(Dell is holding a machinima contest, which we'll discuss shortly. They asked me to write a tutorial to help new machinimators get their start.)

Every day, I feature a video by some brave soul that dived in head first into the world of machinima. For those that aren't familiar with the term, it stands for machine and cinema. The literal definition is movies made in a 3D gaming platform. Using this basic guide, as well as the other tutorials and resources available to you, you'll be creating your first project in no time!

Here is what you'll need if you want to make a machinima for free:

• WeGame camera - A free capturing program
• GIMP - A free image editing program
• Audacity - A free audio editing program
• Windows Movie Maker/iMovie - Free video editing programs that should have come with your appropriate system

[Thanks for originally suggesting this, Bryan!]

Read on for optional and advanced tools, plus additional resources ...

Just in case you weren't at the Machinima Europe Festival the other weekend, you might like to know: Bloodspell is out. The feature-length machinima film (created with Neverwinter Nights) has been released, in both streaming and downloadable versions. The film was released by machinimakers Strange Company, who have also worked in Azeroth before. And two of them, founder Hugh Hancock and Johnnie Ingram, were nice enough to sit down and chat with us about Bloodspell, the future of Machinima, and their new book, Machinima for Dummies.

Still no word on the Bloodspell DVD, which we were told was going to be released as a downloadable disk with all kinds of commentaries and extras. Strange Company only says that it is still coming, in the next two or three months. And if you can't bear to watch anything that hasn't been created in WoW, there's good news for you, too-- Hugh tells us that he is planning to work on more WoW machinima soon.

Lots of good news recently on the WoW Machinima front -- both for fans and artists. First, we had Blizzard's recent "open letter" to the machinimators of Warcraft letting them know just what they can and can't get away with. In that, they also offered a contact to the artists on how to get more information if the letter wasn't good enough to codify things. Follow that with some fabulous new machinima out recently from Oxhorn, Baron Soosdon, and many others.

And then we see on the Machinima for Dummies blog, and in a great tip mail from Hugh, that Machinima Europe has announced their nominees for this year. Among the many entries from all across the world are a few solid entries from WoW! In the "Best Commercial/Game" category, we have 4 commercials for MtvU by Oxhorn. Later down the page we see that Oxhorn has received another nomination for yet another machinima -- Hark! Hear the Wails in the "Best Sound" category. Further down we see the third and final WoW nomination into this years' Machinima Europe awards, Azerothian Super Villains (Episode 3) by Ian Beckman. Hopefully they both will come away with awards and even more recognition for their fabulous creativity.

Best of luck to all of the nominees this year, but especially to our WoW machinimators -- without whom, WoW Moviewatch (and many lunch-hour viewings) wouldn't be possible.

[Thanks, Hugh!]