99% Invisible – Hidden Levels #4: Machinima (October 17, 2025)

Episode Overview

In this episode of Hidden Levels, Roman Mars collaborates with Ben Brock Johnson and contributor Andrew Callaway to explore Machinima—the art of making movies inside video games. The episode traces the rise, fall, and renaissance of machinima, demonstrating its unique blend of cinema and gaming, and highlighting its artistic, cultural, and technological impacts.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Cinematic Evolution of Video Games

• Video Game Trailers as Cinema ([01:16]-[02:53])
  • Roman and Ben discuss how video game trailers in the 1990s adopted cinematic language—a shift from 2D, static screens to sweeping 3D animations. Roman observes, “This really looks like a movie. It doesn’t look like a video game from 1995... it’s really cinematic.” ([02:31])
  • Ben notes that as video games became more advanced, “Video games didn’t just get marketed like movies; they became more like movies themselves. Today, lots of Hollywood actors are in games, and many games have their own cinematographers.” ([02:53])

The Modern Machinima Revival: Grand Theft Hamlet

• Sam Crane’s Pandemic Project ([03:34]-[10:25])
  • Actor Sam Crane, unable to perform on stage due to COVID-19, stages Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) with friends and strangers.
  • Surreal moments occur as players attempt to rehearse peacefully amid random acts of violence from other players:

    “If I could just request that you refrain from killing each other. And don’t kill the actors either.” – Sam Crane ([07:04])

  • Sam’s wife, filmmaker Pinny Grylls, documents the process, turning in-game footage into the award-winning documentary Grand Theft Hamlet.
  • Pinny devises creative techniques, like using the game’s built-in cell phone camera for stable, cinematic shots:

    “With that, you were able to go in and do close ups... I just suddenly thought, I do actually think we can do this like it is going to be a film.” – Pinny Grylls ([09:03])

  • Grand Theft Hamlet premiered at SXSW 2024 and became the first machinima ever released in cinemas.

Origins and the Golden Age of Machinima

• How It All Began: The Ill Clan ([11:29]-[17:06])

  • In the late 1990s, Paul Marino and colleagues leveraged Quake’s real-time 3D engine to create scripted short films ("Quartoon"), like Apartment Huntin’, featuring lumberjacks carrying axes to fit the game mechanics.

    • “How do we justify them walking around with axes? …We can at least make them look like lumberjacks.” – Paul Marino ([14:48])

  • These films, despite technical hurdles like blocky graphics and unique file formats, became cult favorites in gaming communities.

• The Rise of Machinima as an Art Form ([17:06]-[21:00])

  • The Ill Clan and peers aimed to gain recognition beyond gaming, forming the Academy for Machinima Arts and Sciences.
  • Landmark series like Red vs Blue (using Halo) and media from The Sims and NBA Street 3 crossed into mainstream TV.
  • Comedy Central’s South Park episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft” used machinima for quick turnaround:

    “It’s kind of like directing a live action shoot… you’re just sitting there going, okay, everyone run over here. And they would just all do it within the game and we’d capture that.” – Trey Parker ([18:52], paraphrased)

Machinima’s Commercialization, Decline, and Reinvention

• Monetizing & Mainstreaming—Then Collapse ([18:52]-[27:41])

  • Machinima.com became a powerhouse—eventually, creators signed unfavorable contracts, leading to backlash and decay of the original spirit.
  • Major studios purchased the platforms; archives were deleted and much of the community and content vanished.

    “And I imagine like a band, you have your period of time… and then what?” – Frank Delario ([28:17])

  • Original artists moved on or found themselves marginalized despite early hype about machinima’s potential to revolutionize cinema.

• Virtual Production and Machinima's Renaissance ([27:41]-[33:39])

  • Modern TV and film (e.g., The Mandalorian, Avatar) now use real-time 3D engines for virtual sets—an evolution of machinima’s original ideas.
  • A new wave of machinima documentaries (e.g., Nits Island, The Remarkable Life of Ebelin) received major festival recognition, showing the form’s ongoing vitality.

    • “To me, this doesn’t feel like a flash in the pan. Machinima is taking the documentary film world by storm.” – Andrew Callaway ([30:21])

The Democratic Power & Constraints of Machinima

• Creative Gains & Limitations ([31:17]-[33:39])
  • Filmmakers like Pinny celebrate machinima’s accessibility (“filming on a blimp for free”), but face quirky limitations—like needing to stage murder scenes outdoors in GTA V due to game mechanics.

