Quake Done Quick

Completely Machinima History with Ben Grussi: Quake I Machinima

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 24, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, Ben reminds us where the story of machinima originated in those early Quake movies which have become classic game-based films.  He talks us through the most notable contributions by the pioneers using the Quake 1 engine.  Tune in next month when Ben concludes the history of Quake with reviews of notables in Quake 2 and 3.  You can find links to the films on our blog and some in our YouTube playlist for History of Machinima.



YouTube Version of Episode

Show Notes & Links

Ben reviews classic Quake 1 films from the machinima archives –

0.48 Diary of a Camper by The Rangers, released 26 October 1996

2.00 Torn Apart series by The Rangers, first released 6 November 1996

2.28 Apartment Huntin’ by The ILL Clan, released 17 May 1998

3.23 Eschaton: Darkness Twilight by Strange Company, released 20 January 1998 (by Walking Wounded)

Hugh Hancock, Strange Company

4.30 Blahbalicious by Avatar & Wendigo, released 9 December 1997

5.40 Devil’s Covenant by Clan Phantasm, released 2 August 1998

6.59 Operation Bayshield by Clan Undead, released 24 January 1997

8.02 Zerstorer by Nihilism Unlimited, released 27 September 1997

9.06 Seal of Nehahra by Nehahra Team, released 6 August 2000

9.46 Scourge Done Slick by Quake Done Quick Team, released 25 July 1998

Completely Machinima History with Ben Grussi (January)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 27, 2022 2 Comments

Ben reviews some of the major happenings during the month of January in the early days of machinima. Starting with 1997 there’s Operation Bay-Shield. 1998 has the First Quake 2 movie – The Mad Bomber. Rematic, a machinima tool by Anthony Bailey is released in 1999. Also in this year Phil Rice released his notable film, Father Frags Best – a machinima classic. 2000 sees Machinima.com founded and Quad God film was released along with several other notable films. 2002 saw the Reel-Time Challenge contest along with Psyk’s Popcorn Jungle retiring (a big machinima review site). 2003 Anachronox the Movie Part 1 was released. 2004 Red vs Blue second season launched. In 2005 the first noveletta about machinima was written by Mike Hoefflinger called Moving Pictures. In 2006, Hugh Hancock, founder of Machinima.com stepped away from the site to focus on his filmmaking.



youtube version of podcast

Operation Bay-shield (1997) by WendCA

Eschaton: Darkness Twilight (1998) by Strange Company

First Quake 2 Movie: The Mad Bomber (1998)

Rematic (1999) tool created by Anthony Bailey (Quake Done Quick Team). The tool enabled reshoots of existing Quake (1) demos from new perspectives

Father Frags Best (1999) by Phil Rice aka ZS Overman

Quad God (2000) by Tritin Films

A Warrior’s Life (2000) by Donnovan

Ozymandias (2000) by Strange Company

Anachronox: The Movie Part 1 (2003) by Jake Hughes

Rebel Vs Thug (2003) by Ken “3DFilmmaker” Thain – a commercial project with Public Enemy’s Chuck D side project

The Gamer’s Benchmark (2003) by Futuremark released a teaser movies for 3DMark03 – the link is to the full movie after release

Bang the Machine: Computer Gaming Art and Artifacts (17 Jan to 4 April 2004) and The Game Scenes exhibition was created by Stanford Humanities Laboratory and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University presented on ‘the pervasive influence of computer game culture’, curated by Galen Davis and Henry Lowood.

Lenny and Larry Lumberjack (2004) by The ILL Clan – a video of excerpts from their premiere performance of On The Campaign Trail at Void in New York City

“Moving Pictures” (2005), a novelette by Mike Hoefflinger, published by Packet Switched Press – the novel is about a group of people who start their own machinima production with the desire to make it to the big time!

I Surrender (2005) by Tristan Pope is mentioned on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft main website page

The Los Angeles Machinima Collective (LAMC) announces their first machinima production William Shakespear’s Mechbeth – the film was never produced!  Ricky was here?!

