Blog - New Paul Robertson Film
Friday, March 28, 2008The article on machinima (found under my writing page) that I wrote was inspired by a sort of argument implied by the film 8-Bit. That documentary discusses all the art inspired by video games: art games, machinima, and chiptune music.
I originally wrote the paper for a class, focusing in that early draft for class on both chiptune music and machinima. See, chiptune music I am far more familiar with and had by that point actually produced. Machinima I was only slightly curious about and had seen a few episodes of Red vs Blue but that's about it.
(By now I've done some experiments in machinima production, although nothing I feel like showing yet)
In any case, I was interested in the curious split between the aesthetics of those two new-media, machinima and chiptune.
Machinima was inspired by and almost always uses newer game technology, 3D game engines.
Chiptune, however, thrives on ancient game hardware, trying to bring back nostalgia of games past.
I wondered why there weren't machinima films being made that took the aesthetic of chiptune in visual form, i.e. films that looked like older 8-bit games.
I cut out the bits on chiptune, though, when I rewrote the paper for publication on gamecareerguide, but by then had found (and mentioned in the article) Sprite Artist/Animator Paul Robertson's film Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006
Although not technically machinima, it has exactly the aesthetic I was thinking of, and was created using some very machinima-like techniques. I'll choose to describe it as psuedo-machinima.
Well, Paul Robertson released a new, similar film a few days ago that I just watched.
It's story is madness, and it hurts the eyes with epilepsy-inducing flashing light effects.
It is, however, another great example of his work. A film that resembles and nods to the aesthetics and conventions of video gaming's past.
Links to it can be found on his blog, which I linked to above.
Or, if you want to search around for it, it is entitled Kings of Power 4 Billion%.
It is not entirely work-safe, much like his previous animation, as a warning.
Very bloody and contains some nudity. posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 11:26 PM
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