The Hunt – Archaeological Machinima

I’ve posted about machinima and archaeology before, and posted a short effort that I made last Spring. This time we have a slightly longer effort that is part of the result of a class that Ruth and I were teaching called “Serious Games and Virtual Worlds for Archaeology and Imagining the Past.” The class ended up being very different than what we imagined it being, but we learned a lot and have been publishing the results in various venues.  The first is this cut of a couple of scenes we filmed last semester.

The scenes were scripted by the students, using what they had learned about Catalhoyuk from The Leopard’s Tale and a few other research articles.  They built and scripted some of the items, changed their avatars, and acted out the parts in Second Life.  It was an ambitious effort and difficult in all respects, but the students were up to the challenge.  Ruth “shot” the video and we both edited it together into this short film for the Computer Applications in Archaeology conference in April.  We hope to integrate it into a slightly longer film for the SAAs as well.

Frankly, I think it’s pretty hilarious and there are a lot of mistakes in it, but it’s in good fun and the students learned a lot while making it.  Oh, and Ruth is the green person.  She doesn’t like to change her skin color.

Author: colleenmorgan

Dr. Colleen Morgan (ORCID 0000-0001-6907-5535) is the Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She conducts research on digital media and archaeology, with a special focus on embodiment, avatars, genetics and bioarchaeology. She is interested in building archaeological narratives with emerging technology, including photography, video, mobile and locative devices. Through archaeological making she explores past lifeways and our current understanding of heritage, especially regarding issues of authority, authenticity, and identity. View all posts by colleenmorgan