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 00:35
Hello everyone you are listening or watching And Now For Something Completely Machinima, a podcast and video devoted to machinima and related real time technologies. I'm Ricky Grove, your hosts today. I'm here with Tracy Harwood, Phil Rice and Damien Valentine, as usual, my normal evil cohorts. Not today, we're looking at Phil Rice's pick. And boy, is it a doozy? I'm really excited to see what people have to say about this one. It's called I put 4 million Suns in a Blackhole Over New York. Now the title of that is worth an award and itself is created by an person who calls himself Epic Spaceman. And in addition to the this short film, he also has a Phil has included another film about the background of of Epic Spaceman and who he is. So we'll be discussing those two right off the bat. Phil, take it away.
Phil Rice 01:47
Yeah, I confess when I when the title for this film came up in my thanks to the algorithm on YouTube. I just assumed that it was either a Graystillplays video, or what's the other person? Let's game it out. One of these satirical absurdist takes on a video game environment, you know, something like, you know, I built a 150 mile hallway for The Sims and then put them in there to die and that kind of thing. So I assumed it was that and clicked on it, thinking it was that I got something very, very different. Yes. And a very, very pleasant surprise, essentially, this film, made by a solo creator, and yeah, he goes on YouTube by the name Epic Spaceman. The reason I included the will include the link to the who is Epic Spaceman video is because he, he tells his story, who he is why he's making the videos that he did, how he learned to make the videos that he did. But he makes this he made this film in Blender. And this is the type of film that he makes. And I want to say at the time of, of this release, he has no more than half a dozen videos on his channel that he's produced over a period of a year or more. So he's a high effort, low volume output creator, and it really works for him. He's not just putting quick videos out. These are epic scale productions. And it seems like the the theme across all of them, which he's chosen as kind of his mission, if you will, is these are aerospace educational videos, videos about you know, you figure if, if you could take a chapter out of, you know, a Stephen Hawking book and turn it into something entertaining. And interesting. That seems like what he's trying to do. So it's not simple topics at all. It's topics like black holes, and how the the mass supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies and how they are formed and how they interact. It's basically everything we know about those things. A lot of it's theoretical, of course, still. But this is it's a representation of what we do know about them, and helping to get a sense of, of the scale of things. And in the case of this particular video, and so he sets the video over a landscape of Manhattan. And you know, our earth is a certain size and our Sun is a certain size, and then it goes up and scale from there using Blender to give this other worldly and you know, frankly, it's something that would be impossible to do with traditional filmmaking. This is where you know CGI does what it does best, right? So it's just a mess. teasingly done. It feels authentic I, I confess, I don't have an engineering degree. So I don't know that I could properly fact check what he's presenting here. But it seems sound, it seems very solid, it does seem like he actually really does know what he's talking about. And then to find that he's a self taught blender user about that, and he began learning blender about three or four years ago, and learned most of what we see here in a year. Which is amazing. I mean, he knew nothing. He wasn't like someone who was involved with machinima or virtual production in some other way, and then decided to up his game, he knew nothing. Or, at least that's what he says. And taught himself you know, using available resources online. How to do this. And the result is amazing. I mean, this is this is several people in the comments of the video, state this as well. And I agree, this could be if you saw this production, on one of the science television channels, or produced by sudden large, you know, by discovery or some some big company like that, that's into on the History Channel, this is better than anything I've ever seen on the History Channel. Frankly, they're not really necessarily the most realistic ones. But some of the science stuff, I mean, this this pro quality, and I don't just mean that as a, as just a compliment, it really is exceptionally good quality. He puts himself in the video, it seems like that, that that's something he's going to do in his space suit, but it's actually him a very, you know, virtual avatar of him. So he can narrate. That's an interesting choice to me, because in choosing to do that he made, he made the production harder. Like it must have really meant something to him to have an actual physical embodiment of a narrator there because a sci fi, a science documentary is very often just narrated by Morgan Freeman, yourself or somebody, right. And it's just you just hear their voice and see the images thrown out who actually wanted it to be more personal than that more of a connection. And I think also, maybe some of that is marketing savvy, that he wanted to make a personal connection with his audience, to not just have it be just pretty videos, but he wanted you to remember that it was him. I think that's very smart. I mean, there may be personal reasons behind that, too, that he really wants that connection himself. But it's also very smart marketing. Because it's, it makes the video undeniably his, it will make his videos instantly recognisable. Even if you happen to see it without noticing who it was from, you know, there's there's gonna be that recognizability that was very, very smart. So I just love this. I had no idea that he was out there. The self taught solo filmmaker story is very inspirational to me. It's, you know, now mind you. He's got a brain clearly, because he's got an engineering degree, I think, an aerospace engineering degree. So he's a very smart dude. But still, the fact that anybody could in a year go from zero to hero in Blender is pretty remarkable. And I think he has encouraging. He
Ricky Grove 07:55
mentioned he has a family. Yeah, yeah,
Phil Rice 07:55
he's not doing this as a full time job. I don't think he didn't when he when he started. He was still working, if I remember right from his story. So yeah, he's juggling this in the way that almost all of us are, that are in this you know, that it's it's the thing we do after we've put our food on the table. So yeah, that was just so encouraging and inspiring and, and then on top of that, it's just a beautifully done video. So yeah, that's my take on it. What did you guys think?
