Remixing Little Brother

Machinimas are interesting format of presenting a story in that you it is an actual work that you are seeing. Watching the videos in class made me more appreciative of the medium. I have seen some other machinimas before such as the infamous Red vs. Blue. Machinima is a great tool to use to present an idea in a very catchy and interesting manner. After seeing the videos without the sound, I realized the effort put in the cinematography. Without it, selling the emotions and authenticating the characters would be difficult. They become distant from the viewers. Therefore, I learned that camera angles and how you approach a character from another person’s perspective is just as important as the narrative. After the class, I viewed more Machinimas and I was stunned by the theatricality of it all. Perhaps one of my favorites is the “The Great Battle of Skyrim.” This is because it borrowed elements from Lord of the Rings in terms of the massive size of the battle scene. Around 1200 avatars were used and pitted against one another.

I also realized that Machinimas are screenplays but merely presented in a different format. One of my favorite movies is the original “Godfather” made famous by Marlon Brando. I saw firsthand that shooting a very short scene requires extraneous details to perfect. Apart from that, the detail is required to make it believable. In the manuscript, it showed the amount of work required to describe Woltz’s room and then his reaction upon seeing his dead horse. Therefore, to create our own Machinimas, it would require to create a lengthy and rather detailed manuscript and screenplay.

The video format gave me some ideas for our own remixes. The medium given to us is second life. I believe that other mediums to would be good since they are better rendered and are more polished in the animation. That being said, it requires third party mods that would require stronger hardware and software. Going back to the idea, I want to explore the character of Darryl and his ordeal in Gitmo-by-the-bay. To explore his emotional experience would be quite interesting. Another Idea that interests me is the future of America if Marcus were caught and more regulations were enforced. This would mean I would have to create a new character to explore. Lastly, I was also inspired to create an alternative persona of Marcus.