I recently got the chance to talk to Myndflame's Clint Hackleman about machinima, composing music and switching between a Druid, Priest and Death Knight in World of Warcraft. While Clint kept quiet on Myndflame's future projects, he was very open with his thoughts on the machinima genre and even supplied some advice for aspiring artists. To get in the mood, I suggest you go watch "Defias Mightiest," a Myndflame production featuring Clint's original song from VanCleef's perspective in World of Warcraft. Then you can read on to find out what truly makes Clint's creativity tick (hint: it involves alpha gorillas and feces).

Togikagi: Before we get into the questions, could you supply our readers with your background in Machinima and a list of the movies you've worked on? Also, could you give us some background on the Myndflame team?

Clint: There are two of us that work on productions at Myndflame ; myself (Clint Hackleman), and my brother D.W. Hackleman. Using the power of our jewel shards, we've created many Machinima videos, but we're most well known for "Illegal Danish: Super Snacks " and our short videos like "Epic Flight Form " and "Learn 2 Play ". Some of our more recent work includes "A Hallow's End Special ", "Fruit of Elune – Underpants for Night Elves ", and the "Slim Jim WoW Machinima ". D.W. leads the visuals (video director, editing, special effects), and I do sound and music as well as many of the voice acting roles. Prominent local voice actors are Kris Haughey, Kevin Haughey, and Amanda Baker.

Togikagi: First thing's first: How did you get into machinima? What drew you to the art form?

Clint : D.W. and I always had a fascination with movies and joked for years about making them together. His experience in video editing and mine in sound and music was a great foundation to work with, but it wasn't until D.W. created a short video called "Zinwrath: A Story " that we realized there was a real opportunity and demand for stories made using the World of Warcraft game engine. We decided to work together and, with the help and inspiration of a few friends, we created "Zinwrath: The Movie ". It was an epic mess of a production, and despite our total lack of planning and experience, people really enjoyed it. After that we were hooked.

Togikagi : What have you learned about making machinima throughout the years? In a similar vein, if you could go back in time and change anything about how "Zinwrath: The Movie" was made, what would it be?

Clint : We both had an idea of what we wanted out of Zinwrath, but neither of us had any formal training or experience creating videos together. This immediately caused panic to ensue, as neither of us really had any idea wtf we were doing and, like all aspiring professionals, we created a project way bigger than we could possibly achieve and scheduled it to be done before Blizzard's first Machinima Contest. Impossible!

So what would I have done differently? P-L-A-N! If we had spent a bit more time learning how to plan for a movie production a lot of wasted time and sleep deprivation could have been avoided.

Togikagi: Can you tell us a little bit about the creative process surrounding some of your movies? What are some of the similarities and differences between working on a larger piece, such as Illegal Danish, and the shorter music videos?

Clint : Imagine a bunch of gorillas trapped in a small room with the task of creating a blockbuster movie. With promises of bounteous bananas on its completion, several alpha gorillas quickly become dominant and begin shouting outrageous demands and impossible deadlines upon the other gorillas. Detecting the intense scrutiny, they all begin throwing feces. Frustrated and weary, the alpha gorillas remind the others of the bountiful bananas. Focus is restored. Or so they thought… because the next day several of the gorillas decided not to show up, intensifying the workload for the others. More feces are thrown, and one of them lights the room on fire. All is lost.

But the alpha gorillas, determined to get those damned bananas decide to rebuild the room and start over. Many more feces are thrown, but the job is completed. The alpha gorillas, while enjoying their bananas, come up with a plan to get more bananas with fewer gorillas and less feces throwing, and thus, the idea for shorter videos was conceived.

Togikagi : What are your thoughts on the current state of machinima and where do you see it heading in the future? Many machinima movies today rival big-budget Hollywood movies. Do you think machinima will ultimately enter mainstream media?

Clint : Trying to figure out where Machinima ends and Animation starts is a mess in itself. People are still not sure what defines the scope of the genre and new techniques continue to fill the giant gray area to mammoth proportions. These types of disagreements caused WoW Machinima to get a late adoption amongst Machinima critics and erupted in personal disputes like nearly all references to our movies and Myndflame on Wikipedia being cited "Non-Notable", including "Illegal Danish: Super Snacks " which was deleted.

With this type of instability still existing today, it's hard to say whether Machinima as a genre will enter the mainstream media in a big way anytime soon. However, I have no doubt that many producers will move on from their Machinima productions and have lucrative careers in Machinima and the entertainment industry. In fact, some already have.

Togikagi : You recently released some albums on iTunes and have "Defias Mightiest" and the "Death Knights Ride Bikes" demo out there for World of Warcraft fans. Can you tell us a little more about composing? How do you feel original music helps enhance machinima?

Clint : When you've got a visual guru like D.W. editing some of the most stunning scenes I've ever seen in a Machinima, your ears need equilibrium to capture the moment. Likewise, if your choice of music has too much razzle dazzle, the viewer might get lost in the moment with thoughts of a flying bicycle passing by the moon with an alien on it. Fail.

Incorporating great music in Machinima makes a viewer crap rainbows when under any normal circumstance they'd be thinking about how that epic shot of their favorite character on the sunset looks kinda like the toon they just logged off of 7 minutes ago. While a lot of editors really push the envelope on visuals, you just can't pump out 30 frames a second of insane eye-popping visual madness throughout 20-30 minutes of footage without questioning the very purpose of using Machinima in the first place. The music serves as a fallback to keep the pace during visually stagnant moments while enhancement moments of drama, humor, and action.

I write all kinds of music which I'll simply categorize as S illy music and Serious music. Ironically people absolutely love the silly music which is why I still write it. "MC Raiders ", "Learn 2 Play ", "Defias Mightiest ", and soon a full version of "Death Knights Ride Bikes " ... yes, are all examples of silly music. While I understand that many of you can relate to the silly music because it has words, the thought of thousands of people out there with my below average singing voice as their ringtone is a bit creepy. I have a lot of fun with all the music I write, but I ask you, no… beg you to spend a little more time discovering some of my other music so I can produce more albums that I don't cringe at the thought of sending to my grandmother.

Here are all the places you can stream and download my available music:

·          E-Music

·          iTunes

·          Rhapsody

·          Amazon.com

·          Napster.com

Togikagi : Let's talk about Myndflame.com. You updated the site in November. Why the change?

Clint : Earlier I mentioned that it's going to take a lot more than great movies to move Machinima forward. As a producer, I wanted a site that had tools specifically designed around the types of things we need for our own success. Fast, high quality video streaming, blogs, images, songs, files, and a way to get the community involved. I spent a lot of time developing that idea before coming to the conclusion that my brain was going to explode if I had to debug yet another massive site overhaul while our fans continued to send death threats demanding more free entertainment.

I vowed to make 2008 my last year as site developer and host and teamed up with Game Riot to move the vision forward. Though I still moderate and am involved in the direction of the site, it has opened up a lot of time to focus on making movies instead of developing a site to put our movies on.

Togikagi : Your site brings together Machinima producers. What are some movies that have really impressed you and what techniques have they implemented that make them stand out from the crowd?

Clint :  "Northrend Wonderland " by Firebolt Productions was my favorite Christmas movie. Particularly because I always enjoy a good music video and the clever lyrics and fantastic editing meshed so well. Most recently, Percula released "The Craft of War: Blind ", a debut video which, if you're any fan of Machinima, you've already seen. While there's no dialogue and limited story, you're too busy watching the WoW models come to life in a way that I'm sure had other producers wiping drool from their chins. Martin Falch's "Divided Soul " was probably the most polished WoW drama of 2008, and I'm sure has inspired many others that tasteful drama is possible. Jun Falkenstein's series "Snacky's Journal " is always so well done. Her writing has been a constant reminder of how much we can improve by taking more time studying the fundamentals of story writing.

And who can forget Wrath Gate? Sure it's produced by Blizzard, but did you know two of those guys came from the WoW Machinima community? Terran (with Ezra) formed Rufus Cubed which was responsible for Return, a phenomenal and inspirational drama during its time (and still today). And Tristan with the comical Switcher Series produced tons of Machinima movies while we were still figuring out what Machinima was.

Togikagi : Speaking of techniques, can you tell us a little about the technical and production aspects of making Machinima? For example, how long does it take to make a film (depend on its length, of course) and how do you go about getting all the necessary footage?

Clint : Most of our background footage is captured on live servers then edited to fit the scene, whereas the character models are composited in using WoW Model Viewer and later color corrected and motion tracked to match the lighting. We found it was easier this way after many of the original characters we used changed or lost gear or we didn't have enough puppeteers to control the characters. Our shorter videos are typically produced in about 2-4 weeks with longer productions having taken about 2-4 months depending on technical aspects, availability of the voice actors, and overall length.

