I remember the first time I watched The Ill Clan’s Apartment Huntin’, and laughed out loud at the conversation between the real estate agent and Larry. If the mention of Dukakis wasn’t enough, the obscure philosophical references put it over the top. That whole conversation and sequence, up through “… but I can dance!” remains one of the most effective comedy scenes I’ve ever seen in machinima. That was probably my key moment when I realized the potential of this thing called machinima (before it was called that, of course).

I remember the first time I watched Todd Stallkamp’s The Fixer, remarking in an episode of the overcast that I liked it so much, and felt it raised the bar of expectations so much, that in a way it ruined my enjoyment of most machinima thereafter. In the same way that seeing the mastery of a David Fincher makes it harder to sit through a Blake Edwards film. The Fixer was just so fresh, so modern, so sexy. It quite literally gave me goosebumps.

I remember the first time I watched The Tyrant. It was the first time a machinima film actually made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was a genuinely creepy experience. And, as such, a wonderful gift from its director.

This week came another defining moment in my machinima viewing experience… I was given a sneak preview of a machinima film which you will be able to see starting this Sunday. This film ended up being a two-for-one as far as first time machinima experiences go:

1. It startled me at one point such that I gasped aloud and jumped in my seat.
2. It made me - quite literally - sick to my stomach.

Now to clarify the nausea bit, here’s what I DON’T mean:

• I don’t mean nausea induced by excessive blood / gore. Nothing of the sort.
• I don’t mean nausea induced by a really awful machinima film. Quite the contrary.

I mean emotionally. This film disturbed me, on a genuine human emotional level, to the point where I felt nauseous. And someone else I know who was in on the preview - someone with a notoriously strong constitution - also said he found it very disturbing.

I think it’s a shining moment for the genre, for a director to be able to use these famously limited tools of machinima to evoke real, hardcore, difficult emotion in his viewers. Films evoking melodrama, nostalgia, sadness… these are a dime a dozen. This is different. This is a film that, if you open yourself to it, creates emotional dissonance… discomfort… complicated emotion.

It’s quite an achievement. I was so moved by it, in fact, that I dropped what I was doing for a few hours the other night, got in touch with fellow sound maestro Ricky Grove, and we worked together to remix the audio for Leo on the fly, to try to help a great film become even better. Those of you privy to my schedule of late know, I don’t have the time to do this… but this film was irresistable.

The film is Beast by Leo Lucien-Bay (Dr. Nemesis, Binary Picture Show). It’s premiering this Sunday at The Machiniplex. And it will very likely disturb you if you choose to watch it.

I urge you in the strongest possible terms to not deny yourself the experience.

Related reading: Doc discusses the new facial animation techniques which he ends up employing in The Beast