FOR RELEASE ON OR BEFORE MARCH 16, 2003 Contact: Frank Dellario
The ILL Clan, Inc.
ph. 347-277-1920 illbixby@illclan.com
Improvised Cartoon To Be Both Animated and Performed Live
for Festival Audience
New York Based Animation Studio Pioneers Real-Time Animation Process (known as Machinima) By Combining 3D-Game Technology With Traditional Cinema Techniques
Orlando (March 4, 2003) - The Florida Film Festival, as part of their NextArt Showcase (
http://www.floridafilmfestival.org/index.html), will present a most unorthodox animated short on March 16 at the Enzian Theater in Winter Park, FL: a 3D, computer-generated cartoon performed in front of a live audience by improvisers. The New York based animation studio known as the ILL Clan will be demonstrating a new technique called Machinima, a hybrid of cinema and 3D game technology which they helped pioneer with their award winning short, "Hardly Workin.'" (The name Machinima, is derived from the words Machine and Cinema.)
"We used to play a computer game called Quake and run around and kill each other with rocket launchers, now we use the technology behind that game to make funny cartoons," says Matt Dominianni, one of the group's voice-over artists and director of their first short, "Apartment Huntin.'" Mr. Dominianni, who plays many of the voices in the team's animated comedies, will be performing live at the festival along with fellow voice-over artist/improvisers, Paul Jannicola and John Clavis. The entire production will be animated, performed and shot simultaneously, all while projected on a large screen for an audience at the festival. The process is strikingly similar to the multi-camera studio technique used by most taped-for-broadcast talk shows or cooking shows. In fact the evening's presentation will be a mock cooking show entitled, "Common Sense Cooking with Carl the Cook." The difference is the ILL ClanĖs cameras and characters all reside in a sort of virtual set within a 3D, computer-generated environment.
The film-makers insist that their unusual process is nothing more than a means to an end using the skills they know best: 3D animation, comedy improv and playing computer games. According to Paul Marino, long-time 3D animator, Emmy award winner and director of the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, Machinima's time has come. "There's a lot of high quality games that include Machinima to help tell the story, now independent film-makers are discovering that Machinima is an exciting new medium that's not limited to games."
Carl Goodman, Curator of Digital Media at The American Museum of the Moving Image in New York, chose to include the ILL Clan's Machinima films in the museum's '
'DigitalMedia gallery. "Machinima blends elements of computer animation and live theater, and piggybacks onto continuing, rapid advances in the visual capabilities of realtime videogame engines," says Mr. Goodman. "It is certain that the range and quality of Machinima will grow in proportion to its increasing technical cababilities and creative possibilities." The ILL Clan hopes to be at the fore-front of this trend, and have both a half-hour cartoon series and an interactive game in the works.
Machinima is not new to film festivals and the ILL Clan's most recent short, "Hardly Workin'" directed by Mr. Marino, has won a number of awards and honorable mentions at festivals around the world. "In brainstorming NextArt we knew the ILL Clan's unusual production technique would be amazing in front of a live audience. How incredible to be able to present this performance/production at the festival and-for the first time ever-let an audience witness and participate in the making of a movie in real time," says Sigrid Tiedtke, executive director for the Florida Film Festival.
The improvisers normally record their dialogue in a studio and then record the visuals separately by controlling 3D animated puppet-like characters in a network computer game environment. At the festival in Orlando they will control these puppets at the same time that they improvise comedic dialogue in front of an audience.
Fortunately the ILL Clan performers have more than five years experience in front of live audiences. The three performed improvisational comedy on stages in and around New York City from 1994 through 2000. "It'll be fun to be in front of an audience again after doing so much animation," says Mr. Dominianni, "I just hope I'm still funny."
About The ILL Clan
ILL Clan Productions is a collective of animators, programmers and improvisational comedians who use 3D CGI and the Machinima technique to create animated cartoons, interactive games and works for hire. Please view our
movies page to see samples of our recent work.
Orlando (March 4, 2003)