discovered on the Boing Boing website:

“Strange Company have just released the first episode of their Machinima feature film, BloodSpell, under Creative Commons licensing (including a nice little rant on the page about why they’re releasing three years’ work for free.)

It’s described as a “post-goth punk fantasy adventure” about a world where some people are infected with magic in their blood – when the blood is spilled, the magic comes out.

Over 10,000 man-hours of work have gone into BloodSpell, 99% of which were volunteer work. The full film will be about the same scale as the first Star Wars movie in terms of number of sets, characters, and number and complexity of action sequences. ”

If you wonder what “machinima” means, here is the definition from the FAQ:

“Â Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies.In an expanded definition, it is the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development. Machinima is real-world filmmaking techniques applied within an interactive virtual space where characters and events can be either controlled by humans, scripts or artificial intelligence. By combining the techniques of filmmaking, animation production and the technology of real-time 3D game engines, Machinima makes for a very cost- and time-efficient way to produce films, with a large amount of creative control. “