It’s not often we’d write a news story specifically about the competition, but Lady Mainframe deserves credit where credit is due. Delivering all the gaming news that’s fit to film, the weekly online show is worth a look.
During “Gaming News with Lady Mainframe” screenshots and footage of some of the hottest games going scrolls in the background and the Lady herself talks about the titles, their perks and pertinent news of the week on the gaming front.
The show is made using Machinima techniques to provide a fast turn-around and to make sure the news that’s delivered is up to date. The techniques also give it the distinction of being the “only gaming news show to be made inside of a computer game.”
Leo “Dr. Nemesis” Lucien-Bay recently agreed to answer some of our questions about the show, which just underwent a huge overhaul in appearance and formatting. The Lady has gotten a makeover, or “graphical renovation.”
How long have you all been doing this?
The team has existed in many forms, but Binary Picture Show, as it currently is has been around for 3 years or so. I myself have been making Machinima films for nearer seven years, so I've perhaps been doing this for too long now. I was around during Machinima's early days, when it was still known as "Quake Movies".
Who is behind it?
Some of the team members help when they can, but other than that it's down to me to film, edit, arrange and animate what little ends up in the show. The bare minimum each show requires is Lady Mainframe (Laura King), and myself, however we do have another writer (Mark "Ronin" Vinzce) who is often available to step in and write some of the segments.
How much work goes into a weekly show?
At the moment, quite a lot. The process starts on Tuesday or Wednesday when I scour sources for news (press release and game community sites).
By Thursday, I have a list of chosen stories that we will report on. This list is then either passed on to the writers (Ronin & Lady Mainframe).
By Friday, the script is complete and ready for Lady Mainframe to do the voice-over, after which I can edit that for insertion in the animation.
The 3d scene is done in a highly modified version of Quake 2. Most of the animations are already made before this point, but this is where I can quickly add any special gestures needed. I do the lip-synching by hand, so it can take maybe 30mins - 1hour to lip synch a 6-8 minute scene. Then the scene is outputted to video where the background footage is then placed, along with music and any other effects.
By the time it's complete it's usually Saturday evening, or in some cases, Sunday afternoon.
As you can see it's a somewhat lengthy process so we hope to make some big changes within the next few weeks, which involves taking the 3D scene out of Quake 2 and into an environment with automated Lip synching and non linear animation to greatly ease the process, while improving the show. I believe that soon, with these changes we'll be able to write, and create the show all in one day.
How did the idea come about?
I first had the idea about 2 years ago. I wanted something that was relatively simple to make, so that we could release material on the internet regularly, unlike our other films, which can take months to make. Also, Machinima offers, through it's inherent speed, a great opportunity to make topical shows fast enough for weekly releases.
It wasn't until much later that I decided to do just one issue to see how it would go. The first show, or even the first series was very basic, but I started to see the potential for much more in the idea, so I took steps to improve it, and that process is still continuing. With each week I get closer to adding all the ideas, and stream-lining the creation process so that we can improve the show and make it in a smaller amount of time.
Check out the show by clicking here.
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