Damien Valentine 00:31
Hello and welcome to another installment of And now for something completely machinima. I'm Damian Valentine, and I'm joined by Tracy Harwood and Phil rice.

00:55
Hey there.

Damien Valentine 00:57
Ricky is off having a really horrific time at a horror convention. So I'm sure he's having a really enjoying himself there, but

Phil Rice 01:06
it does mean I like, I like what you did there. Yes,

Damien Valentine 01:09
thank you. But it does mean that he's going to be absent for this entire month because he's not available as we're recording. But he did record a special intro about his film pick, which is what we're going to be talking about this week. So let's get to it. I'll cut to Ricky, and let's him introduce his choice.

Ricky Grove 01:29
Hey guys, I'm sorry I couldn't be there with you today, but I'm at the midsummer screen Convention, which is a Halloween convention that takes place down in San Diego, but I'll be there with you in spirit. And then I have this short introduction to my pick and that I'd like to share a few thoughts with you so you can discuss them. The title is intriguing. It's called this is one of the craziest videos, videos I have ever made in my life. I love that title, and it's by a filmmaker named toaster. He used music by titled code mistake by corpse eexd. It's essentially a music video created in GTA five. However, it's a very, very different from the other music videos you you may see made in GTA for one, I took inspiration from Phil's pick a few months ago, in which he chose a glitch video in which took place in GTA where cops couldn't successfully negotiate a rooftop and they all fell to their death. Though that was kind of a play, the feeling was that it was a young person playing with with toys at the police officer's expense. This is in the same vein. However, I think it's a little more sophisticated, because it's not a glitch. He's using scenes from GTA five and then editing them in a very unique style. In fact, I think this is an example of style over content, because there really isn't much story. It fits into the cliche of Grand Theft Auto, where the weak or the official are taken advantage of by violent gangs or predators. You see this in the scenes in the beginning, where these three punks are beaten and kicking the crap out of this businessman. But then suddenly it changes, and there's a single person, and you don't know whether it's a hero or whether it's the businessman who's been transformed somehow, but he becomes this chainsaw wielding chainsaw for arms and head, wielding, guy who hero or antihero who just blasts everybody, but the story is really irrelevant. What is incredible is the editing style. And the editing style is very much in the mode of 60s avant garde filmmakers. If you Phil in particular, would remember this, we did a screening of Stan Brakhage film, I think it was Dog Star Man, in which he used all of these incredible flash cuts of imagery and close ups and far away to create this sort of alienating effect in the viewer. And I think that's the same thing here. The real achievement is the incredible editing in it. It's just masterful. It reminds me an awful lot of the editing you see in anime films where there's this quick cut editing, it goes from close up to to a wide shot in a flash. The music is integral to the feeling and mood. There is a sort of threshold to of admittance to watching the movie. Like this, because it has very heavy metal soundtrack and then the very violent imagery that's shown. I think it's designed especially for a younger audience who would appreciate that and would immediately be eager to watch. Older audiences might have a little trouble with the hard the heavy metal, but I didn't I love heavy metal, and I thought it fit perfectly. There are several scenes in it of extraordinary intensity, one where, when the superhero was introduced, there's this wild, flying superhero entrance that is just incredibly impactful as it develops. It eventually leads to him seemingly getting vengeance on the punks, although you don't really know it's ambiguous. And I think the ambiguity is a strength of the film, until finally, it just cuts off with somebody falling down. I'm not quite sure remember who it was, and the abruptness of the ending is perfect, even though it might be a weakness in another film, it's a strength in this one, because everything happens suddenly and quickly and fast. I really like this film, and I like toaster, the filmmaker. He's made some other films, but nothing like this. In fact, at the end of the film, you believe him when he says, This is the most crazy film I've ever made in my life, because it is crazy, and if you look at the other things on his channel, nothing else is like it. So I'm eager to hear what you guys have to say about this film. I think it's an example of excellent style in a film. I don't think he needed the content in it. And frankly, I think if you could go back in a time machine and show this film to the early machinima.com audience, they would go apeshit over it because it fits that rebellious punk style. I just love it. So that's it. We'll see you guys the next time again. I'm eager to hear what you have to say. Bye. Bye, very interesting.

Damien Valentine 07:07
Yeah. So what did you guys think of it?

