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S5 E172 GTA San Andreas: The Days After (Mar 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 6, 2025 Leave a reply

This week we review a ‘golden age’ machinima, starring none other than Ricky Grove playing ‘Bogart’, and Ingrid Moon playing err, ‘Ingrid’, with Phil having created the score and Ricky having produced the sound design. Its a short by German-American creator, Andre Pesch aka ‪@albi84‬ called The Days After, made in GTA San Andreas. Its a story that pre-2020 probably we’d have all said, simply, yep that was great, without any real appreciation for what is actually being portrayed in this 2006 film. However, there’s a sense in which this now brings back memories of lockdowns and isolation, and the fear of an unknown viral menace devastating our lives. It perfectly illustrates the narrow grip many had on reality, as Ricky observes in this “… war, crime, patriotism – you can name those things but you can never fix them.”



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

The Days After by Andre Pesch, released 2006 – on his channel here

and the Machiniplex Remaster by Phil Rice here –

S4 E109 Teaching an AI: Backflip (Dec 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes December 28, 2023 Leave a reply

Backflip is a docu-style film, made over a period of three years where Nikita Diakur presents his progress using AI to teach a character to backflip. The character is the 3D scanned artist and the learning process applied is based on a technique he read in an academic paper. To say its chaos is an understatatement, and something anyone in research could probably have told him when attempting to replicate a finding in a publication (which of course is why LLMs using text alone will never be ‘intelligent’). It is also everything one would expect from a character rig with the physics of a double-jointed arachnid… but it sure is hugely entertaining to watch, and brilliantly edited together. Backflip is a must watch for anyone using AIs for animation, not least because it serves as a reminder of just how tough this all was pre-mid 2023!

We also begin the episode with some news updates: Half Life 2 @ 25 years, GTA6 trailer, Elden Ring DLCs and Baad Viibes (John MacInnes).



YouTube Version of This Episode

https://youtu.be/-iE2YKKQX9s

Show Notes & Links

Half Life 25th anniversay documentary and update –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto&t

The GTA6 official advert –

John MacInnes talking about Baad Viibes at the Unreal Fest, October 2023 –

Backflip – film by Nikita Diakur, released 27 September 2023 –

Completely Machinima Interview: Vladimir Nadein & Dmitry Frolov, curators (June 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes June 7, 2023 Leave a reply

In this bonus episode, Tracy talks to the curators of the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Vladimir Nadein and Dmitry Frolov.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

Tracy’s blog post about the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, including links to newspaper reviews about the festival’s machinima programme, Against Gravity

CM team discuss Oberhausen –

Sam Crane’s article: ‘Making movies in video games: why the film world is finally ready to take ‘machinima’ seriously’ in The Conversation, 16 May

Chris Marker’s machinima on Second Life –

Visions du Reel Swiss Film Festival 2023 special jury prize winner, Knit’s Island by Square Eyes –

Against Gravity showcase at Norway Film Festival link

Milan Machinima Film Festival link

Phil’s project to restore Machiniplex films starts with the release of his own Male Restroom Etiquette (originally released in 2006), with a hosted premiere of the HD remastered version on 11 June. The film was listed in the Guinness Book of Record’s Gamer’s Edition in 2009 as the most viewed machinima on YouTube at the time. Link here –

S3 E68 Film Review: TikTok Machinima (Mar 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 9, 2023 Leave a reply

This week, Ricky provokes us with a selection of shorts released on TikTok. We discuss the usefulness of the platform for machinima and virtual production creators, as well as pass comment on the three films we take a look at, which unsurprisingly we variously struggle with. Phil’s analogy to fish restaurants of different quality sums it up well for us all.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

A nice way to do some machinimas by AntroksRD, released 27 Dec 2022 –

Watch on TikTok

Make your own FNAF videos with Movieoke! By movieokeapp, released 21 Sept 2022 –

Watch on TikTok

Here’s a link to the app if you wanted to give it a go yourself.

FNAF on Steam here, £3.99

In the back of my mind by boyfrogsims, released 19 Sept 2022 –

Watch on TikTok

all the best memories are hers – sims 4 machinima by boyfrogsims, released 28 Jan 2021 –

European Commission bans TikTok on staff devices, BBC, 23 Feb 2023

The push to ban TikTok, Wired, 23 Feb 2023

TikTok access from government devices restricted in more than half of US states, CNN Business, 16 Jan 2023

S2 Ep 46: Film Review – Facing the Wolf

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 15, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, we focus our discussion on Facing the Wolf, a series of films by Iain Douglas and Mark Coverdale, submitted to the Milan Machinima Film Festival 2022.  The film presents a series of provocative ideas which provoke Ricky, Phil, Tracy and Damien to have a deep discussion on the role of information, ambiguity and audience investment.  What are your thoughts on the film series?



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

Facing the Wolf, by Iain Douglas and Mark Coverdale, released 2021

Poem, Coverdale – https://www.artschoolmodpoet.com/facing-the-wolf-poems

A trilogy of poetic machinima –

Facing the Wolf: i, Douglas and Coverdale, released 16 July 2021

Facing the Wolf I

Facing the Wolf: ii, Douglas and Coverdale, released 16 July 2021

Facing the Wolf II

Facing the Wolf: iii, Douglas and Coverdale, released 16 July 2021

Facing the Wolf III

1:35 Interview with Matteo Bittanti, Milan Machinima Film Festival

5:00 Ricky poses an interesting question: is machinima an animation style or a form of art that ideas can dominate, as opposed to feelings?

27:56 Discussion: for idea films, do you have to have more information than the film provides to appreciate the work?  What is the role of ambiguity in filmmaking?  How much time should audience invest in understanding a film?

Useful lnks

Luis Bunuel’s An Andalusian Dog (1929)

An Andalusian Dog

Bertolt Brecht’s alienation effect

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