Daryl's Project A - Machinima Filmmaking

Hi all, if you subscribed to my blog you will get this update on my Project A called Machinima Filmmaking

Technical Desicions
When I first started creating the website, I choose Blogger as my canvas to curate the exhibition on machinima. But Blogger is limited when it comes to having one article on the first page and links to other pages. I know you can alter the HTML and CSS, which I tried and my blog had difficulties coping. So I moved to Google Sites. Google sites is a simple website using simple tools which was great as I was typing in the text. Next step add the videos?? Oh no! It only allows Google videos or Youtube videos. Which means I am limited in the videos I can show. Bugger I wanted to include videos from www.machinima.com Okay reassessment time. So I checked Youtube to see if the machinima.com channel had the videos I wanted. No! Okay is there an official channel of the producers whose videos I want to exhibit on Youtube? Yes but no! Not all the ones I want. My advise, when you do a project for your course start doing it on week 1. I know it's easy to say that when we didn't have a clue at the start what networked media production had to do with filmmaking.

Anyway, Google Sites works okay. Except when I want to display thumbnails of the Youtube videos I want to exhibit. Now here is an interesting thing, I have a website www.fandangle.com.au which I administer using Joomla CMS (Content Management System). The Joomla gurus say don't use tables if you want your website to be SEO (Search Engine Optimization) especially if you want to use Google Adsense ads on your website to generate a little money. Well guess what Google Sites uses tables. What the??? Anyway I had a problem with the tables. The online editing system put some of the HTML coding in the wrong place. I had to go in the HTML editor and clean it up and move it around. But I am getting there.

Creative Content
I would say that 1% of the worlds filmmakers get an invite to be a member of the Hollywood club. Most filmmakers have to struggle to dig up funding for their first feature film. It is because of this that I have considered machinima. I have been scouring the internet looking for examples of machinima films. Do a Google search for machinima films and you will get loads of listings of machinima films. But most of them are recordings of game play, with no narrative what so ever. But there are a select few machinimators who make really great films using video games and the tools available to achieve this. Finding a website that shows true machinima, telling an interesting and entertaining story is hard to find. That is why I decided to curate this exhibition.

My thoughts on this course
At first and I'm sure all my fellow class mates will resound the same sentiments. What does Networked Media Productions have to do with filmmaking? It didn't make sense at first but now it makes a lot of sense. Computer technology is moving at a very fast pace and so too is the internet and the technologies available for social networking. Everything is changing in the 21st century. For instance the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd just announced that the government will roll out high speed internet which will be 100 times faster than what we have at present. 100 Mega bits per second which will be unbelievable.The television stations are getting worried because they know as new technologies emerg jobs are lost in the process. Television will be on the internet. No more TV stations. Just like television killed the drive in industry. So yes there is a future for us as Networked Media Producers who can create content to be distributed and screened on the internet. I believe that this assignment is nurturing our minds to develop innovative methods of constructing deeper and meaningful social networking systems and applications.
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References
Machinima Filmmaking: http://sites.google.com/site/machinimafilmmaking
Google Videos: http://video.google.com
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com
Machinima.com: http://www.machinima.com
Google Sites: http://sites.google.com
Fandangle: http://www.fandangle.com.au
Joomla: http://www.joomla.org
Google Adsense: https://www.google.com/adsense
Google Search: http://www.google.com
Australia High Speed internet: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Release/2009/media_release_0903.cfm
Drive in theaters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-in_theater