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 00:05
Well hello everyone. My name is Ricky Grove and this is And Now For Something Completely Machinima podcast for May 2023. I'm here with my good friends Tracy Harwood, Damien Valentine and the inimitable Phil Rice. Hello. Hello, Phil. Hey there. We're looking at my pic this month. But before we start, I have just a brief bit of news that I want to mention. We several months ago, we reviewed a machinima that was based on a sort of myth or folklore, urban legend of the Back Rooms, which is this sort of space that you go into that is filled with endless, badly fluorescently lit back rooms of a business type place. Well, I there's a fellow I know his name is Daniel Grove, no relation to me, who has made several Kitbashes, or a Blender now kitbash is a collection of assets that you can put together in a variety of ways. It just makes your job so much easier when you're making things and he's done science fiction, and VFX. Well, he did a Kitbash for Back Rooms, for Blender. Now, the cool thing about that is if you could take these assets, in Blender, so good, now you can use the Kitbash to create a scene or a set, and then export it to an Unreal format, and then bring it into Unreal, and then shoot your film inside of that environment that he makes. It's a donation. For the Kitbash you can pay $1 You could pay $100 Whatever you think it's worth it, we'll put a link to his offering for the Back Rooms Kitbash in our show notes. But he is really good. And I've actually contacted him several times about the Kitbash. He's very friendly. He worked professionally as a 3d designer and creator. And he does this sort of in his spare time to make a little spare change. But they're so good. They're really, really good. So we'll put the link in it and, and I hope if you're interested in that Back Room series is a great way to get in, you want to work in Unreal, your great way to get assets, pretty cheap to be able to start working in. So that's it. I want to talk about my pick today, which is a film called Machinima by Ali Kustera. Now, Ally Kustera is a recent high school graduate, she's going to be going into college, specialising in sort of digital art, she graduated from Huntington High. She is at UT Austin, specialising in simulation sciences, in their arts and technologies programme. I'm not sure what simulation sciences is, but then again, I graduated in 1993. So I'm woefully out of date here. But anyway, she's a young woman, she's very skilled, she's very interested. And I'm so glad she did this. I don't know whether this film was created inside of one particular video game or one or two video games. But in any event I chose to film because it produced a strong feeling in me. And I can't define exactly what the feeling is. It's sort of a mixture of, I don't know, empathy and some pain and admiration and determination. What she's done is she's cut together pieces of women in these films in various roles. Some in fighting roles. And there are some gory moments in in the film just to warn you, warn you or excite you depending upon your point of view. And so she's cut these in such an artful way. She's making a statement about women and their pain and their lack of connectedness at times, and their willingness, their determination to fight to achieve their goals. It is not in the quality of JP Ferre. But the editing is fairly smart. The scene she The important thing of the scenes that she chose, she used film editing to be able to juxtapose things so you could draw connections between the two. And some of the scenes are quite startling. And I don't think I've seen this done before, where they just go through the either the cutscenes or actual scenes from the game itself. I I think mostly cutscene and then put it together to tell another story, a secondary story. I was really impressed with it and I liked it a lot. What are your impressions, guys?
Tracy Harwood 05:10
Yeah, I'll start if you like. And to me, it felt like a bit of an advert for a cross between Tomb Raider 2 the film and the next game in the series. And I think it's been shot in the Tomb Raider game, The Rise of the Tomb Raider, I think. And it's been
Ricky Grove 05:33
you said an advert?
Tracy Harwood 05:35
Yes, it came over like as an advert for the Tomb Raider game. Because of that emphasis on the character. And it's set to the song Mad World the version by 2WEI, Tomee Profitt and Fleurie. And I think the footage is from the Rise of the Tomb Raider game. Which, as I understand it is due to come out. I don't know, imminently. I can't find any good information on that. But this year, next year, the next sort of game in the series. I, I kind of, I kind of felt that this was yeah, it was it was more about a statement around the role of, of women using that, that that kind of game and I don't know whether it's being you know, I don't know whether it was just cuts cutscenes or whether it was just advertised content, or actual gameplay, I don't know. But it to me, it just had that kind of advert advertising quality. I actually looked the character up because I thought, what what I was seeing was the same character in different roles and different ages. And I thought, well, maybe there is something that actually connects these characters. And sure enough, that's why I found Rise of the Tomb Raider game. I think why it intrigued me or what, you know, how it might be relevant and why it might be quite a nice timely experiment for for Ally Kustera the creator is because it's my understanding that the next version of the game is also roughly being timed to be released with the film. And it made me sort of thing is what is what we're seeing here some attempt to do what The Matrix did, which is, you know, a couple of years ago where they're sort of city simulation was released pretty much around the same time as the latest Matrix film was released. And therefore what you've got is kind of people create people playing with the content creating, creating stuff with the content and tying it into the into the film franchise as well. I don't know so it kind of it that's kind of what I immediately connected to, I think but it just had that sort of trailery type field to me which you know, I've no evidence that that's what it is or you know, what, that's what it came from, but it just kind of felt like that. You know, it definitely conveyed the sense of of a woman being in the driving seat a typical kind of Lara Croft type of character and the and the sort of the transitions between the different ages the different spaces the different times I thought that that worked really well with the song and the and the lyrics and the timing and the editing to the lyrics of the song I thought were really well done. I thought you know, the action scenes were kind of perfectly timed in many ways. So to me the pacing was great. The animation with the game lyrics interjected too I thought it was really well done. I couldn't get a sense of what what else is creator was working on, but I definitely got you know, I really wanted to see more by her to sort of see how she develops her creative work so yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you Ricky.
