Tracy Harwood 00:34
Alright, I'm Tracy Harwood and welcome to the And Now For Something Completely Machinima Podcast. I'm joined here today with by Ricky Grove. Who's not going to speak?

Ricky Grove 00:48
No, I've had it. That's it. I'm a grumpy old man sitting in the house, watching the kids to make sure they don't hit the corner of the lawn.

Tracy Harwood 00:58
Phil Rice, your yellow and Damien Valentine. Hello. Hi. Right now, this month, we got some really great pics for you made Unreal Half Life 2, No Man's Sky. And we've also got a number of projects that we put on the blog as well as the tech updates and some more information about the creative AI genies that we've been following. I will put a link to the updates that Phil did for us on the Machiniplex channel that he's been working on and his release also have a special feature about Hugh Hancock's Bloodspell. Hugh, as you will probably be aware, was the one of the founders of the machinima.com website that became so infamous all those years ago, and Phil's been restoring some of the work that you'll be amazed to see that was put on the on the dot com site, before it was taken over by the DeBevoise brothers a few years back. Anyway, don't do this. Now. We've got some great picks this week, this month. This week, we're gonna cover Ricky's pick. So without any further ado, I'm gonna hand straight over to Ricky. And he can tell you about his film. Sure,

Phil Rice 02:33
sure. And Tracy Tracy, aren't you? Aren't you going to say the title of his fellow? Yes. Unreal five short film.

Tracy Harwood 02:41
What do you want me to say? Do you want I'm listening closely. Yah, yah. Yah. Me too. It's called Crown.

Phil Rice 02:50
I thought it was quite yah yah,

Tracy Harwood 02:51
yah, yah crown. Okay. And Unreal Engine five shortfilm by Motzify and another film that he's going to share with us cool font. Right but I'll let him tell you about it.

Phil Rice 03:04
In my face My goodness. Never ever try to trick an academic.

Ricky Grove 03:07
Yeah. I got that jujitsu thing that

Phil Rice 03:12
I thought surely the answer would be clear. Now that I've been as evenly insensitive as one could possibly be right Yes,

03:23
Sure. Sure. We it's funny the one of the most best tools to create machinima nowadays is the Unreal Engine 5, because it covers long, long time ago. Several big cheese's in the machinima world mentioned some of the requirements for a great machinima tool. One of them was cheap, powerful, easy to use tools and Unreal Engine is all of that. It's free. You can get get access to all kinds of content. It's fairly easy to learn compared to other programmes, you'll have a harder time trying to learn say 3D Studio Max and you will learning Unreal Engine, the community is huge tutorials are all there. So I'm not surprised that there are groups of people have come together to make short films in Unreal Engine. However, I think one of the things and this is all preface to talking about why this film is what it is. One of the things that happens is the approach to the machinima filmmaking is not the same as it was when we were all you know, making films on a regular basis. In last week's film, Phil described the process Daydream it was called he'll describe the process scripting process of setting up the characters and the events all laid out in a map programme. Well, there's some similarity and Unreal Engine, but the actual physical work of doing it is very, very different. And the attitude is very, very different and the people that use it are generally professed people who are looking at traditional 3D made film content. They're not looking at machinima film content as their way of presenting their stories. And I give that preface because Motzif6 that people had made this great Unreal Engine short, is a Japanese collective, who make short films and Unreal Engine 5. And their films are all great, but they're not like traditional machinima. They're more like traditional 3D. This I chose to film is basically the second film Hunt is my favourite of the works because it is a smart, it's a beautiful, almost musical. music video. It's fast action. It's quick, it's beautiful to look at same thing with the first film, there's a quality in it, that is, there are obviously smart filmmakers who want to create things that are exciting and interesting. And I think these films do exactly that. I definitely you definitely should visit their website, the Motzify website, because it has a list of all their films. And they've they've been creating films for quite a while. But I was very impressed with it. Because it does one of the things that the films that I admire, do, which is it inspires me. I go, Wow, you can do that. I'd like to do that. But I want to do it in this story. You know what I mean? Really good films, especially machinima, machinima history is so much about inspiration, somebody would come up with a great innovative idea of a great film like Snow Witch that we picked a couple of weeks ago, that film influenced everybody who saw it, because they realised that they could take these seemingly common place characters and Sims and turn them into these incredibly poetic and beautiful, serious characters as well. So I love both of these films I'd like like the company that made them. What did you guys think of?

