Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds



In what may be a new genre of academic machinima, we are introduced to the forthcoming collection of essays and interviews on machinima making, viewing and theorizing from Continuum Press; "Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds" edited by Jenna Ng. The machinima explains the origins of the book project, outlines its underlying theoretical perspectives and gives some insight into why everyone interested in machinima should read it.

As an unprecedented event in academic publishing, the collection is augmented with an dynamic online media collection that readers can access through QR-codes embedded in the text. While reading about machinima the reader can go to films, images, links and written texts that support the book chapters.

"In this groundbreaking new collection, Dr. Jenna Ng brings together academics, award-winning artists and machinima makers to discuss and explore the unique and fascinating combination of cinema, animation and games. Machinima makes for a very cost- and time-efficient way to produce films, with a large amount of creative control, by combining the techniques of film making, animation production and the technology of real-time 3D game engines.

With an opening preface by Henry Lowood, the leading academic studying Machinima, as well as a closing interview with Isabelle Arvers, a French machinima artist and activist,, the collection features theoretical discussions addressing machinima from non-gaming perspectives. The various functions of machinima are also discussed, via game art and documentary, while also exploring the application of such machinima making in a Cultural Analysis course at Umeå University."

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