Machinima - Who Needs Actors?
Actors, lots of money and lots of attitude. With blue screen technology for Spiderman and Fantastic Four at the fore of technology for Hollywood films for creating amazing backdrops, that CGI has now taken over big budget movies, its only a matter of time before technology enables movie makers to be able to use software to create or re-create actors on screen. The first steps to this has begun with the low budget Machinima.
Machinima is a portmantaeu of machine cinema or machine animation, is both a collection of associated production techniques and a film genre defined by those techniques. As a production technique, the term concerns the rendering computer generated imagery (CGI) using real-time, interactive (game) 3D engines, as opposed to high-end and complex 3D animation software used by professionals.
Engines from first person shooter and role-playing simulation video games are typically used. Consequently, the rendering can be done in real-time using PCs (either using the computer of the creator or the viewer), rather than with complex 3D engines using huge render farms. As a film genre, the term refers to movies created by the techniques described above.

Last week I met Alex Wilding who is one of the founders of Machinima. He created the "French Democracy" which was a early example that this basic genre could provide original content, not just in jokes for gamers.
As always he was full of enthusiasm for the new genre and how it was developing.
Other earlier examples he talked about are the often amusing creations around the Halo games of Red vs Blue. And the more developments of characters from Sims and The Movies.

For further information visit which has a wide range of Machinima content to get you upto speed, and maybe create enough interest for you to make your own movie, without actors.