Cinemanila Machinima Film Festival
October 12, 2009 by Joel Tan
Filed under Granado Espada, MMORPG News, Machinima
This blog and its writer, yours truly, has always been a fan of machinima. For the benefit of those who don’t know what the heck machinima is, the terms stands for “machine-animation” or “machine-cinema” and, to borrow the definition of the first machinima film festival on my side of the pond, “utilizes widely popular videogames such as Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft, etc. to produce short films and music videos, using avatars and characters as actors, and the maps and locations of the game as setting.”
So imagine my surprise—and excitement—when friend and fellow online games enthusiast PJ Punla informed me about the upcoming Cinemanila Machinima Film Festival, a new component of the highly successful Cinemanila International Film Festival.
Cinemanila Machinima Film Festival: Check out the entries!
This year marks the first Cinemanila Machinima Film Festival, which began accepting entries in July and closed the doors on October 11th, 2009. The organization’s mission is to unearth machinimators and machinima talents in the region and to recognize the growing filmmaking movement.
Better late than never, I always say. (There’s an annual machinima festival in the United States that’s being handled by the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, a small volunteer-run non-profit organization established to promote, organize and advocate the growth of machinima filmmaking and filmmakers.)
Going back to the Cinemanila Machinima Film Festival, the video entries are already available for viewing. If you’re interested, go check out this year’s entries for short film and music video.
When I browsed the entries earlier today, I saw a few familiar machinima production outfits (from past runs on the Machinima portal), including Sleeping Dogs Productions, whose entry for this year’s Cinemanila Machinima Film Festival is titled “6 Days,” made using Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
What I’m rooting for, however, is Darrick Regondola’s “Nobody Dance,” using character sprites from the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Granado Espada (known in North America as Sword of the New World). The song performed by the sprites, “Nobody,” and the artists collectively known as the Wonder Girls are products of JYP Entertainment. To view and vote for the video, click on this link to the Nobody Dance.
Well, that’s it for now. Join me in checking out the other short machinima films and music videos.
THANKS for the plug! I shall go and inform Darrick forthwith~
Thanks for the “sappork” PJ and Joel