25.1.06

Lights, camera etc


Wired News: Machinima for the Masses

Extremely cool story from Wired. Essentially, the gist is that people are using a new computer game, The Movies, to make their own films. Some are political statements, such as The French Democracy (pictured, hope you don't mind too much, Lionhead), which is a 13 minute short depicting the citizen's rage during the French riots of last year, some are genre movies that Hollywood isn't going to touch in a very long time (lesbian sci-fi).

Either way, The Movies has got the sort of GUI that means that anyone can basically do it (as opposed to hacking a Quake engine, which was how the whole Machinima genre took off. The game started as a strategy title a la Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux's previous opus, Theme Park. Looks like it's taking on a life of his own.

Clever bugger is that Molyneux. I still go to sleep at night sometimes with an Amiga-generated wind from Populous echoing in my ears.

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