Experiments in Machinima - Among Fables

"Among Fables and Men" was the winner of the Best Drama award in Warcraft Movies' "Fabled Few" machinima contest.

This stunning piece of experimental machinima follows a man on a bizarre, fairy-tale journey, in the same vein as Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland".

However, this loose narrative thread takes a back seat to the incredible visual style, which abandons traditional animation and machinima techniques for a paper cut-out aesthetic.

Lundmark painstakingly constructs his images with 2-D digital cut-outs of World of Warcraft characters and environments, composited together in Adobe After Effects.

Instead of using in game animations, Lundmark moves and warps his cut-outs to achieve the desired effect.

This unique visual style eschews realism and challenges accepted notions of 2D and 3D space. The style, coupled with the lack of dialogue and the haunting and mysterious score, reinforces the dream-like atmosphere of the film.

Although the work uses World of Warcraft art assets, Lundmark's compositions are unlike anything a player could possibly experience in game.

Thus, the film manages to partially divorce itself from its source material, even allowing the viewer to forget that it was made using World of Warcraft.

At the same time, it references other art-forms like the graphic novel. The use of split-screen adds yet another visual dimension to an already complex style, often providing the viewer with opposing angles of the same event.

Since everything was constructed outside the game engine, "Among Fables and Men" also challenges the definition of machinima, which is grounded in the real-time capturing of 3D game footage.

Experiments in Machinima - "Among Fables and Men"
Among Fables and Men - DragonCon Film Festival
Among Fables and Men - Cambridge Film Festival
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Among Fables and Men