Ricky Grove 00:14
Hello everyone, you're welcome to the Completely Machinima Podcast. I'm Ricky grove. I'm here with my friends Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood and the inimitable Phil Rice. Hello, Phil

Tracy Harwood 00:29
Hello.

Ricky Grove 00:31
We are starting our third season, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Can you believe it? We've been around for three years now. This is our January series, we're going to be going through our individual picks for films this month. All of them are unique and interesting. Don't forget to check out our blog, our news has moved to our blog. And there's some really, really interesting blog posts on various aspects of technology as it relates to machinima. I've posted one that's coming out for well, by this time, it'll already have come out about ray tracing and classic games like Doom and Quake. Really, really interesting. Speaking of games, I have started playing the original Diablo again, not remastered, not ray traced, but it's a very interesting experience to go through all that again, having spent so much time with it as as a kid, I did some quick checking in I other than a 2D series of very funny 2d series on Diablo I haven't seen any machinima done from it. So that's kind of interesting. Maybe somebody will be inspired to go out and give it a try. Is anybody else playing any interesting interesting games right now?

Damien Valentine 01:58
I'm still playing through the Lego Sky Walker Saga, which came out back in April. And even though it's a LEGO game is mainly aimed for kids is a huge open world game. There's so much to do with it. And I haven't done it all yet. And they've released a new DLC with extra characters to play around with so I've been looking at those and having some fun with that.

Ricky Grove 02:18
Yeah. Phil, either.

Phil Rice 02:23
Yeah, Project Zomboid, which is a retro feel game that's still actually currently in development. Just love it. It's basically like The Sims with really hard R rated violence.

Ricky Grove 02:36
Perfect.

Tracy Harwood 02:41
Yeah, no, I haven't had a chance this year. It's been crazy. Lots of stuff. But I promise I will do some next year.

Ricky Grove 02:51
Even even if it's just a little bit of time. One thing is that game playing does eat into a lot of time. So if you're a very busy person, it tends to go low on the priority. But there's something about playing as an adult, which is, I think, a really good thing.

Tracy Harwood 03:06
Definitely give it again. Yeah. Okay.

Ricky Grove 03:09
Well, let's move on. We've, as I said, there's plenty of interesting news at our blog. And we do our film picks here and our first film pick is from Tracy, and boy, she has chosen a very unique film. Tell us about it, Tracy?

Tracy Harwood 03:24
Yes, absolutely. Okay, so this is The Voice in the Hollow by Half E.T Studios, which was released on the 16th of November last year. It's been rendered in Unreal Engine five and was written directed and designed by husband and wife team, Miguel Ortiga and Tran Ma, supported by their studio colleagues. Their work was produced by Gnomen, which is one of the top VFX studios in the US based in Hollywood, where Mar actually teaches and or tager. Graduated. Understand studios started as a side project, although the work they've both done in the past is impressive. They have been character modellers and VFX artists on films such as Thor, Fantastic Four and 300 as well as games and have worked also for a number of well known studios. So they, as I understand it, they've also won various festival awards for their short The Ningyo. So I would say these guys clearly have craft. Indeed, they have been described by somebody called Scott Beggs, who's a film writer for Vanity Fair, as being at the forefront of indie CGI. Oh, yeah. What's interesting here is that Ortega and Ma describe themselves as inexperienced users of Unreal Engine although they were part of the autumn 2020 Unreal fellowship programme. I looked through some of their work and the piece they did for the fellowship played with that kind of Cavern idea that's explored in this film. And, and The Ningyo also included themes of exploration, mythical creature hunting and moral conundrums. So, there's a clear kind of creative trajectory being explored. And for this film, I think they specifically set out to, to extrapolate that but also to complete a project in six months from scratch using mo cap as well.

