10 Years of Smashtasm, pioneer of an unfulfilled promise · 3:43pm May 22nd, 2017

10 years have passed since the first episode of a promising project aired, 10 years have passed for an innovation in the media, 10 years have passed since this pioneer of machinimas has fallen into oblivion.

Before we start, let me clear something:

What is a machinima?

A machinima is an animated film using video games, any tape that uses characters, scenarios or video game engine is a machinima. The key to making one is that creation takes place in real time. The word "machinima" is a mixture of the words "machine" and "cinema".
This form of entertainment is very new, started in the 90's with games like Quake and game mods, digital videos and the Internet, then expanding to websites like Youtube, with masterpieces such as "Red vs Blue" and "Make Love, Not Warcraft". Many people had problems with them due to copyright issues and "not being a proper movie", but it was a good way to present another form of art.

Now, how to make a machinima?

Like a movie: preproduction, production and post production, and the steps are almost the same.

-Have an original story.
-If your story is going to have voice acting, get good voice actors.
-Buy a screen recorder.
-Use good editing software (Windows XP or Windows Movie Maker, Sony Vegas, I-Movie).
-Buy a computer microphone.
-Shooting
-Make good use of the camera.
-Avoid interruptions, cuts and jumps of scenes
-Let the voices be heard well.

Now into Smashtasm:

Plot: Super64 is a rookie who's invited to a tournament by the mysterious Killa7. But when he finds out that everything is a farce, he'll have to find him to give him what he deserves. During his quest he'll bump into other characters who might help him or not, like the hacker 1337F0x.

The plot and running time are simple and it has a lot of absurd humor, with a non coherent pacing and a slow start... but it also has something unique for its own perspective: you see, when machinima started, many people took the character in game and modeled them a personality based on their likes. This was the first time were the characters, the stars of the show, were not the in-game characters, but the players behind them. Also, it was one of the first machinimas to have voice acting. Both of these elements make the illusion of online chat... before online chat actually existed!

Also, while Halo and Warcraft machinimas were popular and had a long history behind them, this was the first time a Super Smash Bros. machinima was made, and eventually this success was followed by other Smash machinimas such as Peach's Slutty Adventure and its sequels (Wolf's Retarded Mission and Not Exactly Royalty), Brawlgasm and Smash King. And unlike them, Shippiddge (the creator), had the deceny to finish the first season, giving it a beginning and an end. Sadly, the second season was never finished due to Shippiddge's creative tireness and the decay of machinima in general.

When I was in high school, I did an exposition about machinimas, saying it was going to be revolutionary and that soon enough, we were going to premiere them in cinemas. Nowadays, almost ten years later, things have changed. Machinima.com is going down, the movies and series based on videogames have shown they're not profitable and Youtube is having more and more restrictions. Season 2 of Smashtasm will forever be incomplete and for some of us is going to be only nostalgic material, but it could've been more, much more.

I'll leave you the first season of this series for watching. After you finish, I'd like you to leave your opinions about it and tell me what do you think of it.