View source for Operation Bayshield

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox machinima
|show_name=Operation Bayshield
|image=[[File:Operation Bayshield.png|250px]]
|caption=Abdul Gouat Komsvallow in ''Operation Bayshield''
|engine=[[Quake engine]]
|genre=[[Comedy film|Comedy]]
|runtime=7&nbsp;min.
|production_company=Clan Undead
|directed_by=Crum
|voice_actors=Tom&nbsp;"Paradox"&nbsp;Mustaine<br />Blenderhead<br />Lich
|actor_control=Faust<br />Lich<br />Monolithx
|releases=January 23, 1997
|formats=''Quake'' demo recording
}}
'''''Operation Bayshield''''' is a short 1997 film made by Clan Undead, a group of [[video game]] players. The work was created by using the [[machinima]] technique of recording a [[game demo|demonstration file]] of player actions in [[id Software]]'s 1996 [[first-person shooter]] video game ''[[Quake (video game)|Quake]]'', which could replay such files on demand. The group had seen the first known machinima productions, made by [[United 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 contemporary ''Quake'' movie review sites and helped to attract others, including [[Hugh Hancock]] of [[Strange Company]] and members of the [[ILL Clan]], to machinima. It pioneered technical advances in machinima, such as the use of custom [[digital asset]]s and of [[lip synch]]ronization.

==Synopsis==
''Operation Bayshield'' centers on a task force's efforts to eliminate a group of terrorists. Offended by the television series ''[[Baywatch]]'', the terrorists have stolen an "MMX chemical bomb" and are staying at an unknown room in a hotel in [[Vancouver, 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.<ref name="Clan Undead">{{harvnb|Clan Undead|1997|Ref=CITEREFClanUndead1997}}</ref>

==Background and production==
Clan Undead credits [[United Ranger Films]] with inspiring them to make their own film.<ref name="Clan Undead" /> According to clan member Tom "Paradox" Mustaine, working for [[Ritual Entertainment]] at the time,<ref name="CGW, 44">{{harvnb|''Computer Gaming World'' staff|2006|loc=44|Ref=CITEREFCGW2006}}</ref> the idea arose during a New Year's Eve gathering.<ref name="Moss">{{harvnb|Moss|2001}}</ref> where the group decided to make a "larger comedy film in the ''Quake'' engine".<ref name="Quoted in Lowood 2006, 37">Quoted in {{harvnb|Lowood|2006|loc=37}}</ref> According to Henry Lowood of [[Stanford University]], this marked a shift toward narrative conventions of linear media, in contrast to earlier gameplay-based machinima works, such as ''[[Diary of a Camper]]'' and ''[[Quake done Quick]]''.<ref name="Lowood 2006, 37">{{harvnb|Lowood|2006|loc=37}}</ref> However, filming still required both the ability to program [[mod (computer gaming)|game modification]]s and to play proficiently.<ref name="Lowood 2006, 38">{{harvnb|Lowood|2006|loc=38}}</ref> According to Lowood, Clan Undead probably recorded the raw footage "in a small number of continuous runs".<ref name="Lowood 2006, 37" /> Because there were no publicly available machinima software tools at the time, they handled the significant pre- and [[post-production]] work through custom scripts in [[QuakeC]],<ref name="Lowood 2006, 37" /> an [[interpreted programming language]] developed for ''Quake''.

''Operation Bayshield'' was the first machinima work to incorporate custom [[digital asset]]s.<ref name="Lowood 2007, 179">{{harvnb|Lowood|2007|loc=179}}</ref> Clan Undead created graphical [[texture mapping|texture]]s specifically for their characters and used custom [[visual effect]]s, such as manipulating character images to produce first instance of [[lip sync]]hronization in machinima.<ref name="Lowood 2006, 37" /> Although the effect was primitive, it was not used again in machinima for another year.<ref name="Moss" /> This lip synchronization is an example of crude [[digital puppetry]]; other examples included the shaking of character bodies when laughing and synchronized delivery of dialogue.<ref name="Lowood 2006, 37" /> Lowood believes that Clan Undead pre-recorded individual lines of dialogue to [[WAV]] files, and then triggered playback through a command in QuakeC.<ref name="Lowood 2006, 37-38">{{harvnb|Lowood|2006|loc=37–38}}</ref> In April 1997, Clan Undead distributed the [[source code]] for its ''Operation Bayshield'' scripts over the Internet; Lowood believes that this release extended the ''Quake'' community's culture of sharing game modifications.<ref name="Lowood 2006, 37" />

