A once in a lifetime event in Elite Dangerous? Yup, that's what fascinated us all too. This week we review a series of machinimas that approach the destruction of a Thargoid ship attacking planet Earth in different ways - a strange and unusual phenomenon in a game world that we reflect on, only possible in open world sims.

1:30 Elite Dangerous: an historic event – Thargoids heading for Earth

3:30 The ship’s problems, community action, the countdown and the consequences – a once in a lifetime event in the game

5:30 Recording the event: a documentary; first person reflection; let’s play

9:12 Why only a one-time event? Phil looks forward to the montage

12:00 The sense of camaraderie in the game vs the paparazzi

13:22 The concept is philosophically interesting but the filmic qualities are variable – context is everything

17:53 Salvaging the remains?

18:52 Open worlds are truly fascinating!

21:06 A model for NASA?

Credits -
Speakers: Ricky Grove, Phil Rice, Damien Valentine
Producer/Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

A packed news episode, with Tracy's analysis of the AI art copyright ruling decision and a discussion with Damien about his hit fan series, Heir to the Empire - the Star Wars story that everyone always wanted to see made. Do comment on the discussion (on the YouTube channel or the Blog post). The links are available in the show notes.

0:45 Tracy is the first woman on Mars!!!

2:38 RunwayML’s third annual film festival – call for submissions now open

4:20 Second Life evolves [again]

7:00 Bloomsbury’s video series: Richard Williams’ Animation Series

7:30 Projects: Gladiator II

10:00 The Freeman Chronicles – a Half Life real life film!

11:30 For Phil: a Tom Cook Elite Dangerous; for Damien: a Mandalorian cinematic made in Unreal; for Ricky, a Godot 4.3 cinematic

12:40 The US AI art copyright ruling – what do you think?

21:22 50 series release of NVIDIA’s graphics cards

23:19 An HL3 teaser?

24:10 Hollywood Animal – The Movies as a business

26:05 The TMU Tribute Show to Ken White

26:55 Astartes 2, Warhammer official film

28:40 Sims 1 and 2 re-released

31:33 Rooster Teeth is back?!

32:55 Tracy asks Damien about his Heir to the Empire hit fan series and what comes next

Credits -
Speakers: Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

This ep, we take a walk down memory lane to the first major peak of #machinima with a documentary produced by @ProducerStuartBrown , released in 2003. The film is a fly on the wall documentary of the creative practice of the legendary Hugh Hancock (founder of #Machinima.com) and his @strangecompany

0:39 Introduction to the film; shock and awe: Hugh’s bravado, character, energy and enthusiasm shines through
3:09 Foundations of Machinima.com, the Strange Company, the ILL Clan and others – the first peak of machinima
6:54 Stuart Brown’s YouTube channel
7:50 Minority report: “This may be the future of filmmaking” (2003)!
8:14 Positioning machinima as previs, preproduction, and the role of remote directing
10:40 Technical challenges to filmmaking back in 2003
13:58 What happened next to Machinima.com
15:35 Fond memories
19:32 Boom and bust: the poison of the profit motive?
22:40 The hard ask of the @roosterteethanimation #rvb model
23:41 Money as a means to an end
25:52 The team and the decisions
27:29 Frank Dellario’s humour! @ILLClan @frankdellario7401
29:05 Remembering Peter Rasmussen

Show notes & links: includes Tracy's notes and an interview with Hugh - see links below

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Ricky Grove, Damien Valentine
Producer/Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats