Podcast Episodes

S3 Special: Machiniplex Intro

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 28, 2023 Leave a reply

In this episode, Phil introduces the Machiniplex [Remastered] Collection, a curated selection of machinimas from the early years. Machiniplex was a site created to host classic machinimas at the point that Machinima [dot] com began to assert its energies over the community as a corporate entity. The site was a community endeavour, with both Ricky and Phil playing a pivitol role in managing the project to preserve the original content the community had contributed to the early original Machinima website… until such time as it ran its course. In this ep, Phil and Ricky reminisce about the origins of Machiniplex and its contributors.

To celebrate the release of the curated collection, we have each selected a film we recall with particular fondness and discuss its significance. Phil has remastered each of the films using AI, not always a perfect process, so we also discuss his approach and techniques in bringing the original works up to 4K standard.

We encourage machinima fans everywhere to check out these films, not only were they brilliant in their day but in terms of storytelling, remain some of our favourite creative works against which we often draw comparisons when reviewing latest films.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

Blahbalicious by Wendigo and Avatar, 1997 –

BOT by Digital Yoke, 2005? –

Edge of Remorse by Riot Films, 2006 –

The Snow Witch by Britannica Dreams, 2006 –

Phil’s trailer for the Machiniplex [Remastered] Channel –

Go to the Machiniplex [Remastered] Collection on Phil’s Vimeo channel here – website https://bit.ly/machiniplex or access the playlist here –

S3 E87 Cyberpunk 2077: Don’t Fall Down, Cinematic Machinima Music Video (July 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 26, 2023 Leave a reply

A love letter to Cyberpunk 2077? In this week’s episode, the CM crew discuss a cinematic music video that perfectly captures a uniquely human feeling of people watching… and reflects on the phenomenal creativity of procedurally generated character content in the Cyberpunk world. The film is called Don’t Fall Down by Puttefnask and the song it accompanies is Pray by Haelos – it is perhaps a more fitting video than the original.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

Film, by Puttefnask, released 23 February 2023 –

Made using Cyberpunk 2077 Photo Mode mod v 1.0.20 by Otis_Inf, link here

Original music video, Haelos – Pray, released 26 Oct 2015 –

Falling Down (1993), analysis of meaning

Bruegel the Elder, painter, a discussion of his work here –

A useful link on street photography here

S3 E86 RDR2: The MODDED Wacky West (July 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 20, 2023 Leave a reply

This week’s review is of 12 minutes of the wackiest of Wacky Wests we could ever imagine! BedBananas has used a a whole host of mods, created by Weds_Garbageday, to devise this truly surrealist Red Dead American dream machinima. Seeing is believing – and its probably one of the best machinimas of all time!



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

Film, by BedBananas, released 10 June 2020 –

Mods creator, Glynn JKW – link to his Github page here and his Twitter here

Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr, available as a public domain movie here –

Link to critique of Dali and discussion of the meaning of his work here

Lainy Voom’s Push on Phil’s Machiniplex Remastered collection channel (Vimeo) here –

and Tracy’s discussion of surrealist machinima in the Journal of Visual Culture (2011) here

S3 E85 Its Just A Game (July 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 13, 2023 Leave a reply

Nope, its not ‘just a game’, its one of the most visually stunning Gothic story open worlds ever created (according to Ricky)! In this ep, we discuss GraysonFlows’ tribute to the world of Elden Ring, set to Max Richter’s November composition, which highlights the beauty of the game from the exhausting open sequence to the final prize, creatures, battles and voice acting.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

Its Just A Game | Elden Ring ‘The Fallen Leaves Tell a Story…’ by GraysonFlows, released 19 May 2022

Otis_Inf Camera Mod Patreon channel link here

Carbot Animations – Elden Ring cartoon channel link here

S3 E84 DCS: The Ghost | DCS: The Right Stuff (July 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 6, 2023 Leave a reply

This week, we discuss some of the best flight sim machinima we’ve ever seen, thanks to Damien’s picks.  We couldn’t decide which was better, so we discuss two films: The Ghost and The Right Stuff by J P Ferre, made in DCS.  The first is a horror story and the other a story of one of the most influential pioneers of modern space flight today: Chuck Yeager. It is an outstanding retelling of one particularly testing flight, and is a Hollywood movie in 12 minutes! 



YouTube Version of this Film

Show Notes & Links

DCS: The Ghost by J P Ferre, released 6 April 2021 –

DCS: The Right Stuff by J P Ferre, released 10 December 2022 –

Read about Chuck Yeager on the Academy of Achievement’s website here or Wikipedia here

Faith, Hope and Charity, by Wingmen Productions (originally released 2007) – this is a post of the film, unfortunately the original website no longer exists –