==Reception and impact==
The major ''Quake'' machinima review sites of the day<ref>The Cineplex, Quake Movie Library, and Psyk's Popcorn Jungle, as listed in {{harvnb|Marino|2004|loc=4}}</ref> rated ''Operation 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";<ref name="Lum">{{harvnb|Lum|n.d.}}</ref> he saw inconsistent camera manipulation as the only flaw.<ref name="Lum" /> 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.<ref name="Matthews">{{harvnb|Matthews|1997}}</ref> Paul Coates of Psyk's Popcorn Jungle, who gave ''Operation Bayshield'' a 10 out of 10 rating and awarded it a Golden Popcorn award, considered the work "very polished"<ref name="Coates">{{harvnb|Coates|1998}}</ref> and the most technologically advanced ''Quake'' machinima film until ''[[Blahbalicious]]''. He praised the humor, but said that repeated viewings weakened its effect.<ref name="Coates" /> According to [[Paul Marino]], executive director of the [[Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences]], ''Operation Bayshield'' received enough attention from the video gaming industry to help to advance Mustaine's career.<ref name="CGW, 44" /> [[id Software]] employee [[American McGee]] praised it in his [[.plan]] file.<ref name="Moss" />

Lowood called ''[[Diary of a Camper]]'', ''[[Quake done Quick]]'', and ''Operation Bayshield'' "the founding trilogy of machinima".<ref name="Lowood 2006, 38" /> For comparison to early film, he placed these works between the 1895 footage recorded by [[Auguste and Louis Lumière]] and the 1902 film ''[[A Trip to the Moon]]''.<ref name="Lowood 2006, 38" /> Writing for the ''[[Houston Press]]'', Robert Wilonsky stated that ''Operation Bayshield'' was "a freaky hybrid" of ''[[Quake (video game)|Quake]]''{{'}}s visuals and of [[sketch comedy]] resembling that of television show ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.<ref name="Wilonsky, 1">{{harvnb|Wilonsky|2002|loc=1}}</ref> Ben Moss of [[machinima.com]] contrasted the inside jokes in later ''Quake'' movies with ''Operation Bayshield''{{'}}s references to popular fiction, including the 1982 film ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]''.<ref name="Moss" /> In turn, the work's E.T. joke inspired similar mentions of extraterrestrials in ''Quake done Quick'' and other machinima films.<ref name="Moss" />

''Operation Bayshield'' helped to attract other artists to use machinima. Inspired by the work, the [[ILL Clan]], a group of ''Quake'' players who had recently graduated from college as film and animation majors,<ref name="Wilonsky, 1" /> further developed comedy in machinima through their films ''[[Apartment Huntin']]'' (1998) and ''[[Hardly Workin']]'' (2000).<ref name="Kelland, 46">{{harvnb|Kelland|Morris|Lloyd|2005|loc=46}}</ref> [[Hugh Hancock]] of [[Strange Company]] partially credits ''Operation Bayshield'' for his realization that there were "possibilities for Quake Movies beyond a toy".<ref name="Planet Quake, 2">{{harvnb|Law|2000|loc=2|Ref=CITEREFLaw2000}}</ref> Brian "Wendingo" Hess, co-creator of ''[[Blahbalicious]]'', began work on his film after watching a group of machinima films that included ''Operation Bayshield''.<ref name="Salen Blahbalicious">{{harvnb|Salen|2002}}</ref> In interviews with [[Machinima.com]], others have stated that the work influenced them.<ref>{{harvnb|Machinima.com staff|2000a|Ref=CITEREFMachinima.com2000a}}; {{harvnb|Machinima.com staff|2000b|Ref=CITEREFMachinima.com2000b}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}

