The cinema is a harsh mistress

Taking machinima from the computer to the big screen is an unforgiving experience. Every pixel is magnified enormously, and every visual glitch screams out at you. The encoding artifacts that you can hide on a monitor are suddenly much larger. Every dropped frame or jump in animation looks like a broken film. And whatever the problems with the images, the problems with sound are worse. Once you put the audio through a THX cinema system, you can hear every little thing. The tiny buzzes and clicks that you will never hear through a typical home computer set-up suddenly jump out at you. Every rustle of clothing in the dialogue becomes obvious. And if your sound balance is a tiny bit muddy, you end up with a cinema full of audio sludge. If you’ve ever thought to yourself when doing the final render for the fifth time, “what the hell, they’ll never notice,” just get your film shown in a cinema and see for yourself. They will notice. And you’ll wish you’d fixed it.

On the other hand, it was a very pleasant surprise to see how many of the 50-odd films we showed in the last two days worked really well. Yes, there were some visual issues we couldn’t address, particularly when upscaling some of the older or low-res films to 720p, but those films that started life as high-def were quite amazing. I particularly remember the smile on Jim Thorpe’s face as he sat in on the tech test for Zero Budget, Big Audience and he saw his Marillion video up there. At the end, he turned to me and grinned. “You can see the stars,” he said. And you could. They weren’t just tiny pixels, and possible encoding errors in a tiny window. It transformed the final sequence from pretty good to amazing. If you do ever hope to see your movie on the big screen (and let me assure you, that experience alone is like nothing else for a film-maker), do spend the time to make the highest quality render you can possibly manage. The difference is worth it.

Set-up for first screening in screen 3. That's my laptop with Monad on down there in the midst of that.

Much of the credit for how well everything turned out has to go to three people, Joe, Claire and John, our projectionists. I’d never realised how complicated it is running a projection booth. They really got things looking at their best, and drove the sound system to make the best of the audio I gave them, swapping in different amps, different patches, different filters and different combinations of speakers.

However, their finest moment came when we blew up the analog to digital converter with a rather loud explosion (at the end of No Licence, wouldn’t you know it), and we lost all the sound. I sprinted to the projection booth, and within 30 seconds they’d swapped the blown one out, replugged the entire sound system, and had us back up and running by the start of the next film. Apparently the audience provided their own sound effects and music during the silence – I wish I’d been there to see it! Still, 98% of films screened without a hitch – not bad for a first festival.

Chief projectionist Joe setting up the sound system on screen 2. That huge thing on his left is the 1080p digital projector.

Spending several days in the projection booth has been a fascinating experience. That place is hot*, airless, noisy, and full of exciting toys. They seem to have every kind of projector and sound device known to man. Reels of film are everywhere. (Happiest moment: holding a huge reel which contained a print of the 1933 Frankenstein.) And into the middle of that lot went my little laptop.

The projection room: on my right, screen 2, on the left, screen 1 and its monster 70mm projector, and screen 3 in the far distance.

Connecting the laptop wasn’t straightforward either. Everything was temperamental. After the first screening, we set everything up ready for the second one, then powered down the laptop. 25 minutes before, we fired it up again, and then discovered that the aspect ratio was all wrong, and the digital projector no longer recognised the preset we’d put in place.** So we got it running properly again, tested it again, and everything was OK. Next we got the mics in the cinema working so Saint could do his intro, and then, just in a moment of paranoia, rechecked the video, and to our horror discovered that we had no sound. More panic replumbing of the sound system ensued, more kit swapped in and out, but we had no way to tell Saint we had a problem, and the screening started. And literally as Saint said the words, “OK, roll the films”, John said, “we’re good to go,” Joe brought down the house lights, switched over the projector to the laptop output, I hit the play button, and everything worked perfectly. Nobody knew except us. It’s non-stop seat of your pants stuff, and these guys just coped. Awesomely.

Proper film: Bicycle Thieves showing on Screen 1.

After several days of this, I’m now thoroughly exhausted, but very, very happy. The films looked good, and I'm extremely proud of what we all did. We got good reactions from the audiences, and the screenings and workshops all got 5-star reviews. We got coverage for machinima in the national press, television, and specialist film & animation press, and we've made a lot of new people take notice of machinima and want to get involved. Most importantly, we changed a lot of people's minds. On Friday, nobody knew who we were or what we were doing. By yesterday, we'd earned their respect by showing them that machinima is a serious form of animation, and that machinimators are just as talented, dedicated and creative as any of the other film-makers there. A lot of people became genuinely interested in what we in the machinima community are all about and how we have the potential to change things from grass-roots level, and they want to get involved. That, for me, has made the Cambridge Film Festival a huge personal success.

