Ben Grussi 00:09
Hello everyone, this is the Halo version of the Machinima history. Unfortunately, due to the amount of content that the the Halo community has created, and me being out of the loop, I'm not going to really cover everything, but I will give you the prime cuts of what I believe had some notable impacts on the Machinima community. And just some really good films that were are worth your time to check out if you can. As always, the links to the films and so forth are going to be in the show notes. So let's get started.

Ben Grussi 00:47
So the story for Halo starts quite interesting that it actually showed up on the scene at a Macintosh presentation by Steve Jobs of Apple back in May of 1999, he actually got the exclusive to show off Halo to the masses on a Macintosh, and definitely looks different than what you would expect when it was released a year later. But definitely was revolutionary, definitely stuck to its tagline of Combat Evolved. Another interesting side note to this event is that a few months after that the event happened. Microsoft actually bought out Bungie. So they definitely saw that there was some potential in the best way they felt you to get it and keep it from anyone else was actually buy the whole company. And it would become the flagship game for their Xbox console that was going to be released, also in the same year, in 2001, actually. But moving on.

Ben Grussi 01:57
So another interesting piece is that a year later, during more promotion for the game, and also for Nvidias GeForce two GTS card technology is that they produced bungee and the video did a collaboration where they did a trailer presentation of just showing off the new graphical features that their new card, the GPU GeForce two GTs. The GTS stands for Giga Texture Shader, just for the geeks around there, and basically did a very slick job of reading a promo video that showed off all these different techniques, like lighting, rasterizer and just a lot of technical babble that I can't really, really pronounce. But basically, it was just a really good cool video presentation that showed machinima in a way that was promoting two products. You're promoting the the features of a video card that wasn't released yet, but it also tied in with also promoting a game that would be actually using this graphical technology, at the time was really cutting edge and really cool looking and made things a lot more cinematic potential.

Ben Grussi 03:16
So moving forward, the game itself actually was released for the Xbox in November 15 of 2001. It was really popular in basically, to keep it short and sweet, everybody loved it. I mean, a lot of lot of people loved it. So that's that.

Ben Grussi 03:40
So fast forward to one of the very first machinimas that I discovered, and probably a lot of other people did as well is that Randall Glass, which is he's very well known for this film, which is the Warthog Jump. He released it around June of 2002. Basically is a really neat three minute clip that shows off the the ability to use real time physics, and using grenades and seeing what he could do with how to set up with the warthogs and other things such as soldiers and stuff like that and just have a just a fun time with a with some sound effects and some musical tracks sprinkled in, to kind of liven it up. But just again, back at that time, was just really showing the power of Halo's physics engine and doing all this stuff in real time. It wasn't pre rendered or anything like that. You could just have it you know, react to like ragdoll physics where, you know, in real time you can change and can be completely unpredictable of what could happen to do items in the world because you're applying, you know, gunshots or grenades. And that was very popular. And then fast forward a little bit more.

Ben Grussi 05:04
We go into 2003. Obviously, the biggest one for that one is Red vs. Blue, as most people know, they premiered their series on April 1, April Fools of 2003. There is a famous story that goes along with it is that Burnie Burns didn't think it was that popular. You know, so he kind of put the file the famous episode of Why Are We Here on an unused server that he had in his office at the Internet service provider that he was working at the time with Gus and Jeff. And unbeknownst to him, but someone on his staff actually came to his office and said, you know, something's, something's up the bandwidth for the company is going through the roof. And we just don't know why. But we, we managed to to locate the source of it somewhere in your office. He's like, do you know anything about it, and Burnie's like, nope, looking at the offending machine. So when the IT guy left, he immediately unplugged it, because he didn't want to get into trouble. But, you know, just think, with that popularity. Fast forward a few weeks later, they're getting over 100,000 downloads of that episode. And then a few more months after that, they reached a million. So again, he didn't think much of it, but it completely changed his life, obviously, and a whole bunch of other people's lives, you know, because they really created a community that really changed. Really binded people together, not just with machinima stuff, but with anything else. They really, really, to the community to heart, even to this day. In it definitely me personally, it has affected my life in positive ways. And to other people as well, you know, The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly, but again, that's life. But it's still not something to be understated that they definitely had an impact good, bad or indifferent. It's undeniable.