== References ==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite video|people=Clan Undead|date=1997|title=Operation Bayshield|medium=''Quake'' demo recording .zip file|ref=CITEREFClanUndead1997}}
*{{Citation|last=Coates|first=Paul|date=April 25, 1998|title=Operation Bayshield|url=http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~tv13rfc/ppj/oldppj/quake/op_bays.html|work=Psyk's Popcorn Jungle|access-date=2009-03-25|archive-date=2011-05-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515032146/http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~tv13rfc/ppj/oldppj/quake/op_bays.html|url-status=dead}}
*{{Citation|author=''Computer Gaming World'' staff|date=April 2006|title=The Little Picture: Should Machinimists Quit Their Day Jobs?|magazine=[[Computer Gaming World]]|issn=0744-6667|issue=261|at=44–45|ref=CITEREFCGW2006}}
*{{Citation|last=Heaslip|first=Stephen|date=January 25, 1997|title=Operation Bayshield|url=https://www.bluesnews.com/s/225476/operation-bayshield|work=Blue's News|access-date=2009-04-13}}
*{{Citation|last1=Kelland|first1=Matt|first2=Dave |last2=Morris|first3=Dave|last3=Lloyd|title=Machinima: Making Movies in 3D Virtual Environments|year=2005|publisher=The Ilex Press|location=[[Cambridge]]|isbn=1-59200-650-7}}
*{{Citation|last=Law|first=Caryn|date=January 27, 2000|title=Quake Noir: The Game as Cinema|url=http://hosted.planetquake.gamespy.com/features/articles/quakefilm_a.shtml|work=[[Planet Quake]]|publisher=[[GameSpy]]|access-date=2009-03-31}}{{Dead link|date=April 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
*{{Citation|last=Lowood|first=Henry|year=2006|title=High-performance play: The Making of machinima|url=http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=132/|format=[[Portable Document Format|PDF]]|journal=Journal of Media Practice|volume=7|issue=1|pages=25–42|doi=10.1386/jmpr.7.1.25/1|s2cid=191359937|access-date=2006-08-21|quote=no|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090727120822/http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=132/|archive-date=2009-07-27|url-status=dead|url-access=subscription}}
*{{Citation|last=Lowood|first=Henry|editor-last=McPherson|editor-first=Tara|title=Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected|series=The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning|year=2007|publisher=The MIT Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|at=165–196|chapter=Found Technology: Players as Innovators in the Making of Machinima|chapter-url=https://mbf.blogs.com/files/lowoodfoundtechnology-1-1.pdf|url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/26087/1003999.pdf|isbn=978-0-262-63359-8}}
*{{Citation|last=Lum|first=Stephen|title=Quake Movies: M-P|url=http://cineplex.planetquake.gamespy.com/q1-mp.html|work=The Cineplex|publisher=[[GameSpy]]|access-date=2009-03-25|ref=CITEREFLumn.d.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070728122807/http://cineplex.planetquake.gamespy.com/q1-mp.html|archive-date=2007-07-28|url-status=dead}}
*{{Citation|author=[[Machinima.com]] staff|date=April 12, 2000a<!-- Date in article itself is incorrect; see http://www.machinima.com/news/view&id=303 -->|title=Get To Know... Brian 'CrustaR' Henderson|url=http://www.machinima.com/article/view&id=346|work=[[Machinima.com]]|publisher=Machinima, Inc|access-date=2009-05-17|ref=CITEREFMachinima.com2000a}}
*{{Citation|author=[[Machinima.com]] staff|date=September 7, 2000b<!-- Date in article itself is incorrect; see http://www.machinima.com/news/view&id=681 -->|title=Getting to know... The immortal|url=http://www.machinima.com/article/view&id=138|work=[[Machinima.com]]|publisher=Machinima, Inc|access-date=2009-05-17|ref=CITEREFMachinima.com2000b}}
*{{Citation|last=Marino|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Marino|title=[[3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima]]|publisher=Paraglyph Press|location=[[Scottsdale, Arizona]]|year=2004 |isbn=1-932111-85-9}}
*{{Citation|last=Matthews|first=Roger|date=August 20, 1997|title=Operation Bayshield|url=http://www.machinima.com/qml/quake/opbay.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312122514/http://www.machinima.com/qml/quake/opbay.htm|archive-date=March 12, 2007|work=Quake Movie Library|publisher=Machinima, Inc|access-date=2009-03-23|url-status=dead}}
*{{Citation|last=Moss|first=Ben|date=March 28, 2001|title=Showcase: Operation Bayshield|url=http://www.machinima.com/article/view&id=63|archive-url=https://archive.today/20070617113605/http://www.machinima.com/article/view&id=63|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 17, 2007|work=[[Machinima.com]]|publisher=Machinima, Inc|access-date=2009-03-23}}
*{{Citation|last=Salen|first=Katie|author-link=Katie Salen|date=October 19, 2002|title=Blahbalicious|url=http://www.walkerart.org/archive/4/A4736DBBFE5FDA57616C.htm|work=Quake! Doom! Sims!: Transforming Play: Family Albums and Monster Movies|publisher=[[Walker Art Center]]|access-date=2009-04-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012004513/http://www.walkerart.org/archive/4/A4736DBBFE5FDA57616C.htm|archive-date=October 12, 2008|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}
*{{Citation|last=Wilonsky|first=Robert|date=August 15, 2002|title=Joystick Cinema|url=http://www.houstonpress.com/2002-08-15/culture/joystick-cinema/|work=[[Houston Press]]|publisher=[[Village Voice Media]]|access-date=2009-03-25}}
{{refend}}

{{Quake series}}

[[Category:1997 films]]
[[Category:1997 animated short films]]
[[Category:American animated short films]]
[[Category:Fan films based on video games]]
[[Category:Machinima based on a Quake series engine]]
[[Category:1990s American films]]