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.
Damien Valentine 00:41
Hello, and welcome to another instalment of And Now For Something Completely Machinima. I'm Damien Valentine. And I'm joined by Ricky Grove. Tracy Harwood, and Phil Rice. Hello. So we're all here this week, and we've got a film chosen by Phil. So let's get to it. What have you chosen for us, Phil? Yeah,
Phil Rice 01:05
this was a little bit of an unusual type of pick for me. I'm not sure I can, can totally explain why it caught my attention. But it came to my attention through your Twitter somehow. And it's a it's a very short, very short Sims, The Sims 4 machinima called After the Robbery Goes Wrong. And it couldn't get more simpler. In fact, in a lot of ways, I feel like that this is actually this is something you would expect to see as a painting of, you know, two people sitting on a bus or a subway or whatever it is, and on public transport, looking the way that they are, and then the title of the painting tells you what you're looking at. And that's kind of what the title does for this. Because otherwise, it would just be this strange slice of life. And there's technically no story. But it's very interesting how just in a very similar way to how certain paintings the title changes, what you see, that's kind of what the effect is on this little bitty short, that it gives you a little bit of vocabulary to, to kind of interpret what you're seeing. There's, there's nothing particularly fantastic or outrageous about the production values of it. It's very simple. But it also I think, it doesn't try to do anything that that exposes the weaknesses of the engine. It doesn't overreach. It's just a very simple portrait of two people riding public transport. And again, only the title really gives you the fuel to understand what it is you're looking at. But they're just downtrodden, despondent? Maybe they're on the run? Who knows? There's a lot of room for imagination to kind of fill in gaps there. There's not really any right or wrong answers for those things, I think. And I don't know, I just, I just kind of found it intriguing. There's, you don't really see, you know, let's, let's be honest, the Sims 4 is a lot of Dawson's Creek, you know, kind of teen soap stuff, because that's the audience. And so there's a lot of that there's a lot of deliberate recreation of a television format, or at least that's, that's what the endeavour is toward. And it's, and maybe it's not even, you know, the pinnacle of television, either. It's more of, you know, like I said to you teen drama stuff. And this is outside of that norm. So that was, that was neat to see. I don't know, I just found it intriguing. I'm not even completely sure I know why. But I'm curious what impression it made on you guys.
Tracy Harwood 04:35
Do you want me to go next? Yep. So okay, well, I completely agree with you, Phil. It's all about the title of the film. And I think that's because without that title, you'd simply have these two interesting looking folks sitting on a train going somewhere anywhere kind of nowhere, really. With the title though, you question everything that you see and you identify some of the smaller details in the faces of the characters, the bag by the side of the burglar character. Now interestingly you said you thought they were together, I didn't think they were together I thought they were you know, I thought the burglar was one of them. And just somebody travelling on the train was was the person with the with a bluish coloured hair, which I think is an interesting thing, because I guess neither of us are wrong, neither of us are probably right. But what I what I saw in that burglar's face was the, you know, the the bloodied damage on the face. And then the music was it was something else that kind of captured my attention and the fact that the person that you're you're seeing there is listening to music with earbuds. And so you've then got a soundscape with with earbuds. And even the things like where they might be going. And actually whether whether they even are together is a question that you kind of ponder in the 46 seconds, that you have sat there watching this. It actually, because it's so short, and because there's virtually nothing to go on other than the title, it kind of led me to ask what exactly am I seeing? Is this person exhausted or badly injured, and I couldn't, I couldn't really determine but I kind of concluded badly injured is probably the answer to that; is the other person connected to that person. And I thought, not just somebody on the train that decided to help in some kind of small way. So I thought from that point of view, it was it was quite, quite kind of masterful, because it raised so many questions. And then the other thing that I felt, which actually didn't work for me, and I don't know whether you guys pick this up as well, was the sound. The music played for me in just one ear, although the train itself, and you're listening to the train that played in both ears in my headset, which I thought was a little weird. And actually, I assumed as a consequence of that the sound design was deliberate. But ultimately, I thought had been incorrectly done. Because if the music had been intended to be some kind of sound bleed from this earbud the burglar was wearing, then my third person perspective, I'm guessing that so I'm supposed to be, put me closer to the other person, I'm going to call the stranger on the train, then the music that was playing was in the wrong ear for me, it should have been in the other ear closest to the thief. And actually, it was the opposite, which I thought was a strange, that's probably what caught me out on it. Now in the description, it talks about the inspiration coming from the Joker 2019 scene on the subway, where the Joker kills three men after they harass a woman. And in the Joker, there's this kind of tension in the scene where you don't really know who to feel empathy for, is it the Joker, the woman or the or the three men. And for a long time that empathy stays with the Joker, but eventually you realise he's not a good guy at all. So although this is perhaps the inspiration, the fact that the Joker scene plays out on an empty train, there's not quite enough detail here to be able to decide who you empathise with more in this particular film. Is it the person giving the comfort or the injured woman burglar? I don't really know. But actually, I concluded that was a nice bit of ambiguity really. And then there was another aspect that went because I did have a look at the Joker scene that this was supposed to be inspired by the in the in the Joker, there was this kind of handheld shake to the camera that was used as a technique and that's also used in this. And I wondered if part of the inspiration was actually the way it was filmed as well. So I guess that was another question or a point of reference that the creator is used here. But overall, I thought it was quite a nice pick. It was interesting. From the point of view, there was just so little to go on. And yet it made me think in some quite interesting you know, different ways about it really, especially when I was sort of looking at the Joker as well, as I always tend to look at some of the background ground material. Good pick.
