Phil Rice 00:12
Hello and welcome to And Now For Something Completely Machinima, the podcast about machinima, virtual production and other related technologies. We're here to talk this week about our film pick for the week, which is Ricky's pick. It is something called. Its Just A Game. This is an Elden Ring based machinima film Ricky, tell us all about it.

Ricky Grove 00:36
Sure, happy to. Well, this pic was a personal one for me because I've been playing Elden Ring like crazy since it came out last March of 2022. It's probably my favourite game of that any of I played and the director of this film GraysonFlows, one word, started putting together sort of, I guess you'd call them studies in the mythology and background of Elden Ring which by the way, George RR Martin contributed to some of the story of the background of Elden ring and it's fascinating. It's very gothic, very dark, filled with lots of tragedy, family tragedies and betrayals, and very strange, the Japanese have a particular fascination with body horror. And this the game is just filled with all sorts of strange body transformations. But anyway, GraysonFlows his YouTube channel, he spends a lot of time on all of his short films, sort of elaborating on the background stories picking particular characters and particular histories and, and then illustrating them in a machinima style. He uses a hack Otis_Inf, a guy who makes a, I assume makes extra money or living hacking major games to to enable machinima like camera movements in the game. And, but the difference is, rather than making them you know, in the past, when people would do that, they just make it for free. What he's done is, and I understand it, and I appreciate it, he's created a Patreon, a system where if you want to use that particular thing, you have to donate to his Patreon. Now, it's a minuscule, what 8.99 or 10 bucks, something like that, which is well worth it. I mean, 100 $100 a year, $120 a year for using a fantastic tool that allows you to reposition the camera, create camera movements, in time, slow down, go back, record something, and then go back and do it. Very reminiscent of the very early days when Phil you did recamming of, of different fights and stuff. But in this case, it's the it's not only the action of the game, but it's the cutscenes as well. So you can go into the cutscenes and re-cam them, which is pretty cool. So that's what GraysonFlows did he went back in. And he did sort of the entire player experience from the beginning of the game all the way to fighting the very last boss. Now as a, as a film, it's a bit of an insider film, you tend to appreciate it more if you're playing the game than if you you don't. But he was one of the things that he does, it's really well edited. He does a wonderful job of putting together the score to it and selecting particular scenes, you get a real feel of the game. And also a great sense of the of the game environment. Because they'll have a he'll have the character moving at centre forward and then he'll cut to another scene and then another scene and then another scene. So you get to see this. This the strange feeling you get of going through an alien landscape travelling because it's an open world game, a huge open world game, and you can go anywhere you want and, and it's filled with all sorts of strange and odd things. I liked it a lot. Although compared to the other films we're doing this month. It's not nearly as good as the other ones but and it's a personal choice, but I really enjoyed watching it and he has other films who it's a little bit long, but some of his other films on his channel are a little bit better. I may have not picked the best one there but this is a good introduction to it. And what did you guys think of the of the film?

Phil Rice 05:03
A lot. Yeah, I'll go ahead and go next. I enjoyed it a lot. I appreciated the fact that that change of environment, you were talking about the, the variety of landscapes and colours and textures, and just these totally different environments showcased in this short little film. For someone who hasn't played the game. I've watched over my son's shoulder for all of maybe 10 minutes as he's played it. He's He's obsessed with it as much as you are Ricky, I think. And for the same reasons, I think like it's not just you know, hack and slash attraction. It's I went into his room just last night, and, hey, what are you working on and he had this screen open and we're working on writing up, he's, he's got aspirations to make his own games at some point. And he's writing up a mythology of the beliefs of the people of this world that he's building out. And clearly inspired by the depth of world building in not only Dark Souls, but especially here in Elden Ring. So yeah, this was this was visually tasty, I didn't have a connection with with the specific narrative of the game having not played it. But the progression was clearly laid out. And I assumed when it came in, into that last major conflict, that that this must be the final boss of the game, final confrontation, right? Simply because of the scale. And also, I think, because of the way that he built up to it, there's it's this sort of sense of a journey, and there's there's perils along the way, but ultimately heading somewhere. I thought those shots were, it seemed like some of them were, he was on horseback just riding directly at the screen. Right. And by changing the environments, and then later on on foot, same thing. That was just wonderful. Yeah, I just really liked it. So yeah, yeah, it's, it's a good pick. And, you know, like, like you said, it's, it's not constructed narrative to the point where there's a whole lot to pick apart and analyse here. But as a, a demonstration of the lot of stuff that was shown in that, that I would have never seen having not played the game. And I imagine that someone who has played it, it's it's, you know, probably, like almost a slideshow of all these memories of encounters that you experienced while playing it. And, you know, that's, that's a major category of machinima for sure. Yeah. He called

Ricky Grove 07:48
it a tribute edit to the best game of the year. So although it's all on the surface, it's just visual. And it's more like a guided narrative. There's no drama, or anything like that. So it doesn't quite have the same resonance. But but as just a visual tribute to the game. I think it's it's really well done.

Phil Rice 08:09
Yeah, yeah.

Tracy Harwood 08:10
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. I was just thinking, we haven't really seen too much Elden Ring machinima. Yeah, yet. That's right. I mean, to my surprise, really, because, you know, as this particular film demonstrates, it's absolutely stunning. It's a stunning world. I'm sure you could make lots of really interesting stories out of this, but we just haven't seen an awful lot. To me this is this is clearly fan art and an absolute tribute to that sort of stunning it to me, it's kind of Gothic, like in its detail. It's just that kind of, it's got that kind of beauty to it, I think really, that I associate with with with with with Gothic art. The music selection, November, composed by Richter is absolutely perfect for this, it's got a haunting beauty to it that just perfectly suits this run through of the game. I think it absolutely demonstrates the vastness of the virtual environment with a with a sort of climax of some amazing kind of battle scene. And, and, you know, what you've got here is a, it's a bit of a narrative arc, if you like, it seems to be told in sort of three sections. There's a kind of running sequence, which seems to be incredibly well timed to the rhythm of the, the music with some, you know, some I think there's some really, really, you know, those sorts of changes and they're really just mind blowing the way that he's done the changes and edited that together on time into the music, really well done. And then from the running you kind of, which obviously I was completely exhausted watching because it's the same thing kind of speed just going through it, you then get this switch to these fighting mythical creatures section. And you've got all these kind of blades and battles, demonstrated in the sort of next section. And then you've got this also, this really interesting spoken piece. Which is, it seems articulating the poetry of the game. Now, what I wanted to ask you is obviously never played this game. Is that poetry and that that voice acting? Is that in the game? Or has He added that

Ricky Grove 10:42
in the game in the game? Well,

Tracy Harwood 10:45
it's beautiful, that it really adds a depth to this. So it's really, really well done. And that the timing of it and the way that it's been included, really kind of creates these sort of three sections. Really did enjoy it immensely, I have to say, I felt well, it was a it's overall it was a little bit long, I thought running could have been a bit shorter, the fighting section with these mythical creatures could have been a little bit shorter. And I don't think you'd lost any of the sense of the significance of the beauty of it, had he have edited it down just a little bit. But then again, when I was looking at this guy's channel, I was thinking maybe that's not really what he's trying to demonstrate here. Because what I think he's about on the channel is all about speed runs through games. And so maybe what he's demonstrating was that, you know, was that sort of speed in which you've kind of seemed to suggest as well, in your opening remarks about it? So maybe that's why it wasn't perhaps as well edited as some of the other films that we will be reviewing this month as well. Because that's not his. His his objective? Yeah, exactly. But But overall, I mean, wow, this game is amazing. I'm

Ricky Grove 12:07
so glad I wasn't sure how you guys would respond to it. Because it's such a personal choice for me. But you know, this, I think the answer to your question is why there isn't so much machinima is that the game is just too goddamn good. You what you want to do is you finish it. And then you immediately have an idea. Well, if I played this other character, I could come in and really beat this one boss who's so tough, you know, and I could avoid that. And I could do this. It's so vast and so exciting. The gameplay is that you don't even think I mean, you get while I was playing, I was thinking, Well, that would be a good machinima scene that you could do a whole story about that. But it's sort of in a way, like life. You go through life meeting people, and you drive past people, and they all have their stories. And you see something interesting, you go, well, that's interesting. And if you went over there and got involved in it, you could find all about it, you can find about who those people have. That's exactly how the game is, if you move away from the main storyline or the your main objectives, you can go over and find a whole story behind a whole group of people. And that's partially what draws you in. So I think it's the excellence of the game that keeps keeps people from wanting to make machinima. Because rather than making a story about this, you want to go find out more about it yourself, you know? Yeah, exactly. I also think it's a it's a fascinating world. It's very much paralleling the story of Christianity, the the mythology of Christianity in which you have a fallen world. And then various people have changed the world because of their obsessive beliefs, either through, like, there's one very powerful person who has gotten the belief that the way to solve the problems of the world is to graft hearts of other people on to himself. And their value is is the people are like objects to help him with his obsession. And that's just one small character. There's another character, an incredible warrior, a female warrior, and that's a great thing. genders are very evenly matched all the way through the game. And there's another character in which she got, is very powerful group of sisters. All three women are very powerful in the game. And she she came down and because of, it's a long story, but she came down with this terrible disease called rot and it infected her and so much so that it it. And she's so powerful that in effect, this whole area of the game, where if you go through it, you could get this rot thing that would kill you. So you have all of these fallen people, and you are the only person who's going to bring them all together, you play this kind of Christ figure. Although you don't sacrifice anything, you know, there's no sacrificial element. But the but the the through line is you, you're going to become the Elden Lord, which will bring all of this together again. So that's incredibly appealing. And it also fits all of the narrative tropes of classic fantasy to the same thing with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the main character has the ring, and that by getting rid of the ring, he'll get rid of the awful thing that's, that's breaking apart the world and the world can really reform again. So I think that myth that they're telling the story is very appealing to people, even if they don't even know what the myth is, or they have no awareness of it

