Strange Company: making Machinima films since 1997

If you'd like to see what I talked about at DMFest in Singapore, you can get the video of the entire session over on the DMFest Site. There are no slides, but you should be able to follow most of the talk - I'm talking about webisodes and guerilla TV on the Internet rather than Machinima specifically.

I'd also heartily recommend watching both Iolo Jones' talk (everything you ever wanted to know about IPTV distribution on the Internet, including some very, very interesting discussion of funding), and Timo Vuorensola's talk, where he talked about how the Star Wreck team managed to make a full, live-action feature film using crowdsourcing - just astonishing, and really inspirational.

There's a full-page article on Hugh and Machinima in Singapore's Business Time - sadly it's print-only, but if you're in SG, it's worth a read, as we cover Asian Machinima, why computer games companies should open up to Machinima possibilities, and more.

Yep, Strange Company has a new series out, and it's not Machinima!

We're calling Kamikaze Cookery "Top Gear meets Mythbusters, meets a cooking show". We're investigating the science of food, testing cooking myths, and generally rampaging around the cookery world like the proverbial bull in the proverbial shop of expensive fragile things.

You can watch the trailer, or watch the first episode, in which we cook the perfect steak with a vacuum cleaner, a blowtorch and a ziploc bag...

Just a quick reminder of Hugh's conference schedule this autumn - catch him if you can!

• He's speaking on the Synthetic Cinema panel at the Machinima strand of the Cambridge Film Festival, on September 21st, and is also running a workshop with Johnnie Ingram, entitled Make A Movie In Your Lunchbreak, on the 22nd and 23rd.
• He's then going to Oxford for the GikIII digital law conference on the 24th and 25th of September
• Next, he's delivering a keynote speech at DMFest in Singapore on the 30th and 31st of October.
• Finally, he'll be speaking at the Narrative/Non-Narrative/Anti-Narrative conference in Bristol on the 23rd of November.

I'm no longer a member of the board of the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, which runs the Machinima Film Festival.

This isn't directly related to recent decisions around the Festival, although that did act as a catalyst. I've been considering this move for a long while, since before the last Festival.

Two things really prompted the decision.

First, that as a non-US member of the Academy, the major work of which is to organise the US-based Machinima Film Festival, I've barely been involved with the Academy at all over the last few years. That's not anyone's fault but mine - I've simply been too busy, and other things have taken priority. It's not fair for me to continue taking the credit for other people's hard work, nor is it reasonable for me to represent myself as a spokesperson for an organisation with which I'm not really involved.

Secondly, I feel very strongly that the Machinima world is in need of more high-profile people who aren't tied to any of the nascent Machinima festival or tool organisations, and as such can report on them. There's just no-one in a position to independently report on the Machinima film festivals that are happening this year, as 95% of the people who might do so are either running one, financially tied to one, or very close to the people who are running one! I'm intending to get back to one of the things I do best, and that's reporting, as independently as I can, on a world I deeply care about.

I originally suggested that I resign from the Academy a few months ago, but that, for various reasons, was put off. Now, I feel it's important to leave so that I can comment from the outside.

I wish the rest of the Academy - Paul Marino, Frank Dellario and Friedrich Kirscher, plus the various staff of the Festival - the best of luck.

We've temporarily disabled comments. That's nothing to do with today's news, but everything to do with a nasty attack of spam. If you've got any comments, feel free to email us at info at strangecompany dot org.

Seems like Strange Company's films are popular right now!

When We Two Parted is screening at the Leipzig Games Conference and DragonCon, both in August, and BloodSpell is screening at DragonCon too, in its entirety.

In other news, Hugh is curating a program of short Machinima pieces to be shown before the documentaries "Second Skin" and "Tilt", at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival this weekend.

Yes, When We Two Parted has been selected for screening at the Cambridge Film Festival in September! Very cool.

BloodSpell, our five-year project that ended up creating one of the most ambitious Machinima or even indpendent animation projects ever devised, is finished.

You can read my reflections on the project, or download the DVD, watch the film, or watch the making-of documentaries if you haven't already!

It's been a great journey.

Wait until you see what we do next!

When We Two Parted has now been viewed more than 50,000 times worldwide. Wow.

I'd never expected this little film to have that much success. It's awesome. Thanks to everyone who has helped get the word out.

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