As machinima goes, Modern Warfare 2 Mythbusters: Episode 1 is a straightforward video with minimal editing or effects. I could stand to have some more comical music, but watching a care package kill someone with a riot shield is pretty funny by itself.

Those of you who aren't familiar with MythBusters should check it out. My favorite episode is probably the one where they bust the myth about whether or not a box of tissues in the backseat of a car can kill you in a crash. They try it with a bowling ball and wow — so fatal.

Thanks, Witz!

Remember, this is Machinima (the site, and the titular genre), not a mod. So sit back and enjoy, you can't literally play this. Although it's hard to do so without imagining the impossible turbo tunnel level done in Source.

Half-letoads (Battletoads NES Remade In Half-Life 2) [Machinima on YouTube]

Pretty shrewd how the level's creator (M0rtanius) staggered the platforms so you could shoot up foes above and below you, just like in the 2D version. But I'm guessing this isn't one-hit-kill difficulty.

Thanks Awwal for sending the tip. Sorry we spotted it so late.

Half Contra (Contra NES Remade in Half-Life 2) [Machinima on YouTube]

First up is the disorienting and somewhat upsetting Half-Life Super Mario Bros. I guess in a 2D world, a gray haze is all Mario would see for miles around on either side of his orange brick path. But I can't remember the last plumber I met that uses a crowbar. And guns? Really?

Next up is a Castlevania Half-Life 2 mod that makes a lot more sense in context. But it still has the inexplicable crowbar.

Both videos are brought to us by Machinima.com.

BioWare just launched the Toolset page, touting the ability to "create new adventure," "stage massive battles" and of course, "be the director," with a "powerful cinematics editor" offering complete control over the camera, plus voice and lip synching tools.

If you're fired up enough, check it out at BioWare's official page.

Dragon Age Origins - Toolset [BioWare via Blue's News]

The festival is happening in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Philippines and this looks like the first year they've ever had a machinima category in the 11 years the festival's been around. Voting for machinima films is happening now and you can cast your vote here.

The results will be made public October 20.

Thanks for the heads-up, Joshua!

Guess first-person combat in the 18th century didn't include a firing-from-cover mechanism.

The Perfect War - Empire: Total War Machinima [YouTube]

Justin Richmond, multiplayer designer on Uncharted 2, walks Machinima.com through the finer details of the game's Cinema Mode in the above clip. Notable are the addition of a green screen mode that will let video editors layer Nathan Drake and crew over whatever background you choose and the option to use a Bluetooth headset to record speech that will automatically lip synch on-screen characters.

There's a lot more to it than that, obviously, including cool camera control, lighting and environmental effects, video sharing, and even a gameplay mode specific to Uncharted 2's machinima features. There's a lot to see in the above five minute clip, something that budding machinima creators and Uncharted fans must watch.

The movie, 6 Days in Call of Duty 4, was created by machinima artists J. Joshua Diltz and Joseph Delappe using both a static and roaming ground cameras for the capture. It's essentially nine minutes of a multiplayer match with nothing but the visuals, the sound of the game and music that I don't immediately recognize. They've created the project in "homage to the lives, both military and civilian, lost during the Second War of Fallujah."

I actually got in touch with Diltz because I remember asking a question about Six Days in Fallujah at the conference during the Q&A. Damned if I can remember what I asked, but apparently, it left an impression.

Diltz emails:

The idea for 6 Day originated from the conference. Your question I think actually sparked the concept that Joseph DeLappe conceived. Joseph was curious what six days in a military themed shooter would look like through a static camera. He wanted to see what effects combat would have in a virtual space, particularly how many deaths would occur and how many bodies would be left on the screen after 6 days of game sessions.

I developed the point of view camera concept and also the console panel. I thought it was interesting to see what the conflict looked like from the ground perspective and how it correlated with real life events. The scrolling command console keeps the piece grounded in the virtual world. I found it quite intriguing that all the action on screen was visible in the scrolling data. It certainly separated the visuals which mirror real conflict from the data that was creating the illusion behind the scenes.

Joseph will be showing a more somber version of movie in a gallery installation at the Beijing Biennale. That piece will include only the static camera which is visible in the larger pane of movie.

You can download the video for yourself here.

Thanks for the link, Professor Lowood!

Stanford's video game research project, How They Got Game, is hosting a series of videos from the conference. They're kind of small, so you'll have to squint to watch — but there's some great stuff in there about Fair Use and end-user license agreements.

Sadly, you can't see any of the awesome machinima movies they showed during the food and coffee breaks — so I stuck one in here. Clint Hackleman (aka Myndflame) put together a Slim Jim commercial using World of Warcraft machinima. Hope you enjoy!

Machinima is one of those hazy areas of artistic expression not quite covered by copyright law and not quite insignificant given how many people have jumped on the bandwagon. Kotaku first covered the topic back when the New York Times Magazine did a piece called "Xbox Auteurs" that loosely touched on successful ventures like Red vs. Blue and Strangerhood. Since then, we've seen everything from filmmakers to Family Guy writers getting in on the machinima scene.

Stanford's gathering of legal people, law professors, game studies students and machinima artists aims to address some of the gray areas in this emerging art form. It's also an opportunity to screen some bitchin' machinima. And, for me, it's a chance to earn some extra credit in my Game Studies: Issues in Design, Technology, and Player Creativity class since I'm ditching next week to make the Namco Bandai Gamers Day event.

Here's what I learned:

Machinima is more than just Red vs. Blue
For the longest time, I thought "machinima" was limited to fan made videos people posted to YouTube. I didn't realize that the word also includes serious documentaries like HBO's My Second Life: The video diaries of Molotov Alta and licensed advertisements like the World of Warcraft SlimJim commercial. Pretty much any endeavor that uses in-game content to create original narratives or otherwise creative works counts as machinima – even if it's dumb music videos.

It's Not Always Fair Use
Parody law in the United States gets kicked around a lot, especially when something offensive but funny hits the Internet. However, because most games require users to sign terms of use agreements, parody law doesn't protect Red vs. Blue from Microsoft (that, and Red vs. Blue is satire, not parody). There are some exceptions to this, though, depending on the developer. For example, Second Life "owner" Linden Lab didn't feel the need to sign a release for the HBO documentary because to them, their game should replicate real life conditions for documentary filmmaking. You wouldn't have the mayor of New York City sign a release before filming the streets of New York, right?

Blizzard and Microsoft Actually Aren't Opposed To Machinima
You'd think the two biggest playgrounds for machinima artists would be annoyed at all these artists cashing in on their product; but actually, both publishers have reached out to machinima communities. They've set up (and revised) guidelines for machinima creators to allow would-be artists some control over their creations and some freedom to distribute them. Here's Microsoft's and here's Blizzard's. Compare and contrast.

The Big Question: Can You Make Money On It?
One of the main torts of copyright law and the defining issue for machinima to address (at least in this conference) is whether or not these productions are for profit. Both agreements from Microsoft and Sony draw a definite distinction between noncommercial and commercial use of their games to create machinima.

This is kind of a problem for machinima artists because many of them would certainly like to profit from their hard work (and some of them definitely do). There are ways to do it without provoking a lawyer-storm from publishers, such as securing licensing agreements or even just asking permission to submit a machinima film to a contest that's not affiliated with the game before actually doing it. But many machinima artists are under the impression that if they just stay off the radar, they can get away with selling t-shirts, DVDs and other items that tie into their work and (sort of) trade on the game's popularity. Or, they think, they can play the Fair Use card if they satisfy at least one aspect of copyright law and escape litigation.

The lawyers here at the conference today say that this is not the way to go. Fair Use is ambiguous even outside video game land – and even if the "actual damages" threat doesn't sound so scary, it is still a serious legal problem, especially if you're just a gamer who wanted to make a fan video of Master Chief rocking out to Jesse McCartney's "Right Where You Want Me." The legal rights for machinima haven't been spelled out yet, even with the few case laws on the books for Second Life – so do not assume anything, or at least try not to act surprised when the lawyers call you up.

The Stanford Machinima Law conference is going on now at Stanford University. You can check out the agenda here at this website that really seems to hate Firefox. Audio and video of the event will probably be posted at some point, too – but because it's Stanford, I wouldn't bet on it happening for another month or so.

CellFactor: Psychokinetic Wars is a first-person shooter being released on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade early this year, which mixes mental powers and guns at various strengths to create a balanced multiplayer experience. It's being published by Ubisoft and developed by Immersion Games and Timeline Interactive as a follow-up to the 2007 PhysX PC video card showcase, CellFactor: Revolution.