    • “You cannot be killed in an indoor space in GTA V. So we had to find somewhere that could conceivably be a closet, but it had to be outside.” – Pinny Grylls ([31:50])

  • Machinima connects filmmakers and subjects globally—"gives you access and opportunity to find all these amazing characters.” ([32:48])
  • Pinny frames game worlds as legitimate modern social spaces:

    “Increasingly, people are living in game spaces for many hours a day. It would be very odd if we didn’t start turning our attention to those narratives…” ([33:09])

Current Trends & Future of Machinima

• Resurgence and Viral Impact ([35:17]-[43:18])
  • Rooster Teeth/Red vs Blue archives were recently revived.
  • Harmony Korine makes machinima-infused live-filmed movies as “VJ sets”; his film Baby Invasion played Venice.
  • The viral YouTube hit Skibidi Toilet, a surreal, hyperpopular machinima series by a 25-year-old from Georgia, is discussed in depth.

    • “It is an epic Transformers-like battle between a faction of camera headed people versus a faction of toilets with heads coming out of them.” – Matpat ([37:38])

    • The series’ viral success (3 billion views monthly at its peak) demonstrates the power and reach of democratized, game-based filmmaking.
    • Matpat interprets the series as a media allegory:

      “You can tell a meta-narrative about YouTube versus traditional media… the toilets are creatures of memedom… the camera people are high-end production equipment.” ([39:35])

  • Roman reflects:

    “If new generations of people are not making art that offends and confounds older people, then they’re not trying hard enough. That’s what art should be about…” ([42:07])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Machinima’s anarchic roots:

  “We were in this kind of punk rock phase where we’re like, yeah, we’ll do all this stuff with this game technology and all the legal stuff around it, but at the same time, you know, we want to be looked at as people that are serious about our craft.” – Paul Marino ([19:52])

• On new in-game filmmaking freedoms:

  “There are things you can only film inside.” – Pinny Grylls ([33:39])

• On the significance of machinima’s comeback:

  “When you talk about this 25 year old guy from Georgia making this hugely popular, it speaks to so many people with tools that you can purchase online and do it. That is kind of amazing... It’s the same principle as zines and punk rock.” – Roman Mars ([42:07])

• On the wild cultural shift in media creation:

  “It sounds perfectly normal. But go on.” – Roman Mars, on Skibidi Toilet ([38:53])

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Opening & Cinema/Game Trailers | 01:01–03:19 | | Staging Hamlet in GTA V / Grand Theft Hamlet | 03:34–10:25 | | Defining Machinima, Origins with Ill Clan | 11:29–17:06 | | Machinima’s Mainstream Success / Red vs Blue, TV Crossovers | 17:06–21:00 | | Live Machinima Performance / Halo 2 Era | 21:00–23:35 | | Decline of Machinima.com & Rooster Teeth | 25:29–27:41 | | Machinima’s Influence on Virtual Production | 27:41–30:04 | | New Machinima Wave (Grand Theft Hamlet, Nits Island, Ebelin) | 30:04–33:39 | | Recent Developments & Skibidi Toilet Breakdown | 35:17–42:48 | | Philosophy of Side Quests & Next Episode Preview | 43:18–44:51 |

The Episode's Tone and Feel

• Playful & Inquisitive: Roman Mars and Ben Brock Johnson maintain a tone of wonder, humor, and cultural curiosity, often poking fun at their own generational differences.
• Nostalgic & Reflective: There are moments of reminiscence about the early “punk rock” ethos of machinima, and a sense of loss about its first decline.
• Forward-Looking & Celebratory: The episode ultimately has an optimistic view of machinima’s democratization and future—highlighting how new creators can reach viral audiences with nothing more than a PC, game engine, and vision.

Conclusion

The episode paints a vivid timeline of machinima: from Quake-era inside jokes, to creative anarchy, to corporate commodification and collapse, and finally, renaissance through viral online content and festival-recognized documentary art. Grand Theft Hamlet and viral works like Skibidi Toilet showcase the continued potential of storytelling inside virtual worlds, affirming that “design is everywhere”—even in the places we don’t expect, like the battlefield between camera heads and sentient toilets.

Recommended Next Steps

• Listen to the bonus “side quest” episode on the Endless Thread feed for an exploration of video game character creation and identity ([44:32]).
• Watch emerging machinima projects and virtual production in film and documentaries.

Produced by: Andrew Callaway
Hosts: Roman Mars, Ben Brock Johnson
Episode link & more: 99% Invisible