But I tell you this. I swear I’m never, ever going to do this again.

Until next time.

* It didn't help that one of th air-con units died at the start of the Festival, and shutting the projection room for half a day to fix is simply isn't an option. So we baked.
** To all you Linux/Mac fan-boys, nope, you can't blame it on the fact that I'm running XP. According to Joe, this just happens when you run things off computers, and next time would I please burn everything onto a standard digital format so he can just play it off their kit.

Six hours of 720p

When I agreed to sort out all the films for CFF, I had little idea what I was letting myself in for. After all, I've shown machinima countless times. You just line up all the films in a folder, rename them 01_blah, 02_blah, and so on to make sure they're in the right order. fire up VLC, and just hit play one after the other.

It's not quite like that when you're doing a cinema screening, though. The audience doesn't want to see a Windows screen, and they certainly don't want to watch you flicking between Explorer and VLC, then flipping into full screen each time. They expect a proper show. It's what they've paid for.

One option was to burn everything onto a DVD, and just run it off that. This sounded like a really good idea until I realised that all the hi-def pieces would be shown at something rather less than their best quality. Since we have a top-end HD projector and a huge screen to play with, I really wanted to push the quality as far as possible And, since DVD software is very picky about what aspect ratios and frame rates it will handle, I'd have to convert pretty well every single movie anyway.

I opted instead to build each screening as a single film of between 75 and 90 minutes, complete with opening and closing titles and a title screen before each film, and then just play that off the computer plugged straight into the projector. This seemed like a sensible idea, until the reality of dealing with 50-odd movies began to hit. What was sitting on my hard disk was an assortment of films in different file formats (wmv, mp4, mov, avi, and dv), different codecs, different frame rates, different aspect ratios, and different resolutions. At this point Premiere threw a complete wobbly. It refused to read some of the files at all, others had video but no audio, and some just came out as a blurry mess. (Yes, yes, Final Cut Pro and a Mac, I know!)

So, many hours with a transcoder later, I managed to get everything into Premiere, then resized everything so it would fit as nicely as possible into a 1280x720 frame. Some pieces just slotted straight in, others end up as widescreen (Red vs Blue, for example), and some end up as a 4:3 frame in the centre. Then, after a manic paranoid backing up session, I finally hit render for the first time.

Each screening takes about 20-26 hours to render. Well, we are talking 100,000+ frames of high-definition video, all of which has to be decoded, resized, its frame rate changed, and recoded. It's not a small job. It's a nerve-wracking time, as you pray that it's not going to crash or the power go out, and only when it's complete do you get to find out how well it came out. Even checking the finished thing is exhausting: you have to watch like a hawk for unwanted artifacts, typos in the titles, and bad clipping, and if it goes wrong, you have to wait for the current render to finish, then spend two minutes in Premiere correcting the mistake and another twenty-odd hours waiting.

So far, it's all looking good, and I can't wait to see this on the big screen next week. But I don't think I want to go through this ever again, unless someone gives me an enormous bank of seriously powerful computers and several minions.

To anyone who's ever organised a film festival - you have my utmost respect.

Outdoor movies at CFF

Punting on the Cam is jolly fun, they say. Well, yes, it is. Especially at night, with movies thrown in.

"Isn't the idea of watching short films, sitting in a punt, wrapped in blankets and sipping champagne lovely?"

Last week, after filming an interview for ITV Anglia, the Cambridge Film Fest organisers dragged us off, along with some press, on a mystery punt tour along the Cam. Every so often, we slowed alongside a screen, and watched a short film, then floated off into the darkness to the sound of owls and waterfowl. The films themselves were a slightly odd choice, but it all added up to a unique film-watching experience. Official Festival blogger Rosy Hunt describes it much better than me. (Well, she was taking notes.)

It's well worth considering if you're around during the festival, especially as they throw in champagne and nibbles. Two words of advice though.

1. Wrap up warm. It gets bloody cold on the river at night.
   
2. Don't have two pints of beer just before getting on board. There are no toilets on a punt, no convenient landing stages until the end, and peeing in the river is generally frowned upon in mixed company.
   

Cambridge Film Fest - nearly ready to roll

We finally managed to agree the final list of what's going into each of the four CFF machinima screenings. And then, last week, the organiser reminded us that we had to give an age rating for each of the 40 movies we're showing, so Saint and I had the unenviable task of going through each one with the BBFC guidelines in hand, counting the number of uses of each swear word, looking for digital breasts, and making judgements about whether these were gratuitous, offensive, or justified in context. Once upon a time I thought that being a BBFC examiner and watching the uncut version of a load of films would be really cool. Now, I'll pass, thank you. You can't take your eyes of the screen for a second or have a momentary daydream, in case you miss something, and after a couple of hours, your eyeballs really start to hurt. And some of the moral judgements you have to make are quite tricky. I'll be interested to see whether people agree with the ratings we gave.