In case the most unappealing mental image of a woman's naked chest I've ever received isn't enough to sell you on the title, check out GameTrailer's exclusive gameplay trailer below for the real (sausage) meat.

The Machinima Comedy Lab pilots will air on Machinima.Com, but no date was announced for the first pilot.

"Machinima.com lets us put our work in front of an audience that already knows and loves our style of writing and is embracing new forms of digital entertainment," said Bill Oakley, an Emmy-winning writer and past showrunner of The Simpsons. "We get to do what we love the most—write and create fun content while Machinima.com handles all the production, marketing and distribution."

The Machinima Comedy Lab pilots will be created by top Hollywood writers, including:
— Chris Cluess: Mad TV, The Simpsons, Beggars and Choosers, Cheers, SCTV
— Bill Freiberger: Drawn Together, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, The Simpsons
— Eric Horsted: Boondocks, Knights of Prosperity, Futurama, Home Improvement, Coach
— Ken Keeler: Futurama, The Simpsons, Wings, The Naked Truth, The Critic, The Late Show
— Stacie Lipp: King of Queens, Roseanne, Married With Children
— Christina Lynch: Wildfire, The Dead Zone, Unhappily Ever After
— Peggy Nicoll: WordGirl, Daria
— Bill Oakley: Mission Hill, The Simpsons, Futurama
— Max Pross & Tom Gammill: The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Monk, The Critic, Saturday Night Live, The Late Show
— Mike Rowe: Family Guy, Futurama, Comedy Central Roasts, The Jaime Kennedy Experiment
— Loren Segan: Wildfire, The Dead Zone, Spyder Games
— Patric M. Verrone: Futurama, Muppets Tonight!, The Simpsons, The Critic, Pinky and the Brain
— Maiya Williams: Mad TV, The PJs, The Wayans Bros., The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

"This is the future of comedy in new media - a fast and low cost way for writers to create shows that attract an existing audience," said Patric M. Verrone, an Emmy-winning writer and president of WGA West. "We're thrilled to break ground and forge a relationship that empowers independent production and gives writers both creative freedom and financial participation."

"As an emerging entertainment network, we're dedicated to bringing aboard top creative talent," said Allen DeBevoise, Machinima.com chairman and chief executive officer. "Machinima.com provides these writers with a new, evolving medium in which to reach the highly desired 18 to 34 male audience, showcase creativity and develop episodic pilots for multiple platforms."

Turns out it's not just good for laughs. It's also good for cash money. Since releasing the commercial edition of his editing suite, creator Garry Newman has seen 312,541 (and counting) copies fly off Steam's shelf. At $9.99 a pop, that's $3.12 million worth of Garry's mod. Course, he doesn't pocket all of that, but we're sure he pockets enough to look at himself in the mirror every day and smile smugly.

GMod10 is 2 years old today! [Garry's Blog, via Big Download]

Did you ever wonder what Fallout 3 would be like as a musical? Neither did we.

Nevertheless Fallout 3 - Wasteland Dancin' is a piece of musical theatre machinima made with the PC version of the game and a handful of mods including Umpa's Animation MOD, GoreTweaks, and the ever-popular killableChildrenVer1-376. Music is by Shawn Lee from the Bully soundtrack.

Say what you like about the quality of the animation in Fallout 3 - those double and possibly even triple-jointed lifeless mannequins can really bust some moves.

The Demoman is pissed. He wants his briefcase back, along with the intelligence, or whatever is stashed in there. The end result is Pulp Fortress, an all too brief Pulp Fiction-meets-Team Fortress 2 mash-up.

This clever little machinima is full of the foul language Tarantino is famous for, so keep your speakers down low. But once you hear the Scout voice by "Brett" it's hard to look at him the same way. Summary: we want more, please.

"Any company that is planning to launch a major video game or movie can't afford to overlook Machinima.com and its powerful reach in the gaming and entertainment communities," said Terri Perkins, media strategy director at Funcom, a leading independent developer and publisher of computer and console games. "We ran an InVideo ad campaign on the Machinima.com YouTube channel when we launched Age of Conan and the results were impressive, exceeding 2.37 percent click through rates."

