Phil Rice 00:35
You. Hello and welcome to And now for something completely machinima podcast about machinima, virtual production and related technologies, I'm here with my co hosts, Ricky Grove and Damian Valentine and I am Phil Rice, welcome. Hey folks, good to see you. Tracy is away for this episode. We miss her dearly, and we're looking forward to her return. And this this film that is Ricky's pick, which we're going to be discussing in this episode, is one that I think she would have particular insight on. We're going to try and figure out a way to get her to weigh in on it, because it's about a time period that she knows probably better than all three of us, which is from the the early days of, let's say, one of the early peaks of machinima in its earliest and maybe in some ways, most innovative days. Yeah, yeah. This is a documentary called artery machinima. Now, before I hand this over to Ricky, I'll just say that the for years, the only thing that I knew about this documentary because it was, it had just aired on TV and it wasn't, it wasn't immediately available for everyone to see. And the thing that I heard about it on like the machinima.com forums and etc, was the outrage that Hugh had made a statement in it that they're the best in the world that he is. He and his team are the best in the world at machinima. It was like, That's you. That's you. It was like, whoa. And yeah, this, this is the film that has that in it, and it's, you know, as we all got to know, Hugh to varying degrees over the years. And you know, his, his bravado, is something you cannot deny. You can't say it wasn't there. It was. It was the way that he spoke, but also it was part of his charm, you know, and his energy and enthusiasm for machinima. Did it spill over into egotistical language at times? Absolutely yes, of course, but there's no denying that what it came from was a real love for an enthusiasm for this art form. And Ricky take it away here. This is the artery machinima documentary. You

Ricky Grove 03:09
could do the introduction just as well as I can. The Art artery was created by Stuart Brown in 2003 it's a two parter which focuses essentially on Strange Company and Hugh Hancock. Now, Hugh Hancock was the guy in 2000 who who set up the Machinima, the very first version of machinima.com and organized created this group of people, mostly local and Edinburgh, Scotland, but some communicating through the internet and through IRC chat to network conversations. You'll see that that's one of the things that the documentary covers. This was the first major documentary on machinima. And it's understandable why this documentary was created, because let me give you a little bit of context about when this documentary was created. It's 2003 Hugh created the Machinima website in 2000 in 2000 Roger Ebert reviewed Ozymandias, which strange company created his identification and and praise of the thing created us groundswell of interest in it. And since there were, quake was available and others you could they, they explained this in the documentary. It's essentially a documentary where it tells you, it shows you the company explains what Machinima is. It's the ability to make movies inside of game engines, and then talks about a little bit about that technology, and then follows Hugh through his efforts to promote. Out and to get contracts through different companies that he goes to for a strange company. So it's a little it's focused on them, but it also talks about other group. Frank delario, I think, was one of the guys that is in it, with his group. What was it? The ill clan. Ill clan, yes, who did some absolutely fantastic Buster keatonish kinds of Stand Up Comedy at the time. But anyway, the point I wanted to make was that this period of time was at a peak of interest. Just after this, they the amas, the Society for machinima, which was a nonprofit organization to promote and also to connect with game companies like Unreal, because Unreal Engine was coming out and they had a specific program built in it called matinee, that would allow you to be able to move your camera and create things like that. There was a MTV show called in the waiting line that was part of their music videos, Rooster Teeth. Not too long after this started, their red versus blue in 2004 so as you could see, this was the groundswell of interest in this. And it's interesting. A couple quotes from it, and they they cover all of this that follow all of this, and a pretty well done documentary with a perfect sort of electronica music all the way through it, a good narrative, despite the Scottish bur you can understand everything that's done in it. Great, great coverage of the different personalities in it. It's just a solid documentary all around the copy that's in the archive.org is not a particularly high quality copy. The copy on YouTube on Stuart Brown's channel is a better quality version. So we'll put both links in our show notes. But I would recommend the, I would recommend the YouTube version, and strangely, there are no comments on that video. So go there and make a comment. Will you like it and support him? He only has 12 subscribers, and Stuart Brown was a terrific and interesting artist and machinima, but some of the quotes I'd like to mention to you or interesting, it said, and this isn't you talking because Hugh had quite a bit of hubris, and as you mentioned, bravado, and he has some other quotes that I'll relate to you. This was the narrator who said this. This may prove to be the future of filmmaking, which I thought was quite a there's a little bit of hubris in that as well. Definitely, there is.

