Moviestorm will be presenting a video + Q&A as part of the program this year, there will be a dedicated Moviestorm “booth” in Second Life with some Q&A time scheduled with a company representative, and they are also providing some financial backing as well – funding that is going to greatly improve the all new Expo experience. We can’t tell you more details there yet, because the plan isn’t 100% finalized, but as soon as it is you’ll be hearing more on this subject.

We anticipate that this partnership will both raise the quality of the Expo as well as raise awareness about the Moviestorm product, which I (Phil) am of course terribly enthusiastic about.

If you are part of the Moviestorm community, take a moment to tell them what you think about their support of the Expo. We here thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

Any Latin or Spanish Machiniima filmmaker who still wants to submit a film to the Expo has until September 14th (1 week). We extended this deadline because we changed the terms of the category a few weeks after the submission period began by adding Spanish entries (Spain, Portugal). We feel it’s only fair to make up the time they lost by our delayed announcement.

If you are interested in submitting your film, use the submission form linked to the right of this blog. Be sure you have permission to use any music that is in your film.

Once all entries are closed on Sept 14th everyone will be notified about how their film fared. We will then begin to announce the films that will screen at the Expo and the films we are sending on to our Jury. We are adding a new category this year for screening films. This will be a “Submission Highlights” reel which will feature short scenes from films that were submitted to the Expo this year, but don’t quite have the quality to screen fully. We feel that these films (and their filmmakers) need to be acknowledged and supported. The Highlight reel films/filmmakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

http://www.starwarsuncut.com/

-There’s a rough cut of the final film available here (sound not complete)

 -Casey Interview

 -See stats here

-Kate

Tuesday, September 7th at 12PM Pacific Time

In addition, we have decided to extend the submission period for the Spanish/Latin entries to Tuesday, September 14th at 12PM Pacific Time. We feel that because we added Spain and Portugal several weeks after submissions started, it’s only fair to those Spanish and Latin machinima directors to have a bit more time than everyone else.

The Expo has received well over 130 entries to date and are very pleased with the quality of the submissions. We plan on announcing the films that will screen at the Expo along with those films which we will send on to our Jury sometime in September. We are also planning a surprise announcement about a new category of film screening at the Expo this year. More info to come.

-Ricky

The Machinima Expo officially supports the 48 Hour Film Project / Machinima. In addition to helping promote this great project, we will be screening the winners of the competition at the MachinExpo 2010 on November 20th and 21st. If you’ve never heard of the 48 Hour Film Project it’s a nation-wide effort to create a fully realized short film in 48 hours. In this case, it’s machinima. It’s an exciting experience that will truly help sharpen your skills and teach you about teamwork.

Here is the official press release with links:

The 48 Hour Film Project, the oldest and biggest time filmmaking competition, is looking for machinima!  In a wild, sleepless weekend, you and a team will make a movie —-  write, shoot, edit and score it.  From scratch.  In 48hours.  On Friday, September 17, you’ll get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie.  By Sunday, September 19, the movie must be complete and uploaded to our server in California.

Each completed film is guaranteed a screening  in Twinity, Inworldz and Second Life.

Winner ánd runner up will be screened at MachinimaExpo 2010.

Meet other machinimatographers, spend 48 hours in intense movie making, have your film screened in several virtual worlds, and compete to represent machinima against the other 90 48HFP cities!  Come on out and make a movie!

To be part of the 48HFP, register online at: http://www.48hourfilm.com/machinima

Registration costs  $48 per team. Space is limited, so register today!

The events in 2010 are held in Second Life, which is a free download at: http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

Teamleaders are expected to be present at kickoff and screening event, if you need any help at all in entering Second Life; please contact Chantal Harvey, and you will be coached step by step. It is also possible to come to the events in a ready made account. (talk about it being easy.)

Communication can be through using skype @ chantal.harvey, and by email: machinima@48hourfilm.com

UWA_BOSL Theater in Second Life

This SLurl will take your avatar to the 48HFP theatre :  http://slurl.com/secondlife/UWA/6/248/1638

Some dates to remember:  (all times are sl/pacific times)

September 14:    Meet and greet the 48HFP teams – 3 pm

September 17:    Kickoff event at 5 pm, genres/prop/line/character handout and start of contest September 19:    Dropoff event at 5 pm, end of contest is 6.30 pm

September 23:    Screening of the films, awards and winners announced

Dont miss the change to bring your machinima to the World, the winner will be screened at our Filmapalooza Festival, and winners there will go to Cannes!!