Ricky Grove 09:45
Hi, my initial reaction wasn't positive because of the length. I felt it was a sketch that left me wanting more disappointed me. But after hearing your comments About a being like a painting, I've changed my attitude a little bit, because you're right, it is like a painting and that that title gives you the background. One thing that nobody has talked about yet, is the amazing rendering. And in the film, it's utterly unlike any Sims machinima I've ever seen. I'm usually in Sims machinima, as you pointed out, that teen approach gives you sort of bright colours, and cartoony looking characters. These were nothing like that. It was dark, it was gritty. The characters had
Phil Rice 10:40
depth. Yeah, a lot of depth of fields, which has depth of field, there's no doing that directly in The Sims four. So that must have been done in post somehow. Yeah, right.
Ricky Grove 10:49
And, and I thought that look was just fantastic. Um, I also love the fact that it implied so much, you know, you read into, it allows you to read into it in ways that we've been doing here on the show, I kind of wish they would have added just a bit more to give it a little more meat. You know, maybe, sort of, I don't know what a flat as it's a quick flashback or something and contextualise it a bit more. Because it felt like it was done and left unfinished. It felt unfinished, you know, in a way to me. But what I saw, I just adored and I wished, I guess that's the other thing is, is that I, I liked it so much that I wanted more. And they didn't give me more, which made me frustrated. Sure. So I really hope that somebody picks up that style or this person continues to work on these characters. I did think the characters were together, the woman leaning into the guy at an intimacy that I don't think strangers have out of the blue. Also, I've been reading a lot of crime books recently. And I can easily visualise the kind of failed robbery attempt, you know, with the death of the security guards or something like that, where they didn't intend that to happen, which is why they had blood on them. And they know now instead of a robbery rap, they're facing a murder rap. You know, it's the kind of thing that that an action movie would never show, for the most part.
Phil Rice 12:40
And it's only between the scenes, right?
Ricky Grove 12:42
That's right. They're focused on the action. They're not focused on the reaction afterwards, which makes it even more interesting and unique. Because stories are so great. Creative stories could happen anywhere at any place at any time. The fact that that filmmakers use formulas so much, it's just a shorthand, creative. And you know, I always harp on this creative thinkers think outside of that formula. And that's one of the I guess that's one of the other things I admired about this is that, who would want to make a film about the aftermath of something with no dialogue? You know, so I didn't enjoy it a lot when I first saw it, but in our discussion here today, I'm becoming more of an admirer of it. And I urge people to watch it and I hope that filmmaker manages to listen to this because they, they really got to expand on the story. It's so great. If they can do all of this just for that scene, they can do something to add to it maybe backgrounder afterwards or when they get off the bus and they're cops there, whatever. But I'd like to see more.
Phil Rice 13:59
I'll mention something real quick before you go Damien, but I just I just now read the description of the film for the first time. I tend to avoid that. Me too, partly because I know that that that Tracy is going to do it. I didn't but but also just I don't know. It's I find that when it's when it's one of our picks it's rare that I dig into the description like I don't really want to I want to experience the film for what it is and not exactly too much. But at having done so this was made in Blender and there is actually a well known amongst the Sims 4 community there's a well known pipeline that works o or sin, or Sims 4 characters and assets into Blender. I see. So they clearly made use of this was made with Blender 2.8 and October of 2022. So a little over a year ago. Anyway, yeah, that's, that's that's how they got the render. That makes sense.
Ricky Grove 15:10
Makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Because I don't think you could get that depth of field in the game, everything is flat, and
Phil Rice 15:17
you'd have to film the foreground and then the background of green screen it and, and even then it just, it would just look blurry. And this actually has depth that goes back. So that that makes it makes total sense. It makes sense.