Ricky Was Here!

Epic Games’ winners of the Grand Finals of the Make Something Unreal Contest (MSUC) for the Non-Interactive Movie Category 2005 –

– The Journey, 1st Place ($25,000)

– Bot, 2nd Place ($15,000)

– Sparked Memory, 3rd Place ($5,000)

– Scrap, 4th Place ($3,000)

– Damnation, 5th Place ($1,500)

Adventures in Dating, first episode (PG13 series) entitled Frustration (2005) by Decorgal

Completely Machinima in History with Ben Grussi (September)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 30, 2021 Leave a reply

Ben gives us the rundown on notable highlights from the beginnings of machinima that happened during September between 1997 and 2006.



Show Notes & Links

Phil Rice’s Male Restroom Etiquette

Zerstorer (Quake Total Conversion with in-game cinematics) in-game trailer by Nihilism Unlimited https://archive.org/details/zerdem_202109 

Circus Life-Part 1 for Quake 2 by Donnovan http://www.archive.org/details/ciruslife202109/ 

Apartment Huntin’ by ILL Clan https://archive.org/details/apt_hunting/

Rendezvous released by Peter Rasmussen, Nanoflix https://vimeo.com/89817936/

Discreet’s Gmax free modeling package for games first edition release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dgCObbUr5s/

EA’s Battlefield 1942 release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0npQ6sdbqw/ – Foundation for creating No Licsense and other notables, Ours Again, Blabberfield 1999 series and Soldats San Merci, see Internet Archive Search: collection:”animationandcartoons” AND (mediatype:movies AND subject:”Battlefield 1942″) 

Fake Science by Dead On Que https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmyUALJZoBQ/ 

Halo PC release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9kdq7r3JcI/

Unreal Tournament 2003 release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjyPbtlIs04/

Red Vs Blue: PSA #4 Microsoft Professional Development Conference (PDC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMcuxW6QzBM/

Swiss Army Bot Part 1 by Nabih Saliba  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgxhZUrRQZ8/

Swiss Army Bot Part 2 by Nabih Saliba https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euzd_5WEJb0/

Unreal Technology Demo by Epic Games release (shown at Game Developers Conference https://youtu.be/gfGNClgwk8M/

Scourge Done Quick Toon Edition by QDQ https://archive.org/details/sd-stoon-web-smooth-div-x/

Halo Matrix “Film” (Halo re-enactment with sound from the movie) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi_6oDYUpmM

First Doom 3 machinima cinematic released is ‘Last Ten’ created by ‘Oneofthe8devilz’ https://archive.org/details/last-ten-machinima-doom-3/ 

Artemis Software releases Nesmut via Machinima.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4OUNJ8ZlnM  (official selection of the 2005 Machinima Film Festival) 

The second Doom3 ‘scripted” machinima, cinematic example for a scripting tutorial at Doom3World.org! by ‘indianajonesilm’  https://modwiki.dhewm3.org/doom3world/index.php?thread_id=6176/

P.A.N.I.C.S by Rooster Teeth Productions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsAcF1s4Pr4

A Different Song by Britannica Dreams  https://archive.org/details/BritannicaDreamsProductions_21

Stolen Life trailer by Peter Rasmussen, Nanoflix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umtuFToCzrI/

Interview with Frank Dellario and Matt Dominiani on This Spartan life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umtuFToCzrI

The Awakening Atlas Productions final episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr2mR3-zbTQ/

MTV.com presents a feature about Rooster Teeth entitled “Machinima Pros Make a Living Playing Halo with their feet” https://www.mtv.com/news/1510551/machinima-pros-make-a-living-playing-halo-with-their-feet/

Male Restroom Etiquette by ZS Oveman aka Phil Rice https://archive.org/details/Male_Restroom_Etiquette/

Paul Marino interview with Steve Sullivan (ILM ZVis) for VFXWorld by Barbara Robertson https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/zviz-ilm-goes-interactive-previs/