Ricky Grove 00:13
Welcome back to And Now For Something Completely Machinima Podcast. I'm Ricky Grove, your host and we're talking with our pals Tracy Harwood, Damien Valentine and good ole Phil Rice. Well, this week we're going to be looking at Damien's machinima picks. Now he has picked two short, interesting films that are shot in a flying simulator. And boy, are they interesting. The first one is Ghost by JP Ferre, and the second one is DCS The Right Stuff by JP Ferre fair as well. Excuse me if I've mispronounced that. So Damien, why don't you tell us about these film? Let's start out with Ghost. Yes. So

Damien Valentine 00:56
as always by machinima pics were completely by accident is one of the things that YouTube recommends to me, and it recommended Ghost to me first. And I thought this looks interesting. So I watched it. And I was really impressed by you know, the, the work short, because my understanding is this flight simulator is highly realistic, you could play it out. If you knew how to play the game, you could probably fly the Jets in it as well. Yeah, that's how detailed it is.

Ricky Grove 01:25
So the name of the flight simulator

Damien Valentine 01:28
is called DCS? I don't know what that stands for. I'm sure it means something to flight simulator enthusiasts, right? So yeah, Ghost was the one that came up to me first, and I watched it. And it's kind of like this, you feel like it's gonna be this sort of dogfight combat movie, but it's kind of a mild horror element to it as well, which you do not expect from a flight simulator. And I don't want to go into it too much. You have to watch it, because it's part of the story. But it's got these two pilots. And they've been told that the US Air Force pilots, and they'd been told as an RAF distress call has been picked up. And they have to go and investigate what's happened. And they hit there's no trace of the RAF pilots. And there's this sort of myth of this enemy pilot who's actually really good, and then catch him and there's this whole dogfight thing that happens. And it was shot so well. It was very intense, you not sure how it's going to end and you want the guys to win. And you know, all of that. And because it is such a realistic game, I don't know how they managed to fly the planes and control the cameras, because I imagined the camera work has to be very tough to control as well. But yeah, I know, I just, I just really enjoyed it and and I thought this is gonna be my pick. And then what do you guys think of it?

Ricky Grove 03:02
Well, I think they may have done what you often see in machinima, which is have a separate pilot who is not involved in the action be the camera. That makes sense. That's probably how they work that but I was engaged in that film. It's interesting. The story is part of a ghost tradition. I live with a my partner who is an expert on ghosts and Halloween she wrote is written two books on ghosts, the history of ghosts. So I've gotten a lot of background on ghost, sort of storytelling tropes. And this is one of the tropes, which is the well, I'm not going to give the ending away because it would be unfair to to listeners, but it's it's a pretty standard trope in certain types of ghost movies. And I thought that was sort of the weakest element of it because you had this realistic flying, and all the other parts of realistic but the story ending was not realistic. It was kind of a fantasy, and it didn't ring didn't ring true. However, the actual dogfighting and everything had me engaged. I mean, I was as the planes were swooping, I was turning in my chair. I was so engaged with it, you know. It was a fun film. I also wonder whether this is a gender specific film, whether it's the kind of film that guys would really glom on to as opposed to, I mean, wait and see what Tracy has to say about it, but I liked it a lot.