Damien Valentine 15:33
So a couple of things came to mind. And I'm going to respond to what Ricky's just said, first, I'd like to see more of this as well. But we were talking about, you just talked about how this has got one is in between seen this between the action sequence. So what would be interesting is, if they don't do the action sequences, they just tell the story to the in between. And let us imagine the action sequences, seen plenty of action sequences. So we can imagine a car chase or the actual robbery and what went wrong. But the moments in between could be a very compelling story, with only hints as needed, about the actual action bits, because
Phil Rice 16:11
that would take some serious story craft to pull off to tell a full story, or something else.
Ricky Grove 16:17
I couldn't help but imagine you pitching this in the office of a Hollywood top Hollywood producer. Looking at you going are you out a your frickin mine.
Phil Rice 16:32
But we're not
Ricky Grove 16:33
in that position. Filmmakers in machinima, and we can do what the hell we want. So I agree with you.
Phil Rice 16:40
Working Title, the cutting room floor?
Damien Valentine 16:47
Yeah. All right. So a couple of things came to mind when I watched this originally, first was you got these two people sat on a train. And obviously, they're exhausted from whatever happened with this robbery went wrong. And it reminded me of coming back from a comic convention last year with one of my friends. And we were both really exhausted. And we were on the London Underground. It's a long journey back to Paddington from where we were. And she put her head on my shoulder and fell asleep. Because I see that the train seats are not comfortable. And it got me thinking, anyone watching us doing that would have no idea what our story was. And they had no idea we spent Comic Con, we obviously weren't covered in blood or anything like that. But although I have done that, I forgot what it costs to fake blood on the trade. And no one sat next to me, so maybe I should do it more often, anyway. And my other thought was, this is kind of like people watching on a train and you want to, especially on a London Underground, or any kind of subway where you get a good look, all the passengers because of the way the seats are laid out on the sides more than in a row. And you know, you look at somebody like, where are they going? What's their story, what they're what are they up to? And this is kind of like, looking at these two people from the other side of the train a voyeur. Yeah, and imagining they have robbed a bank. Maybe they haven't. They're just really tired, like me and my friend. But you know, you do that thing where you imagine what they've done, it could be completely outrageous. You're just doing it to pass the time and to entertain yourself and exercise your creativity. And that's what this video felt like, to me, it was just a moment like that. Now, assuming there is that they have done something because they are covered in blood. But right. That's the feeling it gave to me. And I really enjoyed it. I would have liked to see more. But I also like to it didn't show you what has gone wrong. It was just just the aftermath like we were discussing earlier. And, you know, it makes me think of what other kinds of stories that that could be told, right? those quiet moments where something's happened, and you're dealing with what happened afterwards, but not in a overly dramatic way. It's just that pause while you're trying to figure out what's next.
Ricky Grove 19:16
I think literal minded viewers, which are a lot of them would be driven mad by the ambiguity that would just drive them crazy. I also wonder if you put a different caption on there. Whether it changed the context completely for example, after being robbed.
Tracy Harwood 19:33
Yeah, for sure, it would definitely change the feeling of it. completely
Ricky Grove 19:38
change your sense of who the characters were. Absolutely. Or after the accident.
Tracy Harwood 19:45
Yes, it's all about the title. It has to be all about the title.
Phil Rice 19:48
Breaking breaking Breaking up is hard to do.
Ricky Grove 19:55
A rough break up
Damien Valentine 19:57
forgetting to take the fake blood off on the way home Yeah, call
Ricky Grove 20:01
me calm after the children's birthday party. Yeah.
Damien Valentine 20:07
I have another friend who she done a film shoot, and she been covered in fake blood and everything. And she also forgot to take the makeup off. And she's told this story quite publicly, so I'm happy to share it. She was driving home. And she got pulled over by a car. And he obviously seen the way she looked. And he was really worried of what kind of situation she'd been in like, she'd been hurt or attacks or somewhere, as you completely forgotten.
Phil Rice 20:36
Blink if you need help, yeah.
Damien Valentine 20:41
So she explained, she realised and looking in the mirror and explained yeah she she's just done this action thing, whatever she was doing, I don't know. And then he was fine left to go on away. But he didn't say, Hey, we should take off before we go too much further. Yeah.
Ricky Grove 20:59
Give people the wrong idea. Yeah. But I thought it was a good pick fell was a really interesting and intriguing. And it brings up as many questions as it it offers answers to
Phil Rice 21:10
a couple of closing thoughts. Tracy on the sound, I noticed that too, with especially the part about the music, being only in one year, but for me, it was in my right ear. Oh, which is the ear that she had her. So one of us is wearing our headphones backwards. I'm not 100% sure who
Ricky Grove 21:29
it is. But I didn't want to say anything
Phil Rice 21:34
about your right. To mix that very first person, audio convention, with third person views, it does create some confusion there. It's kind of below the surface, but it it is a little disorienting. The other thing that I want to just take two minutes on is whether or not they were together. Because like, like we like we discussed, I interpreted it one way you interpret the other. I let it play back while we were talking. And I completely saw it. You know, it's like one of those things where it's one of those paintings that like it's it's the old man's face, and then you look at another way, and it's an old woman upside down or whatever, one of those where you can see it two different ways. And yeah, so I'm watching it without audio while we're talking. I'm like, oh, yeah, well, maybe they're not. And it's interesting, because there are things that would suggest both at the same time. And I don't know how intentional it was. But I mean, my rationale for assuming they weren't together is because they were sitting so close to each other. And it's a fairly, there's, there's plenty of other seats. And if you just came from a robbery gone wrong, you know, sit down right next to somebody, when you've got some work when you got other options. And if you're a guy getting on the train, and you see a girl there with blood all over her face, you probably don't sit down right next to her. It's a little too intimate. You know, like, a little too much, it would be kind of creepy. Right? So that's why I just assumed just from that. I just assumed they must be together. But on the other hand, how come he didn't have any blood? You know? Exactly. He just let her go in and take the beaten and he's like the getaway driver. And if he's the getaway driver, what are they doing on a train? So yeah, there's mixed signals there for sure. And also the, the quickness with which the intimacy of your lay on my shoulder was accepted. That between strangers strikes me as odd it's especially if she's an you know, she's been traumatised by whatever she went through. And what she's just gonna lay her head on a stranger's shoulder. Whereas if it was someone that she knew that would be natural to do, you know, she's sitting there for most of the ride. You know, keeping herself upright ever on her own strength and trying to be calm and be normal, right of her and her body gives out and he offers the shoulder. So that's why I thought that they were together, but it totally would. It totally works. If you assume that they're not there's there's questions either way. Yeah. Yeah. And, or accidental? I don't know, you know,
Tracy Harwood 24:30
well, the thing that I picked up on was the way he turned and looked at her as if to say, what are you doing? Okay, so that was the bit and then he was kind of like, hold, how
Phil Rice 24:41
much can we get? Because there's not a great deal of control over well, they did it in Blender, so maybe there is but yeah, the facial expression he had was one of disgust. Yeah, but the thing is, is that the facial expression never changed. No. Didn't either. Hers is very old. was the clowny frown, you know? Yeah, well, I can
Ricky Grove 25:02
think of many scenarios where she would have blood and he wouldn't. For example, She was a participant in the robbery and was holding a hostage. And he the guy shot her shot the hostage, the hostages blood got it on the girl. And she's in shock. Because she didn't expect they told her not to expect anybody dying. They weren't going to kill anybody. Maybe.
Phil Rice 25:27
Maybe his disgust is at what happened to her. Yeah, that he allowed it to happen or that why you and not me? So yeah, there's there's all kinds of it's a
Ricky Grove 25:38
fascinating, fascinating, juicy ambiguity for me to ambiguity is something that is just not good in popular culture, except in the last decade, with the rise of Netflix and Amazon Prime. There have been more risky series that allowed ambiguity to be a part of that. But for the most part, Hollywood style, media always is crystal clear about what's going on and less. It's a mystery, or it's a suspense. And the withholding of information is only to reveal it at the climax of the story. But even
Phil Rice 26:19
even then, a lot of the times it's so formulaic that yeah, that you don't get the same effect as a little planned ambiguity, you know, so I totally agree. Yeah, it's the last art.
Ricky Grove 26:31
I'm thinking of paintings by that Dutch great Dutch painter Vermeer. Lady with a pearl earring woman with a pearl earring, and lady at the window, reading the letter. Again, it's just as you point out, Tracy, it's all in the title of it. Yeah. You know, she's reading a letter. Well, what what's the saying? What's the letter saying to her?
Phil Rice 26:55
Is it good news is that?
Ricky Grove 26:56
What is that expression on her face? Is she happy? Is she sad? Why is she doing that in the morning? You know, I mean, it's just, it brings out your imagination and your involvement with the scene. And that's the key. I think that's the thing that makes this so good. Is that it involves you. I mean, here, we've been discussing the context of it for the last 10 minutes. And it's a 47 second piece. Yeah. That says it all. Yes.
Tracy Harwood 27:28
That was better than we thought then, huh? Yeah,
Ricky Grove 27:30
I think so. I think so. It's
Damien Valentine 27:33
amazing what a short video that can do to generate discussion. And I think this is going to be one of those films. We're going to keep thinking about even off.
Ricky Grove 27:43
Okay. That's right.
Damien Valentine 27:47
All right. So I think that's gonna wrap everything up for this particular episode. Let us know what your thoughts are. What's your interpretation of this video today? Did they know each other or not? At least strangers? What happened at the robbery? How did it go wrong? What's your view on it? Let us know at talk at completely machinima.com. Or if you got any other feedback for the show, please let us know. So that's it for this week. Thank you, Ricky, Phil and Tracy. Sure. You bet. Alright, see you next time.