For More Information Contact:

Chantal Harvey

Machinima Producer 48 Hour Film Project

http://www.48hourfilm.com/machinima

machinima@48hourfilm.com

Turbulence – 2008 from jpro on Vimeo.

Then in 2009 we chose Asia to focus on and had many excellent entries choosing Krrish Spyker’s “Scripted” for our jury prize.

This year we are focusing on Latin America, Spain and Portugal for our International Jury Prize. Originally we decided to narrow the entries to only Latin American countries, but we feel it is too narrow a choice and are opening the Expo to any submissions from Spain or Portugal (Spanish and Portuguese). Note: entries do not have to be subtitled in English (although we encourage you to do so).

Please spread the word to any Spanish, Latin or Portuguese Machinima filmmakers you may know. Submission guidelines and forms are to the right of this post.

The 2010 Machinima Expo will officially take place on Saturday, November 20th and Sunday, November 21st. The actual schedule of events is still being planned, but we’ll most likely be running from around 1oAM to 3 or 4PM in the afternoon (Pacific Time/Los Angeles), with a half hour or hour break in the middle.  Click this link for a time zone converter to determine the correct time in your zrea.

Our goal remains to provide the best quality versions of hand picked films that were submitted to the Expo this year and to make your experience attending the Expo easier and simpler.

Also, we’ll be opening the screening reels on the Friday, November 19th sometime in the evening (exact time will be announced).  We will be running the screening reels through the weekend and the rest of the week. Screening will stop officially on Sunday, November 28th in the evening. This means that everyone will have full access to high quality versions of all of the screening films for 10 days, 24/7.

The way the Expo is being presented this year is going to be very different from the previous two years. A main goal, in addition to quality films, is to make the Expo attendee’s experiences easier and simpler. If you have a computer, an internet connection and a browser you’ll be able to attend the 2010 Expo.

In order to facilitate this new change in the way we are presenting the Expo, we will be partnering with a number of organizations and people most notably Ken White /TMOA Radio and D.L. Watson /TMU Theater. We’d like to thank Ken and D.L. for helping us in creating a new Expo this year.

Some of the programming we are working on for the 2010 Expo includes:

• Keynote address by Tracy Harwood
• “Women in Machinima” panel discussion. Chaired by Ingrid Moon
• MachinExpo 2010 Awards Ceremony
• Screening of Jury Grand Prize Winner
• “Sound Design for Machinima” presented by Ricky Grove
• “Finding and Creating Music for Your Machinima” with Phil Rice
• Muvizu and Reallusion will have booths in Second Life and will also present a video overview of their programs (more tools in the planning stages

And many other events are still in the planning stage including more machinima tool presentations, a “Meet the Machinimators” mixer, a possible “Wolf and Dulci Hour” live show and a conversation with “Classic Machinima Filmmakers” who started the machinima movement years ago, but have moved on become professional Machinimators in the gaming world.

We will be announcing new programming as it’s confirmed and will post a final programming schedule sometime in late August or early September, 2010.

We are very excited about this years Expo. All of the Expo team members are working hard to make this the best Expo yet.

This year we’re looking for short films based (loosely!) on a classic movies theme.

Take your favourite film clip, remake in machinima, and tweak the wording a little to include the word Expo.

Sounds confusing?

We asked a few veteran machinimators (Scott Hather, Russell Boyd, Phil Rice, Ian Chisholm, Anima Technica, Chat Noir Studios, Celestina) to help you out with some great examples from a variety of engines.  They came up with some excellent and witty work.

Here is the 2010 Expo Trailer playlist:

See what I mean? I just love the variety of work here. Thanks to the filmmakers for doing this!

Ok, all the trailers you submit will be displayed in rotation on the Expo site front page, and you’ll be helping to spread the news to the whole Machinima community.

Upload your short to youtube, and add the tag #mexpotrailer

Make is funny, make it sad, enjoy yourself…remember this isn’t a competition!

Entries accepted from now until mid November. Questions? Contact us via the website here and we’ll set you strait.

Here are the guidelines:

Machinexpo 2010 Trailer Guidelines

Concept

1. use a machinima engine  to remake a favourite film or TV moment
2. for dialogue substitute the word ‘expo’ at vital moment (s)
3. film need be no more than 30s long, but can be longer
4. add expo logo at the end (see below)
5. upload to youtube, add tag  #mexpotrailer
6. see this page for up-to-date promo info (and logo download) you are welcome / encouraged to include in your video: http://www.machinima-expo.com/promo.htm
7. Upload your video on more sites if you’d like.
8. Have fun!

The films will be gathered together in a playlist and used to promote the machinexpo 2010

Help

1. eg Citizen Kane..sub expo for Rosebud, When Harry met Sally she shouts ‘expo expo expo’ in cafe scene, in Star Trek, Spock could say ‘It’s expo Jim, but not as we know it’, ET would say ‘ET phone expo’.
2. Subtitles are fine.
3. Films with no dialogue can use the word ‘expo’ replacing background text, eg in street signs or posters.
4. If your engine / editor makes it difficult to add logo just use text
5. Yes, do use your own language, we reach more people that way!
6. Remember, if you use music, to choose tracks which youtube won’t object to. See Jamendo for some great creative commons music, or have fun making your own.
7. Use the guidelines as inspiration only , if you get stuck  just go with  the flow and see what happens!

And here’s the Google doc:

https://docs0.google.com/document/edit?id=1fimSlLdpcgniBQ-2cehrQ1WzAz5y18MTf036VCXj9rY&hl=en#

Why the Ticky Box?

Music is an emotive force, and as filmmakers we both share in, and in some ways understand the way music tells a story, though nobody really knows why human beings find it satisfying to empathise, and enter into another emotional world for a while. Anything that we, as humans, experience occurs within a full spectrum. There are peaks, there are most definitely troughs, and most of the time there’s the humdrum of everyday.
For some, music is such a precious resource that any attempts to commercialise or otherwise ‘debase’ the experience are utterly rejected…music should be freely shared, we should rise up and…what do we do next? That bit is always a little vague to me.

How does all this relate to the expo Kate? Do you want us to buy placards and stand outside our local music mega-store shouting “down with capitalism”?

Well, if your music shop is still open and you have a spare afternoon, I can’t really stop you. However in our corner of the UK, the trend is to abandon actual shops and ‘buy it on t’net’.
..and this is the point really. All that free love, er I mean music sharing didn’t seem to count for much when the net was young.Who cares if a few geeks pass on their Alanis Morissette albums, so long as the tills are still ringing on the high street?
..but when the masses left the out of town shopping mauls (sic) and started congregating, and shopping online, the balance shifted.

Music companies overreacted, and they still are. Legal sharks, smelling blood, nosed around in the panic and found a living for themselves. Software companies saw the chance to really knuckle down on those kids posting blurry photos and tinny recordings of their fave band on video sharing sites. We got you, we got you good kid! Ok… and some sensible levelheaded types did quite reasonable things when nasty villains stole their sweat-forged intellectual property (did that get the balance back, are we sued yet?)

The luckier victims, er perpetrators get take down notices, cease and desist orders, and most of the time that’s all that happens, most of the time.

We know you know that when you submit a movie, sorting out the licensing for the music is your responsibility, and so has it always been.
We also know you know that for a long time, machinimators have been able to dodge around the system a little, ‘hey what’s the worst that could happen?’
So we added a ticky box the submission form. So now, you know we know you know, and because we’re no longer sure what exactly is the worst that could happen.

If any films come in with the ticky box ticked ‘yes we own the music’ and it’s kind of obvious that you don’t, then, because we’re nice, and because we love you really, we’ll let you know and you’ll get the chance to resubmit. (You see, I told you we are nice).

The weird thing is, this seeming limitation ends up being exciting, because of how creative you guys are, and due to the vast number of wonderful musicians who exist outside the music system, either giving away their work for free, or offering very reasonable rates for licensing. Here’s a link to a document we’ve created which will help you find music for your machinima film that is legal.

You can access that document here:

Music Sources for your Machinima Film

-Kate Fosk

]]> http://machiniplex.net/expo/2010/06/25/why-the-ticky-box/feed/ 0 http://machiniplex.net/expo/2010/06/15/expo-2010-1st-newsletter-is-available-pass-it-around/ http://machiniplex.net/expo/2010/06/15/expo-2010-1st-newsletter-is-available-pass-it-around/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:43:55 +0000 rgrove http://machiniplex.net/expo/?p=182416546 Out thanks to Kate for putting this 1st Expo 2010 newsletter together. We plan on making this a regular update to news and developments.  And special thanks to all those who helped with the translations.

By the way, if you’d like to help us promote the event at your site or blog here is the embed code for the Newsletter:

<iframe src=”http://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1PrwfvamqrrbUCF3QNyOIvLFqGRWY3eNyX5n13607F0k&amp;embedded=true”></iframe>

2010 MachinExpo Newsletter 01

—————————————————————–ENGLISH