Damien Valentine 03:43
But there was another truth in there, because when I was watching I was thinking, well, the Mandalorian is in those virtual sets with Unreal

Ricky Grove 08:05
Well, I've got some quotes coming for that as well. Yeah. One of the other quotes is, is that in the future, we'll be melding live action with 3d filmmaking. Oh, there we go. This is in this is in 2003 okay. Another way that they were trying to sell this technology was not necessarily as people making, you know, amateurs and game based fans making their own movies, but as a way to drastically cut the cost of major Hollywood productions. So essentially, they were trying to sell it as previs Yes, meaning, meaning that the director of a major film could do a machinima version of a scene, or maybe the whole thing, and then see what inherent difficulties could come up. What rather than wasting time on the actual set, they could they could anticipate difficulties and cut the cost of time. The other thing that's interesting about this, I had to stop and check my notes on it, was that during the course of the documentary, which features the actual production techniques that Phil was using, using in strange company, and interestingly, he was using fairly traditional standards for creating a film, and he openly said, I've always wanted to create a multi million dollar extravaganza, but I can never afford it, but now I can afford it. That was one of the big things that he promoted in the website, and which everybody glommed onto, and which was part of the appeal of machinima at the time. So he takes you through pre production. He takes you through sound, which I thought was fascinating, all sort of DIY, kinds of things you show the actors recording. He also has a session in which he does remote directing with another actor. Now, again, this is 2003 we take this kind of thing for granted today, but in 2003 it was just absolutely revolutionary, and then they get into the actual production. Now, two modes of production exist today. One is a single filmmaker with maybe some helpers. You're a good exemplar of this Phil where you go in and you set up all your shots. You you code the act, the actors inside of it to do certain things. Or you, you you can predict based on the game mechanics. And then you adjust your cinematics. And you do that. The other way is coaching live actors. So you have people networked around you and other computers, and they you say that one person is the camera. They operate as the however, the camera is going to move, and that's recorded using game technology. And then the other person is the director, watching it all, and they he directs verbally, although I always imagine Phil would be the guy with jot person the megaphone, the other actors to do certain actions, and they would record them, and they show that in it. But one of the big problems that I completely forgot about in watching this documentary was the problem of getting all of these people networked together at the same time, there were big technical problems of trying to get people in. People were getting kicked out. They were talking about updates. One group of people had the update to this network software. Other group of people didn't have it. So they spent a ton of time trying to solve that technical problem in it. Now, again, this is the peak of machinima. Later, those networking problems were solved. And you also have to remember that the network speed was fairly low compared to today, so they had to fight with things, people being kicked out of the network and solving all of that. But they do prevail, and they get through it. It reminded me of the days of DIY filmmakers going, Oh my God, we've got this problem. The sun's over here. This other shot, we did it when the sun was there. How are we going to solve this? And everybody hanging their heads going, what are we going to do? It's the same kind of filmmaking problems that all filmmakers have. It's just, it's, it's in technology is opposed to real, real life cinematic issues, you know, but overall, I think the documentary is very successful in conveying a sense of excitement you follow it. Hugh Hancock at one point, going to a huge festival, a television producers trying to sell an app, trying to sell a series that he's working on. What was it called something steel, anyway, but it was, it was fascinating. Remember, he didn't get any takers, but he, in his usual irrepressible fashion, he's going, you know, nobody bought it, but I have all sorts of contacts and people know about it. He was showing a demo version on the laptop to people. So basically what the documentary did was further already established momentum for machinima. Now interestingly, Stuart brown mentions that only a couple years later, Sue Hugh sold machinima.com in a controversial move to another group. He sold it for six figure, some and they took it to a whole new level by commercializing it and breaking it down into certain types of things and creating programs. They eventually sold it to two in 2019 for over $100 million so one of the nostalgic parts of watching this has made me think that perhaps Hugh was too too hopeful and sold the site too soon. But that's hindsight that's looking back from now. So at the time, it was probably a good decision on his part, certainly personally. And one wonders watching this documentary where Hugh got all the money to travel to Italy and to go here and there, this is a place where Tracy, I hope, will be able to give us some insight on the background of this. But anyway, those are my comments on it. I I usually don't pick this kind of film. So it was, as soon as I saw it, I said, Well, we got to share this with people. What did you guys take away from watching artery?

