Ricky Grove 00:16
It is Sunday - its Halloween

Phil Rice 00:27
Hi and welcome to Completely machinima.com to the podcast completely machinima or and if you hadn't guessed it by now the theme is Halloween Halloween. Hi, I'm Phil Rice. And with me are our co hosts, Ricky Grove, Damian Valentine and Tracy Harwood. Hello. Today's episode Ricky is going to be talking to us about a, a Halloween was somewhat Halloween, a film in the spirit of Halloween, take it away, right,

Ricky Grove 01:01
Right, one thing I want to mention is that every year we do a big yard haunt in our yard in our driveway. And this year is going to be particularly fun, because we managed to finally get something we've been trying to buy for three years. And that's a huge 12 foot high skeleton. That Home Depot sells got it now. They announce it for the next day. And then within about three to four hours they sell out. So we got to we went on their list and we had some friends keeping an eye out. They sent us a notice that it was gonna go on sale and we nabbed it within five minutes. This year, there's going to be a 12 foot high skeleton with lights and all that stuff. Plus, why made some handmade headstones we've got a new little ghost animation. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'll include some pictures on our our blog. That'd be great. A lot of fun. Yeah. My film that I chose is a little bit of a nostalgic choice. I know there are lots lots of interesting Lovecraft adaptations that were made in machinima horrors, been a really good tradition in machinima. I'd love to maybe do an article on some of that sometime for the blog. But I found myself just entranced by the short little of all things a Warcraft, machinima made in 2008 by Olibith Tor. I generally don't like Warcraft, machinima, I think it's just the style of animation and everything. But this one just really got me because it has such sharp black humour. It's called Little White Poney Inn. And I love the fact that it's very much like a Grimm's fairy tale, in that most people tend to think that Grimms fairy tales are so much sentimental, you know that they, they have these little happy endings. And they're these little fantasy stories. Well, this one really captures the essence of the Grimm story tales, because it's a funny story about a, a person, possibly a wizard, sending people out sending someone out to deliver a message or to help someone. And the ending of it is just completely unexpected. You do you don't there's this kind of cutesy Warcraft feel to it. But underneath, there's a nasty little thing. The twist ending is very much out of Twilight Zone or thriller, or one of those things. I just loved it. And it's short, it's clear, it's well edited. It's funny. It's an unusual pick for me, but I just, I had delighted in it. What did you guys think?

Damien Valentine 03:52
I think the Warcraft thought, like you said it's very cutesy and pretty much all the Warcraft machinery is because the style of the game really works in favour of this film, because it makes the outcome unexpected. Because it's not we expect something that visual style to have. I don't want to see what that ending is. So it because it's a short film, it's gonna be very tricky to talk about it without giving it away. But I thought it was great. It was funny, and I think they, they use the Warcraft in a way that Warcraft isn't usually used. Yeah. And that's always great to see as well. Because it's, it's not a game this designer for this kind of storytelling, and they decided to do it anyway. Because they figured out how to do it. And I think it just it just worked really well. It's great pic

Ricky Grove 04:44
said yes, the little film. No, what do you say?

Phil Rice 04:49
I loved it. I'm familiar with, with Olibith's work. He was one of the more prolific, Warcraft machinima makers during that time, this would have been right around during his peak, he's a very funny and nice person. And yes, that's basically some of the funniest stuff, or more interesting stuff that I saw out of Warcraft inevitably was his. And yeah, I just I really enjoyed it. I think that the black and white look was really interesting some of the ways that he chose to do certain scenes, my favourite is where the characters running across the screen. It's almost like like the old Flintstones kind of feel to it, where the background is going by and the person just just just perfectly centred on screen as the scenery goes by. So yeah, and just a, he was never afraid of dark humour, as this is a great example of. So yeah, I just I really enjoyed it. And I had, I've seen so much of his work, and I had not seen this one. So I was very pleased to see this as your pick, and I enjoyed it very much. Yeah, good stuff.

Ricky Grove 06:15
I'd like to make a quick mention that he's also the tutorials are somewhat old. But he's got interesting tutorials on machinima basics, and a guide to creating machinima. They're all from 2010. And he's got a really interesting at Warcraft movies.com. He's got an entire page that lays out all of the things that he's done. So I will have a link to that. And I encourage everybody to check it out.