Ricky Grove 12:16
there's a lot of referencing here is not to what they call it, or what, what I think I heard it's been called the tarnished. Is that what you mean by the kind of

Ricky Grove 16:17
Christ tarnished? That's it. Yeah. The tarnished are in between people, people who have fallen, and your goal as a target, and you're an outsider. So everybody treats you, oh you're tarnished, ah, and you get this feeling of being in a inside of a story as you're playing the game. Without the story being because it's an open world, you're not forced down a narrative path. You don't you don't have to follow this narrative path. You can go anywhere you want. And what it is, is you you, I didn't pay a lot of attention, a lot of attention to the story when I first played the game because the game is so god, god damn hard. What you just want to do is learn how to survive through the game. It's the hardest game I've ever played. I think at one point I played, I had to fight this one character over 50 times before I was able to beat them. And the only way I could do it was through advice from YouTube experts. You know,

Tracy Harwood 17:24
I don't know how many shows last year playing Elden Ring.

Ricky Grove 17:28
I know. I know. It's an obsession. It really becomes a bit like my partner. She just railed at me a couple of times for Yeah, your dad we spend so much time I'm over thankfully now, but I'm okay. Now my new obsession is Diablo four. So there you go. But anyway, I really liked this and if, if you like, if you want to know more about it, check GraysonFlows YouTube channel because he's got many short tributes to Elden Ring.

Tracy Harwood 17:57
Um, well, I look forward to seeing more machinima in it. You know what I was thinking? Maybe what we're looking at this because we're still seeing lots of HalfLife machinima being made, aren't we? I mean now however many years on, and I'm wondering, because that's also a very complex world that people seem to have kind of made more and more and more of as time has gone on, and they've understood the depths of it more, I suppose. So maybe that's what we'll see. machinima will take a long time to come through on this one.

Ricky Grove 18:30
Yeah, but half life was in. It had one foot in the machinima world right from the very beginning. It did. Yeah. Ya know the tradition of people. Even as even as people became middle aged. They would look back at half life two and go wow, I can make a story out of that. The people playing Elden Ring I don't for the most part I don't think are a lot of machinima oriented people. Because machinima has moved modern machinima has moved into the Unreal/Unity/iClone world you know, which is different.

Phil Rice 19:07
Great pick Ricky. Thank you. I've I've seen the notification come up on steam so many times. Since we're friends on Steam have Ricky is playing Eldon Ring where he's playing. So I knew this day would come eventually. Where we'd get to talk about it on this show, and I'm glad it has come. Actually, when that stopped, I got worried. I thought he's Ricky okay.

Ricky Grove 19:32
One piece of advice for anybody wanting to play Elden ring. Go mess with the bears. Whatever you do, if you ever see a bear, do not mess with him. Just go around it. ride around it, walk around it, and the dogs don't mess with the bears and the dogs. That's all.

Phil Rice 19:52
If you do that, it'll be okay. Yeah, the bear advice that translates really well to real world too. I think that generally be my advice for bears. Yeah, because if you go Cleveland as when

Ricky Grove 20:03
they're and they're docile, but if you start messing with them, like hey, I'm really gonna really gonna take care of you. They'll one shot yet, you know. Oh by the way one last thing. There's a really interesting it's not machinima it's a 2D series that celebrates the absurdity of Elden Ring and the frustrations involved in an L ring. I think it's by Carhat Productions I think it is. But anyway you if you just do Eldon Ring cartoon on YouTube you'll see it they did maybe 31 episodes and they're hilarious. You should watch them filled a very very funny it out. It's this doofus sort of Buster Keaton like character trying to play Elden Ring and of course they just get smashed every turn, you know, but it's so funny. It's really really good. Brilliant.

Phil Rice 21:00
That's it for this episode. So I'm going to close the episode with how I should have opened it but I'm an idiot and I forgot. I'm Phil Rice and with me is Ricky Grove and Tracy Harwood. Damian cannot be with us this episode, he's being chased by paparazzi. Yeah, thanks to all the press attention he's been getting lately. So we hope to have him back with us soon. And we'll see you all in our next episode. Thanks, everyone.