Machinima vs. Anymation.... FIGHT!

I was posting some opinions I had on the word "anymation" on Shattered Keyboard's comments. It got a little long, so, I thought I'd dig up this old dinosaur and make a brand new post. It's been a while, why not?

Before I say anything, note that this is just my personal opinion on the subject and is not intended to offend or criticize anyone. Or their opinions. Sometimes I don't communicate that clearly, so there ya go. So don't take it personally. Or go ahead, make controversy, throw onions at me, call me a filthy container of whatever. Up to you.

So what this all boils down to is there are some people that consider the old champion, "machinima", as a word no longer appropriate for what they do. They're starting to side with the challenger and underdog, the newcomer "anymation".

Me, I see the whole anymation thing as unnecessary and trying to define what is already defined, or, doesn't need to be defined.

Here's a long description of what anymation is. And here's a short example from a recent Antics blog post:

"I agree with the ethos of anymation - use any available tool to achieve the effect you want. There are thousands of users out there right now using Antics as one step on their journey to produce their vision in video. You might create your models in Google SketchUp, bring them to life in Antics, then add some polish in After Effects. Anymation in action "

Anymation in action? First of all, let me tell you why that makes no sense to me. A live action filmmaker might cast his actors from Venus, break into a bank on a Sunday to use as his "set", shoot half the shots on a 907mm film camera, half on a super-extreme-turbo-quadruple-fantastic-high-def camera, rob a souvenir store for props, use some stop-motion animation with barbie dolls, film some minature models of space stations so it "looks real" and then blue-screen it onto a matte painting of a desert, hand-rotoscope every frame to give it a "unique" look, and finally throw in a CGI Talking Animal for good measure, cause everybody else is doing it. I won't even go into what goes in the process of creating CGI Talking Animal just by itself. Let's just say it involves more tools than you can count on your fingers.

Anymation in action??

This is what FILMMAKING IS. This is what filmmakers do, they use any and all tools around them to make the final result. When I hear about anymation, all I see is a big circle.

-Films are made using whatever tool is necessary to create the result. Yes, and that includes an orchestra playing in the theater before film had sound.
-Animation is born, specifying a sub-genre of films that predominantly uses hand drawn images.
-CGI is born, specifying a sub-genre of animation that predominantly uses computer generated images.
-Machinima is born, specifying a sub-genre of CGI that predominantly uses real-time computer technology to output images.

And now, anymation is born, using whatever tool is necessary to create the result... and thus the circle. Definitions of the types of films have been specifying and specifying over time, and now when it's back to being generalized, suddenly it's a new concept?

All of those sub-genres are already using "any and all tools" to create the film. CGI film? Concept art may be drawn on paper. It may be scanned using a scanner, and edited on Photoshop. A clay character may be sculpted for reference. Previs may be created with Antics... (no wai!) Character models and environments/props may be created in Maya. It may be animated in Motionbuilder (hello real-time), then brought back to Maya. Textures may be created on Photoshop. Normal maps might be created in Zbrush. It may be color-corrected and 2d effects and filters may be applied in After Effects. So on and so forth.

That's a heck of a lot more "anymation" than someone using Moviestorm, don't you think? The concept is already implied. Let's face it. CGI doesn't use game images or 2D anime cause it looks like shit and doesn't fit in with the style. Not cause its following some unwritten rule that CGI must be this and that. I follow the philosophy that filmmaking decisions should be based on quality, asking "how" and not "what". And really, if you look around, that's what most films follow too. And no, I'm not talking about Uwe Boll.

Now with all that said, once again, this is my personal opinion on the word "anymation". Y'all are free to call whatever you do whatever you want, but me, I don't support it for the above reasons. But the following is really why I rant about this.

I do like the attitude of moving away from game-based filmmaking. That's cool, and I think there is a place for both. What I don't like as much is the supposed abandoning of the word "machinima". In other words, I don't like another segmenting of the community.