Tracy Harwood 06:46
First, yeah, well, okay, so I completely agree with you on the on the Grimm fairytale idea, because, to me, it was very reminiscent of Little Red Riding Hood, but with some kind of evil family member who kind of intervenes and, you know, has this kind of like very dark, deadly twists to it at the end, which is quite surprising. I think I didn't expect it because I also hadn't seen this film. The visuals, and I was quite interested intrigued in this because because the visuals and the music have all come from World of Warcraft. And the fact that it's silent and in black and white only really partially mitigates, I think some of the challenges that this kind of machinima faces, at least now from my perspective, because it looks and feels, I think, really quite dated now as machinima work. And but I say that in a similar kind of way, that you kind of look at old Chaplin and Keaton movies now. But But I think what's kind of interesting to reflect on and of course, it's only 15 years old, not 100 years old. But I think that says something about the pace that game technologies have kind of moved on. I think like that more unlike some other games, it's actually worth remembering that World of Warcraft didn't change its aesthetic from being launched in 2004 until the mid 2010s, just sort of 2016 I think it was when it started to look a bit more modern. So overall, that game doesn't, I don't think it stands up at all, really, to other games, that you that, you know, we've seen kind of come out slightly earlier, in fact, than this, like GTA or Red Dead, I think the ascetic style and, you know, I think those kinds of games have probably stood up a little better than than World of Warcraft has done. All of that said, I think it's, you know, it's a good story. And it illustrates is that you can tell a good story in any medium. And once again, I think, you know, the thing that's, that I've picked up on throughout all the films that we've reviewed this month, we all have this kind of aura theme because of you know, Halloween and whatnot. All of them are driven by sound design, and the drama of going to you know, to look for someone in in kind of mortal danger, they all kind of have the same sort of story roughly. But this particular one is only partially silent. Because you know, the sounds of the hunter and the monster are actually included. And I would guess that for added drama, even though the the animations themselves are really quite clunky. For example, one of the things that we talked about weeks ago is the eyes widening in fear at key points. Yeah, well, obviously they don't do that in in this one. But what you do get is the cameras zooming in to get the same kind of effect. That's always really well done. So it's a different way of doing it, isn't it but you didn't have that as a technique in this in these in these early machinima films. But I think the, you know, the, the way that the character moves. You know, World of Warcraft was a long time ago, really, for me and my, my, my brain. And I can remember a lot of these films, and I can remember that those movements as kind of clunky movements had meaning, but I forgotten what the meanings are now. Which is why I think it's kind of not stood up quite so well as a game engine. Really. I

Damien Valentine 10:59
kind of had the opposite of that, because it's designed to look like there's old black and white silent films. So I feel like the the dated graphics go really well with that. Because if you watch a film that is about 100 years old, but isn't that a real silent film. Yeah, the cameras are very primitive. So people, they miss his frames, and they move in sort of coming. Even if the dramatic film they have this comedic style of moving. And, you know, it looks old, and this works with it.

Ricky Grove 11:33
Well, that was that that aspect of it wasn't intentional. It was because they were projected at the or they were shown at the incorrect frame speed, which caused that speed up. Yeah. Which is why everybody goes, Oh, well, why isn't this dramatic film, the true film rate for it, when it's done accurately slows everything down and makes it makes it clear? It's because we're used to that fast film rate that moves everything along so quickly.

Tracy Harwood 12:00
Yeah, but to me what's different here, I get what you're saying that Damien, and I don't necessarily disagree with you on the, on the complementarity of the black and white and the dated look, and whatnot. But it's the fact that what you're looking at is, again, not a person and, and that, you know, they're sort of launching movements. Abs, they definitely meant something in the game, but I just can't remember what it is, or, or what it means now. So for me, that's where it fell apart just a little bit. But actually, I've never seen this long before. So you know, this, this was a was a pleasant surprise in many ways. And really quite a contrast to some of the others that we've reviewed this month, whether reveal I think is much more subtle than this kind of Yep, here it is Full On!

Ricky Grove 12:53
All three films that we have picked. Because Phil picked an instructional film, all have twists and things that we can't really mention.

Tracy Harwood 13:05
Exactly.

Phil Rice 13:10
The dated engine on this and it didn't bother me. And I'm trying to since you brought it up, I've been trying to figure out why because it normally would. Maybe it's because this game when it was new was always a stylized versus realistic. And the two examples, the competing examples have always been aiming for Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. They've always been aiming for realism. Yeah, and years ago, they couldn't get as real and now they can. But that's always been the aim. Since they since GTA went from 2d to 3d. That's what they've been trying to do. But World of Warcraft, it wasn't trying to look realistic. It wasn't even trying to look at, like realistic fantasy world. It was cartoony, it was cartoony design. So as such, I'm having a more difficult time. being harsh with it, even though I can clearly I've got a freeze frame open right now. And I'm looking at it. Clearly it's low poly right, you know, and it's not just the stylized nature of it that shows the datedness it's the low poly model models. And yeah, they're at the very limited set of animations, which would Ricky and I went 2006 There's a photo we've got that will maybe have to throw on the blog at some point. Someone took a picture of he I and Ben and we're doing I'm doing you're doing movement film that was there that was doing really well and we were just laughing about because there was that at the time, World of Warcraft which had Like three animations, and just it was just it just cracked us up. And the other was the The Movies. Lionhead. Yes. With these crazy. Like, if somebody mo kept those, they need to see a doctor, you know really strange street and it's like I guess it was intended to be fun and silly. They weren't made that game. They weren't trying to make it let's make this look like a real person walking across the street the way people do know, this was almost vaudeville, you know, it was it was, yeah. Oh, and I kind of feel like this game falls into that category. And so, yeah, how do you how to judge that? Like, what would they do differently? Now, if they were making this game with the same goals, it would, the only thing that would be different is the polycount. But it would still be impossibly small, waisted large breasted characters and guys with gigantic heads and tiny bodies. That was World of Warcraft. So

