Phil Rice 00:07
Hello and welcome to And Now For Something Completely Machinima, the podcast about machinima, virtual production and related technologies. My name is Phil Rice and I'm joined by my co hosts Tracy Harwood and Damian Valentine. Ricky's not with us this month, but he will be back next month. So we're going to talk freely about him behind his back and take advantage of that opportunity.

Tracy Harwood 00:33
We always do.

Phil Rice 00:34
We always do. That's right. Usually it's Yeah, after the show in the off week meetings that we Ricky doesn't know about. Yeah. So we're gonna dive right into our pit for this month. This is one that Tracy picked out. I don't know if I know how to pronounce it, Tracy. So I'm gonna let you do so.

Tracy Harwood 00:55
Okay, so this one's by Syama Pederson, original version which was recommended to us actually by Orencloud, who's Kitbash award winning film we reviewed last month. Now there's actually a disclaimer with this with the link in particular, because TheChach on whose channel you can find it on YouTube highlights that it's not his work, but he is hosting it nonetheless. I think actually unofficially because the video was removed from Syama's channel in order to comply with Games Workshop's Warhammer 40Ks T's and C's. Now the film's Yeah, exactly. I'll come to that in a minute. This particular version of it is it has been edited into one story. It's actually 13 minutes, minute long, quite long machinima, and it was originally in four separate videos, I believe. Now, the plot thickens here, because the film was released a couple of years ago, and on Arstates channel about the same sort of time that this was released. Syama announced that the project was going to continue under the Warhammer stable, as he was going to be taking up a job working with Games Workshop. Now, since then, there's not really been any more work that's come out from this creator, or at least, that's been openly accessible. And furthermore, there seems to be a bit of a consensus that eventually, wherever this is on the internet, this will get taken down from YouTube, and may even be put behind a paywall for community members only, which will really be quite a pity, because it's a beautifully rendered piece of work does a great job of showcasing the game. And I think it really will be a pity if it goes missing. But as Orencloud said to us, when he shared the film with us, it's definitely one worth worth having a look at sooner rather than later. Now to the film, for me, this has really quite good editing and, and its sound design is spectacular. It obviously it kind of taps into the whole kind of game lore of Warhammer 40k. And I think it has a bit of shades of Darth Vader in it in places too. But actually, the story stands up even without kind of knowing any of the Warhammer kind of lore. It's about an attack on a ship by a group of super soldiers who appear to have mysterious powers and they're there to capture something an artefact or an object that they clearly kind of desire for some, what appears to be nefarious purposes. There's very little speaking in it just a point at which this kind of magical object seems to kind of incant some sort of spell to defend itself. And, and another character seems to be sort of, well, they seem to be some sort of witch and they're kind of appear to be invoking some kind of defence to the object. The colours of the world I think, are pretty amazing. The detail of the animation is incredibly engaging and, and even though there are these sort of animated assets, the movement and the tale could actually really be almost live action. And that is until right at the very end, when there's this kind of interesting process of absorption into this object, which then kind of results in the soldier being transported to a different world. But overall, I think it's a really well done machinima it's got great pace and timing, could almost be the premise of a new Netflix series, which is no doubt what Games Workshop thought too. And who can't blame them really for wanting to take on Syama directly. I think it's really impressive with the scene where you see the the soldiers for example, walking in the sound is absolutely in sync with the movement. Which overall I think I just I just thoroughly enjoyed it. So I just wanted to say to Orencloud thanks for highlighting In this one too, as I hadn't actually seen it or heard of it, it's a really great pick. There is one thing I want to say though, before I hand over to you guys see what you think. I think what's particularly interesting here is that once again, we're witnessing these fab creators, getting snaffled from their community into jobs for the game's developers. And it's something really that changed the whole emphasis of machinima back in 2008, when it happened the first time around. And it's what gave rise to Machinima.com folks focusing on their money making machine rather than the quality of great stories. And I for one, certainly hope that we're not seeing history repeat itself here. And in some ways, actually, I'm sure that won't be the case, because the platforms like Unreal seem to be really committed to enabling indies to remain indie, and yet benefit directly from their creative work. And if you want further evidence of that, you only have to look at Epic's announcement, about its fortnight creators keeping a substantial portion of their profit that was commented on at GDC just last week, as we're as we're recording here. Like I said, I can recall the last time that this happened, and it took a lot of guts, for those who wanted to remain indies to continue to remain Indies. And one of those, for those that are not aware was actually Hugh Hancock who, above all else, was passionate about making creative work, rather than actually making money out of that creative work. Anyway, what did you guys think?

