This week, Damien selects a Star Wars short by Bombastic, released 5 Nov 2022, made with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga game. This is a totally zany edit of a let's play improv performance, by a creator who clearly has every detail of the SW Canon nailed to his bucket and spade... if only you can keep up with the camera. But maybe we're just a bunch of old fogies?
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.
Ricky Grove 00:29
All right, recording Good. Hello everyone. My name is Ricky Grove and you are listening to the And Now For Something Completely Machinima him a podcast. This is our fourth podcast for January our third season. Congratulations everyone. And I'd like to greet my commenters and friends, Tracy Harwood, Phil Rice, and Damien Valentine. We're looking at film picks that each of us chose. And this week we're looking at Damien's pick. It's called So I Tried to Take a Holiday, and it's by Bombastic. Damien, why don't you tell us about it.
Damien Valentine 01:11
Well as a big surprise. This is a Star Wars film. But it's Oh,
Ricky Grove 01:16
it couldn't have been your last 27 picks?
Damien Valentine 01:20
Well, a big changes. There's not one of those Unreal ones that we've seen a lot of. A few months back, I picked the shorts as a bonus video I made with the LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga video game, and it's just like a one minute joke video. So this month, I thought, I wonder if anyone else has made anything with that game. And I came across Bombastic's channel, and there's quite a few. And I can't say I've watched every single one yet. But this is one of the first few I watched them. This is the one that made me laugh the most. And it's kind of a in the style of a Let's Play video, but told in character as the character is controlling in the game, which in this particular case is Emperor Palpatine, who wants to go on holiday. And they've made use of the recent DLC pack, which is basically the Star Wars characters go on vacation. And so you get he's wearing a swimsuit. And Darth Vader's got a t shirt on with the sun set. It's things that's content like that. It's kind of a jokey gag. It's a it's a family friendly game, so they don't take it very seriously. And so Bombastic's obviously picked up on that, and decided to go with it for this video. So what do you think?
Tracy Harwood 02:44
Shall I start? Yeah, all right, well, 14 minutes, I have to say a following Lego characters, mainly Palpatine. around on the sandy planet, accompanied by Darth Vader in a T shirt. Yeah, I think what was truly amazing is how this narrator Andrew, I don't know what his surname is. keeps this monologue going in all these different accents. I mean, he's clearly a total Star Wars junkie, and I'm guessing someone that you've probably followed for quite some time to Damian, I'm guessing. I don't know.
Damien Valentine 03:23
I've just discovered it when I found this video. Oh, well, they will be from now on though I'll be keeping an eye on what he does. Yeah,
Tracy Harwood 03:30
well, you know, clearly, he's got a huge amount of background knowledge on all things, Star Wars. But you know, what, I was quite interested to see that this guy had started out on GTA five, and actually was on the Machinima channels, too, before moving into what clearly appears to be his kind of main love of Star Wars. Although I think what's interesting here is he does appear to be trying to develop his channel to show that his interests are varying with new games. So he's kind of done this recent reveal of who he is in real life kind of thing. And that's going to, according to him, enable him to go to various cons and such, if not show slightly more mature content. But I have to confess I'm not massively sure on that. I have to say 14 minutes of this is kind of way too long for me on this, mainly because of all the zooming around with the camera, which to me was just numbing and exhausting to watch. I mean, 14 minutes, it really felt like half an hour of, you know, because you have to concentrate so much to see what he's doing and lightsabers flashing all over the place. And, you know, he's running around in circles and you're trying to keep up with with what's going on. But the other side of that is that there are so many in jokes around the Star Wars Canon, which evidently link to those that kind of regularly follow his channel as well. So he's kind of keeping different threads going, I would say from other things that he's done, that actually I was really struggling to keep up. But you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not the self confessed fan of all things Star Wars that you guys are. And I, you know, haven't seen this kind of work before. And that kind of makes it quite difficult to access it as a as a sort of a non follower. Because I think what's evident here is this guy clearly thinks he's having a conversation with his audience, which is so evidently, threaded from video to video to video on his channel. And looking at what he's done, I would guess that that really means he kind of grew his followers a very long time ago. And my guess is the reason he's starting to think about how he's developing who he is on this sort of channel, is because he's realised he's, he's kind of got to think about how he branches out and maybe finds new audience, because my thoughts are that what he's doing is very much his success very much depends on keeping that audience with him. So I can certainly appreciate the detail that's gone into, into this and, you know, the different characterizations on the on the voice, I mean, christ be absolutely exhausted, having having attempted to do it. And I think he says somewhere that he it took him several days to kind of recover his voice from trying to do it. But you know, it's, it's, it's fun, it's chaotic, it's zany. And I think it's quite distinctive. Because it's unique to him as a, as a Let's Play approach. I got a question for you, though. Because I don't often don't fully know the answer this bearing in mind how long this guy went on for, how much planning actually goes into this kind of production? And do you think there is actually a goal for the storytelling? Or is it just purely an improv that we're witnessing here, because it looks to me like there's a lot more that's gone into it than just the mayhem that you see on the screen. But I really don't know for sure if that's the case,
Damien Valentine 07:25
I would say that he would have to know the game pretty well to at least pick out the characters and the locations he's going to use. And so the NPCs he's going to interact with. So he's obviously spent a lot of time just playing it and exploring and seeing what's there. But I kind of get the impression that this is fairly improvised as he's going along. Because, because there's the way that the things when he's going around and sort of smashing things up. Whatever happened, the other, you've kind of relying on how the other character is going to react for the jokes. So he has to go with that because they may not necessarily react the way he wants, if he starts planning it out in detail. I mean, I would not use this game for my Star Wars projects, because I like to have complete control over everything. Personally, I'm kind of intrigued to at least try and do something with this game, just to see.
Ricky Grove 08:19
I wish you would. I'd like to see that. All right.
Damien Valentine 08:22
Let's see what I come up with. Okay. But yeah, that's my answer to your question.
Tracy Harwood 08:27
Thanks. I appreciate that.
Phil Rice 08:28
That would be my guess, as well, Tracy, that this seems like that this performer, he falls into the same tradition as Greystillplays who we've covered some of his work before. There's a guy that does a lot of this style of work. Mostly in Roblox. I think he goes by the handle Flamingo, younger guy, young audience. And it is it's, it's there, when they present on YouTube. Typically, if they're not live streaming, if it's an edited video like this, it's from a much longer improvised edit. And actually, these guys who are making decent money at this, they have someone else who cuts it up in edit for them, they don't even have to do that themselves. This is this is edited from a much, much longer performance. I'm certain of that. And yeah, I think it's largely improvised, like Damien said, you know, he's got to know his way around the game, he's got to know how to control the characters and have some reasonable idea of what's going to happen, but in terms of narrative plotting, my guess would be zero, that he's got a general premise. Haha, the emperor is going to take Vader on holiday. And then that's it, that's all he needs. And, and then he's just improvising all these scenarios. And I think one of the things that makes him distinctive from some of the others in that space is is the different voices you know, I mean, he's, he's not a they're not like, you know, appropriate impressionist with do anything along those lines, but they're distinct enough to where it's, it's, I think, for the kind of audience for this, it's entertaining, and, you know, shakes it up a little bit. It's definitely not my cup of tea. I couldn't, I couldn't take 14 minutes of it either. But I know that there are younger audiences out there who just lap this stuff up, or who will watch a guy like this on a live stream on either twitch or sometimes streaming right on YouTube. And it goes for hours. And sometimes the lot of times when I've seen my daughter watching it, she'll have that window open. And then she's working on something on the left hand side of the screen. So it's almost like flipping on the TV or radio just to in the background, they're just watching it. I don't think it's it's not the kind of watching I think that that requires or provokes a whole lot of engagement. Now, doesn't mean that they won't get comments and stuff like that. But I mean, in terms of, you know, really paying close attention to what's happening is isn't really the objective for this. And there there is, there's an audience for this entertainment. It's not me. But you know, I look at this as this is somebody who's, who's doing the grind. And it may not even be, I think a lot with a lot of these guys and gals. The longer they do this, it's not as fun for them as, as it might appear. It's work. And it is it's tiring. So I, but I think that he's, he's probably I think you're right, Tracy probably does have, he's starting to think in terms of objectives and going somewhere else with it. And he's got some chops to keep up. You know, I mean, if someone's someone's trying to do stand up comedy, they're going to clubs, and they're there. They're performing, performing, performing, getting their schtick, if you will. And this is this feels like that, to me that this is just one of probably many chapters of things like this that he's doing. And he's, you know, the more you do improv, the better you get at it, the less the better you are at it. Now he's like Damien said he's still performing in an environment that he doesn't have a lot of control over. So it's almost like the man on the street camera kind of interviews and stuff. When they do those for the tonight show or late night shows like that. There's a lot of tape on the cutting floor when they're done you know, a lot of stuff they can't use just to get a few funny bits. And that's what this game is to game not meaning the game but this this, this, this practice this craft.
Ricky Grove 12:50
Look at the range from the Voice in the Hollow, which we started out at the beginning of the month to this film, one heavily crafted created carefully choreographed motion captured to one that is done almost offhand, as you say a performance a stand up performance will have zany energy and stuff like that. So the range of machinima is really interesting. This of our choices this month, you pretty much said everything that I thought in a more kind fashion. I think. 14 minutes is much much too long for this sort of zany stuff. And the quirky camera i i think he could have really, really helped himself if you could have not had the camera with the same kind of energy as performance. You know what I mean? Because it takes away your ability to focus. Yeah, my eyeballs were not knots, right? Exactly. So and you get tired, you get visually tired of watching so you end up not paying attention to this person it'd be just becomes a person on the sidewalk rambling, you know, and you just pay no attention to it. So I think those are craft mistakes that he needs to fix in order to get people to focus in on his humour. Because obviously, there's some very funny stuff. The Insider quality of it is hard to appeal to a wider audience but then again, he's not doing that he's appealing to a certain kind of audience but I think craft wise fix the camera make it shorter and sweeter and then I think I would have enjoyed it then instead of tuning it out halfway through.
Phil Rice 14:41
Yeah, that's what's interesting is the the format and the length made it something that wasn't for me. But if you just take essentially he's, he's telling one joke and about 50 different ways, right right here, and the Emperor on holiday and wouldn't be interesting. And actually, now that YouTube has that YouTube shorts thing, something that might be interesting for this, what's the performer's name again? Damian. I'm
Damien Valentine 15:11
Bombastic.
Phil Rice 15:13
What might be interesting for him is okay, so he's got these longer form things where it's almost like Seth MacFarlane telling the same joke over and over like too many times, as he does in Family Guy tends to do it to do a short word, just find one perfect, succinct telling of that, and tell it in 60 seconds, because that's going to attract a different audience, or maybe even attract more people to his longer form stuff. Right. Right. without them having to experience the longer form stuff before they know if they like it. So anyway, but yeah, it's it's it's an interesting phenomenon, that's for sure. And I think younger audience has a lot more tolerance, Ricky for that. I agree, the jarring camera stuff. And I'm not saying that we're old, but it's just a different way. That's that's targeted towards the younger thing. Even in even in TV commercials. There's the rate of energy of camera movements and scene changes and things like that is so rapid today, compared to if you watch commercials from the 80s, or even the early 90s, you know, and so some of that is just the whole, everybody's attention is moving that way and for, for whatever reason. They think they the producers think, well, that's how we keep their attention. Just keep moving. Just keep moving, just keep moving. But I think there's a point where it's like
Damien Valentine 16:37
There's a scene from a film with Liam Neeson, and it's just one scene, he runs up, jumps on a crate, and over a fence near the side. And it's about three or four seconds long the sequence and his 18 camera angles.
Phil Rice 16:54
But he has a very particular set of skills. I think that was the film actually. My wife and I were scrolling down the Amazon Video homepage last night. And there was like three or four different Liam Neeson films in different rows. Different films, but all with him. The Commuter, the Taken 2 that's all the same, like every time I get I have a particular set of skills. Right?
Tracy Harwood 17:29
Yeah, there are certain people that never play a different character, do they? Yeah.
Damien Valentine 17:35
I think you're right, this this video was too long. So the other so watch, they felt a bit too long, I think about five minutes, you could have done a lot better. Because you could still tell a decent story about the Emperor going on holiday, smashing up people's sandcastles without showing up smashing up every single sandcastle. You still get the point of it. I just found it interesting that someone was making machinima beyond that one minute video using this game, because it's it's not designed for it. Right? You talk about the camera. And you're right. It's very energetic. But that's the only camera control you get. There's no, there's no photo,
Phil Rice 18:18
like that much control even has over that. Probably very little. Yeah, whatever.
Ricky Grove 18:22
However, even with that kind of camera, done in four minutes, or five minutes, it's much more acceptable in 14 minutes. Yeah. Because as Tracy so well pointed out, your eyes just go wonky after a period of time. Yeah. And maybe that wouldn't happen in a shorter version of it. Plus, you'd be able to appreciate the humour more once you get to a certain point. I just didn't follow what he was saying. Yeah, I didn't understand the joke because it was the same thing. Oh, it was like, it's like taking a Marx Brothers film and one little piece that they do and then doing that over and over again for 14 minutes. You just sort of lose interest I think in it. Nothing else even though they're going crazy, you know. But anyway, I thought it was an interesting pick. And I'm glad you you chose it.
Damien Valentine 19:17
Okay, I'm glad you enjoyed some of it.
Tracy Harwood 19:23
It was a good pick because it gives us a counterpoint to the other machinima that we're looking at as well. So I think that's really important that yes, keep counterpoint and the different types of content that people are creating.
Phil Rice 19:36
This type of film occupies a lot of viewing hours on on the forums. So it's, it's a thing that's out there.
Ricky Grove 19:45
So tell us folks listeners tell us are we all bunch of old fogies? Are we not understanding something that's super cool? Let us know talk at Completely Machinima.com A Damien you had a fun Before what was that?
Damien Valentine 20:01
Ah, no, I was. I've lost it.
Ricky Grove 20:05
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off there. Anyway, take a look at this full film it was So I Tried to Take a Holiday by bombastic, very interesting, funny film will have show notes on Completey Machinima.com. And as I said, you can contact us at talk at Completely Machinima.com and don't forget our news, which is moved to the blog, Tracy has been putting some really interesting technology news there. I've been trying to add some stuff on wanting to do more on it. So check with us. This is the end of January our last thing we're gonna start from February in our third season. So congratulations, everyone. Thanks for your time, and we'll see you next month. Bye bye