Intro music is “Impulse” by Processor, from their album “Are You For Real?”, available at Magnatune.com

Here are some films which caught my attention in either the FX Mix (read: Anymation) or Real Time (read: Demoscene) categories which you might enjoy. Note that I’m linking to forum posts for them because in all cases the link to the Bitfilm entry is included there, and in some cases a link to a higher resolution version is also available:

• A Brief Guide About Bridesmaids (Category: FX Mix)
• Chromasphere (Category: Real Time)
• fr-041: debris (Category: Real Time)
• Josie’s Lalaland (Category: FX Mix)
• Kindernoiser (Category: Real Time)
• Procrastination (Category: FX Mix)

See any others over there that you really liked? Tell us about them at the forum or by a comment here. Thanks!

A closer examination of the article reveals some overlooked aspects which, to me at least, eclipse the naiveté Kate and I ribbed him about.

He begins by talking about Tom Jantol’s Fish Incident and Strange Company’s When We Two Parted on a 1000 viewer tier, then mentions What I Love About Xmas on about a 10,000 viewer tier, and finally Baron Soosdon’s I’m So Sick, which has raked in over a quarter million viewers.

He then uses these numbers as an example of how machinima without an inherent game community has a hard time competing with game-rooted machinima.

And while the ultimate conclusion - the gaming advantage - is so true as to provoke the “duh!” response in me, I think the way in which it is reached in the article pays little heed to other very important factors which influence viewership. The four films are presented in an almost “all things being equal” kind of way, with the gaming audience being the sole variable of consequence. I disagree.

Here are some of those influential factors:

Quality

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about publicists and promotion and marketing strategy, but at the end of the day what matters most to viewers is: Is it great? Do I want to press play again as soon as it has finished the first time? Is it something so great that I want to be the one to tell my friends about it before they find out somewhere else?

And by what standard is it great? Is it great “for a machinima film”? Not good enough, not anymore.

Baron Soosdon’s film was one I wanted to tell anyone and everyone about, and that had zip to do with World of Warcraft. I have a confession to make: regarding WoW… I’ve never played it, I have no desire to play it, I find the hype and hysteria about it a bit boring, I don’t even like the general aesthetic of it. So if anything, I came at I’m So Sick prejudiced the other way, having only seen a couple WoW films I really enjoyed. And it blew me away, I told everyone I could think of to tell.

Fish Incident has strong production quality with regards to its animation style and visual design, What I Love About Christmas is of decent quality, and When We Two Parted is pretty good. None of these made me utter a profanity in awe when I watched them. Baron’s piece did that. It’s one of the most exhilarating pieces of machinima I’ve ever seen.

Intent of the Work

Films are crafted for different reasons, plain and simple. I’m not so much talking about the intent inside the creator’s head, but rather the intent that is spoken by the work itself. What I Love About Xmas was out for laughs. Fish Incident was meant to engage the viewer’s brain with a mystery, and then wrapped it in mysterious clothing. When We Two Parted was intended to illustrate a poetic work and - at least it appears to me - was deliberately intended to look different than other machinima.

I’m So Sick was intended to kick your ass up and down the block. It was intended to impress, to wow, to floor - without any prerequisite. Fish Incident could be said to have had some of this same intent… but it begins with 30 seconds of reading a static pane of text - 30 seconds = infinity for a web video viewer - and that creates a wholly different mindset. And it doesn’t impress as much on non-animators as it does on animators, who know the skills required to have made it. I’m So Sick impresses regardless of whether one is a fellow hobbyist.

Intended Audience

Who is your audience? More to the point, given that everyone’s audience potential starts with “All Internet Users Who Watch Videos,” what does your film do to limit that audience?

Fish Incident and When We Two Parted are “art” films, though I hate that term, and as far as I know there has never been a mass market art film. In fact, to be mass market would arguably raise question of whether it’s really an art film. In any case, neither of these films were targeting the whole of the potential audience, or even a large part of that potential. These are not the kinds of films that gain gigantic popularity, they are decidedly niche, and their creators both knew that going in. While I share the general sentiment that part of me wishes it weren’t so, there is nothing surprising to me about the viewership numbers of either of these films, nor am I surprised at all at the general reception of WWTP on the Machinima.com YouTube channel. To take a film that is about as far from game machinima as one CAN make, and put it before a crowd of people who are looking precisely for game machinima, must be taken to be one of the following: a grave miscalculation, an effort at missionary work, or an exercise in masochism. To me, it was as big a mismatch as posting a Team Fortress 2 video on a channel devoted to 19th century literature; what would the reception have been there? Friendlier, more civil? Really?

Moving on… What I Love About Xmas is comedy, which works in its favor audience-wise; everyone loves to laugh. But then it takes broad sweeping strokes and pares down that audience like a widdler with a chainsaw. Some people just don’t like (or get) satire. Christians aren’t generally going to like the irreverence or the profanity. One of its big hooks centers around a non-mainstream pop culture hardcore pornographic reference which, if not understood, makes some of the video incomprehensible. And to really heartily laugh at the film requires a familiarity with bitterness and jadedness that some people don’t relate to at all, and others find very uncomfortable to be around or to revisit.

So sure, the seasonal aspect of it helps it in some ways, as new people are bound to discover it every year… but it is most certainly not something which was aiming for a large target audience. At all. To be honest, the only reason I set out to make the video was to win Moviestorm’s holiday video contest (at which it did not succeed), but as the film developed it became about venting and wringing angst into the sieve of comedy, nothing else really mattered.

I’m So Sick had the widest target audience of any of these films. Sure it was helped by the WoW audience boost, and Baron’s own growing personal following, but ultimately what vaulted his video was the film itself having wide appeal. It has a familiar MTV-like aesthetic, it has all the polish and shine of a professionally produced music video, with a rockin’ soundtrack. The direction is undeniably cinematic. Honestly… what was there not to like? I guess if you don’t like Flyleaf (the band) or don’t like hard rock / screaming vocals, it would have little appeal. But it’s amazing how mainstream the hard rock sound has become; it’s certainly a sound which is not offensive to most internet video viewers.

Language

It’s a relatively minor point, but not an insignificant one in this global arena. Language can serve as a limiter, a divider. Films which transcend language have greater potential.

What I Love About Christmas and When We Two Parted - virtually incomprehensible to someone who doesn’t know English. Fish Incident, not so much, but would non-English viewers have endured 30 seconds of introductory English text?

I’m So Sick, while it has English lyrics, illustrates the power of music: if one likes that style of music, understanding the lyrics becomes entirely secondary, and does nothing to subdue the enjoyment of the song and/or the video. The same could hold true for Fish Incident once one gets past the intro, but it would leave one wondering “am I supposed to understand what is transpiring here?” I’m So Sick requires no comprehension; it is a pure performance.

Emotion

What does watching this or that film make me feel? This is an important question to the viewer that he/she has answered most of the time without even thinking about it. But that feeling evoked has a significant impact on the likelihood of sharing. Do I want to share this feeling with someone, to make them feel this way too? Sharing the film with someone is sharing the feeling with them.

In this sense, Fish Incident is probably one of the least equipped to snag audience by contagion of emotion, because it is an intellectual endeavor, synapses over heartstrings. Inquisitiveness. Curiosity. Wonder. Bewilderment. All “feelings” that a thinker treasures, but then thinking has always been a mostly solitary preoccupation, and these kinds of feelings are not particularly social in nature.

When We Two Parted conjures emotions we are all familiar with. Yearning. Desire. Nostalgia. Love. Loss. All laudable and accessible feelings… but ones which some associate with pain. Ones which do not, for many, carry with them a large scale pass-it-on compulsion. Watching this film, you might think of someone in your life who might be in a situation where they’d really appreciate the sentiments this film will evoke. And you’d pass it along to them. But Digg it? Mass mail all your friends? Hardly. It’s not that the film isn’t good work… it’s just not the kind of film you do that with.

What I Love About Xmas seems at first glance to be well poised for viral sharing; after all, comedy is pretty much king in this area. But a closer inspection of what feelings this film actually evokes, and it starts to take on a different hue. As I mentioned above, in order to really laugh at the black cynicism of the film’s embittered joyless narrator, one must either know something of what he is talking about, or must - as Arthur Schopenhauer once said - derive joy from the knowledge that others suffer more. Either way, this makes for one jaded viewer. And the birds-of-a-feather rule guarantees that they know other cynics who will get deep whole-belly cramp-in-the-side laughs from hearing someone say what they wish they could be more open about. So there is some potentiality there… until you acknowledge that most people are NOT bitter or cynical, particularly about their own loved ones, or at the very least they don’t like dwelling on or encouraging those kind of thoughts about family members.