Phil Rice 06:41
You know, the aesthetic of it. You mentioned, you were kind of reaching for, you know, kind of a Darth Vader ish or that type of thing for me that the thing that most evoked was Prometheus, oh, which is the the movie in the, in the Alien series, especially with the the characters in this when they revealed some of the larger form characters who just did it, and also the way that things are lit as well kind of reminded me of that, and this kind of sense of of dark, almost foreboding, that kind of is woven through the whole thing reminded me a lot of that very engaging. The sound and music are the definite stars here, the way that the score and the the sound design worked seamlessly together to, to carry this forward was really, really, really impressive stuff. I was a little bit less impressed with the editing. And just to clarify, I am someone coming at this who knows absolutely nothing about the the the backstory and mythology of what is it Warhammer 40K. See, I didn't even know what game it was, I knew it was a game, or at least based on a game IP, but I've never played it, I know nothing about it. And, you know, it's, it's interesting, one of the challenges of a film with virtually no dialogue is how to carry the story forward. And it's, it's very challenging. And the fact that I'm sure that the challenge that was increased here for, for me as a viewer by the fact that they're leaning on some existing IP. So that's going to tend to make it much more challenging for the filmmaker to make something that is, is going to be digestible by someone who doesn't have any of that background and maybe that's not even their objective, you know, maybe it's it's purely a fan film and that's it and if so then I wasn't their target audience and that should you know, so take take what I say with a grain of salt because of that, but there's there's certain the editing was strong for the most part, but there's certain there's a certain disorientation that can happen you know, the what we call the cinematic language is that for a reason you know, it evolved over more than a century where the order of shots on the screen the shot selection, that's that's done I can't name specific rules that were broken I don't think they did you know, like the the I don't even know the names of the rules. That's how much of an idiot I am. But I can't point out specific like academic no-nos, but there's just there was a certain sense of there were times when watching it that I kind of felt lost about where I was, and I was watching intently and paying a lot of attention to it. And maybe that's just that. I didn't get it. But some of it too, I think some of the onus for that is on the filmmaker too so there were some things there that I think could have been, could have been tweaked and could have been better, but I was able to get a good general sense of the story. Or at least I thought I did. I think Tracy, your synopsis that you gave just now is clear and lines up more with the story than the one that I read when I clicked through on some links to look up information about this film afterwards, and they have an official synopsis - assaulting an enemy vessel, the adaptas Astartes. Am I saying that right? Or is it Yeah,

Tracy Harwood 10:46
what am I not?

Phil Rice 10:48
Oh, that's not that. I don't know. Phase hordes of foes cutting witchcraft and terrifying unknown technology, is they seek to bring rebellious enemies to justice.

Tracy Harwood 11:01
Yeah, that made no sense to me. No. And so in terms of what I read, so I just made mine up.