Good news for machinma, I’m a long-time supporter of the in-game art form. It’s nice to see that the one of the leaders in movement got such a huge injection of cash. Hopefully this will lead to a bigger push into mainstream media. There are still plenty of people out there who have never heard of Machinma, which is a shame.

Machinima.com Raises Millions to Drive Expansion

Advertisers Using Machinima.com to Launch Major Video Games and Movies

LOS ANGELES - November 6, 2008 - Machinima.com,the premier entertainment network for the video game generation, today announced it has received $3.85 million in capital from MK Capital and other private investors to help fund business expansion. The machinima genre has gained tremendous popularity during the past several years, and Machinima.com is attracting some of the world's largest technology, gaming and entertainment advertisers.

"Any company that is planning to launch a major video game or movie can't afford to overlook Machinima.com and its powerful reach in the gaming and entertainment communities," said Terri Perkins, media strategy director at Funcom, a leading independent developer and publisher of computer and console games. "We ran an InVideo ad campaign on the Machinima.com YouTube channel when we launched Age of Conan and the results were impressive, exceeding 2.37 percent click through rates."

Machinima is the integration of filmmaking techniques, animation and videogame technologies to produce computer generated animation in real-time. Machinima.com is the undisputed leader in the category, providing news, articles, interviews and in-depth features on creating machinima as well as the largest selection of machinima videos from around the world. Many of the world's leading advertisers are leveraging Machinima.com's highly-engaged audience to drive significant results for their campaigns including: EA, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Paramount Pictures, Sega, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.

"This funding is an endorsement that Machinima.com is a next-generation online video-programming brand that not only delivers significant reach and video views, but also delivers an extremely high level of user engagement which is the key differentiator for online video brands - embeds, comments, ratings, etc." said Allen DeBevoise, Machinima.com chairman and CEO.

To assist in its expansion, Machinima.com recently appointed five influential, entertainment industry leaders and entrepreneurs to its Board of Directors that will govern the strategic direction of the company. The Board members include: Yair Landau, former head of Sony Pictures Digital, Joi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons, Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills.com, Mark Terbeek, partner at MK Capital and Allen DeBevoise, CEO of Machinima.
"Machinima.com will continue to see growth as these advertisers are actively looking for effective ways to market new games and movies to this elusive and highly-engaged audience," said Mark Terbeek, partner at MK Capital. "MK Capital is excited to be on board during such an exciting growth period."

About Machinima.com
Machinima.com, is the premiere machinima entertainment network for the gamer generation showing user-generated and professional videos, gameplay and trailers from popular video games. The network comprised of highly-engaged gamers and content creators is the ninth most subscribed YouTube channel and serves more than 30 million videos views per month. Companies from the film, gaming and consumer industries are using Machinima.com as an advertising platform for launching new video games and movies and reaching gaming and film enthusiasts around the world. Current Machinima.com advertisers include: EA, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Paramount Pictures, Sega, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. To learn more, visit www.machinima.com or its YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/machinima.

It's more than some machinima. John's colleague, R.J. wrote me to say that it's an interactive piece, in which the user can press mouse buttons to get the two candidates to speak their lines. (You see it demonstrated in the video) "That part will probably be available later," R.J. said, "for now it's just the video."

Brennan himself told GamePolitics about the political-cartoon purpose of the mod, and says he has a process for getting real people into Half-Life 2, provided he has enough photography as a source material. Newsmakers like those two definitely qualify. That combined with "access to MoCap data, and some good people helping out," resulted in the Half-Life 2 debate so far.

I'm also a little weirded out that I recognize the music at the beginning. That's "The Everlasting Blink" by Bent, album of the same name. Why'd he pick that?

Campaign 2008: Obama vs. McCain [John Brennan via Gamepolitics, with thanks to R.J. too.]

Screw Ohio. Screw Colorado. What does the voting public of Azeroth, population 11 million, think about the upcoming presidential election.

Machinima.com hopped into World of Warcraft to find out. So is Azeroth a red or blue state? I’m not sure which was more surreal: Listening to undead Warlocks and human Paladins talk about the right to choose and which character the candidates would be in the game or watching what looks like a minotaur in a bikini poll people.

This is a must watch, but because it’s funny as hell and because it sheds a bit, a very small bit of light on what some gamers think of the candidates.