Generally we try to create a script and storyboard first, and then I begin working on the music, casting, and assembling the scenes in audio format while D.W. creates the characters, maps out the locations, and works on other pre-production elements. Once a scene is recorded in audio it's passed on to D.W. and a visual draft for each scene is created and passed back to me for edits while he polishes and adds special effects in After Effects. Once we have all the scenes created we start putting them together and piecing together the story, adding scene transitions and evaluating the flow of everything to see if it's working. If all goes as planned, the video is then exported as a draft and undergoes a series of final audio and video revisions before a final render is made.

Togikagi : What advice do you have for aspiring Machinima producers?

Clint : If you've always wanted to create movies but don't have the resources or experience to pick up a camera and start shooting that epic film that's been dancing around in your head, Machinima is a great way to learn the fundamentals of movie making. Expect to spend a lot of time reading tutorials and learning and don't be afraid to reach out to the community and ask for help. If you're looking to create or join a Machinima team, make sure you can provide at least one essential role and give real examples or links to your work as the desire to do so won't get you far and may result in the throwing of feces.

Start with small projects! Stay within a few minutes and keep it simple. Capture footage directly from the game and add some simple voice work and sound effects.

When you do get to the point of releasing a video, prepare to be loved, hated, complimented, flamed, and possibly torn to pieces by self proclaimed "experts". Don't anticipate being compensated or getting famous because Machinima is like building your own vacuum cleaner.

At first you'll be happy when it sucks dirt off the floor, but let's face it, it's a monstrosity only you could love and tends to pull some of the carpet up with the dirt. You'll get the bright idea that you don't need a bag until the day that it explodes, at which point you'll want to throw it over a balcony or hillside. Your neighbors will complain because it breaks noise ordinances at the county and state level, and the police may show up and put you in jail if they discover its radioactive components. If you do finally get it working, don't try to sell it. Some ass at Hoover owns the patent. But it's your vacuum and you built it. So love it and show it your remaining friends. If you're ambitious you can keep building better vacuums, and maybe one day, even change the way people think about vacuum cleaners forever.

I'd better stop there.

Togikagi : Can you give us any details on your upcoming projects?

Clint : I always get in trouble when I answer that question. But whatever we're working on, it's likely to be our biggest catastrophe yet.

Togikagi : Can you tell us a little bit about your World of Warcraft play style? Race, class, all that good stuff. Also, do you play any other MMOs?

Clint : I rolled a druid in open beta all excited that I'd have a versatile role in groups. My versatility came in the form of not letting anyone die because I only had one rez and it was on a 30 minute cool down. At least I had a cool buff. But really the class sucked ass for years, though that's probably a moot point given that they're perceived much differently now. That druid was Rasi from "Illegal Danish", and the continuous balance changes inspired all the juicy dialogue for "Super Snacks" and "Epic Flight Form".

Since druids were second rate healers for a long while, I thought I'd roll a priest since my spot in groups was pretty much expected to heal, and figured that'd give me a better chance to explore the other useless talent specs on my druid at the time. I went through all the 40-man raids switching between the two and logged way too much time before taking a break prior to TBC. I had a comeback as a horde druid until they nerfed bear tanks. It was the first time I'd really felt useful with feral spec, and after that I got bored until they brought some balance back to the class.

Today I still play Rasi though I haven't even made it to level 80 yet. I've been playing a Death Knight instead (horde) and joined the most horrible guild I could find. I've played WoW every way you can play WoW, hardcore, casual, solo, even leveling two characters up on a Tablet PC barely capable of running the game with a 10" screen exclusively on a 14k cell phone modem. I finally blew the thing up and upgraded to a Dell XPS 1210 which has been pretty good when I'm on the road and visiting friends. Thank God they all have broadband now.

I've tried some other MMOs, but probably wouldn't have if I didn't get them free.  I still think WoW is the most fun.  Some people say it's easy now, but there are plenty of ways to change that. Pull everything you see, everywhere, all the time. Join terrible parties and guilds where you matter more. Roll a new class and don't twink. Find a friend that's never played an MMO and level up with them. That's how I roll.

Togikagi: Thanks, Clint! We're looking forward to your future projects.

Darryl "Togikagi" Gangloff
News reporter
Allakhazam.com