When you really peel back the layers of WILAX, the distinction from MRE becomes clear: MRE was edgy, and pointed to something we can see in ourselves that we can laugh at, and the resultant raised self-awareness reduces the tensions which caused the silly rules it mocks to evolve in the first place. It ultimately leaves one in a positive space, and with something you feel comfortable relating to others because we’re all in the same boat after all. WILAX doesn’t do any of those things. It starts dark and ends dark, it doesn’t make one feel particularly good, the viewer with even the remotest of sensitivity feels a bit guilty laughing at it because what it casts a light on is uncomfortable and raw and ugly. It’s a purposeless and hopeless anger. It’s something you’re not sure you’d want to share with everyone. It’ll be shared among fellow cynics, but the pass-along factor will be much lower among normal well-adjusted people. I knew that going in, and don’t consider it a weakness of the piece; it serves its purpose. But it’s definitely not for everyone.

Once again, I’m So Sick triumphs here. It makes you feel like dancing, playing air guitar, smashing your air amplifier. It quickens the pulse, it widens the eyes. Even though the song itself is dark and tainted with anger of its own, the video is somehow wholly invigorating and inspirational. And the lyric is open enough to allow for multiple interpretations, allowing anyone who has felt justified being mad at the world to connect with it in some way. And who hasn’t, at some point, been there?

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that I do not deny the gaming audience advantage nor do I deny its power, but it’s not everything. It’s not even the most important thing. Is the film a work of great quality? What is the film’s inherent intent, and who is your intended audience? Is your audience limited by the language of your film? What emotion does the film evoke, and is that an emotion others will want to share?

Answer these questions… but for Pete’s sake, use these as tools to tweak your film, not as tools to dictate what that film will be at its core. I have no doubt in my mind that while Baron Soosdon had in mind the wide appeal of the rock style his video was based on, and while he was not ignorant of his WoW core audience… he made the video first and foremost because he liked the song, and that personal inspiration was injected into every frame of the film. Sans that as its first value, if the foundation of the film had been any other contrivance of marketing or promotion, it would never have had the same vitality and exuberance.

Learn from him. Hold your idea as sacred, and damn the torpedoes.

If you ask me, forget publicity stunts and press releases, forget focus grouping and crafting something with a marketing chisel. Make great movies. Some will hit, some will miss. Be aware of your audience, always, but don’t pander to them or they’ll see right through it; they are more clever than any marketing guru. The great popularity beast is a fickle monster, and you can expend a hell of a lot of energy trying to manipulate it and trick it and get it to do your bidding, and the most you will get from all that effort is short-term gain, your 15 minutes. Set your sights on slow steady gains; build up your 1000 hardcore fans. If the entire world gets excited about what you are doing for a moment - and that may never happen - but if it does, realize it for what it is: a moment which will pass and will leave you feeling empty if you spent all your energy and emotional capital chasing it.

What’s different this time is that the entire album is available for free, even the ultra quality versions. There will be a physical release around July, we’re told, but unlike Ghosts you don’t have to buy something to get the CD-quality audio. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t something special in store for those who buy the physical media, much as they did for Ghosts.

The CC license - and its implications - are spelled out much more directly this time:

the slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

we encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.

©2008 NIN

One thing he didn’t list, which is allowable under the license, is: use it as your soundtrack for your (noncommercial) film. How often has an established major artist made that offer to the public? And not just for a song or two, but for close to three hours of music in the past two months!!!

About a week or two ago, they’d released the first single, Discipline, directly to radio stations just hours after it had been mastered. That’s a turnaround time which has proven to be totally impossible under the old music model.

I should also mention that just prior to the release of Ghosts, they launched their own remix site dedicated explicitly to user remixes of their songs. (Since With Teeth in 2005, Nine Inch Nails have been releasing the multi-track files for their songs and encouraging listeners to remix them, a phenomenon which precipitated the creation of my Only remix and music video.) And shortly after Ghosts, they launched a YouTube festival of sorts, encouraging people to create videos for their music from that double album.

Oh, and don’t forget the whole ARG phenomenon surrounding the album Year Zero.

