Reverse Remediation

Interactive Storytelling, Interface & Interaction Design

Machinima is the use of real-time three-dimensional (3-D) graphics rendering engines to generate computer animation. The term also refers to works that incorporate this animation technique. Machinima-based artists, sometimes called machinimists or machinimators, are fan laborers and often use graphics engines from video games, a practice that arose from the animated software introductions of the 1980s demoscene, Disney Interactive Studios' 1992 video game Stunt Island, and 1990s recordings of gameplay in first-person shooter (FPS) video games, such as id Software's Doom and Quake.

Abstract   Due to aspects like the first person perspective, film-like shifts from one level to another and the possibility of interfering in the happening within the scope of the given guidelines and settings, computergames are, from time to time, interpreted as being the advancements of movies. The movie being an interactive, (partially) non-linear narration. At the same time, developments in the field of Machinima show that the game is no longer used for the actual purpose of playing it, but is instead used to create cinematic works. The interactive possibilities are not dedicated to gameplay and experience any more, but are instead used as a toolbox for "digital content creation".

From this, short movies as well as series like "Red vs. Blue" or entire blockbusters like "Bloodspell" have evolved. Admittedly, the arising works do often greatly differ from the actual intention of the used game and create worlds that tell completely new stories. At the same time, however, context, settings, characters and game strategies of the games are used to give the story its framework of action, its area of tension. That is how "the camper", a partially forbidden type of gaming, became an early protagonist of the Machinima. The characters of the game become actors of the "game movies".