Instinct - a review

I posted this review of a machinima movie also on machinima(dot)com. At the bottom of this post you can watch the movie.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Running Time: 21:05

Director: Throwaxe

Medium: The Movies

This short machinima movie has recently been nominated for the Machinima Festival Europe 07, reason enough to review the movie. Off course with a short movie it's no use to review the story in depth. The basic premise: Jeff wakes up aboard a space ship, with total loss of memory. He is not the only one to suffer amnesia, everybody aboard the ship, even the ships computer suffers from it. Soon the crew realizes that they are not alone on board. A predator stalks them, killing crewmembers one at a time.

From a technical point of view the movie is well made, no wonder its director got the director nomination at the festival. With a few sets he manages to convey the entire story and even includes a nice plot twist. The voice acting is good. I did have the feeling that not all voices matched their characters, but that's the nature of machinima.

Despite being well made, I could not shake off the feeling that the story was underdeveloped. Sure the story is good and the director/writer added his own touches. Yet however original the story was, there were some moments when I had serious questions on the actions of the characters. When a crew member screams through the intercom when being butchered, the remaining crew does not run, but walk to the murder scene. This seems a bit odd. I know there are limitations to The Movies, but there are running animations that could have been used.

The most annoying story error came just after the plot twist. I won't reveal the twist, but let me say that as the main character gets the news he acts completely unbelievable while clearly being in danger.

Watching this movie, it felt like a feature length movie squeezed into 20 minutes running time. If the director/writer would have spend a bit more time on the story development, character development and adding another 20 to 30 minutes to the story, he would have had an even better movie.

My final conclusion: A must see movie, only too bad the story is too short.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Double click the movie to watch it in full screen

Guerloc

Last week I finished the script for my next big machinima movie (I still intend to release smaller movies in between). Two of my friends, Daniel and Jeffry, are reading the script to act as a soundboard. Hopefully their comments won't require a major rewrite.

I can already reveal the title: Guerloc. It's about four special forces soldiers in the future. The movie will be made in the Lionhead game "The Movies". Right now I am already busy gathering the necessary props and shooting some test scenes. I also set up a dedicated blog: www.guerloc.blogspot.com. There I will post the latest updates on the movie, while this blog will remain as the focus of my AAR reporting, storytelling and other musings.

Keep checking this blog and the Guerloc blog for the latest news.

In the Air Tonight

Here it is, my latest machinima result. unlike the two previous movies I posted, this one is entirly my work.

I hope you enjoy the video clip.

(to see the movie in full screen, double click on the movie as it starts to play)



click here for the youtube-version

btw I also posted a new AAR which can be found at SimHQ or on this blog.

Voice Recording

Daniel and Jeffry came to my appartment yesterday evening to record the lines for the Foxhole. Daniel is collegue at work and Jeffry is a former work-collegue. We met out of a shared interest for making a movie.

That was almost two years ago. I decided to write the script and we met from time to time to discuss what we could do. Unfortunetaly our plans did not take into account that we lacked the connections to make a movie (At that time we did not know any director, actors and our equipment consisted out of a simple handcamera). Needless to say, we talked the talk but did not walk the walk.

But as I came into contact with machinima, I got the idea that we did not need camera's, actors, directors etc. A simple computer and a game like The Movies could suffice. Hence came the idea to film the Foxhole. The script is ideal, since it only has three speaking roles, contains some action and should be feasable in the movies.

I had already experience in making movies in Lomac (my next movie will be posted within days) so I will take the first rough editing for me while Daniel and Jeffry provided the voices for the two main characters.

So in between my regular stories, I will now also post updates on our movie-making experience.

By the way, Daniel now has contacts in the movie-industry through his work for Razorreel.

Have a nice read (and watch)