Camera issues

Machinima, while relatively inexpensive to make, (most films require only a game platform, game, video capture card and movie editing software) has several challenges it must overcome. Red Vs. Blue, the series I'll be focusing on in the paper faced, and overcame, many of these obstacles.

According to the humorous and only slightly exaggerated history Red Vs. Blue has posted on their site, the series is "a movie INSIDE of a video game." Quite literally, the characters, locations and props are all contained within the universe of the game. The movie is shot using a game console equipped with a video capture card, with all of the action taking place inside of normal, everyday television. There are no physical cameras or crews working on an elaborate soundstage. Instead, the crew sits inside of normal office, and record their lines amongst the clothes and hats of creator Burnie Burn's closet.










Courtesy of Bungie.net. Creators Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum work on an episode of Red Vs. Blue.


Which leads to some very interesting questions...

I. "We call him CameraMan."

If you're creating a movie within a game, where the hell is the camera? Machinima is created within the confines of a game and so, there is no physcial camera to hold, no film to process. Producers must use the camera provided by the game to film the footage. In the case where the camera provided by the game is in the third person (the camera shows the character you control from outside of their body, as well as your surroundings) filming footage is realitivly simple. The producers can control the camera angle to fit the action taking place on the screen.















Kingdom Hearts. An example of the third person camera.


However, when the game being used is a first person camera, the production becomes much more difficult. The camera is controlled by moving a character, and the action is seen through that character's eyes.


Halo. An example of the first person camera.


Although this provides decent control of the camera, a large problem remains. Many games shot using first person make use of a HUD, or Heads-up display.


Halo. Aspects of the HUD are highlighted.

The HUD typically contains in game information such as health, ammo and location. For the purposes of machinima, This is problematic. Being able to see the HUD and weapon of the character makes it clear that the camera actually is a character in the game. For producers, this poses a question: Do we make the camera a character in the show, or do we ignore the HUD and take away some of the video's quality as a movie?

The creators of RvB faced this very same question when they chose to use Halo as thier graphics engine. Although the crew considered making the camera character, they ditched the idea when a better solution presented itself. Letterboxing.


A scene from RvB. The HUD is eliminated by using letterboxing on the top and bottom. However, the crosshair remains.

Production

The term machinima is derived from the combination of the words “machine” and “cinema.” The title refers to the fact that the movie is in fact the work of a machine. Machinima movies are, in the words of Red Vs. Blue creator Burnie Burns, “movie[s] inside of a videogame.” The filmmakers will use the engine, usually in the multiplayer mode of the game, to manipulate the in game characters and locations to fit a written script. By dubbing voices over the animated sequences, a machinima film resembles any other animated film, for a fraction of the cost. Rather than utilizing a team of animators working on top of the line computers in a Hollywood, machinima producers need only a few copies of a game, a few game consoles to match, a video capture card, and some basic video editing software. Films can be created in a week, rather than the year or so that other films would take to be released.
However, machinima does have its limitations and obstacles that producers must face when creating their films. For the sake of brevity, I will focus on a single established machinima series to describe and address the issues machinima producers face when creating their films.







The tools of the trade. Two Xbox 360 systems, with a color coordinated controller for each.







Although the production process remains the same as it did before the release of the Xbox 360, it became decidedly less cluttered.









Rooster Teeth staff member Geoff Fink with the old RvB production system.




















The new production system, including the winning faceplate design for the director's system.