Jordy Veenstra

ARTICLE: THE MACHINIMA OF ATTRACTIONS

VRAL is currently showcasing Regression 4, Jordy Veenstra’s latest installment in his ongoing monumental investigation of San Andreas. To accompany the screening, we are delighted to present Experience, a 2021 machinima developed with a playable simulation titled Virtual Rides III.

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Jordy Veenstra’s collaborative machinima project Experience transports viewers into the lush, vibrant world of Pixelsplit’s Virtual Rides III (2017). Developed over two years alongside the game’s creators, this experimental short film leverages the malleable possibilities of virtual spaces to construct a heightened cinematic reality. Experience represents Veenstra’s most ambitious and imaginative machinima project to date, recasting a familiar carnival setting as an avant-garde spectacle. Through kaleidoscopic colors, impossible camera angles, and hypnotic motion, the film redefines the sensory possibilities of interactive environments. This is the polar opposite of ONRIDE’s dystopian attraction.

From its opening shots gliding over the fairgrounds, Experience signals its intent to revel in the limitless perspectives unique to simulations. The camera swoops and pans across the setting, freed from physical restraints to showcase the scale and details of the space. Tracking shots follow the coasters’ winding motions, abstracting them into studies of shape and texture. Veenstra describes this disembodied viewpoint as “exceeding audience expectations”, leveraging the machinima format to highlight aspects of the world beyond what players see. The cinematography foregrounds sensory experience, allowing time to appreciate the setting’s rich sights and sounds.

This immersive effect stems from Veenstra’s custom augmentation of Virtual Rides III’s assets, part of his “practice of distortion” for enhancing game environments. Wildly colorful and asymmetric patterns adorn each ride, evoking an imaginative, pataphysical mood. Typography and pop culture images further transform the familiar carnival into an otherworldly realm. As Veenstra explains on his website, this surreal digital set...

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Jordy Veenstra

Experience

digital video (1280 x 544, aspect ratio: 2:35), color, sound (Stereo, -14LUFS), 9’ 20”, 2021, The Netherlands

Produced by Pixelsplit and A Pixelated Point of View

Made with Virtual Rides III, Pixelsplit, 2017

Mods: Freecam adjustment by Pixelsplit

Film Score: FEX.

All images and videos courtesy of Jordy Veenstra

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: LIBERTY CITY’S EXTERNALITIES

VRAL is currently showcasing Regression 4, Jordy Veenstra’s latest installment in his ongoing monumental investigation of San Andreas. To accompany the screening, we are delighted to present Collateral Damage, an experimental machinima developed with/in Grand Theft Auto IV.

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Jordy Veenstra’s re-edited version of his machinima short Collateral Damage utilizes the open world of Grand Theft Auto IV as a canvas for an experimental narrative that defies expectations. Originally created in 2012 as a more traditional crime story, the 2018 cut runs just 2 minutes but packs a provocative punch. Veenstra transforms the possibilities afforded by Rockstar Games sandbox into an avant-garde work that challenges both artistic and gameplay conventions. Through innovative editing and a focus on psychological tension, Collateral Damage provides a mature reflection on violence and chaos within the criminal underworld.

As a machinima created using assets from Grand Theft Auto IV, Collateral Damage immediately cues certain expectations about the chaotic, crime-ridden nature of Rockstar’s fictional Liberty City. However, Veenstra subverts these themes right from the start. The opening shots follow two men driving through the rainy night time streets not on some criminal escapade, but engaged in muted conversation. One man seems to be confiding in the other about being framed by an acquaintance. Veenstra then cuts to the interior of a nondescript apartment, where the atmosphere grows increasingly tense and surreal between the two men. Extreme close-ups, off-kilter angles, and disjointed editing introduce visual disorientation and psychological friction. Strange flashes fill the screen at key moments, suggesting internal turmoil. Rather than depicting high-octane gameplay action, these oblique sequences focus on building an atmosphere of brooding unease.

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Jordy Veenstra

Collateral Damage

digital video, color, 1’ 58”, 2012/2018, The Netherlands

made with Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar Games, 2008

Mods: Rockstar Editor, by Rockstar Games; Simple Trainer by sjaak327

All images and videos © Jordy Veenstra 2022

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

VRAL is currently showcasing Regression 4, Jordy Veenstra’s latest installment in his ongoing monumental investigation of San Andreas. To accompany the screening, we are delighted to present DUSK, a second experimental machinima created with/in Left 4 Dead 2 that evokes the horrors of a post-apocalyptic world.