Phil Rice 11:08
Years fits this whole sense of rebellious enemies. That's an intriguing premise. But there's no there's no attempt to give any sense of real identity to the attackers or the defenders in this. I could I honestly feel like one could watch this and assume that the, the guy's invading to, you know, the what did you call him? super soldiers? Yes. The guys that were actually landing and doing the assault, are they the bad guys? were the good guys, you could you could make a case either way. That, and maybe it's neutral? Maybe neither of them are. But there was no sense at all of why they wanted this. This object this sphere? Was it stolen from them? And they're reclaiming it? Is it something that's not rightfully theirs, but they're jealous of its power? And they're just going to take it because they have the power to do so. There was there were some questions there that for me who I'm a, I'm an admirer of story well told, kind of left me a little unsettled. Of I'd like to have some indication of that. And they wouldn't have had to necessarily do dialogue to convey that. There's a picket we'll be talking about in an episode in a few weeks. That's one that I picked called Patient Zero, that I feel like, in another venue, it'd be very interesting to do a comparison between the two films it on that basis of how the story is conveyed and comes across and how much it relies on existing IP and that kind of thing. Because there are two I wouldn't say similar stories, but there's there's kind of there's commonalities in plotline, you know, guys are coming to the place to get the thing and, or to get the team to take out the enemies or whatever. And who's the good guys who's the bad guys. And this one has some ambiguity there that probably wouldn't be there for someone who knows the lore of the game. Yeah, I'm gonna fully admit that maybe maybe to someone who's knows the load of the game. To them, that's as obvious as watching a video from Doom. You watch Doom, you don't ask who the bad guys are? It's pretty clear, right? HalfLife 2 it's, it's kind of pretty clear who the bad guys are and who who aren't. So maybe the lore clears that question up. But for me, it was a big question mark. And so I kind of had this sense of I'm not sure how to feel, you know, about this. And, and then yeah, the object at the end, that was very cool. Kind of a, we were talking before the show about different types of the horror genre. And there was very much a sense of that, you know, these guys getting mutilated, and and then absorbed into this thing. And yes, but out into another dimension, it was, it was quite creepy, even as I was going, what the hell is actually going on here. I don't understand what I'm seeing. But I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. So I have no complaints in that regard. One of the things that this film got me thinking about because of some stuff that I've worked on in the past, and because of some stuff I'm working on now is the challenges of telling a what's essentially a silent film story. You know, there's when you're not going to have expository dialogue, telling you the answering these questions that I had watching this, then you're very limited into how you can do that, you know, there's only so much you can do visually, when it's in such a foreign time and place like this, you know, it's different when it's, you know, you don't need that kind of help with it. Charlie Chaplin film, because there are settings and character types that we we just implicitly recognised because they're, they're very similar to us. This is another world, another universe. And so there's no dialogue to really tell you what's going on. Nothing substantial. They didn't use like on screen text, you know, the the Star Wars roll or you know, Blade Runners initial text. You would you have to do that for a movie like Blade Runner, right? You can't just throw people into it and hopefully get it. There has to be something. In fact, I don't know if you know this, but the original Blade Runner, when it was theatrical released, had Decker, which Harrison Ford's character doing voiceover a lot through the film. The director's cut, which was released quite a bit later, doesn't have any voiceover narration. The director's cut is much better, much, much better, because it's a real cheat, you know, to do that. I've had a lot of conversations about this with with other filmmakers, too about so how do you how do you get that job done telling story? And yeah, I, I don't know. I don't know what the answer would have been as to how they could convey those things. But I think maybe the reason there's those holes in the story is because there's a backdrop to the story, that lore that it's just assumed that you know, going into this. And I guess it's just that doesn't make that a flaw of this film. But it does. It's something worth thinking about when you're telling a story. And with regard to your audience. Do you want people who don't have that? Who didn't see the prequel? You know? Do you want them to get what's going on or not? And it is an artistic decision, you know, it's perfectly legitimate to just say, Hey, this is for people who know this universe. You know, like us like a if someone made a Star Trek fan film or stuff there's they're not going to go through and explain how teleport teleporters work, like they did in Star Trek, The Motion Picture. They don't need to do that. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows what the Enterprise class ship is. Everyone knows what the general mission of Starfleet is. So there's all those things right that you don't have to tell in Star Trek fanfiction? Is that what this was? And fiction in this universe? I have to assume so. Because otherwise it leaves me scratching my head quite a bit, unless I just missed something significant. So again, I'm not berating the film for doing that. It just that's what it made me think about.

Tracy Harwood 17:42
It's really, really good points Phil because I think with a lot of machinima, game based machinima, there is so much that that is about the game and folks that know the game world. And when you're trying to sort of change what goes on with that game world, what is it you are taking from the game and conveying in a new way, and to me a lot of machinima has always suffered from you know how much lore it takes with it from the game into the film. And well, you know what, whether there's a connection or, you know, story tropes within that, and how the audience understands it. And a lot of the machinima that we've seen this year stands up on its own. And I think this is a almost a hark back to some of the original types of machinima where it is embedded within the game, I'm assuming, because I'm a bit like you in that sense, I didn't really, I don't know who's the bad guy who's the good guy, or what their roles or history are, where the witch came from, or, you know, what the technology is, and what its magical powers are and all that sort of stuff. But I looked at it as a story as a standalone thing. And I mean, I think I got I got drawn in by the colours and the soundscape design and the movement and the, the general direction of flow.

Phil Rice 19:13
Yeah, which is a very intriguing world that they've exposed us to, with this kind of mix of sci fi and, and yet, there's magic, I guess, is what you'd call it in the description they gave it was witchcraft. Yeah. There's definitely a sense of that of, maybe some of this isn't even technology. It's something that wouldn't necessarily fall into that category. You know, it's something otherworldly or supernatural or whatever. I didn't mind the ambiguity about that. Frankly, I think that the Star Wars universe would have been much better served if they left The Force in that category of something mysterious and supernatural. Instead of with the prequel movies, they kind of tried to science sciencify, whatever the word is the whole thing. Oh, it's medical oriented. That's the scientific thing. It's the way cells do no. Do that. Leave.

