Participants: Phil Rice (US), Buddy Noontan (US), Barricus Noontan (US), Keggy Nikolaidis (US), Michelle Pettit-Me (CAN), Frank Fox (US), Damien Valentine (UK), Sam Midwood (US), Ben Grussi (US).

We met in a public park Overman found while shopping for land. This month’s conference proved one thing for certain: hard working machinimators sometimes need to just unwind and play. While some topics were indeed covered (including several undisguised attempts to get the three guys from Dead On Que to reveal more about what they’re working on!), the latter half of the conference was joyrides and other shenanigans. Not the most productive conference, for sure, but enjoyable? Yes.

The topics:

• Machinima Film Festival 2008
• Arcadia International Machinima Expo 2008 (site coming soon, watch Overman’s Blog)
• Dead On Que’s upcoming series: “about turkeys… and science…”
• The Crysis game engine (being used by Dead On Que)
• Bioware’s Mass Effect
• EyeBeam (venue for MFF 2008)

We then sat in a circle around a fire and Frank sang Kum-bay-yah. Then the fire went out and Frank lit Barricus and Buddy aflame to keep the rest of us warm. (Barricus and Buddy were wearing avatars made out of cardboard boxes, so it was a bit like the movie Alive except with a plane full of office supplies instead of footballers).

Frank took us on a ride through the water and air on his speed boat. And then chaos erupted. Vehicles, flying pillows, trampolines, wheelbarrows… it was epic.