Kubrick runs amok in The Walled City

Okay, so... I don't know if you have heard of Machima - basically, it is the practice of filmmaking through the use of a game engine. A crude example would be

• record your player in Halo running around, gesturing, and nodding his head
• add some bad dialogue
• convert to movie clip
• distribute to 12-year olds

The interesting development now though is combining virtual filmmaking with virtual worlds. I don't have the requisite skills to communicate what a mind f**k that is... other than to refer to boggling quote from a pretty good recent Machima short -

"The pictures weren’t really capturing the right feel and [I] decided to see how it looked as a recording," she continues. "From there I moved to the bar in the city, which I remembered had the most beautiful lighting, and continued to film shots." Only then did the kernel of a story emerge. Midnight City, she says, "reminds me of a noir movie, so tried to create a character that would live in that place."

That seems like something that your average second-year film student would say. The difference here though is that the "place" she is talking about scouting and shooting in IS NOT REAL... it's a chunk of code running on a server somewhere. This person scouted virtual locations, presumably created by someone else - set up shop, and "shot" a visually arresting movie. No, it's not Shakespeare... but it's not bad, either.

Here is a shot from this person's short work -

Mr. William Gibson, commence your crowing, sir. The Walled City is close at hand.