Simplicity of the Season

 
I recall the first stanza of a famous Robert Frost poem - Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My father had me memorize that poem over countless holiday trips from Long Island through upstate New York to Canada.  Needless to say, but I will, plenty of wintry scenery accompanied us during our drives.

The image above is not related to the poem but its imagery projects poetry.  To me, that is a critical element of a good machinima, especially one which captures your heart upon first view.

This holiday season I decided to keep this column simple.   In fact, as 2015 approaches, that is my personal and professional goal - to simplify my life so as to better enjoy it.    I think back to those road trips with my family as we took in the sights, those now etched in my memory.

Sometimes you come across a machinima that is not necessarily perfect, but even its flaws contribute to its charm.   That is true of Kawanishi Yana's short piece "Never Ending's Christmas @ Papillon" (Second Life).    The sim both contrasts and complements the character/filmmaker who leads our way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh-_aJD4rSM

The simplicity of color, music and the solitary nature of a lone avatar (albeit adorable) journeying across a winter wonderland was all I needed to muse on this dreary Midwestern day.   Simple and beautiful.

May your holiday season be joyous and simple, so that you might savor the beauty of life.  May you capture it on film, machinima, and at least in your mind's eye for keepsake.

Keep filming in 2015, and let your style and story shine through the downy flake.

-  Soni

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The Professional Machinima Artist Guild and Lowe Runo Productions graciously host Magnum: The Machinima Review.   Sonicity Fitzroy is author of Second Life, Media and the Other Society (2010) and Machinima: The Art and Practice of Virtual Filmmaking (with co-author Lowe Runo, 2012).

The Social Machiminist

Spring is in the air for me.   March winds consume Midwestern USA still, but you can sense the seasonal change.  Birds, bees and busybodies begin to emerge from shelters.  Someone was actually mowing his grass yesterday waking me up to his annoying tractor.  So what if it were noon.  I mean it hasn't been declared officially spring yet.  Let the grass grow.   And I will remain tucked into my alternate universe for a bit longer, seeking out the unique among machinima.

But within the virtual world of Second Life, there is always something going on, without any weather to curtail your fun (unless your power goes out from a snow storm).   I call attention to the fine art of social machinima, done particularly well by Ms. Kara Trapdoor.   Another Midwestern gal, she has become a very talented machinima producer, and has been asked by many to photograph and film some very extraordinary art, architecture, and events, from Lost World's closing to March's Fashion for Life.

She captures the fantastic builds across Second Life, beautiful fashions and virtual finds, and brings large casts of avatars together to create spoofs on the latest, greatest trends, tunes or just makes it up as she goes.

She is an explorer of the virtual kind, and she has increasingly used machinima as a primary means of capturing virtual life, with her space navigator in hand (sailing the virtual seas like a musty ol' naval captain - although she is far from musty, and has crafted her avatar into a beautiful icon as well, costuming her uniquely for each machinima she produces, as one might expect any seasoned tour guide to do. 

 I interviewed her for the March issue of Best of SL's Masters of Machinima Series (p. 28).   She is indeed a leader of social machinima, and does lend credence to the rising population of professional amateurs who by day appear to be normal citizens, plugging along in the day job - and at night, they emerge with camera and capture the alternate universe into machinima. 

For a time she was the "society" columnist for BOSL Magazine. Oddly enough, in her real life job, she is a social worker.  So it does all fit together somehow, I suppose.  Read her story here. Many of her machinima can be found on YouTube or on her blog - Kara's Korner: Second Life Adventures. 

Machinima in many ways has become a way for some filmmakers to seclude themselves into the game engine, archiving footage for their own personal stories.  Machinima, however, was originally intended as a way to share footage and game plays, and brought people together as participants - stakeholders in the process you might say.   Kara's vision is to archive the great world of Second Life, but to do so with as many people as she can, whenever possible.   Her audience base grows because of her inclusivity.   Machinima.com has found its audience base among 18-34 men.  Kara's audience is a mix of art lovers, musicians, educators and those learning what virtual worlds offer in the way of creativity in an immersive environment.   It is a way for students to understand their environment in virtual classrooms.   It is a way for us to remember our virtual past and to imagine our future.   It is a way for us to connect via film, albeit machinima.   It connects many to their respective game and virtual world communities.

Another way to build an audience is create a show around a game via webisode, such as Machinima.com has and continues to do;  http://newmediarockstars.com/2013/03/machinima-unveils-new-web-series-based-in-the-portal-universe-aperture-rd/

In this sense, game players connect via the series.

Second Life, in another sense, is an unfolding drama that can be captured via machinima on-the-go, or can provide opportunities for well-crafted storytelling among individuals within virtual communities.

I teach a course called Virtual Communities every Spring semester, bringing my students on campus into Second Life.   They are amazed at the various people and communities that have come together to create such an amazing world filled with unlimited adventure. Second Life is the foundation for an amazing future...coming soon....with perhaps Kara Trapdoor as your guide.

other sites of interest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9xqno5FRLU
http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/machinima


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The Professional Machinima Artist Guild and Lowe Runo Productions graciously host Magnum:  The Machinima Review.  Sonicity Fitzroy, author of Second Life, Media and the Other Society (Peter Lang, 2010) and Machinima:  The Art and Practice of Virtual Filmmaking (with Lowe Runo, McFarland, 2012).  Amazon.com. See, author's page:  http://www.amazon.com/Phylis-Johnson/e/B001HOW4U2/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1354606175&sr=1-2-ent

Miles of Laughs: All That Machinima Jazz

"Hey ya'll, Jazzologist Miles Eleventhaur reporting to you live from one of my favorite places on the grid - Virtual Harlem.  You know a lot of people love their fantasies in these virtual worlds.  You can live in space, underwater,  you name it!  Still, every now and then it's nice to see a little reality from time to time.  So when actual reality gets to be too much for you, with all the craziest going on in the world,  nowadays...it's cool to have a virtual place to come to that is not as crazy but still isn't too far from home."   - A Great Day in Virtual Harlem, October 23, 2011. 

Don't let him fool you!  Miles is part of the "crazy" scene in Second Life - when it comes to a good laugh, Miles is ready to roll film.  Heck, he's in front of the camera.  He loves the spotlight - and it loves him!  He's got a great sense of humor - and perfect timing.  Just like the music loves, he's got  the rhythm in him.    It comes out during his DJing and his machinima, and among close friends.   He is a natural in front of a camera and audience. Any other time, he's a gentlemen, quite reserved at times.    You would never know at first glance, this suave guy is a natural entertainer.   He's got some business sense, of course, for he does well on the grid, as one of the top DJS.   Just there's something else about him - something that you cannot bottle or box in any world, let alone Second Life.

He's on - always - ready to take the stage at jazz clubs spinning tunes, on the streets chatting up local history, and just hanging with good friends, talking about music, movies and any virtual mayhem he can conjure up for his next skit.   He's been on the grid for a few years now, thanks to some of his comedic mentors;  he notes Phaylen Fairchild (DiVAS) and Pooky Amsterdam (Shrink Wrapped) as influencing him.   

I remember first seeing him in 2010 at the MaMachinima International Film Festival (MMIF), and Lowe Runo and I agreed that his first machinima was as good as many of the professionals exhibited that day.   He turned heads then, and he continues to do so - and ears too.   

Miles Eleventhaur has done it all - just about every form of machinima, some "on the scene" reporting to music parodies and presidential impersonations to just about whatever he gets the bug to film.   He's a big city guy, with a bit of funk and sass when needed, but mostly he is homegrown - just like the music he plays.   He is an original.  Machinima just helps him bring that out.   He's the local virtual celebrity that will tell you what's up on the grid, and that might be at Virtual Harlem hanging with some good friends, and giving us a lesson on African-American history, or that might be doing a parody of President Barak Obama or Michael Jackson.   

You never know with Miles - the guy is a jazzologist - and you know jazz is all about fusion.   Miles is wired to think out of the box, and in fact, there's no category really for Miles - writer, dj, actor, musician, filmmaker, historian, etc. 

As part of the on-going series, Masters of Machinima,  I interviewed Miles for the February 2013 issue (beginning pp. 166) of Best of SL Magazine.  The article profiles his SL and touches a bit on his real life.  Miles is centered by music - his creation of it as well as his love of it.  That influences heavily all that he does.   But there is much more to Miles.   He's a funny guy!  And he uses machinima to parody music, politics and pop culture. Miles shows us how machinima can tap into political and social themes, and do so by still entertaining audiences.     

Draxtor Depres (known for Flufee on a Meshion) used Miles' Obama impersonation in one of his films.   Comedy, if done well, has a way of bringing us together, letting us examine ourselves and society through parody.  And that is something Miles does well.   Miles tried his hand at stand-up, once -   "I didn't want to screw up here in New York where people knew me. So I took a train to Philly to do some comedy competition. I got through it, but that is some scary stuff, man.  I've always drawn and written my own comedy. I just went from cartoons to machinima."

His influences are the early cartoons, comics and graphic novels, and he can name a long list of comedic influences, namely  Mel Blanc, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Stan Freburg, Jerry Lewis ("a real life cartoon and I loved the bits he did with Count Basie's music"), Carol Burnett and Tim Conway, Bill Cosby ("Fat Albert" series), The Beatles ("Yellow Submarine"), Chuck Jones, and Tex Avery. 

It's about storytelling!  "I feel my ideas have gotten me around some major technical problems and equipment limitations.  As far as content  I'm doing now what I've been doing since I started drawing Snoopy and The Flintstones as a kid:  spoofs and parodies.  Machinima has allowed me to put all of my interests together - writing, editing, music scoring, and voices."

Miles muses, "Musicians are naturally very funny people.  At least the ones that I grew up around.  I 

haven't met one that doesn't love Bugs Bunny.  And there's kind of a a Queens, New York thing that has a comic rhythm in our basic conversation."

Here's to Miles -  and Miles more of laughs to come, we hope! 

Some Links to his work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUq0bzxTn4c

http://www.youtube.com/Miles11Hour

http://vimeo.com/miles11hour

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The Professional Machinima Artist Guild and Lowe Runo Productions graciously host Magnum: The Machinima Review.  Sonicity Fitzroy (SL), author of Second Life, Machinima and the Other Society (Peter Lang, 2010), and Machinima: The Art and Practice of Virtual Filmmaking (with SL's Lowe Runo, McFarland, 2012).  Amazon.com. See, author's page:  http://www.amazon.com/Phylis-Johnson/e/B001HOW4U2/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1354606175&sr=1-2-ent

Machinima Musings, Part II

End of Year Thoughts - Machinima 2012, Part II

 

Belinda Barnes, my Lowe Runo Productions@ colleague, co-conspirator and partner, loves the holidays as much as she does entertaining her toddler cousin. Both loves converged this year through machinima.   A great outlet for her has been making machinima at her cousin's level of understanding.   With glee, Belinda reports that the precious tike wants to watch such kid-friendly machinima repeatedly.  So much so, Bel continues to make episodes for her.   She creates credible sets within Second Life with found objects and some she makes herself.  She has a knack for reorganizing the virtual world.  She has garnered quite an expertise and a reputation as a "handy" fix-it woman of the SL kind.  She spent hours helping fellow photographer/machinimist Kara Trapdoor set up a holiday room of her art gallery (which opens this weekend).  In RL, Belinda does more of the same with her computers and is a media junky.  She loves technology, although never forgets - the message must come first.  She mulls over an idea for days if not weeks, setting up her story and scenarios with painstaking detail.  It becomes more than plot;  it is passion.

Her holiday video is one of the little girl's favorites, and this amazingly often unorthodox filmmaker has just completed another episode.  Her series is made short and sweet, approximately 90 seconds intentionally.  It holds the attention of the child and conveys a short message.  The holiday one is a bit nostalgic for parents/grandparents as well as for those of pre-machinima days.  I would say that in this regard, machinima's audience might be thought as much broader than we realize (pending one's goals and aspirations) and not necessarily defined to hard-core guy game players.   It is all how we approach the technology.  

Timeless messages are not limited to technology.   As noted in my last blog, Celestial Elf's version of  "The Night Before Christmas" is inspired by legend and tradition.     In her own way, Hypatia Pickens' "Wulf and Eadwacer" (see Part I) retold the mysteries of the ancients in a language presumed dead.  It was screened as a top film at the Machinima Expo 2012.  This machinima seductress, a renowned Medieval scholar and artist, challenges her technology.   

Ideas never die - they become contextualized, reimagined and remain connected to the human spirit.   Technology is not core to the soul, and should not be the goal of any filmmaker/storyteller.     Machinima brings something unique to the equation - it is accessible overall to many, and allows many more of us to be filmmakers.   It is more than recreating Hollywood, Bollywood and a way to create cheap animation - it is a window into our increasingly cyber personas  projected through a camera lens.   Captured.  Archived.  Remixed.   Reimagined.  Reinvented.   

It is not the camera, but the person behind that camera that matters.   It is not post production;  it is the posthumous message that one leaves as human legacy, fragmented or whole.   One day, historians will review amateur and semi-professional machinima to understand this time in which we live - one of constant change and manipulation of image.    Truth is found somewhere between the frames.     It gives voice to those not yet heard in the larger film community, and to a generation who has shared its most precious hours with technology.    It is not the bells and whistles, nor impressing us with your fancy equipment and expensive programs.    Wizards and magicians need not apply.   Move beyond painting with machinima for the sake of pretty colors - and merely adding music as a filler or soundtrack is a band-aid approach, although fun of course for those flightly moments of fancy.  "Killing time" via "learning one's craft" becomes indeed a constructive way to advance the field.   Experimentation is good for anyone's artistic soul.  Alas know that reliance on expertise with tools may construct artificial boundaries to the message.  Forget that some filmmakers know more than you.  Forget that some say "machinima is dead;" ignore those who mock virtual worlds as passing fads.    They set limitations based on what they see now.  

 

Let's not get so fascinated with any technology, that we forget the significance of telling stories in ways that bring human drama to life, virtual or real.    And why are the characters on South Park "believable" to many, but human avatars in Second Life are dismissed readily in machinima.     Humans are not portrayed accurately in animations for the most part.   The old cartoons did well with facsimiles.   I have not met any game character that can mirror me or any of my friends to justifiably call them human, but I can still suspend belief if I am engaged.  Motion capture helps us to clone our emotional responses, as we project our humanity onto a computer for reinvention.   What is captured at best becomes an intuitive interpretation of ourselves to us and others as viewers, often redefined by our poetic spirits shaped by life experiences, individual and collective.  This intuitive connectivity to our souls is what brings film characters alive to us, no matter the genre be animation, machinima or any cinematic form.   

Why so many rules for machinima?  Tell the story the best way possible - if that is machinima on whatever platform, so be it.  If you add a few spices via post, that's okay too.   Second Life and future worlds to come offer accessible sites for cinematic experimentation, not necessarily exclusivity to any tool or genre - exploration as creators to new film frontiers bring forth vision yet as makers our ideas should be steeped in understanding humanity via history and cinematic projection. It's not about keeping up with technology.  A good story will find its audience.  It might be a page of a diary or a few lines scribbled on a paper.   You can bet it will be transformed in various ways through time.  It will be remade over and over, and sometimes for better or not.   

This holiday focus on life, not on technology.   And the story will find you.   All I want for Christmas is a good story to share with you all!  - and for Hanukkah (December 8-16th), I hope you received an idea for an eight-part webisode.  Of course, I am still holding out for a new computer from Santa, but it would be wasted without good ideas.  Not to say, I don't like to just play.   Play is a power means to creativity.   If you spend as much time in your game platform as I do in mine, surely your surroundings will inform you.   Machinima is simply a means toward sharing those stories that spring up as you experience life in a game, a virtual environment, and/or what's around you daily.   Consider anything you do as life experience.   There is no pause button in life.   If you spend time in the virtual, it is real time.  You cannot push a button, and get an idea.  If you do, it will be based on something that you have learned from that action.  Game time is real time. Watching a movie or machinima, as well as making one, is time spent.

I have to laugh when I remember Bill Murray in the movie Scrooged (1988).  Watch it if you haven't already.  The art of good storytelling is not dead,  neither is machinima a technology of a by-gone era.    It is a choice.  It is available to many of us, who will never visit Hollywood, let alone work there or any other major animation studio.   Create your own path, your own production company, or just make your three-year old daughter or cousin the audience or the producer.     When did machinima get so confined, confounded and  complicated?   It doesn't have to be created for a contest or public exhibition.   It might be a way to connect a community. Some of the best productions are accidental - ideas birthed from people having a good time together across the world online.   A good mentor will lead you to your dream, not to his or hers.    I am also pleased to see people across the film community coming together - Chantal Harvey and Tony Dyson have launched Scissores Productions;  they have so many ideas and projects that will definitely come to fruition.   Watch out for them.   And of course, Pooky Amsterdam was instrumental in the success of Machinima Expo, and her company continues to make huge strides in the machinima community, and beyond.   Many machinimatographers are noteworthy of mention, and I wish I could name them all.  

Go ahead and play this holiday.   Give yourself the gift of machinima, and watch it with your family, best friend, or lap dog.    Be a fan of your own fiction.   Because it is possible!

 

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My Personal Special Thanks for 2012

 

Special thanks personally for a wonderful year from the machinima community.   So many things happened this year  for me and Lowe Runo Productions. 

Retropolitan Magazines's launch of our series The Steampunk Adventures of Bel & Soni  that began in February 2012 will continue to run in the coming year.  The ultimate goal is a book-length project that could serve as a Web series as well.  Even if nothing comes of it, it is a blast to work with virtual imagery and SL characters (especially when they are not alts).  The story begins with the Steampunk lasses as youth, and this year brings them to adulthood as explorers, inventors, and transcendentalists, you might say.   A quick book teaser via machinima was created to promote the magazine series.  Increasingly, we are seeing books being  promoted in similar ways.   So why not magazine features, we say?   Thanks to Belinda Barnes-Fitzroy and Lowe Runo Productions for their assistance on this on-going project.  Thanks Retropolitan's Phideaux Mayo and Echo Underwood for supporting our work in your online and inworld magazine!
Our book release in March of Machinima:  The Art & Practice of Virtual Filmmaking,  along with our presentation at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference that same month was nonetheless extremely exciting for Lowe Runo Productions.    We wanted a book to introduce would-be virtual filmmakers to machinima, as well as to help others improve upon their skills.   It was the ultimate way to mentor those wanting to know more about the art and practice of machinima.  You cannot imagine how many questions Lowe has fielded through the years, and this seemed one solution, aside from creating the Machinima Artist Guild (founded in 2008, now boasting over 700 members and a talented team of staff and reviewers that offer guidance on a daily basis).   
Our "Machinima" book and MAG was designed to be friendly to  the many "women" voices now present in machinima production.  Moreover, women have a lead role at Lowe Runo Productions.  Our goal was to affirm a larger community of media makers, including those working with machinima as an option outside of game capture.

The May book party at Asil Ares' NeoVictoria SkyClub, with Gabrielle Riel as DJ, was pleasantly memorable.   Ms. Riel interviewed us during the book party, and it is archived here.     I would like to thank all the contributors of our book project, those answering our open call to share thoughts.   Of course, no book can possibly mention all of the great filmmakers.   None before us, and none after us.   All we can do is try to be representative of the community.  My apologies if you felt left out, or one of your favorite producers was not included in our book.   It pangs me when I hear about another person that might have been added to the mix.  My publisher was growing weary already of our additions.

 

At the time of the book release,  BOSL Editor Persia Bravin graciously invited me to pen a machinima series, "Masters of Machinima," to be featured monthly through November 2012 in Best of SL Magazine.     That series kicked off in February with Rysan Fall, then Lowe Runo in the March edition, and so forth including Tutsy Navarathna, Emanuelle Courtois, Hypatia Pickens, Tony Dyson, Chantal Harvey, and JJCCC Coronet and most recently Machinima  Expo's Ricky Grove.  It will resume in February 2013.  I also invited Ricky to be the guest columnist for Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds (Intellect Press), where I serve as the Machinima Reviews Editor.  Ricky spotlights "Journey Into the Metaverse" and "Go West" in the essay, "Machinima as Personal Exploration:  Two Experimental Films from Tutsy Navarathna and Ping-Yao Chen."   As a side note, I am happy to accept reviews on any platform, and contact me for details.   

 

I was also excited to be interviewed by Ricky Grove and Kate Fosk, along with Lowe Runo, about our book and thoughts about machinima.   We had a blast, and here's the podcast.    Moreover, I was honored to serve as moderator on the "Machinima Sound & Music" panel with Ricky Grove, Phil Rice, Richard G. Roberto, and Claus Gahrn.  (I still own some of Claus' amazing sound sculptures from Second Life).   My true love has always been sound, and that is my teaching specialty, along with new media studies/practice.



A Wonderful Second Life

It's been a wonderful Second Life - that is my base of operation.    I am pleased to be part of the machinima community as an educator, author and journalist - and semi-professional machinimist.   Once again, this Spring I am teaching my Virtual Worlds semester class inside Second Life at Lowe Runo Productions.  Students will be introduced to a variety of artistic ventures inworld.   This summer, my Machinima course co-taught with Lowe, was a success, and the students were allowed to use any platform.  Here's some of their work.  The YT site is called Magnum Machinima.

One of those enrolled had started a student MAG chapter on my campus, and wants to connect in January to students interested in machinima across the world.    If you are interested in involving a campus, or know of some students that would like to work with us, let us now.  At our university, machinima is part of the larger gaming society, but it seems to get lost there.   The challenge is to see if student chapters will connect a new generation of filmmakers across the world.

I can hardly wait to see what's head.   New toys and wizardry to come in 2013 for virtual life and some of that will impact the virtual filmmaker.    Much success to all - and to all a good night!    And Mr. Runo and Belinda, and all of MAG & Machinima Expo - thanks for a great year and an amazing future around the corner!

And thanks to Celestial for the Happy Dance to close the year!  See you here in February 2013.    -  Season Greetings, Soni!

 

References

Chen, Pin-Yao (2012, October 24).  Go West.  Kaohsiung, Taiwan:  Ping-Yao Chen Productions. Accessed October 25, 2012, https://vimeo.com/3351362

Elf, Celestial. (2010, November 28). The Night Before Christmas.  Accessed,   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJLiLa7G5Ig&list=PL35566945865FF7C0&index=2&feature=plpp_video

Interview.  w/Gabrielle Riel.   Internet Archive.  Accessed, http://archive.org/details/Machinima-TheArtAndPracticeOfVirtualFilmmaking-RadioRielInterview

Interview.  w/Ricky Grove & Kate Fosk.  Podcast, August 5, 2012.   Accessed, http://soundcloud.com/rgrove-1/machinima-expocast-7-special

Machinima Expo Programming.  Available at Livestream.com.  Accessed, http://www.livestream.com/themachinimaexpo/video?clipId=flv_802b522e-fb47-46d3-9c59-8360cc1e4fbb&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb

Machinima Expo Winners, http://www.machinima-expo.com/

Navarathna, Tutsy. (2011, April 28).   Journey into the Metaverse.  Pondicherry, India:  Navarathna Productions.   Accessed November 20, 2012,  http://vimeo.com/23139995

Sound & Music Panel.  Machinima Expo V.  Available at Livestream.com.  Accessed,
http://www.livestream.com/themachinimaexpo/video?clipId=pla_65f13e20-9680-4375-9dff-99c2bc9052cc&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb

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The Professional Machinima Artist Guild and Lowe Runo Productions graciously host Magnum:  The Machinima Review.  Sonicity Fitzroy, author of Second Life, Media and the Other Society (Peter Lang, 2010) and Machinima:  The Art and Practice of Virtual Filmmaking (with Lowe Runo, McFarland, 2012).  Amazon.com. See, author's page:  http://www.amazon.com/Phylis-Johnson/e/B001HOW4U2/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1354606175&sr=1-2-ent