Tracy Harwood 05:27
So to this particular film voice in the hollow this is described as an African fable of sisterhood, envy and ancient evil. There's a classic moral tale being told through this work, which is spoken in, I believe, Tanzanian Swahili. Indeed, the main characters are voiced by Tanzanian and Kenyan actors Janeth Mikondo, Rosalie Akinyi, Goodluck Gabriel and Brian's Skikuyu. But I would say that actually, in my limited experience of the subcontinent, it doesn't feel wholly African in its portrayal, even though some of the landscapes clearly are. And in places I got kind of a distinct sense of other ancient races like, like indigenous peoples of America, through some of the sort of face shapes, for example. So it kind of caught my attention as being a rather intriguing mix. And of course, the story has quite a brutal beginning and even more shocking ending. It's not for kids, even though it's about coming of age. So it turns out, as I was looking through the the bit of the backstory for this, that Ortega and Ma have filmed the entire process of making this short. And that material is actually freely available on YouTube on the Gnoman channel. And it's actually 90, can you believe this 90 hours worth of content? Oh, by no means for the faint hearted. Now, of course, I have only watched snippets. But the bit I wanted to find out out about actually was how they devised the voice components, but actually gave up looking for that after a while. What I did pick up on though is that the inspiration for the film came from a couple of ideas. Firstly, they wanted to tell an origins tale in the vein of Cain and Abel know sci fi using paleo Indians to represent ancient humans. Secondly, that tale had been informed by their experience in the Moaning Caverns Park in California, which is where they filmed some of the content for the Ningyo. It turns out that the cabins have a bit of a history of leading people to their death, because when the wind blows in a certain direction, it sounds like a child's voice. And over the years, people were drawn, drawn into this cave system trying to rescue this child they thought was in trouble. But actually, it led them to fall into this very deep pit. And then, years later, when the cavern was excavated in the early 1900s. Among the dozens of smashed skeletons, they found at the bottom of this 250 foot drop was the skeleton, believe it or not, of a female child aged dated back to about 10,000 years. So they go the story kind of builds on some, I think, some very interesting creative processes right. Now, because of the limited skills they felt they had with Unreal, they decided not to attempt to do photorealistic aesthetics, but ended up with this sort of clay like and hand painted stylize effect that you see in the film. And in fact, that's quite interesting, because the main reason seems to be that they felt they had no craft with hair. It was a challenge just too far for them in Unreal. So instead of the indigenous look they'd originally wanted to apply. They went more towards East African cultures, and hairstyles which they said lend themselves to using a more faceted and carved looks. So this sort of stylized effect is actually a decision really of pragmatism. Now overall, I kind of really enjoyed this. I love the the muting ancient colours and stylized effect and the kind of mystical darkness as the tale. It's really a proper fairy tale, I think, Ricky the soundscape was a good match. But there was quite a lot of cultural appropriation going on I think. The voices were an interesting choice. But the origin of Swahili actually doesn't really match the story of tribal habituation that you see in the film, and the leopard tribes actually more associated with West African nations. So there are really quite a lot of interesting aesthetic choices going on here. But overall, I think the fable aspect of it is certainly very strongly portrayed, at least from my perspective. So they go, what did you think to it?

Damien Valentine 09:44
I am what you were saying about, they felt they were inexperienced. And so that's why they went for the stylized look. I think that was a huge thing for the benefit of the film. Because it stands out from. Yeah, we've looked at many Unreal five films over the last year or so. And they all go for that very photorealistic characters look, the detail faces animated really well, and, and all that kind of stuff. And that's all great. But this stands out, there's something completely different and unique. And I think that shows that they, I think they understand Unreal a lot better than they think they do. Probably even more so than the people who go for the photorealistic style, because that's what Unreal is designed for. It's designed for photorealism. So it takes more skill to produce a stylized look, because you have to figure out what that stylized image is going to be. Because if you're going to photorealistic you know what the people are, like, they're going to look like we do. So if you're doing stylized images, you have to spend time thinking well, what shapes their heads going to be how they're going to move. What kind of animation how their face is going to animate, you know, to the eyebrow goes exaggerated or what you know. So yeah, I think they're really talented to two filmmakers there. And I really enjoyed the story in this kind of, right, it's very dark, and there's kind of this horror element to it, which I really enjoyed. And you're not expected when I started watching it. But you can see that they've spent a lot of time on it. And I'm quite intrigued to see the the 90 hours of behind the scenes. I don't think I could watch all of it, but I gonna have to check it out at some point and see what I can learn from them. Because obviously, they've got a lot of talent there, which is worth having a look at. Absolutely,

Phil Rice 11:46
Yeah, I want to see a feature length film in this style. I mean, what, however, they arrived at it, you know, some some features pragmatic and some, I think, just deliberate choices, but it's just an absolutely enchanting and mesmerising world that they've presented here. I am not at all scholarly about what comes from which parts of Africa and whatnot. So that didn't, it didn't jar me I didn't get any appropriation vibes at all. To me, it just there was this real sense of this is an old world that this is taking place in. And, you know, arguably, to some degree, you know, it's going to have origins that that look a bit mixed or different to, to us if that's what you're trying to portray, because no one really knows what that looks like. You just have the echoes of it in the present, you know, so I thought the voice acting even if the, again, the choice of language didn't jar me because I'm ignorant. But I thought the performance was fantastic. The audio, the acting in the voices, ah, just just delicious. And then yeah, there's this kind of archetypal Cain and Abel type of story. Just wow, you know, and and then to do an archetypal story, but have it not be exactly the outcome of that original story, which I won't spoil, but I mean, just, oh, it was so good. And I could not take my eyes off the screen. From from the moment it began. Right. Right up until the end. The horror elements were very effective. I love that they didn't try to answer very many questions there. Tracy that that origin story of like are their inspiration story of that real cave? Oh, my goodness. Yeah. What a goldmine that is I can see totally just writing this amazing story based on that as like a found thing right, Ricky? I mean, it's just it's just so rich that whole idea and what what you what you determined was what you discovered was discovered there. Wow. So yeah, I want to see more from these people. These creators. Its just it's just wonderful and and it's good on a level that's like almost almost discouraging and I don't mean that in like, what you mean, like one of those is just good grief. Six months? Yeah, yeah. You and what army? You know, amazing, an amazing achievement. And I hope to see more. Yeah, even if it's not this particular world. Boy, what a sense of style and quality these creators have, it's just knocked my socks off.

Ricky Grove 14:56
Yeah, motion capture was just as good as the I think the craft of it. And so the combination of all of those made it so believable, that motion capture in particular caught these subtle nonverbal responses by the characters, which I thought was pretty neat, you know, the sister, typical sisters reacting to each other, you know, it was just marvellous. The style perfectly matched the story, I was also glad to see that it was different than so many animated films in which features white characters and somewhat predictable situations, you know what I mean? Yes, was unusual and interesting to hear that it was partially based on the Cain and Abel biblical story is not surprising to me. It makes absolute sense. However, there are several thoughts, I have been thinking about this a lot. I have the same enthusiasm, you have Phil and Tracy, Damien for that film, I want to see more by these people, I think they're so good. And to do it in such a short amount of time, it's just fantastic. However, it shows the weakness of VFX people working on a film, because so often story is the most neglected part of the process, because it's not one that they're as familiar with. They're familiar with putting together, you know, animation and motion capture and putting all of that together. And that was brilliant. It's top level professional. But there were so many glaring flaws in the story. And let me put it to you this way. You have a village, a primitive village of hunters and gatherers, and they're probably very tribal is very fierce. They want to protect themselves. And yet, within a short walk, there is a hollow, in which horrible ancient evil is in this hollow. Don't you think that they would either a not put a village that's that close to such a terrible threat, or b make it an absolute block for anybody going near, especially children, or put up obstacles to keep children and anybody from going near it? Yet, it shows that what this hollow, this somewhat evil spirit isn't a character, it's a device. It's the device in order to keep the young woman who ends up tragically committing a horrible act to make her still sympathetic. Because you she can always claim or the, the viewer in the story can always say that, well, it wasn't her fault. It was temptation by this evil spirit. You know what I mean? No background for the evil spirit. No idea who it is what it is, you never see it. So it's really a device. But because they can't do what the original fable did, which was one of the brothers slew the other brother because he wanted to. They can have the sister committing a horrible act on the other sister because she was furious and angry. Because that keeps her from being sympathetic. And above all, in animated films. And in films in general, in Hollywood, you absolutely have to have sympathetic characters. You have to have empathy. There's no way around it. Well, if they give you go back to their original inspiration of this, this huge cave, that would have been a better choice than some sort of generalised evil spirit that affects them and tempts them. If it was actually a cave that was farther away, and they got away, you know, they went further than they ever have before. Do you know what I mean? It was not believable. None of that was believable. And it spoiled a bit of the movie for me because the story was so that they couldn't see this obvious hole in their in their storytelling shows me that their real emphasis was on the VFX and the look and the style of everything. And the very fact that none of us, you know that we all go well, we just sort of accept that we accept that limitation and weakness in the story because everything else was so good. Well, I don't I think it's a problem and they should have fixed that. And it made it hard for me to become completely involved in the film in a way that I wanted to. So that's my take on the whole thing. And lastly, the thing I want to say is that, and I'd like to discuss this a little more with all of you.

Ricky Grove 20:13
Unreal has brought in a certain level of technique and craft that is vastly different from the general run of machinima filmmakers. This could easily be put on a major television show could maybe be made into a feature film with more money and more time and a bigger staff. And it would certainly pass. It would win win awards, it's so good, but it's not your typical machinima film, because most machinima filmmakers are not going to have those skills and able to put that together. Yeah, they can make things look nice, they can put together an interesting film, but it's not going to be at this quality, because machinima traditionally has had the, the sort of three elements, which was fast, cheap, and fun. Now they've captured the fun element. And they've kind of captured the fast element because it's certainly faster than most traditional professional films, but six months is way too much to put to spend on a machinima film, for the most part, I mean, actual production, not just conceptualising it over a period of time. So my question is, with the Unreal videos, and with the rise of Unreal type videos, are we getting further and further away from everyday filmmakers? And emphasising more and more the professional level of filmmaking? And is that a problem for the Machinima community in a wider sense?

Tracy Harwood 21:52
That's a great question.

Phil Rice 21:54
My question is, is, is, is it the filmmakers doing that? Or is it the audience expectation, not what I'm reminded of is Damien telling, maybe even you told this on the show, or maybe just you and I were, we were all talking but you told me about, at one point, you put Chronicles of Humanity on Amazon's streaming service, and that, which is I mean, machinima by every definition. And I mean, it was just brutalised in the reviews, mainly for the visual primitiveness of it compared to, you know, something chromate like this.

Damien Valentine 22:43
Is that was made with Moviestorm, which doesn't really exist anymore, but just give you an idea, that kind of animation style, right?

Tracy Harwood 22:52
Yeah, and Peter Rasmussen's,

Phil Rice 22:54
like Sims level graphics, but not as good as is that. Better, better control of your animations, but the visual quality is low grade by today's standards. So yeah, that's, that's, that's a challenge. I think that, you know, the the audience, the typical audience, that when we began this thing, 20 something years ago, there were very different eyes that we were making content for. And what I'm wondering is, is there still a significant audience for the quick and dirty stuff? Or are they all you know, on Tiktok now, where you can really do stuff quick. And quality really doesn't matter. You know,

Damien Valentine 23:48
The audience exists for both. So the problem I had with Amazon was, cuz I made it with moviestorm. And I put it on the moviestorm forums, people there loved it, because it's made with the software that they use. They're familiar with all the glitches and the way that it works. And so they loved it, because it's something that hadn't been seen before. But when you put it somewhere like Amazon, where people go on Amazon to watch professional made stuff, like Disney, or whatever. So they're comparing what I made in my bedroom with Moviestorm, to these professional high budget shows that they've also seen. And, of course, I'm not going to be able to compete with that with Moviestorm, because that's just not the way it is. And if I made something with Moviestorm now, I'm sure that those are the members of our community who are familiar with the software, or is aware of it or aware of using older games to make machinima they will still enjoy it. But if I put it on YouTube, I'm sure it would get ripped to pieces by the people who are just used to the non machinima community who just used two different levels of production values.

Ricky Grove 25:09
I think one thing that occurs to me as you're talking there, Damien, I think you're right, is that in the past early machinima we had specific audiences that you could make films for. This is partially what a real emphasis of what Phil is saying, which is the audiences have changed. But the Moviestorm audience would be the best audience for that. Yeah. Now, those communities have all that not all of them have have splintered and fragmented. But I think there's a wider range of people watching machinima and Unreal has brought a level of professionalism and craft to a much higher level. I mean, simply by knowing how to use Unreal to make a film, you have to have a certain level of craft that you don't have to have and Moviestorm Because that's not It's not this Moviestorm was designed for people who want to make things quick and fun. Unreal, is not made for people who want to make something quick and fun. I mean, this movie, the Ortega The Voice in the Hollow was made by a fair, a medium sized team of people who met together with no other job than to make this film. Right. Whereas Phil, you make a movie. But you also have a 40 hour work week at your business, and many other interests and a family and a family to raise. Yeah. So it's a whole different ballgame. And I just want to make sure that we in our on our year, this season three that we real remember that the that there are different kinds of machinima. And this particular film is of the very highest quality, except for the story side of it. Yeah. And I think we should remember that. And I'm personally going to work to bring in more typical machinima which is made quick, fast, cheap, and for fun. Well, good.

Tracy Harwood 27:22
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's one thing or a couple of things. I've got few things I want to say actually. But I always remember, you know, years ago. That, you know, when I whenever I presented machinima work in festivals, it always, the audience never knew what to make of it, really. And it reminds me very much of the reaction to Peter Rasmussen's film, do you remember Stolen Life? Absolutely. A really, really well crafted tale, but with really kind of what we probably call now low poly graphics. And that was first shown in a theatre in front of a film audience. And they hated it. They absolutely hated it. Although they very quickly got into the story, and then started to forget about the aesthetics that were on the screen, they really did not enjoy the aesthetics. And it occurred to me over a period of time that really what we're doing here is showing, you know, stuff that's made in one form to an audience that only really understands a different form. So they're never going to kind of make sense of it. Because it's made. It's it's because it's a very different form. That's, that was always the issue with it. Really, I think the fact that in people that were used to 3d 3d environments, either through play or watching it on YouTube, or in gamer communities, and whatnot, we're very used to seeing that. Your standard audience just watching any kind of streamed content just is not used to it. And probably still, isn't it even though what we're now looking at, I mean, this is what the kickback is, for Unreal in, in virtual production arenas too the fact that people are not used to thinking about films as potentially alternate reality environments, that they can create multiple different types of content in. They're only now coming to terms with it, even though it's been around a very long time. That's what that's one thing I wanted to say. But I wanted to just sort of pick you up if I can on some of the other kinds of comments that you made. And you know, when we when we look at the films that we have over the past year, what you can you can certainly sort of say that the good films that we've reviewed, I don't think they've ever been created in a super fast way in the in the way that old style machinima creations were. I think the thought processes that have gone into the story, the development of the assets and the scenes, and then the filming and the post production. Even, even when they've been made in game, none of that has been done quickly. So I would challenge you on what you mean by quickly in that context. And then to your other point about cheaply, I think a lot of people have gone quite techy now with the tools, whatever those tools and software are. And I would say there's probably also no longer quite as cheap as it was to create content. There's, you know, there were some quick quick fixes that you could kind of tap into but now folks are buying all sorts of bits and pieces. So I don't think that's true anymore. however, you you know, whatever the game basis is that you create machinima in its, I don't think it is cheap anymore. And then your point about fun and I just wonder what you mean by fun. Do you mean fun as in playing the game and sharing new stories related to that game with the community or fun as in sharing content on YouTube, and deriving some income from the process and then dealing with the sort of pseudo fame in the so called influencer network, or fun as in pitting your creative skills against others in a contest or a festival environment. So pushing yourself to make new things in different ways? Because I think machinima was all of those things. And I think the basic elements of those. Well, I don't think they've changed. I think they're still there. But I think it is the, you know, the game aspect of things that's actually changing. I think one of the biggest challenges has been what happens to a film once it's released, whether the IP original owners pick it up and claim any aspect of it may have violated whatever their T's and C's are. And we've definitely seen some difficulties for good number of creators over the years on YouTube, as it kind of seems to change its rules and algorithm, like most folks kind of change their underwear, basically. And alongside that, game, developers have always had a different view on the role of community and their creative licence in relation to their game. I think a number have been hugely supportive. But a few of perhaps, the more popular games have tried to shut creators down to, which has kind of forced the environment to become almost exclusively, let's play focused. And quite frankly, this is really quite tedious stuff. And it's led to 1000s of videos of basically absolute drivel that you still call machinima. I think one of the most interesting communities to emerge alongside the Machinima creators was actually the modding community. And that kind of took a backseat whilst all the energy went into the watching this stuff, because I guess that was easy to do. And modders have really been challenged to come up with, with things that are accepted not just by users, but by also game developers, because these things are perceived as hacking the game, and some do that somehow enhance the gameplay experience. And some actually help you do things with the game beyond simply playing it like viewing it in a different mode, or being a virtual camera, for example. But generally, I think the modders has had a really rough time when it comes to machinima, because actually, they are some of the most creative folks in and around games. But also, their plight is a hidden one. And that's because they don't often get mentioned in any of the films that they're used in any of the Machinima films that they're used in. They're totally hidden. And then you have to jump to the legalese side of things related to games. For example, I suspect the reason why we've never really seen the release of Episode Two of Adrift, which was the recall made in Star Citizen is because Robert sSpace Industries updated its T's and C's on how content could be used. But it when it when it did that it basically limited any potential creativity for suggesting that characters which appear similar to whatever that upcoming version is, would be violating the rules. So what you're now seeing is basically let's plays from this world too. And it's a pity because it did have some really interesting potential as a story world. But that kind of seems to have just sort of disappeared over the period of time between they introduced those T's and C's. And it's not saying there aren't people doing stuff, there are but it's not the same sort of stuff. And I think as a counterpoint to this, engines, such as Unreal, have been really quite incredibly supportive of the development of creative creators and also the development of this sort of pipeline, which actually directly addresses many of the issues machinima creators originally had. Unreal Engine as it as it, as it is now, if you remember, it came out of an original toolset called Matinee from Tournament. But I'm also reminded, actually, and because I was looking back at this, some comments that Kim Libreri made about the role of machinima as an inspiration for epics developments in Unreal Engine. And he said that actually, what inspired him was the crossover he'd seen in the Team Fortress team at Valve, whilst they were building their tool Source. And what what Epic wanted to do was make this this tool set that they were creating, make it so that creators could access something that gave them better visual quality. So that was their mission, when they started to think about how to replace Matinee. And basically they did that and decided that they needed to make it more user friendly. And that's when they came up with the Sequencer that's in Unreal. And I would say it's machinima that's driven them to make these tools which they intend, basically to, you know, they're purely designed to improve the quality of the outcome. And then the other aspect to bear in mind here is that Libreri was also really keen that Epic embeds what he said were the principles of the industry that Unreal is now built upon, which basically comes from ILM special effects. And their missionis, is basically that they're trying to make, or give everybody access tools to these special access to these special effects tools. So that's, that's, that's where I think things come from, if you like, and why I think it's still important. Does that step away from games? Yes, I think it does. And does it professionalise the content? I think he does that too. But does that matter? I'm not really sure that it does. Because I think what's happening is that as these kinds of worlds of game and film and special effects collide, all of which are being made using Unreal. So then we'll get new and very interesting creative products, and also creative developments. And I say that because Unreal, one of the things that we saw this last year was Unreal actively supporting the development of a modding community, which I think is still rather nascent at this point, but one which is certainly something that I think we should be following too, as it begins to sort of progress and, and, and build. So yeah, I agree with you, Ricky, I think we should be looking at other forms of machinima that's embedded in game engines. But I think we should also follow what's going on in this community with Unreal Engine very closely, because I think there are some of the more interesting tool sets that are emerging with a with a goal being to support creators across the breadth of different platforms. That's my view.

Ricky Grove 37:57
Wow, I don't think I can climb over that mountain of words.

Tracy Harwood 38:02
Yeah, well you asked question earlier. And I had a bit of time to think about it.

Ricky Grove 38:07
I got it. I got it. No, as usual, you have some very excellent and interesting points. And essentially, I don't think we need to worry about it. It was just a question that came to my mind. I mean, people are going to watch more traditionally made machinima and people are going to watch Unreal, and we're going to cover them both here. So there's no real conflict and in it at all, but I do think you can. I do think you can make machinima cheaply, open source tools like DaVinci Resolve for editing and, you know, a 19.99 game and a $10 capture software or free capture software. I think you could do it. It's it's basically the the imagination and ingenuity of the people that you want to. And also I think more traditional machinima has been individual focused, or very small team, one or two people. Phil's recent experience, making that great film that we talked about last time, is an example of more traditional machinima. Now we've moved on, that's a different world. Games are different. And I understand that. So. I do see your points.

Tracy Harwood 39:24
Good stuff. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 39:28
So quickly, what are your thoughts on the my criticism of the story aspect of The Voice in the Hollow?

Tracy Harwood 39:36
I know well, I think you're spot on actually, I hadn't I when I was watching it, the thing I picked up on was that some of the it was kind of a something didn't quite gel in terms of the characterization and what was going on and the voices and, and it was that that I picked up on but you picked up on another aspect. So as ever, I think our collective review of it is a really enriching experience for me so thank you for your points.

Phil Rice 40:01
Sure. I don't know. It didn't bug me the way that it did you, Ricky I did. I did perceive what I'll just kind of lump together as some ambiguities. But I, I don't know, maybe I just have a higher tolerance for that. I think it would be unforgivable. The things that you notice that were missing or didn't quite fit, it'd be unforgivable in the context of a novel, for example, unforgivable. Yeah. Short like this. I for some reason, I just gave it a pass even though I'm, I tend to fixate on those same details when it comes to story, Ricky, and I'm kind of demanding in that regard. But I it didn't bug me with this film I, I observed that some things were unexplained. It didn't really strike me about the proximity of the village to the after you said that? It's like, oh, yeah, that that is kind of strange. I think maybe just excuse it as well. It's old world. Nobody really knows where anything is. Yet. They're all just. So that's probably laziness on my part, to be honest, but yeah, it didn't. I noticed some of the same things you did. It just didn't rub me as wrong. I, for whatever reason, just forgave it. without much effort, not because it was so visually good, but but I think I just I expected with the length of the film, that it's not going to answer every question and that my my imagination gets to play with that as a result. And I tend to like that. In shorts. I try to do that in, in, in my own work as well, with varying degrees of success, I think. But with some of the short films that I've done over the years. Obit is an example. So a lot there that's not said or really filled in or explained. But that was it was kind of on purpose and some of the answers. If someone were to ask me, Well, what's the story with this? This guy, where exactly did he come from? to come down? I don't know. No, but I didn't I didn't even answer that for myself, you know, and again, unforgivable if you're writing a novel or doing big story craft, but for a short,

Ricky Grove 42:13
thing is the antagonists. Yeah, antagonist in the story. It's not just ambiguity in the backstory, as somebody will see, but the thing that causes them, to propel them into the tragic action,

Phil Rice 42:29
unless it was imagined, unless it was just her own envy, speaking to her, which ultimately is what impelled her horrible action was envy. So I don't know I just interpreted in a slightly different way that the monster if you will, being a literal, presence or being or character. To me, that was not essential. Because I think I was entering into this, to the story with that kind of Cain and Abel background, and it's about this is really about an unhealthy envy between two siblings, and less about, you know, some demon making her do something. I didn't feel like her, her behaviour was excused at all, I felt like her ultimate, the ultimate judgement imposed on her, by the climax of the story was pretty brutal, right? For for a momentary lapse of passionate judgement. But ultimately, I felt like well, she was responsible. I didn't, I didn't at all excuse her behaviour for the voice, because I felt like that could have just been something within her and the physical pit was really just

Ricky Grove 43:54
My point wasn't that, that her behaviour wasn't excused, but it was ameliorated so that she could still remain a sympathetic character.

Damien Valentine 44:04
Yeah. The way she

Ricky Grove 44:08
maybe it was influenced she had she never met this thing never became involved in it. Would she ever have gone down that path? That tragic path? I don't think so. Why

Phil Rice 44:21
I see your point, but also looked at in a certain way, Cain. Cain is a sympathetic character, if you know the full story, and the remorse and regret and consequence of his action in that archetypal story of the one who murdered his supposedly good brother Cain is even though you know, Cain just acted on his own like you said, there's nothing in the in the original story to indicate that he was tricked or influenced or whatever, he just did it because he wanted to, like you said, but then You know, people do bad things that they wanted to. And then it's horrible. As I've read a lot and listen to a lot of Jordan Peterson and one of the things as a clinical psychiatrist that he says is nobody ever gets away with anything. Ever. Never. They never really do. And to me, so I think I was bringing that.

Ricky Grove 45:26
I say that it's okay, this story. Yeah. Yeah. But if if the original Cain and Abel story were retold by this group of filmmakers, the devil would have been about a block away from Cain and Abel's apartment, running or running the nearby, you know, grocery store and progressively convinced one of the brothers that the other brother was an asshole and deserved to die. That's how they would have done it. Yeah, no, I

Damien Valentine 45:54
agree. I agree. I picked up on the the cave being near the tribe, as well, Ricky and kind of stood out to me. But then there's a minor spoilers for the first few minutes of the film. So if anyone wants to watch it, stop listening now, and come back later. She has that first encounter with the spirit at the cave. And then this other character comes along and shouts at her. And it kind of draws her back into the real world. And she becomes aware, the other character sees the cave. This is very evil looking. Sort of spires coming out of it. And she was completely oblivious to the fact that this is somewhat evil. And it made me wonder if perhaps the spirit inside only speaks to certain people that it thinks it can influence. And then if it doesn't think it's got any chance, there just is just appears to people.

