The MachinExpo 2010 promises to be the biggest and most exciting one yet. We are solely focused on two goals this year: to present the best machinima films we can find at the highest quality and to open the audience for the Expo to include anyone with a computer and a net browser. We want this year’s Expo to be easy to attend and simple to get around. It will take a lot of work, but we have a staff of over 15 now and we are very excited about what’s coming.

We’ll start the ball rolling with opening submissions to the 2010 Expo film festival on June 1st. We will continue to accept submissions of machinima films until August 31st, 2010. We decided to start the submission process a little earlier this year, so we could incorporate the goal of higher quality screening and figure out technical issues. We’ll also be announcing the new category of film award for this years Expo on June 1st and will have more information on the guidelines, which have changed just a bit.

So stay tuned and on June 1st and we’ll provide the guidelines, application forms and comment on some of the new ideas we have for the festival this year!

The MachinExpo will consist of screening rooms where we will screen films submitted to our annual competition, plus presentations and panels on related machinima subjects. There will also be a “What is Machinima?” booth where you can watch machinima films made to explain the process of making machinima. Lainy Voom will be presenting an installation of her works in a specially designed space. And Fallopian, the recently formed machinima group, will have their own installation area.

We have made one scheduling change to the Expo programming (I’ll post the final schedule of programs tomorrow). We will be replacing the already announced Machinima Premiere scheduled at 11AM, we will be instead presenting a Special Edition of the Overcast with myself and Phil. We’ll be talking to selected jury film directors and sharing current machinima info just like the old days. Now if I can just get Phil to promise not to start drinking early, it should be a fun show. Iian Friar (IceAxe), director of the jury-nominated film, Clockwork, is one of our confirmed guests and will be participating in a Q&A. Here you can see Phil and Iain practicing their Clint Eastwood silent macho stares with each other (at least I think that’s what they are doing). This should be another gripping Overcast.

What's up with Phil and Iain?

Phil, Damien and I spent most of the morning in a tech rehearsal with panel participants and speakers getting technical issues ironed out and going over the programming schedule. As you can see, someone didn’t like their schedule so they blew up about it. We were all embarrassed, but what can you do?

Someone just blew up at the rehearsal

But that wasn’t the end of it. Phil had been working on the site late into the night and the blow up just tied him into knots.

Phil tied himself into knots of worry

We eventually talked him down with Tracy Harwood’s help (you can see her trying to get behind Phil and get a hypo into him).  It didn’t help matters much when Damien appeared and suggested that we try to see how many avatars we could stuff inside his Dr. Who phone booth.

How many avatars can you stuff into a Dr. Who phone booth?

We finally gave up when we got to about 10.  But it was certainly exciting and intimate.  I hope no young children are present at the Expo as scenes like these could be potentially damaging.

And after the crowd left (thank God), Phil and I worked ourselves to the bone getting the sets built and painted. Here you can see me working at the Lainy Voom installation testing the …ah…period chairs.

Testing Lainy's period chairs

Phil and I were amazed at how much we got accomplished today. Eddie Dugan and UCS gave us carte blanche to create the Expo set. Still have some work to do this week, but we are well on the way to having a great opening next Sunday. We did make some slight changes physically to acomodate technical issues, but nothing that participants can’t easily adjust to.

Very excited about the screening rooms. We got a chance to test them out and the films look great. We’ll have over 6 hours of Jury reels, screening reels, Asian jury reels, UCS student reels and maybe some stag films thrown in for good measure.

I’ll be blogging pretty much every day as well approach the Expo opening, so stay tuned for up to date info here.  Information about the festival is on the columns to the right of this post.

This Sunday, November 15th, from 9Am to 12AM (Pacific Time), we will hold a Technical Rehearsal for all MachinExpo 2009 participants. If you are presenting or on a panel, please make time in your schedule to come to this rehearsal. We’ll be going over the programming schedule and telling you how everything will work technically. You’ll have a chance to check your mic and headset, test the “power point” application Phil has set up for presenters and get a feel for the space.