Tracy Harwood 07:11
Let me start, or do you want to start? Phil, yeah, go ahead. Tracy, yeah, okay, all right, well, so when I read this creator's description for the video, he said, I always love making crazy things in GTA five, and I think this is one of my best works yet. So actually, I was kind of looking forward to watching it. I don't think I fully appreciated what he meant by crazy. But as I was listening to the music, can I call it? That maybe accompaniment to the video, it started to make a little bit more sense. And quite frankly, the sound of it just hurt my ears. It's a new single release called Code mistake, apparently by a YouTuber who makes music under the name of corpse, collaborating with Bring Me the Horizon. Now the lyrics are really what I can only describe as Marilyn Manson esque and the genre. Well, I had to look that up. It's described as death core with a melodic orientation towards metal core with elements of electronica, pop and hip hop. Never heard of that before, and apparently the name of the collaborating band is inspired by a line from Pirates of the Caribbean, which I thought was quite an interesting little tidbit. And the music and the lyrics are actually about personal conflicts, self doubt, loneliness, drugs, rock and roll and so on. Now there is actually an official music video for this which, after watching toasters interpretation, I thought I'd watch too. Now, what's interesting about the official video is that it's used anime to show themes of the undead and horror, but quite frankly, it's really not a patch on the quality. Shall I describe them in that way, as the representations of the slasher type horror in toasters, GTA five, machinima version of it. The esthetic choices toaster has made are really well aligned with those of the official video the, you know, the kind of flashing lights, the the blood, the social destruction and death, but there are things like lightning strikes which add a whole other dimension to this. One altogether. What what you actually see are things like silhouettes two which kind of add this sort of surreal esthetic touch to it. It's not just crazy, it's crazed horror you are witnessing in the mission, if you're in any way sensitive to the thought of blood and what have you, this is not a film for you. I wouldn't say it's a film for me in particular. But I think what makes it most horrific is that, rather than in the official video, where the characters can only be fictional because. Course, they're zombies and vampires and ghouls and demons and things in this machinima. They're actually the representations of those criminals and dregs of the GTA social world. So they're all too human looking, even if the wicked violence is off the scale or saw like overall, despite not really liking the content. The editing is really quite stunning, and it's perfectly aligned to the music. So even though it's not at all my kind of thing, I really appreciate the qualities of this, and certainly think the band behind the song should sort of sit up and take notice, because it is. They have done a great job with it. And then after I'd made these kind of observations, I listened to what Ricky had got to say about it, and I'd what I hadn't really considered when I was looking at it was the example that he's given of Stan brakhage's Dog Star Man as sort of an avant garde example. I then skipped through that particular film, the dog Starmer, which is basically a story of multiple parts having been created between 1961 and 64 I think that reflects how someone doing some mundane task, walking through the wood to chop down a tree, has these kind of visions of death and decay as he kind of goes about his task. Now I can see how that could fit this, but I actually rather felt that the inspiration was much closer to home with the music creators, because it just seems to be so closely related to it, really. And then I was also really interested to hear Ricky comment on the style being almost anime, which I thought actually that came through really strongly in the esthetic representations too. Ricky then reflects on the kind of thematic of reincarnation of the person, where they are being attacked by thugs, but then become some kind of like supernatural attacker. What I referred to, really in my sort of interpretations as a saw like person. I didn't really pick that level of detail up in the Machinima, but what's interesting is that it definitely has that kind of thematic in the official video. So I'm assuming it's and this Machinima is basically an interpretation of the official music video. Have to say, I'm generally not into the blood and gore side of things, and the the, you know, the music was just a tad too heavy for me. I mean, I don't dislike heavy metal, but this was just, you know, what should I say? A string too far, if I can say that, but I, but I did appreciate the qualities in the film. And as I said, I think the original musician should really take notice of what's been done in this. So, yeah, they're my thoughts on it. What did you guys think?

Phil Rice 13:00
Yeah, the music is, you know, for its genre, the quality is superb. You know, whether or not everyone's going to like it or not is a thing to taste. But I think for that, what did they call it deathcore genre? Yeah, it's, I mean, it's very well produced, uh music and yeah, the the energy of the Edit maps really well to the energy of the song. And this kind of like an unleashed chaos feel is present. I think it's consistent in the narrative, what, you know, there's the narratives pretty loose, but in the energy, the Edit and then the song, those all line up really well together. You know, there's, there was a device that was used pretty frequently that I don't know what the term for it is, but it was almost like, intended to simulate, like, you know, frames of film with writing on them and stuff. I don't know enough about real film to even there's probably a, you know, anybody who's from that background is going to know immediately what that term is. I don't know what it's called, but that was used a lot, maybe too much, and I don't know. It was strange to see brackish type elements um, almost used as like bookends for edit points instead of and I never really get that impression from brackages work, that that that for brackish, I feel like that, that that messing around with the frames of the film itself is part of the point. Eight is part of the presentation, not an editing tool. And that's not necessarily criticism, it's just that it I don't know if there was anything that was kind of a little disjointed. It was how clearly that was the case, that this is really just used as scene transitions. You know, a regular situation might be a jump cut or a jump cut or a crossfade or something, and instead, they would just insert these frames of film or whatever, and then boom, right back to what looks like a cinematic narrative. I don't know how well that worked. I'm still, I'm still up, up in the air about that. It's funny, because we were just talking before we started recording about the graphic violence in this and I had seen it the first time, but it just didn't stand out to me. And with and with Tracy, like, I mean, it made her feel a little nauseous, you know. So it's, it's, but it's not that I missed it. It just, for some reason, didn't, didn't jump out to me in the same way. And I don't know if it's because I've been playing a little bit more first person shooters than usual, or something, and those are not, not, not kitty kitty action at all. You know, it's pretty, pretty gruesome stuff. So maybe I am desensitized, I don't know, but you know, all in all, to say you like, it is is challenging with the film like this, because maybe it wasn't even intended to be made to be liked, per se, but like, I think the word that you ended up coming Back to Tracy was appreciate. And, yeah, I definitely appreciate the craft of this with the with the exception that I mentioned about the some of those brackish ish moments kind of felt tacked on or used as a device. And I'm still, I'm still not sure how I've you know how effective I feel like that was, but it's interesting. And I honestly, I think this is one of those weird films where the narrative not being pinned down, actually services, services the film, because there's so much chaos bleeding through from the soundtrack itself that to put that type of song over just a straightforward, easy to follow narrative that wouldn't work at all, you know? So it needed to feel like, almost like the film itself was broken, you know, was being ripped apart by this just frenetic energy coming out of the song. So, yeah, in that overall impression, it worked well, and it is pretty crazy. You know, I can, yeah, yeah, I'll bet it was, I don't know this is something I've been articulating to others recently, that that, you know, loving the process of making films is the underappreciated joy of getting to partake in this craft. It's, to me, there's more to be mined there than there is from any enderphin rush you might get from it really taking off with an audience, you know, because that's so fleeting, and it's so freaking hard to get that if your only aim is that you're going to starve to death. You know, as a content creator, especially machinima, you just never know if it's going to take off and be big or not, you know, and you, if you, if you build your whole expectation on that, you know, it's just okay, but that's dangerous. You know, in terms of if you're going to keep your emotional fire lit about what you're making. And to me, as weird as it is to say that about a crazy film like this, it clearly was made with love, and I mean that in the same sense of like a chef who preps a dinner and they put their energy into the food, and then you taste it really and so there's that sense here that it's clear that the person who made this got that experience out of making it. And to me, that's exciting, because that's, that's where it's at. You know, you, I don't know, unless you're really lucky, there won't be enough of the applause or attention to the work that much of this work deserves, but if you're loving making it, then it's a win anyway, you know. So, yeah, yeah. Damian, what did you think?

Damien Valentine 19:56
Um, I thought it kind of lived up to its title. I. Yeah, crazy. The visuals really fits the music. And I don't know, because I didn't read any of the behind the scenes of the film, so I don't know if he had the song in his head and then decided to make some visuals first, or if he started making the film, and then put the shows, the music afterwards. But, you know, they work so well together, and clearly, right, that there's a lot of you get the impression that he just had a great time making this, and that's what really mattered to him. I don't really know if I can comment too much about because you've already said a lot I was thinking, but I can explain the chainsaw man, because, ah, do, right. So when I saw him, I wasn't horrified like Tracy, and I wasn't completely desensitive to it either. What was going through my mind is how I found out about how the character existed. So it's actually a Japanese manga and anime series called chainsaw man. And I don't know anything about the story because I haven't seen it, but the Japanese anime theme kind of goes well with the rest of the video. And the reason I found out about this character is here in the UK, we have this used quiz show called Have I got news for you. And they kind of poke fun at the Week events in the headlines. And for some reason, they had this picture of a group of cosplayers dressed up as this chainsaw man having a fight with each other. And I recognized the venue behind as somewhere I go to Comic Cons, and then the next day, I mean, the Facebook group for events held there, those cosplayers were so excited about being on the show. You know, we're famous now because they've been on this question and things like that. It made me look them up to see what the character was, because I was kind of intrigued by the design. And I think it is a particularly violent enemy, see, I

Phil Rice 22:05
would imagine. So yeah,

Damien Valentine 22:07
because the cosplayers had all the blood splattered all over them as well, and I thought that looks really horrific, so I don't particularly want to watch it, but that's how I found out what chainsaw man is. So I immediately recognized him. And that story about those cosplayers. They're not even people I know. They're just in this group. And I love the idea that they were on this quiz show. It's just a photo that randomly taken about a couple of weeks before somehow got onto the BBC, and I can't remember what they said about it in the show. I just remember it, and that's it. And then when I saw this video, yeah, I remember that. So that's my takeaway from it. Wasn't horrified or anything. I was just laughing at what happened. What if

Phil Rice 22:47
we're wrong? What if we're wrong? About chainsaw man? And like that manga, it turns out, is about, it's just about, like, this really highly motivated Canadian Lumberjack, yeah, yeah, right. Well, I suppose he's actually very nice. And it's like, it's like Edward Scissorhands, you know? And he's, he's actually a very gentle soul, and just loves cutting down trees. You know, it could be that, I'll tell you what it made me think of even though I didn't know anything about the manga history of it. But there was a game, I think it was only made for PlayStation. Back in the day, the game was called manhunt.

Damien Valentine 23:24
Oh yes, I

Phil Rice 23:26
haven't played it before. With it, yeah, Tracy, I'll tell you the the premise of this game is a horror is a horror story, just the premise itself. Essentially, the game was made to be where you are a participant on some futuristic reality show where it's all observed by like closed caption, you know, cameras, hidden cameras. And the objective of the show as a contestant, the objective of the show is murder. Is covert murder. You're just a murder. Your way through and it culminates in this situation where you are put into it's kind of like an old abandoned house of some kind. I think you're trapped in there with this man. That's kind of half man, half pig, running around with a chainsaw, and you're in there unarmed, and this this pig man. I don't know if it was actually a pig man or if it was a man that's cosplaying as a pig, I don't know, but this crazed lunatic with a chainsaw, and you're running around this room unarmed, trying to avoid, I don't even remember how you get out of it, but it's just horrifying. The whole whole game was horrifying, but that ending in particular was really scary. Um. That's, that's what it made the chainsaw made me think of.

Damien Valentine 25:03
So, yeah, there's, if I remember correctly, that game wasn't released here because they couldn't make it. Oh, yeah, it

Phil Rice 25:09
got banned some places. Yeah, yeah. It was very controversial at the time. Yeah, I

Damien Valentine 25:14
remember that controversy. And I thought, well, I didn't really want to play it anyway, because it's not my kind of thing. But I do remember. I

Phil Rice 25:20
don't know why I picked it up. I think I picked it up just because I, honestly, I picked it up because I was intrigued about the controversy, okay, but it wasn't exactly an enjoyable game to play. But, of course, I played it all the way through the end. So what does that make me

Tracy Harwood 25:38
Yeah, well, running, man,

Phil Rice 25:40
yeah, yeah. It was, like, it was like a hyper horror version of running. Man, that's what that game was. Yeah, brutal.

Damien Valentine 25:49
I think the reason you picked up and played it was so that you should know that years later you'd be on this podcast. Need to reference it.

Phil Rice 25:56
I do my research. Yes, I'm very committed to my research for the show. Good, good. That's

Tracy Harwood 26:01
That's amazing. Anyway, Ricky, I'm glad you're away, because I'd have told you I didn't like it. You knew I didn't like this sort of film, and yet you still big it. So there you go. That's my thoughts. Yeah,

Damien Valentine 26:15
all right. Well, thank you, Ricky, for very interesting choice. I hope you enjoyed our comments and you having a great time at this horror convention. So I think that's it for us this week. So if you have any feedback, or if you want to talk about this film, or if you've got any more thoughts on chainsaw man, please let us know at completely talk, at completely machine mode.com Send us an email and we will, you know, have a read and see what you have to say. Yeah, that's it. Take care from me, from Phil and Tracy. See you next week. Bye, bye, bye, bye.