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
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 –
This week, we have some more interesting project updates to share with you.
Recognition
We were thrilled to hear that Sam Crane’s GTA Online version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet has been recognized, being shortlisted for an award for innovation at the The Stage Awards 2023 – we love that they spelled Auto incorrectly too (Audio)! Awards are announced on 30 January and hopefully Sam (aka Rustic Mascara) will keep us posted on his Twitter feed during the event. All the best, Sam! You can still find the performance on YouTube, link here –
Unreal
Using Unreal Engine, this short is another example of how beautiful this toolset is. This short by The Blender Bender team (Thomas Thielemann and Alexander Korabelnikov), released 26 Sept 2022, was inspired by David Attenborough’s Our Planet series, and with an even more stark message than the original series –
Also using Unreal Engine, we were interested to see that Sava Zivkovic, who’s film Irradiation we reviewed back in October 2021, is working on a new project, this one called Beckoning. He’s also just been awarded an Epic Megagrant to support development of the project – well deserved for sure. Here’s the link to the trailer for the new project – must say, very much looking forward to seeing the finished work.
Not Unreal but seriously unreal, this is an ‘insane battle’ scene demonstrating the astonishing simulation capability of the Epic Battle Simulator 2 engine. This one, SPECIAL FORCES ARE LANDING ON THE ISLAND OCCUPIED BY SAURON, was released 5 November 2022, by the Battle Simulator Center team –
Virtual Production
A short film, called Goliath by DonBittersil (screencap is our featured image for this post), has showcased virtual production tools using Unreal Engine, having been shot at LA’s Orbital Virtual Studios. For those advancing from purely screen based production techniques, this is an interesting insight into scaled-up processes – check out the film and the ‘making of’ videos here –
You may remember we shared Jackson Wang’s beautifully choreographed music video called Cruel a few weeks back, well this is another one from his Magic Man album, using virtual production techniques. Its also a stunning example of his creative work and the usefulness of the VP process –
Avant Garde?
An interesting article appeared on MUBI’s website about a cutscene collective, called Total Refusal. This team of gamers do what machinima creators have done for 25+ years, that is, use the game for some other creative purpose. Its nice to see that MUBI is keeping up with the times of course, and they would certainly do well to follow our friends at the Milan Machinima Film Festival to keep up to date with this particular ‘Avant Garde’ scene format. In the meantime, this is an example of Total’s Refusal’s creative works, a trailer for Hardly Working (RDR2) –
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
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?
In this episode, Damien, Ricky and Tracy discuss the release of Reallusion’s iClone 8 and Character Creator 4, the use of OpenAI for generating machinima scripts, legalese and Star Citizen’s users rules update, latest contests and challenges for machinima creators, technical notes and project updates, including Pooky Amsterdam’s announcement of her latest project, the world’s first Metaverse musical
YouTube Version of this Episode
minus the copyright problems!
Show Notes and Links
0:35 Feedback from our listeners, thanks Ben Tuttle, 3DChick, Mike Clements, CD and Pooky Amsterdam
34:10 No excuses: Nvidia Omniverse Machinima competition closes 27 June 2022 – and here’s the link to Ricky’s interview with Dane Johnston as the Machinima app was being launched last year
38:40 2nd Annual Film Festival for Fantasy Faire in Second Life, organized by Saffia Widdeshins and Chantal Harvey. Congratulations to winners – links are HERE and Pryda Parx epic fly through the Fantasy Faire sim is HERE
Award (Wafflie) winner at 2nd Annual Film Festival for Fantasy Faire
41:19 Especially for Ricky: Elden Ring’s new VR mod by Luke Ross (Patreon channel)
In this episode, Phil leads the month’s news for machinima creators. We kick off with the Nvidia’s Machinima Contest, the Omniverse Create and Machinima apps, GTC conference recordings, the addition of Reallusion’s ActorCore library to the Omniverse platform and ask ‘how well do laptops cope with RTX cards’ (what do you think)? Damien reviews Concert Creator AI for piano with a rendition of Battlestar Galactica’s Kara Remembers piece, Tracy talks about another of her projects demonstrating creative applications of AI (the Art AI Festival) and Ricky highlight’s Phil Tippett’s completed Mad God film project. Other film contests reviewed are the Real Time Shorts Challenge and the Milan Machinima Film Festival and the news of an upcoming Shakespearean performance in GTA Online by Sam Crane. Tracy reviews Draxtor Dupres’ major pandemic machinima film project comparing virtual life in Second Life and Animal Crossing. We discuss the Unreal 5 City Sample, Unity’s Enemies (hiding under the UE bushel) and Ricky’s Paperback Show. Phil also teases us with rumours about GTA6.
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