This is especially important for newbies to Second Life. We’ll be able to help you out with learning how to move around and communicate. We might even set up a big “shopping trip” in case anyone wants to spruce up their avatars a bit.

It should be a lot of fun. So PLEASE come to this rehearsal even if it’s only for 15 minutes as it will make a big difference in how smoothly the Expo runs on Nov 22nd.

The event takes place on an island in Second Life owned (and graciously loaned to us) by UCS (University Campus Suffolk). Here is the slurl (once you click this link, it will open your SL application and take you to a page that you click again to transport to the location)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/UCSville/60/173/25/

You may have to log in in order to travel to the island.

Once you are there, look for a large building (the island is small) which is where we will be going over the programming schedule. If you arrive late, you can contact either myself or Phil. My in world name is

gtoon Jun

and Phil’s is

Sol Bartz

Also, if you need to convert your time zone, here is a nice time coverter you can use:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Hope to see you there!

Ricky/Phil

All film submitted to the Expo are first listed in a submissions list where the initial screening committee (composed of myself, Phil Rice and Damien Valentine) chooses a film to post on in our private forum created for just this purpose. The person who initially posts on the film provides a link for viewing and then comments on the film, recommending either that the film be approved for screening, passed on to our jury, put aside for further consideration or put aside as not suitable for screening at the Expo. As you can see, the three person screening committee will assure that a 2-1 vote will decide the status of a particular film.

There is often debate on the merits of a particular film and at times votes are changed because of the debate. Some films are obviously too poorly made to recommend that they be screened, but EVERY film is watched by all three of us. Other films need to be thought about a bit, and we put these aside to consider later. There are also those films (very few) which because of superior artistry and technical skill are passed on to our five person jury to be considered for jury prizes.

So, how do we judge films that are screened or passed on to the jury? Basically, it comes down to personal taste. If you put three different people in our places the list of screeners and jury films would be different (not by much, IMO). It’s a subjective process, BUT informed by experience and common sense rules in filmmaking. For example, if a film has a great idea for a story, but the recording of the actors is so bad that it distracts you from the story, we most likely will pass on the film. However, there are several films we’ve approved for screening that have flaws, but the overall effect of the film is so interesting we think it should be seen. And, yes, this is a judgement call.

In general, there are three things we look for in machinima submitted to us;

1. Is the film technically sound?

-This means that the story makes sense, the editing furthers the story and that there are no major tech problems like bad recordings, low fps, too dark lighting, and bad acting (to name a few)

2. Does the film show originality?

-The Expo looks for originality in selecting our films. What this means is that if the film is a familiar re-hash of something we’ve seen before, it will probably have a harder time getting selected.
We want the films we select to be unique and unusual, so that the people who come to the Expo to see our screening selections will see something new and imaginative.

3. Does the film show talent?

-In a similar vein to originality, talent is a factor we use in making our selections. Talent is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. It’s that special ability by someone to tell a story or
create images that are so compelling and unique, you can’t take your eyes of of them. This is probably the most subject part of the judging process, but we feel we have spent a lot of time
debating the merits of talent in each of these films and that our decisions are good ones.

Finally, at the end of the selection process, we go through the list of films one last time to be sure we haven’t left a film out or including something that really doesn’t merit screening. And since we had 153 films submitted, you can imagine the amount of time it takes to do everything I’ve mentioned here. And at every stage of our judging we always kept an open mind. In fact, there were films added right up to the last second before we announced the screening list.

As far as the films submitted to the jury, we don’t have any say in what they decide. We wanted to find an odd-numbered group of skilled artists (we picked five for our jury) with some members of the group having little or no experience in machinima, but a lot in film (mostly live action). This meant that the judging would not have a machinima bias and would be judged based on being a superior “film” and not just machinima. We feel this is essential in coming up with good judging since none of us favor the popular vote method and all of it’s corruptions.