Damien Valentine 15:35
Um, well, first it was, it brought back a lot of memories of you being in part of the community, and so I was kind of sad thinking he's obviously no longer with us. It was very interesting to see him actually at work, making something because obviously I'm familiar with watching his work, but I never really gave much thought to how did he do it with his team? I knew, I knew he had a team, so it's really fascinating to see that. And I never, I only once tried to do a scene for a film with real people, other people controlling the characters, but they're all in different parts of the worlds. They weren't in a room like he was, where he can say, you need to go and stand there, and he can point at the screen, say, move there. I was trying to direct people go and stand this port, but they're 1000s of miles away, and there was no way to do it. I never did that again. The closest I came was when I had three computers set up. One was to record, which is something I noticed you did. He pointed at screen. That's the one we're recording on. I thought, yeah, that brings back memories. And then I had my laptop on my lap, and I had my I borrowed my mum's laptop, which I'd had on the other side, to control these characters. I was trying to do this chase scene where I was controlling the camera on with one hand, something with my mom's laptop on the other, and the computer, the laptop my lap, I had to bend down and use my nose and hope I was pressing the right button.

Ricky Grove 17:09
Oh, my God. Oh my god. No wonder you abandoned that. Yeah, I

Damien Valentine 17:16
kind of wish I'd filmed myself doing that, because it would have been fun, and it'd been fun to share that with you say, well, here's my approach,

Ricky Grove 17:23
I think in a way, Hugh Hughes personality, and we all met him and talked with him. And actually, Phil worked with him quite a bit, with doing sound and music. But I think he was the kind of person that a solo filmmaking effort wouldn't appeal to because he wanted to be in charge. He wanted to be a leader. He was the kind of person who just wanted to be a filmmaker, but the process of becoming a filmmaker was so difficult and so expensive, machinima immediately satisfied his needs to create movies, and he made some, him and his company made some really great stuff. We'll have some links to some of the things they did now they some of them might seem a bit aged today with technology, but in 2003 they were just revolutionary. But I think it appealed to him psychologically to be the director, to be a live director of all these actors. He just loved it,

Damien Valentine 18:28
yeah? Because in the video, you see him shouting action, cut and stuff like that, showing he never

Ricky Grove 18:34
shout. He never said action. He used the word go, oh yeah, no, no, but he did say clad, which I thought was fascinating. But

Damien Valentine 18:43
one of the other things I was thinking was he was shouting the instructions as he would as a director, and he lives in the flat, so there's other listen apartments, and there's obviously people, and he's going to have neighbors above, below and either side. I wonder what they were thinking when they especially I started talking about blowing things up as well. Yes,

Ricky Grove 19:04
yes, but,

Damien Valentine 19:06
yeah, this was really fascinating to watch this document. I never seen it before. So I'm glad you chose this, Ricky, because it gave me a lot of insight into a filmmaker I had a lot of respect for and considered a friend. There were many times working on Heir to the Empire, I thought, I wish he was still around, because I'd love to talk to him about this, get his advice on doing this, or show him what I've been doing. And I think he would have been interested too. So,

Ricky Grove 19:32
yeah, there was a there was a strand in in the film, in which, early in the film, he unabashedly, Hugh unabashedly says, and I want to be a multi millionaire. So the profit motive in it was a driving force for Hugh, and also explains why he ended up selling it a couple years after the. Document, 2005 I think it was 2006 when he sold it, because for a person who doesn't probably didn't have a lot of money. He was a student, and six figures is a lot. Yeah, that's a lot of money in 2003 so I can understand his motive, and he saw a way that the future, he could hook up with a game company or maybe even a television company, MTV, or somebody like that, and really make a lot of money. And I think he did. I think he did quite handily. I don't think he became that multi millionaire had he held on to it, it would have, might have been more successful for him in that regard. But that strand of thinking was also what doomed the Machinima community. Because the great deal of the Machinima community at the time was not profit driven. There were, there were, I would say, the majority of people were not profit driven. And that clash between those two types of people and two types of filmmakers is what inevitably led to the over commercialization of machinima and eventually the dissolution of the and change of the of the Machinima community in general, which to me, was more important than making all the money. But then again, that's my perspective on it. I remember

