Submarine Channel

2008 Mackie Winners

The Mackies are the awards for the best Machinima productions of the year, chosen by a jury composed of 31 experts from the worlds of machinima, new/cross/mixed media, music, film and the arts. 12 movies were awarded on November 3rd during the Machinima Filmfest 2008. Here’s the list of the winning machinimas with links to sites where you can watch them, and we explain why “The Ship” by Egils Mednis is our favorite.

As video games continue to evolve into an ever more sophisticated medium, both in terms of technology and its artististic potential, so do the standalone films of its derivative called machinima. The importance of machinima can not be overestimated. In the not so distant future, we can imagine machinima, animation and live action blending into one and becoming, well, the next big thing in film.

Just watch “The Ship” by Latvian machinimaker Egils Mednis, who deservedly won the Best of the Fest award at the Machinima Filmfest, aswell as Mackies for Best Direction and Best Independent. “The Ship” is machinima at its best and unlocks the potential of the technology for ‘serious’ filmmaking. It’s a beautiful, mysterious and accomplished short film (11 mins.) that avoids the usual video game references and jokes that tend to appeal to die hard video game and machinima fans only. “The Ship”, on the other hand, contains echoes of the work of ‘slow’ Russian filmmakers such as Tarkovsky and Sokurov. Yes, Mednis seems to know his film history.

Another good example (in our not so humble opinion) is our very own production “Molotov Alva“, which was released as part of the  minimovie series and as a 50 minute feature film (nominated for a Mackie ((submitted by the director, Douglas Gayeton’s company Rumbleton)), but we didn’t win though).

Here’s the list of machinimas that won, with links to the movies. Let us know what you think!
Alternately, if you have a lot of free time on your hands, you could check out all the 2008 nominees and decide for yourself.

2008 MACKIE WINNERS

Best of the Festival, Best Independent, and Best Direction:
The Ship by Egils Mednis

Best Long Format:
Clear Skies by Ian Chisholm

Best Series:
This Spartan Life by Bong & Dern Inc.

Best Short Format and Best Writing:
World of Workcraft by Stephen Mullane

Best Student Work
Azerothian Super Villains by Beckman Movie Productions

Best Virtual Performance, Best Voice Acting and Best Cinematography
The Monad by Polygon Fiction

Best Visual Design:
Apocalypsis Ex Machina by Andrzej Kozlowski

Best Original Music:
Ignis Solus by Lars Erik Fjosne

Best Sound Design:
Chevauchée nocturne by Les Riches Douaniers

Best Editing:
Tales of the Past III by Martin Falch

Best Technical Achievement:
Leaving the Game by the American Film Institute – Digital Content Lab

The Award for Contributions to Machinima:
in Memory of Peter Rasmussen

Outstanding Achievement in Game Cinematics:
for Mass Effect by the Bioware Cinematic Design Team