This week we discuss a machinima form we've not really talked about before - anime. Whilst its one of Ricky's favourite creative forms, for the rest of us its a little out of our comfort zone! We take a look at two films, both made in Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV), Frieren: Beyond Journey's End by Wheat Tea (released 2 Feb 2025) and Arcadion by Magitek Productions (released 1 Jan 2025). Check out our discussion and reviews, and do add your comments.

1:24 What is anime machinima?

3:44 Studio Ghibli: “An insult to life itself”

4:20 About FFXIV for machinima

7:14 Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

10:18 Arcadion

15:14 The untold story of anime and machinima

17:15 Origins of a humble person becoming a world saviour: LOTR

28:06 Convergence mod for Elden Ring (v 2.2)

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

In this week's episode, we discuss the month's news items we've found most interesting and relevant to making machinima, including more great projects to be inspired by, genAIs we've spotted, Steam's rip off, inZOI's challenge to Sims and the phenomenon known as the 'Minecraft Movie'. Check out our discussion and do add comments on our YT or blog posts.

1:18 Projects: a zombie film in GTA5, Trillo’s Cuco, NeuralViz’ Tigg Talk – an alternative perspective on tariffs

3:33 The speed of a creative and production process – efficiencies and pivoting to topical content a la South Park!

6:25 Anomidae’s game explainer, Platinum WoW’s documentary about early days of World of Warcraft, GTA6 mAIchinima

9:00 GenAI updates: Sesame, ElevenLabs Actor Mode, Runway’s gen 4, ChatGPT’s image generator, Studio Ghibli’s backlash, DSO physical generator, Recammaster tool, Phil’s examples of how the tools can be used, volumetric capture, vtubing WarpTuber, Animes and Facerig,

26:28 Reallusion and Apple Arts Studio’s Animation Shopee

28:00 Steam’s share of revenue and algorithmic bias

29:41 Nintendo’s Switch 2

31:09 Mocap studio at a comicon – who were they?

32:45 John Robertson’s show The Dark Room

35:40 InZOI release – more photorealistic than the Sims, and an intriguing looking engine – what will happen to Sims now?

45:30 The Minecraft movie – a renewed interest in machinima (or not!) and the Rocky Horror Picture Show

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

This week is another pick from the Archives, a short by Thuyen Nguyen aka @evaneon and @collectivenounfilmworksdev4297 . The film was released in 2007 - it is a love letter to games and gamers at a time when seemingly the whole world was filled with haters. Catch up with our comments and reflections and do add your own below.

1:13 About the Archive - How They Got Game, a Stanford University project

3:30 The Most Powerful Person in the World by Thuyen Nguyen

7:17 I am omnipotent!

9:12 The historical context – and the ‘hot coffee mod’

12:50 Games are just not that bad

13:20 An Unfair War, impacts and influences and the role of machinima

21:30 Why do a ‘personal essay’ style of machinima?

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