The guest list really is a who’s who of Internet fame and/or ignominy. Amplifier’s own Joel Bush will be there to hopefully document the event. We gave him a great video camera so honestly, he’s without excuse!

ROFL Con (In their own words)

Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you’ve got ROFLCon.

The conference is slated for April 25th and 26th of 2008.

It’s a group dissection of internet culture. What makes it work, why it works, how it works. We’ll talk about where internet culture has been and where we think it’s going.

Then, there’ll be parties. A music show, with memes performing their work live. And then a big blowout party at the end, with everyone dancing and rocking out.

Needless to say, this might be the most important gathering since the fall of the tower of Babel.

You can say many things about the gang at Rooster Teeth. They own their medium. They’re funny. They’re continuously experimenting with new forms and permutations (Grifball!) And many more.

But they’re also just overkillers in the best way. They invest their DVDs not only with the classic Red vs Blue content, but with so much of the unrelenting absurdity that is their signature. So when they release the DVD BOXED SET of ALL 5 Seasons of RVB on 5 DVDs at $69, you’re already getting an enormous value. (The DVDs individually retail for $20) And each of those DVDs were packed with all the outtakes, missing scenes, bonus foo and so on.

But with this new boxed set they’ve now created 2 MORE hours of behind the scenes material, “making of” documentaries and all sorts of other stuff. So six DVDs for seventy bucks, it’s like $50 off. Plus you get the awesome black/blue and red all over double-box to carry them in.

We hope to have a more extensive writeup soon.  (we still have to watch through all this stuff!)

• Rooster Teeth at the 2007 European Machinima Festival
• Ask a Ninja Question 57 “Ninjazines.”
• Though I love what I do, I can also Dare to Dream with Wondermark.

Your store links: Rooster Teeth; Ask a Ninja; Wondermark.

Awards Announced For Europe’s First Machinima Festival // GamesIndustry.biz
The first machinima festival to be held in Europe took place at DMU in Leicester and in Second Life this weekend (12-14 October) and included a packed awards ceremony which recognised some of the best talent in this quickly-growing genre.

Machinima is a fusion of film-making and computer gaming, which is increasingly used as a quick and cost-effective way to create animated films and has a rapidly growing following. See www.machinimaeurope.co.uk for more info…

Burnie Burns and Jason Saldana of Rooster Teeth Productions, makers of the popular online sitcom Red vs Blue, performed during the festival and took part in panel discussions.

Click through to read the full article. Get to know these creators and their work. Buy their stuff.

Winners included:

• Best Picture, Best Visual Design, & Best Direction: Stolen Life by Nanoflix Productions
• Best Series: Grid Review
• Best Technical Achievement: Machinima Island
• Best Experimental: Cirque du Machinima, Cuckoo Clock
• Best Student Film: Machinima! with Officer Dan
• Best Story: Snow Witch by Britannica Dreams

Related readings:

• The Future of Machinima, Business Week
• Wikipedia entry on machinima

The Future of Machinima

“I think that machinima begins the moment a player stops interfacing with a virtual world in the context of a game,” says Burns, when probed for a definition of the genre. “A videogame is simply an amazing piece of technology that displays a virtual space in realtime. The ‘game’ is the set of rules you are given to interact with that world. The moment you choose to stop interacting with that place by the rules—and to start exploring the world on your own terms—then the game has ended and machinima has begun.”