| Operation Bayshield | |
|---|---|
 Abdul Gouat Komsvallow inOperation Bayshield | |
| Engine | Quake engine |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Running time | 7 min. |
| Voices | Tom "Paradox" Mustaine Blenderhead Lich |
| Actor control | Faust Lich Monolithx |
| Production company | Clan Undead |
| Release(s) | January 23, 1997 |
| Format | Quake demo recording |
Operation Bayshield is a short 1997 film made by Clan Undead, a group ofvideo game players. The work was created by using themachinima technique of recording ademonstration file of player actions inid Software's 1996first-person shooter video gameQuake, which could replay such files on demand. The group had seen the first known machinima productions, made byUnited Ranger Films, and decided to make a comedy film. The result,Operation Bayshield, follows a task force's attempts to thwart terrorists who have chemical explosives. Released on January 23, 1997, the work received praise from contemporaryQuake movie review sites and helped to attract others, includingHugh Hancock ofStrange Company and members of theILL Clan, to machinima. It pioneered technical advances in machinima, such as the use of customdigital assets and oflip synchronization.
Operation Bayshield centers on a task force's efforts to eliminate a group of terrorists. Offended by the television seriesBaywatch, the terrorists have stolen an "MMX chemical bomb" and are staying at an unknown room in a hotel inVancouver, Washington. After the task force finds and stops the terrorists, a man named Big Jim confronts them as they leave, complaining that they "gassed [his] girlfriend". The film ends with the ensuing fight.[1]
Clan Undead creditsUnited Ranger Films with inspiring them to make their own film.[1] According to clan member Tom "Paradox" Mustaine, working forRitual Entertainment at the time,[2] the idea arose during a New Year's Eve gathering.[3] where the group decided to make a "larger comedy film in theQuake engine".[4] According to Henry Lowood ofStanford University, this marked a shift toward narrative conventions of linear media, in contrast to earlier gameplay-based machinima works, such asDiary of a Camper andQuake done Quick.[5] However, filming still required both the ability to programgame modifications and to play proficiently.[6] According to Lowood, Clan Undead probably recorded the raw footage "in a small number of continuous runs".[5] Because there were no publicly available machinima software tools at the time, they handled the significant pre- andpost-production work through custom scripts inQuakeC,[5] aninterpreted programming language developed forQuake.
Operation Bayshield was the first machinima work to incorporate customdigital assets.[7] Clan Undead created graphicaltextures specifically for their characters and used customvisual effects, such as manipulating character images to produce first instance oflip synchronization in machinima.[5] Although the effect was primitive, it was not used again in machinima for another year.[3] This lip synchronization is an example of crudedigital puppetry; other examples included the shaking of character bodies when laughing and synchronized delivery of dialogue.[5] Lowood believes that Clan Undead pre-recorded individual lines of dialogue toWAV files, and then triggered playback through a command in QuakeC.[8] In April 1997, Clan Undead distributed thesource code for itsOperation Bayshield scripts over the Internet; Lowood believes that this release extended theQuake community's culture of sharing game modifications.[5]
The majorQuake machinima review sites of the day[9] ratedOperation Bayshield highly. In a short review, Stephen Lum of The Cineplex gave the work a 9.5 out of 10 and called it "one of the best and funniest Quake Movies ever made";[10] he saw inconsistent camera manipulation as the only flaw.[10] Rating the film 100% out of 100%, Roger Matthews of the Quake Movie Library pointed to humorous parts of the work in his synopsis, and thought that the last scene was nonsensical.[11] Paul Coates of Psyk's Popcorn Jungle, who gaveOperation Bayshield a 10 out of 10 rating and awarded it a Golden Popcorn award, considered the work "very polished"[12] and the most technologically advancedQuake machinima film untilBlahbalicious. He praised the humor, but said that repeated viewings weakened its effect.[12] According toPaul Marino, executive director of theAcademy of Machinima Arts & Sciences,Operation Bayshield received enough attention from the video gaming industry to help to advance Mustaine's career.[2]id Software employeeAmerican McGee praised it in his.plan file.[3]
Lowood calledDiary of a Camper,Quake done Quick, andOperation Bayshield "the founding trilogy of machinima".[6] For comparison to early film, he placed these works between the 1895 footage recorded byAuguste and Louis Lumière and the 1902 filmA Trip to the Moon.[6] Writing for theHouston Press, Robert Wilonsky stated thatOperation Bayshield was "a freaky hybrid" ofQuake's visuals and ofsketch comedy resembling that of television showSaturday Night Live.[13] Ben Moss ofmachinima.com contrasted the inside jokes in laterQuake movies withOperation Bayshield's references to popular fiction, including the 1982 filmE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.[3] In turn, the work's E.T. joke inspired similar mentions of extraterrestrials inQuake done Quick and other machinima films.[3]
Operation Bayshield helped to attract other artists to use machinima. Inspired by the work, theILL Clan, a group ofQuake players who had recently graduated from college as film and animation majors,[13] further developed comedy in machinima through their filmsApartment Huntin' (1998) andHardly Workin' (2000).[14]Hugh Hancock ofStrange Company partially creditsOperation Bayshield for his realization that there were "possibilities for Quake Movies beyond a toy".[15] Brian "Wendingo" Hess, co-creator ofBlahbalicious, began work on his film after watching a group of machinima films that includedOperation Bayshield.[16] In interviews withMachinima.com, others have stated that the work influenced them.[17]
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