from boingboing:

Cory Doctorow: Revver, a project that includes the awesome Ian Clarke, the hacker behind the Freenet freedom-of-speech network, has just launched. Ben describes it as "a Flickr for video, a site to allow uploading and viewing of video media. The site allows for tagging and ratings, but clicked banner ads also send small change to the creators themselves."

Go check it out here.

Head over to theofficial Machinima Filmfest site and take a look at this year's award nominees and showcase selections.
Interesting to see that machinima seem to evolve from being a "comedy only" genre, with more drama than comedy selections at this year's screening.

On the upper right hand corner of the site, a new Link emerged called "What is machinima?".
I tried to compile most of what i know, including links to example movies that get fleshed out once i have more time.
I hope it reads nicely and explains what machinima is about.
If you have any suggestions, please feel free to tell me!

On a sidenote, the machinima.com newsfeed is working again! Big shouts to the guys over at M.com!

The highly talked about feature film project "Bloodspell" of Strange company (founded by machinima.com's editor in charge, Hugh Hancock) has just released their trailer for download.
Using the game "Neverwinter Nights", Bloodspell is " the largest Machinima film ever created." as the bloodspell site states.
Undoubtely, bloodspell is the first machinima movie to officially make use of the creative commons license, allowing people to freely redistribute and remix the movie as they wish.

The finished movie is set to be released in episodic form starting somewhere at the end of the year.

Go check out the project here.

David Hayward has an excellent article about non-photorealistic ways to design videogames and the effect this might have on game mechanics and depth. Something that translates very well to machinima and the wish for better engines and more polys...

from the article:

Technological development does not solely equate to the development of photo-realism. While the aesthetic development of games will to some extent occur in conjunction with improved technology, and while the corporate games industry will continue the photo-real push, what's already been done shows that utilisation of newer hardware is by no means the only boundary to be pushed.

Go read it here.

The deadline for submissions to the 2005 machinima filmfestival has officially passed.
On another note, the Bitfilm festival crew ha officially announced their selected movies.
Selected machinima movies for this year's festival are:

Let's get it Started
Infiltrator
Engine
Person 2184
The Awakening
Desktop Opus 1.0
The Journey
The Infiltrators
Only the Strong Survive

Good luck to all the entries!
Go find out about the other categories here.

I know this comes late, bute there's only three days left until the submission deadline for the third annual machinima film festival runs out!
It's about time now to finish things off, burn your dvd and send it in.
Find more information on the official website.