Tracy Harwood 09:25
Tracy? Yeah, well,
Ricky Grove 09:27
we want to hear you what the digging you've been doing in the background. I
Tracy Harwood 09:31
have done a bit as you can imagine, but I've got to say good grief. What an amazing presentation style this guy's got. His real name is Toby Lockerbie. He's, you know, he's clearly got such a compelling way actually, of talking about astro physics. Basically. He's got the aura of a scientist off to a tee. I wasn't thinking, you know, NARRATOR Morgan Freeman and what have you. I was thinking, a David Attenborough stroke, Carl Sagan. I don't know, crossing
Phil Rice 10:12
it was perfect. Yeah.
Tracy Harwood 10:15
And, you know, he's, he's his, it's basically his style. And you know, he's got this kind of patient approach to storytelling about science where details matter. But nothing about the detail can really be told unless you tell it through metaphor, simply because we just don't have the experience right? on which to bootstrap ourselves as lay consumers of this kind of science. So he's found a way. And that's what I mean by him being so compelling, he's found a way to communicate with us through metaphors that kind of make make sense. I mean, that's very clever to have done that. And as you said, Phil, he's got 10s of 1000s of followers who are evidently looking at this from from well, I was asking what but you know, from what kind of perspective, would they be looking at it, from a whole homeschooling perspective? A personal learning perspective? I'm not sure but I, you know, maybe even educators as we'd be looking at this as kind of supplementary materials, as well, I would have thought. His rationale for doing these is something that that kind of shines through. He's passionate about getting the details as accurate as possible. But I'm not too sure of his scientific credentials, in fact, because in his overview video, he says he's not an astrophysicist, but an engineer by training. And he's a photographer by trade. And, you know, well, I think the engineer side is totally what I can see in the way that he can pay this kind of attention to detail, showing the connectivity between things. Isn't that what engineers are just brilliant at doing? And the photography side of things, visual storytelling? Well, it's not really that surprising, actually, when I learned that in 2016, he was recognised by Sony Europe as an independent certified expert in filmmaking, and appeared on the Sony pro show and prior to that, a documentary he made about his approach to filmmaking was a staff pick on Vimeo in 2013. So he's, he's clearly not without chops in terms of filmmaking. And I think that comes through as well. Yes, he did actually say in his video that it was indeed Carl Sagan that inspired him as well as Stephen Hawking. But he also mentioned Bill Bryson, and some other YouTube channel, scientific YouTube channels and kid shows, all basically finding novel ways to tell incredible science stories. So I think that's what he's trying to emulate in what he's, he's doing here. I think what's fascinating about him is that before he started making these videos, he had no prior experience, as you said, of using Blender, but also no audience for the content that he wanted to make, which I think, you know, that's, that's fascinating how he's basically, you know, learn a new suite of tools. But but interesting, what I, what I picked up on when it when he was talking about it is that he's not, you know, he didn't sort of carry through a whole bunch of tutorials, and then try to apply all of that to his filmmaking, he kind of got a little bit of the way through and then thought, you know, what, I decided
Phil Rice 13:35
to start working on it, I remember that, yeah,
Tracy Harwood 13:37
that's what I called just in time learning, he needs what he needs to know, to do what he wants to do, which is, which is, which is fantastic. I think what comes through really strongly with this is is visual storytelling skills. And that would have been honed over a lot longer than, you know, the three or four years that he's been trying to learn, right, two or three years that he's been trying to learn Blender you know, it's, I guess, really that kind of approach to you know, picking up something and just using it off bat because, you know, he also talks about using a Rococo, cheap end, whatever that would be kind of, you know, end at the end of the scale on the on the mocap suit and all that sort of stuff. So he's, he's picking and choosing what he wants. And isn't that really what machinima creators are great at you know, there's, there's something we've kind of commented on many times over the years. So just pick up tools and just use them for whatever story it is they kind of want to tell. But I think what's what comes through here is his ability to capture an audience. And I think there's channel numbers just speak for themselves. He's clearly tapping into something pretty big here or at least ways. There's a you know, there's a there's a demand here for this kind of content that just isn't being filled by other forms of media. And he's clearly, you know, tapping into is in the millions with his views. It's amazing. Yeah. With with just Well I'd say no experience but you know clearly he's he's made quite astonishing adverts actually, when you look on his own channel, he's, he's not he's not an I'm gifted filmmaker at all and he does quite a lot of that making advertisement for big brands. So yeah, I think I think his biggest challenge really is discovery on on a platform