LOOT Announces EOD Greenlight
by NorseGamer, HSM Publisher
“Yes, but I think with government backing, I could make it really silly.”
–Monty Python, The Ministry of Silly Walks
Paradoxically, even as machinima tools for PlayStation Home become cheaper and more widespread, it’s become harder to get finished machinima into Home itself. Leaving aside the fact that there’s far more product shouting for attention — any crowded marketplace becomes a crucible in which only the most superlative material is noticed — the reality is that there are only two main curators through which the overwhelming majority of machinima gets featured in Home: PSTalent’s DIRECTOR_ON_DUTY, and, uh…me.
“It’s not fair,” one semi-prominent machinimist (speaking on condition of anonymity) said. “Used to be, back in the day, all you had to do was own a Hauppauge and kiss Cade’s ass. At least, that’s what I was told. But now I have to either sign away my firstborn child to PSTalent or kiss HSM’s ass, and after five years of being told Norse was the devil incarnate, I hate the guy’s guts even though I’ve never met him.”
Given the rapid proliferation of LOOT’s portable EOD throughout both SCEA and SCEE Home userbases, its staggering audience numbers make it a very attractive medium which Home’s new generation of machinimists aspire to see themselves published upon. However, rather than seeking to go through established submission processes, there are a growing number of voices who simply want their own EOD channel.
“I just can’t get motivated unless I know — up front — my work is going to be shown to the entire Home community and appreciated for its brilliance,” says another machinimist. “Without that minimum guarantee, why bother? Okay, so I haven’t done anything much in the last two years because of some political BS with people trying to drag me down. But look at how clever my 360° camera angles were back in 2010! I mean, that speaks for itself. I even spammed F5 on my YouTube links to get thousands of hits. You know how long that took? I feel that if I had my own EOD channel, me and my friends could really bring it to PS Home, yo.”
“I was in closed beta,” a third machinimist succinctly states. “I deserve it.”
Thus, in order to foster community engagement, LOOT has announced an exciting new contest for Home filmmakers: EOD Greenlight. And the winner gets his own EOD channel!
It gets better. In order to make the contest as accessible and egalitarian as possible, the following contest criteria have been established:
- 360p SD entries will now be accepted. The previous requirement of machinima being captured in Home’s native HD resolution of 720p was just an excuse to discriminate against anyone who wasn’t super-rich and equipped with a Hauppauge or an Elgato. We don’t care if your video is so pixelated that it makes the Shroud of Turin look like a Hubble Space Telescope photo; it’s your masterpiece, dammit, and maybe it’s even an artistic statement about an obscure metaphor. Or something.
- Only Windows Movie Maker can be used for editing and post-production effects. Seriously, eff the Good Ol’ Boys club that uses fancy software like Sony Vegas and Adobe After Effects. Those guys could chroma-key Tom Cruise performing Matrix stunts inside Home Square. That’s hardly fair. By taking away all the rich-boy toys, we make it a level playing field.
- Don’t worry about music licensing rights. Really, all that legal mumbo-jumbo is just overblown, anyway. We all know you need that one Katy Perry track to make your work shine. You shouldn’t be penalized because you can’t afford to license music, since it’s so hard to come by, anyway. And that royalty-free music that you can get for free? Those websites suck. Seriously, it all sounds like a generic John Tesh drumkit synthesizer. Ugh.
- Professional voice-overs are an automatic disqualification. We don’t care if you’ve resurrected Orson Welles to read the Home EULA. Home doesn’t sound like that. Only in-Home audio captured via the R2 chat interface will be accepted. We believe in the concept of cinéma vérité at LOOT, and presenting chat audio is part of the experience.
- Videos consisting of one long, unbroken master shot will be considered acceptable candidates.
There is no limit on running time. If your masterpiece takes 70 minutes to fully explore, then by God, the Home community will sit through seventy minutes of your insight. Take a stand against shorter attention spans with something so compelling that it forces people to watch.
As an added benefit: for the contest winner, LOOT has waived any requirement to continue producing content on a regular — or even semi-regular — basis after your channel is set up. Your past accomplishments alone speak for themselves. Because this isn’t about giving back to the community; it’s about seeing your name in lights. And EOD Greenlight is here to make you a star.
(…You know what’s hilarious? Even though this is an April Fools Day article, I’ll bet there are people reading this who really wish this was reality. Seriously, if you want tips and advice on getting your machinima featured in Home via the HSM EOD Channel, shoot me an e-mail at norsegamer@hsmagazine.net and let’s chat.)
April 1st, 2014 by NorseGamer | 5 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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Okay so I was thinking this is too good to be true -- and not thinking about today’s date -- I tweeted out how awesome this is. Welp.. well played.
You got me. XD
“LOOT has waived any requirement to continue producing content on a regular -- or semi-regular -- basis after your channel is set up.”
That statement reminded me of Susan’s article about the state of Home’s cinema complex. Apparently, Sony already waived that requirement some time ago.
;^) Heh. I knew the date, but with the first few paragraphs I couldn’t be sure either way. I was thinking maybe you should have waited a day or two before announcing this, so as to avoid confusion.
Then as I continued, it became quite clear. Well done, Norse. Well, done.
Funny thing is…at the office, everyone thought EOD Greenlight was actually a really cool idea. Were this a few years ago, we probably would’ve run it as a LOOT community contest.
Definitely getting a kick out of all the various reactions so far.
My wife got me with it! lol
She mention the contest last night. I remembered seeing the title somewhere but at the moment I didn’t rememered where or when….
I’m not a machinimist myself but I sure thought those I know should get a shot at it!