Stories From The Machine Presents: Machinima 101

In approaching this column, I can't possibly explain how excited I was at the opportunity to officially set some of my time aside to watch all sorts of great Machinima from worlds around the Metaverse! I was surprised to find that the community of passionate, independent Machinimatographers was actually quite small in size, and those that seem to get the most attention are often ones that have significant funding behind them or were produced by professional filmmakers with access to premium tools that you or I could never afford. Sure, those are the ones that Machinima.com focuses on pretty much entirely. While those aren't without their artistic merit, I know from experience that many storytellers just want to use what resources are available to them at little or no cost to simply do what what a storyteller does, and that is film something that expresses their perspective, their voice, and their talents!

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Stories From the Machine Presents: The Little Wooden Boy and The Jewish Genie

Oftentimes it's difficult to get the word out about great Machinima, thus there are hundreds of little gems hiding throughout our global community, tucked away on personal websites or on some YouTube account buried beneath the videos of 14 year old boys lighting their farts on fire. It is always a true joy when I run across a film that, to me, exemplifies a strong use of virtual tools to tell a coherent story.

Codewarrior Carling's short film entitled "The Little Wooden Boy and The Jewish Genie" genuinely made me smile. In fact, I laughed out loud. It's a true challenge for any filmmaker to invoke emotion using animation because they can appear unwittingly stiff or altogether static, but the performances in Carling's film are nothing short of stellar and they bring the characters a vibrant life that makes them leap from the screen.
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