that's, you know, far from good at doing discovery, which is basically, you know, the biggest bane of every YouTubers life I think. But, you know, he's he's done it amazingly well, he's making great content, it's got really good production values, I think he's clearly doing it with relatively little money. Just this kind of passion and interest in sharing his thoughts with others. I guess the the bit that frustrated me and this might be because he's perhaps not so experienced at the YouTube phenomenon. But you sent us that how, who he is kind of to video as well. And the thing that frustrated me the most with that one is it took me nearly almost five full minutes of adverts to get to that video. I mean, that was just stupid. I don't know whether it's, you know, something that we we we have that's different here in the UK, but I could not believe
Ricky Grove 16:34
personally different because that didn't happen to me at all. Didn't
Phil Rice 16:38
know that actually, as a YouTube creator, I could tell you that like when they wouldn't when your whatever the term is, when you can actually have ads run on your channel. They tell you how it works. And basically, there's a there's a pretty hard limit on how much pre roll ads can run. For for a video that's got monetization turned on. And it's nowhere near five minutes. I mean, it's, well, it definitely there's one fixed length and one variable length that can be skipped. And that's it. So yeah, that's interesting.
Damien Valentine 17:11
That's have to be 30 seconds or shorter as well. Right? That must have been a glitch.
Tracy Harwood 17:16
Well, yeah, that's nearly five full minutes. I couldn't, couldn't believe it. I nearly just gave up on it. It was just astonishing. If
Ricky Grove 17:25
you can't escape glitching can you
Tracy Harwood 17:29
you know, but I mean, overall, I thought it was a really, really interesting, interesting pick. I love the way he put him in, in the, in the scene as well. Very, very well thought through marketing strategy, for sure. Because I think this is really going places. I don't know where exactly, but yeah, good. Really good. Thank you.
Ricky Grove 17:52
Thank you, Damien.
Damien Valentine 17:54
I was fascinated by the video. No, see, I'm very interested in space. For my love of science fiction, I'd like to know how you know, what really works. And what really goes on out there. I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as Epic Spaceman is. But the things that he talks about that I recognised, they were spot on. So I'd say he definitely knows his stuff. And he's got a lot of time into researching to make sure that everything he's talking about lines up with scientific facts and theories. This is the kind of video that we don't see very often with machinima, because it's usually some kind of storytelling, whereas this is educational, a presenting in a very cinematic way. But it's done in a way that makes it he's got these really difficult to understand concepts. And he makes it easy to follow by showing the size of black holes over New York City, which is something a lot of the people can recognise even if you've never been to New York City, you get an idea of how big it can be from that. And so it makes it very relatable. Because when you're starting to think about objects this size, you just can't really imagine it because they're so massively bigger than anything you've ever seen before. And then when you start really started last year, a black hole would only be a few miles across. You don't really think about that, can you expect him to be really massive and he explains why that is. But yeah, he presents this in such a great way. As soon as I finish watching, I sent this video to a lot of my space friends as well, to me, too. They loved it as well. And actually, I've subscribed to his channel, I need to go back and check out his other videos because I love everything I saw about this. I want to see the rest of his work and I'm going to be very excited about what he's going to talk about next. I think this is gonna be great for anyone who wants to learn more about space and as, you know, anytime a big space movie comes out that talks about things in real estate, and realistically, like, I say, the film Interstellar, or the Martian, stuff like this is going to, you know, teach people love those movies more about space, and it makes it in a way that it's very accessible. You know, because there's a lot about to base that. It can be very, very dry subject if you don't present it well. And he does it perfectly. So it's a great pick. And I watched the video clips about talking about how he, how he got started, it was a it's kind of a locked out project, he started doing it as well. You know, and that's one of those great things about, obviously, the dark time for the planet, really, but it's one of those things where people try to make the most of it. And it obviously did. And it must have been great for, you know, kids who couldn't go to school. When he started putting his videos up. Obviously, specs by the time he started putting videos up, they weren't going to school, right? Imagine having being a kid not be able to go to school, but finding this. And, yeah, that, you know, it's perfect for that. So yeah, that was really interesting in the pit about where I found a few tutorials and decided to jump in. That's where I relate to, because that's how I picked up I have quite a few basic tutorials about how to make things move around. And then I just dived in. And I thought well, similar mindset.
Phil Rice 21:30
That's my story with with Hi clone as well. Yeah, my intent was okay, I'll start from the beginning. And just go through all the tutorials on religions website in order. Yeah, I made it. I probably watched 10. And that's like, you know, dammit, I want to get to the real. I'm just going to start and then when I get stuck, I'll go over and I did exactly what he describes. Yeah. So yeah, it was very, I found it very relatable his story. That's
Damien Valentine 21:57
good, because I was so impressed by his videos it made make it relate to the filmmaking side, and not just the subjects he was talking. Yes. So yeah, definitely watch that as well. Because very inspiring that listening to him talking about how he did it. And you know, the motion capture suit that he's got, and you can see how he's done it. And yeah, it's just very interesting. And it's an excellent pick. I'd say this is probably my favourite pick of the month. This one. Yeah.
Phil Rice 22:23
Thank you. Yeah,
Ricky Grove 22:24
yeah. Well, I have a few things to say. It won't be long, because you guys have pretty much already said, what my thoughts are already. But my first question, by the way, I wasn't 10 seconds into the watching the movie that my hit the subscribe button as fast as I could. I mean, I wanted to know more about this. What I wanted to see what this guy was doing. It's that good. Yeah, but I wanted to ask you quickly, Phil, what is machinima or real time about this film?
Phil Rice 23:00
I think that the way that Blender works now it's, it's, you know, you're working in a real time environment to develop the film. Yeah, it's rendered out a frame at a time. But so there's iClone, so it was movie storm. So is GTA. So it's, I think the definition now is, you know, in the origins of machinima, it was the actual footage was captured in real time in some way, right. And then and then edit it together. And, you know, ever since the tools like when iClone came out and moviestorm and and then Blender made its change from a Pixar slash Renderman, editor, you know, the traditional 3d animation to something that could render the working environment in real time. And be close to the visual fidelity of the finished product. Now, if you if you had the scene that he's got open in blender and hit play, you know, to watch it, it'll probably stutter some on on all the really, really good computer. When it comes to render time. It takes its time and actually renders a frame at a time. iClone works exactly the same way. So it's, it's it's a very valid question, but I think that it's it's real time, in the same sense that the other tools Unreal Engine and an iClone and those are as well in Unity. Yeah. Okay.
Ricky Grove 24:37
Thanks. I just wanted to be clear on that one. Sure. Because I know some of the people watching this might be wondering about that too, if it was made in Blender. A couple of weeks ago, Lisa and I, my wife went up for the first time and many years, probably because of the COVID thing to an actual theatre. To watch a actual movie in a big theatre, and we watched dune two, and we've watched love lies bleeding, and both of which were fantastic. And I was reminded of that experience of scale. We're so used to every day seeing things on our laptop monitor, or maybe our large monitor. That's the mode that we interact most. But there's something very special about being in a theatre that you just can't get around. And I understand why people like David Lynch and others are so passionate about that experience. Well, it occurred to me after watching this movie, that his film is so well made, and so good and so visually interesting, that it would work on a giant screen, that you could screen this in a theatre, and it would be even more impressive.
Phil Rice 25:55
In IMAX even, yeah, yes, even an IMAX Absolutely.