Tracy Harwood 07:07
Do you want me to go next, please? Sure. Yeah, all right. Motzify Mohua is a it's actually a Chinese media art. Oh, I

Ricky Grove 07:17
thought it was a Japanese.

Tracy Harwood 07:21
There may be something to do with Japanese culture inhibitor. I don't fully know what it is if it is, but as I understand it, they've been incubated by an organisation or collective called MOTZA, which is this group of 40 media artists and creators who are based in Shenzhen in Guangzhou, who produced produce, you know, incredible and scale digital art exhibitions. And from what I can see matzah which kind of formed in the mid 2010s. This is a, this is something to do with them. And they were kind of a recently formed team. Although it looks as though they've kind of been quite productive, particularly in terms of their focus on generating these kinds of concept shorts using Unreal, of which the two you've picked, I think, are really really great examples, although I think they're doing very, very different things. Now I'll start with The Crown. That's the one with the Chinese characters that's kind of unpronounceable. It's, it's a story of a young I think Chinese boy growing up growing up in poverty seemingly and, you know, whilst, you know, one day whilst he's walking through a dump outside the town boundaries, discovers this mask, and it's very reminiscent of the Jim Carrey classic, you know, The Mask, the boys invited to kind of follow these worshipers who, you know, who then kind of present him with a sword. And this is where it for me mixes perhaps Chinese and Japanese culture a little bit. You know, there's, there's some, there's some resonance between those two kinds of cultures in that, in that in the nature of what that story is. Anyway, the boy becomes a revered swordsman, demonstrating these incredible kind of Jackie Chan style moves in front of this completely wowed audience, at the end of which he's presented with a symbol of his, his mastery this crown. And then he wakes up and he's back in the dump. So those your dream that we talked about as being thematic, a couple of films this month. What I liked about it was this kind of patina that was applied over the images, you kind of get a sense of the, through that mistiness that's generated and I love how these three worshipers that this boy is following moved and the way that the fabric, Damien, on their garments sort of swooshed along as they moved into this public square and also that kind of movement between the third person and the person the first person perspective. So the kind of the mask off, mask on, so to speak. And also the sound design I thought was really interesting. I also wanted to comment on the use of this kind of gratuitous creature in this film because I've mentioned this before, we've seen it used in in a few films as kind of signifiers, mainly with Unreal Engine films. And I don't, to be honest, I don't really know why people do it, or what what it's all about. But it seems in some of the other films that we've looked at, it's kind of like a little pause, or a little demo of technical prowess. But in this film, the creatures are wrapped up. Now, of course, the rat in Chinese culture is a symbol of wisdom, wealth, and prosperity. So the significance of its use here is probably much easier to explain. And kind of looking at this film. Again, it feels as though there are many kinds of hidden messages to those that might be able to understand them. So it's a film about cultural references, targeting I think, a Chinese audience. And what's lovely about it, is that the producers have created it to celebrate Well, Children's Day. So it's positioned as an inspirational story. And there is something else I've mentioned, it's because it kind of rather intrigued me. One of the comments I saw about it was that it reminded them of work by Alberto Mielgo. Now, I don't know if you remember this, but me algo directed the Netflix episode of Jabara. And it's love death and robots series, which won an Emmy for the characters designed for the work that he did on that, you know, that kind of surreal. I remember that. Well, yeah, yeah. So this is what it has been compared to. It's, I think, from from my point of view, that was one of the most extraordinary and creative things I've seen for years. Hauntingly beautiful. And if you've not seen it, I thoroughly recommend it. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure why that film is compared, or it's I'm not sure what the comparison is here. Except for the fact because it's not about the qualities, certainly not the quality, then. However, I think what aligns here is that is the mystique that it's kind of been created, not least in the way that the movement of the assets is depicted. And there's it for me, there's definitely an element of an uncanny feeling in it. And I think the way it's been achieved is this kind of hybridised 2D 3D animation style, which is a bit of a Japanese thing, I think. So the movement is, you know, the movement that those kinds of worshipers that the character follows is is, is just juxtaposed against this kind of 2D scene, which is what I think is making it pop. So The Crown for me is this really great evocative piece of work that overall I think, would perhaps benefit from a much more detailed description for us Westerners to help us understand some of the nuances is encapsulated in the in the depictions, and they're under relationship, I think, to Chinese culture. So that's my take on that one. You want me to tell you about the Hunt, as well, whilst I'm going course

Ricky Grove 13:10
got your comments are just so brilliant. Thank you. Welcome.