Damien Valentine 20:06
That was very quickly forgotten. After.

Phil Rice 20:10
Yeah, for good reason. So, no, I liked that. I liked that mystery. But and that's a good point too is that it is, it is okay to have some things unexplained in your movie in your short. In fact, one could argue that's it, that's a very valuable tool. Because it gives this sense of expansiveness beyond what you're seeing on the screen. So it's, it's a real, it's challenging and fun, to, to figure out where, where you want to draw those lines and all that. But I think for the things where I feel like it, it suffers when there's ambiguity, is when it comes to even just basic indications of Who are these people? And why are they doing what they're doing? Is it too simplistic to not fix it? You know, it's, that's really what it comes down to is, I don't I don't need you to tell me how to feel about them. But I would at least like to know what a little bit about why they're doing what they're doing. And and that was that was that remained a big question mark. For me. That's why I kind of, I'm gonna assume it's, it's so obviously missing, that I'm going to assume that it's because it's told somewhere else in just a part of the story that I'm not exposed to. That's that's the only reasoning I could come up with. I don't think that it's an omission. From the point of view of somebody who knows the whole lore, it probably they're probably going they're probably shouting at the screen right now. If they're watching and going, come on, man. It's it's the zinger knots against that such and such, it's, and that's just how they, you know, these guys are the bad guys. Everyone knows that, you know, there's probably like a whole thing like that we're, oh, yeah, I sound like I don't know what I'm talking about. But well, but what I'm trying to call attention to is what you mentioned to Tracy, that sometimes your viewer is not going to have that benefit. And you know, maybe it's worth paying that paying due attention to that. And maybe even after paying attention to it, you decide, You know what, I don't have time to retell the whole story of the work Warhammer universe, you know? Yeah. And my answer to that would be you don't have to tell the whole thing. You know, did the did the original Alien movie tell the whole story of how those eggs and creatures became there that they found? And, you know, no,

Damien Valentine 22:35
I think it's better for you. They didn't.

Phil Rice 22:37
It was better for That's right. Yeah. If no other alien movies had ever been made, that movie would still be extraordinary. In fact, maybe more. Yeah. I think that's the old guy talking them.

Damien Valentine 22:50
Yeah, it was great. They were a complete mystery until Alien Covenant when they explained where the eggs came from. But before

Phil Rice 22:57
that, was there midichlorians moment, wasn't it? Yeah. And they didn't

Damien Valentine 23:01
know they were terrifying when you didn't know where they came from. It was just some crash ship there. And you don't know if there's other crash ships on other planets, which is exploited in comics in games because they did that. But you don't know who that ship belong to leaving the ship itself is terrifying because it's got you don't know how its associated with the alien thesis. It's a very simplistic design. And I probably shouldn't be talking about aliens

Phil Rice 23:29
No, but it's I think it's it even though isn't similar atmosphere. Yeah, yeah.

Damien Valentine 23:36
I think I don't I never really got to Warhammer myself but I have friends who are really into it. So I know. bits and pieces from listening to them talking about it. My understanding is there are no good guys in Warhammer. Each faction is just as awful as the others so I don't really know much about them. I didn't know what the the witch thing I don't know what the artefact was. I just know that they're all bad guys by bad guys fighting bad guys. But yeah, I think Phil you're right this is designed for people who are very familiar with that game world so they could watch it know instantly what everything was and what it all meant. We're not that but I did really enjoy the enjoyed the video as it was. I didn't necessarily understand all the lore side of it but I thought is a very impressively made, but all the animation the visuals. Sounds good. It kind of drew you in. The artifact thing that's really creepy in a way that based on what I know the world felt right. I think for a Warhammer fan, this is going to be a really good fan film, and they'll get a lot out of it. I got enough out of it because I was really impressed by the technical side of it. And I did want to I never got around to doing it. Show it to one of my friends who is it really into Warhammer, can you explain some of this to me? Because I enjoyed it. I've been following what's happening. But I'd like some questions answered about what things are. And, you know, see if what they can come back with. Because it's, it's a tabletop war games, the, you know, the little fingers and you paint that they're about that big and you paint, people paint them, and you couldn't get paint in place or games on with their friends. And then as the lore with this, this book, loads of books about that thick each 1000s of pages each, and there's lots of them, and it really goes into everything. And a couple of people tried to get me to read them. I don't really want to read all this stuff.

