Tracy Harwood 01:20
Well, we are in season four. This month has been the beginning of our season four and this week is our 100th episode. Can you believe 100 episodes? So this week, what we thought we would do instead of do a film review is we would just reflect on our year. So, you know, this is us four, I'm Tracy Harwood, and I'm here with Phil Rice. Phil. Nobody can see you. Ricky Grove. Nobody really you either. Oh, and Damian Valentine.

Damien Valentine 02:29
Here, my spaceship. avoided the paparazzi still?

Tracy Harwood 02:33
Yes, running indeed. Anyway, so we were going to do a bit of a chit chat and a reflection on the the observations of the year if you like. I don't know who wants to start you want me to start.

Ricky Grove 02:49
It's less observations of the year and observations of our entire experience of putting together the podcast. For me, it has been a real growing pleasure in your company, all how many are you will get three, mole brain, the growing enjoyment and awareness of your tastes and your ideas, but also an admiration for all of us for being determined enough to stay with this subject of machinima which we are all passionate about, for different reasons. But to stay with it, in spite of the fact that we may not have become this booming, best seller, whatever it is, simply because we love talking about it. And we love being together, sharing ideas and discovering new ideas about film, about animation, about technology, about history. I shared personal stories that we've had about experiences on our last episode with Claus Dieter Schultz, I didn't know that Phil had developed a friendship with him through The Overcast podcast, but those sorts of discoveries just make this just an exciting event to get to get together to do. So I congratulate you all and thank you listeners for staying with us for that whole time for 100 100 episodes. That's quite an achievement, I think. And I'm glad to be here.

Damien Valentine 04:35
I'll go next because this is a bit more personal thing about how it's Ricky when you had the idea for the show, and you approached me and say, This is what you want to do and what I'd like to be part of it. This was late 2020. And obviously, lock down was in effect, couldn't see any friends or go anywhere. Isolation was really getting to me. So when you came to this idea and so what great idea get a chance to hang out virtually with three friends from the machinima community, which have been part of for quite a large section of my life. This is something that I really wanted to get involved with. And it, it did it helped me with that isolation because I get to chat with all view every, all the time we were kind of doing it every two weeks every week is the chance to get together and obviously without doing it monthly. But that's that's still works me because I get something to look forward to. You know, when we can go anywhere, do anything. And it helps. And when, you know, we were more free to go out, I still wanted to do it. Because I enjoyed that experience talking to you so much and seeing the films you chose. And the machinima news and and all the graphic news and everything else we talked about. That was fun. And I'm glad we've kept doing it after that. Because you know, I still like sitting down here. Every month, I enjoy watching all the films, seeing what we've found, or in the case of last week, when the films we we seen before we were doing the Machinima Expo and things back good memories from that time as well. So for me, this show has meant a lot and it helps to that very difficult time. Glad was still doing it. Can you to try that? Yeah. I hope we continue to do it for quite a while to come because

Ricky Grove 06:22
yeah, me too. Me too.

Phil Rice 06:26
Absolutely. I greatly enjoy these monthly sessions with two out of the three of you. It's great. No, it's, it's it's, I don't know, I've my I started making machinima 25 years ago now, holy crap 25 years ago, but it's not like it was it was an uninterrupted stream of productivity, let's be frank, you know, it was a burst here, and then a big burst there. And then, you know, when, when the time came to consider doing this show, I had been pretty out of the loop for more than a decade. Or right at a decade. But Ricky and I had kept in touch. and to a lesser degree, you know, all of us had, but, you know, they're, they're, we kind of were all in the wake of, you know, a couple brothers came in and bought Machinima.com and destroyed the thing we love. That was still it still felt like, dust was settling from that, you know, in fact, I remember early on and when we were firing up the show, Ricky, we, you and I both were kind of gung ho about let's do some skits and just really kind of put these guys on some skewers and over the flames and it took us a while, I think to realise that, first of all to realise, okay, that era has passed. But secondly, that it's okay, that that era has passed. And I think this show helped me personally process that information. To realise that, that those two things can both be true that this horrible thing happened to what was once what we call the machinima community and machinima still lives. And when the way this, this show kind of came to be what I think it began with, I reached out to Ricky and said, Hey, let's do this. And his first response was, and I'm paraphrasing here, Ricky, but his first response was basically, no effing way.

Ricky Grove 08:52
That's true.

Phil Rice 08:53
But, but it was a sense of, it wasn't like being mean, or rude to me or anything. It was just sense of, nobody cares anymore, man, they killed it. You know, that's kind of the sense of, and frankly, I think some of some of the way Ricky was approaching it was, I don't know if I care anymore. You know, after what they did to us, it's all it's all everything we cared about with it is gone. And nobody's making this stuff anymore. And there's no unity and there's no real community and and at the time, I was the optimist. And, and somehow, you know, we came to the to the conclusion of okay, yeah, let's do this. But we need more people involved. That's when it expanded. And we started going, and and I've never shared this with any of you, but probably six months into the show, I think Ricky and I switched places, in terms of optimism and pessimism because he was getting excited, because he was starting to find, oh my gosh, there's there's actually still interesting stuff out here. And also, these, these discussions are, are great to be a part of. I agreed with him on the discussion is great to be a part of thing. But I started getting this sense of maybe he was right, nobody cares. You know, why are we doing this? And I just didn't mention it. Because you know, that's contagious. And I didn't want that to be. I didn't want that to be who I was, and what I didn't want that to be what I felt that I was really concerned. Didn't take long to rebound from that. And you know, what saved it? The films, the films, what people are doing was so inspiring that I just, I didn't forget, the past. We'll always remember that, you know, we all touched touched the grass of machinima at that time, we will never forget it. But I think I got over the heartbreak of it for the first time. And just started looking positively towards the future of this is something I want to continue to follow and, and also produce. And you know, if you think about it, when we first started, the only machinima tool I had in my toolkit was was Moviestorm. which had been abandoned for nigh on 10 years. Yeah, at the time, we started the show back up. So and I'm like, I've got that it's like me and my old rusty pickup, so you aren't ready for the street race was so stupid. At that point, when I started to kind of catch the fire again. And I thought, okay, and then what do you know, Reallusion has this just crazy special on iClone 7, for like next to nothing. And if you buy it in this window, you'll get the upgrade to iClone 8 for free. And I thought, well, there you go. All right, I'll do that. And it's taken me, you know, took me a good year before I actually got to be, before I could do anything but launched the programme without screwing something up, you know, it's learned something all new. But so as a maker, I started to get excited too. And then from there, it's been kind of effortless in terms of it's not without effort, but I'm saying that staying excited about the show has become effortless. For a number of reasons. One, I'm back making it again. And that's that's my happy place. And to the discussions with you guys getting to know you all better, as well as these wonderful films that are that just keep presenting themselves for us to sometimes agree sometimes disagree on. It's just wonderful. It's wonderful. So yeah, I just I sometimes still can't believe you know, that this exists that?

Ricky Grove 13:12
Yes. You know what, I know what you mean. Yeah.

Phil Rice 13:16
And, you know, of course, at some point in there, we started we re did, we started this thing as a podcast. And now it's not really a podcast, is it? It's, it's a YouTube show. Who would have saw that comment at the time that we started this? Just like, that seems like way too much work. And, you know, do I even do even want to be on camera? And how's that? How would how would we possibly get that done? And now it's this well oiled machine. And you guys do just, it's amazing what you, you know, we record the episodes, and then I don't even participate in the editing, which we need to maybe remedy at some point, you know, I'm, I'm ready to jump in with that. But you guys just handling it. And then Tracy with all the research and news that you do and those views that you bring in the blog would not exist without you. So it's just it's just wonderful. It's been so exciting to watch, watch Damien's show take off. Oh, yeah. And who could have foreseen at the time he started making that? Who could have foreseen that Disney was going to make movies about those same characters in books? He had no idea. Nobody thought that would ever happen. The directions Lucas Film at the time was totally the opposite of that. You know, and, and here we are, and he's going to be able to benefit from that is it's just so exciting. So Tracy, since the show is launched, you published that book.

Tracy Harwood 14:57
Yeah, no with

Phil Rice 15:00
There's no right, wasn't it?

Tracy Harwood 15:01
Well, no, I just. Yeah, I guess I was just trying to think I think

Phil Rice 15:05
it was since the show was launched. It was right after. Yeah, it was published because you and Ben had been working on it for a long time. Just wonderful stuff.

Tracy Harwood 15:14
25 years. Yeah.

Phil Rice 15:18
Ricky, you're retired except for your full time job playing Elden Ring. It's wonderful. And it's been it's been such a pleasure to see you find your comfort with that. That's, that's not an easy transition for anybody. And it's just I don't want to be cornball here. But I love you guys. I mean, it I love you guys so much. I love interacting with you. I love spending time with you. And it's just a real, I feel so fortunate. To to be in your sphere.

Ricky Grove 15:53
And same here. Same here.

Tracy Harwood 15:58
Oh, we are really turning mushy? Um, we

Phil Rice 16:00
were sorry about that. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 16:10
Okay, now we've changed the mood.

Tracy Harwood 16:13
Well, I came to the lovely words, Phil, thank you beautiful words. And the, you know what, right back at you, sentiment is absolutely returned. I absolutely love what we do, and how we prepare for this and how we, how we reflect on what we've seen and how we also bring back the stuff from the early days, because that's really, for me, this is this show is is great at connecting the past, to the now and to the future. From from my perspective. Yeah. And I think that's so important that we don't lose sight of where, where this has come from, or where we've come from in this, and I don't have the detailed background in it that you guys do. But I came in sort of mid, mid 2000s. And, you know, the book, for example, that book originally was going to be written with Hugh. I'm sure I've told you that. And all of that went on hold when he passed. And and then Ben came in. And that book is completely different to how it would have originally been. And I actually I think, you know, Hugh wouldn't want me to say this, but to the better actually, because the amount of detail and information and, you know, the archive material that Ben was able to bring to that the writing of that book, well, we wouldn't have had that I would not have thought to that. And also what it helps helped to do was, was, you know, we did, we did lots and lots of interviews with the original community. And we were just coming towards the last stages of writing that book when you guys were putting this podcast together. And I was thinking, Well, you know what, that's a great way to bring those voices from the past back to, you know, where, where it's come to. And, you know, I guess I had some reservations, like, like you guys did in terms of what is machinima nowadays, having kind of tried to sit back from it for quite a number of years, 10 years or so, really, because I'd been researching it on and off over the years. But you know, what, that first couple of weeks that we got into it. And, you know, I started to pick up some films that were using an Unreal Engine, I could not believe the quality of the work that we were looking. Yeah. And and some of the that work came out of lockdown projects. I mean, what, you know, what an opportunity that was for a whole new generation of creators, because, you know, it's clear that many turned to some of these new tools. And of course, the new tools themselves had to adjust really quickly, in order to let people do different things. So we kind of, I think it's a, you know, a happy convergence of stuff that brought us to that, that point. And actually what I was gonna do, in terms of my thoughts was actually sort of, not just reflect on all of that, but also reflect on what I've seen this last year, because, you know, it's moved on a lot from when we first started amazingly, but, but actually just, you know, thinking about the legacy of that lockdown period really, and I have to say the most, the most stunning thing I think we've seen is this emerging dominance of Unreal Engine and the creative pipeline that is beginning to offer so many people through, you know, through the way that they're able to, you know, people are able to customise that pipeline, add in whatever tools they like, and create work that is just absolutely brilliant and we've reviewed stuff from every corner of the planet, which I think really demonstrates how accessible and how democratising, it has become. We always talked about machinima as being a democratising creative practice. But Unreal Engine has really taken that to a different level, from my point of view, we've seen everything, it's absolutely free. We well, to a point to a point, I mean, you

Ricky Grove 20:55
need to 99% of the people that are going to use it, it's got to be free in every way that matters.

Phil Rice 20:59
Yeah,

Tracy Harwood 21:00
absolutely. Except for the fact you need all the, you know, the hardware to do it, you know, you need to buy some assets, and all of that sort of stuff. So, to a point, I think it could not be a better engine to us. I was gonna say we've seen it, we've seen everything made in it from stories to documentaries to music videos, I still remember that first music video that we watched, you know, the Star Wars one Cory Strassberger, oh, my God. I mean, that was one thing I felt that is just still that stand out film to me. So many styles of animation. I mean, Prazinburke Ridge was a stunning piece. Martin Bell. That was kind of last year, though. And just about any kind of scenario that you can think of, I mean, lots of space exploration videos, lots of incredible cyberpunk worlds. And lots of emphasis on detail in characters, not just in the way that they look and the way that they move using various mocap kind of techniques, but also the way that they behave and interact in the way that they're generated and whatnot. And that that, to me, is the most outstanding thing that we've seen develop this year. Alongside that the thing that I think is absolutely incredible that we've seen emerge this year, it's everything AI, from from image to animation to voice and, and sound, and just the most astonishing array of tools, as well as you know, as well as things that kind of linked to Unreal environments. That, you know, just just absolutely astonishing. But more importantly, what that's done is allowed people that had say, little creative technologies experience to really push the boat out with with with their work. And I, I think it's, it's not true to say they don't have creative skills, or artistic skills, or well, or any other kinds of skills really, because I think to produce the level of work that people are going to do with this, these AI tools. They got to have these good creative skills as well. So I don't think it will ever replace that. But I do think what we're seeing now is the we're on that cusp that you know, that sort of transition into what I would say is probably the next generation of machinima. And I was thinking what the hell would you call that? Is it mAIchinima with an AI in the middle of it? I don't know. But it's definitely got something there, I think. And then I was thinking, You know what, the the interest in machinima itself, I would say has grown again. It's, you know, it's no, it's not stagnated and disappeared. It's, it's not just about nostalgia, for those kind of good old days. Yeah, creativity. And I, you know, I guess I'm bound to say that, that there is an element of nostalgia because of our backgrounds, and particularly when we look at some of the content and we reflect on the early creative practices, which, you know, like, for example Fiezi's in game, in game sort of photographic approach where he, you know, in order to recreate the film, you had to replay the dem file and such like, you don't necessarily need to do that. Now in order to create some stunning, stunning content. But I do think what we're seeing is a resurgence of a mod scene, and that mod scene was part of the early days. Yes, but it was invisible. It was largely invisible, because it was also about hacking. And now it's legitimised. Yeah. And I think this year we've seen that mod community actually be recognised for what it is. And it's, it's massively important. Yeah, I agree. And I also think games themselves are actually beginning to recognise the value of machinima for what it is too. You know, it's it's always been important in gamer communities, but it's, it's something that the games themselves recognise. And I think, you know, just in this last year, the very fact that one of the world's oldest film festivals, the Oberhausen international Short Film Festival, actually had a significant stream of machinima content. And I think that just, you know, speaks volumes to the way that machinima is finally being respected for, for, for what it what it always was, really. To which point I'll tell you that last week, I happened to be involved in a new network that has recently been funded by the European Union. It's a it's a network that is aiming to develope a significant archive of creative computing cultural heritage. And I've been invited into it because

Ricky Grove 26:28
of all congratulations.

Tracy Harwood 26:30
Well, I foisted my way in, I have to be honest, I saw that it was going on I was thinking, You know what, you can't do it without machinima being in there. And they've opened their arms to me as well, which is wonderful. And of course, they're talking about the demoscene. And of course, they're talking about other kinds of creative coding practice, basically, digital arts and such like, but machinima is very much in there. And what they produce will be something that is used to inform the development of creative computing policy and future. So it's a it's an archive that's being pulled together, I think, I think it's a it's another. It's another demonstration of the importance of this. And you know, the significant creative community that machinima has become. The other thing I would say throughout the year, and again, to my surprise, because I thought for a while it was going to be all about Unreal. I know we sort of swung backwards and forwards about you know, what's the role of Unreal here? Is that machinima or is it something else? Is it professional animation, but actually, through the course of this year, I have been blown away by the breadth of engines that we've actually been looking at. I you know, I suppose really, if I reflect on it, we've probably seen very little GTA when you know, that was quite dominant a few years ago. We've seen a few Red Dead Redemption twos, but actually throughout the course of the year, that's got less. I think one of my favourite films throughout the year was the mat at the modded wacky West. Oh my god, and I thought that was a brilliant film. And I think both World of Warcraft and Sims although they're clearly thriving communities, I suppose on a little bit surprised that we've not really seen that much that is noteworthy on the wider streaming channels notwithstanding the one that we've just reviewed this this month that one that you know, Neo Stormwind, which mixes Cyberpunk 2077 in with World of Warcraft, I don't think we've seen all that much of World of Warcraft. I think astonishingly too, we've not seen that much of Second Life we've we've have reviewed a few including them to remember the Top Gun Maverick intro by Godiva, that was wrong that we really enjoyed. And we have looked at a couple of others but not as many as I thought have been there for us I think in terms of, of what we might look at, and I think the ones that I've been the most blown away with actually are one of our films that have come out of the older games like, do you remember the Digital Combat Simulator film that we looked at by JP Ferre The Ghost stunning film really really enjoyed that and he's about to release something else that I'm sure will be really great work as well when it when it's when it's released. And also a bunch of Half Life two films and After War, I think was one that particularly stands out for me that single perspective through time, really interesting. And also Patient Zero. Amazing fight scene as well. So that so the breakfast games is something. I think also the thing that stuck out for me this year as well is that is the humour and the and the depth of the humour that we've seen integrated into the storytelling. I thought for a while it was getting really serious in terms of the kinds of works that we were seeing. And I thought partly that might be due to the, what I would describe as the creeping professionalism of this virtual production pipeline that we're seeing, you know, in the book, for example, that Ben and I did, we did an interview prologue with Kim Libreri, the Chief Technology Officer at Epic Games. And basically what Kim was saying was that, you know, the great difference he sees between machinima and virtual production is just who uses the terms. So machinima is an indie term, created term and virtual production is something that the industry uses. Yeah, yeah. And I thought that that seriousness that I, that we began to see for a while, was definitely that virtual production pipeline. So there were you know, we saw lots of gritty little stories. Some emphasis, well, quite a bit of emphasis on on realism and detail in the shots and the scenes and basically folks wanting them to create tutorials and put a lot more impetus in trying to find ways to monetize what they were doing through all these how tos guidelines, and all of that sort of stuff. But through all of that, the humour that underlies it is definitely there. And I would say that we've seen some astonishingly creative work. One that really stands out to me is Orencloud's Secret Moon with all that you remember the the the the luminosity that he had captured in that? absolutely astonishing the way that that was done. But also, I want to highlight, Phil, the film that you did as well, Krad Productions' 917. And that, in terms of its creativity, also was outstanding. For the reason that you basically it's hidden in the in, in the way that you described it, but what you told us about how that film came to be through, you know, the receipt of that random weird email. Yeah, I mean, you've got a capture that in that that was just, you know, that kind of inspiration, and then what you generated with that. Absolutely amazing. And really noteworthy, I thought. And then also the other thing that really surprised me with the work that we'd send you remember the film Interloper? I think that was another of your pig, actually, the Half Life two, mystery, which was so spooky it made you jump. It was it was

Ricky Grove 33:10
the hybrid documentary documentary.

Tracy Harwood 33:13
Yeah. I mean, it was just an outstanding. Well, it was clearly fictional, with all we discovered, but my God, that was kind of realistic. But such a depth of humour.

Ricky Grove 33:26
But one of the things you're highlighting is the fact that our experiences, you were talking about nostalgia, the impact of those early films are being recreated in modern films. Yeah. Which are just as impactful as they were back then. Yeah, yes. And I wasn't sure when we started that podcast that I would have that experience again. I'm delighted. I'm delighted that we are. Yeah,

Tracy Harwood 33:56
absolutely me either. I guess. The other thing I would say is that I'm just thinking, what are we going to see this next year, I have no idea really. But I am guessing that we're going to see more generative AI works. And I'm guessing that maybe what they're going to do with these AIs, which we haven't seen done yet too much that I can see, at least anyway, is that they are going to start integrating game characters more, because at the moment, they're using all sorts of kind of fine art cultural references, but they're gonna start doing much more because they're now going to be more about animation. So I think we're going to see stuff that's really a lot more interesting in terms of the way the layers of the cultural references are going to be mixed.

Ricky Grove 34:50
And also just in not just in machinima as well and animation in general. Yeah. Moho just released their 14 and it has this incredible ability to be able to take a figure, like so you use AI to take a figure out of a game, then you remove the background, and Moho will create a mesh for that character, so that you can animate that character. I mean, arms, legs, faces. It's still a little, you know, still a little rough. But I mean, it's that means that you can just take a picture and animate that picture inside of Moho.

Tracy Harwood 35:33
Yeah, well, what I was gonna say to which point earlier this week as we're recording on one day alone, there were three major releases: Open AI's, DALLE 3, Microsoft launched Copilot, and YouTube launched Dream Screen one day, one day, no, you know, what, I think, to the, to the point really about, you know, all the copyright kind of issues and artists sort of saying, you know, I don't want my content to be included in any of this, you know, what, I think the cat's well and truly out of the bag with this, because it isn't really just about what that artists content is, it's about, you know, the these AIs are drawing on content that spans the web in so many different ways. You know, third hand accounts, blog posts, commentaries, academic papers, all of which are making reference to some other content, who which kind of may be original. And all of that enables stuff to be created in in multi layered ways. The complexity is vast, I don't think it will ever be able to be unpicked, irrespective of what's going on

Ricky Grove 37:00
whatever legal judgement comes out, I agree with you. I think it's, it's going to be a really interesting year next year for how AI is used. And I am going to be paying attention to that, and to seeing films and comparing them. But I also want to congratulate you in particular, Tracy, because you have provided an element in the show that's missing from dumbbells like myself and Phil and Damien, because you're able to put things in a in a context that is authentically historical, and theoretical, and also culturally as well. And I think for me, it's refreshing. I often am excited about what you're going to say about a particular film, because I know you're going to dig into the background and do more information about stuff that I wouldn't know about or pick out. So I learned from you. And I'm really happy that you're a part of the show like that.

Tracy Harwood 38:04
I have to Yeah, well, you know what I love doing? I love digging around. I never know what I'm going to find out never. And I learned that when we did the book. I never knew, you know, when when we put the framing of the book together. I knew I've got these these chat. We've got the chapters, but I'm I had no idea where each chapter was going to leave me. Oh, absolutely no idea. And that chapter about the alternative machinima story is absolutely a case in point. The inspiration for that chapter came out of a conversation that I had with one of Peter Rasmussen's, the award that was created in his memory by the Australian Sydney Film Festival, one of the award winners, who, ironically, had been working on the iPlayer for the BBC, just came out with a random comment. And I you know, what, I dug around a little bit around that comment and the most astonishing story, most of which I have to say when, when Ben and I were doing the edits. Ben's mum read the transcript for the the book for me, and you know, I'd gone into so much detail on that on that backstory, we had to take out some of the detail because it was just in contrast to some of the the other work but you know, I just we just did not know where the story was going to go with each of those chapters. So it was a you know, I love doing that. I love doing the

Ricky Grove 39:45
refining the details and the connections between things. Yeah, it's invaluable. Your your input is invaluable. The show would not be the same without

Tracy Harwood 39:56
you. You too kind. Thank you Well, I've got nothing else to say. So thank you very okay. Okay, well, I mean, how lovely to talk to you guys about our reflections on the, on this 100th episode. Thank you so much for your input is absolute delight. And I mean that from the bottom my heart's delight to work with you, all of you on this and hear all of your different perspectives. So that's it for our 100th episode. I hope you've enjoyed following this as much as we've enjoyed working on the show, and we'll look forward to seeing you again next week. Bye for now.

Phil Rice 40:34
Bye bye bye