Damien Valentine 00:44
Hello and welcome to another episode. Now for something completely machinima this week, Phil is revising the rules for male restroom etiquette, so sadly, he can't be with us, but I'm joined by my co host, Ricky Grove and Sally. Tracy Harwood, hello, hi. So this week, Ricky, it's your film you've chosen. So you've got a very interesting choice. So tell us about it, please. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 01:14
Well, again, as listeners to the podcast have noticed, I've been choosing films from the archive of machinima@archive.org called how they got game project. It's part of the Stanford Humanities Lab put together by Henry low wood. It is a really fine archive with well over 2000 films, machinima films, I'd say, now that I've been through it for a couple months, I'd say probably about 40% of the content is really, really good. The other 60% is just fun and interesting stuff that they've kept for historical reasons. I mean, they're fun to watch and everything. But if once you if you take a close look, like we do at all of the films, at the films we choose, they don't really hold up, but that other 40% is well worth going through. You can do all kinds of searches. If you find a film that you like, you can see what other archive.org how they got gay machinima archive projects the person has done. You can see any comments that are made. Oftentimes, they provide a sort of on about information about them, although you have to go outside it to get more detailed information. Also viewing records, any comments that people have made. It's really worth your time. Now, I know archive.org has been getting a lot of flack, mostly for their book related content, and I'm not going to get into that. That's a whole separate deal, but their efforts to historically archived, different kinds of art are really, is really laudable, and I really want to congratulate them. The last piece that was put up was in late 2024 so they're still being relatively modern in the things that they choose. It will be sure to include a link to the their machinima archive collection in our show notes, so you can go there and check it yourself. Check it yourself. But the film I chose, as I was going through, I've watched well over 100 films now, was one that just stopped me in my tracks. It's called the most powerful person in the world. It was created by a an artist named Thuyen Nguyen. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but that's that's how it looks to me, and it falls under the category of what I would call the personal essay film. Now, professional production, Hollywood production has no use for the personal essay film because they're usually short, they're usually personal, and they're just simply not commercial. So the real place and market for this kind of thing is on the internet. Most of the people who make these personal essay films are not making them for profit reasons. So the content is not geared toward commercial types of content or commercial genres, their personal expressions of their ideas, their thoughts about the world. They're often philosophical in nature or social in nature. Now this particular film, the most powerful person in the world is short and it is a collection of scenes from games and the there's no dialog or spoken narration. It's written narration that appears on the screen, and the written narration. Kind of a cross between poetry and philosophy. Now, by philosophy, I don't mean philosophy in the formal sense, you know, like Wittgenstein and Herschel and all of those people. It's a philosophy of life. So it's more pragmatic kinds of philosophy. And as you start to watch this, and you watch the scenes from the various games they he uses very intelligently, uses the scenes from games that emphasize the point that he's trying to make. So things like, Have you ever felt like a god? Have you ever have you ever been a hero? Have you ever been a villain and he builds to and you you don't quite understand who this most powerful person in the world is. You know your your initial thoughts are sort of Marvel, superhero, kinds of things, or great warrior. So it's completely the opposite of any of that. And as you slowly realize the most powerful person in the world, and this is a bit of a spoiler, I'm sorry, but I don't think it'll make any difference watching it. The most powerful person in the world is a gamer, the person who plays games. And in this case, it's three and nine, and he chooses the games that he's played and loved and scenes from them to illustrate the points that he's trying to make. Now, he had to have developed an incredible knowledge of games and their content in order to edit it like this, because there must be two dozen different games in it, and there are all kinds of games, from half life to fantasy, Asian fantasy games to Warcraft, just a wonderful collection of things that broom that gives you an insight into what it is to be a person who loves to play video games and using machinima to tell that story, I think is just a brilliant idea. I love this film very much, and I really wanted to share it with you guys, so I'm eager to hear what your comments are. Do

Tracy Harwood 07:14
you want to go next? Damien, yeah,

Damien Valentine 07:17
okay. I love this film too. I The message of it being the gamer, being the most powerful person in the world. It's not something I thought about till I watched this and I thought, notice, actually correct whatever game you're playing, you and whatever powers you have in that world, or whatever the game is, you're still the most powerful person in that world. Because, for one thing, you have the option to turn it off, which then shuts down the world. But when you start it up, you're basically creating that world. You're giving it life, so it becomes alive. And whatever the game is, it doesn't matter if it's half life, or the Sims Warcraft, or pretty much anything. And so you have that the full power over that world, even if there are things in that world you can't personally control, because it's a game Exactly, yeah. And I know it just got me thinking about that, and I started reflecting on all the games that I've played and not realized that, you know, I'm basically the God of that world. So I'm not trying to sound egotistical that when I say that, but it's just the way it is, and I think this film really captures that. And, you know, the text message that narrates it, that works, though it's better than if it was spoken. I think it's essential to have text for the narration to explain the philosophy behind it, because any voice would immediately drag you out of it. But when you're reading it, you're also looking at the worlds being shown in the various games that he's chosen for this video,

Ricky Grove 08:53
and it's more of a passive form of narration, as opposed to a person narrating him. Yeah.

Damien Valentine 09:00
Yeah. So I think that's the correct choice for this. And yeah, I just loved it. I think maybe my favorite pick of the month. So that's a good choice. Ricky, no, that's great.

Ricky Grove 09:11
I knew your would Yeah.

Tracy Harwood 09:12
I must admit I when I saw it, I it just plays. It's a shame Phil's not here to pick up on this one as well, because he would have loved this too. I think I've got some insights into this a little bit, which I'll share with you. I do know I'm really not 100% sure how to pronounce his name either. It's tyen. He in the description of this, he describes this as a love letter to video games. He talks about it as being a celebration, a defense and a trip down memory lane. Now, at the time this was released, which was in 2007 this generated a lot of attention. I don't know if you remember that attention at the time, but it was not least because there was considerable backlash against video. Games in the mid 2000s in Australia, which is where he is based, and also elsewhere, and this, therefore, was actually an inspired defense of games and gamer culture in general, and for information, the backlash against the video games and gamers stem from concerns about violent content, violence, yeah, yeah, there was perceived negative social impact. And the rise of online gaming culture was another aspect of it, and that led to accusations of addiction, escapism and even violent tendencies. And games like Grand Theft Auto and super Columbine Massacre, which was a role playing game, by

Ricky Grove 10:42
the way, this was the same argument they made when paperbacks came out in 1939

Tracy Harwood 10:49
Exactly. All of this anyway sparked controversy due to their kind of graphic violence. You know that of what, in terms of what they were depicting anyway, and how they were depicting these kind of real world challenge tragedies. There was also something called the hot coffee mod in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, which led to it being re rated and was recalled. And that was about that that resulted in concerns over mature content and reaching younger audiences. And then the 2005 game Super Columbine Massacre at RPG, which basically allowed players to carry out events of that 1999 Columbine High School shooting. I mean that that game was both praised for its bold statement on free speech, but it was obviously also massively criticized for being distasteful, and it's into that context that this this film was created clearly, you know, some were arguing that video games promoted violence, desensitization, all the Rest of it, it was fueling concerns about cyber bullying, online harassment, the formation of all these negative online communities. And there was lots of concerns at the time about how much time people were spent spending playing these video games, some arguing, for example, that it led to social isolation and neglect of other important kind of activities, I suppose, really, then the emergence of online gaming platforms and communities created new spaces for interaction, but also these concerns were about things like anonymity and potential for toxicity within these kind of spaces, and that's the the kind of the counter narrative that Tyron is trying to convey in the sentiment expressed in in this particular film. Now he was, at the time, interviewed by various magazines, and basically his message was really very simple. He said games are just not that bad. And in fact, this was one of a couple of films he released with that same basic message. The other one was called same as it ever was, and it was another one that attracted attention for very similar reasons. However, I will say that he was probably better known for a slightly earlier film, which was called an unfair war, which was released the year before this particular pick in 2006 and I actually interviewed him about machinima in general, and also an unfair war as Ben and I were writing up the chapter in the pioneers book about the French democracy film in 2020 as we were writing it. He'd been very active in the Machinima community from the early 2000s he was another Sims creator. I'm sure Phil would have known Him, and His work really was very loosely inspired by Alex Chan's work from 2005 onwards, not so much because of the content, but in but because of the style of machine room and the ability to sort of convey different types of messages using games other than typical humor and comedy that most were creating at the time. He I remember him citing, you know, most, most were things like red versus blue that everybody was kind of engaging with. So his unfair war was was, was something a little different that kind of took from what Alex was doing with French democracy. But in fact, it was inspired by his life story. He and his family had come to Australia as boat people his father, having lived through the Vietnam War. So it was basically a retelling of his perspective, not based on any specific war, but a story of the impact and unfairness of wars on people in general and unfortunately one. He then experienced was quite a lot of personal backlash for the film, which some had perceived to be anti American, although I don't think that was ever his intention, but I think his experience was really part of that whole kind of anti gamer debate going on at the time. Anyway, when I interviewed him, he was also keen to highlight how important he felt Machinima is as a means to draw attention to games as a medium. He explained he was a big gamer, describing it as an entertainment medium that's on a par with books and music and anything that can reflect the wider community interest. He said games are not just for grown men in the basement, but are worthwhile for from entertainment and artistic points of view, which is really what comes through, I think, in your pick today, Ricky, it's all about the impacts of games on people's lives, whether they be old or new. It's about escapism. Sure, it's about immersion in some new experience. It's about entertainment. It's about camaraderie and fun. And if you fail for whatever reason in your virtual quest, you know you can always go back and have a another go at it, unlike in real life. And that's, I think, the heart of the message in this. And as to machinima, he told me you needed you needed projects like this that are basically kind of crafted projects to take some of the flack, because it shows he says these things are worthwhile having in the world. And I think that was a general comment that he was making about machinima, but I think it was also about gamer culture in general, because for him, machinima as a tool had grown to such a level that, of course, movie studios, he said, were going to make use of it games. He said, look as good as movies, films borrow inspiration from video games and the tools are there to work with making filmmaking easier and better, and also changing the way digital effects are done. He also said that games nowadays are so breathtaking in their quality that he felt viewers were no longer willing to go along with the clunkiness of amateur created content anymore. So it's not surprising that you know through all of this, that we discover he didn't stick with machinima. He worked as part of a collective real life filmmaking company for a while called collective noun film works from the mid 2000s to the early 2010s which won various awards for the for their work. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything they'd done recently, although a few of the members have gone on to be professional filmmakers and in games developers or independently of each other, at the time, I talked to Ty, and I did, I did find out that he'd become a graphic and normal novel writer moving in entirely away from visual formats. I remember him saying to me the last machinima he'd done, I think was something like 15 years ago, so that would be like 20 years ago. Now, when I was talking to him, I actually found his book page on Amazon, and he's now written quite a few novels. So I'll put a link to that show notes as well, because he's kind of novels. Are they graphic novels? Basically, almost anime, I'd say in style, almost. So

Ricky Grove 18:27
he really hasn't left the visual storytelling world. No, he's just gone to a different media, gone to

Tracy Harwood 18:33
a different medium. But I think he's, he's gone more to storytelling, rather than the visual side of it. In practice, I think I see anyway, in terms of this particular film, I didn't actually think it had aged all that well in terms of video quality, probably fairly easily dressed addressed, I would have thought. But frankly, that's not really the point. And I don't think it matters at all much because there's really a very uplifting and nostalgic overtone to this. It is entirely positioned as reminiscing for games, including arcade games, although it mentions games could be any game of yesteryear and any future game too. All have been, are now and will be in future, those much loved spaces which restore some happy memories for you as a player, I really like the editing style in it. It's described as being inspired by a film that takes, actually quite a unique first person perspective of a slice of life that Zidane film. It's the story of him playing a game just from his perspective, and I can see how he's applied that it's kind of an interesting perspective to this particular context, although it's not actually reflecting on a single life event, but on the unique feelings evoked each time a game is played as. Single point of inflection. So, yeah, I think, you know, I feel lucky because I've had the chance to have a chat with him about his work, although not specifically about this work, one that's kind of slightly predates it. So I get a little bit about what he was about, and can potentially put a little bit of context on why he felt this game, this particular film, was so important. And I think it's a really, really good choice, Ricky, I think it's, it's an excellent example of machinima, and it's, you know, the significance of a particular message at a point in time. And I think it needs telling, you know, talking about in the context of the point in time. And I think whilst the archive is great at preserving the films, what it doesn't do so well is preserve the point in time, which made it such an important contribution into the archive itself. So I really enjoyed going back over my notes, and I hope that's given a bit more of a context and background to it. Oh

Ricky Grove 21:01
gosh, it was marvelous. I didn't know any of that. I'm so glad. I had no idea you did a interview with him. He sounds like a very wise person. He

Tracy Harwood 21:10
was a very interesting person to talk

Ricky Grove 21:14
to. It's funny how the pattern oftentimes is people who use machinima, used machinima in creative ways, those original and thoughtful filmmakers in the 2000s to mid 2000s and then that was sort of a stepping stone for them to move into more professional activities. And I understand that. You know, you got to make a living. He's still doing the things that he wants to do, so why should he go back to an earlier form that's not going to make him any money? So that's cool, but I think the message you can get from everything that you've said in all of our comments is that filmmakers who are watching this, who want to make machinima films, should consider that personal essay film as a very interesting way to share your ideas about people, about the world, about current events. I mean, his response, rather than writing a big op ed or above screed online, was to make a short film using tools and games that are cheap to be able to say something that's profound in many ways. So I urge filmmakers to consider the personal essay on the games that they'd like to play or on anything else that they want to talk about. It's a great form, and you don't have to you won't be part of the herd. You'll be out there doing your own thing, and you might draw more more people into watch your your video.

Damien Valentine 22:50
I'm wondering if some of these ideas he's put into this video and his other work made it into his novels he's writing now, his graphic novel, maybe interesting to see if he's taken those ideas and then expanding them now into what he's working on at the moment. I would think

Ricky Grove 23:04
he being a thoughtful person. I think he probably did. I'm definitely gonna have to check out some of those graphic novels.

Damien Valentine 23:10
Yeah, I think I will too.

Tracy Harwood 23:12
Yeah, I'll share that. I'll put the link on so you can see where, you know where it is. It was about eight or nine novels that I found it's not good. Quite a body. Thank

Ricky Grove 23:21
you. Tracy. So I urge everybody listening to this podcast or watching the podcast to check out the most powerful person in the world by Thuya nine. Again. Excuse me if I'm mispronouncing it, because it is really especially if you love games, you'll you'll really get a warm feeling at the end of this film, and it's very smartly and intelligently made. Thank you guys for your comments.

Damien Valentine 23:48
Well, I think that wraps up for this episode. So again, thank you to my co host, Ricky Grove and Tracy Harwood. You're

Ricky Grove 23:53
welcome, happy to be here. If

Damien Valentine 23:56
you've got any feedback about this film or the show or us, please send us an email at talk at completely machinima.com and you can check out our website at completely machinima.com and we'll be back next week with another review, so see you then, bye, bye, bye.