MMovie- World of Warcraft Follies
Machinima is definitely a lot of work. With our machinima nearly completed (now that we’ve been afforded some extra time before showing it in class, I’ll definitely be “tweaking” it a little. Christine and I have probably spent more time re-filming a 4 minute segment, than if we just watched Zoolander 9 or 10 times through.
What issues did we run into?
I think the major opposition to any smooth sailing in terms of the project, result from the severely limited movements of character models in World of Warcraft. While the models we chose are ideal (Blood elves are pretty much the metrosexual Azeroth race) for a reproduction of Zoolander, their preprogrammed macros are not. These gestures, wether they be highly animated or understated and dull, become a serious issue when it comes to trying to duplicate very basic human motions. I ended up spending a lot of time splicing film together (not always very well). Luckily, for our second attempt at filming, Christine managed to put together some macro strings that were convincing enough when we edited them. My job was to make them convincing.
Storyboarding was not a huge problem. I say that, because during our first attempt to film, Christine and I found ourselves writing out every single shot that we needed (as opposed to drawing) and checking them off as we completed them. Doing the storyboards wasn’t a big deal. It was a mandatory part of Digital Animation classes, so we managed to complete it. Christine’s definitely more organized than I am, so she took the lead here.
Splicing and editing the footage was also a problem. I have a bit of experience in this department, since I used to do AMV (Anime Music Videos). Feel free to cringe. (Believe me when I tell you, it was more of an exploration of film editing than me feeling the need to make a In Flames/Bleach video). In either case, synching up sound with video isn’t really all the difficult. I don’t use Windows Media player, because personally, I find it to be really primitive. The program I use allows me to cut frames up to the millisecond, so that’s definitely helpful. Unfortunately, this also means that I have to be really careful and highly selective about how to cut the film to make sure scenes look as though they flow into one another. It also is a huge hinderance that if I cut a segment out of the film, everything contracts together meaning that while the audio track may have been previously synched correctly, now, it is half, or even a quarter of a second off. Might not seem like a lot, but for 4 minutes of footage, it can throw an entire scene off.
Quality of film is also a problem. To begin with, WoW is pretty ugly graphically. Still, my computer runs it really well since its made to do all of my digital work, but Fraps is another story. There is a very grainy quality to Fraps when translated into a .WMV file. Then, when it is translated over into the film editor, cut apart, merged, and then reproduced, there is more data loss. Overall, the finished product looks nothing like what I actually filmed in terms of quality. I’m considering touching it up in another program (maybe Adobe AfterEffects? Not terribly sure yet.) because the finished product leaves something to be desired in terms of graphical content.
There is also no end to the things that will go wrong during filming. Sometimes, you find yourself standing too close to an animated NPC who feels the need to do something inappropriate like laugh or start walking in front of your shot. Likewise, players ALL feel the need to walk up to groups who appear idle and attempt to interact. Interacting of course means standing in front of a person and jumping. This is funny the first twenty times, but after that it’s a little ridiculous. Having a person jumping up and down like a moron in your shot, or running back and forth, or attempting to chat with you is frustrating after a while. It has to be dealth with though, since people are inherently nosey. Also difficult is choosing a proper locale. There aren’t many places in Azeroth that allow for a convincing “modeling party.” Of course, this was also an exercise in “find the place where there are the least lowbies running around so we can actually get filming done.” Of course, there were definitely a few bloopers on our parts. For example, acting out an entire scene without Fraps on, or panning the camera, only to end up moving the wrong direction in relation the character.
So that was our endeavor. Whether it came out well or not, I guess we’ll have to wait and see the general reaction, but I like it. I’m biased of course, because I know how long we spent on it. I also can’t not laugh when I see Blood-elf Zoolander saying “I can dere-lick my own balls.”
That might just be me.
