Source Engine

S3 E94 Half Life 2: Shelf Life (September 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 13, 2023 Leave a reply

This week we discuss one of the best HL2 films from the 2009 era – Shelf Life by Pixel Eyes Productions. The film, which is in two episodes, won a heap of creator awards back in the day and has definitely stood the test of time for us. There are some fun sci-fi and weird tropes integrated into the story, which we discuss, as well as the very well done sound design and original music. We’d love to see these guys pick this project back up, although of course, none of the issues they faced back then will be a problem now – just a whole set of new ones to overcome!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes and Links

Films

Chapter 1 Shelf Life: You Are What You Remember, by Pixel Eyes Productions, released 6 July 2009

and Chapter 2 Shelf Life: After the Scan

Music video by Pixel Eyes to E V Kain’s Yes No Maybe, made in iClone –

Projects Update 1 (Apr 2023)

Tracy Harwood Blog April 17, 2023 Leave a reply

This week, we highlight more creative talent than we can ever hope to include in our weekly film review discussions.

Interloper Ep 4 LIVE

You may recall we reviewed the Interloper series a couple of months ago, convincing Phil that this was ‘for real’! Well, maybe it is, as in this episode, which was streamed live on 22 March in a very interesting approach to storytelling on a ‘grand scale’, Anomidae continues the saga. We certainly concur with comments on the video that suggest this transcends into the paranormal. I’m sure it will enthrall just as much as the first episodes did –

Hired Steel Ep 3

The Hired Steel team are producing some outstanding work, and this is another episode from the TMC team that we first reviewed back in July last year, released on 10 Feb. These guys are going from strength to strength and what’s really great viewing is the way that character empathy is built through the storytelling. Nice work, do check it out –

Little Nightmares Rap Song

JT Music (formerly JT Machinima) released a video to ‘Hungry for Another One’ in SFM, working with Harry101UK, released on 21 Jan. This is a real treat both aurally and visually. These guys are top of the pops for machinima music vids. Enjoy –

Death Train [S2FM]

A great short by Vladislav Zharkov released on 27 May last year, this is actually a scaled back version of a project for which the creator originally had a much bigger vision. Its a great concept and one we would definitely encourage the creator to continue to develop. In the meantime, he’s focussing on the music –

SL The Tragedy

Finally this week, we present a wild west story not from the world of Red Dead Redemption but from Second Life. In this film/music video set to Lady Gaga’s 911, Godiva SL has created a fun and fast-paced story, released on 24 Jan (its also the feature image for this blog post). Its well edited, the horse and hounds even gallop to the beat of the music, and takes you on a real journey –