Filming feature-length machinima
How many of you remember the MMOvie trailer we posted back in August? Well AJ Loiacono and his marketing ploy for VOIG.com are back in the news, this time with an update on their work.
Originally the MMOvie trailer was created purely as a promotion piece, with no intentions to turn it into anything more than perhaps a series of short films. That was until it drove millions of hits to the site and was translated into 10 languages so that it could be downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.
Suddenly their little machinima mash-up of movie scenes translated into WoW was hugely popular, suddenly it was something worth taking a second stab at.
And so Loiacono assembled his machinima strike force once more, only this time to turn their project into a feature-length film. Two hours of story is a lot to record, especially when you take into consideration that the game pauses for no man. And then there are the other challenges of working within a MMO, for instance the mobs that wander the landscape. For this reason the team has hired PAs, or production assistants, whose job is to kill any monsters that happen to get in the way of shooting. Think of it as virtually roping off a city block for filming. They have also had to bribe players to stay away from the set, so far shelling out more than 10,000 in gold to passersby.
In many ways this project is as labor-intensive as more traditional animated films. On average five minutes of film translates to five hours of video capture and editing. All this to give the fans what they want. Because this is a commercial shoot with a script, a director, and a massive concept, the team even hires extras when needed, at the rate of $200.00 a day -- dollars, not gold. I'd be curious to know if any of our readers have participated in this project. What was it like being a virtual extra? Would you do it if you had the chance?