Ricky Grove 26:00
Because it's that good. Seriously, his chops his his ability to be able to create visualisations of what he imagines or concepts. And contrast this with the film we did last week, the foul Ferdinand film, Dog Days, where so much of that film was a mirror to the viewer, unlike that, this is a clear presentation of facts, but some facts that are speculative, and he had to use his imagination to figure out how to do it. And his imagination is so good. And he is so convivial and amiable about and astonished. He has this astonishment as a narrator at the scale and the quality and the effect of black holes in the universe, that at times, it's even comic, for example, you mentioned that he putting himself inside of his own film, so he's very good. But sometimes it's funny, like, he talks about black and I learned more about black holes than anything I have read in the last 20 years. But the short film, me too. But that the event horizon, there's this weird phenomenon where even light gets drawn into the. And so as the astronaut, he goes inside of the black hole. And of course, he's turned into this sort of light and long gate, it's light. And he goes round and round. I kind of I wished he would have done a little wee in there. You know what I mean? But it was funny to me. And I thought, here you have this educational film, that's talking about a concept that's hard, even for scientists, and he's making it fun and interesting. And you can't ask for more than that of a puppet or science presentation. I have a feeling that he is going to be so good. No wonder that he's got millions of views. No wonder he's got 200,000 over 200,000 subscribers. I have a feeling a major company like Amazon or Netflix or Discovery Channel or Science Channel are going to see come across his work and approach him and fund him. I think he's and it'll be a challenge for him. Because I think he's going to have to determine well, how much influence do I want to give away. How much could right I want to give away for the content and the subjects that I'm doing because I'm sure he's passionate about some things, but not as passionate about others. So and it'll be it but I predict that's what's going to happen with him. But it's a fat, fascinating film that will entertain and educate you at the same time. Now the second thing a little short that he did about himself, was also fascinating as well and gave me a respect for him because you'd think a man call who calls himself Epic Spaceman would do a backgrounder set in space right? Set on another planet. No, he's got a little, probably a cell phone on an extending thing so he can picture himself. He's going down a beautiful little hill. That's grass covered and foresty while he's talking to you, he's coming down. And sometimes he's a little breathless. While he's doing that. It gives you a sense of him. Not only being attuned to science, but in tune with nature as well. Fascinating with nature. And in it, he talks about it. You guys have pointed out some of his experiences with blender and the quote that he has is learn enough to not feel overwhelmed, then that project you wanted to create. I think that's a perfect, perfect way to approach doing Blender. And his choice of using Blender I think was fascinating because blender is a community driven project. It's not a closed development process. It's open source, which is a very different kind of beast than Autodesk, or any of the other major companies like 3d Studio Max or, or excuse me, Cinema 4d. They're great. They make wonderful things, but they're a closed process. The fact that he chose Blender I think is another exemplar of the kind of person he is. He wants people he wants to learn from other people he wants to share with other people. And I think some of the things that he did in Blender, were just, frankly, I've never seen anybody in the Blender community do. And that's saying a lot.
Phil Rice 31:05
I'll go a step further Ricky and say that there are things in his in this video that are more impressive to me than anything that I've seen in the official Blender Foundation demo videos, which are supposed to be cream of the crop, and they are they're good. Don't get me wrong. That's it? Yeah. It's that this is so much more impactful, I think, then, you know, then the, what was the one the obese Bunny was it for a year, and then something else so that with the stylized characters in a ruin of some kind, and they're great, they're beautiful stuff. But it's like, dude, this. This is just,
Ricky Grove 31:50
this has been a
Phil Rice 31:52
person. Yeah, one person, not some team. So yeah, a great advertisement for blender if they should be putting this out there absolutely should what you can do with Blender Yeah, profile
Ricky Grove 32:07
of him, they should make him an honorary God and community. It's so extraordinary.
Tracy Harwood 32:15
There is one thing I will will add to my comments. And, you know, this is not this is not really to be massively critical. But I was thinking if if he is aiming for this to be educational, I think there also needs to be somewhere where the source material that he's using is listed. Because, you know, at the moment, what we've got here is somebody that's coming over as a scientist, but who is not a scientist. And I think, you know, when you're when you're you when you take on the persona of being a scientist, you have to have at the back of you fact, or fact as you understand it. And I think just to, you know, just to sort of round out what he's portraying here, it's clear, you know, because he showed on on the this, who is a video, he showed a spreadsheet. And if you looked at the spreadsheet, he got lists of information data that he clearly gathered from source material, but no, where does he site what the source material is? And I would, I would encourage him to just add that source material, because it just gives a, you know, another layer of yeah, I've done my research, as a great suggestion. Don't need to be, you know,
Phil Rice 33:36
he doesn't have to redo the video to do that, you know, YouTube provides a very generous amount of space in the description. Yeah. Because not everybody that watched the video is going to want to see that right. Oh, absolutely. But it should be there for those who do. Yes, absolutely. That would truly make this a bonafide educational resource, if there was a bibliography of sorts, you know, annotated list, and the cool thing is you could have links in the description of YouTube. So it wouldn't have it wouldn't be just bibliography, he could actually have links to source material where appropriate and stuff. Yeah, that's, that's that that wouldn't be very smart of him to do. And if he doesn't want to do that himself. You know, hopefully he, if he generates enough revenue through the channel, he could afford to hire somebody that that that's their thing and spend a few minutes on each video doing that, you know, organising his because you're like you Tracy, he's probably got the source materials there. Yeah. But there's an organisation and a refinement process to making it into a presentable, just like there is when writing a paper and you need to do the bibliography. And there's just some organisation involved and he could have somebody do that for him. But no, I agree. That would be a great enhancement to this.
Damien Valentine 34:53
Yeah, definitely. That's better in the description than actually in the video because, yeah, the links you can't get in there. actual video itself. That's right.
Tracy Harwood 35:01
Correct. Yeah. So, but I do think it would just add another, another layer to it.
Phil Rice 35:08
Definitely. Yeah. And
Ricky Grove 35:10
finally, I'd like to say that this is one of the greatest machinima films I have ever seen. It's that good. I guarantee you if you watch this film, you will subscribe. You will learn you will be entertained, you will laugh. You will come away wanting to know more about the subject. You can't ask for better storytelling than that. And I slightly disagree with you, Damien. I think nonfiction, documentary or science films are storytellers as well. Just telling a different kind of story.
Damien Valentine 35:52
But you know what I mean, the the, we're using a, this is a factual situation. And usually that doesn't apply to a lot of machinima films that, you know, they're either doing some like red versus blue, which is kind of silly comedy stuff or doing dramatic stories. But not a lot of thoughts necessarily split into making sure it's all scientifically accurate or accurate to the real world. They're just focused on their story. Whereas this is, of course, taking facts and then make it presenting it in a way that is the story. But But
Ricky Grove 36:25
I think there's a certain amount, a certain certainly in black hole understanding of black holes, there's a certain amount that can be expressed, that's fictional as well. Because they're speculating based on the given information. It's just an it's the creation of a world. But the world is fact fictional or the world is factual, not fiction.
Tracy Harwood 36:47
Well, maybe factional. Factional. Yeah. But
Ricky Grove 36:51
I think you could use some of the same things like the rising, rising tension to a climax to Dana Ma, I think, the climax of him being in the centre of that supermassive black hole, which just astonished me is very much like being in a drama. You know, maybe I'm stretching the point. But no, I
Phil Rice 37:14
don't think so. I think I think you're right, we're, I think it's this is this film is a reminder that there are types of narrative that are still narrative that maybe don't immediately strike us as such, because there's not a clear protagonist and antagonist there's not these these structures that are part of our common narratives of of what we would call stories. But this has a story to it, and I if you've ever read or seeing the the film, video version of Stephen Hawking's a history of space and time, that is a narrative. Any Carl Sagan documentary, there's a narrative, there's a structure and a story he's telling. It's just it's not Joe or Jane, and the evil warlord, you know, it's not slay the dragon type of story. But yes, but there is narrative structure there. And, and that information does not inherently have that narrative structure. I think that's what you were trying to get at Ricky, is that this information? Isn't this interesting. It's just not. It's a spreadsheet. You know, but how he presented it, how he structured it, there is a an arc to what and and build up to what he's doing. Yeah, that's beautiful. And, and, and it is a it's a great reminder that, that this is a type of narrative that's very, very effective. It's a story, let's call it that. It is a story. There's just no hero or villain. Yeah, but it's a story for sure.
Ricky Grove 38:49
Well, I think the black hole can be a villain black hole can be everything right? Yeah. Well, thank you. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed your pick Phil, it was just enlightening. And it just made my whole day. The whole day after watching it. I was thinking about it and checking things. And oh, I have other projects I'm working on. So it was so hard to steer myself away wanting to dive into this subject and this guy had to stay on my own stuff. But it was marvellous if you have thoughts or feelings you want to share with us. Or if you're Epic Spaceman and you hear about this context, it's a talk at completely machinima.com, we'd love to hear it. And thank you, Phil, for making this pick. And Thanks, Damian and Tracy for your thoughts and your work background research on this. Well, that's our show for today. We hope you enjoyed it and we will see you next time. Bye bye.
Phil Rice 39:50
Bye. Bye bye