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 00:31
Damian Valentine, use the Machinima. Luke, you. Music. Hello and welcome to another episode of A now for something completely Machida, I'm your host this week. Damon Valentine, I'm also joined by Tracy Harwood and Phil rice,
Phil Rice 00:55
hey there.
Damien Valentine 00:56
Um, as before, we have lost Mickey to Elden ring. I hope he's having a great time laying beasts and fighting with bosses, but I'm sure we'll hear from them again at some point. But that new DLC is going to take him as a while to get to, and I don't blame him. It's good to have some new content for a favourite game. So we're going to be talking about two films this week, one chosen by myself, and one by Tracy. And Tracy, let's go with yours first.
Tracy Harwood 01:24
Sure. Yeah. Okay, so I have picked this week a Star Citizen film called What a wonderful world by neason. It was released in April. Now. Neason is a passionate Star Citizen, enthusiast, natural fact day job is full stack developer, designer and video editor based in France. Kind of interesting that we've got quite a lot of French folks again, that we're reviewing this month. Anyway. This this creator likes to combine technical skills, with a love for gaming and his machinima about trying to capture the spirit of the expansive universe in the game illustrated by what he calls epic space adventures that includes exploring new systems, engaging in dog fights or simply soaking in the breathtaking views. And on top of that, neason is actually, well, not really surprising, a big sci fi fantasy and also military simulation fan, as well as all things music. And I think it's a combination of these things that comes through in particular in this work. It's fair to say that this film is, is actually, well, it's a cover for one thing, but also an say, it probably a minute and homage, and it's that in every single way it's been made to a cover of satchmos, Wonderful World, sung by two way, Ali Christian booze and Edda Hayes, and it includes some of the original game trailer too, but that's augmented, I think, by some of neason's own gameplay content. Now, what I liked about this is the cinematics and the way that they were edited together with the music, which is this kind of surreal version of wonderful world. It's really quite otherworldly, actually in itself. And partly that's because in places, you can hear the music being played backwards. Think Phil probably will be able to tell us a bit more about that when when you talk to it, the film portrays the kind of the wondrous nature of the worlds in the game, in in all their glorious colour, with different times and types of day, with different technological advances, with different natural habitats, different energy levels, with danger and and with life, and it's really beautiful, I think. And frankly, as a trailer or homage to the game, I think does a better job than the official trailer, too. In my opinion, there's actually no story to this beyond being a documentary of gameplay and in and in some ways, it doesn't really make sense as any kind of narrative, but it does portray a sensorial overview of what is evidently a vast and inspiring game environment where the point of it is to be a citizen soldier. It made me think, though, that because it's so vast in its environment, I suppose it's important, really, that you actually take your own story into the environment to to create a personal narrative. Otherwise, how do you make sense of it all beyond being a kind of a detached tourist, and I mean, I suppose really, that's obviously why so many people collaborate in teams. And. Even, you know, do that to create machinima based on this environment. But I suppose that's a kind of a critical point here too, because I could actually find very little out about neason, and therefore I felt that there was something kind of missing in the space tourist idea, which is what this is trying to portray. Because there was nothing to connect me to this person's own interest in being a tourist in these environments be beyond what, what you kind of see on the screen. So it's a little bit thin in terms of what, what you might expect it to be doing so, you know, as a trailer, yet nice on the game front, but nothing about neason. And I wanted to see more of neason in it. I suppose I did, like the provocation that I saw in it. It makes it clear that there's an openness to the game that these trailers probably don't, don't convey, I guess, what I would say though, Nissan is, if you are listening to this, tell us more about who you are and why you're interested in travelling around it. I think that would help immensely to put a unique stamp on it that you clearly have, but which we cannot connect to you as a creator. So yeah, that's my take on that. What did you guys think? Don't all fight for it?
