Phil Rice 00:11
Hello, and welcome to Completely Machinima, the podcast about machinima, virtual production and related technologies. My name is Phil and I'm here with my co hosts, Damian, Ricky and Tracy. Hello. So we've got a great pick to discuss this week. And this is one by Tracy and it's called Heroes of Bronze. And I'll just start by saying, Tracy that for those of you don't know, on the on the show, we have a we have an electronic bulletin board basically that we will, this is how we gather together the information for the show and stuff. And when I first saw what was Tracy's pick, she had posted the trailer, and then the film. And I first thought that the trailer which runs I don't know, what is it? 20 seconds. Yeah, at first I thought that was the pick. And I was very confused. But then I scrolled down and realised what was happening. So yeah, tell us about this.

Tracy Harwood 01:12
You got it fine. You got a double hit then Heroes the Bronze. This one is called the memory and it's by Martin Klekner, and it was released on the 21st of January. So by the time it hits our channel, it'll be a couple of months into its run if you like. Now, it's the first main film release by Martin from his really quite, quite long awaited project in which he's attempting to use a variety of different media from from the short films to written stories, and paintings. And what he's trying to do is rebuild this Greco Persian War period of time, using as much historically accurate information as he can in the process. Now he's using iClone and Blender in his pipeline. And he's also using Rococo for his mocap. And we first highlighted that this project was coming our way last April. So it's quite a long wait for us to see this actually having been released. So it really is quite, quite cool to see it out. Now, this particular one is he's calling it a proof of concept short film. And it's set in ancient Greece showcasing this time between these two quite famous battles. Marathan being one, which was 490 BC and Plataea. Excuse my Greek, which was fought in 479 BC. So it's a it's a battle between those two great battles that we probably have heard more about if you like. Now, the film is basically an introduction to a bigger animated project, which he's already currently pre producing. So over the next year, he's going to be releasing more with the second film in this series planned for the autumn. And just let you know, this isn't just from last April time, or whenever it was, we first highlighted it. But this is actually a product that's taken four years to get to this stage, four years. And you can kind of see how he's developing the project on his Vimeo YouTube channel. But he's also got a website on which it's, it's very well worth looking at the content that he's putting on his website as well. And the way that he's paying for himself to do all of this content is a one man band basically, is he's running it out of Patreon, he's got umpteen followers on Patreon. And that is allowing him to produce tutorials, which is basically what's paying for him to do the creative work. So if you really enjoy this, then it's definitely worth supporting him for not very many bucks a month. Now, there's a there's a really detailed accompanying description of the story on the website for this particular episode, along with historical notes that he's used to inform the decisions that he's made about the story. But actually, I wanted to experience this as a standalone film. And in some respects, it's actually a little hard to follow as a film without the background content on the website, which explains the story. And that includes the time period, for example, because you may be more familiar with other battles of that period of time, such as Thermopylae from you know, the the film 300 and various other things, you're probably a little bit more familiar with those. Also, the names and the details and the the the way that the armour works. And you know how that's been created. All of that is detailed on his on his website, but it's just sort of, you get a just a passing glimpse of it in the film. It's told through the memories of this particular war heroes wife. It's narrated as thoughts rather than a spoken words to her son. And she's basically reflecting on this boy's deep attraction to this to his father's armour, which sort of stands in this room that he visits clearly, quite frequently. Now, the film's action is really quite fast paced, there's many, many different scenes, they seem to be just presented as samplers of this former soldiers life. And I think really what stitches the whole thing together for me is, is actually this really haunting music, which, which just seems to bind it all because there's scene after scene after scene after scene, which is, which is an interesting approach. But the the music I think, then becomes very important. It's not necessarily I mean, you don't you don't necessarily understand all the material that's, that's gone into the making of the film, which I think is a kind of an interesting approach. I think it's also quite interesting, because once you understand how much effort has gone into the historical recreation of this, and then you also pick up something like, for example, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which is thematically very similar, telling a story of the 300 Spartan. You know, heroes fall at Themopylae opoli, which took a took place about the same sort of time, you're kind of wondering, you know, where the difference, the differences might be. And it's for that reason, I think it's probably worth reflecting on the animation style, too, because what you're getting in this film isn't the same as what you might get in that Assassin's Creed version at all. The animation doesn't hold in the same way as it does in that AAA version, if you like. It's more stylized. It's definitely not unreal, meta human type stuff that you're looking at. There's emphasis on just a few components of it being more realistically done, for example, you see some of the soldiers running and you see the way that they're running. And that's really quite, quite detailed. Some of the details on the on the armour is somebody who's on the armour is really very impressive as well. But some of the skin looks a little bit plastic. And in parts, it kind of reminded me a little bit of remember Harryhausen's, animations of Talos and Jason and the Argonauts, that was a little bit, a little bit like that for me in places. And I suspect what's happened here is probably a function of the focus of Martin's work, which is really on the, on the the historical representation of the artefacts which are highlighted throughout, more perhaps, than actually on the storytelling per se. But overall, I have to say this was an outstanding indie creative project, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And I know I've picked up on a few little bits and pieces, but be really interested in what you guys have got to say about it.

Ricky Grove 08:45
Well, I thought it was a beautiful and a moving film. That was pretty close to perfect. I had no problem swallowing the plot, even though I didn't know anything about the background. On his website, I understood it. Every detail was just good. The voiceover the pacing, the camera, work the animation, skin, maybe you could say but then again, that's a iClone has always had a little bit of a problem with skin textures, although they're really getting better at it, you know? But that was a tiny bit. The music you're absolutely right. It was flawless. I loved it. I just thought it was marvellous. It shows how machinima can be a short form film format to par excellence, and compete against Pixar and other other companies that produce long form stuff. Now they have a team of people working on one thing for a week, whereas Martin was one guy doing something. Now his four year odyssey and putting this together perhaps might be a bit antithetical to the machinima, the idea of machinima, he seems to be working along the more professional lines have got to get this right, it's got to get this. I think perhaps he could have spent less time on some of the details and it still would have been effective. But then again, that's just his way of, of making films. My only issue with the film at all anyway, and I honestly was moved and in touch by it was the sort of fight for what you believe in theme at the end. It's that's so American and so modern. And in many ways, although many, many people believe that, I think our modern era of two world war wars and the Holocaust and the continuing, horrifying war, and the refrain might argue against that notion. Might be a little sentimental. But I think most people won't care about that. But but it did bother me just a little bit. But I loved it. Wonderful choice.

Phil Rice 11:05
It bothered me a little bit to Ricky, believe it or not, yeah. Because I I just that that part of it. The because everybody in World War Two, every every major power involved in World War Two were fighting for what they believed in exactly every single one. So yeah, I think that that doesn't, that doesn't hold up too well. And I think you're right, Rick, I think it's this past century is really what taught us that better than than the other. That aside, though, yeah, I enjoyed this very much. A lot of the a lot of the historical detail, honestly, is just not something that I'm qualified to spot. So I don't know how to evaluate it through that lens. That with one, maybe one exception is I have done a fair bit of research into architecture from that period. The way cities are structured and such for a project that I'm planning for the future and was really impressed with, they were very brief shots, of course, but some of those shots that showed the the settlements and villages and stuff and the way that the walls were set and all of this, the colours, I wasn't sure how to judge, some of the colours seemed almost impossibly vibrant. But who knows if that's the way they were, that's the way they were. But as far as the actual structure was impressively in alignment with real historical research that I've done. So that was something that kind of hooked me, hooked me on the first viewing of it was okay, somebody's paying attention to something here. Yeah, the the I found it. I don't want to say heartwarming, that's the wrong. That's, that's too sentimental, the term but it was moving. The story was definitely moving. And wonderfully encapsulates, I think, the whole notion of war and soldiers in the context of generations, you know, and that there tends to be this amongst the young, this over glorified notion of what being a soldier is, versus the reality of the brutality and low survival rate. And it's hard, you know, but to a young man who just, you know, here's the legacy of his father, and well, I want to be that too. That's real. That's, that's not just something that happened back then. That's something that still happens now. You know? Yes. And so I liked the respectful treatment of that, and the mother kind of serving as this figure uniquely positioned to see both of those things. You know, she knows through her husband, the real horrors of war, and also knows, you know, knows her son. So what what she must have been feeling as he's yearning to follow in the footsteps was, yeah, it just it got me thinking about those things. It's, it's nice, you know, it's not terribly unusual for a professionally made TV show or movie, to succeed in getting you to think about real things like that. It's fairly unusual for machinima film to do so. And this short little film did that. And so regardless of technological pluses and minuses that had ultimately that's what really impressed me the most about this this film was that he knows how to do that. Because that's not easy to do. You know, people can sniff a fake with that miles away, you know, so there's something authentic and genuine to the spirit of the filmmaker when they succeed in bringing that through. So to me, that may be his biggest strength, in spite of all the clearly technological expertise, he's developed in making machinima with icon and with these other tools, and I mean, he's got a Rococo suit for crying out loud, that's amazing. Not just that he, you know, came up with the budget to do that. But then also, you have to learn how to use it properly, as well, and then learn how to learn how to clean up the mocap to get it to be something usable. It's a whole thing, you know, a whole scene. So all that's very impressive. But what really struck me was, his ability to move me because I'm not a sap. You know, I'm not, I'm not easily triggered like that. But this made me think and feel. And for me, that's the biggest reason that I hope he keeps going. And I hope this all is fun funding model works for him.

Ricky Grove 16:16
Unlike the TikTok videos that you that I shared.

Phil Rice 16:20
Well, they made me feel something.

Ricky Grove 16:22
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They made another part of your anatomy perhaps.

Phil Rice 16:28
Little Yeah. To the south. Yes. So

Ricky Grove 16:33
I just wanted to clarify that.

Phil Rice 16:35
I appreciate that. No, all right. Great pic. Damien, what about you?

Damien Valentine 16:39
I can't comment on the historical accuracy, either. But based on what Tracy said about all the details on the website, I imagine it is as accurate as it could be. And I've got a friend who's very knowledgeable on Ancient Greek. And I really want to show this to her. And I haven't had a chance to do it before and recorded it because I'm curious to hear what she had to say about it. I, you've already talked about the story, I want to talk a bit more that the technical side of things. There are some really epic scale shots there with big armies 1000s of troops and yes, ships at sea. And initially, we just see iClone characters and you know, you can look at a machinima and you get a good idea of what created the character just from the look of the way it is. And it's just something about the way they look, you can tell instantly what's funny, and I could tell this is icon characters. That's not a criticism or anything like that. It's just, you just just know when you look. And I thought, Okay, this is this is obviously made with iClone maybe rendered with Unreal or something, because I didn't until later. And then you get to some of the shots. How did he do that with iClone? Because if I tried to do that with icon, it would probably crash.

Phil Rice 17:51
I thought the same thing Damien, I really did.

Damien Valentine 17:54
Especially the shot with, you know, 1000s and 1000s of soldiers charging each other? I don't know. And then I can't read the Scripture. Okay, it's rendered in Blender, he pointed it in layers, put one into blender, which could probably handle that. But still, it's a huge amount of work to do, I can see why maybe it would take four years to just animate all of that. And it's not just animating the characters, it's, it's the details, well, when they're running, the dust is flying up behind them, because you know, it would. And there's little subtle things like the fabric on their clothes is wafting gently in the wind, even not just in the obvious way. It's like the mother's got a dress, obviously, that's gonna float around. But the little boy, he's got a sleeveless shirt on and just sort of here, you can see it just waffling a little bit as he's moving around. And that's the kind of detail that isn't necessary, you don't really need to do it, unless you really want everything to be perfect. I know. I can't imagine how long it would have taken to figure out just how to get those little details in and to put them in front of the animator by hand or to do to do the soft cloth fabric techniques. And of course, figuring out all the little details for that that's a huge amount of work. And I I really admire everything that he's all that time and energy he's put into this. I feel a little bad. I can't comment on this stock actually, because that's obviously something that he's very passionate about. But the technical side of things I really, really stunned by and I'm looking forward to seeing the next chapter. See what else you can do. And it's also inspiring me as well. I need to step up my game a little bit because I'm mostly using some very similar software to him. And I think that's the highest praise I can offer is: you make me want to do better.

Ricky Grove 19:41
That's fantastic. Inspiring.

Tracy Harwood 19:45
Very interesting comments. Thank you. Sure. I guess I mean, I suppose the only thing is I you know because I found the basically the the trailer for Assassin's Creed Odyssey you and the content is so similar. In terms of the scenes, the shots, the big, you know, the armies running at one another, the battle scenes and all the rest of it. I was thinking that, you know, this one person has created something that looks something that AAA is created. Just exactly.

Ricky Grove 20:20
And it will probably use 3d Studio Max to create the cutscenes. Yeah, absolutely. assets from the game. Absolutely. He was just using us over the counter software that is you that's affordable and that a lot of people use.

Tracy Harwood 20:37
Yeah. And I also don't know too much about the historical accuracy of it at all. But what I can say is that quite a lot of the comments on his YouTube channel seem to be from people that do know about the historical context, and I think that's his primary target audience for this. It's the history history. You know, the the archaeological folks that the folks that report on the detail side of things,

