Stranger 109

Today I am featuring another Half-Life 2 film, but this one comes from a gamer across the pond. With this being the first year for the Machinima Festival Europe, we can only expect to see more and more films coming from European gamers. As I have previously indicated, I’m a big fan of HL2 both as a game and as the ideal engine for making machinima. The Source Engine coupled with the FacePoser tool developed by Valve offers such a tremendous range of possibilities for lip syncing and having characters emote through detailed facial expressions. This first episode of what will surely become a popular series created by Zachariah Scott illustrates precisely how the HL2 technology enables talented filmmakers to actualize their visions. Combine Nation is perhaps more TROOPS than Red vs. Blue, but the writing maintains a consistent comedic tone that carries through the entire episode.

All too often, machinimators try and base entire episodes on the premise of two game characters sitting around waxing existential, interjecting the occasional self-referential joke. A formula perfected by the guys at Rooster Teeth. But when others have tried to replicate that, the result has tended to look more like an SNL skit that painfully won’t end. Scott successfully avoids that trap and delivers comedy both through the sharp dialog as well as a number of sight gags. There’s even a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead moment during a pursuit of a fugitive where we see the husband consoling his wife on the coach in the apartment (a familiar scene to those who have played the game). But rather than consoling her about the dystopian world in which the game takes place, as a player of the game might imagine he is doing when the two are encountered, he’s revealing a ridiculous secret to her involving a lost cat and a trip to the beach. The humor is further supported with some exceptionally high production values, even by HL2 standards. Making great use of the engine’s depth of field and bloom effects, the piece takes on a very stylized feel, especially for a comedy. Throw in a Dutch angle tracking shot, excellent voice acting along with topnotch sound design, and you have a what I would consider a front-runner for best new series at this Fall’s festival.