Phil Rice 06:27
Yeah, go ahead. Damian,
Damien Valentine 06:28
all right. Um, I've been following Star Citizen since it was first, uh, launched its crowdfunding campaign, which is quite a while ago. Now it's amazing how far it's come in that time, and I know there's lots of controversy about it's been it's taken too long and everything. But when you see a video like this, you can see why it's taken so long, because there's so much in these worlds, and only a small portion of the planned game world is actually released the public. So when you can create this with just that much you make, what else is going to coming that we haven't seen yet. I haven't been following it so closely more recently, I feel like maybe I should go back and see what's going on right now. And we may be trying out because I did. I did back it so I can play it. I've got access to the game. It's just last time I did it, I heard I got stuck in a door. I couldn't get out. But hopefully they fix those bugs and maybe I can get out store the world more. Because you know that this video shows us a lot to see and do, even in just a small part of the game. And, yeah, it's a space tourist video. It's kind of just showing off the world of the game. It's not talking about what you can do in it. It's just these are some of the things you can see in it. It's not talking about, you know, it's a open world online game. So you can, you can be a pirate, or you can be a trader, or you can, I don't know, you got plenty of options to do what you like, really. And this is just showing you a taste of world that's, that's it take place in. And, yeah, it's shame we don't get to see more of the Creator. But maybe that's not the point. It's more about the game world and to try and draw people in. And it certainly made me want to instal the game again and hopefully get beyond the door that I got stuck. Because I'd like to see all this stuff, and I'd like to get in my spaceship and fly around and have some inventions. And, you know, it's designed for that, and it's designed for friends to come together and to crew. But you can have a ship where you just fly it yourself. But some of the bigger ships, you need more than one person to operate them, and it'd be fun to, you know, get a small crew together, so one person's flying, one person is manning the engines, and the other people in the gun turrets as you're fighting off the bad guys. But yeah, as far as this video goes, it shows off the game, and it's meant to make you want to play it. And it certainly succeeded with me, which obviously backing it from beginning is something that I've been quite interested in this kind of stuff. Was not initially part of the original plan, that you aren't going to be able to explore planets in this kind of detail. It's all about the spaceships and flying around in space, and you could land, but it'd be a loading screen, and it on the platform, and you could walk around the limited part of the planet, but now they've expanded the game so much that you've got the whole planet to explore, and so they have to fill it with content. And this shows what they've been filling some of those planets with. I don't know their names, because I haven't had a chance to fully explore it. So yeah, I thought this was a really. Well done video. It's a stunning looking game. I feel like I need to go and look at some more of listeners. Listen. Well, sorry, I'm butchering your name, Lisa, yeah, I need to see more of your work, and I hope you make more to show off the game as well, because there's a lot in this game. It's, this is kind of reminds me of how excited I was for it back when it's first announced, and I couldn't wait to play it. So, yeah, it's a good film and good, good pick. Tracy,
Phil Rice 10:32
yeah, if, if Star Citizen doesn't pick this up, as they're crazy. This is it's professional in every possible way. I mean, it is just, you don't see stuff this good that often, even from the pros, it's so good. The soundtrack is just, I mean, yeah, come on and to answer your question. Tracy, no, there was no manipulation of the music for the video. The track used is exactly the track as it is on Spotify. I mean, it's the same. So all, whatever, the whatever, those you know, flavours that you heard in there, they're in the original Okay, and it's not backwards, as far as I could tell, but there is a lot of unusual delays and reverbs and stuff that kind of give that that vibe. But, yeah, the track is just incredible. I mean, just just there. This is a, this is, as far as I know, an unnamed genre. Because I don't, I wouldn't know what what this style is described as, but I've heard it at least one other time, and that is in a video you picked as well Tracy a good year ago, called Mad World, which was made by, I believe, a student. And it was all the different cinematic footages of these female heroines from video games. So there's a lot of Laura Croft in there and other ones, whatever. And it was a cover of the song, Mad World, but in this same style with, with, I don't even know how to describe it, and I'm a musician. I mean, it's just a lot of dynamic contrast. You know, it starts, it has quiet moments, and then has build up very cinematic sounding track. And this is, this is very much in the same vibe as that, and just wonderful. I like it's, it's on my favourites playlist in in Spotify, ever since you shared the film. It's just fantastic. And, yeah, the cinematics that I say cinematics, but I'm referring to the the footage that was captured here that I believe is probably all gameplay of some kind. You know, not