Alexander Winn

Alexander Winn (born September 24, 1986) is an American writer, producer, and director of live-action and machinima films. Winn is best known as one of the two founding members of Edgeworks Entertainment, and as the writer, director, co-producer and composer of the award-winning "Halo" machinima series "The Codex Series", which consists of "The Codex", released in 2005, and its prequel, "The Heretic", released in 2007. He is a Presidential Scholar at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, majoring in film and minoring in Classics.

Winn gained recognition as a young filmmaker while still a senior in high school when two of his student films, "Baggage Claim" and "Jack O'Neill - Private Detective", won a total of 14 film festival awards including a Platinum REMI Award at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival for "Baggage Claim" [cite web|url=http://www.worldfest.org/PAGES/winners.htm|title=Houston WorldFest Winners Archive|year=2005|accessdate=2007-12-04] and a CINE Golden Eagle Award for "Jack O'Neill - Private Detective", [cite web|url=http://www.cine.org/winners/w-04-fall.php|title=CINE Golden Eagle Winners, Fall 2004|publisher=CINE|year=2004|accessdate=2007-12-04] making him the only high school student in the world to be awarded the CINE Golden Eagle for an individually produced project that year.

Machinima

In late 2004, Winn, along with Ryan Luther, co-founded Edgeworks Entertainment to produce a new "Halo 2" machinima series called "The Codex". Episode 1 of this series was released on February 9th, 2005, a date previously rumored to be the release date of an unknown Bungie project. Winn acted as writer, director, editor and composer, and reprised these roles during production of the prequel series, "The Heretic".

Winn and his machinima series have been featured in national and international media including the biography segment "Machinima Master" on mtvU, [cite web|url=http://www.mtvu.com/uconnect/game0RZ_ball/|title=On Campus: Game0RZ Ball Tour|publisher=mtvU|year=2005|accessdate=2007-12-04] the front covers of the Dallas Observercite web|url=http://www.dallasobserver.com/2006-01-19/news/lights-camera-play/|title=Lights Camera Play|publisher=Dallas Observer|accessdate=2008-04-26] and Houston Press,cite web|url=http://www.houstonpress.com/2006-01-19/news/hollywood-halo/|title=Hollywood Halo|publisher=Houston Press|accessdate=2008-04-26] and a full chapter in "Halo Effect", a published collection of essays and articles about the impact of the "Halo" video game series on popular culture. [cite book | last = Yeffeth | first = Glenn | title = Halo Effect: An Unauthorized Look at the Most Successful Video Game of All Time | publisher = BenBella Books | date = 2007 | url = http://www.smartpopbooks.com/allbooks/2007.html#Halo | isbn = 1933771119] Most recently, he was interviewed as an expert on machinima in a piece for Marketplace on National Public Radio in April 2008.cite web|url=http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/15/machinima/|title=Turning Video Games into Movies|publisher=Marketplace, NPR|accessdate=2008-04-26]

References

External links

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* [http://www.thecodexseries.com/ew "Edgeworks Entertainment" official website]
* [http://www.thelongtail.com/the_long_tail/2005/09/friday_fanboy_t_1.html Section of Chris Anderson's blog that includes his views on "The Codex"]