Machinima Filmfest Gives Out 2008 Best-Of Awards

This weekend in New York City, the Machinima Filmfest 2008 was held at Eyebeam, a workshop-cum-gallery space in New York City. The festival honors what Wikipedia describes as "a collection of associated production techniques whereby computer-generated imagery (CGI) is rendered using real-time, interactive 3-D engines instead of professional 3D animation software." Much of today's machinima is created in FPS and RPG and other game engines, from World Of Warcraft through Halo 3 and beyond. So as part of the exhibition, the multi-industry, multi-discipline judging committee awarded entrants in the competition with Mackies, the festival's award. Though the film festival shows that some creators are using the game engines to make machinima completely dissimilar in art style from the game whose engine it uses, the pastiche-adaptation of game assets is still an important part of the festival (i.e. World of Workcraft, The Spartan Life.) All of the nominees are viewable at Machinima.org's Mackies nomination page. The list of winners, with links to their works, are reproduced here: Best Long Format: "Clear Skies" [WMV link], Ian Chisholm Best Series: "This Spartan Life", Bong & Dern Inc. Best Short Format: "World of Workcraft", Stephen Mullane Best Independent: "The Ship", Egils Mednis Best Student Work: "Azerothian Super Villains", Beckman Movie Productions Best Direction: "The Ship", Egils Mednis Best Virtual Performance: "The Monad", Polygon Fiction Best Voice Acting: "The Monad", Polygon Fiction Best Visual Design: "Apocalypsis Ex Machina", Andrzej Kozlowski Best Cinematography: "The Monad", Polygon Fiction Best Original Music: "Ignis Solus", Lars Erik Fjosne Best Sound Design: "Chevauchée nocturne", Les Riches Douaniers Best Writing: "World of Workcraft", Stephen Mullane Best Editing: "Tales of the Past III", Martin Falch Best Technical Achievement: "Leaving the Game", American Film Institute - Digital Content Lab Best of the Festival: "The Ship", Egils Mednis Outstanding Achievement in Game Cinematics: Mass Effect, Bioware Cinematic Design Team The Award for Contributions to Machinima: In Memory of Peter Rasmussen Gamasutra has also posted an interview with Machinima Festival organizer Friedrich Kirschner, with more details on this year's festival and the state of the art of machinima.