Phil Rice 00:11
Hello, and welcome to the Completely Machinima podcast where we talk about machinima and virtual production and related technologies. Just a quick reminder, be sure to check out our blog. Tracy publishes content related to machinima, virtual machinima. And lately a lot of stuff for this AI generated content, which is just, her and I were talking about it before recording today. It's just, it's mind numbing how fast that is evolving. And she's doing her best to kind of keep her fingers on the, on the pulse of that and keep us all updated. So there's some great content there. That's over on our blog at Completely machinima.com. So this week, we're going to be talking about a film that Damian has picked from an engine that we've all wanted to see more machinima from. And that is Red Dead Redemption Two. So Damien wants to tell us about it.

Damien Valentine 01:05
Yeah, this film called Didn't I and I was just, you know, just go on YouTube browsing, see what kind of new machinery came up. And this one caught my eye, and I watched it. Really well done. It's like, you previously talked about your experiences making machinery about how it's really difficult to make anything with Red Dead Redemption. And when I watched it, I was part of my brain was thinking, Well, how did they do that? Because I heard what Phil said about, it's really almost impossible to do something like this. But obviously this person is, has done it. And I thought he did a really good job telling this story with no dialogue, or you. But it's still easy to follow what's happening, and it's filmed in a way that's very cinematic, and really good. And not just because the game looks fantastic, the graphics, but the cinematography, and it's really I thought was very impressive. And I thought it was gonna be my pick for this month. And I want to see what you guys thought of it.

Ricky Grove 02:03
Well, I was really glad that you chose it, Damien, because you have a tendency to choose Star Wars stuff. And although I liked Star Wars and the choices you've made, it's refreshing to see a different thing here. And this one was just a little gem I thought. It was atmospheric it has the story was told completely visually. Gorgeous images, had a little ironic twist at the end, you the storyteller filmmaker by the way, his name was Sam Kennel, the fellow who made this machinima did not buy Sam camel. He, he led you thinking it was going to be one type of film. And it turned out to be another one at the end. And I was really interesting, the music choice shouldn't work with this type of film. But it does, he makes it work, the music choices and sort of, I don't know rhythm and blues kind of thing. Set in the world, the Western world of Red Dead Redemption Two. But even that song fits with the theme of the film as well, though, locations are great, striking visuals. I hope Sam makes more films like this because men he's overcome from Phil telling us about all of the problems. He seems to have overcome them and saw this now we don't know. Maybe he was pulling his hair out. But at least he came up with something fantastic. Phil, I'm really interested in your take on it. What did you think?

Phil Rice 03:36
I enjoyed it too the soundtrack. style. It's like what it's a Tarantino type of move right to have these r&b songs over western background. You're right. It's it shouldn't work. It's it's, it's clearly breaking a rule. And yet, it's delightful. So yeah, I enjoyed it. I I really like films that can tell their story without any dialogue. I'm not saying I don't like good dialogue. I love good dialogue. But it's, there's something special about ones that just tell it visually, which this one did. So I really appreciate that. As far as the filmmaking hurdles, he very, I think very cleverly worked his way around those. I mean, one of the most difficult things is to deal with multiple characters on that you have to have interact at the same time. That's, that's, that's the real hair puller, or if you're doing anything with trying to replicate lip sync. That's really where the big headaches were with when I worked with it. But if you if you notice this film there's, it's unusual for there to be a shot with more than one character in the frame at a time. It's just very clever editing. on his part, so that was smart. That was very smart. I think the scene near the end where there's the twist, there are multiple characters, unless there's a cut in there that I that I missed. But they're not multiple characters doing stuff at the same time. So yeah, just very clearly, he got to know the what the bounds and limits were and then created a story that he could tell within those limits where they aren't in the way at all. So that's what machinima is all about. Yeah, really?

Ricky Grove 05:39
I mean, you're not only being creative with your the plot and characters, which are being creative technologically.

Phil Rice 05:45
Yeah, yeah. And I think as far as modding goes the only mod he would have had to use for this would be something for the to get control the camera. And that's, that's a freely available. There's several different mods for that he might have even used something just built into the game, but I don't think so. I think for certain shots there. To get that precision of framing. He probably used some kind of a mod for the camera, which was smart. But other than that, he just he really cleverly used the the game itself to get it done. So yeah, I admired it a lot.

Tracy Harwood 06:24
Yeah, me too. I absolutely love the opening shot. You know that guy in a trench coat standing in a doorway. Pinkerton. Yeah, that was

Ricky Grove 06:35
That's from John Ford's The Searchers. Right we're Duke Wayne at the end is framed with the doorway.

