Nole -

A Tennis Machinima with Novak Djokovic

In order to understand what is so special about Machinimas, I first started to watch many Machinimas on youtube.com. After many interesting hours in cooperation with the project group the word Machinima became clear to me. Summed up in one sentence, Machinima would be described as making films with the help of video games. A larger description would be that Machinima is the chance to make your own film with only the help of one computer in a cheap and fast way. Therefore, just one person is needed to make a film. This person even has the opportunity of working with many different sets and actors.

The first try outs I made in order to create my own Machinima were with the fight game Counter Strike Source. I wanted to focus on the technical aspect before looking for a suitable game concerning the adequate aspect of Machinima production. The first two videos I’ve made are tests to search for parallels between Counter Strike Source and the game tennis. The biggest problem at this setup was that you need a computer for every player. To overcome this problem, I played the game with two different computers and tried to capture the action with a third one. This way wasn’t very comfortable and quickly showed me, that the limit of what one person can do was reached at this stage. The next big step towards my production was working with the game “The Movies”. In this game you are able to produce your own video parts with a special editor tool. I used this game only for one special project during the semester. This project was limited to one Week and its title was “Future Vision”. The produced Machinima was called “Unknown Agreement”. This game is consequently suitable if you want to create a Machinima in a short period of time. Nevertheless, this was very helpful to understand how a Machinima works, especially how important the sound and the spoken language in a Machinima are. Besides from this helpful aspect, I completely understood what creating a Machinima means and how it works.

The next but last step I did was developing the concept of the final Machinima. I decided to chose main parts of Novaks Djokovics early life, his girlfriend and feelings he had about tennis. My first idea was to create two guys who are talking about Novak Djokovic in an admiring way. The two guys should talk about different parts of his life. To make the whole thing more interesting, the two actors must have a different, even contrary opinion about the discussed object, Novak Djokovic.

I changed this idea a little bit because I wanted more focus on Novak Djokovics mind. I decided that the main part of the Machinima should be played on the court. The final Machinima I created is split in two parts. In the first part the performer plays a tennis match against Andy Murray. The second part is another match against Rafael Nadal. During these two matches you are able to see Novak Djokovics mind in black and white. I tried to think about what can run through your mind while playing tennis and came to the conclusion, that the larger part has nothing to do with tennis and the current match at all. I made attempts myself and also asked my tennis colleagues about their thoughts during a match. The finished Machinima is called “Nole”, which is Novak Djokovics nickname.

I hope my Machinima supports the Machinima idea, but I think so. Because of the funny working aspects I have to admit that I think, this won’t be the last Machinima I’ve worked on in my career.