myndflame-machinima
Latest
Myndflame publishes a guide to machinima law
Last month, Clint Hackleman over at Myndflame machinima attended and presented at Stanford Play Machinima Law conference. As you might expect, he came out of the conference with a heightened respect and understanding about how machinima law works. Building on the relationships he's formed, as well as lots of leg work, Hackleman has been publishing a machinmator's guide to Blizzard & Machinima Law.So far, there are three parts of the guide available. Part 1 deals with some of the very basics, but probably the most important section is understanding "commercialization" and what Blizzard's rules about it. A super quick summary of commercialization is "using a product to make money," but you should take the time to check out Myndflame's guide. He's obviously a bit more thorough about the explanation.Part 2 of the guide talks about Blizzard's Fair Use policy for machinima. I'd consider this guide a must-read for anyone who wants to create machinima. It deals with how Blizzard supports machinimators, but also warns about where you'll encounter the limits of that support. For example, machinima using Blizzard properties should be "T" rated movies -- they don't want Blizzard icons getting mixed up with unsavory subjects. Part 3 of the guide deals with music, which is a key component of any good movie. A good film has to have a great soundtrack, after all.I think Myndflame's guide is a pretty interesting read for anyone, even if you don't plan to make your own WoW movies. It gives some perspective and analysis to how much Blizzard strives to work with their community, and definitely shows what a vital, thriving society WoW machinimators can be. I appreciate the insight, and the work is a pretty fun read over all.
Myndflame loot being offered for donations
If you're a machinima regular, you're probably familiar with Myndflame. The name can refer to the machinima website, where a wide and varied group of authors gather to share their work, comment on one another's pieces, and generally do the hang-out thing. Or, the name can refer to a specific set of artists, who put together pieces like Illegal Danish. That group's got a lot going on.The Myndflame team is offering a few select pieces of swag over on their official site, as rewarsd for charitable donations. They've got a few limited edition shirts available, as well as a couple discontinued CDs. The purpose of this offering, of course, it to help provide for the ongoing development of the Myndflame community. They've been working with Blizzard to promote a better understanding of machinima and machinima law, as well as working to try and get more people involved in machinima creation.The items have a little history to them. The shirts were produced for the Myndflame team, and one was given away at Blizzcon 2008. The remainder are the only ones left from that print run, and remain crispy clean and unworn. The CDs are only available digitally nowadays, so it seems likely these originals come from someone's personal stash. If you know someone who's a fan of the Illegal Danish series, these might make a nice gift -- Clint's offered to sign and personalize anything you get.
WoW Moviewatch: HMS Theramore
If you're a fan of World of Warcraft machinima, chances are you're waiting for the next episode in Myndflame's Illegal Danish series, Escape from Orgrimmar (and if you aren't familiar with Illegal Danish, there's no time like the present to catch up by watching the original episode, Illegal Danish: Super Snacks). And while Escape from Orgrimmar isn't ready quite yet, Myndflame is placating us with this clip from the finished product, which also works as a stand-alone parody of the musical HMS Pinafore. (And for better-than-YouTube quality, check the DivX version.)Previously on Moviewatch...