Damien Valentine 21:30
when those discussions are going on, think, Well, there's several levels of this. You can a lot of people just make something because it's fun. They're creative, and they've got this outlet to tell their story or to make something, and they just put out there to share. And, you know, that's a lot a lot of people were doing. Then there's the, but if you make something and you get a little bit back, that's nice, you know, you win a prize for a contest or something, yeah. And then the two other levels after that, where we want to make a living from this, that's probably not going to happen. And then there was the I want to be super rich for making this. That's definitely not going to happen. You know, I wonder, you know, her makes something, and I do win a prize and get something back, I'll share it with you know, the people that made it didn't, that didn't happen very often. But, you know, that's nice when you get that kind of recognition or reward for doing something I never expected to to, you know, that to be a full time job that I could pay my bills with, and I definitely didn't expect I would become a millionaire. But I do, I do remember a lot of people thinking that that's what it's going to lead to, and I don't think that many people got that fast. So

Ricky Grove 22:40
yeah, well, then again, you have successful companies like the Rooster Teeth, who did red versus blue. That's true. Suddenly were making so money hand over fist. And you thought, Well, shit, I'll it's just like the Hollywood syndrome. Somebody makes a product that it becomes extremely successful, and whole bunch of people go, Well, I want to make a product just like that, but a little different, and then I'll be able to ride the coattails of their success. Well, a lot of people tried to do that, but there was only one Rooster Teeth and only one red versus blue. And there's a certain amount of luck involved in that process, because most of the Machinima community was naive about that kind of thing. So there was a conflict and a change, and the people that really made the money were the producers behind machinima.com Those were the ones who people made the money.

Damien Valentine 23:34
They were the ones making the films. They were just exploiting them. They were

Ricky Grove 23:38
just exploiting them. Exactly, yeah,

Phil Rice 23:41
yeah. I think it's, it's, it might be helpful to to think about, you know, Hugh's expression in this documentary of seeing himself as, you know, I think I can be a multi millionaire and, you know, eventually pairing that with his earlier expression of the reason I can't make the films that I really want to make is because they cost millions of dollars. In private conversations with Hugh, it was always clear to me that the reason he wanted money was to make films. And so if it was money, whether you're talking about money that pays the rent and the bills so I don't have to work, so that I can spend that time making movies, or whether it's to finance some big project where he wants to have big names and big actors and you know, or you know better technology, or whatever. For him, it was in private, it was always clear that money was just a means to an end to make more films. That's the only thing he cared about at all, is telling his stories. I. His public persona was not very good at communicating that distinction. It just came off as this is, this could be a money making venture. And you're right, it, did it, it, it, I don't want to say he misled a lot of people, but that, but the way that he expressed that made it very easy to understand it as just a Yeah, yeah, we can get rich doing this for you. That was never really in my understanding of getting to know him more personally. That wasn't his objective at all. He only lusted after, let's say, making a lot of money from this so that he could make more, not more money, but more movies.

Ricky Grove 25:41
However, the selling of machinima.com Oh yeah, led the people who were annoyed with him more credence to that notion he was in it just That's absolutely