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Like ONRIDE, Jordy Veenstra’s experimental machinima short DUSK utilizes game assets from Valve’s Left 4 Dead series to vividly capture the haunting atmosphere of a zombie apocalypse. Clocking in at just forty-five seconds, this machinima displays a remarkable level of technical artistry and emotional resonance. The Dutch filmmaker originally conceived of DUSK as a simple technical exercise, but soon realized the potential for a more fully realized artistic work. The resulting film succeeds both as an experiment in pushing the boundaries of machinima as a medium, and as a self-contained narrative that provides commentary on the human condition in dire circumstances.

Visually, DUSK immerses the viewer in a world overrun by zombies through its expert use of Source Filmmaker. The setting itself is instantly recognizable to fans as the finale of Left 4 Dead Dark Carnival campaign, but the moody lighting and haze of smoke and embers transform the familiar truck depot into a hellish landscape. Backlit by flames and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, the decrepit industrial space takes on a nightmarish quality. When the two staggering zombies enter the frame, they blend in with their surroundings, reduced to anonymous ghouls in a sea of undead. The shadows and silhouette effects reinforce the ambiguity between the living and the living dead, evoking the collapse of civilization itself.

From a technical perspective, Veenstra’s mastery of Source Filmmaker is on full display. The smooth camera movements, use of depth of field, and detailed lighting reveal a deep understanding of cinematic techniques. The sweeping camera zoom from inside the car to a close-up of the zombies creates visual tension and a sense of voyeuristic dread. Veenstra also effectively repurposes game assets like particle effects and audio to heighten the ominous atmosphere. The moans and screams of zombies layered into the soundscape make the setting feel alive despite the lack of visible undead hordes.

Beyond impressive technical execution, DUSK contains deeper metaphorical resonances related to the human condition. The zombies represent humanity reduced to its basest impulses: anonymous, lumbering vessels driven only by hunger. Devoid of personality or purpose beyond consumption, they haunt the landscape like ghouls. Meanwhile, the abandoned truck stop evokes the remnants of civilization, now just an empty shell inhabited by the undead. On his personal website A Pixelated Point of View, Veenstra described this setting as a “limbo between the stages of death, alive and infected,” suggesting that the zombies are not monsters, but rather the inevitable endpoint of human existence in the apocalypse. The film’s nightmarish atmosphere leaves a lasting impression of dread about both the zombie genre and humanity’s impermanence.

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Jordy Veenstra

DUSK

digital video (1280 x 536), color, sound, 45”, 2022, The Netherlands

DUSK’s soundtrack is solely made with SFX from Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve Software, 2009).

Resources and mods:

Left 4 Dead, Valve Software, 2008

Left 4 Dead 2, Valve Software, 2009

Source Filmmaker, Valve Software, 2012

All images and videos © Jordy Veenstra 2022

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: WHY DO ZOMBIES GO TO AMUSEMENT PARKS?

VRAL is currently showcasing Regression 4, Jordy Veenstra’s latest installment in his ongoing thematic and topographic investigation of San Andreas. To accompany the screening, we are delighted to present an unusual short machinima featuring zombies and rollercoasters, ONRIDE.

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The titular question is asked and immediately answered in Jordy Veenstra’s 2022 machinima ONRIDE. The Dutch filmmaker created a post-apocalyptic atmosphere by appropriating and repurposing the quintessential living dead video game, Valve Software’s 2009 Left for Dead 2. ONRIDE offers a highly unusual roller coaster point of view set after the zombie apocalypse has left an amusement park empty and decaying. The outcome is simultaneously weird and eerie.

To construct this dystopian scenario, Veenstra relied on Left 4 Dead 2’s open-world environments and post-apocalyptic art direction. The popular co-op multiplayer shooter pits up to four players against hordes of zombies across a variety of maps ranging from cities to bayous. Players choose from four survivors with unique personalities as they complete missions and combat the undead. By leveraging these detailed assets and locales, Veenstra was able to capture the creepy, abandoned theme park seen in ONRIDE.

Visually, ONRIDE makes clever use of the game’s first-person perspective to create an intimate and unexpected roller coaster POV. Shot smoothly thanks to the Source Demo Smoother mod, the camera cruises along rickety wooden tracks offering an unsettling view of the joyless park. The VHS overlay effect and the unusual ration (1280 x 536) add a fuzzy, retro aesthetic that heightens the sense of watching an old tape found in the ruins. As opposed to the usual ambient noise of a busy theme park, the dreadful silence in ONRIDE makes the ride feel lonely and forgotten: attraction becomes repulsion. The only sounds are the coaster running along the tracks and occasional zombie growls in the distance.

