The Crystal Method Team with Machinima for Exclusive Video Game Music Series [News]

The Crystal Method Team with Machinima for Exclusive Video Game Music Series Launching August 8 with Video for “Play For Real”.

On Monday, August 8, Machinima.com will launch The Machinima Music Video Series with the exclusive world premiere of a game-based animated music video for the never-before-released track “Play For Real” by THE CRYSTAL METHOD featuring The Heavy and directed by Machinima director Kootra. THE CRYSTAL METHOD (TCM) are one of the first of many extremely popular music artists paving the way with an original method of interacting with music, pioneering a new medium to listen to favorite artists while viewing story-based video game content.“Play For Real” is available now for one week only as a free download for the fans directly from THE CRYSTAL METHOD’s website www.thecrystalmethod.com. A digital EP including remixes of the song by Dirtyphonics, Le Castle Vania, Left/Right & Digital Pizza and Team Awesome will be released August 15 via TCM’s own Tiny e Records. Visit www.thecrystalmethod.com to grab it.

This weekly series pairs major artists with top Machinima directors to produce exclusive, original, animated, game-based music videos that will world premiere on the Machinima YouTube Network (YouTube.com/Machinima). In conjunction with the weekly music video premieres, there will also be on-air interviews and gameplay videos with the musicians themselves.Machinima bridges the gap between passive online video watchers and active video game players. This same audience consumes vast amounts of traditional media, especially music. Gamers crave the ability to interact with music in the same way they do with games and the videos they create and share every day. The word “machinima” is a mash up of the words “machine” and“cinema” and is used to describe the process of creating real-time animation by manipulating a video game’s engine and assets. This allows for the Machinima Network to be fully interactive with its audience, promoting talented directors from within, many of whom eventually go on to become the next generation’s important film, video and gaming artists.

Kootra (Jordan Mathewson), THE CRYSTAL METHOD’s video game video music director, began making Machinima in April 2008 and is one of its earliest successes in the program, with hundreds of videos to his name. His technical skills as a director and editor are generally far ahead of many of his peers, and his content can always be counted on to be fresh and original. Hailing from Denver, CO, the 20-year old has around 150k subscribers to his personal YouTube channel and has had several hit videos on Machinima, each garnering hundreds of thousands of views. He was featured in an article about Machnima in the Los Angeles Times last year and is currently working on a Machinima studio project in Los Angeles.

Regarding the “Play For Real” music video, Kootra explains, “It was created inside the environment of Borderlands, the highly popular sci-fi based video game released in 2009, using the Unreal Editor, a fully integrated editing environment. I chose that game specifically because I thought Clap-Traps, small robots in the game, fit the song style very well. They’re very interactive characters in the game, and although are oftentimes used for target practice, they always add that comical twist to any video.” He started out by building the set from scratch, and then assembled everything in the editing program, including several custom animations. He finalized the video by recording it to match up with the song.

Why this music video series? Machinima directors love to use great songs in their videos. To do this they need artist approvals and licenses to create original Machinima videos and this can be a frustrating process. Machinima decided to service this need, bridging the gap between the musicians and the talented young directors and animators in Machinima’s network and provide them with major artist licensed songs to create their videos. To make this happen, Machinima asked acclaimed music supervisor for film and TV, Budd Carr (Terminator, Natural Born Killers, Wall Street, “Californication,” “Savages”) to help produce the series. “I have been a fan of Machinima for some time,” said Mr. Carr. “I was sure that there were major artists who would jump at the chance to have an original animated video created to promote one of their songs to Machinima’s vast audience.”

Budd Carr and Jeremy Azevedo, Director of Entertainment Programming at Machinima.com, approached the artists and directors to make this series a reality. So far the following acts have agreed to grant Machinima licenses for one or two of their new or unreleased tracks for the series and more artists will be announced soon. All videos will carry a link to the artist’s web page and their iTunes page to download the track. Other artists confirmed to participate in the Machinima Music Video Series include Rob Zombie, Paul Oakenfold, Black Label Society, Porter Robinson and David Valentine from Electric Six.  Machinima’s first exclusive game music video with Avenged Sevenfold is currently approaching 5 million views on YouTube.

Exclusive tracks from acclaimed artists such as THE CRYSTAL METHOD, paired with top Machinima directors, can easily achieve these kinds of views or more. This series will open the door to many promotional, marketing and interactive opportunities the likes of which have been largely unavailable under the current promotional model for the music industry.

Meanwhile, THE CRYSTAL METHOD will set off on a DJ tour this summer as featured artists on this summer’s debut of IDentity Festival, presented by Skullcandy. It is the first-ever touring electronic ONLY music festival that will visit major outdoor amphitheatres throughout North America in August and September and give fans the full electronic music experience. More than 20 shows are on tap for this exciting new traveling extravaganza with top-tier artists performing on multiple stages starting in the afternoon and into the night. The line-up for IDentity—which is set to further galvanize the electronic music explosion—is highlighted by the hottest cutting-edge artists of the genre including Kaskade, Pretty Lights, Rusko, Avicii, Steve Aoki,Disco Biscuits, DJ Shadow and many more. For all up-to-date information, please visit www.IDFestival.com.

THE CRYSTAL METHOD will be appearing on all IDENTITY FESTIVAL dates this summer: