Martin Bell

Fests & Contests Update (Oct 2022)

Tracy Harwood Blog October 17, 2022 Leave a reply

Prazinburk Ridge

Its no surprise to hear that Martin Bell’s Prazinburk Ridge has won its first award, Best Animation – and very fitting that it should be at the North of England’s Wigan and Leigh Film Festival, not a stone’s throw away from Huddersfield, where the main character in the story hailed from. Many congratulations, Martin!

You can see us review the film also on our YouTube channel here –

UE: Creep it Real

Possibly a bit late notifying you but a nice little Unreal contest launched earlier this month – Unreal Challenge: Creep It Real! Here’s the link – deadline is 29 October. There are some great prizes for video content created with the assets you use which is LESS THAN 1 MINUTE, so late as we are posting this, there’s still no excuse for not participating! There were 450 entries to their Better Light Than Never contest, held earlier in the year, so we’re looking forward to seeing the sizzle reel from entries to this one in due course.

Unreal Challenge: Creep It Real

MacInnes Studios’ Dance Challenge

Another contest has launched, hosted by John MacInnes aka MacInnes Studios, and its hot on the heals of his Mood Scene contest, the results for which we look forward to seeing soon. The new contest is all about dance moves – check out the details here – start date is 1st October and it runs for 30 days.

MacInnes Studios Dance Challenge – Oct 2022

and if you want to hear John talk more about his use of avatars and ‘the future of digital humans’, here’s a great webinar you can catch up on too, hosted by Faceware (one of the Dance Challenge sponsors).

Open Calls

There are numerous experimental film festivals that are currently calling for entries – check them out on ExpCinema.org – we liked the look of Underneath the Floorboards!

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 45 Films (September 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 8, 2022 1 Comment

In this episode, Ricky, Tracy, Phil and Damien review some of the best short movies we’ve seen made using machinima and virtual production techniques yet! Not all are hot off the press, but certainly films like The Lord Inquisitor – Prologue allude to why Unreal Engine has become such a key tool for creators today, as beautifully exemplified in extraordinary films we review this week, The Cloud Racer and Prazinburk Ridge. Person2184, made in Unreal Tournament 2004, was an altogether different approach to experiencing real-time content – originally intended to be experienced in-game and is an early example of the promise of what VR may yet become in future. 



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

0:10 Ricky introduces our new episode format – feedback welcome on the plans!

0:59 The Cloud Racer by Impossible Objects (UE5), released 15 August 2022 and Short of the Week, curated review by Jason Sondhi, released 10 August 2022

The Cloud Racer

21:16 The Lord Inquisitor – Prologue, by Warpgazer Animations (released 28 August 2016). See also this promotional video released in 2013, when it had already been in production for 2 years!

The Lord Inquisitor – Prologue

39:15 Person2184 (UT2004 machinima), by Friedrich Kirschner released 4 April 2008 (and the version we’re linking to uploaded by mdvhimself on 17 August 2022) and hear more about The Journey in our Unreal history episode by Ben Grussi, recently released. Addendum: Friedrich has confirmed the work was released in 2005 and premiered at the Machinima Film Festival that year.

person2184

This image is from the Machinima Europe Festival 2007, showing Friedrich Kirschner front left (striped jumper) among other machinima luminaries including Hugh Hancock (mid back), Paul Marino (right front), Alex Chan (next to Friedrich) and Tracy (centre front).

Friedrich Kirschner at Machinima Festival Europe 2007

59:09 Prazinburk Ridge by Yes, Commissioner? aka Martin Bell, Unreal Engine 4 (released 27 June 2022) and Steven Bell’s book about the life of the character portrayed in the film, Dougie Clark, https://www.pitchpublishing.co.uk/shop/man-all-talents

Prazinburk Ridge