Machinima, real-time filmmaking, virtual production and VR. Four veteran machinimators share news, new films & filmmakers, and discuss the past, present and future of machinima.
Phil Rice 00:44
Hello and welcome to and now for something completely machinima podcast about machinima, virtual production and related technologies. We are all wearing the same clothes as last episode, but that doesn't mean that we stayed overnight with each other, so just just pipe down a little bit. My name is Phil Rice. I'm here with my co hosts, Damian Valentine and Tracy Harwood and reluctantly generative AI Ricky. Ricky, how are you doing today? You
Phil Rice 01:14
Yeah, that's That's great. Yeah, that's great. That's great. This is going to be great. This is going to work really well. So this episode is my pick, and the film is titled, Lonely Episode Two: The Package Thief, and it is by someone who's been been at machinima for quite some time. Would I think, easily classify as a machinima veteran? Goes by the name The Biz. And this film, this short film, is made in iClone, and it is just a delightful little story, like it's, there's something about we've we've said so many times over the years on this show how important writing is writing, not just in terms of the actual lines of dialogue, that's important too, but but story as well. And this is such a great example of that, that that's, that's what caught my fancy about this film. It's what made me rewatch it, and it's, it's what made me laugh with with the writer of the film. It's just just wonderful wit, wonderfully executed, great voice acting. It's a it's a comedic little story that basically follows this. This kind of a lone ranger character, and there is a package thief in his in his building. And I won't spoil the the story, but it's, it's, you know, kind of trying to unravel what's going on with that and solve a little bit of a of a mystery, and just some some wonderfully quirky, memorable characters with dialogue that just really sticks with you. And we were just talking off air about that there's a there's a staleness that sometimes seems to be creeping into productions that come out of the usual channels. You know that the through the ones that make it past the cultural gatekeepers and come out in the public sphere, but there's a freshness to a lot of the Machinima that we end up encountering with this show. Oh, I can't think of a better example than this. It was just it was so entertaining. I'm it's one of the few films that I've watched in a long time where as soon as it was over, I immediately watched it again. I don't do that very often. I'll sometimes return to something later, but I wanted to watch it again immediately, just because I just really appreciated the craft and the the timing, the pacing. It's just, I don't know it's, it's, as a creator, I really get a kick out of seeing somebody, you know, hit, a hit, a base hit, you know, I'm saying, like for to use some, some baseball terminology, of just someone who just cracks the ball. I just love it. And that's what this is. This. Just everything connected and, oh, it's just just wonderful. So I'm curious what what you guys thought of it.
Damien Valentine 05:11
I really enjoyed it.
Tracy Harwood 05:12
Go on. You get you. Go ahead. I
Damien Valentine 05:14
want to get in before Ricky does. I Yeah. So, yeah, this is a film that I really enjoy as well, for very similar reasons to you, Phil, there's something about this this that it kind of reminds me of the movies, not in a bad way, because obviously, icon is a lot more advanced, but there's something about the way the sets were built and the way the characters moved. They're smoother, they look better, but it's just something about it, and it kind of comes from that, that fun attitude, that you could make something like this with it, and it's nice to see it made with icon, which obviously a much more sophisticated piece of software. And, you know, the story was great. It was very entertaining. You laugh, and it's just well crafted. It's very well written and well acted. And this is one of the things I like about machinima, is films like this, where it's just different and fun entertaining. So I think the bills did a really excellent job. I've seen his previous work back from the TMU and the TMO Radio Days, which obviously goes back to The Movies as well. Actually, yeah, that's right. There's some interesting twists in the story, which, again, I'm not going to spoil either, but it is worth watching, and worth watching fresh. And you know, it's inspiring to see something like this. So, yeah, I don't know who else to say, because I just There's nothing bad about this film. I enjoyed every moment of it, and it's actually episode two, so I need to go back and check episode one, because I did watch this twice, like you did as well. It's like, I don't normally watch the films back to again, so quickly I might refresh my mind close to the recording this one I watched twice in one sitting. After I watched all of the films together, I went back. I need to watch this one
Phil Rice 07:24
again. I'm thinking, like, it could be that part of that is that I didn't want, I didn't pause the film The first time through. And I'm, I'm confident that I laughed over some of the jokes, right? You know, which is just great. And it says something. It speaks to the the efficiency and the density that that the humour was packed into this. There's so many good little witty lines and and I knew that I needed to see it again, because I I knew that I had laughed over some stuff. So that's that's got to be part of it. Yeah,
Damien Valentine 07:58
yeah. So I'd like to finish with saying, can we have a third episode, please, this kind of style of film? So yeah, I'm done. Thank you. Good choice,
Tracy Harwood 08:09
Phil. I you know what? I agree with you, actually, that I think every now and again, a film just takes you a little bit by surprise. And this, for me, is one of those films. There are so many twists and turns in it. As I was watching it, I like you guys, I watched it a couple of times straight off that but, but that was because I it went, it went through so many twists that I couldn't keep up with it. It was just so deliciously packed with joke after joke after joke. It was brilliant. Then I was I was kind of sort of thinking about it, and I was thinking, I actually need to see the previous version of it, because there's stuff here that I couldn't follow, make or make so much sense of it as a standalone but I will come back to that in a minute, so and I am going to reveal a little bit of the thought process as I was going through it, in terms of the of the plot. So forgive me for doing this, because if I get this right, what we've got here is a film about the Lone Ranger living in apartment in Brooklyn, being mistaken for a bad guy who's a package thief by the neighbours, because all they see is the mask, not the rest of the lone ranger in his gear, and then one day, he happens to be collecting his mail when he comes face to face with this thief, whom he chases out onto the road when he accidentally gets killed.