Damien Valentine 13:16
I have to follow up on this. Yeah, well, I

Tracy Harwood 13:17
thought I thought I'd give you a chance because I've done a little bit of research into the back background. So I'm kind of you know, what, also academic stuff. Hunt is doing something different. I think it's just a concept, kind of cyberpunk style character and, and lighting, superhero vibes in a kind of anti culture, which is, is kind of why the person is basically being hunted. And I think there's an atmosphere in it, that's kind of hard to pinpoint, which is intriguing. But probably that's made visible to us by the tracer beams that you see, which I which I also think it's a really interesting way to lead you through that kind of story, because it's not a very long film, but it really takes you on a on a on a bit of a journey on a thought process. However, what this is, is a teaser for a course that these guys are developing. And when you go to their website, what they want you to do is sign up to the course and I assume what they're going to do is put their work out on the various channels for folks to sort of learn a bit more about. Most of which are not the usual social channels that we would use but are in fact Chinese versions so you know think Weibo, Bilibili, the Chinese equivalent of YouTube and Diane the local Tik Tok and so on. Those are the channels it's going out on. So again, what you've got here are these creators not aiming for a Western market, which I have say I think overall is a real pity because they clearly very gifted and have produced some fascinating stories that would definitely, you know, they would benefit from more exposure, I think, from a from a Western perspective. too. And a final comment I will make overall I think what the both these films demonstrate and what the the work of these creators is doing, really, you know, it's really testament to the, to the, you know, to what Unreal have been able to achieve in engaging a breadth of artists from all over the world. It's really to be fully applauded, because over the years, I'm sure you'll remember, we've seen a few machinima films emerging from China, but not that much. And it's always been underground creators who've had to protect their identity for a reason. So what I think's impressive here is that this is a tool set, which is clearly legitimising the creative practices for these digital artists and giving them a chance to catch up on some of the processes that, you know, in the States and in the UK, all over Europe, people that have been doing machinima for years and years, have been able to develop over 20 odd years, but the Chinese have just not been able to do it legitimately. And I, for one, certainly look forward to more work coming from Chinese artists like this. So I think it's a really great pick from, from my perspective for whole number of reasons, Ricky, thank you.

Ricky Grove 16:16
Kalia. What a wonderful in depth comments on those films. Really, really exciting and interesting. Phil, did you have something you wanted to share after that masterpiece? Stupid little thing like, Hey, you read all those books behind you?

Phil Rice 16:36
Sorry. So what what struck me there's a number of things that struck me about what I'm talking about the first film The Crown. The use of colour is just extraordinary. There's such a variety, especially once he gets into kind of the downtown festival area. Just extraordinary use of vibrant colour and yet, I I didn't know what to call that sheen. That's on everything. patina, I think is the perfect word for it. Yeah, it adds such an amazing quality to it that that really makes it not look like a game engine. Which Unreal Engine essentially is right. You know, it point it. And I don't know what that means that makes it look like because it gives such a there's a gradient to its depth in the in the long shots and where you can see far away and stuff. It's just, it's just extraordinary. And I would love to know more about how they how they did that. Because that's not a post production effect. Oh, yeah,

Ricky Grove 17:53
I think it is.

