Pixie Rain: straddling Art and Porn in Second Life.
Some of the machinima and blog-posts on this site are adult in nature and contain scenes that some people may find disturbing.
If you feel this might be you, please exit now.
Other elements are warm and cuddly and have a "feel good" factor.
Click the "Film Link" tab below for all my films listed chronologically.
Here is a machinima that I think is especially well done.
I don't know the filmmaker personally - Neodog1 on YouTube and Shaman Nitely in Second Life - but saw the
link posted on SLUniverse.
'Visions Beyond the
City' opens with a
slow and delicate camera track of Hangers Liquides cityscape, where
incidentally, much of my own 'Rapture' and Shaman-inspired 'FWD:
Evolution' were filmed. And, like my own treatment of Hangers Liquides
for machinima purposes, Shaman Nitely has also subject his raw footage to
extensive colour correction. He really does make it look fabulous for film.
I have in mind a future blog-post discussing colour
correction in machinima, mainly arising out of conversations with Tutsy Navarathna regarding use of the
'Fast Color Corrector', the 'Three-Way Color Corrector' and the 'Brightness
& Contrast' effects. Not a tutorial on their specific usage as such but
more a discussion on the importance of colour correction in filmmaking and the
role these effects play. I think 'Curves' is pretty well known and is already being used extensively by the SL Photoshop photography community.
Tutsy's recent MachinimUWA V winning 'The Last Syllable of Recorded Time' is probably one of the best examples of
colour correction in machinima that I know of, especially when watched in 1080. Its beautiful and delicate
colour palette has been noted by Larkworthy
Antfarm, Iono
Allen and others besides myself.
The protagonist voiceover for 'Visions Beyond the City', kicking in at just after ten seconds, reveals
beyond doubt that Shaman Nitely is English! But more...the voice is strangely
reminiscent of someone and it took me a few minutes before I could put my
finger on it! The voiceover sounds uncannily like the English 'Reservoir
Dogs' actor, Tim Roth! And, that is a good thing! I mean it as a compliment; I like
it - it is cool, gritty and real.
The film uses quite a number of lens flares, most usually in
an appropriate manner such as the nicely executed tracking of the exhaust
valves of the air-vehicles. It has to be said that although I often like the
look of lens flares aesthetically, I have personally mostly weaned myself off
them - especially since being chastised by a college lecturer for their use in
'Rapture'. Lens flares do have a part
to play, but judiciously and prudently, in my and some others' opinions. For the most part, 'Visions Beyond The
City' uses lens flares within those boundaries.
Many of the post-production effects are very well handled
indeed, and the background sound effects add a further dimension and realism to
each scene.
I especially enjoyed the character studies as the camera
pans the inner city and latches onto the denizens. That, and the use of the Plague Doctor avatar, brought to mind 'MetaSex' which, incredibly, now has over
4,500 YouTube views and 47 comments.
The voice track that kicks in around 5:11 sounds like a
old-timer working class Londoner, and could in fact be a member of my own
family on my father's side! The "vision" sequence which starts soon
after is very well done, both technically and artistically.
'Visions Beyond The
City' presents the traditional dark sci-fi feel in a stylish and stylised
manner. It has so much to commend it and is certainly one of the most all-round
polished and enjoyable machinima I have had the pleasure of watching this year.
Please take the time to watch Shaman Nitely's 'Visions Beyond the City'...
The votes have been counted and the results are in....
For the third time in a row, Tutsy Navarathna wins the
prestigious MachinimUWA contest - this time for his beautifully moving 'The Last Syllable of Record Time'.
'The Last Syllable' is arguably Tutsy's finest
machinima to date - it is a brilliant synthesis of sound and vision; the colour
palette of a true artist.
Congratulations on this marvellous achievement!
Additionally, Tutsy was also awarded the 'CinemaPop Award of
Excellence in Film Direction' and Violette Naidoo's poster for 'The Last Syllable' (pictured above) took 1st place in
the UWA Machinima Poster Contest.
2nd Place was taken by a machinima I have been
raving about since first seeing it - Natascha Randt and Karima Hoisan's 'Seek Wisdom'. A stunning work. Congrats
to both.
3rd Place was jointly awarded to Tikaf Viper for
'run RAM' and a number of others.
I am pleased to say that these three films are those I highlighted only yesterday as standing out for me and which I felt would win an award. Now, why oh why didn't I
enter the Audience Participation again this year!
For myself, I was pleased to have been awarded a 'CinemaPop
Award of Excellence in Film Narrative 2012'.
For a complete list of the MachinimUWA winners, visit the
UWA site (link not available at time of this writing).
Congrats to all winners and thanks to UWA for staging the
contest.
Here are a collection of pics I took at the Award
Ceremony...
The total prize pool is L$1,300,000 of which L$785,000
(approx. $3,400 USD) is for the machinima contest, split as follows:
·1st
Prize - L$140,000
·2nd
Prize - L$120,000
·3rd
Prize - L$100,000
·4th
Prize - L$70,000
·5th
Prize - L$55,000
·6th
to 10th Special Awards @ L$30,000 each
·UWA
Special Prize - L$100,000
·Audience Participation Prize: Three prizes totalling L$20,000
·Machinima
Poster Prize: Three prizes totalling L$20,000
Very healthy!
Last year I came 2nd in the Audience Participation contest
- a competition to predict the Top 10 machinima as would finally be decided by
the judges. I didn't enter this contest this year for a number of reasons - but
mainly time related.
Now, it has to be said - I have not watched all the entries!
But of those I have watched, these three stood out for me.
One thing that did occur to me while watching some of the
entries was that, even more than last year, there were quite a number of films
that *conceptually* were really very interesting. However, in my opinion the filmmaking/camera/editing was not able to do justice to the original concept. This is simply a matter of "technique and
practice" and so I assume we'll see more rounded and polished machinima
from these entrants in future years.
Having written the above, it would now be cowardice to avoid
saying where I believe my own entry - 'Fwd: Evolution' - falls. Despite many
encouraging and enthusiastic comments about this movie - including a dedicated thread on SLUniverse, no less - having seen some of
the other entries, I am unable to rank it in the Top 5. However, of those I
have watched, I was in fact able to rank it in the Top 10. We'll see tomorrow!
The Grande Finale ceremony starts at 6am SLT, Sunday. But
arrive in plenty of time to secure a place - it is strictly a 'first come,
first served' affair!
Tutsy, the Puddlegums and I are big fans of
Arduenn's work. His sense of humour, sense of fun and creativity scream out at
you in most everything he makes.
Arduenn is currently working on a rather hush-hush project
with the much respected MadPea
Productions. We look forward to seeing the outcome of that
collaboration in a few months or so.
Tutsy and I discovered Arduenn's SL region, Black Forest , by accident when we were
looking for a specific scene for my MachinimUWA V entry, "Fwd: Evolution". As it happens,
we did find what we went looking for but on another region entirely! And then,
the scene in question didn't actually make it into the final cut of the film anyway!
And thus was the circuitous route that the Mistress of
Serendipity introduced us to Arduenn's creations! Since then, between the lot
of us, I reckon we must have purchased at least one of everything in his stores!
Of special interest to us in this particular blog-post is
Ardueen's fabulous 'WarBug' aircraft and the dogfights which occur in them at Black Forest.
The cumulative Combat Score for successfully shooting down
an opponent is displayed on this website. I am currently ranked #67.
Rocky Vansant - a charismatic and fun guy that I have met
before - is ranked #1. However, he somehow neglected to mention this fact while we were dogfighting...
Last week, I was dancing at Old
Lar's House when I received an IM from Arduenn. In amongst
our much longer chat was buried this gem in reference to the v2 iteration of
the LLab viewer:
And so was born Arduenn's latest creation - the V-2 Warbug Rocket - which I am
grateful to be recognised as the Muse for and to have received a free copy of.
Saturday morning Tutsy and I piled over to Black
Forest itching to dogfight against all comers in our Red Barron and V-2 Rocket Warbugs,
respectively.
It is fair to say that Tutsy and my skill level was a tad or
two under Rocky and Arduenn's. But, it was nevertheless great fun and highly
recommended!
Watch this short film to see us in action - 'The WarBug Jitterbug'!:
A movie review of ‘Fwd: Evolution by Serenity Juneberry which originally
appeared on ‘The Pornstars’ blog. Reproduced in whole
here. I wish to thank Serenity for this generous piece.
Adult Scene Director's MachinimUWA V
Entry
'Fwd: Evolution' by Pixie Rain
"A Cybernetic
Shaman and Cybernetic Dancer
travel through space, time and the inner dimensions in search of
wisdom..."
This is a non-adult film.
However, we've always supported our adult directors here at 'The Pornstars' when entering the UWA Machinima
contest. Last time around Bert Jedburgh, Pel Beaton and Scooby Mode all
submitted entries and were covered here on the blog.
This time we have Pixie Rain, who is of course one of the
most talented movie makers to work in the adult genre, doing what she does best
with her usual class and artistic style.
'Fwd: Evolution' is a superb movie, superbly titled
too as it aptly describes the journey you'll embark on when you watch this film.
Some wonderful imagery and some thoughtful
content mean I enjoyed watching several times for very different reasons. You
should listen, watch and absorb the movie in order to get the full effect and
the Director's message.
Also on later viewings you can, as I described to Pixie
yesterday when we spoke "take a magic carpet ride" and just let the
scenes and images flow past you. I think probably John Lennon put it best
"Switch off your mind, relax and float down stream".
The film does indeed take you on a journey and it feels like
a literal one as Pixie's editing and filming techniques really take you on a
flight through the movie's entire length - always going forward, always
evolving.
Look out for the Cybernetic Shamen, who can be seen
throughout, white rabbit like!
We wish Pixie all the best for the UWA Awards.
Machinima
of this stature from artists involved in the adult scene can only help gain
respect for some of the wonderfully produced adult content which gets released
by others too. Much of which fully deserves praise by a wider machinima loving
audience.
Additional sound effects: soundjay.com (in accordence ToS)
Soundtrack:
'Re:
Evolution' by The Shamen (1992) administered copyright to nemeton.com
Voiceover is an edited sample of Terence Kemp McKenna (1946
- 2000), Cybernetic Philosopher, to whom this machinima is dedicated
Transcript of
McKenna's lecture (courtesy of http://www.erowid.org):
If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be
believed.
Human history represents such a radical break with the
natural systems of biological organization that preceded it, that it must be
the response to a kind of attractor or dwell point that lies ahead in the
temporal dimension.
Persistently Western religions have integrated into their
theologies the notion of a kind of end of the world, and I think that a lot of
psychedelic experimentation sort of confirms this intuition. I mean, it isn't
going to happen according to any of the scenarios of orthodox religion, but the
basic intuition that the universe seeks closure in a kind of Omega Point of
Transcendence, is confirmed.
It's almost as though this object in Hyperspace, glittering
in Hyperspace, throws off reflections of itself, which actually ricochet into
the past, illuminating this Mystic, inspiring that Saint or Visionary and that
out of these fragmentary glimpses of eternity we can build a kind of map, of
not only the past of the Universe and the evolutionary egression into Novelty,
but a kind of map of the future. This is what shamanism is always been about.
A Shaman is someone who has been to the end. It's someone
who knows how the world really works, and knowing how the world really works
means to have risen outside, above, beyond the dimensions of ordinary space,
time, and casuistry and actually seen the wiring under the board; stepped
outside the confines of learned culture and learned and embedded language into
the domain of what Wittgenstein called "The Unspeakable" - the transcendental
presence of the other, which can be unsanctioned in various ways to yield
systems of knowledge which can be brought back into ordinary social space for
the good of the community.
So in the context of ninety percent of human culture the
shaman has been the Agent of Evolution because the shaman learns the techniques
to go between ordinary reality and the domain of the ideas. This higher
dimensional continuum that is somehow parallel to us, available to us, and yet
ordinarily occluded by cultural convention out of fear of the Mystery, I
believe.
And what shamans are, I believe, are people who have been
able to de-condition themselves from the community's instinctual distrust of
the Mystery, and to go into it, to go into this bewildering higher dimension,
and gain knowledge, recover the jewel lost at the beginning of time, to save
souls, cure, commune with the ancestors and so forth and so on.
Shamanism is not a religion - it's a set of techniques, and
the principal technique is the use of psychedelic plants. What psychedelics do
is they dissolve boundaries and in the presence of dissolved boundaries one
cannot continue to close one's eyes to the ruination of the earth, the
poisoning of the seas, and the consequences of two thousand years of
unchallenged dominator culture based on monotheism, hatred of nature,
suppression of the female and so forth and so on. So, what shamans have to do
is act as Exemplars by making this cosmic journey to the domain of the Gaian
ideas and then bringing them back in the form of Art to t struggle to save the
world.
The planet has a kind of intelligence that it can actually
open a channel of communication with an individual human being. The message
that nature sends is "transform your language" through a synergy
between electronic culture and the psychedelic imagination; a synergy between
dance and idea; a synergy between understanding and intuition and dissolve the
boundaries that your culture has sanctioned between you - to become part of
this Gaian Supermind.
I mean, I think it's fairly profound, it's fairly
apocalyptic. History is ending. I mean, we are to be the generation that
witnesses the revelation of the purpose of the cosmos. History is the shock
wave of the Eschaton. History is the shock wave of eschatology. And what this
means for those of us who will live through this transition into Hyperspace is
that we will be privileged to see the greatest release of compressed change
probably since the birth of the Universe.
The twentieth century is the shudder that announces the
approaching cataracts of time over which our species and the destiny of this
planet is about to be swept.
We're going to arrive in the third millennium in the middle
of an archaic revival, which will mean a revival of these physiologically
empowering rhythm signatures, a new Art, a new social vision, a new
relationship to Nature, to feminism, to ego.
All of these things are taking hold, and not a moment too
soon.
A new relationship
with Nature, to Feminism, to Ego.
All of these things
are taking hold...
And not a moment too
soon."
- "Fwd:
Evolution", released 1st July 2012
I had intended watching all of the UWA5 entries and posting
on this blog those which especially caught my attention.
You may have noticed that, apart from Tutsy
Navarathna's 'The Last Syllable of
Recorded Time' which I wrote about in April, I haven't blogged
any others.
The reason is simple. Once I decided to enter the
competition myself, I just didn't have enough time to watch, review and blog
others' films. There was also a fear of introducing an element of bias into my evaluations,
as I would unlikely to be as detached as last year when I won 2nd place in the Audience Participation Top 10
contest by correctly forecasting eight of the top ten winning
films from a pool of over 80 entries.
I will watch all of the films, but only once my own UWA 5
entry is released on 1st July 2012.
However, a UWA 5 entry has just been released that is so good that I was forced to break off
finalising my own film, watch it a number of times and write-up this blog-post.
Sometimes I can read a passage in a book or a quote, or see a photo, drawing or oil,
and think "Geez, I wish I had created that!" However, I can count on
one hand the number of times that I have had a similar thought about a
machinima.
Natascha and Karima's "Seek Wisdom" is one such
time....
I have to close off quickly now and get back to work on my own film,
but not before watching this wonderful machinima one more time.
It really has to be a serious contender this year....Enjoy!
Tim is also a prolific photographer who has seemingly attended
most all of the significant artistic events, installations and performances in Second Life since October 2007. His flickr consists of over
20,000 individually crafted photographs which document the creativity,
individuality and ingenuity of the SL experience.
Dido Haas by Tim Deschanel
I was thrilled to see Tim had taken these pic's of me in my Rabbit Girl Porn Star persona while we
were attending the opening of Dido Haas and Nitro Fireguard's new art gallery which exhibits
their own work and, until the end of this month, the work of artist Dannyboyo.
Ordinarily I'd blog Dannyboyo's work in its own right,
probably also cross-posting over at The Pornstars blog too for greater exposure. However, time pressures
have prevented me from doing so, as I'll explain a little later.
Dannyboyo's work comprises of manipulating pornographic
images to leave only abstract exaggerated shape and colour. Dannyboyo says,
"the ... pieces retain the erotic quality of the original photo, but
softened to a dreamlike, painterly state. For me, it brings new meaning." Well worth checking out.
Nitro Fireguard by Tim Deschnel
The reason I haven't blogged Dannyboyo's exhibition more
fully is that I am up to my eyeballs working on my UWA "Seeking Wisdom" machinima entry,
and have been for a few weeks now.
Sleep is suffering!
But,
the film will be ready for the deadline!
It will be released publically on You Tube (and
my blog here) sometime on Sunday 1st July. However, on the evening of Saturday 30th June,
Nasty Puddlegum is holding a small
"premiere" over at his gaff for a few invited friends.
We'll screen the film and then applause, shout
"WOW" and "AWESOME!", play "Woot!" and
"Hooo!" gestures and otherwise congratulate each other in that
over-sentimental, grossly emotional and vaguely embarrassing way that
is a hallmark of Second Life social gatherings. It goes without saying that
anyone refusing to participate in this traditional Second Life behaviour will
be summarily ejected and banned.
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