Paul Marino Archives - Completely Machinima

S5 E163 20 years on HL2: I’m Still Seeing Breen (Jan 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 2, 2025 Leave a reply

Kicking off 2025 with a review of a classic and iconic #machinima by one of the pioneers of the movement, Paul Marino aka ILLRobinson – and its 20 years almost to the day this was released! I’m Still Seeing Breen, made in HL2, holds a special place in our memories from those early years – not only was it a perfect ‘protest piece’ as the feature machinima demonstrating its potential for a 2005 Sundance Film Festival panel discussion (alongside RoosterTeeth’s RVB) but was further developed for MTV2’s Season 2 premiere of its Video Mods TV show later that same year. In this episode, we go over the back story, discuss how this was made and its impact on machinima in general.

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Show Notes & Links

I’m Still Seeing Breen, released 5 March 2005 by Paul Marino

480p broadcast version for MTV2 –

Steam link for HL2 upgrade including Source Filmmaker here

Background information also from the Pioneers in Machinima book, written by Tracy Harwood and Ben Grussi

Paul Marino’s book, published in 2004, available as a free download on the Internet Archive (log-in/account required) here

S4 E116 GTA5: Danser Encore | Escape Game (Feb 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 14, 2024 1 Comment

This week’s review is of a self-contained excerpt from a larger film, called Escape Game by @CrisUberman. This part of the film is the final chapter of the story, Danser Encore, voiced by @lionelmazari1990 with a song by @hksaltimbank. We delve into the inspiration for the themes in the film, which draws on the philosophy of Empedocles and Rosset, although we perhaps lower the tone a little with reference to Oscar Wilde!

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Show Notes & Links

Excerpt of full film, Danser Encore by Cris Uberman –

Full film, released 28 Nov 2023, featuring Louis Fouche –

Artist website and blog link here

I’m Still Seeing Breen by Paul Marino, originally released in 2004

Journey into the Metaverse by Tutsy NAvArAthnA, released 2011

S4 112 Machinima Class of 2006 | Sims 2: The Fixer – (Jan 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 18, 2024 Leave a reply

We take a look at one of the best machinima series we’ve ever seen this week… from the annals of history. The Fixer series was a crime drama created by Todd Stallkamp (aka Burnt Coffee Productions aka TodNYC28) made in Sims 2 and originally released in 2006. Todd was part of the first brain drain from the world of machinima, and shortly after the release of this series was snapped up by EA Games as a content creator where he still is, ironically now in charge of the Sims amongst other games in its portfolio. We revisit the series in our review, discuss how well its stacked up against contemporary machinima and why its still one of the greatest machinima series we’ve ever seen! Ricky concludes, if Todd hadn’t gone to EA, he’d now be making TV shows and films: ‘… you could take this series, make it live action, use all of the shots that Todd made and put it on Amazon as a series.’

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Show Notes & Links

The Fixer, Chapters 1, 2 and 3, by Burnt Coffee Productions (Todd Stallkamp) – remastered versions on Phil’s Vimeo channel for the Machiniplex classics –

The Fixer, Ep 1 – Fat Men Run

The Fixer, Ep 2 – Guns, Ghandi and Getting Some

The Fixer, Chapt 3 – One Digit Off

Todd Stallkamp talking about the importance of machinima –

An example of Todd’s machinima projects for EA expansion packs –

The first part of the ITV Westcountry news documentary filmed by Todd and Trace Sanderson –

S3 E83 Half Life: HEV Suit (June 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes June 29, 2023 Leave a reply

This week, Phil has selected a short that will make all those H&S and Half Lifers smile equally… HEV Suit by @Zapper770 … because we all need more head crabs in our lives. The film is an example of great comedy timing.

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Show Notes & Links

Film, by Zapper770, released 26 April 2021

Paul Marino, director of the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences and author of one of the first books written on how to make machinima, called The Art of Machinima (2009) (actually its pretty outdated in terms of advice, but good for ‘ole’ time’s sake’!

Completely Machinima Interview: John Gaeta, The Matrix

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 17, 2022 2 Comments

In this episode, Tracy talks to John Gaeta about his interests in machinima and real time filmmaking, The Matrix Awakens Experience, the influence of the bullet time shot, building the metaverse, future of storytelling in immersive environments, the potential of NFTs and his advice for indie creators.

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