Phil Rice 21:04
and he makes sense too because I mean, there are certain periods in history in human history, that haven't gotten a lot of screen time in the world of cinema. As far as realistic portrayals there's been plenty of stylized portrayals, you know, the 300 movie, you know, there was a series. This is not really that same time period. It's early 80s. But there was a series on stars called Spartacus. That was, but just a highly stylized, telling of the gladiator age, you know, during Rome and stuff like that. There was a great series on HBO, a decade or more ago called Rome, that was great. That was wonderful. That's worth rewatch, if you've got HBO Max, but pre ad Bronze Age. There haven't even it's I don't know, I guess it's, you know, we're a fickle mob, aren't we? So they make films about what people are interested in? And, you know, there's a dime a dozen World War Two flicks. Yeah. But there's these other areas that are and I'm very fascinated by that, that era, that that it's not pre history, but it's, you know, the ancient times that are fairly well documented. Yeah. But we haven't really seen them portrayed. And with all the the technology and abilities that we've got nowadays, it's it's kind of a shame. I mean, maybe the History Channel's doing this, and I just don't watch it. I don't know. Yeah, frankly, this to me for what little I have seen of like dramatic, animated reenactments on the History Channel. This is right up there with that, like maybe better, you know, so my hat's off to him. I'm glad he's filling a gap in our because storytelling is important. Not just fictional storytelling. But, you know, telling and retelling of history is important, because there's still stuff to be learned from it. So yeah, I really hope he hope he hope he does succeed in his quest here.

Ricky Grove 23:06
I was thinking after I watched the movie, and I was mulling over my reactions to it. Hugh Hancock came to my mind. And I was thinking, Boy, if he was alive today and saw this movie, he'd be jumping up and down. Yeah, he'd be so happy with what that because he loves those large, massive scenes. He loves that epic scope. This is exactly what he envisioned that machinima could do was the single filmmaker creating what you can do in Hollywood, for millions and millions of dollars.

Phil Rice 23:41
Oh, and the Machinima for Dummies book that he he he wrote with Johnnie Ingram. They devoted a whole section of chapters to making movies with I can't remember what the name of the game is now, but it was with a game that supported these large scale turns down. What was it called?

Damien Valentine 24:00
Total War? Yeah. Those games, they will different time periods. And I think there was one in ancient Greece.

Phil Rice 24:07
Yeah, I was the technical editor on that book. So I got kind of an insight when they were planning it. I remember when he picked that. I was like, What do you think? And nobody makes stuff with that. And he said, and it was funny, we were on a call. And he says, Well, that's exactly why I picked it. They actually, nobody's doing it. But they should.

Damien Valentine 24:25
There was a TV series here. I forget the name of it. I think, battle commander tank commanders, that was it. And every week, they'd have two teams, and they would use the total war engine to recreate historical battles, and the teams would be controlling. But then he called the opposing armies and they have to figure out their strategy. And it was all rendered using the game. And they basically play on a huge screen in their studio. You know, there's broadcasts over TV it was a fascinating show. It's amazing to me,

Phil Rice 24:59
that for his large scale scenes in this movie that he wasn't using something like that. When I when I first glanced at it for just a second, I thought, oh my gosh, was he used an Ultimate Battle Simulator, but then I realised nope, not silly enough. Nobody, nobody's flying into the air. You know, it's and I really scratched my head at first. Like, how did he do that? Because I thought the same way you did Damien. I thought, man, you can't do that on a normal computer. Not with iClone, you know? Yeah, not. Not in that way. Not as seen. So yeah, you're probably right. He got creative with it somehow and layered it in or something but you don't see any like it seamless.

Damien Valentine 25:40
I did something similar with Moviestorm. Which big back like that? And I look, I started thinking I remembered does think about how I did that. And I was looking for signs. He did the same way. And I did not see any. I just use lots of trickery and fake people. But no, because I was looking at the no though. They're all animated. They're not just static images moving along. You can see their legs and arms moving as they're running.

Tracy Harwood 26:04
Yeah, huge amount of work has gone into this. You can touch you can tell that for sure. Really great pick. Well, we look forward to seeing the next one. Then when whenever that comes out in the autumn, I think yeah, yep.

Ricky Grove 26:17
That's a really good pick Tracy. Yeah. Congratulations. Martin Klekner, you did a wonderful job.

Phil Rice 26:27
All right. Well, that will that will tie up this episode. So on behalf of myself, Tracy and Ricky and Damien, thank you for joining us, be sure to give us some feedback on the website. We have been getting feedback from you, including some people commenting on our comments, and in some cases, recommending other stuff for us to take a look at. We greatly appreciate that. They're like little kids at Christmas when those arrive. It's fantastic. So keep it coming. We'd love to hear that. The way to feed back to us is over on our website, Completely Machinima.com. That's where Tracy also oversees our blog there, which has got additional, we were talking about these layers of content. How did they do it? You'll wonder the same thing when you visit our blog. Yeah. So many additional layers of contents, like how did they do that? How did they - we used Tracy to do that. That's the engine. So thanks for joining us, and we'll see you all next time. All right.