S4 E127 May the Force: A Tribute (May 2024)

And Now For Something Completely Machinima

This week we celebrate Star Wars with a fabulous short portraying the infamous AT-AT death walkers as 'nature-creatures' in their natural habitat - this is a beautifully observed work, made in Unreal Engine by Jeremy Cummins. Cummins is an experienced character creator, now working for Tippett Studio, with an impressive list of credits including Ant-Man and the Wasp, Spider-Man and Avengers, among others. We discuss the transition pros are making in the development of an Unreal pipeline and the impact this has on the creative machinima community.

0:44 Intro to the film

3:18 About Jeremy Cummins

4:33 Developing the pipeline

5:36 PhantomFX takes over Tippett Studios, what are the implications?

7:01 Migration – in the film, and metaphorically

8:59 Stunning lighting effects

9:18 Characterisation of AT-ATs – itchy and goofy!

10:27 Sound effects inconsistent? Cows vs dino vs croc = buff… nah

12:14 Who’s got a sub to Galactic Geographic?

13:50 Humour and the portrayal of death dealing machines

15:00 The ambient sound needed a bit more work to achieve verisimilitude

16:06 Check out Pie in the Sky too – and why it’s a better film

17:47 Tapping into a ‘magical movie moment’ in time, anthropomorphism and our fascination with machines as animals in the Star Wars universe

20:00 Communicating size with sound

22:34 Length of the film

24:00 Excitement: AT-ATs were only ever seen for such a short length of time in the original canon, so how cool to see them again!

26:30 A perfect example of contemporary realtime cinema

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