Damien Valentine 16:09
I remember I didn't bug me reading is I come here, it was someone that Blizzard when they were about to release World of Warcraft, it was a long time ago. And they were talking about the design design decision on the graphic style. And what they wanted to do was, they didn't want to create a huge, graphically intensive game that only a handful of people with super computers at home could run. They want it to be able to run on as many computers as possible. But they also wanted it to not age very quickly. So they opted for the cartoony style because it meant the system requirements will be fairly

Phil Rice 16:46
forgiving for that too. Yeah. more forgiving for the low poly models. Yeah. And

Damien Valentine 16:51
it wouldn't age because they're not too worried about the details. Right living up to it.

Tracy Harwood 16:56
Yeah, but my point is it's the movement that's aged. Yeah, that's the bit I think that's

Phil Rice 17:02
what it was dated the day they released it.

Ricky Grove 17:05
Question for you. Well, what do you think this film would be better if it was keeping all the audio keeping all the animation the way it is and the style if it were redone in Unreal?

Tracy Harwood 17:19
No, oh, no, no, no, definitely don't do that.

Phil Rice 17:22
I feel like yeah, I feel like this film, for me falls into the same category as doggone it. That Nintendo Switch game. We've reviewed several films made by it. Were the the little characters

Ricky Grove 17:40
Oh, Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing, yes. To

Phil Rice 17:44
be falls in that category. That it's it's the that really stylized, unrealistic characters serve this story well, I think that I would be interested in this story if it were rendered with realistic looking characters. Now

Tracy Harwood 18:03
me that but also, I do think Olibith has got this really unique way. He's got this really, he's got a great sense of humour has any dark sense of humour, hilarious. And this and if you have a look at another film, which I was familiar with called Le Terrorist, on his on his channel, oh, my God. I mean, he is funny. I have another look at that. Because some of the things that he was was doing are, there aren't many machinima creators that can do what he's done. And I think this pick, Ricky is one of those that, that demonstrates his really great sense of humour in the way that he tells the story, but have a look at others and you'll see what I'm okay. With that kind of stylistic...

Ricky Grove 18:52
Okay. I'll put a link to his site for him. Now, what happened to him? Eventually, he just stopped producing or went on to make contemporary. If anybody in the audience is listening knows about all of this and what's happened to him? Let us know. That's the interesting thing about machinima is that so many great filmmakers after the machinima.com debacle and interest died down in it. They're just sort of forgotten. You know. So

Phil Rice 19:30
we'll move on to jobs that they pour that passion into instead, I think, and some of them have kids. Yeah. That'll be a horse tranquilliser in your passion, that's for sure. So sure, I'm still connected with him on Facebook. So, but I don't hear much from him. So I'll, I'll see what I can ascertain. We'll give him a thumbs up. We

Ricky Grove 19:57
love his work.

Phil Rice 19:58
I'll make sure to let him know when this episode It's out for sure. Okay.

Tracy Harwood 20:02
You've got another one for us haven't you Ricky?

Ricky Grove 20:04
Yeah, I just wanted to mention a sort of special a special recommendation, I don't want to go into a full review of it and everything. But I just thought it was an interesting Halloween pic and I came across it in my research, it was called It Lives Within the Sea by Dominic Edwards. It's shot in Red Dead Redemption two. There are some problems with it. It's slow, the storytelling is a bit hard to follow a time some of the scenes are clunky. But the atmosphere and the music and sound effects are just great. It reminds me of some of the best Lovecraft stuff and it's worth a watch. So as a just a special recommendation, I'd like to include that. Did any of you get a chance to watch it at all?

Phil Rice 20:52
Yeah, definitely. Lovecraft feel. Yeah, it's very interesting. I've never seen this game engine used in this way. And it really works. Well. I mean, you know, yeah, there's flaws. For sure. But yeah, it's, it's, I enjoyed it very much. And especially in the spirit of the theme of this month, it worked really well.

