Machinima and more evidence that amateurs can create quality content

The long tail blog talks about Machinima, "The Codex" series. Machinima is basically people using 3D games as an acting platform, as most games allow you to change the camera angle and move the players around. So the video games becomes a movie set of sorts. This allows amateurs to make quality content for cheap.

At a glance, it seems like "The Codex" has really stuck a chord with people that watched it, so I'll prolly spend the bulk of this weekend downloading and watching it. The classic is Red vs. Blue, which is an absolutely hilarious comedy about bored space marines, and you can buy their DVD in gaming stores now. Also in an article in the new york times. Well, you know if the papers got wind of it, it's pretty old news already. I didn't catch on to Red vs. Blue until pretty late in the game, like ep 42 or so, and I got it through Rux. Good call Rux.

To me, this is one of the many pieces of gathering evidence that amateurs can create quality content, as most people can attest to right now. I think the vision that people have about video and TV is that they will eventually merge. I'm hoping that the concept of 'flipping through channels' will be outdated, and rather, you subscribe to RSS feeds of shows that you want to watch, and there will be links and recommendations to other quality amateur video content down the long tail. On Demand needs to meet Amazon. And I'm thinking that people are moving in this direction. This way, people can not only watch high budget shows, but also see what low budget ones are doing that's edgy and innovative. I look forward to this transformation of visual media.