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Jordy Veenstra

ONRIDE

digital video (1280 x 536), color, sound, 1’ 20”, 2022, The Netherlands

Made with Left 4 Dead 2 (2009), by Valve Software

Mods: VHS Overlay by ANFX, Disable Survivor Voices by Ziggy

All images and videos © Jordy Veenstra 2022

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT JORDY VEENSTRA’S REGRESSION 4

VRAL is currently showcasing Regression 4, Jordy Veenstra’s latest installment in his ongoing ludo-topographical project. To accompany the screening, we are delighted to present a critical examination of Veenstra's monumental series Regression in video essay form.

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Conceived and developed by Dutch artist and filmmaker Jordy Veenstra, the ongoing Regression series uniquely captures experimental machinima within Rockstar’s ever expanding Grand Theft Auto’s urban and rural territories. Using an array of mods and the Rockstar Editor, Veenstra produced avant-garde studies of these detailed spaces from distinct vantage points. From 2019, Veenstra has been producing four installments, all showcased on VRAL. 

While linked thematically, each film focuses on different contexts within specific Grand Theft Auto maps. As an auteur, Veenstra explores overlooked corners, finding beauty in transformed gameplay. His rigorous approach reimagines chaotic worlds as meditative landscapes.

Regression’s title refers to the illusion of perfection in Grand Theft Auto’s dystopia, perceiving it as societal decline, deterioration, and barbarism. Behind the glitzy façade, flaws and cracks emerge, satirized via aggressive advertising, profanity, and lawlessness. Through distorted, dreamlike aesthetics, the films unpack the dissonance between illusion and grim realities. Visually embracing both analog and digital, a grainy 24fps texture emulates film alongside sweeping 4K vistas. Dynamic grading heightens contrast and painterly scenes. This fusion pays homage to cinema’s legacy while exploring the frontiers of simulation. Veenstra eschews narrative conventions such as voice over or didactic illustration in favor of a more improvisational production. Loose frameworks guide raw gameplay capture while editing choices shape the experiences. 

Using the embedded Rockstar Editor, Veenstra cuts, frames, and exports clips from Grand Theft Auto V. His shots feature depth of field, enhancing cinematic illusions in-engine. With the EVE mod, scenes export at 24fps, evoking the look and feel of celluloid. Veenstra coined the expression “cinematic distortion” to indicate techniques transforming gameplay into cinematic aesthetics. Key features include:

— Filmic aspect ratios over typical 16:9;   

— 24fps over higher game frame rates;

— Extensive color grading to shift familiar hues;

— Analog artifacts like grain and motion blur;     

— Cinematic framing and pacing;

— Intuitive filming focused on spaces rather than plot.

The outcome distances the polished CG interactivity of the original games for the richness of celluloid. Veenstra’s distortion process elicits a dreamlike, glitchy texture, expanding and simultaneously merging machinima and cinema. Through strategic post-production transformations, Veenstra’s meticulous workflow sculpts raw gameplay into textured cinematic experiences, transcending Grand Theft Auto’s digital gloss.

Specialized mods from the active modding community enrich creative possibilities. Veenstra leverages these fan-made tools, showcasing remarkable imagination alongside his vision.

The Dutch filmmaker redefines player relationships with familiar game spaces. Chaotic criminal playgrounds transform into serene environments appreciating underlying aesthetics. The films play with realism and artificiality, using convincing illusions yet reveling in fanciful virtual possibilities. Through skillful craft, Veenstra elicits resonance and humanity from violent game worlds. His cinematic distortion recalibrates familiar mayhem into a canvas for poignant artistic expression.

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Jordy Veenstra

Regression 1, digital video, color, sound, 3’ 19”, 2019, The Netherlands

Regression 2, digital video, color, sound, 3’ 23”, 2019, The Netherlands

Regression 3, digital video, color, sound, 9’ 49”, 2019, The Netherlands

Regression 4, digital video (4k Scope), color, sound, 13’ 51” (original), 2023, The Netherlands

Joris Ivens, De Brug (The Bridge), black and white, silent, 15”, 1928, The Netherlands

Bert Haanstra

Glas (Glass), color, sound, 15”, 1958, The Netherlands

Zoo, black and white, sound, 11”, 1960, The Netherlands

Vittorio De Sica

Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves), black and white, sound, 93”, 1948, Italy

All images and videos courtesy of the Artist

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

BREAKING NEWS: JORDY VEENSTRA REMOVES ALL MACHINIMA FROM VIEW

A copyright takedown has led a talented artist to remove his entire oeuvre from public view (developing)

Machinima, a genre of video art that has garnered increasing interest in the past twenty years, is primarily predicated on the use of appropriation — a practice that utilizes copyright-protected material belonging to others. Accordingly, the incorporation of game assets by machinimakers may necessitate specific permissions and licenses from game developers and publishers. These entities may also impose restrictions on the type of content that can be produced using their games.

Despite the efforts of machinima creators to secure requisite licenses and permissions, copyright infringement risks remain a nagging concern. In particular, the unauthorized use of copyrighted music or other protected content in machinima videos may lead to copyright infringement litigation. Ultimately, the dynamic interplay between appropriation and copyright law in the machinima landscape is a gray area and remains a crucial issue that requires delicate handling.

Consider the case of Dutch machinimaker and artist Jordy Veenstra, whose stunning AR3NAE was recently featured on VRAL S03, has been struck by a copyright takedown.

Specifically, Veenstra has decided to remove all his machinima work from YouTube, Vimeo, Behance, and FilmFreeway due to a copyright claim from an artist whose music was used in two separate projects. His YouTube channel received a copyright strike, which the author believes was a harsh first choice considering his email address is accessible on the channel page and the works was released under a CC license. Nonetheless, Veenstra acknowledges that the third-party was within their right to take down the videos as the track was their intellectual property.

Veenstra admits he made a mistake by not checking the additional rules specified on a separate page of the website, which stated that some of the licenses were not meant to be used under video. Veenstra believes that it is highly possible that more songs used in their work may suffer the same fate in the future, so he took the drastic decision of taking his entire machinima production offline until further notice to prevent this from happening again.

Veenstra plans to re-upload some projects soon as agreements had been made in terms of audio use before production started. For projects, the machinimaker will need to strip, recompose, remaster, and re-render the entire audio track, which will take a long time. Veenstra plans to properly learn music production to solve this issue and create original tracks. Finally, according to Veenstra, every single machinima will become visible again in the near future.

As Veenstra explains:

Earlier this week I have received a notification from YouTube stating that AR3NA and the trailer for AR3NA were taken offline due to a copyright claim from one of the artists whose music was featured in both projects. The film was not simply unlisted. Instead it was removed from YouTube in its entirety and the channel received a copyright strike. In my opinion it was quite a harsh first choice to make considering my e-mail address is open and accessible on the Channel Page to discuss matters like this. Copyright holders actually have a choice to first contact the person privately or send a 7-day notice first, which would've been the more friendly approach out of the three. Having said that, in all fairness and neutrality, all choices were equally for the taking and the third-party was in their full right to choose any preferred action out of the three equally as much. For them it was the take-down, which they had the full right to do so since it was their intellectual property. Nothing more I can add about that.

Read Veenstra’s full post here

NEWS: MMF MMXXIII: THEME, POSTER, AND TICKETS!

 
 

“NEITHER ARTIFICIAL NOR INTELLIGENT” IS THE THEME OF THE SIXTH EDITION OF THE MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL

Milan, Italy - Today, January 19 2023, we are delighted to unveil the theme and poster of the upcoming edition of the Milan Machinima Festival which will take place both on site and online between March 19 - 26 2023.

“Neither Artificial Nor Intelligent” (NANI) is how Kate Crawford— research professor of communication and science and technology studies at the University of Southern California and a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research — describes artificial intelligence in her award-winning book Atlas of AI (2021). According to Crawford, “AI is neither artificial nor intelligent. It is made from natural resources and it is people who are performing the tasks to make the systems appear autonomous.”

Likewise, the new edition of the Milan Machinima Festival will address the growing influence of artificial intelligence on storytelling and visual narrative, but also the rhetoric surrounding this technique. Such a theme is consistent with the current VRAL exhibition, Colossal Cave Adventure - The Movie, created by Thomas Hawranke and Lasse Scherffig with AI-generated visuals. In this case, the AI system receives on an 8 second interval a new textual description taken from Will Crowther’s 1978 Colossal Cave Adventure’s source code and generates a new scene. The question then becomes: Who is the author of Colossal Cave Adventure - The Movie? Thomas Hawranke and Lasse Scherffig? Will Crowther? Stable Diffusion? All of them? None? As this example illustrates, AI-based art raises several questions related to authorship, creativity, originality and more. The 2023 edition of the Milan Machinima Festival will try to address the potential and pitfalls of this technique.