Phil Rice 46:51
So great. That's great. Damien. I love that.

Damien Valentine 46:54
Because, you know, because when the how the character appears shouto I thought they were gonna say get away from the evil cave. And it wasn't like that at all it was about we're gonna head back home now you should come with us or something along those lines. And I thought, well, yeah, it could be because the tribe, they're completely oblivious to it, because it hasn't affected anyone on that tribe, until the main character of the story. And she was the first one to encounter that spirit in a way that the spirit liked what it saw in her and knew that it could have some kind of impact there. Because none of the other characters seem to be that bothered about it at all, like Ricky said, so that's the only thing that came to my mind was that was it.

Phil Rice 47:38
But yeah, I would argue a good point. I would argue that the maybe ambiguity isn't the right term, but that's what I'm going to use anyway. leaves this story open to three, maybe four here. Different takes on it. And they all work. Like me having my view on the film doesn't take anything away from from what you got out of it and interpreted and Damien as well and Tracy as well. And to me, that's good. That's that's a well executed short. Not that there's nothing to criticise. Of course, there can be you know, but I like that. Whereas a story that answers all the questions, there's not really much to talk about, except how did they execute it? Okay, they did it great. But it doesn't leave you. This one left me thinking afterwards. I watched it the night before our recording here. And it's been on my mind all night. Even through going to the theatre and watching another movie, I was still thinking about this. So I appreciate that.

Ricky Grove 48:46
Well, yeah, it definitely I was caught up in the story and the quality of the story, and everything is very high. But from my perspective, the glaring story problem made it difficult to appreciate fully. And I think it's typical of VFX people jumping into a story in which they get genius, a very high level craft, but they just miss some obvious things.

Phil Rice 49:16
I think that criticism is very fair. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 49:19
Yeah. And I think I think making the point. You have to have everything makes sense. I don't think that really works in that in this context, because like I said, this is the antagonist. It's not really even a character they should if they were going to have it as a major part of the story, influencing one of the major characters, they should have given it a backstory, they should have set it up like, like, what, what Damien just came up with, which is not in the film, but which you could draw from it, but it's not in the film, because they never say anything about it. But if it was something that only appeared when people we're susceptible around ever to put solve the problem, but they never thought of that.

Tracy Harwood 50:05
It's really funny.

Ricky Grove 50:07
That made it convenient.

Tracy Harwood 50:09
Yeah, well, it's really funny that you said, Because online, I've seen another description of what it is. And I'm almost do I actually

Damien Valentine 50:17
tell you this? You gotta tell us that you said.

Tracy Harwood 50:20
Yeah. All right. Well, as far as I understand it, this sort of mysterious entity is actually the Morning Star, and the bestower of gifts that can grant the character or the person coming near the cave a wish.

Phil Rice 50:40
Well, and we know what morning star's significance is in this literary tradition, of course, is the other name for Lucifer. And doesn't I think even when it introduces itself, it kind of makes some kind of reference to that if I remember right about the star of

Tracy Harwood 51:01
the Morning Star. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, but you've got to kind of know that backstory a little bit. Haven't you got to kind of know that. Anyway,

Ricky Grove 51:12
well, interesting conversation about it. Absolutely. A great choice. Tracy, really, really great choice. I hope you'll follow them this company and let us know about any future work that they do.

Tracy Harwood 51:24
Absolutely. Great.

Ricky Grove 51:27
Well, thank you, everybody, for your thoughts. And I hope you check this movie out. You will be very happy you did. If you have comments or ideas about some of the things that we brought up especially vis a vis the new Unreal style of high craft level versus the old traditional machinima let us know talk at Completely Machinima.com. And don't forget our news blogs. Lots of interesting news going on there some really good stuff. Tracy has been doing a bang up job on interesting topics, especially recently, the controversy of AI generated art, in particular. So thank you very much for listening, and we will be back with you next week for another interesting film. I think it's my pick next week. So we'll be talking about that. Thanks, everybody. Bye bye. Bye.

Ricky Grove 52:20
Bye.