NEWS & REVIEWS for DEVIATION

Machinima, if you don't know, is the term given to movies (or cinema) made on computers (machines), put them together and what do you have? Cinechines...no, ermmm, Machemas....oh no....ermmm...okay, Machinima. Machinima is starting to get some serious respect, not only did we see some recently regarding the French riots, but there's a complete fantasy movie being made online all in a virtual world. Tribeca Film Festival has even shown one as part of its Tropfest@Tribeca line up this year. Deviation is a short film that is actually quite different from other Machinima I've seen. Rather than use the computer world as an environment to replicate that of the real world for a movie, they've looked inward and used the computer world to reflect its own tale. Macintyre, an online-game character and member of a four-man counter-terrorist squad, attempts to break out of the cycle of futile violence that has been his sole existence. It's quite amazing to realize that all the characters are actually real, controlled by a real player, and that they've used a game to make this movie. Seriously, you should take a look at the short film which has humour and pathos in equal measure.

Using the video game Counterstrike, filmmaker Jon Griggs composed an existentialist riff on the absurd repetition of first-person-shooter games. Selected for this year's Machinima Festival at the American Museum of the Moving Image, it's a classic machinima comedy.

Deviation is a lovely short film about a video-game character's existential crisis. It was made using the CounterStrike game-engine, and was selected for inclusion in the Tropfest@Tribeca Film Festival. Macintyre, an online-game character and member of a four-man counter-terrorist squad, attempts to break out of the cycle of futile violence that has been his sole existence.

Deviation is a great little machinima, the art of making movies with game engines. It introduces an existential crisis among its characters, who begin to question why they repeatedly do the same thing over and over (like repeatedly going to the same battle where they always get slaughtered). Some folks in Washington, when they are not too busy bashing videogames, could learn a thing or two from this little yarn. Perhaps like the machinima protagonist, they well realize that it?s Groundhog Day in the Middle East over and over again.

I really love this one: Deviation - It's about the existential issues of a character in one of these hyper-violent games. Very funny.

Deviation is now appearing at Atom Films

Click on the image for a direct link.