If you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of machinima. So, I'm excited when companies promote and support its creation. In this case, the superhero-themed MMORPG City of Heroes is sponsoring a short film contest (City of Heroes: Film Festival Contest). The films don't have to be machinima, but they can be and I'm sure many of them will be.

Attention all you budding Raimis, Spielbergs and Jacksons! The time has come to show us what you’re made of! The chance to demonstrate your cinematic skills by creating a City of Heroes short film has arrived. We proudly invite you to participate in our first ever Paragon City Film Festival!

Using game footage, animation, live action or whatever you can dream up, show us the city through the eyes of your hero or team. Take us on flights of daring; show us spectacular battles, heroic rescues or zany antics. Be the ultimate CoH film director by exhibiting your editing skills, creating your own exciting story, adding captions, music, voiceovers—be creative, for the sky is the limit (just make sure nothing in your film infringes any patent, copyright, trademark or other intellectual property right, or any privacy, publicity or publishing rights of any third party, or is libelous, obscene or otherwise contrary to law!).

They even have instructions on how to record action from the game if you want to make machinima (How to Demorecord).

Unfortunately, copyright is, of course, a major concern for those who sponsor these contests:

Due to copyright music laws, if you’re going to “score” your cinematic masterpiece, you MUST do so with the musical pieces located here: ftp.coh.com/music/....

Feel free to combine music selections and/or splice them if you wish, but you may NOT add your own or use music created by someone else. For this same reason, you may record your own voiceover but copyrighted sound bytes from television programs, movies, etc are strictly prohibited. Film entries that violate intellectual property laws will be automatically disqualified from the contest!

If you manage to survive the copyright gauntlet, there is (among other prizes) a nifty bonus:

Not only that, but the winning movies will be featured on the game disc included in the Special DVD Edition of City of Heroes, being released this holiday season.

One of the interesting features of this contest is that there are two categories: action and comedy. Drama remains underdeveloped, mostly because of the difficulties in using machinima to render complex emotional states in virtual actors, but I think a good machinima comedy (*cough*RedvsBlue*cough*) can be and is as good as anything on broadcast television or in theaters.

via Joystiq