Tom Jantol

S3 Special: Machiniplex Intro

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 28, 2023 Leave a reply

In this episode, Phil introduces the Machiniplex [Remastered] Collection, a curated selection of machinimas from the early years. Machiniplex was a site created to host classic machinimas at the point that Machinima [dot] com began to assert its energies over the community as a corporate entity. The site was a community endeavour, with both Ricky and Phil playing a pivitol role in managing the project to preserve the original content the community had contributed to the early original Machinima website… until such time as it ran its course. In this ep, Phil and Ricky reminisce about the origins of Machiniplex and its contributors.

To celebrate the release of the curated collection, we have each selected a film we recall with particular fondness and discuss its significance. Phil has remastered each of the films using AI, not always a perfect process, so we also discuss his approach and techniques in bringing the original works up to 4K standard.

We encourage machinima fans everywhere to check out these films, not only were they brilliant in their day but in terms of storytelling, remain some of our favourite creative works against which we often draw comparisons when reviewing latest films.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

Blahbalicious by Wendigo and Avatar, 1997 –

BOT by Digital Yoke, 2005? –

Edge of Remorse by Riot Films, 2006 –

The Snow Witch by Britannica Dreams, 2006 –

Phil’s trailer for the Machiniplex [Remastered] Channel –

Go to the Machiniplex [Remastered] Collection on Phil’s Vimeo channel here – website https://bit.ly/machiniplex or access the playlist here –

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 39 Films (June 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes June 8, 2022 2 Comments

This month, Damien leads the discussion on another fabulous film selection by the Completely Machinima podcast team… Phil’s Stalker fan film by Sodaz is dark and disturbing; Tracy’s music vid picks are light and airy; Ricky’s is far from bland and Damien’s is a moving affair too! The team also discuss approaches to promoting a film once it’s been made, thanks to a question raised by show follower, Mike Clements.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

STALKER Fan film – Contract by Sodaz, released 8 December 2021

Married to Your Melody by Imanbek and Salem Ilese (Unreal Engine 5, Matrix Awakens City), released 21 April 2022 and artist website

Lion’s Feet by I Break Strings, video by Tom Jantol (iClone 4), released 13 May 2022 and WiL’s artist website

screencap Lion’s Feet video by Tom Jantol

MOVING OUT || Somewhere in Space || A No Man’s Sky Cinematic Series by Geeks Actively Making Entertainment, released 5 June 2021

How to Fly by David Blandy (GTA5), released 22 April 2020

screencap How to Fly

Portfolio of David Blandy on Vimeo, and a rather insightful film, Backgrounds, released 19 February 2013

Discussion: what do you do with your machinima film once it’s made? Question by Mike Clements

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 30 News & Discussion (February 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 3, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, Tracy, Ricky, Phil and Damien cover the relevance of Nvidia’s special address at CES for machinima creators, Adobe’s Project Shasta, Kerbal Space Programme, the uptake in VR kit over the Christmas period, growth in machinima, NFTs, Philip Rosedale’s return to the Second Life fold, the nail in RoosterTeeth’s RVB saga, Minecraft’s and Rockstar’s astonishing achievements, Ben Grussi’s history episodes and discuss two great questions posed by our followers: what’s the difference between machinima and animation and what’s the advice for adapting prose to visual media formats.



YouTube version of podcast

Show Links

1:10 Nvidia’s special address at CES, points relevant for machinima creators eg., Omniverse, AI

12:55 RDR2 images in the news!

13:40 Austin Film Festival

14:24 Adobe Project Shasta for audio recording

14:56 Kerbal Space Programme 2 impending launch

Kerbal Space Programme 2 screencap

16:25 Machinima growth observations

17:28 VR growth observations

19:46 NFTs observations – Peter Molyneux and John Gaeta

23:57 Philip Rosedale and the future of Second Life for creators

40:30 Halo Xbox 360 multiplayer servers close – the end of the story for Rooster Teeth’s RVB series?

42:50 Ben Grussi’s history of machinima episodes of the Completely Machinima podcast

44:34 Matthew Loris/Zeke: what are the differences between machinima and animation discussion; Completely Machinima interview with Mr Anymation, Tom Jantol

1:00:48 Rockstar’s lawsuit against a modding group

1:02:21 Minecraft’s astonishing video reach

1:03:43 Pandora’s 3d Films: adapting prose to visual media formats preliminary comments

Completely Machinima Interview: Hypatia Pickens (aka Sarah Higley)

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes September 23, 2021 Leave a reply



Show note links

For our classics theme episode of machinima, Tracy spoke to Sarah Higley about her Second Life-based machinima work that draws inspiration from old and middle English texts written as early at the 10th Century.  Whilst they didn’t get around to discussing this on the recording, Sarah is also well known for having written the script for Star Trek: Next Generation’s episode 21 (Season 3) ‘Hollow Pursuits’, which aired in April 1990 (under the pen name of Sally Caves). Sarah is particularly noted for the character, ensign Reginald Barclay (portrayed by Dwight Schultz) who uses the Holodeck to imagine how his life should be.  Sarah recalled to Tracy this was her first imaginings of her experiences of Second Life, evidenced through her creative machinima works discussed in  this interview.

Films

Design, 2012 https://vimeo.com/47538361

KAPHD, 2011 https://vimeo.com/user4518792

The Lover’s Confession: Three Tales by John Gower, 2014 https://vimeo.com/98521054

Wulf and Eadwacer, 2012 https://vimeo.com/user4518792

Cloud, 2013 https://vimeo.com/user4518792

Yeah…, 2012 https://vimeo.com/user4518792

Finding the Experimental in Machinima, 2013 https://vimeo.com/78406362 

Stolen Child, 2012 https://vimeo.com/46507689

Publications about machinima

‘For it Acordeth Noght to Kinde’: Remediating Gower’s Confessio Amantis in Machinima’, 2016 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.679.8142&rep=rep1&type=pdf 

Chapter 6: Dangerous Sim Crossings: Framing the Second Life Art Machinima, in Understanding Machinima (Jenna Ng) https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/understanding-machinima-9781441140524/

Other notable links –

Peter Greenaway speaks at 48HourFilmProject Machinima, 2010 (Chantal Harvey) https://vimeo.com/15253336

Push, 2010 (Lainy Voom) https://vimeo.com/5543976

Cirque du Machinima, 2006 (Tom Jantol) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE540j9U830

Dear Fairy, 2011 (Tom Jantol) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX3hJIjWRkA&t=155s

Completely Machinima S1 Ep 15 News (August 2021)

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes August 5, 2021 1 Comment



In this episode, Ricky, Tracy and Damien are joined by an AI of Phil, who is surprisingly agreeable.  The hosts mark the passing of machinima stalwart, Ken White, creator of TMOA and TMUnderground community radio sites.  Then the team discuss iClone 7’s lip sync contest, Whanowa’s Grand Theft Auto tutorials, updates to Nightmare Puppeteer, puppeteering in Adobe’s Character Animator, the rise of adult animation, making a cinematic with Unreal Engine 5 and Blender and performing Hamlet in Grant Theft Auto, Star Wars and Xcom among other games, and being your own architect of hell, with Hell Architect.