Machinima. Yea yea, I can see your face, half frowning and crinkled when I say it. It's indeed a funny and strange word. But it's definitely unique. As unique as "film", "animation", and "CGI". "Anymation", on the other hand, sounds exactly or nearly like "animation" when spoken.

Machine-cinema describes what we all do here perfectly.

All Machinima films are processed by a computer in real-time (that's the politically correct definition of machinima, not 'game movie'). The machine is doing much of the work for us, hence, machine-cinema. Rendered in real time or rendered frame by frame, whatever it is, the point is that the image you see was originally created in a real-time technology environment, using a computer programming language (the engine) to bring the elements together. Thus, the machine does a lot of the non-creative stuff for us in the background.

I consider 'Edge of Remorse' to be purely machinima, even though it was rendered in After Effects. That's because even though the elements (background and characters) were separated, the elements themselves are purely real time. Backgrounds for the scenes weren't rendered out. They were 100% FRAPS'd in WoW. And guess what determined how the wheat field was placed in relation to the sun, and how many polygons that mountain in the distance had? That's right, it wasn't me. That was the machine, a piece of code in the engine that determined that. And that element, the scene, ran in real-time (unlike say, a CGI scene that needs to be rendered first).

Using blue-screen to put the elements together and rendering it out, is I think what some would call "cheating". But I don't think that changes the labelling of the technique altogether.

Anyway, the whole "rendered in real time" thing, haven't we moved way past that already? By that logic all edited machinima films that are in a video avi/wmv/mov format are not machinima because they were rendered frame-by-frame in a video editor! I'm sure you oldies tore some hair out over that when Quad God first came out?

Antics, Moviestorm, iClone, Motionbuilder, Unreal, WoW, Crysis, etc. They all share the same thing: a rendering engine that displays images calculated in real-time on a computer. The only difference between them is the marketing purpose of the product, whether its for previs, filmmaking, or gaming. But its all the same type of technology, and personally I think making a film using one or any combination of the tools is in fact, machinima.

And finally, I'm gonna sneak in some personal rants (a.k.a. no longer respecting your opinions!)

Machinima's got oh, just about the entire gaming audience, that recognizes the word now. Anymation has what, 30 people? I admire the cool punk attitude, but i also admire being practical... I guess I'm an artist because I want people to hear what I have to say. Whether it's something that comes from my emotions or just a cool fight scene in my head. So for me it makes no sense to make an obscure film that gets 500 views. To me that is an utter waste of time and energy especially considering I put unnecessarily large amounts of energy into any short film (which I also think isn't worth doing if you're not gonna put in the effort). To put that much effort and not get reciprocated (positive or negative) is bullshit and you know it. That'll drain your inspiration over time even though you might deny it.

The point is not that quantity > quality, the point is be practical and smart in your decision so YOU GET BOTH. That might mean having to sacrifice some quality to make room for quantity, and sacrificing some quantity for quality till you have a great balance of both. I know not all people think like this, but I'm throwing it at you. Think about it. If you teeter too much into quality and obscurity then don't complain that you didn't get a lot of views. Or don't complain if a lot of people see it but it's got a 4% on Rotten Tomatoes... but if you do want both, well, I'm gonna say that abandoning the church and starting a new religion is not the way to get it. I am unfortunately a greedy man and I personally want both, so, I'll stick with the church for now.

Finally, I'm tired of all this segmenting and separating. Who. Cares. Let's just make some fucking machinima films and tell each other how much they suck. That was way more fun and inspirational than this crap. The community itself was inspirational to me once, but since that doesn't exist anymore, well, as Han Solo once said, "I'm in it for the money, sister". And no, I'm not gonna come back at a critically tense moment and conveniently save your life. Well maybe. Depends how much money they give me.

Maybe if we all stuck together and WORKED together, instead of separating and bickering on each other's blogs (oh the irony...), we might've solved the freaking licensing problem by now? The past is the past but, just a thought...