Once we submit our short list of jury films, and these are films that are of the highest quality both technically and artistically, we give the jury a period of time to weight the merits of each film and then vote. We tally the votes and select the film with the most votes as a Grand Prize winner and the next four films in order of votes are awarded a jury prize. We had several tie breakers last year that the jury had to vote on and considering the quality of this years jury submissions we’ll probably have tie breakers this year. The judges also vote for the Asian film entry.

Let me be clear that we do not discuss the entries with the judges, nor to we contact them about their votes other than to collate them. They are free to make their own decisions apart from anything the screening committee has commented on. No judge has access to the private forum the screening committee uses to comment on films chosen to screen at the Expo.

The process of judging films submitted to us is one we take very seriously. More than any other aspect of the Expo, selecting the films to screen and the jury films is our top priority. Because in the end, panels and discussions are interesting, but it’s the films that we are all most excited about. If one person comes to the Expo, watches our screening reel or jury reel and is inspired to go out and create their own film, then all of our efforts will have been worth it.

Rather than list all of the screeners at one time, we are going to publicly announce them in small groups over the next several weeks. Today, we are listing 10 more machinima films we think should be screened at the Expo. Remember, if your film isn’t listed here it might be on the next round.

Also, we have created a separate page on our new Machinima Expo called “List of Films Screening at the Machinima Expo” (clumsy, but accurate) where you can see the list with a screen cap from each film which is linked to the location where the film can be viewed. Of course, any filmmaker who gave us a private link to a film not yet released to the public, we will keep that link private.

Phil, Damien, Ingrid and I would like to thank the Machinima community for responding so strongly to our festival. We really appreciate the support.

Here are the second 10 films we will be screening:

-”All the Little Fishies” by Toxic Menges

-”The Body is Obsolete: Stelarc Performance” by Chantal Harvey

-”Chanel Untold” by Hardy Capo

-”Coming Home” by Lizard

-”Dignity of Men” by Kate Lee

-”Erlkonig” by Ciskovan

-”Heightfever” by Luca van Grinsven

-”Pinhead: In the S***” by afterThought

-”Lights Drive My Soul” by Donald Rack

-”To My Beloved” by Cecil Hirvi

Congratulations to the filmmakers and thank you for submitting your film.

Reallusion, the makers of iClone 4 and Crazy Talk 6, have agreed to sponser the Machinima Expo this year. In addition to logistical support, they have graciously provided prizes for all the main competition categories. Here’s a breakdown:

• Jury Grand Prize(1):  iClone 4 Pro + Crazy Talk 6 Pro

• Jury Prizes (5):    iClone 4 Standard

• Asian Jury Prize(1):  Crazy Talk 6 Standard

If you don’t know Reallusion or their products, they’ve been involved in the Machinima community for several years now. Always supportive, they offer tools for the Machinima filmmaker that extremely useful. IClone 4 (to be released in Sept., ‘09) will be their best Machinima creation tool to date. For more information on Reallusion, IClone 4 and Crazy Talk, check their website and weekly blog or click the Reallusion logo at the top of this post.

Our sincere thanks to John Martin and Charles Chen (CEO) at Reallusion for making this possible. Your support for our Machinima festival is deeply appreciated.

-Ricky Grove

-Phil Rice

-Damien Valentine

The Second Annual Machinima Expo is now accepting submissions for it’s juried competition. The jury, which is still being assembled, will select 5 Machinima films which will be screened and honored at the Expo in November which will take place in the virtual world of Second Life. There will also be a Grand Prize winner for the festival. We are currently negotiating for prizes and hope to make an announcement soon.

Please note that the submission period will be from July 26th to Sept 30th. We will no longer accept submissions after Sept 30th, 2009.

The exact date, time and location of this year’s Expo festival are currently being negotiated. We will post that information as soon as it has been determined. Since there were wome problems with our schedule last year, we promise to make this years schedule easier for everyone.

