Phil Rice 01:00
Hello and welcome to And now for something completely machinima, the podcast about machinima, virtual production and related technologies. I'm your host, Phil rice, and with me is Damian Valentine, Ricky Grove and Tracy Harwood. Oh, and we have, we have been at this now for what, 1015, years now. Well, it feels like that, yeah. But for this particular podcast, we are entering into, I believe, our fourth season, our fourth year, fifth year.

Tracy Harwood 01:30
Holy cow, seasoned.

Phil Rice 01:34
Fifth Season. Amazing, amazing.

Ricky Grove 01:35
Wow. So I never thought we'd be doing this for five years.

Damien Valentine 01:39
Either it's your idea.

Ricky Grove 01:42
I'm happy. I'm happy about it.

Phil Rice 01:44
Yeah. Well, we've as as has become our as we approach the end of that kind of season marker, we like to reflect back on the year that has just gone by. So this is our year in reflection. Tracy, why don't you kind of kick off our discussions and comments here,

Tracy Harwood 02:04
absolutely. Well, okay, I can't believe it either. Five, five seasons. So this is the end of our fourth season. We're going into our fifth brilliant from my perspective, I think this particular year has been absolutely fascinating. I think we have seen a revival of interest in machinima, with people not afraid to call machinima machinima for fear of getting sued by Warner anymore. And that's great, because as long as we are getting back to what this amazing medium was always about from those very earliest days, I shall certainly be happy about that. You know what? We've put out an episode every week, without fail, this this year, plus a couple of specials, we celebrated our 100th episode in October last year, and from February this year, we released a monthly news omnibus episode, rather than on our blog post, which we were doing last time, which has given us some great opportunities to talk about some really interesting emerging issues, some new tools like generative AI and what have you. You know, we've reviewed over 50 films and generated around 22 hours of content. Now, I did a bit of a counter on which games have been used in the in the works. We talked about, oh, cool. We reviewed one film each in half life, World of Warcraft, elite, dangerous Warhammer. Legends of Zelda, Portal, hell divers to an EVE Online, and a couple in iClone, couple in Starfield Second Life and Elden ring. We did three episodes in that were that were using Source engine in some way, and three in cyberpunk. We did three that were were focused on AI generated content. We did three that were focused on game montages. We did four each focusing on Star Citizen and Sims six on GTA and guess what? Our top engine was this year,

Damien Valentine 04:19
unreal, the unreal.

Tracy Harwood 04:22
It's got to be unreal, hasn't it? It was unreal, which is really interesting, I think. And on top of that, two, two of the in the in two of the episodes we did some, you know, kind of class more classic avant garde films. Six of the films we were reviewed were in the vein of music videos. 11 were cinematics, and all the rest were kind of loosely story based document, mix of sci fi, fantasy adventure, horror drama, comedy topian, mystical genres and all that kind of stuff. So we did a real mixed bag, which I think is fascinating. I would say in my. Review of it all. I think we've reviewed some of the highest quality machinimas we've ever seen, at least in terms of the cinematic and production qualities, and yet much of it that I'd say we have commented on as the highest quality has been with older games, not necessarily with Unreal and I kind of wondered why, why would that be the case? Maybe you've got some observations on that. I think these older games clearly inspire, for me, these creators who, over time, have become more familiar with the story world and any game law associated with that game, and they've developed the ways in which they like to extend the game narrative arc. It's possibly also because the game has an established viewing community of followers, followers, with many of the creators seeming like they're using channels like Reddit and discord to help shape the stories before they even start recording. And that's especially true of game environments like Star Citizen, like Source Engine, Half Life, Warhammer, they're all steeped in in community activities. I think it's perhaps less true for games like GTA, and I'd say it's totally the opposite for Unreal where community is as we always knew it, for Machinima is completely lacking. There may actually also be another reason, which is possibly about nostalgia for a bygone time in a person's life, you know, kind of falling back onto something that they've grown older with, maybe not really, particularly, you know, I don't think I'm absolutely sure of of why older games are being selected for, the for the work, but you know, other than that, that they clearly are, what do you think?

Ricky Grove 06:47
I think that's true. I think that the traditional machinima appeals to older people who were there at the beginning of the Machinima movement, and I think they look back to these games as a way to sort of do that nostalgia trip, like you were saying, I think younger video makers, though, machinima filmmakers are making far more machinima, if you look at the game side of it, I was just uh, in preparation for our discussion today, I was Just going through three different types of machinima film, the build guide for a game, the lore video, which is a exploration of the background of the world in the story. And the Let's Play video which you follow the person as they play it. I stopped counting after 20 channels that had over 100,000 viewers subscribe to it. So it's a massive group of people who are playing games, but not necessarily on the older, older platforms, to create machinima. Plus they don't use the word machinima when they talk. They, in fact, they never say machinima as we were talking before I was saying it's almost because it's assumed that everybody knows that it's machinima, in the same way that in a film, a person creating a film doesn't say, and this is a film that I'm making, because everybody knows that's what it is. And I think that's a positive thing for machinima, and that trend is even going higher and higher. Personally, when the DLC came out for Elden ring, there were at least 15 new game guide makers, all of whom had something interesting to say about the about the game, or the lore the background of the game, which was fascinating as well. I would have loved you. I don't think we would have ever seen a lore video in the early machinima.com where somebody goes into great depth about half life two. Now, somebody would have written it, but I don't recall any videos going on, the lore of the background of it. So for me, that kind of evolving trend that's going on, and I think the nostalgia videos tend to be older filmmakers who tend to look to those videos as a way to to make themselves happy and to be inspired to tell stories. Shall I carry on? I

Tracy Harwood 09:20
mean, because I've got a few of three or four other

Ricky Grove 09:22
Sure, sure, you'll do it anyway, whether I stop or not,

Damien Valentine 09:27
actually, before you do. I just want to add thoughts that Ricky the other day, I was on a train, and I was only on it for 10 minutes, and it was quite a busy train, so I didn't really go and find a seat. So I stood up near the exit when I could get off, and there's this other guy there, and he had his phone, and I didn't speak to him, but I could see he was watching some kind of, Let's Play video, because it's some kind of first person shooter. I didn't recognize it. And then there's a little head of the person who had made the video in the corner. I don't know what. He had his headphones on, so I couldn't hear it. And I thought that is a machinima. Some. Mobile machine enjoyment. And I just just remembering that now is listening to you talking about, is watching on the train like I was. I didn't speak to him. I didn't want to interrupt. But, you know, there we go.

Ricky Grove 10:12
Exactly sorry to interrupt you. Tracy, go ahead. No

Tracy Harwood 10:15
no, not at all. I, you know, I think, like I said, it's, it's the quality of what we've seen that's that's hit me so much this year. I mean, in a way that it perhaps in terms of the production values, in terms of the the way that we haven't really seen in the past. The other, the other thing I wanted to comment about is unreal. I think it's, it would be fair to say we've some seen some absolutely amazing, unreal films, pretty much as we anticipated when we did our annual review last year, but against some of the game engines, the quality and the creativity and the content, I'd say, doesn't even come close to comparing. And I mean that I tend to feel that unreal just hasn't reached its full potential for many creators, and this is something I think we've discussed a few times, and I think it's generally the feeling that we've had that it's because of its lack of story, because it, you know, really it's just an open tool set. It basically leaves a very big mountain for many of those indie creators to climb. I'm not saying they kind of lack the creative ideas, but maybe what they lack are the skills to bring those ideas into an environment like Unreal in its entirety. But of those films that we've reviewed, I think what we have observed is that it's the pros that are picking up this engine and making the best efforts with it. These are not, you know, these are not naive, novice creators at all. I think one of the most astonishing and outstanding films across the whole year for me was Firefly, which was created for esoterica by a guy called Louis Andre. And another was FLITE, which was made by the VFX Oscar winner Tim Weber, absolutely outstanding films made using Unreal Engine. So I don't know the the the creators, the indie creators, I think, are using more open worlds, rather than unreal. And you can kind of clearly see how those other creative formats have influenced the development of the story. So, for example, you know, lonely the package thief was made in iClone, and kind of not a dissimilar tool set, but it was so clearly inspired by the Lone Ranger films. You know, Damien, yours were yours made the force tribute made in star citizen, so clearly inspired by David Attenborough's nature documentaries. And then, of course, you got Flowers of Evil, which was made in Second Life, another open world game, which was clearly inspired by the literature of Charles Baudelaire. All of them were original stories, but all of them had a kind of a clear trajectory, which was beyond the game. It's just that unreal. Just is more of a pure tool than it is a, you know, a sort of an inspiring environment in and of itself, which I think is going to be a challenge for it going forwards, because I don't think it's got the right infrastructure around it to help novice creators make that leap from the things that inspire them into a full blown movie, inside that in, you know, inside that world, inside that engine. Well, the

Damien Valentine 11:19
big difference here you got unreal provides tools to do things, but it doesn't provide content. That's right. Let's say, if you want to make a film, had a big car chase. You could use GTA in which case you've got the city, the roads, the cars. All you have to do physics, yeah, yeah. All you have to do is drive the car, use the filmmaking tools to record it, and then that's all done. If you want to do it in Unreal, it will look more officially stunning. But you need to find those cars. You need to build that environment, and you need to program the physics and all the other stuff in it. So it's already there.

Tracy Harwood 14:14
The physics is already there. You can just put port in models, but the very fact that you've got to come up with every bit of it. Yeah, is, I think we, I think that's the problem with it. Really, there isn't enough sort of pre made sets for creators to work with which inspire them and give them enough. Oh, there's plenty.

Phil Rice 14:38
Well, there is plenty of them. They're just not free. Okay, they're just not free. You buy GTA, you pay one price, and forever you've got that interactive world. Yes, the physics are on and unreal, but it's not a press a button and they they work the way you want to when you're doing, oh, you've got to set it up like hair or the way up all bounces and stuff. It's, yeah, the underpinnings are there, but it takes work to get it to, I mean, icon has physics built into it, but it's not trivial to get the result that you want, whereas in the game, you really don't have any control over the physics. I guess with certain mods, you might know that that Red Dead Redemption film that we reviewed this year or last year that takes place in this dream world. Clearly, the physics we're being messed with there, right? But, you know, largely, the game environment solves a lot of those problems that when you go to a tool like Unreal or even iClone, for that matter, they're yours to solve, every single one of them, every single bit of it, and in the game, you can lean on not just technical aspects, like, you know, the visuals and the soundscape, but also there's a story that came with the game that you could either ignore or you could build on. And a lot of that has to do with how solid the original story is, you know, well, not

Ricky Grove 16:05
just a story, but a world, right, an entire world, broadly,

Phil Rice 16:09
right? Oh, right. Got it, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that in world building is the better term, yeah.

Ricky Grove 16:15
I think we have to keep in mind, though, that epics unreal, where they make the great majority of their money is in selling this to people who want to create games that they can resell. There are people who want to do lower end and sometimes higher end games, and they make it very easy for people to do that, and they have a team of people that'll work out the physics and work out the hair and set up all of that, because they're, they're, you know, that indie game market, that's where they make all their money. They don't make a lot of money off of people who want to use the engine, the free engine, by the way, to make films. And so naturally, they're going to lean put their resources and their focus on the areas that are most profitable for them. So I can kind of understand why they don't. They fall down a little bit. Because, I mean, if you want to make a good movie in Unreal you can, but it's going to cost you 500 to $1,000 to buy all the content. And as Damien so well pointed out, you gotta throw go through all that stuff, but, but a indie game company with even three people or five people can do that, and an individual filmmaker is going to find it hard, going to do that, yeah,

Phil Rice 17:35
and the Indie Game Maker is, I mean, hey, It's a risky proposition, for sure, but I think comparatively, they are much more likely to recoup that investment, even if they end up selling their game for five bucks on Steam. You know, with the right marketing, they can at least make back what, what little they put in with a film, an independent, an independent film released on the Internet. Man, there's, there's not a clear path to do that, you know, there's, there's YouTube ad revenue. I mean, you got to really blow up for that to to be worthwhile. And people are killing it on YouTube. It's relatively, you know, I'm not talking about like Mr. Beast or like the top ones, where they have, he had, he he has, like, a, you know, several $100,000 a month payroll. So he's, he's got people doing all kinds of stuff, but he's making millions, right? But for your average person who's just got a monetized channel, the chances that you're that all this effort that you've put into one production is going to recoup that through ad revenue, or maybe merch that you create and tie to it and all that. Yeah, it's tough. It's basically someone who enters into it, from a film perspective, has to enter it with the understanding that I'm going to lose money on this, but I'm passionate about it, and I want to make it anyway. Yeah, so it's, it's a different decision,

Tracy Harwood 19:00
I think

Damien Valentine 19:02
gone. So you kind of have to blow up before you can even get to the ad revenue as well, right? Go and create a YouTube channel. You've got no subscribers or anything you cannot

Phil Rice 19:11
enable. Yeah, there's thresholds you have to hit before you even qualify, and it's not easy to get to that point. No, it's not. But

Tracy Harwood 19:17
I think what will happen given what we've just been talking about there is, I suspect unreal start to figure out that it needs to put in more of an infrastructure to support the distribution of film content. I suspect that there will be some movement on that, because at this moment in time, I think the interest in it has peaked a little bit, and I think that those that are particularly passionate about creating content are going back to, you know, other. The other game engines, my

Phil Rice 20:01
gut reaction to that is, why? Why would they? But the more I'm thinking about it with what's going on with Okay, so normally with games, you create a game and then there's already a distribution platform there that you can easily sell it. There's multiple ones, but steam is the big one, right? So that path is already there for the independent filmmaker, for film, the distribution point is what used to be primarily theaters, and then you've got direct to video, and then now streaming and those platforms are not really easily accessible to amateur or to low budget creators, they're just not, they're still, like, kind of a gatekeeper aspect, certainly to the theater business. Um, to direct a video, I mean, direct to video isn't even going to be a thing, I don't think for much longer. Um, but let's say, you know, selling it as a movie on iTunes, for example. Yeah, you can put it there, but without marketing, you're not going to get you're not going to draw attention to it. So it's, there's a hurdle there, right? But with what's happening to the theaters, you know, cinema is changing. The demand has shifted, and I think covid really pushed it, you know, further in a direction that maybe it was already leaning in the wake of streaming, that now theaters are really in some trouble, and so somebody is going to have to pick up and offer a distribution channel for films that is an alternative to just Netflix, for example, yeah, or the other mini streamers, you know, and and maybe they've got an opportunity to do that there, where it's a direct to online kind of thing, and they work out some kind of arrangement. But, I mean, that's a lot of work, and they would have to really be convinced, I think, business wise, that that there would be money to be made on that. I mean, I'm sorry, but that's just that's the decision process for them. So right now, it's really hard to imagine that. However, with theaters really struggling. Maybe some new distribution channels will open up, and maybe they leverage that. But there's a lot of maybes there.

Tracy Harwood 22:07
There is a lot of maybes, but I'm but that's my gut feeling on that one. And you know, like I said, it's based on the fact that we've reviewed some absolutely stunning, unreal content we have, but not made by the, you know, the the true indie, indie creator, really, right? He's a, he's a pros, you know, you know, telling everybody they're indie creators, but they are not, which is a whole other ball of wax, I think, really so. That was a, kind of an interesting observation overall. The other one, the other point I wanted to make is about the is about the extent of experimentation we're seeing. I mean, how many different types of machine or have we seen commented on this year we've seen, I don't know, good many variations in all types of storytelling this year the approach is being taken. I mean, it's almost endless, and it's almost as broad as it as there are different types of game. I think during the year, I counted something like 16 different types of genre, if that's a if we can use it that way, everything from kind of narrative to music, documentary, political, educational, role play. Are abstract, instructional, cinematic, performance, fan art, and it goes on. I also noticed a growing division, I think, between what we would call avant garde, machinima and activist art. These are, you know, these are probably two ends of the same. Can, you know, same sort of continuum, if you like, but very definitely you've got people that are looking at using this in a much more activist way. And never that's been the case, but this year, I think it's been very pronounced, and these folks that are are using machinima, are creating a whole different type of content. You know, they're, they're focusing on things such as war and conflict, or environmental projects. Yeah, politics, environmental, I was gonna say ecological themes, grief and Purgatory, social critique, human values, human intimacy, dystopian futures, corporate dominance. I mean, there's, they've got a very specific leaning with it. And a couple of standouts for me were dance encore by Chris Uberman and also in a migration by Andy Hughes. Those were the ones that I thought were distinctly, you know, had a distinct approach, one being what I would call more avant garde, and the other being more activist in what it was showing. And I think interestingly, what we've probably seen a lot less of this year than I might have expected, is actually good short stories, self contained, beginning, middle and end. Type things we've seen, a few, but not as many as we would have in the past. I think it's almost as if creators don't know how to keep things short anymore, or don't want to. And as I was thinking about that observation, I was thinking, well, maybe that reflects the desire to make series, because you know, what are they doing here. They're trying to retain audiences. They're trying to generate income. So maybe it's a function of the YouTube environment everyone seems to be quite focused on at the moment. Or maybe folks are just fed up with traditional types of story, you know, in that in the kind of Hollywood vein. I mean, I'm not sure, but I suspect it's more the former. People are just thinking about, how do they manipulate the algorithm and try and keep people as interested as for as long as possible? So I think it's all about the streaming channels.

Phil Rice 25:52
Maybe, maybe. The other thing too is there's two there's two challenges, I think, with the short form, and one of them is an almost timeless challenge when it comes to video or film, and that is other than YouTube. What is your distribution outlet for that? Like, there's no traditional place to go watch, like, back when theaters were really in their heyday. I mean, you may be occasionally caught some short film as part of the trailers. You know, the trailers were the short form, I guess, you know. But those were all corporate produced and for a sales purpose. But you know someone like, let's say a Stan Brakhage or something. I mean, where would you go to to even watch that? And I think that remains a challenge today. I mean, now, okay, you the obvious answer is, Well, YouTube or or video channels like that, but there's such a signal to noise ratio problem on YouTube that then it's now, well, how do you even find it? You know, the algorithm is pretty damn good. It really is. There's parts of it that are insidious, but it is good at what it does. But how would the algorithm even direct that there? So that's one aspect of it. Is just the place of short form, I think, in written stories, short form found its place 100 something years ago. You know, journals and magazines and stuff like that, and a lot of really prominent authors would release things in serial form, in written publications, and there was a place for that. And so you wanted a good set of short stories, you would go get a copy of, no, I don't know the names of them, Ricky would, but, you know, there was a place for it. Or or an author could release a compilation of a bunch of their short stories. And, you know, is he mov did that, and Bradbury, you know, they could do that. Stephen King has done that as well, you know, so. But with films, it's a little harder, I think, and so they're relegated to, like, I don't know, compilation. You remember that? Do you guys remember after the matrix came out, there was into the matrix released, which was this, yeah, series of shorts. Disney has done some anthology series of shorts related to the Star Wars universe that are in different styles and all that. So occasionally, something like that flowers up, but it's not nearly as prominent. So that's one challenge with short form. The second is, is is that short form is just really effing hard. It's hard, you know, and so that's, I think that's a part of why, you see, I'm, I'm getting kind of annoyed with it, honestly, that it's a short form film, even in machinima, and it doesn't have a distinct ending. But then nothing ever happens, like it's never followed up on it. You get the impression that it was a one off, but just without any kind of ending, right? I don't understand that. I don't understand the thinking there. I don't know if it's a lack of ability or if it's if, like you said, Tracy, they had longer term plans, but just you get finished with chapter one, it's just like, Ah, screw this. I'm not doing this another 10 times. You know, I don't know what the thinking is, but to actually set out to craft a story with a beginning, middle and end short form and it and it works with an arc and all of that. And that's people tend to look at, well, you know, writing a novel is hard, but writing short story that's so much easier. No, it's not, no,

Ricky Grove 29:25
it's not, no,

Phil Rice 29:26
not in some ways it's harder. Yeah, you know, I think a novel is in some ways forgiving for the the author to take some liberties, or maybe talk a little too much about this, or a little bit too much exposition. But if, but if it's not too much, you can get away with it in a novel, you know, but in shorts, in short form, man, it is, it's succinct. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's really, really difficult to do well. And I think that if that's difficult for authors to do well, I can only imagine you. It's difficult for filmmakers to do well too, because ultimately the race is written as well. You know?

Ricky Grove 30:05
Well, I think part of the reason why we don't see a lot of really well done short form machinima films is that they don't have examples to learn from, right? Exactly, if you're a short story writer, all you have to do is do a little research, and you can come up with a list of three authors who write genius short stories. You read those short stories, and you exam. You keep rereading and rereading and rereading the one that you love, and you say, okay, that's the form. That's how you lay it out. And then, as a beginner, you use that form as a template, and you tell the story. Now you you may not have the dynamics or the subtlety or the skill, but you have a forum where can you do that with machinima, and what is the tradition of doing that in machinima? So you don't have a model. So where do you learn? You're not going to get the examples in big theater stuff. As you pointed out, Netflix is mostly not going to give you the examples you're going to have to try to figure it out through books. And books are, frankly, not the best way to learn how to write a short story. That's true. It's just not. Yeah, so they're so they're they're stuck, in a way a filmmaker is stuck trying to learn. And one additional thing before I want to become long winded, but one additional addendum to that is that if you talk about how players game, players experience story in a game, it is not the same way a short form film, story occurs you experience In a frag, you experience it in a fragmented way. You go to this NPC, this NPC tells you to go to this other NPC, this. NP says go and do this action, get this thing, bring it back to me. You come back to them. It's all self directed. You know what I mean? It's first person, not third person. So perhaps one of the thing, the two things that the that filmmakers who it's hard to do machinima narrative short story is that they don't have examples, and that the game structure tells them that they should do it in a fragmented way.

Phil Rice 32:15
So and on top of all of that, endings in particular are are really hard. Yep, for short form. And I think the best example of this is comedy sketches. Watch Saturday Night Live. These are professional, very good, most of them comedy writers. And watch how many times they completely f up an ending, like they don't know how to end the skit. They don't know how to do it, I'd say it's one in 10 that actually stick the landing. Yeah, you know, important. That's not because they're incompetent. It is hard. It's hard to to it's hard to decide how to end that's probably the hardest part is choosing how to end it. But then execution is also difficult, and that's true in short form stories as well. So maybe in some instances, that may be part of it, if just that decision just creates too much anxiety. I don't know how to pick what to do, so just, we'll just leave it open. I don't know. I've puzzled over it a lot exciting, and when somebody nails an ending, I tell them so, like, I don't even whether they know me or not, when I comment, that's what I I really admire that, because it's hard, and there's no formula, and even with good examples, I think it would still be hard. But yeah, sands that. It's, man, it's it's tough. That's

Ricky Grove 33:39
why I say you should do away with realism. Do avant garde that way you can put the ending at the beginning. Typical, right, right. Successfully argued. No, that's not the ending is the beginning. You don't understand. This is an avant garde story.

Phil Rice 33:55
It's true, though. I mean, in the abstract stuff, I'm thinking of the the the Chainsaw Massacre video that Ricky gave us

Ricky Grove 34:04
a few, yeah, there's,

Phil Rice 34:07
that's the one they didn't. There's no ending anxiety with that. You know exactly, yeah, no. I mean, you, you're, you're, you're making light of it, but you're, you're also correct, like, that is really the truth, that's a different form. But if you're trying to do a story, man, I think it's because everyone who knows, everyone who crafts stories, knows the ending matters. Maybe as much as the beginning matters. You know how much attention over these have been called to, like novels, and that opening line is sometimes a novel is famous just for that, you know, it's just just just masterfully little crafted piece of like sushi, you know, just just masterful opening. Well, the ending, a good ending is, is also important and satisfying. And can, can, can befuddle all your work if you botched. Ending, and that's a lot of pressure. So

Ricky Grove 35:01
how many films we watched a lot of films this last year, yeah. How many films do you think actually had a successful ending?

Phil Rice 35:09
I know, other than the average of the ones out there, of the narrative films, yeah, okay, yeah. It's not a common for lack of a better word, failing that, I think, is in our picks. But I think that's, that's maybe right. Would we, because there's that satisfaction level,

Damien Valentine 35:26
yeah, would we pick a film or the ending that's thinking, Well, that was terrible, but everything up to the end is great. But then

Phil Rice 35:32
there's been some that have ended a little too ambiguously, but depending on the context, that can sometimes be forgiven. But, yeah, anyway, yeah, it's an interesting topic.

Tracy Harwood 35:42
It is an interesting but what I was going to say was it, you know, with this, with this focus on assuming this is what folks are doing, you know, this idea of linking films together because they want to sort of build the channel, if that is what's going on, I think that's going to become much more challenging over time. And of course, you know, the reason for that is because, how many you know series is over the years? Have we commented on where the last episode never got made? So the story was never, you know, it was deliberately episodic. And

Phil Rice 36:18
sometimes the second episode never got made. Nothing got made.

Tracy Harwood 36:21
I mean, for example, you know that cracking Star Citizen one that we saw about the father and daughter in space. I was gagging for the second major episode of that, and it's just never been made. I have a

Phil Rice 36:34
plus one endurance role to to stick with the series the way Damien has. He'll be the first to say, so it takes endurance. It really does it takes a stamina. And I think there's probably people that dive into this that maybe don't have that.

Tracy Harwood 36:49
Well, I think questioning

Damien Valentine 36:51
my own sanity as well, is that right?

Tracy Harwood 36:54
Yes, but I mean, the other point I was going to make, and this is something, again, we've commented on over the years, I think another trend that we've observed is actually one where the creators are now being snapped up again, not perhaps to work on Game Dev projects, but to work on film projects and, you know, maybe professional type shorts or music videos and all that kind of stuff. So they're not necessarily being paid on the, on the, on the, you know, the YouTube treadmill, if you like. But they may be being being paid more directly for their craft. And if that's the case, that's great. Well done. But I will just say one of the things that Hugh Hancock always said was that he would absolutely refuse to do, you know, to sort of sell his soul and go and work for somebody else, as a as a filmmaker, he was 110% dedicated to focusing on being an independent and a pioneering creator. And yes, he did work on other projects, but he always came back to his own projects. And, you know, I think he was one of the very few that actually took that stance. And I guess these days, you do have a choice. You can, if you work hard enough at it, get a sort of a meager income, perhaps from YouTube, and pick up various kind of projects along the way, sufficient to be able to make your own independent uh, content, if you like, uh, where it doesn't necessarily cost that much, but I but I think you've got to cut that path deliberately.

Phil Rice 38:29
And I think with Hugh and as as an example, he's a great example. He is great is that, I think that that decision was in part driven by passion. He had a passion for his own story. Exactly. He basically made a commitment to his story. I am going to see you through to the end, and he wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that. And that's part of it. That's the artist part of him. But he was also very smart, and I think that he had the the he had the insight to realize, if I take this energy and slave it out there, I won't have the energy to do what I want. And I think that the example of that is literally every single brain drain, machinima, creator that got snatched up. Name one, independent on their own time project that was released by them. I think Leo Lucy and Bay may be the only exception, and it was a short thing, and I think it may have been after he left Bioware even, like none of them that went to work there, you don't, you don't go to work and spend your time working on that and then come home and go, All right, let's make some machinima. That's just not how humans work. It's not, it doesn't work that way. It drains it out of you. And hey, if it's if it's a trade off that you entered into knowingly. And hey, I love the fact that I get to do this and make a living at it. And I think that the trade off there is. Is, I'm doing someone else's story, but I'm okay with that. And he was a guy who who knew himself well enough to say I wouldn't be okay with that. I wouldn't be okay with that deal. And so that's that's cool. Well, put Phil the fact that he did that and was able to still keep food on the table is the part that's really remarkable, absolutely yes, because that's what drives people to take the job when they get offered it right

Damien Valentine 40:26
good income by where we're after him, because he did go to their offices, because it would not surprise me. I did that thing with Ingrid in Montreal, way back, what inspired the machiner Expo. And Hugh was there with us. And then after we finished, he was going off to Edmonton to have a tour around the Bioware offices. So they must have said, come work for us. And he obviously didn't, because he

Phil Rice 40:50
may have Hugh, he was he was tricky, yeah, he was tricky. He was braggadocious, you know. So he probably walked in there like he owned the place I could imagine, India. I created machinima, you know, yeah, walking in like Conor McGregor, that's a good point, but yeah, and they were part of his charm too, you know, yeah. But

Damien Valentine 41:12
they would have said, come and work for us. And he didn't do that. He went home and carried on with his own stuff. But I imagine he had a fascinating tour around this they were doing. He probably

Phil Rice 41:23
picked up as much Intel as he could. Oh, yeah. Look how they're doing. This came back and told his team, yeah. Well, I

Ricky Grove 41:29
think a lot of indie filmmakers, people who are passionately driven to tell stories using a digital medium are by nature, non are not willing to join a huge edifice or a corporation or a large company in which they don't have the ability to choose their stories and their things that they want to do. So I think that that's sort of a given in the main the traditional machinima universe, certainly, almost all of the films are that we saw last year are like that. Not all of them, but most of them. And I hope that in the future, those particular people look to some different subjects too, like I would really like to see some a series of stories that are set in the same game world, but don't necessarily have the same characters each time, but perhaps they cross each other in the world. I'd like to see something like that in the future. I think that's something that hasn't been explored, which has been explored in novels like science fiction, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Ian banks, they have a world which has a certain structure to it, and then every novel is a variation of that story. In that world. It takes place at different times and different places. So I think that would be an interesting challenge, and and perhaps not as as difficult a challenge as it would be in a novel, because you'd have all those stories laid out for you, or you could infer stories from events that aren't covered in a in a game, like what must have happened between these two things. And so you invent a story, and you do it that way. I'd like to see more of that in the future. And there's so

Phil Rice 43:23
many, there are so many games where, where there is the groundwork for that Red Dead Redemption. Two, although it's so hard to make machine in there, Grand Theft Auto less so you it's pretty narrow story type to fit into their story there. It's gonna all have to do with crime and all of that. The fallout four game world is just rife with story Elden ring. There's all kinds of untold stories that are the between connectors. Yeah, it's a great and you

Ricky Grove 43:52
have the tools and Elden ring. There's a guy who put out a tool that allows you to do a guided camera, change the focal length, change the camera direction, cue things in for it, you'd have to be judicious, because you don't have lip sync. Or if you use the anime tradition where the lips don't necessarily have to match what the person is saying, that would be a convention, but you could certainly do that. Yeah, I would like to see that. And the other thing I'd like to see in future machima For the next year, as I'd like to see more horror films that are geared toward folk horror

Phil Rice 44:30
now, clarify what that is, in case, in case anyone doesn't know. Yeah, folk horror

Ricky Grove 44:35
is a usually, it's a horror story that takes place in an wilderness or a suburban area, and they have to do with folklore and mythology, and they usually take place in historical periods or involve a historical element to it, like the let's say, um. An Indian. Stephen King has done a lot of folk horror where there's an area where the Indians would not go, and because it's a, it's a, it's a strange place. And modern, some modern people who move into this area, maybe from the city and there want to be suburbanites. They buy a place there, and then suddenly, all of these very strange things start happening that are connected to folklore of the town. And maybe somebody in the town knows about that and helps them try to resolve the thing that's folk horror, and it's a big trend now in horror right now, in terms of writing and also in film, lots of really interesting films have folk horror in it. Probably the most famous folk horror one is The Wicker Man. Oh, okay, recall that, right? Remember that the town had a tradition and they tricked the visiting constable into being a sacrifice for the Elder Gods. There's a folk nature to it. I would really hope, since there are so many interesting games that have folk horror in them to a certain extent, I would like to see some movies or film constructions that use those themes in and more. I haven't seen hardly any of that. So, I mean, I know where I went, off topic there, but I wanted to say the kind of things I'd like to see in the future for machetema films, some

Tracy Harwood 46:28
great experimental approaches, though. And I think there's always scope for loads more different approaches. And I think be a great development, actually. But yeah, that is one of the things that, that I thought was, was was really strong this year, this ex, you know, this kind of exciting, I know, especially

Ricky Grove 46:49
for me, who you guys know me, I value, oftentimes, imagination over form, simply because I'd like to see something different, because We all buy and consume things that are the same. And I mean, if you go into a store and you see a cereal box and it's shaped like a pyramid, you're not going to buy it. Well,

Tracy Harwood 47:11
you're not going to like my next point really, because I think the other thing that we saw through the year was the video response meme as as strongly developed as I've ever seen. I mean, it's always been a thing, ever since YouTube was launched, that people would put video responses up. But I think what's interesting these days is just how common practices become to riff off another Creator's content. And this isn't, you know, this isn't really the viral video stuff that I'm talking about, but an actual machinima film meme that's copied, for example, the backrooms. I mean, we saw what I saw hundreds of those, and it's still going on. There's still stuff being made that I've got a backrooms theme to it that's being posted. And then the other thing that we saw emerge this year was the skibadi toilet stuff, which was crazy. I mean, what the hell was that? But what's I think fascinated me much more is how some of these key machinima films, which often appear to extend game lore or become part of the game lore have become so influential in that kind of sort of whole new wave of films. I don't think, you know, I mean, they're often described as meme, but actually, I don't really think they are memes. What I would describe them as is something more like a rhizmatic approach, you know. So they're more like a rhizome, where the idea is kind of rooted and networked and ultimately, sort of feeding off each other. It's a much more interesting model, I think. And a couple of the ones that we reviewed through the year were, were emesis blue, which had, you know, created a whole raft of spin off films by others in response to it. And the other one, Damien, you picked this one day of darkness too. Stack loads of, you know, things extending the lore that that guy kind of created in that one as well. But I suppose, in relation to those memes, is just how influential they've become because they're, of course, actually inspiring films as well. So back rooms, we saw this year as being made into a movie, and apparently, so a skibidi toilet. I dare say we'll see a lot more of these kinds of trance media type crossovers in future, because it's very evident that Hollywood, you know, look, looking at what's going on in the in the way that content is coming out of Hollywood, Hollywood at the moment, Ricky, you're right in the thick of this. I think they're running out of ideas there, and I think they're looking to the generation of content creators for ideas on just how to extend the life of of what they do. So. You know, I think the streaming platforms are kind of coming full cycle into, you know, other other forms of content. The fact that, you know, there, there is no tradition of of watching shorts. Phil, I, you know, I think they're not trying to sort of create shorts. I think they're trying to take long form out of shorts, weirdly. But, you know, I think they're in a mess in many ways, if they're, if they're looking at some of these rift films. But that's, I think that's another thing that we've kind of seen this year. There's sort of the way that we're seeing all these ideas transcend different types of creative form, if you like. The other thing, I've got only two more things I want to say, really. The other thing is this bit about distribution channels, because I do think we're beginning to see a move by communities calling for better distribution channels for content. You know, we talk about it a lot here, but actually there are others talking about it as well, although I've not really noticed any significant new channels that have merged. I did, I did actually see one that went and got some quite interesting funding called Recdek, which is a community, you know, that's a community like a curated platform where people make recommendations for others to follow, basically like playlists, not typically, actually designed for short form, but it could include short form. Currently, it's sort of modeled on more long form cinematic releases, but I think it's got kind of interesting potential. And I did, we did do a post about that a while back. The other thing related to that is the way that discord and Reddit have become even more embedded in the creative development process. We've seen ideas come from and realized through direct interaction between members of communities from these platforms, which means that when the content gets shown or teased, there's already a, you know, an audience waiting for it kind of already invested in whatever comes through that process. And I think that will become more prevalent because it helps overcome some of the streaming challenges that we've been talking about. And you know, obviously the ones that are doing that, primarily the ones you know, Star Citizen, Half Life overworld. That was another one that came out of that kind of format. And pretty much anything that's been created in Source Engine is also created in that way as well. My final kind of big, big point, I think, is the role of generative AI. Because, you know, we started this season being absolutely bowled over by generative AI and the creative dilemma of how to integrate this technology into machinima. We saw a few examples through the year. Mostly, we've discussed those in our news episodes rather than in our actual film review episodes, because, quite frankly, at the moment, they're not really, I mean, they're interesting, but they're not really good examples of films as such, not the sort that we like to talk about. Anyway, I don't think they're good enough to dedicate a whole episode to. At the moment, I've seen very few that I would say that's, that's,

Phil Rice 53:20
yeah,

Tracy Harwood 53:24
there were, however, two films that we discussed during the year which included AI content. And I think this is probably the way that others will start to integrate the tools more one. One was your film, Phil Lobachevsky, which you made with I clone and some AI generated content. The other was Tom gentle music video for Vince says sylphs children of pain song where he used AI generated content as just another form of animation, which I thought was really interesting. I think we'll see a lot more do that. I think we did actually look at another couple as well. There

Damien Valentine 54:01
was a third one, which is that Batman film where he used AI to create the script and the

Phil Rice 54:06
voice. But that was trying to forget about that

Damien Valentine 54:10
I'm happy to remind you,

Tracy Harwood 54:11
indeed. But yes, well, okay, so that's proven my point, really, isn't it? That we haven't really seen, you know, fully AI generated content. I think I suspect we'll see better work next year, because I think people are beginning to understand more about how they can integrate these tools, and I would expect that that might lead to some really interesting, more, even more experimental approaches to filmmaking. And I say that because I think creatives exploring the roles of generative AIs use these tools as found media, but also medium. So I think they will influence the types of machinima we see, because what they will demonstrate will be um. A new esthetic. And in some ways, I think that's partly because the tools themselves are rather game like or ludic in in the way that they are used. I think the interfaces are gamified, and I think it encourages people to conflate practices and processes that they're familiar with, but do that with community. So for example, mid journey, the only way you can really get content out of mid journey is to do that in a community platform, a discord, an open discord, where everybody can see what everybody's doing. So there's a there's a strategy at play there, which I think is kind of interesting, and I think in turn, that will lead to a kind of an interesting development in in the esthetic that we see and the and the, you know, the visual style that we that we will begin to see, and probably add another layer to the poetic quality of machinima. But let's see what

Phil Rice 56:07
happens. I'll add to that just one comment with regard to AI. I think, I think when it comes to AI generated artwork, because I think to lump AI generated art in with, let's say, 11 labs voice synthesis and with the new AI generated music. Technically, they're all from the same tech, I guess, kind of, but, yeah, no, they're very different in in the way that they're implemented. But so let's just focus just on AI generated artwork, and that includes video mid journey and that kind of thing, or runway. I think the great irony of generative AI art will be the fact that right now, the most vocal opponents of AI art are artists, or visual artists, and I think the most prolific and successful implementers of AI generated artwork will be visual artists that it will ultimately come back around, that the people who really know how to make something compelling out of this, that skill mattered all along. Of course, this is just a tool that's so radical that it's getting pushed back on right now, but I think it will be. You know, the big fear amongst the most vocal opponents of AI is fear the right word. Maybe that's not fair. But then I think that underneath it all is this notion that some no talent schlub can, you know, go to mid journey, or Leonardo, or whichever AI engine of choice, and type in a few words and make something artistic, and that is just offensive to someone who spent their life perfecting A craft. But the reality is that's not who's creating the pretty AI artwork. It may appear that way because there's so much of it, but the ones who are really successful with it are visual artists, or people who have that talent, and they just have to apply a different type of work to get that out of the engine. It does not spit up pretty stuff without effort. Yeah, it doesn't. That's a myth. It's a complete myth. Even the newest generations of stuff,

Tracy Harwood 58:27
you know what? They have to be machinima creators in a way,

Phil Rice 58:32
right? Yeah, in a way. So, yeah, that's, that's going to be the ultimate outcome of that, as my prediction is, and it won't be next year. But ultimately, that tool is going to only really be useful in a way that can be widely and broadly appreciated if it's used by somebody who had visual artist talent all along. Well put like I'll never be as good at it as some of the artists I follow on on X, even the ones right who right now won't touch it, you know, like it's got covid or something, that they ultimately are better equipped to use that in just colossally amazing ways than I'll ever be, because that's just not my main gift. So, yeah, it'll be, it'll be fun to watch that unfold. And there's, course, there's the whole legalities part of it, that's a problem that needs to be addressed. But, you know, the tool is not going anywhere, but it's not going to elevate a bunch of people, you know, mindless people with no talent, to the echelons of the creative universe. It's just not. It it ultimately still needs skill, and that skill is the skill that is, you know, that visual artists have. That's my thought. Yep, that was actually my lovely note for today. So the year of AI and AI is, you know, is, is, it's opposed, and for many reasons. Sense, rightfully so. But I think that the the demise of the need, the world's need for visual artists, has been grossly exaggerated. So do I? I don't think they're a threat at all. Having experimented with it myself, this is not an uneducated look at it. I have spent quite a bit of time playing with it and and watching others output. And that is it all lines up with that, that artists are still going to come out on top. You have nothing to really fear, yay.

1:00:31
Well, I'm

Tracy Harwood 1:00:32
done. I mean, those are, those are my kind of observations on the year and going forward. So Paul, thank you. Add, yeah,

Ricky Grove 1:00:39
very interesting discussion.

Phil Rice 1:00:41
Is there anything else that? Is there anything else that anybody had to bring up? Ricky, I know you. You brought up some of your stuff. Do you have any any other stuff you'd like to

Ricky Grove 1:00:50
talk about? No, looking for nominees for the the grand derriere award.

Phil Rice 1:00:57
We've always thought your derriere was grand Ricky. If that makes you feel any better,

Damien Valentine 1:01:01
I'll just add that I'm looking forward to seeing what we talk about in this episode next year.

Phil Rice 1:01:07
Oh yeah. Wonder if it'll be, if it'll be any new surprise topics we'll

Damien Valentine 1:01:14
have to see. We'll still be talking about AI.

Phil Rice 1:01:16
I think that will still end up coming up somehow, I suspect. Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, alright. Well, thanks for joining us, everyone, and thanks for tuning in for for four years and or however long you've tuned in. We, we thank you. We do this show because we enjoy it. But you know, knowing that there's some of you out there that enjoy it too, that certainly helps. So you know, on behalf of I'm Phil rice, on behalf of my co host, Tracy Ricky and Damian, thank you very much for a great year, and we look forward to another one. Yep. Thank you.

Tracy Harwood 1:01:51
Thank you. Bye, bye.