Phil Rice 09:54
Brilliant, so far so good, yeah, and then
Tracy Harwood 09:57
feeling responsible for this man's death, our hero attends this crims funeral, where there are many other criminals also in masks, and where he somewhat haplessly, lucks out with this girlfriend. And then I don't know. In the end, it turns out that the thief who was killed apparently just stockpiled everything that he purloined from everybody. And then when the police go in, they're sort of figuring out who's who's got what, and it's like Christmas, because everybody's forgotten all the stuff that they'd ordered, including our hero, apparently, ordered a new mask that also turns up. So, yeah, it was kind of like, what the hell's all this? It's just detail after detail after and and just so rich in the way that it was. It was kind of presented now, it's evidently a play on the word lone, and the context that this Ranger finds himself in, he's obviously a guy in a big city where, of course, many folks feel alone and lonely, where the heroes are most needed, I suppose, and where unexpected things kind of happen a lot. And of course, it's crazy. So why wouldn't you use mariachi music to communicate a Mexican standoff between the Lone Ranger and his neighbours right at the beginning? Because it's, it's all crazy. And then, of course, there is the mask Ranger versus Well, I initially, when I was watching, I was thinking, well, Surely he's supposed to be Batman. It's Gotham, it's New York, isn't it? Or Brooklyn. But actually, it turns out it's not, I think Batman anyway, both heroes, both wearing masks. I think in the context in which this is portrayed, what you've got is the Ranger actually being a bit more relatable in a modern city than maybe the fantasy character might be with superpowers. I don't know. But then I was looking at that relationship, and I realised that, in fact, the connection isn't to Batman, but to maybe The Green Hornet, because it turns out that the Lone Ranger was meant to be a great nephew of his. So maybe what we have here is simply this kind of idea of a time warp and a new location, and thereby an extension to the Green Hornet story. I don't know, but our hero, he's not just a man in a mask. He's also a bit of a loser too, which I think was quite well. I think that was one of the funniest sort of subtext to it, really the fact that this guy's a total loser, I think in episode one, because, because I had to go and watch episode one in order to try and pull some of my thinking together on it, where it where it comes through even more is that he is a total loser. In Episode One, he lucks out with his horse Silver, who does a runner halfway through the you know, navigate around the city. He's got a job as a hacker, which he's rubbish at, and his friend Tonto is much better at him at getting all the girls. So, you know, it's kind of it's kind of apt that all of this is happening in episode two. I'd definitely encourage you to episode to watch episode one. My gut feeling is that episode three might go in a slightly different direction, because this mask is clearly the magic somehow, maybe, maybe it will give him more luck, the new mask, that is the one that he receives in the in the post, from the from the thief, I don't know. So, so all in all, and I think what you've got something really zany. It's, there's lots and lots of class classic film references and and, and characters in this who are really very zany and, and each have their own personality and, and you get a sense of how they're all being built up over over the series. You know, obviously the central character, but tonto, or whatever Silver's doing, and and the neighbours, and all of these other sort of folks that there are pulled through in in this particular film. And it, it kind of struck me a little bit like, maybe, what this maybe this is, um, a friends type approach that he's taking, or, in this guy's case, maybe friendless, I don't know. It's real fun. It's witty. The characters are amazingly well developed. I think even in this short, and it is quite short, you pick out such a lot of depth in each of them from the clips that that he shows you. And. are only really tiny clips. I guess if he wanted to make it even shorter what you could have done, what he could have done was maybe focused on just a couple of the characters like that all couple at the beginning, which, to me were the absolute best characters in this. They, they were just hilarious they'd almost got Tourette's in the way that they were portrayed. It's a very cleverly done piece, I think. I do think you probably need to watch episode one as well, in order to maintain the focus on the sense of central character of the Ranger, because I think the others do pull you in different directions. I think placing this kind of well known and perhaps somewhat bumbling character in a new setting, and in a different era is the genius in this. I think it draws heavily on Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Ranger rather than maybe the Clayton Moore to remember the TV lone ranger to remember the black and white TV series. But I think it's more Johnny Depp than it is Clayton Moore, which I think is very, very well done in that respect. I guess you could say maybe there could be more coherence in the story, maybe. But I think generally, that would miss the point of the craziness of the of the scene that you're witnessing unfold in this in this piece. You know, maybe that's the whole point of what the business trying to illustrate in this. And in doing that, I think what he's maybe pretty cleverly done actually, is bringing that kind of Lone Ranger character up, up up to date and, and brought it to a contemporary audience. Which I think is that's incredibly well done very, very well thought through and presented in how that's been done. I really enjoyed watching it Phil. It was it was awesome work. And congratulations to the team that worked on it is brilliant.