Ben Grussi 07:04
So, moving on, the easy version of Halo actually came out in September, so just three months, five months later, so not too long. But finally, people on the PC could enjoy what the whole hoopla was about it. You know, just two years later, about one and a half years later.

Ben Grussi 07:31
Moving on another Halo series that was really popular in the vein of Red versus Blue, but with their own spin of it is Fire Team Charlie. Fire Team Charlie was really popular. Back in the day, it had three seasons worth of content. It was produced by two guys out of Canada, but definitely something to check out.

Ben Grussi 07:56
Moving on further, in 2004, still keeping in line with you know, very strong push of custom content that Bungie released Halo PC custom edition, it was released on May 6, of 2004. Leaving out even to this day, in 2022, the community for custom content for Halo PC, is still going strong. There is actually a documentary that was released a few better few weeks ago that actually still chronicle that that community still going strong in the impact that hasn't on people just you know, doing what we do best what people do best with their creativity is they just continue to understand, try and figure it out and create stuff that they they want to see possible.

Ben Grussi 08:52
So moving on even further that you might not be familiar with with this series. But it's important because it had an impact on my life and several other people's lives. Because it was a perfect story of fandom kind of spinning out, but actually growing into their own right where there was a group of people, the idea was broached in June of 220 2004, in the forum's of Red versus Blue, somebody has this idea to, you know, create a series that would kind of any given homage to Red versus Blue, but kind of give it its own unique twist. So the basic premise was to kind of do in a comedic story of the clashing between the sponsors of Red versus Blue where the sponsors would pay $10 And they would have access to high res videos, which back then was a big deal because again, quality was different was definitely bigger and better bandwidth was expensive. But you know, again, the $10 made up for it. And you also got a DVD of the season at the end of the run. So it was a twofer. But you have this other conflict, where you have people that don't want to pay for it, they want access to that, and they feel that they're entitled to it. So to sort of, do an homage, and tie it together, we're just sort of the drama that was happening in the forums, they created Sponsors versus Freeloaders and for the first four episodes, they kind of worked with that dynamic where, you know, they were trying to deal with, you know, the freeloaders and the sponsors were, we're trying to maintain the defence to keep the, you know, the high res video vault key from the freeloaders. It was a very solid series. And then they did something really unusual. And they I believe they did a really good job of it is that after the first four episodes, you know, you can only make fun of the freeloaders and, you know, squeeze the story out of that for so long. So they took a great risk. And they they created this five episode arch that switched it from completely comedic to now you have a drama that deals with darker tones, and more serious topics of just dealing with the situation of the sponsors, actually dealing with their very survival as an unknown threat, invades Blood Gulch. And all these new characters are injected into the story and internal conflicts start bubbling over, and so on, so forth. But it was, it was entitled The flame War Saga. And basically, they did a very good job in terms of visuals, the soundtrack and the voice acting to sort of you know up the game, as most shooter do when you're trying to continue to grow in your skills and whatnot, with your content to keep moving forward. Unfortunately, they didn't finish the saga. But you know, we got five really solid episodes to chew on.

Ben Grussi 12:09
Moving on, there is a website that actually was created in July of 2004. Again, this is pre-YouTube. So it's quite an interesting perspective. I mean, a prospect actually, it was a website called Halo tv.net. They were offering their tagline was that here we have a website that offers 24/7 machinima content, you know, Halo machinima and, you know also clan match Halo clan matches with the commentary. Also dedicated Red versus Blue channel with around the clock Red versus Blue content. You know, again, this is pre YouTube. So definitely something that was revelant, you know, something, again, moving up the ladder of this new ways to consume content and whatnot, pre YouTube. And I thought that was pretty interesting situation, or gift to the community, so to speak.

Ben Grussi 13:10
Moving on, someone who was with an ex a lot of time on his hands, but also again, like a lot of these custom projects come out of just the question, Can I do it, or I really want to see it happen. There is a specific video called The Matrix Halo Remixed. And this individual what they did is they took the audio from the movie and shot by shot recreated in Halo as best they could with the Spartans being all the different characters like Trinity and in the cops and the agents and so on and so forth. So you had just the first five minutes intro and the person trying to reproduce it shot by shot with movements and all that other stuff. So definitely something to check out.

