Clear Skies (machinima)

Clear Skies is a machinima series created by Ian Chisholm. The series is based on the fictional universe of the game Eve Online. The first film was released on May 29, 2008, followed by two sequels in 2009 and 2011.

Clear Skies
Engine(s)Source engine
Eve Online
Genre(s)Space Western
Running time39:14 (Clear Skies)
45:57 (Clear Skies 2)
73:33 (Clear Skies 3)
Created byIan Chisholm
Richie Powles
VoicesIan Chisholm
Richie Powles
Shazia Rochford
John Guthrie
Dan Ellis
Ricky Grove
Robert Brian Duff
Mark Kindell
Darren Blake
Mark Germany
Andy Carter
Brett Hawkins
Fay Wheeler
Andrew Salter
Nick Mahon
Paul Rochford
Ken Roberts
Kate Ertan
Francis Capra
Ellie Smith
Brett Hawkins
Kerrie Holland
Ewald Gartner
Roseanna Webb
Kerry Rose
Release(s)May 29, 2008 – May 29, 2011
Format(s)Windows Media

Plot

The plot follows the crew of the Minmatar Tempest class battleship Clear Skies as they try to make a living in New Eden. The story begins with the ship's captain, John Rourke, negotiating the price of repairs for the ship at a space station, presumably following a pirate attack. The repairs leave them out of cash and looking for a new contract. Rourke finds a contract to transport Mr Smith—"an idiot in a shiny suit"—a short distance through the fringes of normally safe Empire space, with an unusually high payout. The crew grudgingly accepts the 'death trap' contract as the only applicable option in an unfruitful search.

Characters
  • John Rourke voiced by Ian Chisholm
  • Solomon Burke voiced by Richie Powles
  • Charlie Fodder voiced by John Guthrie
  • Tarquin Smith voiced by Dan Ellis
  • Sascha Culhane voiced by Shazia Rochford
  • Falcon Hausmann voiced by Ricky Grove
  • Guy "Ghost" Stone voiced by Francis Capra

Production

The first two films were created using Editstudio 5, CoolEdit 96, FRAPs, the Source SDK and PaintShop Pro. For the production of the third film Chisholm used Sony Vegas Pro 9, Adobe Aftereffects, Paintshop Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Cooledit 96, FRAPs, IPISoft Markerless Motion capture, Softimage XSI, CCP's in-house "Melissa engine", used for their game trailers, and the Source SDK.

In January 2020, Ian Chisholm stated Clear Skies 4 will be moving away from the Half Life Engine. He plans to use the 3D animation software iClone7 for production of the latest work in the series. According to this post, the script is complete after 9 months of work.[1]

A few months later Chisholm posted a request for volunteers to work on the project. He estimates 2–3 years work will be required to complete the next movie.[2]

Reception

The reception to the films, while mostly confined to forums of Eve Online, has been overwhelmingly favourable.[3][4][5] Notably, CCP have featured Clear Skies on the player news page and on the ingame news section.[6][7]

On the main distribution platform, EVE Files, Clear Skies has been downloaded via BitTorrent over 13000 times[8] and Clear Skies 2 notes over 23000 torrent downloads.[9] Within the first 24 hours since release Clear Skies 3 was downloaded over 5000 times via BitTorrent.[10]

Massively.com's James Egan calls Clear Skies a "machinima masterpiece".[11]

In the year of the release, the first film won the Mackie Award in the category Best Long Format Film at the New York Machinima FilmFest 2008 [12][13] and the Grand Prize Jury Award of the Machinima Expo.[14] Clear Skies 2 won the Jury Award of the Machinima Expo in 2009[14] and the public choice award at the Atopic Festival de films Machinima 2010.[15]

Notes
  1. "Ian Chisholm". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  2. "Ian Chisholm". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  3. Clear Skies http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=783871 Archived 2011-05-08 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Clear Skies 2 http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1069015 Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Clear Skies 3 http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1518865 Archived 2011-06-02 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Clear Skies 2 released "EVE Online | EVE Insider". Archived from the original on 2009-05-19. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
  7. Breaking News: Clear Skies III released "EVE Online | EVE Insider". Archived from the original on 2011-08-04. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
  8. "EVE Files: CLEAR_SKIES.WMV". Archived from the original on 2013-11-10. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
  9. "EVE Files: CLEAR_SKIES2.WMV". Archived from the original on 2013-11-11. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
  10. "EVE Files: CLEAR_SKIES3.WMV". Archived from the original on 2013-08-24. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
  11. Massively.com - EVE Online meets Half-Life 2 in machinima masterpiece http://www.massively.com/2008/06/09/eve-online-meets-half-life-2-in-machinima-masterpiece/
  12. EVE Online film 'Clear Skies' wins at Machinima Filmfest 2008 http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/11/03/eve-online-film-clear-skies-wins-at-machinima-filmfest-2008/ Archived 2011-06-21 at the Wayback Machine
  13. Awarded game films http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/spielzeug/0,1518,596918-5,00.html
  14. Machinima Expo Jury Awards (2008-2010) http://vimeo.com/channels/machinexpo
  15. Atopic- estival du film machinima 2e edition "LAURÉATS 2010 : ATOPIC FESTIVAL DU FILM MACHINIMA 2e ÉDITION |". Archived from the original on 2011-01-16. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
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