There will also be an award for the best Asian Machinima submitted. Filmmakers from China, Russia and the Middle East (roughly 55 countries total from Aphganistan to Yemen)  are encouraged to submit your films. Please note that the films you submit are NOT required to have English subtitles, although it is encouraged.

On the sidebar to the right of this blog, you will see links to download the Expo 2 Submission form and Submission Guidelines. We’ve made two changes this year in the rules for submission. I’ve noted them in bold.

International Machinima Expo 2009
MachinExpo Submission Guidelines

1) The International Machinima Expo welcomes machinima films of any style and has no category / genre restrictions. Each work will be juried solely on its own merits, at the sole discretion of the expo organizers. The Expo seeks films which are bold, creative, and vital, films which represent the very best of what machinima has to offer.

2) Machinima films of any duration are welcome for submission; both short and long-form works are encouraged.

3) Submitted works do not need to be pure (100%) machinima. Films incorporating machinima in combination with other media are both welcome and encouraged. As a general rule, approximately 50% of the film should consist of machinima footage (real-time 3d animation).

4) Non-English language films may be submitted with or without subtitles, at the filmmaker’s discretion. (English subtitles for non-English films are encouraged but not required).

5) Submission to the expo is open to filmmakers of all ages, from any country in the world. Filmmakers from Asia are eligible to be considered for a Special Jury Prize for Asian filmmakers. See #10 below for more information.

6) Year of production of the machinima film does not matter.

7) Films which were submitted to the 2008 Machinima Expo (last year’s event) are not eligible for submission again this year.

A “2009 MachinExpo Film Submission Form” must be completed for each film being submitted to the expo. A filmmaker may submit as many of his/her own films as they wish.

9) Films are submitted by providing a link for online streaming viewing at a video sharing web site, such as Vimeo, YouTube, etc. Links to file downloads are not acceptable to this year’s submission process. HD resolution is both welcome and encouraged, if available.

10) Films which are nominated as Official Screening Selections or for Jury Prize Consideration will be contacted after initial submission. At that time, filmmakers will be required to provide a downloadable version of their film in DivX or Xvid AVI, QuickTime MOV, or Windows Media WMV. This file will be used to create a special streaming QuickTime version of the file to be used for viewing by the attending public in Second Life.

11) All submitted films will be reviewed by the expo organizers, and selected works will be put before a jury. Five (5) of these films will be selected for a Jury Prize, and one (1) additional film will be awarded a Special Jury Prize for Best Asian Film. The Special Jury Prize is open to machinima filmmakers from the Asian continent only.

12) In addition to films which are deemed eligible for either of the Jury Prizes, as many as several hours of additional machinima films will be made Official Screening Selections, all of which will be shown to the Expo audience. Selected films for screening or for jury prize eligibility will be notified on or close to October 18, 2009.

13) All submissions for the expo must be received by September 30, 2009.

Any questions related to the submission process should be directed to:
exposubmit@machiniplex.net

I’d also like to announce that the three screening reels (Jury films and two general screening reels) will be running on site all this week. See the Expo program for more info. The reels are very good. We spent a lot of time trying to put them together so that they provided a great variety. I was completely immersed in reel 2, in particular, during the last two hours of the Expo. Wonderful stuff.

In addition, the Tom Jantol installation and the Peter Rasmussen memorial and the Marque Cornblatt machinima experiment will be open to the public. These installations were over-looked a bit during the fest and we urge you to come by Jamville Island and look them over.

Again, the Second Life slurl is:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jamville/151/214/23

The decision process for choosing which films to screen is hard to describe. We approached it systematically and went through several phases of comments and cuts. There were so many good films submitted that towards the end we found it difficult to decide. In the end, though, it really comes down to our collective taste in films. Another 4 people would have come up with a different list of films to screen.