Tracy Harwood 06:42
Yeah, yeah, love that. I really, really like that. But what I quite liked as well was then why he was stood there, you know, waiting for the rain to clear up before he heads out on a bounty hunt with this really scrabby looking horse stood there and it was not not great looking from my interpretation of it. And then the bit that didn't so well stitch together for me was the sight from the rifle when he was up in the mountain. That didn't, you know, when he was looking through the crosshairs, that that seems to me to be slightly out of sync with the rest of what was being portrayed. I wasn't fully aware that guns at that period of time actually had crosshair sights in them. It could be

Phil Rice 07:32
that probably No, I didn't even think about that. Yeah.

Tracy Harwood 07:35
that just didn't make a little bit of sense to me that was the that was really the only thing I kind of picked up and then the the gunshots in the cabin were great that sort of you know how he overcame the characterised comments that you made Phil that was that was really cool. And then I love that whole kind of vibe of right let's get this criminal back to collect the reward kind of thing that was was going on there. And that really, you know, the upbeat music Darkside's Didn't I that was that was, that was fantastic. That ending was such a surprise, though.

Ricky Grove 08:07
Yeah, don't give it away.

Tracy Harwood 08:09
No, no, I'm not gonna give it away. But it was such a surprise. It actually made me go back and watch it again. Because I thought for a minute. I probably missed some absolutely crucial, hidden detail at the very beginning part of the film. Oh, thanks. Well, no, I watched it a second time and I still couldn't see it. So I'm guessing it wasn't there. It was just it was that

Phil Rice 08:29
scene early on where there was the UFO in the background? That should have been? Yeah, hovering over that tree. Yeah. Okay. It's easy to miss.

Tracy Harwood 08:39
Yeah, I missed that. I'm afraid I didn't quite catch that. But I thought the soundscape was really well done, you know, so you've got the music. And then the the silence from the music gaps from the music through which you've heard the game. And the sounds in the game. I thought those gaps were geniously. Well done. Yeah, really well, time. So that whole soundscape was was really very clever. I thought. So. I really love this one. Great, Dane. Great, great pick. Damian Graceland has clearly got talent, and I really look forward to seeing the other work that he doesn't future. Yeah, he's

Ricky Grove 08:39
got like four likes. The fourth one was myself. And I wrote on there how much I liked it now. I hope he keeps making movies because this guy has a real talent. Yeah. Or make any form videos, you know? And if he likes Red Dead Redemption Two. There's lots of opportunities for telling stories in that. I mean, Phil's short film was fantastic. But there's also opportunities for comedy too. And it's not be he continues making films if you if you're loving to hear this, please make more movies.

Damien Valentine 09:51
Yeah. I mean, I've watched it and I got to the end and I finished it and I thought, I want to see more by him because you know This was so well done, I did see that the view count was incredibly low and it deserves to be much higher than that. Because he obviously put a lot of thought and effort into making this and he's got talent and you'd like to see more.

Tracy Harwood 10:12
He's probably just getting started though. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 10:15
See now if he made a Tik Tok video, that was an advertisement for this film. Maybe he would pull people over to the YouTube channel, and he get more views.

Tracy Harwood 10:26
It's a good point.

Phil Rice 10:27
Yeah. There is a mod to add dumpsters to Read Dead Redemption put a link to that in the description. Yeah, but

Ricky Grove 10:35
can you set them on

Phil Rice 10:36
fire? Of course.

Damien Valentine 10:39
You have to put rats in it. The rats invisible and then you set fire to that. You

Phil Rice 10:43
set fire to the rat and throw it into the dumpster? Wasn't there?

Ricky Grove 10:47
I just had a thought. Wasn't there a mod that allowed you to make the characters in Red Dead Redemption huge. I think so. Really huge. Now the opportunities for humour and that just that ability are quite large.

Phil Rice 11:04
They're quite large. Here. We

Damien Valentine 11:05
did that Ricky.

Ricky Grove 11:12
Thanks. Thanks, Damian. Really, really good choice.

Phil Rice 11:14
Yeah. Good pick, Damien. Thank you.

Ricky Grove 11:15
He's all my permanent favourites. I'll know whether your puts anything up.

Phil Rice 11:19
Good. Good. Well, thanks for tuning in. And we'll see you at our next episode.

Ricky Grove 11:24
Thanks, everyone. Bye bye. Bye.