Interview communautaire : Melvenor

Version française de l'interview | English version of the interview

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Community interview : Melvenor, winner of the BlizzCon 2011 machinima contest

First of all, congrats for your first place at the BlizzCon 2011 contest ! Can you tell us who you are in a few words ?

Well, thank you very much! Let me introduce myself: My name is Balázs, I'm a graphic designer from Hungary, currently living in London. I've been a fan of the Warcraft franchise since 1995. I began creating lore-inspired machinima videos as a hobby in 2007, inspired by many things, including Blizzard's patch-cinematics.


Being the winner of such a contest is a huge honor, what did you feel when you knew that you were the winner ? Was it your first participation ?

It was an adrenaline rush, really. It felt great, of course. Also, hearing the BlizzCon crowd's reactions to my video on the online stream was amazing. This was the second time I entered Blizzard's video contest, my last year's entry was a video titled "Home, Sweet Andorhal".


Among all your videos, why did you choose that one ? Was it a specific creation for the contest ?

Yes, I started working on it sometime early 2010. I thought that Warcraft-veterans and machinima-fans would appreciate something that is purely "classic Warcraft". Apparently, I was right.


I guess that it is not you first shot. Since how long do you realize such videos ? How many time do you spend in a week doing videos ?

Between 2007 and this BlizzCon entry I had created many story-driven machinima videos, one every 2-3 months roughly. Since I've quit WoW a long time ago, my motivation to keep on machinimaking has dropped as well and nowadays I'm rather concentrating on an another project of mine, an animation channel called 'Majami Hiroz'.


How many time do you need to create a video with a so good result ? What program do you use to make it?

Creating a really detalied 2-3 minute long video can take many weeks, months even. Mines were done with the help of the WoW Model Viewer and the Adobe Creative Suite.



What are the steps that you follow to realize a video? How do you choose the theme of your videos ?

It may sound weird but the first thing I decide is which song(s) I'm going to use from the WoW soundtrack. This summer when I made a video about Gilneans, I had been listening to the Worgen soundtrack for days. WoW's lovely songs always helped me set the tone of my videos.


What would be your advices for a beginner ? What are your keys of success?

Being able to impress the viewers is the most important. Whether by nice graphics, an amazing story or an intelligent sense of humour.

Is WoW your only source of inspiration ?

No, Warcraft II and III are as well. They were the reason I started playing WoW in 2006, after all!


Do you do also the dialogues present in your videos ?

I usually ask friends and/or amateur voice actors/actresses to help me out with the voice acting.


What do you think about the quality of the videos coming for the WoW community ? Can you tell us one of those that you find good to know ?

I think there are a massive amount of really good machinima videos out there which are totally underrated. Alex Egeskog (YouTube user shadowline1990) for example is friend of mine and the creator of smashing machinimas. My favourite is 'The Culling of Stratholme' series, which is 100% based on some parts of Arthas' story in Warcraft III.


Melvenor: Video from BlizzCon 2011

Melvenor: Video from BlizzCon 2010