Machinima for Dummies

Well, we’re closing on the third of our four milestones this month - and, particularly with the FairGame project on the go too, this month has been quite a tough one.

One thing we’re really noticing here is the ratio of stuff we want to put into the book compared to the amount of space we’ve got. 400 pages sounds like an intimidating amount to fill, but at this point we’re having to cut ruthlessly not to overshoot that by a country mile.

Hopefully we’ll stick all the stuff we cut up on this blog in the run up to release.

I’ve gotten through the two really intimidating chapters - Storytelling and Filmmaking. The Storytelling chapter, in particular, came out at 10,000 words, way more than intended - I’m going to try and cut it down, but honestly when you’re trying to compress Robert McKee, William Goldman, Jane Espenson and all the rest down into a single-chapter how-to, it’s a tough task.

Next month we’ve got a road trip to do, down to Short Fuze in Cambridge to get training from ex-StrangeCo staffer Ben Sanders on MovieStorm, and then down to Brighton to learn about making movies using Medieval Total War 2. We’ve also got to write chapters on the Future of Machinima (yikes!), an intro to 3D modelling, and start the tidying and editing process anew…