Eight Questions (and Answers) about Machinima

Abstract

The author argues that, unlike traditional filmmaking or video recording through inexpensive digital videocameras, machinima presents a high barrier of entry, remaining a relatively complex method of creating videos. In fact, producing rendered animations generated from recordings of gameplay requires fairly high-end hardware capable of running real-time graphics intensive 3D or pseudo-3D environments. Nonetheless, machinima has the potential to make a real impact on the political landscape and can be considered a relatively sophisticated form of art, although one has to remember that art is socially constructed and it is not an intrinsic quality of an artifact.