Damien Valentine 09:16
I think I had a similar reaction to Ricky is I got that same kind of feel from it. There actually at least five games the characters and footage from you've got Tomb Raider obviously that's Tracy you did correctly look the the rebooted Lara Croft character in it. And there's also Horizon Zero Dawn, which is like a sort of post apocalyptic game set in the future after these robots have taken over the world and humanity's kind of reverted back to a very primitive state. You've got I don't know which one of the series is one of the Uncharted games. I don't know that those games up well, but I recognise the characters from friends who have been a bit more excited for the games than I have been. They got the Last of Us to recognise you got me in it as, as obviously, female character in it this goes through a very traumatic experience throughout the story. And I think there's at least the last one, I think some of the Assassin's Creed games, but I don't know which one because there's so many at this point. And then maybe we'll get into No, I just didn't catch on to. But yeah, I got, I got the same appeal, as you did that is I was making this film that, obviously she feels this is a message that she wants to put out. And she's obviously thinking about it and decided to turn to machinima to explore this theme. And she put together this video, which I thought she did really well. And, like Tracy, I'd like to see more of her work. And Ricky said that she's off to college or university in Austin, Texas. Yeah. So I think she's going to learn and do some great things there. And I think so too. I hope you will share those on on her channel, because I'd very much like to see what she does.
Ricky Grove 11:11
Yeah, there are other films I could have chosen that were better crafted in technical but you know, we oftentimes don't encourage younger machinima filmmakers enough, I think in general, and with the community fragmented, I think this is a good time to do it. And I her this way, her her idea to take these multiple games, and take scenes that women are in, in various states of emotional distress, and then put them together in such a way to create an im a feeling out of it. Not necessarily a cogent story. She uses the music to to be the story in a way. But that was just very impressive and creative for me. Phil what did you think? Sorry, I'm
Phil Rice 12:00
trying to get my throat clear. Okay, so the first Yeah, the first machinima film that I made, which has never been released, was editing together cutscene footage from one of the, whatever Final Fantasy game was around in 97, 98. I did it just for myself. There was no way to there was no way to share it with anyone because the well YouTube wasn't a thing. It was too big. And I used Nine Inch Nails music, instrumental music throughout the last like, runs like 15 minutes or something. But it was it was basically I kind of feel like it was embarked upon with the same purpose, same general purpose that this filmmaker took with this, which was, you know, feeling of a personal connection with not a specific story, but a feeling like you've so aptly put at the beginning, Ricky, when you start talking about it have this this, this has a poetry to it, if not more, so the narrative there is. There's narrative threads here, but that's not important. It is this this feeling that lifts out of it. So I felt an instant personal connection to this. Because it just reminded me of of that and what I was feeling at the time that I did that and what I was intending, I don't want to project too much of that onto onto her but I definitely didn't get any kind of an advert advertisement sense off of it. Now, I could tell that some of the some of the animation some of the footage is so good. It must come from cutscenes or maybe even advertisements for those games. But I didn't get a as far as the finished product here. I didn't I didn't get an advertising sense often at all. It was very much more of a personal one. I knew that there was multiple I'm so glad you were able to name the video games, Damian because I knew there was multiple games involved. Yeah, I did recognise Lara Croft from one one outfit. I thought oh, that looks kind of like my last time I played Lara Croft was on PlayStation One It's looks like a Minecraft character. So but I get it I you know the general but the other characters I didn't recognise even The Last of Us I've never played the game. I've only seen the show. Wonderful show by the way. And those other games I've just never played and haven't followed. So I didn't recognise any of them. Maybe that was a benefit watching this is that I knew they were from from video games. And I knew that these were strong female characters. And there is a sense of an arc. You know, they're all we're introduced to them, not in a very ordered way, which again is fine. They all encounter, struggle or hardship. And then there's this real lifting sense at the end of she, the she in this movie, which is multiple characters is ultimately going to triumph. It's not going to be easy. But it's feminism, you know, the feminism as it should be divorced of all the stupid politicians views on it and whatnot, just this sense of these are, these are women doing things that traditionally in Hollywood in particular, traditionally, only men did those things. You know, obviously, that's changed in the last 15 years or so. And in 15, 20 years and cinema, there's a lot more female heroines, but you know, these are strong, active, stressful, physically and mentally stressful things that are being embarked upon by a women who can clearly handle it. It's a triumphant message, I think, I think it's a celebration of women. Without any of the, again, when you get to, don't get me started on feminism, in terms of what politics particularly in the US has turned it into, it's like, a greeting card of its former self, this, you know, this sense of capability, competence, strength, resilience, it's just a celebration of those qualities. And I just loved this. I just absolutely loved it. And then to find out, it's an 18 year old or a high school graduate that did this. It's like, man, if I had, I wish I had half the emotional depth that this person has. When I was at age, I was an idiot. When I was 18. Trying to still trying to make fart sounds with my armpit. I mean, this is this is just beautiful. Just just beautiful. And yeah, I was really, really moved by it. And it wasn't expecting to be I mean, the title didn't exactly set me off on any any kind of path. It's just like, oh, machinima, that's the title. But oh, my goodness, it took a few seconds. It's like, whoa. And I watched it multiple times. Like you mentioned, Ricky, there was a sense of trying to make sense of it in a way, you know, trying to, to fully digest it. And I still can't pin it fully down. But that's, that's, that's the emotions that came off it for me. Yeah, I agree. I agree. This is this is ambiguity. That's not it's not even right to use that word for it. Because it's not about specificity. It's about feeling. This is in the realm of, of feeling of intuition of emotion. So I loved it. And maybe it's to my benefit that I think if I had recognised all the games, in this, I probably would have been distracted by that, because I'm too analytical. So I've been thinking about this for just from that, it's just from that. I was completely I was completely released from any of that. I didn't have any idea what the hell these games were. And I didn't give a crap either. It was just, it was great. So I know it doesn't have the sophistication of some of the other films that we've you know, the one we were we reviewed last episode. But this is my favourite film of the year. Yeah, really. And truly, it's just, just just delightful. And I said, I'm gonna watch it again, because I still I feel like I still don't. I still don't fully get it. But I want to, you know,
Ricky Grove 19:17
I love the fact that machinima can embrace the range of creative possibilities in JP Ferre's the right stuff, which is as sharp as a laser. Everything is specific and everything in its place, right, this slightly messy, emotional movie that talks about how women have a right to determine their own fates, and their own goals and paths, whether it's painful or fighting or whatever it is. I love the fact that machinima can allow the umbrella of creators to do what they want.
Damien Valentine 19:56
And Ricky and you mentioned the word messy, but it needs to be to work because if it was as laser focus as The Right Stuff, I don't know if the feeling would have come across because
Ricky Grove 20:07
you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Phil Rice 20:10
And the perfect. I'm going to set aside all preconceptions and built up ideas I have about using copyrighted music and all the all the diatribes I've done over the years and whatnot. This was the perfect song for this film. Perfect. Just, it's just gorgeous, evocative. Wonderful, wonderful. So pirate away. I have great.
Ricky Grove 20:41
I have. That's quite a quite a statement from you. I have to make a correction. In the beginning of the show. I said that she graduated from high school in California. That's not correct. It's the Huntington High School in New York. Okay, here's where she graduated from. Wherever you go. Good luck to you, Ally and we'll, And I will keep an eye out for your work in the future. Because this is a great start. And we hope you continue to make more machinima in this vein because it's very effective. Well, that's it for our show this week. Thank you very much for watching. Next week, we'll have another pick. I think it's Phil's pick next week. Phil, Phil always has good and very funny picks. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. If you have comments or Ally, if you happen to hear about this, please contact us at talk at empathy machinima.com with anything you'd like to say, We do welcome your comments. Also, if you we have show notes that Tracy is going to put together with links to the film and everything at Completeymachinima.com Our main website Well, thank you very much for your discussion and your thoughts, Phil, especially you. I'm so glad you enjoyed the film. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.