And Now For Something Completely Machinima

An eight-year labour of love made in Garry’s Mod , Dan Shetter’s Avalon takes us into the world of Half-Life for a feature-length story of occupation, memory and survival. Damien, Phil and Tracy discuss its extraordinary cinematography, animation, sound and music, and why it works even for viewers who have never played the games. Tracy explores the film’s characters and layered ending, while Phil...

Phil brings us Lando’s video essay The Horror of Classic Fallout . What makes the original game unsettling: its grotesque creatures, its unforgiving countdown, or the institutions that promise safety while exercising control? Ricky, Damien, Tracy and Phil discuss how the essay uses game footage, visual effects and sound to uncover the anxiety beneath Fallout ’s cheerful retro imagery. They explore...

What happens when a space marine comes home from war and tries to settle into family life? In this episode, Ricky, Tracy and Damien revisit Phil Rice’s 1999 film Father Frags Best with its creator. Phil recalls turning Quake II into a sitcom set, directing fellow players through typed messages, and using KeyGrip 2 to shape the camera work. The discussion explores the film’s dark comedy, its invent...

This week, Tracy and Damien explore TMC’s MechWarrior 5: Clans – Clan Mech Dioramas Director’s Cut , a striking collection of battle scenes that sits somewhere between machinima, virtual photography and digital sculpture. Tracy introduces TMC, the German filmmaking collective whose work evolved from in-game footage and fan-made Hired Steel films into sophisticated Unreal Engine virtual production....

This week, Tracy and Damien explore JT Music’s Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Rap —a bass-heavy fusion of pirate sea shanty, nerdcore rap and meticulously edited game cinematics. Damien explains how the video combines cinematic sequences with specially captured gameplay footage, transforming Black Flag’s naval battles, parkour and pirate action into a tightly choreographed musical performanc...

In this news episode, Tracy Harwood and Damien Valentine explore three very different developments shaping machinima and virtual storytelling. Tracy introduces DramaMancer , an experimental AI-powered storytelling platform developed through Midjourney’s Storytelling Lab. Rather than generating an entire story, DramaMancer combines an author’s characters, scenes and narrative framework with natural...

In this episode, Tracy Harwood, Ricky Grove and Damien Valentine discuss Paolo Pedercini’s 2009 machinima film Welcome to the Desert of the Real . Created using the US military recruitment game America’s Army , the film overturns the game’s heroic presentation of warfare to explore post-traumatic stress disorder and the psychological consequences of combat. We examine Pedercini’s use of the US mil...

In this episode, we discuss MUELEN , a GTA V machinima written and directed by Troy Hamilton and created by Greenhouse Light Show. The film was runner-up in the Machinimay 2026 competition and stands out for its slow, atmospheric approach to horror. Rather than relying on action or spectacle, MUELEN tells a mysterious story about grief, trauma and a man struggling to understand what has happened a...

This week we take a fascinating detour into the world of Star Wars fan filmmaking by looking at a project that recreates a deleted lightsaber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Count Dooku from Revenge of the Sith , reimagined entirely in the visual style of The Clone Wars . Although the completed animation lasts barely thirty seconds, we quickly discover that the real achievement lies in the filmm...

This week, the discussion centres on several significant developments across the machinima community, from community news and preservation of machinima history to new creative tools and the future of filmmaking platforms. The strongest recurring theme is how classic machinima practices are re-emerging through contemporary game engines and software, suggesting a renewed interest in machinima as a c...

Featured Film: Severance Opening Titles Recreated in Portal by Brian Kissig This episode explores an exceptional reinterpretation of the title sequence from Severance , recreated using Portal assets in Unreal Engine and Cinema 4D. Rather than simply assessing the technical achievement, the discussion develops into a broader conversation about adaptation, symbolism, machinima as an artistic practic...

This week, Phil takes the crew on an unexpected tour through the strange and rapidly evolving world of TikTok, presenting a curated compilation of game-inspired videos that blur the boundaries between machinima, gameplay, performance and digital art. Rather than searching for polished cinematic productions, the discussion explores the platform's distinctive culture of short-form creative expressio...

