Monthly Archives: April 2021

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Completely Machinima History with Ben Grussi (April)

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes April 26, 2021 Leave a reply

Machinima’s historian, Ben Grussi, looks back over the past couple of decades and shares some significant machinima-related events which occurred in the month of April.

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Completely Machinima S1 Special: How to Build a Machinima PC

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes April 23, 2021 1 Comment



Phil Rice and Ricky Grove discuss building a PC specifically for machinima production and post-production. They start with the GPU and work their way through an entire PC build adding tips and techniques for making a great machinima workstation PC.

*Disclosure: This podcast and blog is listener/reader supported. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, may earn us a small commission to help cover the costs of producing the show. Read full disclaimer here.

Phil’s PC Build

Budget: $2,000

Components

Note: Phil’s build is very much a multi-role machine… 1) machinima / animation creation, 3) live streaming to Twitch and YouTube, 3) video editing – sometimes 4K footage, and 4) DAW (digital audio workstation), so he had some extra storage needs that may be extreme for most setups. That’s also the reason for his insistence on 32GB of RAM.

Actual Price = $2,030 + tax

Ricky’s PC Build

Budget: $1,000-$1,200

Components

Actual Price = $1,530 (oops)

Additional Items:

Time Links

Completely Machinima S1 Ep 5 Discussion (April 2021)

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes April 15, 2021 Leave a reply



S1 Ep 5 Machinima Discussion & Show Notes

And Now For Something Completely Machinima is a long-form podcast devoted to machinima (movies made in game engines), real-time technologies, and virtual reality. This month (April 2021) we are splitting our podcast into four sections which will post once a week: Machinima News (April 1), Machinima Films (April 8), Machinima Discussion (April 15), and a Special “Build a Machinima PC” podcast (April 22).

This episode was produced by Ricky Grove joined by hosts Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, and Damien Valentine.

Summary: After Ricky’s Milan Machinima Festival report he brings up a question that was put to one of the Festival jurors (Henry Lowood – “…has machinima dissolved into the larger culture of streaming and game videos“) and then asks the other hosts their opinion. The next topic for discussion is the status and quality of the “Let’s Play” machinima in 2021. Phil has particularly good insights. Finally, the gang takes on a contemporary topic that might impact machinima creators in “What the Hell is NFT?“. As usual, Tracy has the best insights on this topic.

Contact and Feedback for this show: https://completelymachinima.com/#talk

Timecode for this Episode

00:00:38
Damien’s newest Episode of his machinima series, “Star Wars: Heir to the Empire” is out

00:02:32
Ricky’s Report on the Milan Machinima Festival

00:07:15
Ricky’s fav Milan Festival film “Fire Underground” by NIck Crockett

00:09:50
First discussion question, “..has machinima dissolved into the larger culture of streaming and game videos?“

00:10:36
Tracy’s answer

00:16:22
Phil’s take

00:23:17
Damien’s response

00:25:26
Ricky’s answer

00:32:14
Second question, “Is Let’s Play just game-play, or is it a more significant type of machinima?”

00:40:09
Ricky on a Let’s Play machinima at the Milan Machinima Festival

00:47:23
Phil on shooting “Father Frags Best”

00:52:44
Third question, “What the hell is NFT?”

01:06:50
Tracy nails the NFT question

Are we just all full of shit? Please contact us! We are desperately hoping to be told off in no uncertain terms. Phil especially is stressed because he reads all of the bot spam being posted as comments. Please help save Phil’s sanity, for God’s sake!

The Mind’s Eye: A Computer Animation

Ricky Grove Blog April 12, 2021 Leave a reply

Tthe first effort by director and co-producer Jan Nickman which served as a demonstration of computer animation when the art-form was still in its relative infancy. It is composed of a sequence of segments ambitiously chronicling the formation of Earth (“Creation”), the rise of human civilizations (“Civilization Rising”), and the technological advances of humanity from the advent of agriculture to the future exploration of the cosmos. The video speculatively concludes with a segment of what might be the next sentient species to arise on Earth, as well as the CGI short Stanley and Stella in: Breaking the Ice. The soundtrack was composed by James Reynolds. The sales of this video were RIAA certified as “Multi-Platinum” and reached as high as #12 on Billboard’s video sales chart.

The Mind’s Eye is a spectacular odyssey through time. Your journey begins at the dawn of creation and moves through the rise of man and technology. Travel in the world of abstraction and on into the future with breathtaking computer animation imagery. The Mind’s Eye joins the imaginations of over 300 of the world’s most talented computer animation artists with a powerful, original music soundtrack. This unique collaboration takes you on an incredible voyage into The Mind’s Eye. (1990, Archive.org)

360° VR Filmmaking Masterclass

Phil Rice Blog April 10, 2021 Leave a reply

*Disclosure: This podcast and blog is listener/reader supported. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, may earn us a small commission to help cover the costs of producing the show. Read full disclaimer here.

If you were intrigued by the conversation in Season 1 Episode 2 of our podcast, where we discussed the relatively uncharted territory of VR and 360 degree filmmaking, this may interest you.

Over at CreatorUp – a site focused on education on the art of storytelling – they have a course titled “360° VR Filmmaking Masterclass” taught by some remarkably experienced pros. They’re offering a free preview which lets you sample part of the first module of the training, and they’re running an early access special on the course at half its normal price. Right now the full course is available for $150, but at the end of April (2021) the price is set to go up to $299.

We tend to focus our attention here on free or low cost training opportunities, but I thought I’d mention this “premium” training simply because it’s highly specialized and is so related to a topic we recently discussed on the show. Plus, if you’re really serious about this kind of filmmaking, you’ve probably already made a substantial investment in equipment, or you plan to. So this kind of educational investment might make sense if that’s the case.

Check out their course page, which shows the full curriculum and schedule, tells you all about the instructors, and even has a trailer.

It’s worth mentioning, too, that CreatorUp has a substantial catalog of other filmmaking-related courses – many of which are priced under $20.

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Tracy Harwood and Ben Grussi’s Machinima Book, On Sale Now!