The whole thing is almost unbelievable. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a massive surge of productivity by a single musical artist in my lifetime, certainly not one where that artist is so hands-on with the details, nor one which is so cross-media in nature. And, for a fan like me, it’s all good good good.

Get The Slip for free at: http://theslip.nin.com/

Nominees:

• Tobias ‘Dopefish’ Lundmark - Among Fables and Men
• Olibith - The Ballad of the Sex Junkie
• Robert Stoneman - Rusty Whispers: Dennis
• Bertrand Le Cabec, Frédéric Servant, Sébastien Savine - Bill & John Episode 2: Danger Attacks at Dawn
• Markus Rupprecht - idealistic
• Egils Mednis - The Ship
• Billy Chang, Tony Chang, Indy Liu - Real People, Real Jobs: Patrick Winters, Parking Warden
• Trace Sanderson - The Dumb Man
• Leo Lucien-Bay - Beast
• Baron Soosdon - I’m So Sick

Male Restroom Etiquette has been selected to be part of the Animation WebJam ‘08, hosted by Jerry and Orrin Zucker (of the Emmy Award-Winning It’s Jerrytime). The internet animation festival will begin its tour of big screens at Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA. From there, the fest will be making stops in the hometowns of many of the creators of its films. I’m hoping it will work out to where that can include my own neighborhood. More info is available at animationwebjam.com.

“Huh?”

“… just confirmed, Machinima.com is suspended from YouTube…”

Oh my. I needed to contact some people who are “in the know” and might be able to corroborate the rumor. Immediately, I powered up Skype to flag down Moo Money… no answer. Grrr, I fired up Twitter and sent an unintentionally overcryptic message to Johnnie Ingram, hoping he might be burning some midnight oil at the Short Fuze office… nothing. I emailed Hugh Hancock, “I think something big is going down…” He was probably in bed too.

Speculation was flying fast and furious about what circumstances had led to M.com’s legal troubles. We tried visiting their site, too, and found it unavailable. Holy crap, this is bigger than we thought. It must be some kind of all-encompassing Cease & Desist order! Is this the beginning of the end of game machinima?

Then I remembered that I had a contact at a place where they’d know the truth, and might even be willing to share it with me: the Machinima.com office in Los Angeles. I called a reliable source there, and here’s the skinny:

Take Two had discovered some illegal footage from the impending Grand Theft Auto 4 was circulating around YouTube. So they issued a sweeping C & D for virtually all GTA4 content on YouTube. Machinima.com’s channel was caught in this net. However, by the time I’d called them, they had already been in touch with Take Two directly and had cleared their own involvement: the only GTA4 footage they had on their particular channel were officially released game trailers, stuff the makers of GTA4 had no issue with. Once a copyright-related suspension has taken place, however, it can take as long as a day for YouTube to restore the user and/or channel.

Machinima.com’s own website downtime appeared to be a coincidence and unrelated. Maybe their site was getting hit extra hard because their VERY popular YouTube channel was down?

How very popular, you may ask? Very, very popular.

So that’s the story. Machinima.com’s suspension from YouTube was based on a misunderstanding, and was temporary. Their YouTube channel is back up this morning. Johnnie, Sasha, Hugh, that’s why I sent out the alerts last night. Sorry to alarm you. All appears to be well for now.

Isn’t it interesting how quick some of us were to believe the crackdown theory? The legal ambiguity surrounding most game-based machinima bred that fear and paranoia. The EULA makes outlaws of us all. Will that ever change?

Next Machiniplex Premiere - Tom Jantol’s “The Fish Incident”
– Date/Time: Sunday, April 27, 2008 @ 12:00 p.m. Second Life Time (Pacific - PST)
– Verify for your time zone: World Time Server
– Location: HatHead’s Lounge in Second Life
– More Info: Machiniplex3 Blog Entry

Submission Deadline for The Overcast Machinima Contest
– Date/Time: Sunday, April 27, 2008 @ 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time
– Verify for your time zone: World Time Server
– More info: Overcast Contest Info Page

I’m entering a video in Aniboom’s Radiohead music video contest. It uses source footage from Moviestorm, Second Life, some “real life” chroma-keyed action, and more, wrapped up in a Photoshop type of motif. Sounds like a mouthful, I know… to sum up, it’s an Anymation video - a hybrid made from machinima and non-machinima tools alike to get the job done. Similar method to what you’ve seen in What I Love About Christmas, but taken to a whole different level. I’m really enthused about it (can’t you tell?).