Phil Rice 04:37
Yeah, I did to the I recognised the the trope, although I couldn't name it because I don't have the kind of education that that you guys do on that. You and your partner but I sensed it like as as I watched the story unfold, and I thought okay, I this has a familiarity to it. That was pretty well executed now. And the less the realism, especially on the shots of the planes themselves, like when it first started playing, I thought, okay, so is this is this like live action footage? I mean, really, I was duped like it was. And you know, once it gets to the cockpit shots and you know, there's kind of these very limited movements and it's a little bit pixelated character, I thought, okay, it's a it's a very high end flight sim, which they typically don't put a whole lot of effort in the, I'm not expecting cockpit close ups, right. So you know, we've talked several times, on past episodes of this show about the role of editing, to give a sense of continuity to where the orientation, you know, the sequence of shots really has to be done just the right way for you to get enough of a sense of where you are, and who is who and what's happening. And that's really hard with planes. And we have no actual faces to to give us that to anchor to that like it would in a Top Gun movie, for example, they'll inevitably take off part of the mask so we can see oh, it's it's Goose Oh, it's so I thought they did so well in this movie at that, at the editing of the shots a dogfight. We've never actually analysed a dogfight by that lens on the show, I don't think we've we've talked about other action sequences, maybe even a car chase or two, or a pursuit of some kind, or an assault of one force against the other. And those are challenging, but a dogfight you're in you know, 360 degree space in every direction. There's no no real rules on where stuff can move. It's just incredibly difficult. And they did so well with it to where there's no point in the story where I didn't know what was going on. From the visual cues of the editing, just masterfully done. Very enjoyable. I just I loved it. I watched it again as soon as I finished it. Just just to experience it again. It's a great shorts, the perfect length. And yeah, just just wonderful stuff.

Tracy Harwood 07:32
Well, I, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this as well, I did DCS Digital Combat Simulator. Perfect. And it and it really was it was brilliant. I can honestly say, you know, I don't You don't you don't often say that about an air battle. Do you? Know It was great. But you know what I was thinking about Why was that so great. I think what was what really held this together for me was the voice acting and the characterization through the helmets. Because you didn't see any faces. Of course, you didn't see any faces. But there were definitely characters there. You've got the you know the person back at base and then you've got these two characters and then this this ghost and

Phil Rice 08:21
very distinct characters very distinct.

Tracy Harwood 08:24
That I think it was all done through the voice act, which was really outstanding. It really took you on a journey. I thought the the editing was was was brilliantly well done. I actually was surprised at the ending. I don't know why I expected at the end. But but it did surprise me. And in the end, I actually thought well this, how on earth can you have a horror movie in this sort of genre? But it delivered a horror movie. Yeah, it really did. It felt very Top Gun like actually I thought that I thought that as well film. But I also thought that in terms of the level of the story because the whole thing just was was was just was professionally it felt professional. Yeah, I love the sound design for it. It generated this, this kind of really intense feeling of drama. I think the thing that stood out for me if I can be critical at all, I've no idea really how realistic the actual words might have been for the time period in those particular aircraft. Because you know what, I live through the shoulder pad era, the 1980s and there wasn't much swearing that I can recall in the early 90s. Now I don't know what you guys maybe Jamie and less so but you guys can remember this. That's what swearing wasn't really so much as thing as it is now. And there was quite a lot of swearing in this and it felt therefore, for me quite a modern take on a 1991 film, being, you know, as it was set 1991 over Iraq, because what it was supposed to be. The shots where the camera did some zooming, you know, just sort of, you know where on earth in the sky is, are these planes, I just thought that was brilliant, you know, the fact that it was it was sort of maintaining kind of mid and then near and then suddenly this zoom out. And that was brilliant. I thought that was really, really very well done. Really. Yeah, very smart filmmaking. I had the, you know, I had the sense if you like a sort of, of someone being they're actually trying to track the action, not not in the film, but somebody trying to track the action. But that they didn't know where to be to do it. And yet that was so that was another invisible character to me that but that was that was, that was really cool. I thought that was really neat the way that that was done and it but But it all felt really, really well stitched together. Definitely gave the impression of a super fast dogfight, I mean, how on earth you can get that sense across of it being a super fast dogfight, I had no idea but they did that. You know, the speed, the distance, the height, you got a clear sense of all of that, in that game environment. I thought that was incredibly well done. And that evasive action and behaviour. That was just great. I don't know, obviously very much about this game. But it seems that the creators of this kind of have actually attempted to customise assets. And when I was looking at the comments on it, they clearly made these assets available as well. So they, they'd created the liveries on the aircraft, so maybe they'd done quite a lot of modding for the action too, maybe I don't know, I'm just saying that's possibility. There is just one thing I will say in passing, I checked out, is his name JP Farah Jaffe, I checked his website out. I'm gonna say it includes both commercial and personal projects that he's worked on. And you may or may not be surprised that he is in fact, and established director, he makes movie trailers. He's a movie trailer editor. And he's a VFX artist. And one I thought you'd like to know about is that he has worked on the French Doom trailers, and also the Alien Isolation digital series trailer, among many others.

