WoW Moviewatch: Life of a Vendor
by Michael Gray 
Feb 1st 2010 at 12:00PM
The movie is focused on the vendors in Azeroth, Northrend, and abroad. To quote Galenmereth, "this is a video dedicated to all the vendors who usually only get our coin and not our love." Even ignoring the subject of the video's dedication, Life of a Vendor is shot with a careful, artistic eye. Its stop-motion method is relatively unexplored as a WoW movie technique, and the style serves wonderfully when shot over the shoulder of so many NPCs.
The song is obviously a treat. I enjoyed Lisa Hannigan's work and will probably check out other music by her. If it's as good as I don't know, it will quickly take up residence in my iTunes.
Overall, Life of a Vendor was a great video. Nice job, Galenmereth.
Edit: As pointed out, "time lapse" is probably a better way to describe this technique. Mea culpa.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Rilnac Feb 1st 2010 12:16PM
It should be noted the filming method is timelapse, not stop motion.
Eddy Feb 1st 2010 12:16PM
I really liked this actually. I wouldn't call it "stop motion" as that implies that a lot of individual screenshots were taken, as this looks more like it was video that was sped up...
I liked the style, though. Simple and well-executed.
Tyr Feb 1st 2010 12:21PM
Must be lonely :(
DivineB Feb 1st 2010 12:25PM
Very interesting, I loved it!
Tirrimas Feb 1st 2010 12:30PM
That...was pretty cool. :)
I must say, the "bouncing bear butt" made me giggle.
TeeKay Feb 1st 2010 12:33PM
This video is by Wrathchan of Ahn'Qiraj Eu server.
Glaras Feb 1st 2010 12:37PM
That was a wonderful little vid! I think the Outlands vendor was probably the saddest, to me, as that area of the world has been given over to DKs and power-leveled alts. Oh, and the occasional entrepreneur farming now-rare materials for the AH.
Great vid! Kudos!
Khremloc Feb 1st 2010 12:39PM
Fantastic. Just goes to show you don't need belves prancing around to make a great music video. MACHINIMA MAKERS, TAKE NOTE.
Qot Feb 1st 2010 1:20PM
A great machinima without extensive use of WoW Model Viewer?
Inconceivable!
Rin Feb 1st 2010 1:29PM
You use that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
shug Feb 1st 2010 12:42PM
The best shot by far is the one of the BE girl that sells the donuts.
Mmmmm.... donut girl...
loop_not_defined Feb 1st 2010 12:44PM
At the Dalaran flight point (around 2:30 or so), who is the obnoxious guy on the green proto-drake? :O
Good vid, btw!
Qot Feb 1st 2010 1:18PM
The individual clips don't look very long, perhaps a couple of minutes at a time, so it's possible it's just someone killing time.
I do that all the time when I'm bored waiting for a raid to form. You could ask my guild: slow down the raiding experience for 1/10th of a second and you get jumping orc inside an instance, upside-down flying orc outside the instance. It's like a mental switch goes off: I'm an adult, this is my scheduled playtime, I wanna play, I wanna play, I wanna play, wheeeeeee!
sorroad Feb 1st 2010 1:40PM
i was looking at the bloodelf flightmaster keep turning is head to the right side like he was being stalked
mike Feb 1st 2010 12:47PM
cool idea. I kept waiting for some conclusion though. Is you're conclusion that your character is like a vendor, as everyone else passes you by?
I also don't know how he shot the flight master in Dalaran like that, I have never seen him without being under someones massive mount or tauren hoof!
GI_Prophet Feb 1st 2010 12:49PM
I thought it seemed cool at first, but after the first two minutes it got *really* boring. I pretty much was just watching the game sped up...
Dah Feb 1st 2010 1:07PM
wow...one of the simplest wow vids I've seen, but hands down one of the best.
I love how the simple mundane movements that characters and mounts make are transformed into a sort of dance.
The mounts especially are awesome. The raptor early on seems to jump in front of the camera, groove our, then run off randomly, haha.
Oh, and the bear shakin' his butt at Krasus Landing was great!
Slaytanic Feb 1st 2010 2:08PM
Agreed. Despite it's simplicity, I was totally mesmerized by this video. Not just the humbling loneliness of the merchants, which we all knew we were going to see, but the movements of many other things that we always take for granted: The statue in front of the South bank, the barber shop pole, and the Hellfire Peninsula sky was amazing.
Jason Feb 1st 2010 1:14PM
I liked the bouncing orc in the bank scene.
Qot Feb 1st 2010 1:16PM
Excellent movie in every sense. Subtle, well-crafted and well planned. Perfect choice of music and pacing. Even the comical moments (the aforementioned bouncing bear butt) are unobtrusive towards the overall theme of the movie. To summarize: excellent, excellent, excellent, should be required viewing for anyone who wants to make machinima.