Godzilla Archives - Completely Machinima

Maker Series E4: Ricky’s Wonderful World of Sound – Monsters

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes October 30, 2025 Leave a reply

🎃 Halloween Special | Ricky’s Wonderful World of Sounds: MONSTERS! 👹

This Halloween, step into the dark side of Ricky’s Wonderful World of Sounds — where we explore the terrifying art of monster sound design! 🧟‍♂️

What do monsters really sound like? From the primal screeches that haunted early humans to the eerie, unearthly noises that send chills down modern audiences’ spines — this episode reveals how sound designers craft the perfect scare.

Discover:
🔊 Why you should hear the monster before you see it
🦴 How altered animal and environmental sounds create fear
🧬 The science of sound that taps into our instinctive fight-or-flight response
🎥 Classic monster sound examples from “Them!”, Godzilla, Predator, The Exorcist, and more

Whether you’re a filmmaker, sound designer, or just a Halloween horror fan, this episode will make you listen to fear in a whole new way.

Ricky Grove shares his expert insights on using ambient sound to bring machinima to life, offering practical tips and creative ideas you can apply to your own projects. Whether you’re crafting your first indie animation or refining your cinematic game scenes, you’ll be inspired and better equipped to design unforgettable soundscapes.

About Ricky Grove
Ricky Grove is an award-winning actor, director, voice artist, and sound designer with decades of experience in stage, film, and virtual production. After earning his BFA in Directing from Arizona State University and a Master’s in Acting from the Yale School of Drama, Ricky built a rich career in theatre and television, appearing in works such as Army of Darkness and ER.

In the late 1990s, he became a pioneer in the machinima community, collaborating with trailblazers like Hugh Hancock, Phil Rice, and Jason Choi. His contributions as a voice director, actor, and sound designer have shaped many award-winning early machinima films. He’s hosted festivals, championed the art form, and continues to share his passion as co-host of the Completely Machinima Podcast.

The first episodes of Ricky’s Wonderful World of Sound were originally created for the early-2000s machinima podcast The Overcast. This updated series expands his original teachings, offering timeless advice for creating powerful sound in machinima.

🎧 Tip: For the best experience, close your eyes and immerse yourself in Ricky’s words.

Credits

Speaker / Producer / Sound Editor: Ricky Grove

Visuals, Monsters & Music: Phil Rice

#Machinima #SoundDesign #Filmmaking #3DAnimation #GameEngines #MonsterSounds #HorrorMovies #IndieFilm #VoiceActing

Links here –

Audio only

Youtube version

Notes

darkstreets_loop_120bpm_by_OnlyTheGhosts.wav by OnlyTheGhosts — https://freesound.org/s/251802/ — License: Attribution 4.0

S4 E124 Machinima News Omnibus (Apr 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes April 10, 2024 Leave a reply

A packed review this month, with some sad 🙁 better 😐 and happy news 🙂

YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

Endings

The long-anticipated demise of Rooster Teeth and has been announced – as has the much anticipated final season of Red Vs Blue in this trailer –

If you are a die hard RTer, here’s a link to the Rooster Teeth team response to Warner’s announcement, its ‘Not a Final Goodbye’ –

Tracy and Ben’s Pioneers in Machinima book chapter is here too, Chapter 4: Rooster Teeth Bites.

Here’s the link to the 2007 Special Ep, Going Global, released at the First European Machinima Festival in 2007 (in Leicester, UK) –

Articles, Variety, Deadline and IGN.

Another ending, Draxtor Dupres’ Second Life series supported by Linden Labs, Drax Files: World Makers. Here’s his final report and here’s a link to a livestream he did to celebrate the achievements of the show –

Accolades

Sam Crane’s Hamlet in GTA5 won a Jury prize for best documentary at SXSW 2024, link to news coverage here, and the distribution deal awarded here.

Electro League and Weta’s War is Over has become the first UE5 film to win an Oscar, Best Animated Short –

Congratulations to @ElectroLeagueX and @WetaFXofficial on winning the Oscar for Best Animated Short with "WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko". This is a first for an animated short created in Unreal Engine 5, we couldn't be more proud! https://t.co/bH3yrA23Jf
— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) March 10, 2024

Aye AI AI…

YouTube has updated its T&Cs, a nice article here

ConvAI has announced a partnership with Unity for NPCs, and also teamed up with Second Life. Here’s a link to Wagner James Au’s New World Notes blog – and here’s a couple of useful links –

Stability AI has introduced a 3D video generator, information here

RunwayML has partnered with Musixmatch to generate video to lyrics, link to information here

and it has also announced a new lipsync feature for generative audio, currently on early access to its creators programme members

Hume has a demo of a voice-to-voice generator, described as an Empathic Voice Interface – link to sign-up for early access here

and if you need a little overview of how all things generative AI are developing, here’s a nice video summary by Henrik Kniberg –

Inspiration

To celebrate the phenomenal success of Gozilla Minus One at the 2024 Oscars, Nelson Escobar, the VFX creator of the Godzilla model, has released it as a free download for Blender. Link here –

Congratulations @nostoro and the entire Godzilla -1.0 team!
minus one model is now available for free:https://t.co/d0VRn2VJ6X #Godzilla #Oscars @TohoKingdom @Godzilla_Toho pic.twitter.com/wHvc97ZG5a
— Nelson Escobar (@Nelzonis2) March 11, 2024

Blockbuster Inc has announced its release date: 6 June 2024. Here’s the official gameplay trailer –

and here’s the link to Prologue on Steam

Finally, here’s the link to the interview with Denis Villeneuve, discussing his approach to making the latest Dune films –

Post Script

We are super excited to see our Podcast make the Top 3 listing of indie filmmaking podcasts on Goodpods in March 2024 – how cool is that?!

S4 E113 Legends! Zelda TOTK: Shinto Ritual | iClone & AI: Lobachevsky (Jan 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 25, 2024 1 Comment

This week we discuss two very different films, both reflecting a bygone era of classic entertainment. Firstly, an interpretation of the 1954 Japanese classic Godzilla, made in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Its unusual for a couple of reasons: its been made on a handheld Nintendo Switch in a game not really known for its creative application, and its been released only on X (Twitter). Its timing is perfect to capitalize on all the film and TV series hype at the moment so it was always going to find an appreciative audience – definitely one to check out. Secondly, Phil has created an iClone and AI-based video to the Tom Lehrer song, Lobachevsky – its the ultimate accompaniment to this well-known political satire. Phil discusses his creative process in its making and we also discuss how the original song came to be made at a time when Lehrer was walking a tightrope for a few reasons, so we reflect on its timing and impact.

YouTube Version of This Episode