Walled channels

Machinima distributed in this quadrant is intended for viewing within private networks (e.g. investors, colleagues, co-developers). Works are not intended for general community viewing and may be prevented from entering the public domain for reasons of confidentiality, security, copyright, etc.

Audiences are unlikely to be motivated by game-specific subjects or themes and therefore the machinimator’s production environment can be chosen on the basis of suitability and / or personal preference. The use of bespoke packages (e.g. iClone, Moviestorm) or commercially available game-engines (e.g. UE4) is common for machinima distributed through walled channels.

Whereas the creation of machinima works will be equally dependent upon expertise and knowledge of chosen platform, the emphasis moves away from performance and towards more general cinematic and artistic production techniques (e.g. scripting, asset compositing, editing, voice-over, special effects, etc.)

The use of 3D game-engines as pre-visualization (or pre-viz) tools during the pre-production stage of commercial film production (Nitsche, 2009) is a good example of machinima distributed via walled channels. Ultimately, machinima in this quadrant may become viewable for more general audiences but it may also be subsumed within other genres of creativity (such as live action film) before it reaches a passive and paying viewer.