Moving onto lighter things...

Ah, it's not life unless there's some drama to it...

Thankfully, the RPGFilms story had a happy ending - RIAA shuts site down on Monday, word spreads on Tuesday, RIAA says it didn't shut down site on Wednesday, Hadriel says "WTF?" on Thursday, RPGFilms is back up on Friday. The "WTF?" part still lingers in the shadows, but maybe an epilogue will soon follow.

On the funnier side of things, I had a chance to catch up on one of my fave gaming blogs, Kotaku. Their editors usually have a field day with some of the sillier sides of gaming - Hot Coffee notwithstanding. Here's a blurb from a recent entry about concurrent class action suits against Rockstar that had me LOL:

All this circus needs now is a few elephants and a car packed with clowns. On second thought, the attorney’s have already gotten involved.

Ahahahah - now, that's comedy (with apologies to my legal friends).

Speaking of comedy, I thought to post some thumbnails of posters I created for the IFC Machinima shorts. These were used as posters in the movie exec's office as well as the focus group room, during Episodes 2 and 3. I made a number of them - I think 5-6 in all. They were a blast to make - IFC gave us a lot creative freedom (plus they were just some filler material for the sets).

Fun stuff.

SummerTech Machinima Camp 2005
This week, I hope to attend the wrap-up/festival of this year's Summertech Machinima course (link goes to last year's page), which is a really cool course run by Steven Fink and Jim Mortensen, with Brian Mayberry (of Dead On Que fame) lending his expertise to the Machinima side of things. The course is for kids 12-16, in which they produce a Machinima film (or several, depending on how proficient they are) during the three-week course. They held their first Machinima camp last year and it was a real blast to attend the end event - which showcased the kids course work, with lots of food and fun - it was just a big ol' party. It's great seeing kids producing their own Machinima - and how happy and proud they are of their own accomplishment - very cool.

When the world starts targeting video games as the bane of our young society, here's another spot where the game tech is used for creative purpose and growth.

RIAA and RPGFilms: Pt. III

Quick Update: Good news - looks like RPGFilms is back online.

Wow, this blogging 3 days in a row thing might become a habit...

Continuing on the RPGFilms/RIAA story, is a posting over at TribalWar, where Rayn has conversed with Hadriel (owner/admin of RPGFilms) about the events that lead up to his taking down RPGFilms.

A quote from Hadriel's statement:

To sum up, everything looked real enough to me, and after speaking with several people in the online community they would have done exactly as I had done which was to take down the content per the request and to contact an attorney that would look into it further.

Most interesting is this statement:

Also I would like to say that I had the reporters contact me and have had no contact from the RIAA saying it was a hoax.

While Cory Doctorow's contact with the RIAA stated that they never issued the takedown notice, Hadriel's report of the incident doesn't synch with Cory's findings. It could be that the site was targeted by the RIAA in a mass sweep, and when pressed to acknowledge that its content was possible fair use, the back-pedaling began (which, could also be a "scare them out of existence" tactic). Or it could still be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is up to.

The one thing is that it's sounding less likely that this was some sort of hoax. As Hadriel stated, they approached his ISP first, who then contacted him about the site. Sure, it could still be a prank, but if it were, they were being really methodical about it.

Right now, Hadriel is undecided as to whether RPGFilms will be back. That would be the real shame/damage here - as RPGFilms was one of the more popular Machinima sites. We need sites like his, and it just plain-out sucks that this took place - joke or no. For whom ever wanted this result, surely got what they were looking for.

More news as it develops...

Boing Boing: RIAA notice on RPGFilms was forged

Cory Doctorow followed up with RIAA Director of Comm. Jenni Engebretsen, who states the that the notice on RPGFilms.net was forged and the RIAA is not seeking the closure of the site.

Considering how we're all gun-shy over similar incidents, the knee-jerk reaction (mine included) was to take the posting for face value. It wasn't entirely surprising, but it was the first time something of this nature surfaced. I guess the question now is "Why?" Could it be a warning shot fired across the bows of Machinima filmmakers? Or some disgruntled party sending RPGFilms a false letter? A hack of the site? (I believe the site was Nuke-based) Or even possibly that one division of the RIAA doesn't know what the other division is doing? I guess we'll see how it all shakes out - a response from RPGFilms should get us there.

Whatever the reason and as false alarms as it were, it doesn't take away from the earlier advice about working with non-labeled musicians, and drives home the point that we should looking at alternative licensing models.

The RIAA targets a Machinima site

All the while we were looking at the Rockstar debacle, we're now faced with a more foreboding situation. Yesterday, the RIAA went after one of the more popular Machinima sites, RPGFilms.net. The site now displays the C&D letter it received from the RIAA, with the obligatory DMCA blah-blah-blah.

It's an unfortunate situation. As Machinima grows in visibility, there are (and will be) these not-so-happy aspects to it. The unfortunate part is that the community is simply using these songs to develop Machinima, learning their craft and growing as artists.

Of course, this is mostly about the distribution of IP and there are valid arguments to it. However, the RIAA has set its sights on a small community of people that are hardly hurting their bottom line - a community could possibly even provide additional promotion for the musicians. That's the real unfortunate part - there's a potential for these to help the industry, yet it chooses to start the dialogue with "Hey, kids, just quit it." - standard operating procedure.