Stage 1 of the competition is submission of storyboards; I’ve done so, prefaced with a sample of the style of animation to follow in the final. On Monday the 27th of April, a jury will be picking 10 finalists, based in part on the audience response to the submissions.

That’s where you come in. Would you lend me a little “audience response” to my 2-minute storyboard vid please? (Preferably before this Monday the 27th)

To do so, simply register at Aniboom (it’s free and appears to be hassle-free), then visit my video and rate it:

http://www.aniboom.com/Player.aspx?v=208584

Thank you so much!

Why? Some big changes are coming to the show’s format which I think you’ll find very exciting. I’ll tell you all about that very soon.

As for the 52 on 5/2 mystery? Keep your eye on the ZS YouTube Channel on that day.

Anyone who has talked with more than a few people about machinima has probably observed that the definition seems to be uncertain - some would say “in flux.” That is true, but what occurred to me today was that the challenge runs even deeper than a mere difference of opinion on what should appear in Webster’s. The difference of opinion runs to the very nature of what purpose the word “machinima” is expected to serve.

For some, it’s a matter of science. Machinima is like a species of a particular genus and phylum; it is a matter of taxonomy. In much the same way one would define an animal… a lion, for instance. Those who approach defining “lion” from a scientific angle are concerned with physically observable and easily identifiable characteristics that make clear it is this particular big cat: the male’s distinct mane, the shape of the bones and teeth, the whiskers, the appetite for meat, and all those other traits that make a lion a lion according to zoologists.

And for some, it’s another matter entirely. It’s a matter of philosophy. And so when asked to talk about “lion,” they tend to think in terms of what a lion represents: courage, nobility, strength, the astrological sign Leo and all the connotations that come with that… Aslan the divine lion from the C.S. Lewis novels, and so on. Now we’re not dealing with matters of fur and claws, but of symbols and ideals. Of representation.

In the same way, there are (at least) two different approaches to defining machinima, and the differences which come after each of those approaches are but secondary. Some look at a checklist of traits and try to classify. It’s made by an amateur, check. It’s rendered in a video game, check. (These are, of course, wholly and rightfully disputable examples). These are objective bases for evaluation.

And some look at what the word “machinima” conceptually represents to them, and look for congruity with those ideals about what it is supposed to represent. It didn’t require any significant work or planning, therefore it is not machinima. It isn’t good, it doesn’t elevate the artform, therefore it is not machinima. These are subjective bases for evaluation.

The two perspectives approach the word machinima in a very different fashion, because they approach language itself in a very different fashion. Much as Aristotle used language in a different way when he was talking about logic versus when he was talking about ethics.

While I’ll freely admit that my own approach slants decidedly toward an objective one - and that as much a natural bent as it is a decision - my point here isn’t to elevate one of these approaches and denigrate the other. Instead, I just wanted to throw these ideas out there as something that might be helpful to consider should you choose to step into this or any other fray regarding “What is machinima?” Understanding another’s approach to language as a precursor to engaging them in discussion/argument can prove very helpful indeed.

Click here for archive of OverByte posts.

Below is a piece from 2003 by Bronzit, titled The God. I love the look of this film, and the sound work as well. The humor is a bit irreverent. So naturally, I love that too.

Speaking of the right pocket, there’s been some lively discussion of the choice of Second Life as a venue for Conference #05 which we’re trying again for this next one. At both this forum thread and at this comment thread (feel free to join in at either), those most vocal about the subject appear to be those unenthusiastic about SL. The jump in actual conference turnout, however, seems to suggest that at least some are okay with the decision.

I’d set out to respond to the most recent comment on the Conference #05 notes, and it turned out a bit longer than I’d anticipated, so I’m going to lay out that defense / explanation of the decision for you here:

Thank you all for letting me know how you feel about the conferences. We’ll continue to explore other options, and just as I asked of several people who had “heard bad things” about Skype and/or had never used it before, I’ll ask you to give SL a try for this specific application. I’m not out to sell the SL experience as something good or bad or otherwise; but I’m here to say, it is a proven venue for machinima events (there have been over a dozen in the past year) and it works. That is more than we can say for Skype; in fact, it’s the opposite of what we can say for Skype.