Phil Rice 25:58
I never got into Warhammer games either. And I think that the reason for that is that when I had a PlayStation One in the late 90s, mid mid to late 90s, there was a game released for PlayStation that had a similar name. I don't think it was Warhammer, but it was war something. And it was like this really awful Lord of the Rings clone, you know, with orcs and goblins and you have your armies, but I mean, mind you PlayStation one. So, yeah, you could remember what that experience was like, like, you know, it's like almost slightly better than like DOS game graphics, you know. And the game was horribly buggy. It kept crashing and resetting. And there was really no way to win the game. I wish I could remember the name of it because it's just comically bad. Just a horrible game.

Damien Valentine 26:59
It might have been a Warhammer game, because this is the futuristic sci fi setting. And there's the fantasy setting. They're both cool.

Phil Rice 27:05
Maybe it was Yeah. But it was nothing like this, you know, this. So but I every time I see Warhammer, that's all I think of that. Just that that bad taste in my mouth from that game. I can't believe I spent 30 bucks for that game 25 years ago, you know? Yeah. So anyway,

Tracy Harwood 27:26
if you've not sold it, I have to say you've not sold it. Do you know what though? What makes me laugh here is that I also found a machinima review, or a review of this film, which basically had somebody narrating what everything was that was going on inside the inside the film, who the characters were, and so on and so forth. And not only is it an explainer, but it's by a guy called Thall who says he's sick to the Aftering questions about what this game is about.

Phil Rice 28:06
I think, send me that link. Yeah, I will do I love just like watching this with subtitles, that would be fantastic would vary.

Tracy Harwood 28:14
It like that. And then I thought no, this can't be right. This can't be the thing that was meant to be seen. But there is this kind of explainer video of this main film that we're reviewing. So either you are equal.

Phil Rice 28:25
I need this film mansplain to me, that's what it comes down to. I need mansplaining for this video, because I just I had some trouble following it. So I would enjoy that a lot. All right, I'll

Damien Valentine 28:36
send me as well please. Okay, I'll do that.

Phil Rice 28:40
Great pick Tracy. I think I think Ricky would have really enjoyed this movie too. Yeah. I'm sure he'll he probably has watched or he'll get to. But yeah, it's it's, it's good again, with all the bots that are in distractions that I had were related to not understanding the story, whatever. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I mean, it was it was riveting. Just visually very interesting. And yeah, made me want to know more. So I guess that's that's all you could ask from a movie like this.

Tracy Harwood 29:13
Absolutely. And thanks Orencloud for this one.

Damien Valentine 29:16
Yeah. recommendation is something goes back to Star Wars, because obviously, three of us were introduced to Star Wars with the original trilogy, then the prequels came out. And that was the introduction to a lot of people to Star Wars system. And again with the sequels as a lot of people that have traction, but it's not just the films is that the Clone Wars cartoon series, some people that was their introduction to Star Wars and they have to design it in a way they they you know, the writers know that kids are gonna be watching this as the first time they they see anything Star Wars, so they have to present it in a way that's easy for people to get into. And, of course, you've got the Rebels cartoon series, you've got the Mandalorian and all the other shows that are coming out. Each one of those

Phil Rice 29:59
the Star Wars Christmas special. Yeah, that it was aired once on television. Right?

Damien Valentine 30:04
Yeah. So each of these projects has the potential to be the first time someone is introduced Star Wars and the you have to do it. They're fully aware, they have to present it in a way that people can very quickly understand who the bad guys are. It's obviously the Stormtroopers are the bad guys and Darth Vader and, or whichever era setting and who the good guys are and what we're all about. And it just kind of go back to what you were saying earlier, Phil, just in the official productions of Star Wars or Warhammer or anything else, they are going to think about that. But when it's a fan production, they don't have to worry about it because they are marketing it specifically for other fans. So they're not keeping it into my in mind. Whereas we've watched it as our first big real introduction to the world of Warhammer 40k. And it makes sense. Yeah.

Phil Rice 31:02
Funny aside, but my grandmother, she got to see the original Star Wars in the theatre for its original theatrical release. So what year was that? 77? Yeah, she fell asleep. She fell asleep. 30 minutes. In the theatre? Yeah, I was so mad when I learned that because of course, I wasn't old enough to go to the theatre then. When it came out, and

Damien Valentine 31:27
yeah, yeah, she felt some films I can see it's possible to fall asleep in the cinema watching Star Wars with all the sound effects and things blowing up. I don't know.

Phil Rice 31:39
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. All right. Well, great episode. Great pick, Tracy. And thank you all for joining us, and we'll see you in our next episode. Bye.