Fortunately we didn't have to judge them for any awards. I spent Monday watching the Dragon*Con machinima selecti0n (which is excellent - well done, Christina!) and picking my top three. It wasn't easy, but I'm satisfied that the right film won in the end. But two full days of watching machinima was a good change of pace. It reminds me why I do what I do - it's not about the business, or the production plans; it's all about the movies. Congrats to everyone who got a movie in to either or both of these shows.

We also got the final proofs of the brochure on Friday, and it's looking good. The machinima stream gets three full-colour pages, no less! Not bad, eh?

As soon as they give me the go-ahead, I'll post the final list up here.

Cambridge Film Fest - submissions closed

The submission period for machinima entries for the Cambridge Film Festival is now over. Thanks to everyone who submitted.

Saint and I now have about 14 hours of machinima to watch, from which we'll be picking around 20-30 minutes.

Cambridge Film Fest machinima

Thanks to everyone who's submitted movies so far, and apologies for not responding individually. I've stacked all the Film Fest stuff on one side while we plough through the last few days of the upcoming Moviestorm release, and I'll be going through the lot in the middle of next week.

If you haven't submitted and still intend to, remember the deadline is Tuesday morning at 9.00 am my time.

Cambridge Film Fest - call for submissions

We've finally got hold of almost all of the directors of machinima films we've selected for the Cambridge Film Festival, and asked them if we can show their work.

We do have some remaining slots, and we are now requesting submissions. If you have a machinima film which you would like us to consider, please email me at matt [dot] kelland [at] moviestorm [dot] co [dot] uk telling me where I can see your film and why you think we should show it. (Don't send me the film, just a URL!)

The 28th Cambridge Film Festival runs from 18-28 September 2008, and it's one of the three largest film events in the UK. The Guardian described Cambridge as “a match for the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals…” while The Times said that it “easily outclasses its metropolitan rivals”. The machinima stream will include four screenings, plus workshops and a debate.

Guidelines:

1. Your film should be no more than ten minutes long
2. Your film should be in English or have English subtitles (or silent)
3. Any machinima engine or game is fine
4. All submissions must be received by 9.00 am UK time, Tuesday 29th July
   

If you run a machinima Web site, blog, or similar service, please re-post this message.

Paging Evilhoof and Flayed!

Does anyone in the machinima community know how I can get hold of Evilhoof and Flayed, who made the magnificent The Internet Is For Porn WoW movie?

Machinima at the Cambridge Film Festival

Yet another of my side projects that's interfering with actually making movies is that I've somehow found myself co-opted into organising the machinima segment of the Cambridge Film Festival. (That's Cambridge, England, for you transatlantic folks.)

The 28th Cambridge Film Festival runs from 18-28 September, and it's one of the three largest film events in the UK. The Guardian described Cambridge as “a match for the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals…” while The Times said that it “easily outclasses its metropolitan rivals”. So, no pressure there, then.

The deadline for finalising the sessions and movies is approaching fast. The great news is that the organisers are really keen on machinima, so there will be a lot of it. The bad news, from the point of view of my social life and free time, is that my role has grown from "Matt, can you suggest a few movies we could show" to "Matt, will you organise a whole bunch of screenings and speakers, get the clearances, certificate the movies, and plan a whole series of machinima-related events". I'm not working alone, though. The guy who's making it all happen is the redoubtable Saint John Walker of Film & Digital Media Exchange, and I've now roped in the ever-reliable Tiffany, who makes things happen at Short Fuze.

What I've enjoyed most - other than the fact that Festival meetings are held in the bar of the Arts Picturehouse - is spending time watching loads of machinima again, and picking the very best, regardless of whether they're made in WoW, SL, Antics, iClone, Moviestorm, Motionbuilder, Sims, HL2, GTA, or any combination of tools. All competitive rivalry between any of us in the business can be completely put aside. It's not about who makes the best software, it's about who's made the best movies. Over the next few days, we'll be contacting directors to ask for permission to show movies, then we'll have a call for further submissions after we announce the line-up, so we can catch any last-minute movies.

I'm also looking forward to working with local tech guru Bill Thompson, who's not just a great bloke, major film fanatic, and one of the Festival organisers, but is also a great supporter of machinima and wants to get personally involved with the machinima stream. He's come up with some interesting ideas for things we could do, and it'll be a challenge seeing if we can make them happen.

(Aside to Overman and Ricky. I did take on board what you guys said in Overcast #32 about showing machinima alongside other films, and not in a ghetto of its own, but I think that was a little too radical for the organisers. Maybe next year. This year, we're still "special".)