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
Welcome to And Now For Something Completely Machinima podcast for May 2023. I'm your host, Ricky Grove and I'm here with my pals Phil Rice, Damian Valentine and Tracy Harwood. We have an interesting pick from Phil Rice this week. He always comes up with good stuff. It is Half Life: HEV Suit by probably one of my favourite machinima director names Zapper770. My God, I would watch anything that Zapper770 makes a film, why don't you tell us a little bit about this movie?
Phil Rice 00:42
Yeah, this was recommended to me by a friend who I guess had I had shared with him some of the pics that we've done from Half Life two movies in particular, the I think the one that triggered this was the one from a couple of months ago where it was a video that was kind of a mock employment orientation video, you know, in Half Life two, or the Source engine or something, very funny and, you know, satire. And he's he sent me this. And he kept sending it like, he sent it. I says, Yeah, I'll add it to my playlist. I'll watch it when I get a chance. And he just kept Did you watch it yet? Did you watch it yet? Like, he's just this movie? Was this your humour? Man, you're gonna love this, I'm telling you. And finally he's like, oh, right already. And then yeah, I loved it. It's, it's, it's the most machinima movie that I've picked in a long time, I think. Because it is, the whole root of the central joke of it is very much rooted in observation about the game. It, it might not make a whole lot of sense to anyone who doesn't know much about the game. In fact, it probably won't make any sense. But I just love it. And it is it's wonderfully executed humour. observing something that anyone who's played this series of games is going to even subconsciously, have taken note of even if it didn't stand out to them as an important detail, the fact that the basically biohazard suit that the main character of the game wears, has no protection at all for the head. And really just unwraps that like an onion. And the way that they chose to, okay, so I'm a student of comedy, though not, not in the same sense that like, you know, Paul Marino who's won an Emmy for it and stuff, I think, Emmy, is it? Yeah. He's a true student. Like, I mean, I think he actually learned from people who really know what they're doing. I'm just an amateur DIY student of comedy, but I love trying to analyse what makes things funny, and so that I can, you know, learn those techniques and apply it to my own work. I've done that. Since I learned how to laugh, I think. So this was, this is just a wonderful piece to, to break apart and study, which I won't do here. I don't want to blow the humour of it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but it's just, it's just wonderfully done that the voice performances are so great. The actual joke is funny. It's legitimately funny. Not in a childish way, which I know that's a surprise that I would, I would pick something that's not you know, childish humour, but it's just great. I just I can't remember the last time I've laughed out loud. Literally laughed out loud at a short film, especially machinima short film and this one got me. It's great. What did you guys think?
Tracy Harwood 04:12
Well, I could see why you picked it. I loved it but I can definitely see you through it. That's probably why it's
Phil Rice 04:19
my kind of it's yeah, it's my kind of joke for sure. My kind of delivery to yeah,
Tracy Harwood 04:24
definitely a Phil film. It's definitely that. Yeah, I you know, I what I when I was watching this is was this just Zapper770 talking to himself as different characters. Because I've seen I've seen that I thought that was you know, the, the speed and the the editing of that. It just sounded to me like it was him doing doing that. I don't know. But
Phil Rice 04:51
I think it's plausible that he was doing he was brilliant
Tracy Harwood 04:55
doing it that and then the editing of it to achieve what he did with that. The timing and what have you was just just great. I, from what I saw of it, this seemed to have taken quite a long time to make apparently he started it in January 2020. And this was released in April 21. And I also understand, he made all the animations by hand, he did not use motion capture, or facial capture at all. He just, they did all the animation
Ricky Grove 05:28
and they have five editor
Tracy Harwood 05:30
in source.
Phil Rice 05:35
filmmaker. Yeah, so that's
Ricky Grove 05:38
the animations that come with Source Filmmaker.
Tracy Harwood 05:42
I don't know I just I'm just saying what I they
Phil Rice 05:45
look pretty custom to me. Yeah, it's a very detailed to a lot of finger work. Oh, just wonderful. Yeah. Very dynamic and comical.
Tracy Harwood 05:57
A lot of work, I'd say went into it from my point of view, but the fact that he didn't use all the contemporary tools was even more impressive when I when I sort of saw that because that surely would have cut the workflow down a little bit had he have done that. But he didn't. So pretty, pretty amazing. It was the sound design that I really enjoyed. I mean, it's not just the voice acting, but the whole sort of sound design. And that, you know, that last little piece with that certain critter that we all know, so well. Really, just so dry. Yeah, there's nothing else I can say about it. Really. I mean, it was just perfect comedy timing. Very well done. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Damien Valentine 06:37
I think Gordon Freeman has an excellent point with the issue he raises. Gosh, you reminded me of being at a convention and meets up with some fellow Mass Effects cosplayers, and we all get there on our Nseven armour, and the photoshoot finished and we're just kind of there, someone was trying to sit down and couldn't, because the armour was so restrictive with movement. And he said, all these costume designers for these video games don't think about how practical these things actually are for people to wear. And that's what came to mind was watching the design the suit. But the lab had obviously wasn't thinking too clearly about safety, the person wearing the conversation that came to my mind, I had a really good laugh from it. It was perfectly done. It was just the right length to tell the joke a little bit afterwards to make the joke even funnier. And it was just so well done. It's definitely a Phil kind of film. So yeah, glad you chose it. I didn't really know ask like I say because it's so well done. I didn't realise it took so long to complete Tracy I guess. It's good way to keep busy during the pandemic when you want to stay home. Complex custom animations and
Ricky Grove 07:57
Well, I think it's very, very funny. And another layer of humour is the fact that you when you play Half Life, two, three minutes, says no word. You're looking at the world through Freeman, Freeman's point of view. And he's so heroic, that you sort of think of him as the typical American hero. Quiet the Gary Cooper kind of character quiet. Noble, the fact that he's so god damn petty in this. You know what I mean? Okay, so the guy made a mistake, but he takes it to the extreme and making this point, you know, which, which is why it's so funny. Yes. I just thought it was marvellous, the writing the acting, you're the sound effects and everything. If I have anything to say would be, I wasn't quite as impressed with the animation as you guys were, because there's some very smooth animations. And we've seen quite a bit of Source Editor animation editing and the blending of various animations together. And that's really good. If he customised his own his own stuff. Sometimes the connections between the edit the animation edits were a little jumpy for me. Sometimes just sometimes almost
Phil Rice 09:19
a Garry's Mod feel it points right, exactly where it's yeah, it's a little jittery here,
Ricky Grove 09:25
which pulled me out of seeing just a tiny bit but its a minor complaint to the overall humor of the film and the funny in it. the kind of thing that I liked, my kind of humor because I'm generally not a big fan of comedy in general, probably because it was so hard to do as an actor for me, you know, I always was marvelled when I would say a line with certain timing and the whole audience would just erupt in laughter. in the back of my mind there would be this little questionmark going why are they laughing, did I do that? So its probably because I don't have a natural affinity for it but still this sense of humor, this sort of characters against each other, characters getting little petty revenges on each other for stupidities that each of them had done, logical inconsistencies in what somebody says that you don't normally do in daily interactions with each other. Somebody does something completely outrageous or completely wrong and you just nod and go yeah, sure that's right. Whereas in this one they don't do that at all. They keep the grudge all the way through to the end which makes it even funnier. Its a great choice Phil. I was very entertained, especially after watching some of the other films which in general were fairly serious in tone. It was a real pleasure to watch it, a funny and interesting machinima film. Its got machinima in quotes on it. Its absolutely great. Thank you, thank you for bringing that up. We'll have to keep an eye out for Zapper770 in future because if he makes films like these, I'm on it!
Phil Rice 11:28
Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. So Zapper,
Ricky Grove 11:31
if you happen to be watching this, let us know whether you think we're a bunch of dumb heads or whether we're right on to it. Since we praised you, you'll probably like what we have to say. In any event, contact us at talk at Completelymachinima.com and we also have show notes at our main website completelymachinima.com That Tracy's putting together. Thank you, Tracy. And that's it for our show this week. Thank you, Phil for your pick. We'll be back where our final pick from Tracy next week. See ya. Bye bye bye.