selectparks - Free Tickets to ACMI Machinima Festival

If you'd like to write a review up for Selectparks you might be able to grab yourself a couple of free tickets to ACMI's Machinima Festival this weekend. Two free passes are available for budding journos for both the Saturday and Sunday. Email Games Lab's Helen Stuckey at Helen(dot)Stuckey(at)acmi(dot)net(dot)au.

Saturday 24 February 11am - 5:30pm,
Machinima Film Festival Showcase
ACMI Cinemas (breaks at 1 & 4pm)
Chock-full of international guests and heaps of highlights screenings, the full-day Machinima Film Festival Showcase surveys the latest and greatest in Machinima. Included in the program will be two sessions of festival highlights presented by Machinima Film festival director Paul Marino including Festival award winners The Adventures of Bill & John: Danger Attacks at Dawn, a Top Gun-meets-Dr Strangelove comedy about the two maverick pilots of dubious skills and ability; Male Restroom Etiquette , Phil Rice's hilarious 'instructional' piece on essential behaviour for 'draining the lizard', made using The Sims 2 and Sin City 4; and the sci-fi drama Edge of Remorse, an outstanding example of Machinima produced used the World of Warcraft game. The showcase day will also include a panel discussion on writing for Machinima chaired by author (Writing Your Screenplay) and Script Editor (Chopper) Lisa Dethridge; international guests Eddo Stern and Jessica Hutchins will present their work Darkgame and the machinima Landlord Vigilante and talk about the politics of hacking and modifying computer games to create machinima; and Paul Marino, Eddo Stern and Chris Dodds (selectparks) will talk about the unique cultural phenomenon of MMOG Machinima - films generated through Massively Multiplayer Online games.

Sun 25 February, 11am, ACMI Screen Pit
Making Machinima
Get the inside story of machinima production - with creator of FRAPS Rod Maher, Jacqui Turnure & Peter Rasmussen (Stolen Life, USA), AND presentation from Freidrich Kirschner (Person 2184, Austria) involving web cams, LEGO, Guitar Hero guitar, golf peripheral and much more.

Sunday 25 February 2pm,
Red vs. Blue Season 4 + post-screening Q & A with Rooster Teeth's Gus Sorola
Join Red vs. Blue co-creators and cast member Gus Sorola as they report on activities at Rooster Teeth HQ and intro the season that brought you "Bow-chicka-bow-wow". Launched on the Web in 2003 as a five-minute spoof of Xbox's signature game Halo, Red vs Blue is the most successful Machinima series ever produced, transcended its DIY fan-film origins to become an international phenomenon. Part locker-room humour, part Beckett-like absurdist tragicomedy, part wicked vivisection of game culture and sci-fi action films, each episode features spot-on comic dialogue, sharp editing and inventive direction.