The research question:
“How can game technology be used to maximize creativity and create an effective production pipeline for an animated film?” I think creating animated film should be a fun and creative process, that is why I have chosen this research question. I will be exploring techniques used in Machinima films and aim to make it more user friendly and less restrictive. My research will become a sort of proposal to how the framework of a Machinima film could look in a modern film production.
Project description:
I will make a pilot/teaser for an animated short film by using the game engines Unity and Unreal Engine 4. Characters in the film will be controllable with a game controller and traverse landscapes and emote just like in a video game. Footage is captured when a character is being controlled.
Together with my team I developed an explorable game-world that I will use to capture footage for the film. The captured “gameplay” footage will be used to make the film.
Its visual style will be like that of a video game, to reflect the themes of the film and research. The theme of the film centers around virtual worlds, and explore my experiences growing up with full access to the internet and video games. These experiences include but not limited to, identity, sexuality and gender. I aim to use the worldbuilding of the films world to comment on and explore these topics. To put it simply "how could the internet look if it was a physical space?".
I intentionally wanted the themes in the film to reflect the research I conducted, which is game technology. Games play a significant role on the internet and in internet culture. I believed this would fuel more ideas in both areas of the project, the film will inspire my research. And my research will inspire ideas for my film. The film is research.
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Glossary: “Machinima is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation.” (Wikipedia, 2021) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima