Praised by everyone from New York Times Arts columnist Matt Mirapaul, to film critic Roger Ebert, through to games journalists and literature professors, Strange Company's groundbreaking visual poem is one of the most unique pieces of Machinima to come out of the medium so far.

Developed using an early version of Strange Company's Lithtech Film Producer software (a project which was later dropped, sadly), "Ozymandias" was created in just over a week for a demonstration show. However, the idea had been in director Hugh Hancock's mind for much longer.

"I've wanted to visualise to poem for years" says Hugh. "The imagery and the feel of the words is so strong that it really is crying out to be made into a film - and indeed, our adaptation stands as the latest of a number of films based on the poem."

Roger Ebert compared the film's minimalist construction to seminal Anime work "Grave of the Fireflies", and its attempt to capture the spirit of the poem has been so successful that several literature courses now use the film as part of their teaching program. Dell used the film as part of their demonstration at the Windows 2000 launch, and it has appeared at several film festivals as part of Strange Company's Machinima showcase.

"As with all of these things, I had no idea that "Ozymandias" was going to be so successful when we were making it." says Hugh. "This was one of the most off-the-wall ideas I'd come up with, and its success has been very gratifying."

Download Ozymandias:

AVI Version (requires DivX)
RealMovie version (requires RealPlayer
Stand-alone version (PC only, requires 3D accelerator to run)

Ozymandias homepage