Phil Rice 17:14
Yeah, that that that couple at the beginning with just the the escalating adjectives, seven synonyms, yes. Reminded me. To me, I had sent a Monty Python influence there, like the constitutional peasant sketch from Monty Python, the holy grail where he he just comes up with more and more ways to talk about how ridiculous Yeah, Arthur's Arthur's sword legacy story is this this had that and just, of course, just keeps going and going. Like you think you think he's run out of adjectives? And it just there's another, another pair there? That's just oh, just again, that's one where I laughed over some of them. And the second time I watched it, I turned on subtitles, so I wouldn't miss any because, yeah, one of them I think was deviant devious per liner.
Tracy Harwood 18:13
Yeah. Not used very often, but I had to use it.
Phil Rice 18:18
Here. American Americans use the word purloin very often. Yeah, that is that's, that's just great. Great stuff. You mentioned the Lone Ranger. Johnny Depp. But you mean the movie that Johnny Depp was in? That was about the Lone Ranger because he didn't play the Lone Ranger. That's it. Yeah. Army Hammer. I think played the Lone Ranger. But you're talking in terms of that lighter. Yes. Comedic approach to it. Yeah. No, I can see that. Yeah. Yeah, I'll close it. And just say that I think my my favourite. The part that I couldn't help but laugh out loud at both. The first and second time, was when they're in the lobby, and everyone's opening the packages that they found. And it's just a beautiful 123 comedic setup. The three landing on I finally got my robot mail order bride. Just in the background. Someone just goes yuk. Because every one of the every one of the gifts, or the box reveals had a response. Answer So this thing happened in the net and there's the puppy and everyone. Oh, and then my real old robot right yuk. Oh, it's just so just just wonderful. wonderfully executed. So yeah, as a as a fan of as a fan of witty writing and of comedy writing, which is when you see it done, it's weird how it works because when you see it done so well. If you're paying attention to make you realise even more how hard it is to do it. Well, comedy writing is hard. And there's just, it's just wonderful. He made it look easy. Like that it didn't feel strained or pushed. It just it felt like this is the biz in, in the business elements. And I'm saying, and oh, it's just exciting to see I've I recognise several other voice actors, though I don't think I could identify them by name, but probably from his previous work. And I think there's some overlap, maybe some of the some of the actors that he used also make their own films and stuff, because some of these voices are very recognisable to me. Yeah. And probably someone who is part of the movies underground. would recognise most of them by name, right. Yeah. I just long too late for that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's right. Anyway. And so I think there's something to be said too, for. When you get to reuse, maybe, Damian, maybe you've experienced this to some degree, when you get to reuse some of the same actors over the course of several episodes. Even if they're not in the same room, when you're recording, there's a certain kind of chemistry and a rhythm and stuff that starts to evolve, that when you're just doing a one off, you just don't get and these are, these are actors who are experienced and I suspect experienced performing his work. So they know how to deliver these lines, and maybe experienced working with each other to and again, that's just, I don't know of a better word to describe that for me than just it's a delight to see when when someone is in their element. So yeah, I'm I'm very happy about this one. Ricky, I guess we'll give you the final word AI Ricky, what did you What did you think of the business latest film here?
Ricky Grove 22:05
Space might be the last frontier, but it certainly is full of a lot of junk now. Oh, man, I was reading an article that said that space is so full of crap that you can't even get past it. Sounds like a real mess.
Damien Valentine 22:27
Well, I kind of got it didn't have to follow that. Yeah,
Phil Rice 22:30
yeah. I think Ricky's leaning into the Monty Python influence a little bit with the crazy answer there. So yeah, well done, Ricky. Good job. Yeah. Anyway, this has been our episode. On behalf of myself, Phil Rice, Damian Valentine and Tracy Harwood and AI Ricky. We will see you next time. If you'd like to give us feedback. do so in the comments, or drop us an email at talk at completely machinima.com We'll see you at the next episode. Thanks a lot.
Damien Valentine 23:08
Bye