Machinima vs. VJ art
The PR releases went high about 2-3 years ago when the first larger machinima film "red vs. blue" hit the ethers that form the internet. A slashdot article had fired the name machinima into the head of lots of geeks and they liked it a lot - as geek what where they supposed to think? All genres that interest a "normal" geek where put into one -> 3D film, Game engines, fast graphic cards, war technics and geeky humor. I watched it and stopped after 1 minute... It was boring as hell - the story line was so predictable that I can tell you the whole film with just watching the first minute. I have never given machinima a chance again (I did look at some other machinima films just to be even more dissapointed). Yet the machinima world has done something the VJ has not achieved -> primetime news, lots of magazin coverage and a one to onehundred PR campaign that propelled the name machinima into the heads of lots of people (starting with said slahdot article). What all has begun so well is now falling down like a star that is sucked into a black hole. There have been hundrets of machinima festivals and prizes for best machinima films - but it all seemed self propelled marketing events to "establish" the genre - a genre that lacked one thing: CONTENT. The gamers that now felt like george lucas who probably never read a book without beeing forced to do so now tried to put together up to 90! minute films. I just can imagine all the people falling asleep over them. Of course there might still be some cool nice shorts made in machinima style out there but I have not found them nor does one piece stand out in any way.
Why the title to this entry you might think? Well I can say that I am utterly HAPPY that the VJ world defies all marketing campaigns to get into the public mind to FAST to FAR. I mean no one would mind if the public perception of our profession would be better then it is now - but I think a new genre - or a genre that wants to be center point in the public media view needs to mature and trust me when I say that the vj scene has to mature for at least another five years. Its getting better we are talking and all but what is still missing is the killer content away from the usual blink blink. Content that really enriches a night - content that talks - content that can hold up to contemporary art - contemporary film - these are the things that people will judge against any new media that tries to entertain or teach. This is what started the coming downfall of the machinima movement which personally was really excited about. The lack of quality thought out content. Now it will be much much harder to convince the general large public that this genre has the power to entertain them like a movie does. Since the general public still has not much heard about the VJ scene we are here for a slow healthy growth where we the artists can grow with the perception.
Now that said it could all come different with recent pushs of big corporations into our internal afair trying to judge good visuals when they are still all bad. If they succeed with this strategy the VJ scene will be in big trouble to get out of the image of moving wallpaper for all the years to come - just because some profit hungry VJs sold their soul. Watch what will happen to the machinima movement in the coming month to see what I am talking about - there are more similarities than some might think.
PS: machinima was actually "invented" by a company unlike the vj scene which has grown over hundrets of years so the PR push with them seems to be loosely connected to the "inventing" company. corporate evil destroys beautiful artist tool -> point still stands.