Ventrilo is a good program, but it is NOT well known among people who don’t regularly play multiplayer games, and it does not work with every setup. I’ve tried to get it working on two different computers (one XP, one Vista) and have had zero success. And then there are the disadvantages of having to arrange for someone to provide or find a server, vs. the convenience of using existing infrastructure.

WoW was never considered as an option… because it’s not free, and not everyone has it. Second Life is free. And we’re not just connecting to a “public server”… we are, without fail, using land for these events which provide a controlled environment.

Second Life’s client is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Electric Sheep has an alternate client for Windows and Mac. And at least one party is actively working on a thin client for SL, and it’s not unthinkable that it would support voice at some point. This puts the client availability profile right on par with Skype. SL also has an unofficial open source server in development (OpenSim), which has some interesting potential.

As for video card, Second Life is as configurable to meet different hardware limitations as any video game, and easier to configure as such than most video games because it’s all menu-based. It doesn’t work well with every video card, but neither does ANY modern video game.

Second Life has the ability to stream audio, stream video, and import textures easily (”live”) to share various types of information (slight cost associated with texture upload), in addition to supporting voice chat and both private and public chat and the sharing of text files (notecards). You can send someone a location in SL as an URL, and you can easily browse the web while using SL (and very soon, you’ll be able to within SL). None of the other venues that either we have explored or that anyone has mentioned in this thread has anywhere near that degree of functionality. It’s not even close. With particular regard to the audio/video streaming, there are some tremendous possibilities for enhanced live interaction which are just not currently feasible elsewhere.

As for the topic of discussion, it appears to me from the notes to #05 (which I couldn’t attend) that the proportion of Second Life chatter was no greater than it had been in the previous four Skype-based conferences. SL has come up every time, because the people who are in the discussion bring it up and are interested in discussing it. I don’t have any control over that, nor do I wish to. The notes from #05’s discussion strike me as exceptionally broad, so I’m not sure where you’re coming from on the talk of limits or cheapened discussion.

In addition to the above factors, I personally like SL for these venues. I’m not involved or concerned with the social norms going on there when I’m not there, and I’m not put off by a one-time character creation wizard. It’s not that my own desires trump those of the participants… not at all. If SL is an inappropriate venue for ANY reason, then people who attended will give feedback to that effect, or attendance will wane, and we will migrate and adapt. After only one attempt, we really don’t have enough data to make that determination. But if pressed, I’d say it was a very strong start.

There is no platform which will make everyone happy. With this one, the plusses outweigh the minuses in my opinion, and we’re going to try it again for #06 and see what happens. I do not enjoy the fact that anyone is not pleased with the choice, and I don’t understand a decision to boycott the conference without trying it because it’s in a certain venue, but that’s a personal decision and I respect that. There is absolutely nothing stopping someone from hosting get-togethers of their own in Ventrilo or wherever they please; I don’t have a monopoly on these things. This is just where I’m currently choosing to hold the conference I host, that’s all. I’d welcome anyone to start up their own such meetings in alternate venues. Tell me about them, I’ll gladly spread the word, and will attend if at all possible.

(What got me thinking about it, by the way, was Hugh’s recently well-written rant/explanation of the BloodSpell distribution headaches, which you can read here.)

- - - - - -

So it’s my final editorial on Machinima.com. I could talk about all the cool stuff we’ve done over the past six years. I could talk about everything we wanted to do. I could shamelessly shill for BloodSpell (coming in six weeks or less). I could come out with something profound and brilliant about Machinima. Although that’s not really something to rely on.

I’m not going to do that. I’m going to talk about music.

As anyone who’s ever seen me dressed up for a night out will probably have realised, I used to be a bit of a Goth, in the same way that George W Bush is a bit of an idiot. I was hardcore about that shit - velvet, lace, Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, er, lots of other bands that sounded like the Sisters of Mercy.

Then, a few years ago, something wonderful happened. I moved into a flat that had cable TV. And cable TV, as the kid so memorably opined in The Lost Boys, means MTV.

