LONDON, June 27 /PRNewswire/ --     Rustlers may be the market leaders in the hot snacking section of your
local supermarket, but that doesn't mean they're content to rest on their
burgers. They've teamed up with Machinima.com, the most popular machinima
website in the world, to launch the art in the UK - and they've brought along
a friend to help them.

Today's official opening of Machinima.com's UK portal 
(http://www.machinima.com/uk) is being celebrated with the launch of a
machinima music video competition featuring the work of genius geek
troubadour of-the-moment Jonathan Coulton, the writer of 'Still Alive', the
closing track in the Electronic Arts game Portal (as featured in Half Life 2
- The Orange Box). The man known to fans as 'JoCo' has supplied two tracks
(Bacteria and Todd the T1000) for would-be music video directors to use, and
both can be downloaded free of charge from the competition page here:
http://www.machinima.com/rustlers_mmvc/

Entrants will be able to submit their entries using Machinima.com's video
uploading tools, while users registering on the site will be able to vote for
their favourite entries. When the competition ends on August 8th, the author
of the music video with the most votes will win a top-of-the-range Alienware
Laptop, pre-loaded with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. Runners-up will also be
awarded prizes, as will a random selection of users who sign up and vote
during the competition period.

But hold up a second - what the heck is machinima? If you're unfamiliar
with the art form, don't worry, this is bleeding edge stuff. Machinima is the
art of real-time filmmaking in a virtual environment. This virtual
environment could be a place like Second Life, but more often it's a video
game - anything from World Of Warcraft to Halo 3. The playable characters are
your actors, the game environments are your sets, and the games weapons and
monsters are your special effects. Turning passive gamers into artistic
puppet masters, machinima is essentially Punch and Judy on an epic scale.

Perfect for any wannabe film-maker who'd rather be making Hollywood
blockbusters than talky indie films, machinima enables talented young
Tarantinos to create special effects-heavy films that would cost hundreds of
millions of dollars in Tinseltown - for next to nothing.

In the US, machinima is already big business, both commercially and
artistically. The most successful product is Red Vs. Blue, a hilarious comedy
series based the private lives of Halo characters. With over 100 episodes and
several mini-series, it was described by Graham Leggat (former Director of
Communications for New York's prestigious Lincoln Center Film Society) as
being "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett."

As a brand that appeals primarily to 16-34 yr old males, Rustlers are
always looking for exciting new ways to reach their audience, and when
award-winning viral advertising agency Maverick Media introduced Rustlers'
Brand Manager Adam Shinwell to the concept of machinima, he was "immediately
blown away". "Although gaining pace in the USA, machinima is still relatively
niche in the UK", notes Shinwell. "We proposed that we help fund and promote
the platform in the UK through the development of a unique UK machinima
portal, http://www.machinima.com/uk, which has been specifically designed for
the UK market with relevant content, tutorials and competitions".

Machinima is the perfect art form for the disenchanted youth of the UK,
combining video games with the arts in a positive way that inspires
creativity, social interaction and teamwork. With this competition as the
first step, Rustlers have committed to help raise the profile of Machinima in
the UK throughout 2008.

About Rustlers:

Made to the highest food quality standards, Rustlers 
(http://www.rustlersonline.com) are a range of tasty, hot filling snacks 
that are quick and easy to prepare in just 70 seconds.

Rustlers have been associated with several recent campaigns including the
Eat Late, Eat Safe campaign (which encourages late-night revellers to avoid
late-night fry-ups in favour of safer, microwaveable snacks) and Rustlers to
The Rescue, which offered Rustlers-branded taxis and free food for punters
exhausted after a night out on the town.

Some Rustlers facts:

    - Rustlers was bought by 2.8 million UK households in 2006.
    - Rustlers is the no.2 ready meal in the leading grocery store in
      the UK.
    - Rustlers has higher grocery penetration than Budweiser.
    - Rustlers sells 100 products every minute, every day.
    - 5 million packs of Rustlers reach the hands of our core consumers
      (16-34 yr old males) every month!



About Machinima.com

In January 2000, Hugh Hancock launched Machinima.com 
(http://www.machinima.com) as resource for film-makers who used video games 
as source material for creating their own movies. The site hosts thousands of
videos organised into different channels, each focussing on different game
engines. As well as using the site to premiere their latest creations, user
can also use the site to find collaborators, get tips and even learn the
ropes from scratch.

About Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton (http://www.jonathancoulton.com) is the Contributing 
Troubadour for Popular Science magazine and the musical director for John 
Hodgman's Little Gray Book Lectures.

No stranger to machinima, Jonathan has had several previous songs turned
into video-game animated videos, including 'RE: Your Brains' and the track
'Still Alive', the acclaimed theme song from the hit game Portal (as featured
in 'The Orange Box' from Electronic Arts). 'Still Alive' was recently added
as a free download for the hit music game 'Rock Band'.

Photographs of Jonathan are available here:
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/jocophotos/