The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences officially launched their call of submissions for the 2008 Machinima Film Festival. The festival will be held on Nov. 1 at Eyebeam in Manhattan, but if you’re interested in trying to get your work included you need to submit your entry by September 12. C’mon, beloved Second Life machinima-people*, submit thy entries for the Machinima Festival and make us proud! And will somebody nominate the Alienhearts’ ‘The Little Newbie’ music video for ‘Best Original Music’, please? And poke every great machinima person you know to submit their stuff.

2008 Machinima Festival Opens Call for Submissions

NEW YORK, NY, August 7, 2008—The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences

AMAS - the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences - has opened the call for submissions for the much-anticipated 2008 Machinima Film Festival (www.festival.machinima.org), which will be held Saturday, November 1, 2008, at Eyebeam, a multi-disciplinary art and technology center in Manhattan. Filmmakers interested in submitting their work for the 2008 Machinima Awards (“The Mackies”) should do so by Friday, Sept. 12.

As in years past, the 2008 Machinima Festival will feature panel discussions with prominent machinima filmmakers from around the world discussing this new form of cinema which often uses popular video games like Halo® 3, World of Warcraft® and The Sims™ as source material for entirely new and often subversive works.

The main highlight of the 2008 Machinima Festival is the awards ceremony honoring the best new machinima movies produced in 17 categories, beginning at 8PM. This year also sees the introduction of new award categories, notably “Best Long Format” recognizing the increasing number of feature-length productions, and “Best Game Studio Machinima” honoring realtime cutscenes and cinematics found in today’s next-generation titles.

Hailed as the “Sundance for the Video Game Set” by MTV News, the Machinima Festival evolved from its humble beginnings as an adjunct to QuakeCon in Mesquite, Texas in 2002, into the field’s definitive celebration and showcase. The event, which is organized and produced by AMAS, consistently draws hundreds of machinima professionals, enthusiasts and critics, who gather to explore the works of modern innovators, network and discuss the future of the industry.

Detailed submission requirements and instructions can be found online at www.festival.machinima.org. Interested parties may also contact AMAS at:ress@machinima.org.

Via Kotaku

What’s machinima?

Machinima (muh-shin-eh-mah) is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies.

Machinima is a new and exciting way to combine machine and cinema! (spelt with an ‘i’!). Machinima uses video games and 3D animation for making short films. It is based on the player-producer culture, where the player uses his or her own storylines and humour to create new pieces, rather than professionally produce films. So cult has Machinima become, that it is now spawning a new era of computer games – and a new approach to computer gaming.

How do they make machinima?

Using a game engine and environment, a Machinima creator can use existing game characters (from games that give permission) or create your own, as the characters or actors and sets for a film. This is then compiled, edited and built up into a virtual film.

Although this hybrid of film-making from games started among the game fanatics, it is now beginning to be used by commercial organisations to produce breathtakingly complex and interesting short films. Coming from the games culture, it is all about fun and play, and is now taking off as a global phenomenon.

In creating your very own Machinima film, rather than spending months to work with expensive camera kit and learning how to use 3D software packages to create animation, Machinima film can be done by “acting” out movies all within a computer game engine.

How do I make machinima?

Some interesting tutorials on making machinima using Second Life - you might be ready just in time for the 2009 Machinima Festival - can be found using the Second Life Wiki on Machinima, Eric Linden’s 10 simple machinima tips and his paper and keep an eye on the Machinima Librarians. Definitely worth checking out also is Miss - ‘her royal red highness’ - Codebastard Redgrave’s MachinimaCam. Talk to her, or check out the link that reads ‘machinimacam’ (on your left) for more info. ;)

* Machinima People

Just a silly question, probably, but what is the official name for someone who shoots machinima? Machinimatographer? Machinimaist? Machinist? Machinimator? Machinimist?

And on a funny note, if you have not seen the Southpark episode ‘Make Love, not Warcraft’ yet, you should definitely do so! More about that one over at the Machinima.com website.

Tags: contest, festival, machinima, second life

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