Phil Rice 12:42
Small independent films.

Tracy Harwood 12:46
He knows his stuff. I have to say, I think it can came through. You know, the more I knew about the more I sort of read about the guy, the more I thought, Well, that makes a lot of sense, really. So. But the quality of the film that we're seeing here, so this guy is definitely got some chops. And that comes through in the next film as well. Right? Yeah. I loved it. Damian. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.

Ricky Grove 13:08
For your next one, which is also by the same director.

Damien Valentine 13:12
Yeah. So after I finished watching the Ghost, I thought this is gonna be my pick. And then, you know, submit it. So I think we post our film selections for the month, let's see what else he's done. So I went in his channel. And this is most recent projects is called The Right Stuff. And he's got it there. And there's trainers, and there's some behind the scenes videos as well, which they're worth checking out as well, because you see how he put it all together. And I watched it. And it's a it's a true story, based on Chuck Yeager is one of his test flights of an experimental jet. And it doesn't go well. And the film covers the whole situation, they're a bit longer than The Ghost bear kind of needs to be to get that to tell that particular story. And I was thinking maybe I should choose this one instead of the ghost, but I really liked the Ghost as well. So ended up choosing the two films. Again, I don't it wasn't a pitiful I knew anything about obviously, I've heard of Chuck Yeager, but I don't know is all history of everything he did. So I watched the film. I was very impressed by then I had to go and check. Yes, it did actually happen. And I imagine that he has actually done a lot of research to make sure that his film is as accurate as it can be based on whatever accounts he's got access to. Because he is a director you get the feel he puts a lot of effort into his videos to make sure all the details are you know, as accurate as possible, especially using a game like DCS which again is very highly realistic as I already said. Ah, And suddenly, he's won loads of awards from various festivals for this particular film, and The Ghost is one of four. And I think The Right Stuff has won 12 or something like that. So it's obviously been very well received. And I was just, I could not decide between the two of them. So this month, I chose both of them. What'd you think of this one?

Ricky Grove 15:23
I'm glad you did, because it is a gem of a film. It's even better than Ghost. In fact, I would go so far as to say this is a near perfect machinima film. I'm sure Tracy will find something that's some detail that is missed. But I think it's perfect. And the reason why is because it does so many things. So well, it tells a compelling historical film, almost like documentary. The flying elements, and the technical aspects of it did not overwhelm the storytelling, you're engaged, you're left with this breathlessness at the end of it, because you don't know how it's even though you know how it's gonna turn out. Really. Any general person will tell you they know how it's gonna turn out. The film makes you brings you so strongly into its world that you forget that and you worry about what's going to happen. The shot selection, the editing, once again, the acting first grade, the 12 minutes of the length of the film flew by. It was like it was over soon after it begun. I was just, it's my favourite film of the year so far. I was so impressed with it, and so interested in it. So thank you for picking it. I'm really glad. And I was wondering what would it be like if we broke the film up into four pieces, took it to a gallery, made a big fancy special screens and all this stuff. And then each person had to go up to four separate rooms. You know, whether it would classify as being gallery stuff?

Phil Rice 17:13
I suspect not. But we would project it upside down Upside down.

Ricky Grove 17:16
Yes. Yeah.

Damien Valentine 17:18
Yes. Pilot's chair. Yeah, no, that's right. Yeah. Oh, I love

Phil Rice 17:22
that. I love that and the audio would be turned way down. And there would be someone live in the in the gallery, just reading Bodelaire. Just just a dark French poetry. Yeah,

Ricky Grove 17:37
totally naked. Yeah.

