From Beginner To Pro: The Art of Machinimas

[Örpheus]

First of, a machinima is a style of movies that usually have epic quality and stories, if you've watched Zinwrath, Illegal Danish, and Return, you'll know what they are. From a simple fraps pvp movie to a amazing epic story. Who doesnt wants that. The following guide that I´ve made is dedicated to the players who want to start to film professional and not as a ¨OMG, a 300 crit from my lvl 13 warlock¨ noob.

I. Its all about a story:

The very first step of a movie is to write the story that will happen in the movie (Its like ou would like to write a book). Write down any ideas, background of the conflict (if there is any) and always have in mind that its hard to insert space rockets in the movie .

II. Find a friend or get the whole guild into the project:

Working as a team is a way of sucess too. Its also a explosion of ideas from all sides. Its also a free filming crew ^^.

III.Write a scenario:

Its wise to do that. Write down all the scenes with description of the shooting place, text from the actors, movement of the actors etc. Also, dont forget that the area of the shooting must be conected to the story of the movie.

IV. LFG Filming crew:

Now its time to get the actors, special effect crew (Spells from the different classes if you need any) and cameras (if you are one of the main actors in the film). Very important: Hire people who have a lot of time or with a similary time schedule like you. Its also really helpfull if you find players with the same nationality like you (easier coordination, easier explaining of the things they need to do...). There are some main rules for the different type of the crew:
Actors: They need to be ready to get killed, wear pink armors and have a lot of time when they need to make a sceen again.
Cameras: Its important that they have any idea of different camera angles, have a lot of free hard drive space and can send you all the clips he filmed (thats why its better that you are the camera and not the main actor).
Special effect crew: They shoud know at least what tey are doing and need to be careful they dont jump in front of the camera.

V. Costumes:

Have you ever seen a King in a farmer outfit? If you havent then there shouldnt be so in the movie either. The movie will look better with special outfit for the actors and their roles. So, if someone plays a Stromwind Guard then he should also wear a Imperial Plate set. The only problem about the costumes is that some of them are Bind on equip or even pickup or are expensive and hard to get. Thats why you should think of some donators.

VI. Donators:

Donations arent when your elling in Ironforge for money. Donations have to come from a society or guild. How to get to such donations? One way would be to promise the guild that your begging for money to give them a great role in the story or just for the Guild master. The other way would be if you have the luck to be on the server where Myndflame or Rufus Cubed etc. have their charaters. But then you would need to be well known in the WoW machinima buisness and had to show them your skills in a presentation movie (this is only a speculation). But i think then you would need also to insert their studio name in the front of the movie and you wont have all the rights after the deal.

VII. The editing:

For editing tips read a guide from Make.
What is very importang instead of picture in a movie? The sound ofcourse! In fact the sound affect 40% of the movie quality. Use suitable music for the different themes in the movie and dont forget to insert the sound of the places (birds singing, or sandstorm sounds...) also insert weapon and spell sounds if there are any in your movie.
Also a biiiiig partof the movie are the characters voices if you can get them ofcourse. This is a part of finding a crew in RL or over forums. You will need men voices and not little childrens yelling into the mic. and some female voices also. Note: Here comes written scenario into action.

VIII. Copyrights:

A small tip for the people who want that their movie gets a chance to be presented on one of the Blizzcons: Allways use only Blizzard music or self produced music. Also, dont use clips from some other movies (if theres a joke connected to this then you will have to cut it out). And if you dont want that someone steals you the rights of your movie then just insert the © symbol at the end of the movie ( or be even more informed than me and read something about copyrights, trademakrs etc...)

End: I hope that this small guilde will help you to organize projects better and make your machinima carieer easier and more successful


Credit to one of my friends for e-mailing this to me after seeing examples of my crappy movies. Also extend credit to WarcraftCinema.

[Demonkunga]

great guide! you like rep? i like rep and i love you long time!

[LightWave]

its a good guide all basic things u should know befor making a story based wow movie but the guys u man Zinwrath put about 1500hrs of editing a filiming in to it and stuff but ya good guide

[miigu]

can you give link to the movie?

btw: I hope you like my rep

[Deadevil]

I think every ppl out there should read this because many persons just makes some video when he get an idea when ganking low level and wankk... nothing..
Then he just records it and puts a music and puts it everywhere.. They realy should do these things what you have told here. +rep btw

[Nezdragon]

Shameless bump!

Good guide, it'll help for when I get serious about making a movie I'm thinking of... WSG is all I'll say

+rep and cookies