners, since the learning curve is quite flat, and no meddling with editors and event scripting is necessary. A few friends and a video capture program, and the necessities for making a machinima is present. Furthermore, the available emotes ease the job of character animation, but you will quickly reach the limits for believability. The fact that it is MMO also entail both affordances and constraints as mentioned in the above sections, but the ease of recording simple scenes are evident. Overall it is a great tool for fans of World of Warcraft who wants to make machinima, or fans of machinima who are just getting started. But for seasoned machinimators, with an urge for customization and believability, the more traditional machinima tools should be preferred.

In relation to Latour, the notion that technological affordances can be favoring some users and discriminating others can be ported onto game considerations, although this was not specifically stated in Latours works. Latour uses the example of a hydraulic door closer, which has great affordances for most people, but works as a constraint for small children and the elderly, who does not posses the strength necessary to open the door. The same idea is described in the above paragraph since the use of various games as narrative tools include affordances and constraints which differ with regard to the intended project at hand, i.e. which genre, setting, cultural influences etc. is used by the machinimators.

The use of World of Warcraft as the basis of our analysis seems to have been able to cast light to the focus presented in the introduction. The variance, aesthetically and genre-wise, of machinima films using this narrative tool is quite expansive and furthermore illuminates how cultural and technological aspects influence machinima in general.

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7 What’s on the DVD

On the enclosed DVD most of the machinima films, referred to in this report, can be found. Also included on the DVD is the report itself as well as a recording made while participating in the recording of Tales of the Past III .

If you have problems viewing any of the films, it might be because you need a specific video codec. Go to www.cole2k.net and download/install their codec pack.

Files

Epic Flight Form.mov

Few Good Gmen.mov

In the Waiting Line.mov

Red Vs Blue Episode 1.mov

Supermario Bros.wmv

Tales of the Past.mpg

Tales of the Past 2.wmv

The half-life and death of Gordon Frohman.pdf

ToTP 3 recordings.wmv

Computer Game Culture - The Machinima Phenomenon.doc

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8 References Books Marino, Paul. (2005) The Art of Machinima, Paraglyph Press

Schatz , Thomas. (1981) Hollywood Genres. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Book chapters Latour, Bruno. 1992. Where are the Missing Masses. Shaping Technology/Building Society, Bijker and Law (eds.), pages 225-258. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Norman, Donald. 2002. Knowing what to do. The Design of Everyday Things, pages 81-104. New York: Basic Books.

Sequential art Livingston , Christopher C. (2006) Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman http://www.hlcomic.com Films Few Good Men (1992). Director: Rob Reiner.

Games Adrian Stephens. Stunt Island (1992). Disney Interactive (publisher) (PC)

Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft (2005) Blizzard Entertainment (publisher) (PC and Mac)

Epic Games. Unreal Tournament 3 (2007, unreleased). (PC, Mac, PS3 and 360) . Doom (1993). Id Software (publisher) (PC) id Software. Quake (1996). GT Interactive (publisher) (PC)

Lionhead Studios. The Movies (2005). (publisher) (PC)

Maxis. The Sims (2000). Electronics Arts (publishers) (PC)

Ozark Softscape. Modem Wars (1988) Electronic Arts (publisher) (DOS/EGA and Commondore 64)

Rockstar North. GTA: San Andreas (2004). Rockstar Games and Capcom (publishers) (PS2, PC and Xbox).

Team Garry. Garry's MOD (2006). Valve (publisher) (PC)

Valve. Half Life 2 (2004). Valve Software Corporation (publisher) (PC, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3).

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Machinima Epic Flight Form (2006). Myndflame. (World of Warcraft).

Tales from the Past. (2005). Falch, Martin. (World of Warcraft).

Tales from the Past II. (2006). Falch, Martin. (World of Warcraft).

Super Mario Bros. (2006). Machinima. Losos Records. (World of Warcraft).

French Democracy. (2005). Chan, Alex. (The Movies).

Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. (2003). Rooster Teeth Productions. ().

A Few Good G-men. (2005). Glass, Randall.

In the Waiting Line. (2003). Ghost Robot/Fountainhead. (Quake 3).

Web pages Falch, Martin. 2007. www.talesofthepast.com (accessed 05. 17. 2007).

Hackleman, Clint and Hackleman, Derek. (2007) Myndflame website. http://www.myndflame.com/index.php

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9 Appendix A: Overview of machinima genres

Narrative Non-Narrative

Game Non-game Game Non-game related related related related

Documentary Music video Trailers Short films PvP movies Raid movies Music video

Classical genres (examples)

Comedy Drama Political

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