Stranger 109

Last Friday a new website sprouted up on the machinima scene dedicated to playing what the creators of the site consider to be premium machinima. Richard Grove, Ingrid Moon (who were featured in The Days After) and Jason Choi have setup a rather slick looking site called Machiniplex. So far the site only features seven films but promises more to come; however, the emphasis here seems to be one of quality and not quantity. Given that most of the titles are fairly well-known, it is clear that they want to set themselves apart from the more commercial and more “democratic” Machinima.com. High caliber machinima like The Snow Witch, The Edge of Remorse, and Male Restroom Etiquette certainly deserve to be spotlighted and this site aims to do just that. The one thing I would suggest to them though would be to offer some more information on each piece. Background info on the directors and the studios from which each film comes would add a nice dimension to the otherwise stripped down layout. Plus it would make it easier to watch the rest of the work by these talented machinimators.

As part of the site’s premiere, they debuted a new film from Frank L. Fox entitled Morning Run Amok. This is the first film I’ve seen that uses the Moviestorm software, which is solely dedicated to making machinima. I have not yet had a chance to play around with it, which is available as a free download, but if this film is any indication of what it can do, I’m very impressed. The character models mostly resemble The Sims 2, yet lack the over-the-top animations that have become a telltale sign of that engine. Having not played with the software yet, it is hard to tell what is being done with it to create these amazing shots (see above) and what is being done in other software. If Moviestorm is offering the possibility to composite high quality live action photos or video with animated characters, it probably won’t be long before they’ll have to charge for a single piece of software as powerful as that.

The depth of field and lighting effects give the piece a polished feel, not to mention the wonderful tracking shots that again blend animation with what appears to be actual photography. It also does not hurt to have Phil “Overman” Rice do an original score for your film. Whether or not it has been his goal all along, the man is becoming the John Williams of machinima. The story of Morning Run Amok though is probably not the strongest of the films found on Machiniplex. It reminded me of Richard Linklater’s Slacker, as one character moves from one scene to another he or she encounters some new characters and then we start to follow that new character. This continues through the entire film, introducing a myriad of characters who have some sort of funny dilemma they are dealing with. It’s a nice device that really allows Fox to highlight how powerful this new engine can be, but its something we’ve seen before (think the comedic street sequences in Run Lola Run). Regardless, the voice acting and great sound really help sell the piece as a conventional animated film. However, the film owes a great deal of that to using a new engine that doesn’t look like a game. So if you have not had a chance to see what Moviestorm can do, I would strongly urge you to check this film out as well as download the software and give it a test drive.