not cinematics in the old fashioned way. I could be wrong about that, because I haven't played Star Citizens. I don't know, but it is just an absolutely gorgeous representation. You're right. There's no story. But I didn't, I didn't find myself searching for one either. I don't know why exactly, that's a good question, really, because I do tend to hunt for that and notice its absence and maybe be bothered by it. But this was more of a VISTA. You know, this was a a look, for lack of a better word, a look at a universe. And through very discerning eyes, it's masterfully edited with a lot of consciousness of the music in the edit. The shot selection is just, it's it's flawless. You know, this, this Neiman could do this for a living and make it it's probably he's he or she is doing the smart thing by having a day job as a full stack developer. That's a little bit more probably predictable and steady income. But this is absolutely as good as as anything that the pros would do. And like you said, it's better than star or Star Citizen's own trailer by a like, not even close. Like, it's not even close, yeah, um, it's this film was released, yeah, two months ago, as of the time this recording, so three months ago, when people hear about it, it's got 36,000 views, which not bad, but it deserves a lot more. And maybe the maybe the audience is limited by the fact that it is. I don't know. I kind of, it's, it's interesting that the title has the game first and then the title of the song. And there's advantages to doing that. You know, you see, you see all kinds of machinima do that. And I think the thinking there is you put the Sims four before your title, or whatever, you know, GTA five that's intended to draw in the audience of GTA five players. And normally that's a very smart move, right? But something like this is just so beautiful and requires zero understanding of Star Citizen. Absolutely get that. This is gorgeous and beautiful. It's just epic science fiction imagery. You know, it's not you. You don't have to know anything about Star Citizen to get this, I think, contrasted to the Eve film that Damien that you picked maybe a couple months ago. Yeah, where was that? It was almost like a documentary about the history of one of the things happening in the world of EVE Online. You know, that has a very specific appeal to Eve players that I think exceeds the general audience uh, appeal factor, just, just by design. It's not a criticism. It's just acknowledging that this is just, it's so much broader that it kind of makes me wonder, uh, if, if it might have, how it would have fared if they'd left Star Citizen out of the title, or even put it at the end or something, and just went for a more broader approach, because, but, you know, then there's the then there's the question of, well, how do you get in front of anybody? Then, you know, she has, so it's easy to easy to Monday morning quarterback, that kind of thing here. So I but it just, I say all that. It's a really crudely way, crude way to phrase a compliment that this is, this is something that, you know, that professional filmmakers who have never even played a video game would find this gorgeous, and would probably ask, how was that made? That's beautiful. You know, it's Pro. It's really Pro. You know, when you get when you get down to the character level, it's very obviously video game, right? Again, not a criticism, just acknowledging, but at the more macro level, with the landscapes and the planetscapes and the spacecraft and stuff, it looks like the highest and CGI, like cinema 4d type of stuff, which is a compliment to the filmmaker, but to star citizen two, that is one gorgeous engine for a space game, gorgeous. I mean, I rave about Starfield. Starfield is beautiful game, but that's made by Bethesda, you know, a most likely billion dollar company. They're very successful. They've had many huge titles. They're big, huge team involved, right? Yeah, this is on par with that. And I'm certain Star Citizen is a much smaller team, so quite an achievement. And this this, so you know, kudos to both the game developer who made an engine and assets that are this beautiful, but also to Neiman who, Nisman NIS
Phil Rice 18:34
who, who had the eye to really capture it in all its I don't use this word lightly in all its glory, it really is. It's hard to find something to compare to this. Really, it's so good, so good. So yeah, great. Pick Damian, my goodness, Tracy. And I love the song. Oh, Tracy. You ever find out what the name? Oh, this, this is my pick. It's my I'm sorry. So yeah, no, this
Tracy Harwood 19:06
this month, this month, we've got a really interesting Damien pick. Yeah, yeah. Not the usual, not the usual. Normally, you know me that picked this next one. Yeah,
Damien Valentine 19:18
but I just gotta go. Let's go finish off this dice and talk, because I've been a fan of Chris Roberts games since I just hung with them, which is Wing Commander two, which is very cinematic game, but it's very cartooning style. But every game he's ever released has had that cinematic element to it. He tries to push visuals to the maximum the technology available to him and Star Citizen is no different. So that's one of the reasons why it's so good looking the way it is, and why videos like this possible with it. And I think he enjoys seeing what fans create with the engine wishes. But yeah,
Phil Rice 19:58
he likes, you know, you know. Build a world that beautiful and not really appreciate when somebody captures, yeah, but you did, you know, I mean, it's just, just phenomenal, phenomenal.
Damien Valentine 20:15
Well, I'm sure we could talk about this film for a lot longer, but we'll be here all night, and we do have another film to talk about, um, so we're going to move on to my pick, which is made with The Sims four, and it's called plan book, plan Bob Princess by Remy mo silly, uh, hopefully I haven't butchered your name there, and I do do apologise if I have, um, I decided to look up Sims four machinima. I don't remember what inspired that as a decision, but this is one of the first ones I came across, and it's kind of a fairy tale, fantasy story combined with the music video. And I would say there's no dialogue, but there is sort of because they're using the Simlish language, but it because it is just gibberish. You don't know what's actually being said, but it also doesn't really matter, because the way the story is told, you can follow it quite easily. The one, the one, only one gripe I had with this, which I'm sure Phil probably picked up on as well, and so would Ricky if he was here is the music of the song and the volume of that against the similar dialogue. It's hard to hear the similar dialogue, even though you don't need to. It's a little bit distracting in places. I feel like maybe I should tone it down so you can hear the Simlish. But it doesn't matter if you can't understand it, because it's you just need to know the characters are talking. But besides that, I was very much blown away by this story, and I thought this is so well done. You don't see these kind of films made with The Sims very often, and it is very easy to follow. And you get to this point where I was just wrapping up, and you looked at it, but there's another seven or eight minutes to go, what's happening next, and it kind of begins the next chapter of the story. It's in three parts, all this one film, so it kind of feels like you're just getting to the end and then there's a little bit more, but it doesn't feel like it's dragging on. It's just like, this isn't actually the end. There's more. And then you get sucked into it and you enjoy what comes next. It's kind of hard to describe without, you know, just watching it. So go out and check it out, because it's different. And I was very impressed by the animation choices. Those are sword fights, which I didn't even know was possible in The Sims. Maybe there's mod content in there. I imagine not a lot of the costumes are mod content as well, because it's not a fancy game, it's modern day stuff, usually. But yeah, this is a very creative use of The Sims four, and I decided very quickly, it's going to be my pick, and I wanted to share it with you guys. So what did you think
Phil Rice 23:06
it's fantastic? Yeah, I'll go, I'll go next. Cool. It's I didn't expect to like it. I'm going to admit my own prejudice. But when I saw the title, I thought, you know, and not, not because it's a princess. I mean, I could tell from the title, okay, this is some kind of fairy tale type of thing, but it was just when it when a Sims machinima uses the word plum Bob. It's like, All right, so it's embracing the Sims part of it. And for me, my approach to the Sims has always been, can I get this to look a little less Sims. You know what I'm saying? So not so much that people wouldn't know. It's Sims. Of course, they're going to know. But I mean the plum bot, when you're raking machinima with The Sims, you know, two, three or four, the first thing you do is turn off the plum Bob. You don't want that green thing above their head, right? So I just, I had all this negative energy that I brought to it, and it just totally won me over, like you. Damian, it was effortless to finish it, even though it's long by our standards. It was no effort to get like it was engaging. It really was. It does manage to find a way to embrace its Sims Ness without it being obnoxious and like it works. I don't know how better to say that, but it, you know, there's, there's no other engine that would look like this. This is The Sims absolutely you can tell in every shot, every character, whatever. And yet it's a world that you wouldn't ever see there. You know, Egyptian child slave labour camp. I don't remember that. Add on, pack Sims four. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember that. No, that's, that's here, like you said, the sword fighting. You. The editing of this film is just masterful. You know, probably a little quick for people my age and older, you know, it's, it's fast edit. But a lot of times in The Sims, machinima, what I've noticed is that the edits are, if the edits are fast, you can tell it's to edit around Sims quirkiness or weirdness, you know, some kind of jagginess in the animation or whatever. I don't get the impression that was the MO here at all. This was editing done because it was in the style, because it serviced the story, and because it gave you all the different angles you would need to know what's going on. So there's a lot of shot variety, there's a lot of close ups, of facial expressions, and it's just, it's a masterclass in editing. It really is the way that they got the lighting to turn out in this that's some extra work there. You know, the Sims four is not an ugly game, but there's some real beauty going on here. And also this may not be apparent to everyone who watches it, but there's a lot of compositing, very tastefully and cleverly and in the service of the story done here, the depth of field and all that that's not you don't, you don't do that inside the engine, as far as I know there's so there was a lot of layering and really thoughtful compositing To where most of it's seamless. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to spot it if I hadn't done stuff with The Sims. So, yeah, I'm I was hugely impressed. I think the Simlish dialogue, it's not the choice I would have made, but it works. It the the net effect is the same effect, in a positive way, of a silent film, international appeal. You don't have to speak any particular language to understand and follow this story. If you're going to follow it, you're going to follow it, you know, from the visuals and that that's a that's an advantage of using that Simlish language that you know, everyone who plays the Sims knows but does not understand, right? So what's cool about Simlish is that in using that that mechanism, and this goes back to when they designed the game and you first could hear it is, it's a way to convey emotion and ideas without without words, you know? So you get you with their animations. You get the body languages, and yes, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're more animated than than than normal. They're more cartoonish, but it works. It's a language. You get it, and then the Simlish helps where they The Sims can communicate to you with tone of voice, but it just strips the words out. That's all that was a neat choice that the developers made. I remember when they first rolled it out, in the early Sims game, there was a lot more reliance on the speech bubble things which weren't actually speech bubbles. They were like idea bubbles, right to kind of tell you what the topic is, of what they're saying. And it seems like those probably still exist to some degree. In The Sims four, I haven't played it nearly as much as I did two and three, but you don't rely on them as much anymore, like you can, you can the characters emote in a more meaningful way, and, and, yeah, Remy here just really leveraged that to tell this story. The story is interesting because it's, it's got some flavours that you feel like are, you know, there's, there's elements of it where it's like, okay, this is like a sleeping beauty type of story. But then in other elements, it's more frozen. But it's not any one of those. It's not a remake of any of those, a retelling of any of those stories. It's a different story, a hard to predict story I found, which is a plus, by the way, so especially for a fairy tale, when's the last time you heard a new fairy tale, you know those? Those are archetypal stories we keep retelling, right? And because they have meaning to us. And this is, this is someone who played jazz with fairy tale themes, and it worked. You know, it's, it's not the jazz that makes everyone cringe, that only a few people understand, but you know, jazz that, that even people who don't play jazz get, you know, that's, that's what they pulled off here. So, yeah, I could go on and on about this, but it's, it's, I just. Absolutely loved it.
Phil Rice 30:06
I didn't think about Damien, the the song lyric audio being over the Simlish. I noticed it, but I didn't. I wouldn't have thought to mention it, but no, you're right. That may be the only flaw I can find in this is, and that's hard to do, you know, you'd have to, you'd have to edit the music somehow, in a in a way that has no seams to get it to where the lyrics only get sung when nobody's talking. That's hard, and they may have just been, you know, restricted by maybe the timing of the song was working out so well for some other elements of the edit that it just didn't make sense to do it. Sometimes you can get a you can get access to an instrumental version of a song, and then you kind of cross edit in pieces of that to omit lyrics where you don't want them. Those are hard to get a hold of, for for professional songs, so, but yeah, other than that, and that's really just a, I think, just different taste, it's not a glaring flaw, like you said, Damien, we, you know, we didn't really need, we weren't getting any new information from the similar dialogue. But our instinct is, you don't have two people talking at the same time, otherwise you risk not understanding them. They were probably leaning on the fact that, okay, the only one of these that has sensible words is, is going to be heard if they need to. Kind of thing. I don't know. Who knows what they were thinking, but yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's something that I would have done differently. But, yeah, all in all, that's, that's a small potato on a just a very admirable, admirable piece of work. I've watched a lot of Sims, four machinima, and I can't tell you how many I watch, and you'll notice they don't end up on the board, um, and that's, it's hard to say a statement like that without sounding either arrogant or mean. I'm not trying to be either of those things. But, you know, there's a standard that's kind of been set with, with what we what we pick for the show, you know, and I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of very young filmmakers in The Sims four and and so they're working through some of those things, and they're all going to improve in those areas and get better and stuff. And this, this would definitely be, if you're a Sims four machinima person, and you want to you want something to aim up at. Check this out. This film is has a lot to admire, very well executed.
Damien Valentine 32:50
So before we move on to Tracy, I just want to clarify to Remy, despite my criticism of that sound issue, that's only a minor thing, and it wasn't distracting all the way through. It's just one or two places near the beginning Exactly. Yeah, maybe three spots as well. Yeah, if it ruined the film for me, I would not have chosen it. We'd be talking about something different, right? So don't take that criticism too harshly, please, because it's your film is very impressive. It's just that's the one niggle I had, was that little bit of distraction where the sound levels were overlapping a little bit, but yeah, Tracy, what do you think? Well,
Tracy Harwood 33:27
I mean, I think this is one of the most astonishing and unexpected Sims for machinima films, right I've ever seen. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, have to say, not at all a typical Damian pick. I it was like what they'll very surprising anyway. Because of that, I had to find out more about Remy Marcelli, because I think knowing a little bit more about him might help me understand what, what, what's been done here. And I think the first thing to say is, I'm surprised. It's a male creator for this. I thought it might be a woman creator, but it isn't smell. Remy is a French simmer. He's been working with the engine a very long time. I think, from what I understand, it was around 2004 when he when it sort of first piqued his interest. His channel was created in 2009 and his first machinima, which was called Broken Hearts, was made in Sims three and drew a lot of attention online, including from The Sims team. Um, which is interesting, given that we reviewed the fixer A little while back, and the guy that is responsible for The Sims, which Phil, you still have to speak to him anyway, this particular film is. Uh, well, it's focused on themes are, well, sorry, not this particular. This guy's work, generally, is focused on themes of fascination, repulsion, obsession and rejection. And he says it's loosely inspired by the game American McGee's Alice. Now, I looked that up. It's, it's a kind of Alice in Wonderland game gone wrong.
Phil Rice 35:25
The thing of it, I played that game. Have you? Well,
Tracy Harwood 35:28
I immediately thought of Ricky when I saw the description of it. It's a horror and psychological torture, loosely based on Alice in Wonderland.
Phil Rice 35:39
Beautiful game, by the way, is it? Well, beautiful.
Tracy Harwood 35:42
It looked really interesting. And then it made me think, well, actually, that's probably a kind of alter ego of The Sims two. Isn't it given, given some of the wicked things that you can do with these characters. Anyway, so that's the background to it, the film itself. I mean, this has tropes of every Disney Princess fairy tale you could possibly imagine. And importantly, I think the film's been inspired by a pre made character in The Sims called Bella Goth, so it's one of the kind of cool things that influences Remy. And in fact, he states that this central character, Bella Goth, is his muse in most of the videos that he kind of makes. So mostly dedicated to her. I didn't know what the plumbob was. I have to say. I had to look that up. I didn't really understand too much about the crystal over the head. And I didn't really understand what the colours meant, either. So that, you know the idea of green for bad and red for good. And then I'll say, Well, yeah, well, the characters purple, though. So what's that make it? I don't really know, and there aren't really any crystals over the heads anyway. So the plum Bob bit was only if you know about Sims. What do you understand what that means? So I think it's made for a Sims community. I think the characters you have in this are quite interesting in the way that they've been developed or written. I mean, let's late the princess for a minute. You see aspects and Phil, you said this as well. You see aspects of Cinderella in it. You see Rapunzel. You also see bits of lightning from the fabulous foreign and Cleopatra and the princess from Jason and the Argonauts, and maybe a bit of Alibaba and the 40 Thieves in Arabian Nights, and possibly a bit of Wendy in Peter Pan as well. I have to think, you know, it is just the most astonishing mix of components which I didn't think actually constituted a you you know, a new concept, if you like, but the way it's been put together is entirely original. It's, you know, it's a princess character that we've just never seen before anywhere, I don't think because of the way it's been constituted. And then you look at the other characters, you know, there's two other lead characters in it as well. You've got this kind of wicked person who's obviously not our princess's father, but a wizard or a jealous king or an enemy of the crown, or somebody she falls in love with, which is, you know, not at all what you expect. And then you've got the prince who's similarly this kind of weird mishmash of characters. You know, he's kind of a washout, a loser, a winner. He's also a hero and and, and a nothing, and who knows what else. I mean, these characters are just divinely created and just so mixed up. It's just not at all what you expected. And yet, the the overarching trope of the film is something that you understand, which is a good job, because the complexity of these characters ultimately would just mean you would have no idea where this is going, yeah, very
Phil Rice 39:19
easy for this to have been muddled, and it was not. It wasn't, was it at all? Given every reason to be Yeah, muddled, yeah,
Tracy Harwood 39:29
but you knew where it was going and that all kind of you knew where it was going, and it didn't matter. You knew enough. Yeah.
Damien Valentine 39:35
I think the having it split into three parts, that's what helped. You could focus on each bit as it happened, rather than, I think it was one big mess. Yes, it's like a chapter of a book. It's a three chapter film, and because it's the in that sort of format, it makes it a lot easier to follow.
Tracy Harwood 39:54
Indeed. Well, then the other thing that I've, you know, I picked up on with the music. I mean, this is great. This is cinema.