The festival’s poster was designed by Jordy Veenstra, one of the most talented artists working with machinima today. “The initial keywords given to me were NPC and AI”, said the Dutch artist and filmmaker. “In tandem with this year’s theme, my first thoughts were: pseudo-intelligence, digitization, dehumanization, empty shells, algorithms, compulsory movement and/or execution — as in NPC speech and movement —, the contrast between real/fabricated and the visualization of code.“

Consistently with this premise, Veenstra used AI-based tools to generate the artwork. As he explains: “The work was created with the Dall-E AI provided by OpenAI and in my eyes ideally captures this idea. White experimental, dehumanized masses looking like NPCs, with truly absurd poses; just standing there, surrounded by experimental ‘white’ code blobs; simply looking around restlessly and waiting for someone, anyone, to give a quest to, to be useful and to have their code finally executed. To have their own quest completed.”

Patron supporters can access to additional content related to Veenstra’s process in creating this amazing poster. They can also review alternative artworks.

The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIII takes place between March 19 - 26 2023, online and on site. On March 25 2023, a special screening will take place at the Museum of Interactive Cinema in Milan, Italy.

Tickets are on sale now; seats are limited.

Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, motion graphics designer, 2D animator, and experimental filmmaker based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In his practice, Veenstra connects art and narrative with technology and software through the medium of experimental film. His works have been exhibited at the 2020 and 2022 Milan Machinima Festival. His monumental Regression I-III was featured in VRAL S01. His more recent AR3NAE was presented in the ongoing VRAL S03.

Kate Crawford’s Atlas of AI was published by Yale University Press in 2021. The Italian translation, Né intelligente né artificiale. Il lato oscuro dell’IA, was also released 2021 by Il Mulino.

DALL-E and DALL-E 2 are deep learning models developed by OpenAI to generate digital images from natural language descriptions, called "prompts". DALL-E was revealed by OpenAI in a blog post in January 2021, and uses a version of GPT-3 modified to generate images.

Additional information about MMF MMXIII will be shared in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT JORDY VEENSTRA'S AR3NA

SPACES AND (NON) PLACES

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Quake III Arena is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and released in 1999. The game became popular for its fast-paced multiplayer action and its modding community, which produced a variety of custom levels, game modes, and other modifications. One may argue that one of the most successful types of mod was machinima, which is generally described as the use of real-time 3D engines to create animated films.

Machinima made with Quake III Arena allowed players to create their own characters and use in-game tools to record and edit gameplay footage into video. These “movies” could be used to tell stories, create music videos, or recreate scenes from popular movies and TV shows. The ability to create and share machinima was an important part of the Quake III Arena community, and many players became skilled at using the game’s versatile tools to create high-quality videos. They competed with each other outside of the game, in a sense. Machinima can be understood as an example of the kind of unexpected, unplanned gameplay known as emergent gameplay, in Katie Salen’s definition or “High-performance play” to borrow Henry Lowood’s definition. For a more in-depth analysis of machinima’s roots, I recommend the Stanford historian’s insightful essay “Video capture: Machinima, documentation, and the history of virtual worlds”, included in essential The Machinima Reader (MIT Press, 2011).

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Matteo Bittanti

This is a Patreon exclusive article. To read the full text and access the content consider joining our Patreon community.

EVENT: JORDY VEENSTRA (DECEMBER 19 2022 - JANUARY 5 2023, ONLINE)

AR3NA

digital video/machinima (2048x858), color, sound, 35’ (original), 2022, The Netherlands

Created by Jordy Veenstra, 2022

AR3NA is a visual study of Quake III Arena; its environments and its textures. It is also a complex work of media anthropology: a deeper critical look at more than two-hundred maps in which millions of battles have been fought since 1999. With a production time frame and a duration exceeding those of most experimental machinima, Veenstra’s AR3NA is a meta-commentary on video game play, architecture, space and places.

Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, motion graphics designer, 2D animator, and experimental filmmaker based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In his practice, Veenstra connects art and narrative with technology and software through the medium of experimental film. His work examines often overlooked social and artistic concerns. His works have been exhibited during the 2020 and 2022 editions of the Milan Machinima Festival and the equally astounding Regression Trilogy was featured as a show on VRAL in 2020.

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NEWS: SPECIAL PROGRAM_BRAND NEW YOU'RE RETRO

MMF MMXXII is proud to present a special program titled BRAND NEW YOU’RE RETRO, featuring four groundbreaking machinima by Dutch filmmaker and artist Jordy Veenstra

The program will be exclusively presented exclusively on the silver screen of the MIC, Museum of Interactive Cinema in Milan, Italy on March 26 2022.

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Watch a trailer below: