Phil Rice 1:00
and welcome to And now for something completely machinima podcast about machinima, virtual production and related technologies. My name is Phil rice, and I'm here with my co hosts, Damian Valentine, hello and Tracy Harwood, hello. Ricky is not here. He got stuck at a self checkout arguing with the machine, but he'll be back with us in a future episode. This week, we are talking about Tracy's pick, which is a Red Dead Redemption two film called Arthur. Tracy tell us about

Tracy Harwood 1:35
it. Absolutely. Yeah. Arthur by Charles Louis, which was, it's a couple of years old now. It was released in October 2021 Okay, so this film took the Creator six months to make, clearly, on the back end of the pandemic, clearly having spent quite a lot of time in the game, basically using all the in game cinematics and a camera mod by, I want to say Jo Trius, which I'll put a link to on the show notes. It's on Nexus mods, which is basically a camera mod. Okay, so how can I sum this, this film up basically, I think it's a Red Dead Redemption to example of post traumatic stress disorder, I suppose, is that, would that be the perfect way to describe it? If RT, if RDR, two could do post traumatic stress disorder. This would be it. Okay. Super interestingly, it's been endorsed by Roger Clark, who plays Arthur Morgan in the game. And as I understand it, Arthur's character has kind of a moral code. I mean, you guys have played this, I haven't. He's got a, basically a moral code that abides. He abides by which is along the lines of killing unnecessarily, is a strictly no go area. And it's that aspect of the character and his many regrets for a life ungainfully lived in the game that I think is very evident in this it's a story told in three parts, or I want to say three acts, the first being his criminal or bad deeds. The second is his recognition of regrets, and the third is his search for redemption and ultimately his demise, and to accompany those acts and the and the way they are delineated is actually through his selection, or the creative selection of musical choices. So for the first part, he's used John the Revelator by Curtis steigers and the forest rangers, which is a song all about the book of Revelation and the opening of the seven seals, resulting in this kind of series of apocalyptic events, very much in the tradition of American spirituals, I believe. And it really aligns very well with the all hell let loose scenes that you see being played out in the cinematics in the game that this creator has selected to illustrate that in the second part, the choice of song is wonderful life by Smith and burrows, which is obviously a sentimental song, but again, sits really well with the portrayal of Arthur's regrets. It's It's a song about loneliness and longing for companionship, the importance of friends and so on. And the shots you see are the folks he's left standing or those he's picked up from a. Fall of one sort or another. And then, for the third act, the creator uses the Dead Island trailer theme by Giles lamb, which was originally made for the Dead Island game, of course, which was about a family who is attacked by zombies. Now the song is basically a reflection of what matters when it comes down to it, and is about the celebration of belonging and connections and home and so on. And it's again, a really excellent fit for the end portrayed in this short I will just make a few comments about Arthur's characterization by Roger Clark, because I was perhaps a little surprised by what his inspiration was for the character. Have you got any ideas before I go into this? I

Unknown Speaker 5:49
don't think so. No, no.

Tracy Harwood 5:51
Have you heard of Toshiro Mifune? He's a Japanese actor, okay, he's often plays this imperfect samurai and a kind of, you know, is basically a failure. But at the same time, he's also quite sexy with the way he goes about, you know, portraying whatever it is he's trying portraying. And he's, he's a, he's an actor that has this sort of a whole series of characters in a similar kind of vein. They were not typical hero characters. They were grumpy and accident prone, even lazy, but also deadly in in in the delivery of, you know, fighting actions, so to speak, and and it's that the the character is those. Those are the specific characteristics that Clark wanted to portray in Arthur. And I think what's really evident in this particular short is how he achieved that kind of delivery. It's easy to see, therefore, why I think the actor appreciated the short. I think it's also an interesting character vignette from the game, which is something that can only really be achieved with with machinima in the way that this has been done. So I think I would say, overall, my analysis of it is it's a little bit long in places, feels a bit repetitive and long, but I think that's because the Creator wanted to let the music drive the story. They were obviously pre recorded songs that he selected. And he's clearly selected the shots to match the music, which I think is clearer in some parts than in others. And I suppose I could say yes, he could have made it shorter. Would that change the overall feel of the outcome? No, I don't think it would have. Probably would have made that much difference. So, you know, does it really matter? I'm not sure it actually does. I think it works quite well as it is, or at least that's my evaluation of it. What do you think?

Damien Valentine 7:55
I think you're right. It's a bit long, but it wasn't in a, I really wish was over kind of way it just felt like there's a lot to this. But when you're making a music video and you've chosen a song or two, you're kind of stuck with that, because if you start editing the song, unless you know exactly what you're doing, it's going to sound like you've chopped up that bit, because suddenly the music will change. You have to find the exact right bits of cut and the exact next bit to match it up to, and that's really hard. So, yeah, you can't really cut songs down. But, you know, I think this footage is sort of a mix. I believe it's cut scenes. I haven't actually played the game, but it's a mix of cut scenes and actual gameplay footage. Yeah, is that right? Phil,

Phil Rice 8:43
yes, overwhelmingly cut scenes. Okay, they're all They're all rendered within the course of gameplay, yes, but the vast, vast, vast majority are pre scripted cinematics. I

Damien Valentine 8:56
was gonna think that because I remember what you and Ricky have said in the past about just how hard it is to make something with this game. And I think I did do that. Oh, it's the cutscenes. That's fine. He's used the cutscenes really well, and he has mixed in some actual gameplay footage. I imagine he must have captured that himself. Like I said, I said, I haven't played the game, so I only know bits and pieces about the character of Arthur from listening to other people who have played it. But it feels like this video captures, you know, the important themes of his life. I'm not gonna say important moments of his life, but a lot about his life and the way he lived it, the things have happened to him, the things he's having to deal with, like the aftermath of these things. And it also captures the tone of the game as well. It's very much a celebration of the character, the main character that you play, Arthur. It's extremely well done, even though it's long. It. It doesn't matter so much. It works. It's edited so well, and the scenes that were chosen do match the song perfectly. And you know, you get the real sense of who this character is. It's hard to without actually playing the game. It's hard for me to say too much else about it, because I'm not that familiar. But from the technical side of things, I was really impressed by this. So I had a look at this channel. He's done a cyberpunk video, which I believe we've talked about in the past, so I have played that game, and that's just as well made as this one. So maybe appreciate this one more, because he's put the same amount of effort into the cyberpunk video, which I am familiar with. That game, I could tell he's done the same thing for this one. And you know, it shows,

Phil Rice 10:46
yeah, he's a spectacular editor, that that's the above all else. The skill that shines here is in every in the broadest understanding of the word an edit. I'm talking about, the decisions, and then the execution of those decisions in the editing process. It's an immense challenge. Uh, similar to what we were discussing, I don't remember if it was on air or off air. We were talking about some of the challenges of making a movie out of a game like Elden ring. There were numerous things we talked about, but one of them was the expanse of that gameplay is so large, that story is so long, that the thought of compressing it down to a feature film length, that's a big challenge, very similar kind of challenge here in, you know, even, even with the length This was, you know the gameplay? I think the fastest you can legitimately complete this game, if you're not trying to do a speed run, is, and this is at a bare minimum, 12 hours. Oh, and, and it might even be like, I think the typical person's gameplay is, is closer to 20 for to live out the full story of Arthur, and it is not the, I don't mean 20 hours of just riding around the planes. There's a lot of scenes, a lot of interactions, a lot of conversations, a lot of cut scenes that aren't really cut scenes. They're like built right in, right?

Damien Valentine 12:14
You got to factor in you dying and having to replay sections as well. Yeah, yeah.

Phil Rice 12:18
This is assuming you don't ever die, which, if you know, frankly, if you don't die the first time on the snowy mountain side when the wolves come, then you're a better man than I, you know. So, yeah, it The point is, it's a quite a long story, you know, it would be like trying to, hey, let's make, I can't even think of an example I was gonna, I was gonna use Star Wars as an example and say but, but I can't think of a character that lived maybe Yoda, yeah, nine lived through the first six episodes of Star Wars. And so I summarize Yoda, but, but Yoda wasn't the main character.

Damien Valentine 12:55
You know, this is 900 years in a five minute video,

Phil Rice 12:58
right? It's that type of challenge. So editing wise, it's just, it's spectacular work. And the key is, is that it this was not just sometimes people, when they hear editing, they think, Oh, you just trim it down and see what fits together, whatever. No, this was editing with a narrative in mind. Now the narrative lines up with the narrative of the game like there's nothing that deviates from that at all. So he had a guide book, so to speak. But this is, this is efficiently compressed, and, yeah, it's hard to imagine. Okay, so let me divert just a bit here. Musically. All three of the songs were excellent choices, lyrically, but there's a the stylistically, the songs are different enough from each other that for me, and maybe this is just me, because I'm a music person, right? But it kind of felt a little disjointed. You know that for me, I would have loved a 15 minute video that was all in the style of that first song, which you're right about, the origins of Tracy. It's it's American blues, the origin the original blues. If I don't know if either of you have got the chance to see the movie sinners, not yet, which is, yeah, you want to see it, and that that movie is just steeped in music from that era, like, I mean, original blues. And it's just, it's just wonderful. There's a point in the movie, which I won't spoil, but there's a point in the movie where it goes kind of on this wild ride musically that I'll be interested to hear. What either of you think of it when you see it, because it's, it's, it's, I've never seen it done. I. Quite that way in a movie before, but generally speaking, there's a consistent thread throughout even though it's different artists who recorded these songs at different time periods, and some of them were probably recorded specifically for the movie, but there's a cohesion between all of them to where, when you hear that sound, or if someone were to describe, what's the sound of the sinners soundtrack, it's the sound that we hear in this first song, right? And then the other two, just tonally and texture wise, are just so different that I think it, I don't know. I'm trying to think of like, like, how would I've handled that if I had determined those are the three songs I need? But they don't fit together. It's almost like it might have been served by a some kind of a chapter marker in those breaks, like between the acts, to where there's a time to just pause and then, okay, now we're starting to tell this part of the story, whereas he kind of told it where just one just kind of flowed into the other, pretty much, that's right, yeah. And so as a result, those borders between these different types of music, for me, it was a little bit abrasive there, but lyrically, no question about it, it they lined up with with the story that was being told. There's been a lot of talk out there in game press over the years about just how rich a character, Arthur is, and this is, this is a nice sampler of that. But, yeah, he is a conflicted man. He he's done terrible things and made, you know, really questionable decisions, and yet his story continually puts him in these positions where other people are dependent on him, or that that can lean on him. And it's even beyond just the fact that he has a code, which is, you know, I mean, Mafia guys have a code, you know, so that that itself isn't what elevates him, but it's the fact that you can play the game a different way and play him as a very dark, unhelpful, you know, you know, miscreant. But the way most people play the game and the way that it kind of, I think, wants you to play in is that he's this guy willing to do very bad things, but somewhere in there is a heart of gold. That's such a cliche, but that's what I mean, you know. And so, as someone who has a conscience, as he reaches the end of his life, and as he starts to face his own mortality, and it and his mortality is coming sooner than he wants, starts to question, Was it worth it some of those bad things I had to do, and he doesn't really have a firm answer on that. It was wonderful, you know, you don't normally see that kind of depth. That kind of depth of character is really hard to capture in a feature film. Yeah, like, even if all your time is spent with that character, that's a big story to tell, that's a life that's a life story. So again, big respect for the person as an editor to even take that on as a task. There's so much, so much to choose from in footage for this.

