AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Associated Press story about Machinima project in the AFI Digital Content Lab - posted to SF Gate

NEW YORK, (AP) –Imagine a TV show created especially for you. Actors, sets and props would be completely customized depending on factors like your age, sex and location. Even the product placement would be tailor-made to suit you.

Online video game developer Kuma Games, in conjunction with the American Film Institute’s Digital Content Lab, have developed such a storytelling device that merges instantaneous personalization with computer-generated filmmaking.

“With TV, this is simply impossible,” says Kuma Games CEO Keith Halper. “You can’t change things inside video. You can’t change them the way that we do in video games and on Web sites. You can’t measure their performance in real time. We’re taking that stuff from video games and bringing it to TV, which is a huge and important market.”

At last month’s AFI DigiFest 2007 in Los Angeles, Kuma Games, best known for their military reenactment online games, unveiled PG and R-rated versions of “Leaving the Game,” an animated short film about a sultry former assassin named Amber who attempts to land a more mundane job to pay the bills.

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To see the AP story as video, check out: Yahoo News