Phil Rice 17:39
I love to this film. I agree, Ricky, I think it's better than Ghost, which is saying something. It's got it's perfectly balanced. Those elements, you talked about Ricky, you know, the technical aspect and all of that, but then the storytelling and the, you know, it's easy for a documentary even about something. Let's say exciting. It's very easy for documentary to dilute the emotion down of that and not really engage you in the heart. Just you're just watching facts. Okay, so we flew this thing and then that happened? No, this, this just, it just was gripping. And I, obviously, I know who Chuck Yeager is he's one of the better known people in the, in the 20th century, as far as Americans are concerned, you know, right up there with any president you can name during the century, or Thomas Edison or someone like that. And I always speaking of Thomas Edison, I always like Chuck Yeager is one that I'm always like afraid that I'm going to find out that he was just a total dick or something, you know, seems like that happens to every every major historical person in the US is like, you know, FDR, he did all these great things, and then you find out he, you know, was a jerk about this or whatever, or Thomas Edison. Oh, yeah, he electrocuted an elephant. It's like, for Christ's sake. You know, can I just have somebody that Michael Jordan No, he Gamble's all the time, come on. Chuck Yeager, I basically I don't look up anything on Chuck Yeager, because he's, I think, without cliche, an American hero. And he may have done something horrible that will getting cancelled today, but I don't care. I just like Chuck Yeager, and I'm going to leave it that way. So and this, this movie was made for me. It's just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. There's actually a the life story of Chuck Yeager is a feature film and I think it's got this same title, doesn't it The Right Stuff? It does. Yeah. I saw that so long ago. I don't even remember anything about it, but So when I saw the title, I thought, Oh, is he kind of doing like a trailer or whatever. But no, this is a, this is an encapsulated story of one of the test flights. And I mean, these guys, just unbelievable the risk that, that they went through this, this, this is not a unique story, maybe what makes this story unique is that he survived. You know, so many of these guys just perished. You know, trying these things and

Ricky Grove 20:30
and how do you get into the plane after having that experience?

Phil Rice 20:34
And he did. Yeah. And he did and he wasn't crazy. Not by, you know, not by any clinical definition. So yeah, it's really, he's The Right Stuff is the perfect title. Because it's not, it's talking about, you know, he's, he's made a different stuff than, than most folks. It's like a, you know, firefighter who can run into the burning building kind of thing. It's, it's most normal people wouldn't put themselves in those situations, but he was just driven in that way. So yeah, just a wonderful tribute to the guy to the subject of the film, and just wonderful job telling the story. I have nothing to criticise about it at all. It's, you know, at least with the Ghost, I could comment on the the 45 degree angle look for the pilots. I didn't even that was probably in this too. I didn't even notice it. Like it just, I was just enthralled. So wonderful, wonderful stuff. Yeah. And now that we know that he's a pro, it makes sense. Because this is pro stuff. This is what pro stuff looks like. And I don't mean pro just in terms of that he makes money. But in terms of the level of his his skill. Yes, craft is so yeah, his craft is just so good. So, yeah, I'm a fan of this guy, for sure. And we'll be watching his other stuff as well.

Ricky Grove 22:01
You'd often see somebody like this who is really enthused with the technical details of flying and everything, not having a solid enough story. But it was smart of him to use the history. And then to just stay out of the way and the story itself. Just dramatise that. Agreed. It's so excited.

Phil Rice 22:25
I would mention too, if Russell Boyd, Russell, if you listen to our podcast, and you don't already know of this guy, Russell, of course, made made a lot of flight sim movies back in the day, he would love this. He would he would echo a lot of what we're saying. I think this is just this is how it's done. Great stuff.