Damien Valentine 18:32
The other thing is, you have to be very familiar with all the choices you can have. So he must have played this game through several times many times, plus an extra time to actually go back and capture the footage that he actually wanted, right,

Phil Rice 18:46
right? Yeah, there's an immense amount of work to because, because he's not showing everything in sequence, like, not even close to that, yeah, yeah, it's, it's jumping around as it needs to. That is, it's, it's, it's it's an amazing achievement. So, yeah, you know the the pure machinima guy in me, it's just like, well, you just captured cut seats. But come on, folks, he did more than that, way more than that. It's, it's, it's a different type of task than, you know, manipulating player characters and trying to tell your own story or whatever. No disrespect to that at all, that's, that's what Machinima is at its core, right? This is a different type of work, but it's, it's not, it's not any less effort to try and basically sculpt this out of someone else's extremely long and expansive story. And there's no better character in video games that he could have chosen to do this for, in my opinion, like, I mean, Arthur is one of the one of the greatest, most well developed video game characters of all time. And that's even, that's even comparing. Him to characters who were developed over, you know, like Solid Snake or someone like that. It was developed over a series of whole bunch of games. But no, this is yeah, so it was a, it was a great choice for him, for the filmmaker to I can see why this cat character captured his attention, because it's, it's, there's moments in this game where if you have any human sensitivity at all, it'll just about bring you to tears. It's a really compelling, heartbreaking story, no matter how you play the game. It is a heartbreaking story and rooted in relatable human emotion, you know, and the fact that that was achieved with a video game is, is, you know, the same, the same genre that brought us Laura Croft, which Laura Croft is fun to play, but you don't get that depth out of the Tomb Raider games, right? They really couldn't. Maybe some of the later ones, they try to do that, yeah, but this was Arthur always, this was Arthur all along. It's, it's just, yeah, so that's, that's, that's my take on it. It's kind of a mixed bag, a little bit, I guess. But I really, really respect the work. I can't even imagine the amount of work that was involved in, just in the decision making part of things, and there, because there's, again, there's so much to choose from. So

Damien Valentine 21:27
I got the same impression from the cyberpunk video he did really higher punk doesn't really have cut scenes like this. There are moments where they're all integrated, aren't they? Yeah, you're still getting the character's perspective. It's just a moment of, you don't, you lose control of your character, and you watch what's happening. But most of the footage in this side Park video is actual gameplay, because that that's, that's the way the game plays out. But it still requires a huge amount of work to because I see another equally huge game. There's a lot to see and do. So,

Phil Rice 22:00
yeah, what's, what do you what do you reckon a full playthrough of Cyberpunk is, if you, you know, if you're not rushing, if you're not speed running, it's many hours. Yeah, I think I spent got to be at least 12. Okay, yeah, that's, I have not played through that one, but the 30 wouldn't surprise me. And then, and then on top of that, if you do the expansion? Yeah,

Damien Valentine 22:22
I've got to that. Yeah, I need to play the expansion. There's so I played the original game on the PS four. The expansion wasn't released for that, so I had to create a new character and progress through the game to the point where the expansion opens up to you. I've just got to that bit, but I haven't had that time to play it properly.

Tracy Harwood 22:41
Well, great comments. Thank you very much.

Phil Rice 22:43
Yeah, thanks for the pick.

Damien Valentine 22:45
I can see why he's only done two video because he's got this much of work into each one. I can see why he hasn't got third one out just yet. Yeah, he's

Tracy Harwood 22:54
probably working on it now. I hope so. I'd like to see

Unknown Speaker 22:57
more from him.

Phil Rice 23:00
All right. Well, that is, that's, that's the pick for this week. Really good pick. Tracy, thank you. I don't know why this one. I search for Red Dead Redemption stuff a lot, and I don't know why this the algorithm didn't deliver this one up to me, but I'm glad that you did, because it's one that I wouldn't have wanted to miss. It's quite good. So yeah, that's our that's our discussion for this week. If you have any questions or comments for us, drop us an email at talk, at completely machima.com or leave us a comment wherever you see this video or hear this podcast. So on behalf of my co host, Tracy Harwood and Damian Valentine, have a great day. Bye, bye, bye.