This episode explores how independent horror filmmaking is reshaping the future of machinima and virtual production. Ricky reflects on his experience at StokerCon, discussing the remarkable quality and originality of contemporary short horror films, the growing influence of YouTube creators such as the makers of Backrooms and Obsession , and why horror remains one of the most effective genres for...

In this episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima , Tracy Harwood, Phil Rice and Damien Valentine examine Stolen , a 30-minute GTA V machinima by Dark Frame Films (Kevin Fernandez, aka Shepherd41). Set in a near-future world where consciousness can be transferred between bodies through the mysterious "Rebirth Project," the film follows former soldier John Bell on a relentless quest to...

In this news-focused episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima , Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood and Damien Valentine dive into the latest developments in gaming, machinima, AI, and virtual production. The discussion ranges from the ethics of digitally resurrecting iconic figures like Stan Lee, through major announcements from Summer Game Fest, to upcoming machinima competitions and the evolv...

This week on And Now For Something Completely Machinima , Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood and Damien Valentine dive into Michael Is Very Vintage’s hilarious Garry’s Mod space comedy An Astounding Tale from Outer Space . What begins as a simple spaceship emergency quickly spirals into absurdity when an incompetent captain decides that cloning himself is a better solution than actually fixing the problem....

What happens when machinima stops telling a story… and instead pulls you inside a fractured mind ? In this episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima , hosts Phil Rice , Tracy Harwood , and Damien Valentine dive deep into “Dysfunction” by Iono Allen —a powerful, unsettling machinima film created in Second Life . This isn’t your typical machinima. There’s no clear beginning, middle, or e...

In this episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima , hosts Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, and Tracy Harwood dive deep into “Wracu” , a stunning student film by Chase McGill. Created in Blender as a final project at University of Southern California, this cinematic short blends epic fantasy, motion capture, and orchestral scoring into a powerful (and divisive!) storytelling experience. But...

In this episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima , hosts Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, and Tracy Harwood dive into a stunning fan-made cinematic created inside Star Wars Battlefront II (2017 video game). We explore how machinima creators are pushing the limits of game engines, modding tools, and cinematic language to produce high-quality storytelling—despite technical limitations like...

In this episode, we dive into Automation Situation 2: Too Little, Too Late by Guillaume H @thegiom — a haunting, AI-driven short film presented as a 1930s educational reel.  Is this clever satire… or a chilling glimpse of our future with AI?  We explore how this unsettling film blends retro aesthetics, machinima-style workflows, and AI-generated imagery to question human agency, automation, and th...

In this episode of Now For Something Completely Machinima , we dive into a fascinating review of The Egg — a thought-provoking short story by Andy Weir, brought to life through machinima animation by Anima Technica. With Project Hail Mary dominating conversations, we explore how this earlier work connects to Weir’s storytelling style — blending philosophy, theology, and surprising humour. 🎙️ Featu...

In this episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima , Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, and Damien Valentine dive into the latest news in machinima, virtual production, AI creative tools, game cinematics, and real-time animation . They discuss the explosive hype around Kane Parsons’ The Backrooms movie , new Starfield expansions and what they could mean for Starfield machinima , the release of F...

Dive into one of the most unsettling and artistically ambitious machinima films we’ve ever reviewed. In this episode of Now For Something Completely Machinima , we explore “The Murderer” by Yago Muriel — a haunting black-and-white psychological horror created in Garry's Mod that blends surrealism, classic cinema, and existential dread . With clear influences from David Lynch , The Outer Limits , a...

In this episode of Completely Machinima Reviews , Damien Valentine, Ricky Grove, Phil Rice, and Tracy Harwood discuss Eater , a character vignette of a larger work (Hate Speech). The film is a provocative experimental short by M (formerly M dot Strange) , created using Nightmare Puppeteer . The conversation explores machinima , AI-generated voices , Unreal/indie animation tools , absurd humor , av...

In this episode of Completely Machinima , Phil, Tracy, and Damien dive into “Wallace Breen’s Day Off” — a chaotic, meme-filled Garry’s Mod machinima that embraces absurdity, cartoon violence, and old-school Source Engine humor. From immature internet antics to Robot Chicken-style sketch comedy , the team explores how this short transforms one of Half-Life’s most sinister villains into a hilariousl...