Tracy Harwood 21:19
Me too. I mean, I what I liked what you guys thought, all smoking at the beginning part of the film made me want to cough. It was thick with it. I mean, it just felt so you could cut it in. In the story. I mean, like you said, I thought there were a few problems with it. One was, I think the levels with the, with the with the sound, which were a bit of a problem. But the sound scape other than the voice acting was was was pretty good. But I think the voices themselves were a bit problematic. But these guys do a lot of Lovecraft type storytelling, and I hadn't even come across them before. So you know, these, these are definitely worth looking up on on YouTube. I'm sure we'll put a link to it when we let me do the notes and everything. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed it.

Damien Valentine 22:17
I was gonna say, Ricky that both of your films you've chosen, they're made with games you don't expect these kinds of films to be made with so sort of, this is another one where they're taken Red Dead two. And they've made a horror film out of it, which is not what you expect. And again, I like to see that when you'd expect mostly Westerns to be made Western machinima to be made with Red Dead. So they thought it's like very different. I like to see that.

Ricky Grove 22:47
Yeah, I wish more people would use Red Dead Redemption 2 to create machinima. I understand the barriers. Phil outline his problems with dealing trying to shoot in it. It does create a lot of work, but I think it's such an has so many interesting places in the world of Red Dead Redemption two that are worth that, to me are are evocative, you know, and they start putting story ideas in your head. The problem is, is that you can't necessarily realise your ideas about doing the story. Because the technical nature of getting animation and getting characters to do what you want them to do is really a wall. You know, so I started breakingly

Phil Rice 23:37
evocative is what I would call it it's heartbreaking because it cries out for stories to be told there. And there's not an effective way to capture them. That that isn't that's feasible at all. Yeah, it is. It's a real shame.

Ricky Grove 23:54
Example that Blizzard would have put a little more effort into making it easier to do photographs and video or move the can't just move the camera and bring in characters that could have opened that up to a machinima community that I think what it just flocked to it. Because it's such an interesting for what was that one guy that did some great. He's not at all of the games where he's created this beautiful renders of different scenes. What was that guy Phil? Remember him?

Phil Rice 24:28
I don't remember his name. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, he had a whole series of them.

Ricky Grove 24:32
And he did one on Red Dead Redemption. That was just absolutely mind blowing. We reviewed it, I think on on the show a

Phil Rice 24:39
year ago. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ricky Grove 24:41
That that's the kind of thing that I wish they would have made it easier for people to do. Because then you would add a whole community flocking, not necessarily to play that game but to shoot inside of the of the world. You know,

Phil Rice 24:57
what's really mysterious about that to me is that it It seemed like that was Rockstar Games as trajectory with what they had been doing with GTA four, and then GTA five with the built in director mode and all of that stuff, those tools were were mind blowing. And they did they resulted in a very large user base, making use of them. And, you know, capturing that, that amazing world, you know, with different videos and stuff. And so to me, it just seems so logical that they would continue that with Red Dead Redemption two, which is far and away their most beautiful world they've built so far. And I think has the most possibility. And yeah, just for that to have I mean, clearly, they have no intention of doing that. Yeah, no, they, there's no reason to do it. Now. The game has been out for too long without it. So it's, yeah, it's a strange decision that I've seen people try to get a straight answer from him on Twitter and other places. And it's just just a stone wall. So I'm very curious to see with GTA six, which is in development now. Are they going to continue, you know, to offer those built in tools and abilities? Or are they going to be more combative with their modding community, which is kind of that seems to be kind of the different forces that are pulling on that game. And it's open for machinima, and on the other, there's been some real head butting with modders. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Ricky Grove 26:45
Dominic Edwards, the director of this film, It Lives Within the Sea. If you're listening to this, let us know how you made it and how you went about doing it. I'd love to interview you, if you if you happen to be listening to her. Anybody who knows him, let him know that. We'd like to talk to him about RDR two and his experience of putting it together. But thank you guys a lot for your comments. I I just love this little film this. It's such a nice, nice and moody kind of film, just the kind of thing that I like.

Tracy Harwood 27:19
Great, thank great pics. Both of you. Sounds great. Thanks for Yeah,

Damien Valentine 27:22
I enjoyed them both.

Phil Rice 27:24
Well, if you all out there watching or listening, have some feedback for us, be sure to contact us. Our website is completely machinima.com Just look for the talk button. And you can reach out to us by email or other methods. And we will be happy to discuss your feedback here on the air. So thank you all to my co hosts. This has been a great month and some very interesting pics and it's the high point of my week to talk with you guys. So thanks for being here.

Ricky Grove 27:53
Happy Halloween everyone. Happy

Damien Valentine 27:55
Halloween. Happy Halloween.