So, what’s sitting on my MP3 player as I write this? Little bit of Goth still, a lot of punk (Green Day, Sum 41, Offspring, stuff like that), a whole bunch of charty stuff (new Shakira album! Woot!), bunch of indie and unsigned stuff (you’ve not heard of Proxy or the Angel Conversations yet. Hopefully you will, when BloodSpell comes out), some truly weird shit (the Dresden Dolls, Jason Webley, anything bizarre Charlie has enthused about this week.

And it all makes sense to me - there’s a consistent theme running through it all. I’ve got no fuckin’ clue what it is, but I know there’s one in there. And if I turn to Johnnie, currently sitting right behind me trying to find a specific PHP session variable from the totally unhelpful clue I just gave him, and get him to pass his Ipod knock-off over, I’ll find a completely different random selection, with some cross-over, no particular genre lines - but it makes sense to him. There’s a through-line in there that he can understand, even if he can’t articulate it.

I can’t imagine running a music site. Not a specific music site, a punk music site or a Goth site or a “shit that Hugh likes” site, but a site trying to deal with all music - the whole shebang, from Classical to hardcore. I can’t see how it could be done.

Machinima.com’s starting to feel a bit like that - an attempt to glue a whole bunch of stuff together that’s starting to get too broad to fit.

On the one hand, we’ve got hardcore nutcases like myself and Doc Nemesis, glueing together entire worlds with virtual duct-tape and string, perverting quivvering, nubile young engines to our deviant desires like executives on a junket in Thailand. On the other hand, we’ve got a vast and growing sea of people grabbing The Movies and The Sims and making movies that make sense to them - tales of friends’ suicide, political polemics, using the freedom of the virtual to knock out a movie quick and rough and perfect all at the same time, expressing themselves in a way they couldn’t with a camera because of the sheer level of hassle. And on the other other other hand we’ve got dance troupes in Star Wars, wise-cracking marines in FEAR, explanations about why the Internet’s for porn. And then we’ve got porn.

Six years ago we decided that our nascent artform needed a place to come together, a place to grow and grow up, where we could see enough of us all together in one place that we knew we weren’t just individual freaks, we were the pioneers of a movement that would change - and I think I can say this without irony now - change the world.

Yes, change the world. Give new hope and new scope to the sacred right of every living person to tell the stories that roil and boil within their head. Let them, by observing and commenting on the world, mold it to their internal struggles, their heroisms, their tragedies and their glories. And now it’s happened. We’ve done it - Machinima’s not going back in the box at this point. Anyone and everyone with access to a computer can now not just watch stories, crafted by the lucky few in ways that will never quite perfectly mesh with the vistas inside our own heads, but can take what they see in their interior worlds and put it out on a screen. As far as I’m concerned, my work here is done.

And so we’re back to the music. What we’ve got now isn’t one Machinima scene, one small group of lunatics all tied together by doing something that everyone else thinks is implausible or impossible. It’s a series of dozens of scenes, dozens of different groups held together only by the increasingly thin string of what is, after all, just a technology. Just a way of making the things we want to make.

“I went to a shrink, to analyse my dreams.” I’ve done that - literally, actually. And I know what my dreams are, and I think I know why I want to see them live, and breathe, and laugh, and fight - the dreams I’ve had all my life, of people in other worlds, in extraordinary situations, making choices both dreadful and glorious. I’ve tripped and fallen into this changing-the-world crap in the course of that, and I hope my contribution has made a difference. But now, it’s time for me and all the other little birds to leave the nest, to spread out into the world. In future, we’re not going to have a single Machinima site any more - we’re going to have dozens, the big-Machinima-feature sites, the Machinima-diary sites, the Machinima-you-can-dance-to sites. We’re going to have geniuses creating Machinima and not even knowing its name, we’re going to have a bright shining constellation of Machinima creators all spread out there, mixing with the other storytellers as equals, as a part of this new century where we seem to be, as a race, hell-bent on correcting the horrible mistake of “mass media” we made in the last century.

We threw a revolution. And no-one’s going to notice, because we’ll all be too busy being revolutionary.

For the very last time, with respect and love to all of you and the work we’ve done over the years, and the amazing things we’re all going to do,

Out.

Apart from that, where a site like this might get really interesting is if it extends itself by way of RSS so someone can subscribe to Twitter-like podcasts of sound bytes. That would also enable someone to host their traditional podcasts there too. Right now, I’m not seeing any feeds there, but it’s something to watch for.