Computer games and movies have long gone hand in hand, from Tron, the 1982 tale of a man sucked into his computer, which set the standard and launched a series of coin-operated arcade games, to computer generated imaging (CGI), which has become the mainstay of action movies, such as the Matrix and its sequels.
But Hollywood's attempts to turn games into movies have been far less rewarding: Tomb Raider and Super Mario spawned forgettable big screen pictures. The real intersection of video gaming and film is taking place in homes far from Hollywood.
Hip film-makers and computer games aficionados are building animated films using the code that generates the 3-D worlds of popular action games such as Quake II or Halo. They call it machinima (which rhymes with cinema), for machine animation.
"Machinima is just a new way to create films," says Paul Marino, a former television animator, who now runs the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, which promotes the genre. The first machinima appeared in 1996 when enthusiastic gamers started creating short movies of their game play. Film-makers and professional animators, like Marino, have since begun to get in on the act.
Last month, 700 machinimators and fans gathered in New York for the 2nd Machinima Awards. More than 100 film-makers from the US, Britain and Germany were up for awards in categories such as Best Film, Best Writing and Best Direction.
The undoubted winner was the Red vs Blue. This series of shorts features soldiers from Microsoft's Halo getting bored with war, pondering their existence and - often unwittingly - shooting each other.
One runner-up, The Waltons Clean Up, looks at what happens to the characters in a computer game after the humans stop playing: think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet Quake II. Another shortlisted movie, In the Waiting Line, a music video for London electronica duo, Zero 7, has even aired on MTV.
The gamut of machinima ranges from the hobbyist to the semi-professional. What they have in common is that they use the 3-D rendering engines developed for first-person action games. Quake II is one of the more popular rendering engines, but machinamators are using other tools such as Halo and Quake III.
The constraints on this approach are obvious. Characters need to look like those in the games. Needless to say, most are futuristic soldiers in body armour, carrying improbable weapons. Every scene is tightly constrained, taking place within one of the levels. This means the script needs to be razor sharp: Red vs Blue is among the best with its intelligent, witty dialogue.
It is possible to design your own custom characters and props. Rather like traditional film-makers scouting for locations and casting actors, professional machinima increasingly relies on customised virtual sets and unique characters. This gets expensive and may require graphic and animation skills amateurs don't have. Hobbyists need not go this far: some of the best machinima uses the characters and sets in the games combined with blood, sweat and tears.
But, in general, making machinima is similar to the approach used by Pixar to make movies such as Toy Story or Finding Nemo. The main difference is cost. Machinima is hacked together using technology designed to make something else - computer games. Most of Pixar's tools are proprietary and have been developed at a cost of millions of dollars.
Edinburgh-based Strange Company, which makes commercial machinima, has produced a four-minute short on a £4,000 budget. The firm is raising £500,000 to fund Steelwight, a series of 44-minute machinima films, says its boss, Hugh Hancock.
So is it any good? The format is still experimental and reflects its gaming roots. Science-fiction plots with action and overly excitable camera work seem commonplace. The technology limits characters' gestures and expressions, with a concomitant restriction on what you can do with them.
However, things are changing. Games developers have wised up to the market and some games due next year will feature tools for machinators. Also dedicated systems, such as Kelseus' Antics, are in the pipeline.
And more machinima is being made. The result is a divergence of quality: there are both unmissable and forgettable films around. But, as Hancock says, "before you can make a good film, you will probably have to make a bad one".