Phil Rice 25:52
right, yeah, he didn't. He didn't really prioritize communicating that what his actual mission was. He got very excited about, I mean, you know, the a lot of attention was on him, you know, and he he enjoyed that, and he did enjoy being a leader and a director, but also he really enjoyed the relationships with those people in strange company. There's a very interesting thing to observe, if you pay close attention. But you know he I want to, I want to call their first major film, este, este con escaton, darkening Twilight, which was in 1997 all the way up through their final film, Death Knight, love story, the same voice actors in every single film, the same people, the same group of people, even the one, some of which were not necessarily, you know, neighbors or friends, right there in Edinburgh, he was very loyal. He liked to work with those people, those specific people. He loved working with Johnny. He loved working with the other guys on that team and other gals on that team. So there was, there was a camaraderie sense there as well. But I think you're right. I think he also that the reason that group dynamic worked for you is that he was the decision maker. That's that's just to me, that's completely consistent with everything that was ever shown to us about his personality. One of the things that cracked me up in this was Frank delario. I've never been around Frank and him not made me laugh like he is just a naturally funny human being. I think he's always been that way, and he and Paul Marino together are like Abbott and Costello. I mean, it's just unbelievable. That's a guy, one of the leaders of the ill clan. That's right? Well, Frank delarios interviewed in this and there's one point where he says he keeps making cracks about Hugh's long black hair and his tight leather pants. And at one point he says, he says, I gotta be honest. Every time I see a woman with long dark hair and tight leather pants, I just, I get nauseous, because all I can think of is, Hugh, Stuart, put that in there, and Frank delivers it just very like, almost deadpan, like a little bit of a wink, you know, yes, yes. And what's funny is, when I met all of these guys for the first time in person at the 2006 I should have been Film Festival, and that's how Frank was. Frank in particular, was around Hugh. It was like a a foil, you know, to keep you humble. He would just, he would, he would rip you and and Hugh loved it like he took he was such a good sport. He knew exactly what Frank was doing, just, and he just loved it. Oh, it's just, it's a really funny dynamic with them. So the other part of this that was, I think the most emotional part of this, watching this was, was the few clips that they had there of Peter Rasmussen, who I was even, I was even closer to him than Hugh. And he also, of course, is no longer with us. It's remarkable to see him in those little interview clips and realize now, because we, none of us, really knew then, that he was functionally blind at the time of doing that, and no one knew like he kept it completely amongst just a very tight group of local friends that the situation he was in, he was really having a tough, tough go of it, but he's just such a he was such a warm, warm and open and sharing, caring person. So yeah, I really miss him, but it was nice to see him, and this is when he was I think it would. This was prior to when he released his magnum opus, the stolen life. Yeah, he was probably actively, actively working on it. One thing that's strange about this documentary is that it was released in 2003 right? So, but it showed them actively working on one of the eschaton films. And there's only two eschaton films. There's the one that was made in Quake one in the late 90s. And then there is, if Ben Grussi is listing, he'll correct us on the date on this. But there's eschaton nightfall, which I thought was released between 2002 1002 I mean, it was before this document is out. So I guess that the obvious explanation for that must be that the filming was done the year before it was released, a year before it was released, or so, yeah, because at by 2003 they were they were actually already in pre production for Bloodspell. They just weren't sure what they were, deciding what engine to use for it and things like that. And he was doing a lot of the traveling and and promoting and stuff. And they were and kind of working in a support capacity, I guess, to get AMAS that the official machinima organization going up and running. It wasn't, it hadn't been formed yet. As far as I remember, I think it was formed in 2003 2004 somewhere very close to this 2004 I think, yeah, but it didn't already exist at at the time this was released. So, yeah, just a fascinating documentary. Wonderful pick, Ricky, I'm really glad that you picked it. It's I have seen this before, but it has been many, many years since I had and it wasn't even on I don't even remember where I saw it. I think it was a local download someone gave to me or something. It wasn't even on YouTube at the time. It's been at least 10 years. So it's nice to see this. And yeah, the YouTube version is a little bit better quality, so, but yeah, just Yep. We'll put memories too.

Ricky Grove 32:07
Yeah, it was fascinating. We'll put links to the YouTube version and the archive.org in our show notes, and we'll try to get Tracy to weigh in to help clarify some of the dates that we probably got all mixed up, but we urge you to watch this documentary. It's at the one of the big peaks of machinima, the first big peak. It also shows Hugh and his company in a way that you you really capture that kind of fervor and excitement that was going on at the time, and that's right around the time while I came into machinima, and I was very excited about it as well. So take a listen, and we'll we hope you enjoy

Phil Rice 32:54
it absolutely. So on behalf of Ricky Damian and myself, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time bye, bye, bye.