One of the challenges of creating a movie is finding less costly and time efficient ways to create the content of videoclips. For those don't have a Hollywood budget, video games for special scenes and effects are increasingly being used. One of the newest approaches to this is a concept called machinima.
Machinima began as a form of screencasting or screen capture of computer video games so that special achievements, scores or tricks could be passed along to friends. This YouTube video clip on the right is one of thousands uploaded to demonstrate to friends their experiments and successes with a video game. Watching a minute or so or scrolling thru the clip is sufficient to get the idea of what is being done. If you own a videogame, you have the source material for a videoclip in which you are the actor directing yourself in the videogame. Sometimes the game itself will include screen capture features, the better to help advertise the game. Otherwise, a camcorder would need to be used to take a picture of the screen or special screencasting software used to capture screen events.
There are long lists of computer games that can be used for screencasting and machinima, many with educational value and many aimed specifically for classroom use: complete list of all video games; list of best selling computer games; and a list of educationally focused games. In one of the more heavily cited articles in the educational literature based on his book of similar title, Gee has argued for the educational value of games in teaching thinking and learning skills. He has worked to develop various gaming models for different educational goals. "Thus, designers face and largely solve an intriguing educational dilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces: how to get people, often young people, to learn and master something that is long and challenging—and enjoy it, to boot" (Gee, 2003). The machinima concept would allow educators build on the values of gaming. Through machinima, teachers can guide student projects where students not only mastered content and digital skills, but creatively composed new works out of the gaming experience that are focused on school content topics.
The term machinima was developed to mean the creation of movies from the animated displays of online games where multiple players could enter the game at the same time and have the action recorded via screencasting software. The actors in the movies were participants in the game where each played a role following a movie script. Some of these movies have reached the full length of Hollywood style movies. Only a few such movies have been developed with sufficient quality to be sold.
Machinima is especially useful to educators who need a simulation to explain or expand on something being taught, whether it is running a nuclear power plant or the battle strategies of Alexander the Great. If the simulation can be found in a video game, it can be recorded and then mixed or inserted with the other sources for a movie that include live video, pictures, sounds and music. In the YouTube clip on the left of a Discovery Channel television series on Ultimate Battles in history, scenes from a video game are intercut with live actors and and a narrating host. This is just one of many clips from this series. Watching just a few minutes will be sufficient to understand how this works. The opening 8 seconds of this clip are just one example of many interspersed cuts of machinima (screencasts) from a video game simulation of the battle.
The trick of course for educators is to find a video game simulation that can be used in a topic that is being taught. The best source for finding such clips might be challenging students to come up with a source, given their greater familiarity with video games. These can be divided into several video game categories or genres, some more useful than others for educational purposes: action (e.g., first person shooter games), action adventure, adventure, construction and management simulations, life-simulation, role-playing, strategy, vehicle simulation, music (e.g., Rock Band) and many more. Wikipedia also provides an article on educational games, many of which can also be used for machinima purposes, an article with links to many relevant titles. For more see Wikipedia's machinima article.
There is also a Web site devoted to machinima, http://www.machinima.com/. as well as an entire YouTube channel devoted to machinima. Many of the clips contain sufficient gore and foul language to not be useable in elementary classrooms. Those wishing to use such online clips in classrooms should watch and listen every second of the clip before sharing in a teaching situation. The best approach is to find educational game simulations that can be used by teachers and students to create their own machinima for the needs of their own content areas.
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Computers in Entertainment (CIE), 1(1). Retrieved February 11, 2011 from http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/960000/950595/p20-gee.pdf?key1=950595&key2=9346797921&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=152.30.146.29&CFID=10441322&CFTOKEN=53503639
Version 1.02 | February 16, 2011