Phil Rice 17:54
I think I think I think it goes too deep into the 3D picture to have been done just in post production on the video. So I think there's something that they did in the engine. Yeah. But what it is, I'm not going to pretend to know. But yeah, just vibrant colour and this sense of unpredictability to the little mini story. I mean, it's a very short film, of course. But I found myself like mesmerised and I have no idea what's going to happen to the point where when it came to pass it, you know, spoilers but that this was a young boy's imagination at work essentially, right? Or at least that's what I was led to believe. That caught me by surprise. I mean, it wasn't like a shock. But it was I was so engrossed in where it had taken us visually. And, like Tracy said, the ways that the characters moved, and that that sense of depth in the beautiful shot selection to give us this real sense of that space that he was in. Yeah, inspiring is one word Ricky. And humbling is another for me. Like, it's just, sometimes you see a film that makes you realise, okay, I've been at this a long time. I sure do have a long way to go, you know, because that is like, I don't even know how they do that or who thought to even take that approach, knowing that this would be the outcome. That's real artistic vision. That's, it's very impressive to me, and it is it's inspiring, but in a somewhat depressing way. No, I'm encouraged by the fact that this is a team because at least that explains Okay, and me I'm over here. Yeah. Geppetto in my shop all by myself, no wonder so it's just wonderful, wonderful piece. One thing that's weird about it is the very first hashtag that they chose for the spell now without looking. Because you don't want to remember what it is? Nope, did it jump out to anyone else? It's Cthulhu.

Tracy Harwood 20:12
It's good.

Phil Rice 20:16
however you pronounce it, the Lovecraftian demon of, you know, the ultimate evil. It's actually hashtag twice in the description of this video. That's the very first hashtag. And then it's used again. And I'm like, Why? Why?

Ricky Grove 20:36
It? Maybe it's just because they like Cthulhu. You know? Well, who

Phil Rice 20:40
likes Cthulhu?

Ricky Grove 20:42
Everybody loves Cthulhu, you know?

Tracy Harwood 20:45
But isn't that the concept of an immersive environment? an immersive world? A world that's different your own? Doesn't? Doesn't have to be a horror world. It's another?

Phil Rice 20:55
Well look, Cthulhu is an entity, it's a sentient.

Ricky Grove 20:59
It's an old god, the Old God from he is

Phil Rice 21:02
and he be angry. He says, He wants to Hulk Smash, you know, basically. So yeah, that's, that's what struck me about Tracy, it wasn't just a reference to, you know, like, if you did hashtag noir, something broad. It's talking about a sense of atmosphere, a certain feeling or an education. This is a actual, like, sentient worse than the devil being basically, traditionally, once. What he wants is, let's just say in conflict with what we would want. Is that putting it subtley enough, so that was just a funny little thing. I'd love to know the story behind that. They didn't do that on the second one. And yeah, this this short film Hunt, it didn't grip me as much, I think, because I wanted more story. Yeah. And I think there's more story to tell here. And they probably have more story planned to tell here. But in terms of just visual splendour, again, and in a very different way. Oh, my God. Yeah. Like just the opening shot of this with all the detail of stuff that's on the shelves and counters. You know, when you see that in a real movie, and you realise someone dressed that set with all that detail, it's impressive. It's just as impressive to see it in animation like this. Like there's no pattern. It looks random, it looks lived in very hard to achieve that. Like that takes a lot of effort to dress a set like that and for just this this quick shot of getting up closer to this this character. Wonderful and I love the wide aspect ratio on this I'm sure it looks absolutely delicious on your your widescreen monitor, ah, just just extraordinary so impressive without the moniker that they'd put on these I wouldn't have I wouldn't have intuitively known these were made by the same team they they look different I'm not surprised that they are because they're both at a level of quality that that you do believe it's from the same but in terms of are they just making more stuff with the same general look? No, this looks like a different art director altogether. Maybe just because it's night I'm not sure but yeah, intriguing stuff I will definitely be checking out their website and and seeing what else they're up to because it's it's amazing stuff that if nothing else, it's exciting to me that hey, this is made in tools that I have access to also doesn't mean that I could pull it off but that at least is encouraging. Yeah, like I'm a lot I'm a lot more moved on a personal way by this than I am when I see a Christopher Nolan film. You know what I mean? Like that's an extraordinary experience usually, you know, when when the one of the big guys who's Dennis Villainy or something who just really Denis excuse me Villenue. That's impressive, but it's like, okay, they've got $200 million budget. So what's relatable to me about that? Yeah, yeah, no, what what way? Can I knock that off in some cheap? No, this was made with the tools. It's all tools I have access to. Now I just need to find the team of artists and the money to pay them and and then it'll be all set.

Phil Rice 21:58
I volunteer. Yeah.

Phil Rice 23:50
Damian, what did you think?

Damien Valentine 24:40
You guys just said so much. I gotta try and think of something else. I'll start with Hunt because we were just talking about that. And it kind of gave me that sort of Blade Runner vibe but The Department reminded me so much cards apartment because it's all messy. And this one is is way messier than the one in Blade Runner. And it kind of gives you a tease of this looks really intriguing. There's obviously something happening here. There's more going on. I want to know the rest of it, I want the rest of the story. And I think this there was something in the description saying this is a teaser of what we're doing next. So I want to see that I can't wait for it. Because I want to know, what's this world? Who is this character? Why are these people trying to kill her? Or I'm assuming they are? How is she going to get out of the situation? Just show me more. I won't, I will tell you all about it. And I was impressed, like you Phil with the amount of detail that was put into this. And there's so many objects in there, that they must have a very powerful machine to be able to pull that off as well. Because you start filling even though Unreal as a powerful. Yeah, yeah. And it's designed for games, you put a scene in a small room like that you fill it up with 3D objects that are obviously quite highly detailed. That's going to slow anything down to a crawl. So yeah, must have some pretty powerful hardware behind it. Yeah, yeah.

Tracy Harwood 26:01
I think when you look on their website, you can see that the you know, the the proper pro digital artists. Yeah. In a state of the art building in in Shenzen. So I don't think kit is an issue here.

Damien Valentine 26:15
That would make a lot of sense. Yeah. So yeah, I want to see more of Hunt and where that's going. As for Crown, I really enjoyed the story, the idea this kid, just wandering through the slums, he finds this mask, and it inspires his imagination to imagine himself in this much better world where this is obviously where he really wants to be rather be. One thing I've noticed in that other world is, you'll see the faces that he's the only character you actually see his face. Everyone else has got masks and things on. Which I guess kind of goes well with that dream sequence because goodbye, dreaming, you don't necessarily see other people's faces like you. I know who that is. There's a familiar person, you know where it is, you can't really see their face. And like Phil like then this is this is a film that offers a lot of inspiration to me about things that what else can I do to improve my craft? And Tracy, you kind of hinted about the fabric, and I've been learning something out, I use Nvidia Omniverse for my films, one of the things I really struggled with is you can't take the soft cloth physics from iClone into Omniverse. And I've been experimenting different ideas that just don't work as they should. And watching this gave me an idea that's completely different from anything I've done before. And it almost works, you still need to spend some more time figuring out this, this film may finally solved a problem that's been plaguing me for about a year.

Ricky Grove 27:53
Good. Good. I'd like you have to let us know whether you're able to get it fixed or none.

Damien Valentine 27:58
Hopefully by next month, I'm going to talk about it.

Tracy Harwood 28:00
Okay. And the blooper's reel. Yes, I

Damien Valentine 28:03
believe Israel. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 28:04
I just wanted to point out quickly that one of the things that I've noticed as I've watched many, many films and television series, and lots and lots hundreds of machinima is that style, isn't it comes up in a lot of great films. And style is something that isn't really a popular topic in American culture. Because it in in, it implies a sort of artifice, you know, because Americans in their culture are so obsessed with realism, that they don't want to talk about style, they think style is some somehow phoney, but that's not what style is at all. Style is the particular collection of all of the elements of a scene like say, for example, sound, visual look, the way the characters move, the way the story continues and adjusts and changes, all of those come together to create a neat style. So you have a team of artists and Motzify who could who can create entire projects with an entirely unique style to them. Both of these movies you pointed out fail, you didn't know that the second one was made by the same people, but because they use the different style, a completely different style. And I think that that ability to be able to see things in style draws you in so quickly, and is much more interesting than the standard traditional methods of creating stories and films that you see all the time that you you just they don't do anything. They don't pull you in like they should. And that's part of the reason why all of these films we've chosen this month are so really good is because they all have different styles to them. And they all tell a story that is compelling. So I just wanted to make that quick observation at the end here.

Phil Rice 30:05
As well, if you don't mind, one of the things that's really compelling about the style in Crown, the first first selection is if you study it is, it's just helpful to pause a frame here and there and just study it. There's almost nothing that is straight and normal, like, symmetrical. Even windows that you would expect to just be rectangles, there's a slight, they're not quite perfect. And it gives this, if there's a pole, it's slightly bent just a little bit one direction, it's not straight up. doorways just slightly askew, not quite, that's consistent throughout the whole film, like every I mean, it most notable in the very final shot of the film where it's overhead, and you're seeing the boy that's outside the wall, and the city inside the walls, look at those buildings, there's not a one of them that are aligned with the other. They're all just slightly askew, and not lined up in any kind of grid or pattern or anything like that. And I think that that has an effect even if you aren't paying specific attention to those details. It comes through as that sense of style of this is just, I think that may be more than anything, why I would be hard pressed in a lineup to pick this film out as one that was made in a video game engine. Because what are video game engines known for mostly is grids and blocks and crates and straight lines. And because that's easy to do stuff like this where it's not, not primitive shapes. It's modified shapes. That requires a lot more work and a lot more craft. And the thought to even do it. Yeah, the imagination involved buy a prop from the real illusion store and drag it onto your scene and there. Okay, there's the pillar. No, nobody ever did that. Here. This was, everything's a little off. Yep. And it works. Yeah. So the only other comment that I'll make it I'll ask you guys opinion on is, at the very end, the first time I watched it, when it panned out to show the boy was outside, what turns out to be this walled city. Did that, like that struck me as as all of a sudden, I started questioning whether or not I knew as much as I assumed about the setting of this story, you know, because what, where are their walled cities right now? Anywhere in the world? You know, that's, that's a that's an old tradition, or it's one that you see sometimes in future sci fi, where the, the outside world has gotten so dirty, that the elites are going to wall themselves off into dome cities or that type of thing. So all sudden, I got that vibe off of this, in a sense of larger story. Did that strike anyone else? Was that just me? I got no oddity of that wall.

Ricky Grove 33:12
I felt the same way. You know, I saw it as the science fiction trope. Yeah, given the fact that so much of it is in China. A political element of that, too, is pretty clear to me. Yeah. There's

Phil Rice 33:21
a lot to unpack there, I think. Okay, good. I'm glad I didn't just, yeah, there's something there. That's really interesting. Because,

Tracy Harwood 33:28
yeah, I kind of got the feeling that there was such a depth of metaphor, and hidden messages running right the way through it, I've no clue what all of those messages are, I could only unpick a couple of them. And only then by digging around a little bit to sort of tease it out. But

Phil Rice 33:48
it was interesting, the wall being so prominent and shot for that to be the first time that that was really revealed. Yeah, that that was that separation. So yeah, I feel like something was being said there. And probably the way you go with it the Sci Fi trope way or the the political commentary or both? All the

Tracy Harwood 34:08
wonderful, you know, the discussion about youth and inclusion. Yeah, which is a big thing also in China as well. So, yeah, lots of depth to it. Absolutely beautiful.

Phil Rice 34:19
What it made me think of was a film that we talked about a few months ago, that was it was a future noir sci fi thing and the plants had become the commodity that the elites controlled and remember how we kind of because I gave that movie a bit of a hard time for being being so on the nose with its messaging. And I feel like this is if if I could go back in time to when we were talking about that movie and have a movie to point to to say this is how you do it. This is what I would point to, like this is this is really interesting messaging because and especially if it's being done in a place where let's say your speech isn't quite so free. There's nothing you can really point to in this and say that it's subversive, right? It's not someone tearing apart a flag of a nation or spray painting or throwing a shoe at the picture of some leader. There's none of that. And yet, the message is there. And it's it's profound. And even if I'm not the target of the message, so I'm probably missing a lot of it. But I see that it's there. And it's, it's really amazing. Really impressive. So I can't say enough.

Ricky Grove 35:37
That's a good point. Very, very good point.

Tracy Harwood 35:40
Well, what a great discussion we've had on two of your films this this week, Ricky The Crown and Hunt by Motzify. We'll put all the links on the on the usual website post. And some of the links also just to the other references that we've just been been talking about. That's it for this week. I'm Tracy Harwood. We've been here today with with Ricky Grove with Phil Rice and Damien Valentine. And don't forget, you can catch up with us on talk about that talk. At I'll get this right one day, talk out we should know. I won't get it right. Talk at completely machinima.com There you go. And the website completely machinima.com. And that's it. Thanks very much.

Ricky Grove 36:31
Thanks, everyone. Bye bye.