While I don't agree with the RIAA here (obviously), a move like this should encourage us to work with smaller artists who are willing to license their music and/or work with Machinima filmmakers. I worked with MTV on getting clearance with Hollywood Records/Breaking Benjamin for Still Seeing Breen, and it was a ton of leg work (I didn't even do the work myself, and I know how much work it was).

To that, working with lesser known musicians will help each other ten-fold. Newer musicians can gain additional exposure, and Machinima filmmakers will face smaller risk. Additionally, restructured IP licensing will also be a big help - Creative Commons, anyone?

Hot Coffee is more like Hot Water for Modders

Finally, the uproar over GTA:SA's Hot Coffee mini-game is slowing to a simmer. For those not bothering to tune into "making it more than it is" news story, here's the express version: Game modder in Europe finds a way to quickly enable a "secret mini-game" in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC version) - one that allows the character you control to have sex with his girlfriend. The modder claims he did nothing but enable the mini-game and nothing he did was custom content. Rockstar remains suspiciously quiet during this time as press grows around it; of course, subsequently, sales of GTA:SA go through the roof. Politicians become enraged and begin bible-thumping, the ESRB slaps a new maturity rating on the game and some stores stop selling the game altogether. Meanwhile, the game modder continues to state he didn't add anything to the game. Shortly thereafter (and something I mentioned in an interview with Rolling Stone), the same minigame surfaces in different versions of the game (PS2, GameCube, etc.) - further proving the orig game modders position that he only enabled the mini sex game. Finally, Rockstar comes clean and states that the mini-game should not have been included and it will be removed from future versions.

Ok, done.

While I don't approve or disapprove of the inclusion of the mini-game, my real concern is how it effects the modding community - which came under some real scrutiny after Rockstar's uneasy silence and then finally putting the blame on the mod community. People modding games was starting to look like devil's work when the media started focusing on what people were doing to games post-purchase. Rockstar's silence (and eventual finger-pointing) allowed for this - basically letting the mod community take the Hot Coffee heat until it became abundantly clear that they weren't at fault. To shake more salt, Jack Thompson, a Miami-based attorney that's been shouting to the rafters about how videogames are the bane of our society, is now focusing on the Sims 2, stating that its an adult playground.

Modding games is the one area that makes video games so unique. It placed Doom and Quake on the map and built communities around it. It's that practice that made Machinima grow. While there's no plan to clamp down on modding, it would have an extremely adverse effect on gaming in general. Customizing the game to be "yours" is what makes most games such best-sellers - that sense of ownership (not real ownership, mind you, but a perceived being-part of). Most game developers know this - building up game loyalty cements a player base and helps continue sales.

Of course, the real issue for me is how this could effect Machinima development. If game developers become more concerned with the Jack Thompsons of the world, and less concerned with the players interests, some Machinima work could be affected. The inability to custom create assets for a game (without lots of hacking) would be a shame for both the game community and Machinima.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the gaming community is one of "if there's a will, there's a way." Modders can enable ways to add custom content to a game if there's enough desire to do so. I would just prefer if it was with the game developer's (and the public's) support.

The 2005 Machinima Film Festival Announced!

A bit later than we anticipated, but better late than never - I'm proud to announce the 2005 Machinima Film Festival! The festival, sponsored by NVIDIA and IFC, will take place on Saturday, November 12th, 2005 at the Museum of the Moving Image in NYC.

In addition to the festival, the Academy will also hold the annual Machinima Awards (the Mackies) that evening, honoring the best of this year's Machinima entries - which includes two new awards, Best Off-the-Shelf Machinima, as well as Best Machinima Series. The entry deadline for the festival is October 6th, 2005, so get crackin' with those entries!

For more information about the festival and the annual Machinima awards, visit http://festival.machinima.org

Throwin' a Wild Pitch for IFC

I'm currently sitting in the Frigidaire comfort of Austin Bergstrom, checking email and taking a long sip off the top of some iced English Breakfast. A somewhat obvious statement, but Texas is hot. We have hot summers in NYC, but while the heat/humidity index can be overbearing, Texas heat is nearly deadly - melt to the asphalt-deadly. A quick jaunt from AC'ed-car to AC'ed office can be a life/death decision depending on the distance - seriously. Ok, enough about that - but still, its hot here.

Thankfully, my reasons for being here were more than enough to offset the crazy heat. I was deep in the heart of Buda working with Rooster Teeth (the guys behind the insanely popular Red Vs.Blue Machinima series) on a spin-off of sorts to the Strangerhood called Wild Pitch - a series of Machinima shorts produced for the Independent Film Channel. I believe this is a first - the first Machinima episodes commissioned for broadcast. It's been a real blast working with the guys on this project. We've been collaborating on various parts - Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum have an obvious eye and ear for funny, and each of these shorts show it off well. While helping to produce the shorts, I've been contributing my production skills where needed - which also has been a lot of fun.

We're still in production, but I head back to NYC now, having a good portion of the production either completed or already underway.We don't have a definitive date for when the first of these shorts is set to appear on IFC/the Strangerhood site, but as soon as we do (which should be soon), I'll blog an update.

Hope y'all are enjoyin' yer holiday....