We sincerely thank everyone who submitted a film to the Expo. Especially the late submissions that came in after we had to cancel the 3-day Montreal live event. We appreciate your faith in us. We took our responsibility seriously and are proud to screen each of these excellent films.

(Note: these films will screen in addition to the Jury nominated films. We will have a special theater for the screenings. We will post a schedule at the Expo with the approximate time each film is screening)

The Films:

Film Title: The Abyss Within Us
Director(s): Bettina Bröckers, David Riedel

Film Title: Alice
Director(s): Christina Bryan

Film Title: Apocalypsis Ex Machina
Director(s): Andrze Kozlowski

Film Title: Apology
Director(s): Phil Rice

Film Title: The Ballad of Black Mesa
Director(s): Zachariah Scott

Film Title: The Ballad of the Noob
Director(s): Jun Falkenstein

Film Title: Boomerang
Director(s): Aaron Jeans

Film Title: Clockwork
Director(s): Harrison Heller

Film Title: Combine Nation, Episodes 1-2
Director(s): Zachariah Scott

Film Title: CSI:NY Virtual Experience Teaser
Director(s): Kerria Seabrooke

Film Title: The Death of Jar Jar (Supreme Edition)
Director(s): Damien Valentine

Film Title: Desassossego
Director(s): C. D. Schulz

Film Title: DoubleKill
Director(s): David Tyner

Film Title: Faith Hope and Charity
Director(s): Russell Boyd, Michael Lockhart, Neil Pugh, Sjon Stevens, James Thorpe, Bruce Wallace, Steve Worsley, Jose Vallejo-Neumann, Bob Van Natter

Film Title: Galaxy Gulp
Director(s): Ross Scott

Film Title: Half-Life 2 Anxiety & Nightmare (Hitchcock Meets HL2, double feature)
Director(s): Kevin Cianek aka Xanatos

Film Title: Jill’s Song
Director(s): Zachariah Scott

Film Title: Mercy of the Sea
Director(s): J. Joshua Diltz

Film Title: Morning Run Amok
Director(s): Frank L. Fox

Film Title: The National Discovery
Director(s): Fatoux Philippe (Olibith)

Film Title: A Noticeable Change
Director(s): John McCaleb

Film Title: Patchie Chronicles
Director(s): John Hsu, Epla Hsieh, Outy Yang

Film Title: Play It Again, Carl
Director(s): Frank L. Fox

Film Title: Poets in a Blues Mood
Director(s): JJ Webb

Film Title: Radiohead: Bodysnatchers
Director(s): Phil Rice

Film Title: The Return of the Revenge of Dr. Mechanico
Director(s): Jun Falkenstein

Film Title: Rusty Whispers: Dennis
Director(s): Robert Stoneman

Film Title: Snacky’s Journal, Episodes 1-3
Director(s): Jun Falkenstein

Film Title: Screen Scenes
Director(s): Frank L. Fox

Film Title: Star Wars: Darkness Unleashed
Director(s): Damien Valentine

Film Title: The Terrible Old Man
Director(s): Phil Browne

Film Title: Tokyo Tales – The Lecher Story
Director(s): Paul Carr

Film Title: A Touch Too Much
Director(s): Bill Klimke

Film Title: Turbulence
Director(s): J.Rojas

Film Title: Videotape
Director(s): Britt Snel

Film Title: War of the Servers
Director(s): Robert Stoneman

Film Title: Zombie Flick
Director(s): Wayne Poe

We’ve had some wonderful entries to the Expo and we’d like to thank everyone who took the time to apply and send us your film. When the submission period closes on Oct 13th, we will post those films that we will be screening and take a week or so to determine who will be our jury finalists. Somewhere around the end of October, we will announce those finalist films and send them to our jury to determine the 4 who will receive the Expo jury award. We’ll announce those four films at the Expo on November 9th in a special event.

NEW FILM SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS MIDNIGHT ON OCTOBER 13th.