Ben Grussi 14:01
Another interesting film that also came out after this was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. It was released to the public in October of 2004. It was a 30 minute straight through comedy film with multiple characters definitely really good voice acting so forth and it definitely as one they actually had the film was was good enough that it was actually placed on a magazines CD collection. So it was definitely into the masses that bought the magazine. But their tagline was basically saying it was Red versus Blue but funnier. But you know, even 20-19 years later, it's still solid. I've actually just recently watched it again, just to refresh my memory and it still holds up even to this day.

Ben Grussi 14:55
The other interesting thing, Burnie actually um, was saying in one of his reports of the promotions for Halo 2 is that he was reporting undercover from Bungie about how they were having secret access to see how they could perform, you know, new machinima stuff on the Halo 2 game before it's released. And they were able to to really take advantage of that, I believe, because, you know, the next iteration of Red versus Blue, definitely was able to take advantage of the new techniques that they were able to use, you know, pre learning the platform before everybody else. So the other thing that has also happened to is that Halo 2 comes out, it also came out in November 9 of 2004. Unfortunately, there wasn't much new content that I could tell, most of the stuff that I could see, for the most part seems to stick with Halo 1. But there were several shows that I believe did actually use Halo 2. One of them is one I'm going to be talking about in a few minutes. But the most part, most of the content I saw with Halo 2, there wasn't much but again, I could have missed it because of all the content that was created. And also me being kind of out of the loop.

Ben Grussi 16:26
Moving on, we have for 2005 we definitely have some interesting bits. So the first one is the creation of The Codex series, the codec series was done by a team by Edgeworks Entertainment, they, again, like the Sponsors versus Freeloaders, they unlike that team, which went from comedy to drama, this one is pure drama from the from the get go. And they mapped out 21 episodes there, three to five minute pieces, you know, the longest one, which was the season series finale, which clocked up at 13 minutes. So definitely easy stuff to choose to chew on. And then it was so popular that they actually managed to put together a repo which was entitled The Heretic. And that also went for a few episodes as well. So definitely something different because again, if being exposed to too much comedy might be a bad thing. So again, you can kind of have some balance with some drama.

Ben Grussi 17:37
So the next thing, like I said, Halo to This Spartan Life created by Chris Burke, they premiered their talk show series, like like they did with with the Quake and Late Night, you know, Late Night and Late Night 2. This is being done in Halo, and Halo environment. And what's really very, very good about This Spartan Life is that fact is they were able to get some very high profile people. The Ill Clan, being one of them. The composer for for Halo, Marty, he was also included, Burnie was on it. And they did it. In specifically on Burnie's episode, they did a really nice parody of This Was a Wonderful Life as part of a Christmas themed episode. So definitely, the team definitely did get a lot of really nice guests. To my knowledge, they were able to do seven episodes, but they were broken down into modules. So you had seven episodes. And each module, you had four or five modules, a subset of that. So definitely a lot of content as well. And they definitely got press further further accolades as well.

Ben Grussi 17:37
So nothing to really sneeze at. Another interesting point to make is that there was and this is something I just discovered just a few days ago, prior to this recording, but it was actually posted back in April of 2015. Is that Louis Wu's HBO, the fans, they're really really popular fan site dad actually had an article about these three churches in in Texas that actually seemed to use Halo as a platform to deal with the subjects of Christianity and also how to be to be good people just in general and also promoting a weekend thing I believe for teens, you know, way back when in in 2005. But I really think that again, not expecting, you know, the shooting the comedy, stuff like that it was just a really good, solid presentation of just using a game and using it as a performance piece, saying, like what had happened with the French Democracy with the movies, this also kind of touches that as well. And I thought they were very good. In it was, you know, good enough that that Claude, I mean, Louis Wu, who brought it to the people's attention, because you know, with HBO, you know, it's like being slashed dotted, if you're on there, people are going to, a lot of eyeballs are going to be going to your site. And, you know, you're going to know it real quick. So that's definitely just a refreshing change that, like I said, they're really solid pieces and worth checking out.

