This week's selection is a stunning cinematic imaginary by Unknown Dino, focussing on the next version of Half Life (soon to be released... er, well, possibly in the next 10 years or so?). There is a lot of craft in this film, called HL: Overworld and made in Blender, which has taken its inspiration both from the HL Reddit community and the HL2 Artbook 'Raising The Bar'. We also talk about the positioning of the new world portrayed as being the next obvious logical step in the story arc for Half Life - HL1 being a portal through which aliens jump to Earth, HL2 being a kind of survival against the odds, Alyx being the prequel, and HL3 being the fight back taken to those hateful Combine... yeah, we wish!

1:19 Phil introduces the film and describes his impression of the vision of the HL3 world being articulated
9:40 Tracy talks about the inspiration for the film and the role of community but why even bother mentioning generative AI here?
17:55 Damien reflects on why there will never be HL3, which leads us into all sorts of speculative nonsense!

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

Another packed episode of news items we found for machinima creators everywhere. We take a look at some games news including several that have released music albums recently and discuss why we think that is. We go through some of the latest AI matters, including Vimeo's new AI content guidelines. We found one of the best Unreal master classes we ever seen, more like a work of art than a 'how to', but since its by the amazing Luis Andrade, we'd expect nothing less. We also found some partciularly juicy tidbits we think you'll enjoy.

1:24 HELP! Can anyone PLEEASSEEEE find us a WoW machinima to celebrate Blizzard's 20 years with this stunning game???
2:50 Games releasing music albums - why is that? We discuss why we're expecting a lot more games to follow this trend
18:56 Implications of this for machinima creators
21:50 Dead games and consumer rights and why there is no real legal precident for the latest goings on, plus implications for machinima content
37:01 Generative AIs - again! And Vimeo is on the band wagon...
44:08 Luis Andrade's 'how to' is stunning
45:00 ... now available on UE marketplace
46:00 Another call out for new distribution channels for content creators
50:00 No Man's Sky updates
51:00 Microsoft Flight Sim... just wow, but what are the implications for brand owners' IP and haven't we seen something similar happen elsewhere? Question: are you simulating flying or what you see looking at the ground?
1:06:28 SAG AFTRA on strike, this time in support of game actors... but GTA6 isn't covered?

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

Crazy, it is certainly that - and more. If you enjoy slasher horror, we think you'll love this - and its definitely not for U18s! The film is by Toaster and is a music video for Code Mistake, a deathcore metal spectacular by CORPSE and Bring Me the Horizon. We examine Toaster's GTA5 machinima, reflect on its anime qualities, and conclude its significantly better than the official music video: Ricky discusses it in the context of Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man, but Phil, Tracy & Damien feel the inspiration is much closer to home.

1:29 Ricky’s introduction to the film, how it reminds him of avant-garde machinima and the work of Stan Brakhage – wishing we could go back in a time machine to show the early machinima community!

7:11 The official music video uses anime and fantasy horror, vs the machinima video using GTA5 which results in a different type of horror representation

13:00 Deathcore, production quality, edits, unleashed chaos – the energy is outstanding. To what extent are we desensitised to the gore in the film?

19:56 Strong fit between visuals and the music. The creator’s evident enjoyment in making the film shines through

23:26 Reflecting on Manhunt – highly controversial in its day, hyper horror

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