Tracy Harwood 22:45
I completely agree, completely agree. I mean, what an impressive and compelling story about the early test flights. I mean, this is what you this is what it conveys to me the sort of the early test flights, the pilot, the pioneers of spaceflight, and in this case, it's, it's a story that you you don't know so much about Chuck Yeager, because actually, what you know him for is the breaking sound barrier record, or that's what I know, of him. I think that was 1953, as I say, I seem to recall from my notes, but but an amazing, distinguished career. And I think he flew with Armstrong as well at one point. So this was, you know, this was these guys were genuine pioneers of spaceflight. And this particular story was something that led to directly to how NASA developed spaceflight, which is a fascinating story in itself. An actual fact this guy died in 2020. At an amazing age of 97 years old. JP Ferre, you can't imagine this guy would live that long. And you but Blimey, so he was inspired by the fact that Yeager had passed to me to make this film. And I think actually, from what I saw of it, and the way that I reacted to this is basically a Hollywood movie in 12 minutes. And it but also what struck me about it, it was a movie that was what should have been, but was never made during this guy's lifetime. And it felt like you've got the whole sense of the central part of this big production without the kind of you know, the, the rubbish girlfriend engagement, the bar fight, the post party celebration. You see in all these Hollywood movies, it's kind of is it? No, is it enough?

Phil Rice 24:50
No, you're right. You're totally right. So yeah,

Tracy Harwood 24:53
that's that's that's what sort of stood out for me. In fact, I think it turns out that wants his military career finished in in real life, California, that's when he made his appearance in the the the actual film called The Right Stuff, which was about the sound barrier being broken, which was, I think, made in at 1983 when I looked it up, and he was a bartender in that, apparently. And that is because of course, where most pilots spend most of their time. It's in the bar, isn't it? Not much time in the bar as they do in the training facilities.

Phil Rice 25:31
Singing songs, singing whatever, serenading ladies, that's whatever

Tracy Harwood 25:34
they do whatever they do, they party. And they party hard. I've actually been many is another story. But I have been involved in around the world flight race, and I've been involved in pilot parties and stuff and my god, do they know how to party. But, you know, dead serious the next day. And it's all because they're their life could be over the next day. So party hard is what they do. And that film, really, I think that 1983 film wasn't actually about this incredible feat. Which I think, to me stands out more than almost sound breaking barrier one for me. It drew me in right from the very start, I love the scene setting on the Air Force Base. And then the takeoff that you know that that first sort of main scene that you see where he takes off through that kind of heat haze. That was the point I thought, we're watching something a little bit more well developed than a traditional machinima isn't just a plane taking off, you saw that plane take off through this heat haze. And then you kind of got that Backdraft bit through the plane and whatnot. Absolutely no details of it. The detail, absolutely amazing. The sound design that mix between the radio conversation, the aircraft and the music. Outstanding. I thought for most of this, what I was actually listening to, when before I sort of started to look into it, what I thought I was listening to was actually a real film or or real life footage of actually events. But when I looked at it, it wasn't it was he, you know, a Ferre written this script based on books and real life accounts from Yeager's autobiography. So there was a huge amount of work that had gone into the creation of the film by Farah and also by his team. I thought the the pacing of the story was really clever, the ambiance the kind of the positivity, actually, the feeling of history in the making through the visuals. Incredible. I have got a criticism.

Ricky Grove 27:46
Oh, no, you know, I don't know it.

Tracy Harwood 27:50
Well, well, you hear me out. That's the only thing that's spoils it. And it didn't really spoil it. But it's the only thing that I thought no, that's not right, was when there was a shot to a field of cows. Okay. And, you know, they were on the ground when the pilot was supposedly breaking the sound barrier. Now, you know, we've have very rarely but I have heard the Euro fighters being, you know, scrambled over near to us, and they kind of accidentally break the sound barrier. And it sounds like, you know, it sounds like the most horrendous explosion. So these cows didn't really didn't jump that much. They looked up but they didn't really jump that much. I'm assuming that's what was going on. So I expected more of a boom and more of a reaction from the cows.

Ricky Grove 28:39
telling me your your criticism of this absolutely brilliant film is that that the cows,

Tracy Harwood 28:44
cows didn't react. That's it. The only thing Welcome

Ricky Grove 28:49
back, we're always happy to have you back when you go away.

Phil Rice 28:54
All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and defend that criticism, because I noticed it too. But I'm going to assume that those cows have been in that pasture near an airfield where sonic booms just don't alert them the same way anymore. They've heard Kelvis voice good point. Yeah.

Tracy Harwood 29:13
So they're desensitised

Phil Rice 29:15
not limitations of the game engine? No.

Ricky Grove 29:20
Oh, thank you, Phil. was starting to hyperventilate there. Yeah.

Tracy Harwood 29:24
Yeah. But that was the only thing. I mean, the conversation between the ground crew and the pilot was this great. And it was, it was really dramatic. It was it was it was just Bob on I thought.

Ricky Grove 29:35
And then at the end, you know, when when he's in serious crisis, and they're trying to resolve it. You could tell that they were excited. They were elevated, but they were still professional. Yeah, so they've managed to combine those two elements of fear and competence at the same time in their performances.

Phil Rice 29:56
which is accurate, by the way from every recording I've ever heard. You know, the, the people at NASA who are on the comms and the people in the day are the most, you know, cool characters you can imagine in terms of staying professional at a time when, you know, many people would freak out. Yeah. And I think that that's, that's, that's one of the qualities of the people who work in that, that field, that, that people who have that ability, they rise to the top, you know, so I think that wasn't, wasn't accidental at all, it was very much that that is the way it is. It's part of what is special about these people in that in that field.

Tracy Harwood 30:42
Exactly. And but for this film, the whole soundtrack, which, as I understand it did include some aspects of original sound and, and visual effects, which, as I understand it, were added for historical accuracy, and dramatic purposes. But the whole thing was so well done. This guy is an absolutely masterful storyteller in this DCS world. And, and it looks like he continues to make other films as well. So I'm definitely going to keep watching out see what he's doing on this. As I understand it, this one took him two years to make, 210 shots to complete. And I'm not a bit surprised. It actually, to me, I mean, just reflect on your comments. There, Phil. Ricky, it seems to me this is actually a really important application of machinima, this kind of historical recreation. We've seen it used before some some to lesser effect than others. And of course, the flight sims, we've seen before the one that came to mind was actually shown at the festival that I did in 2007 by Wingman Production Wingmen Productions, I think, and they used IL2 to create the story that had been inspired by true events about the use of these Gloucester sea gladiator biplanes in this air defence battle. In defence of Malta during World War Two, it was nominated for one of the awards, but it didn't actually win. I think it won at the 2008 machinima Festival in New York. I think it won that year, and was an hour long machinima I think we had it in a feature length machinima. And the film was called if you remember, it's called Faith, Hope and Charity. Is that the one that Russell? Yeah. Do you remember? Is that is that Russell's film? Or is that another one? Was Russell one of the team? I think Russell was one of the team, I think so. I think he was one of the wingman production people, faith, hope and charity. But it wasn't in this quality. I have to say it wasn't it wasn't made in this way. But the other heart historical film that does come to mind that was brilliant, was Prazinburke Ridge by Martin Bell that we reviewed last year. And that actually was also based on a book about the central character. So and Martin also has, you know, production chops as well. I think that sort of the ability to sort of create the script and then film it in the way that these guys have is amazing. It really shows. There's a lot of skill behind this. I think, great pick, great people have a

Ricky Grove 33:27
great group. And I was so happy that it didn't have that Hollywood trapping of excessive music soundtrack. You know what I mean? We're, you know, they'd have Bob Bob, Bob Bob, in the crisis moments and everything. He just threw away with all of them. And let the story stand on its own. Perfect, perfect. Well, thank you, Damien. You did some great trick. We'll definitely be paying attention to JP Ferre. The two films that we looked at and reviewed were Ghost by JP Ferre, and DCS, The Right Stuff a short film in 2022 by JP fair, well, that's it if you have comments on our picks, or you have a difference of opinion or you think we missed something, contact us at talk at completely machinima.com show notes. And thank you, Tracy for doing the show notes are at our main website completely machinima.com. Well, that's it for this episode. We'll be back for another next week. Thank you all. Bye.