Ben Grussi 20:55
So the last two pieces that I have to mention, are is another interesting thing that you probably have heard before, but if not, there was a user by the name of Amanda J 362. She actually, she had a collaboration with the Sponsors versus Freeloaders team. And they, she actually had an interesting thing she did where she took with the permission of the team, she was able to use green screening and the ability of her editing skills to for the first time that I can tell, I didn't see it in Red versus Blue. And she did it. So I'm ruling it that she's the first. But what she did is he used the green screen technique where she took the background of Halo, the world around Hallo and actually superimpose on top on top of that layer to one of her Sims. And she did a piece called You're Fired, where basically, you know, if you're familiar with the series, one of the characters named Crows, you know, is not listening to his commanding officer, which is Sevenar. And basically seminar says, you know, to deal with this problem, I need to use a flanker. So basically using the flame thrower. And basically while doing that, you roast cruises to a crisp and says you're fired. You know, this is definitely predating Trump, obviously. But, you know, a very interesting demo piece to show that it's possible. And what's interesting is that, again, like with the, the piece that I mentioned, just previous to this with the terms of the Christianity element to using Halo to tell stories in trying to promote or explain, you know, Christianity, and in just being good people, that again, this was just used as a test to show the ability that people have been able to cultivate with their editing skills and using the software provided, you know, not part of the halal package, but at least using your creative juices to remix things to add a bit more kick to it. So that actually, Louis Wu who actually promoted it on a site as well, he was surprised to her of that as well. And she really got the attention, you know, and it was just again, one of those things where you don't expect that you just think it's something you slapped together. No one's going to think much of it, but it definitely left an impression. And just, it's newsworthy, it's it's history noteworthy, because like I said, it showed the attempt to to combine two, two engines, the Sims 2 and Halo and trying to use it, as, you know, a story mechanism which they were going to do, which I'll cover in The Sims 2, The Sims historical module of this, but basically, you know, was going to do a story that use the spin off story from the Sponsors versus Freeloaders story and create their own spin off. And it was going to be a merging of the two with a halo doing the Spartan stuff. And then the Sims basically doing the the other narrative sections as well. So it's a mishmash, but it was supposed to be really tight. They did three 3 episodes, 3 episodes that were very solid. Unfortunately, I didn't go past that. But as I said, I'll cover that in more detail on the Sims 2 section, the same section, but again, noted, of the growth that you're trying to do with what you have.

Ben Grussi 24:39
And finally, the last thing, which is very important, because it dealt with, this is in 2007, this was really at a critical juncture where Blizzard, Microsoft and a couple other companies were trying to figure out machinima gotten big enough that they couldn't nor, but they also had to deal with the legal ramifications of people trying to use the content to create content from their material. And they didn't want to get into trouble with all the legal ease. So blizzard and Microsoft wrote up these rule sets. But some people felt that the rule sets were too restrictive, or they just felt that they weren't being very accommodating. And there was a very good, there was a very well polished collaboration done between, you know, Phil Rice, which is Overman, you know, one of the host of this show, he had a collaboration with Krad Productions, they put something together called Company Rulz. They used Halo and some custom content, where Phil basically tries to explain, you know, in layman's terms, what the new usage rules were, and how, you know, it would affect people, you know, it was quite comedic. But, you know, it was just a very good way of using the tools to try and explain something in plain English in using visuals, and also audible cues to tell you the difference of, you know, what the impact of what you were going to originally be able to do, and what the new rules were, rules impact would have had. But kind of an interesting twist at the end, they found out after the film was done, that they changed the rules again, and it didn't really matter. But again, it was a very good training module for people to try and understand the rules that were trying to be set in this new world of trying to coexist with the people that created the games, into having to deal with people that spin off that material into their own content, and trying to navigate those, you know, those choppy waters.

Ben Grussi 26:50
But that's it for Halo. Like I said, it could have been longer, but I don't want to overburden people with a lot of stuff that, you know, there's just too much content. And I acknowledge everyone that did the work, you know, not forgotten, but it's just easier just to keep it concise here. So, as I said in the beginning, all the films are in the show notes. So check them out, have a bit of a nostalgic or a refreshing change. There's something different, you know, if you haven't touched Halo or haven't seen Halo in a long time, this is a good refresher to see what people have cooked up. And that's about it. So I'll see you guys next month. Maybe depends. It has to be at the end on the topic that we choose. But for now Halo is done. Have a good day. Enjoy. Thanks, guys.