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.
This is a significant achievement by any standard. Over
160,000 people attend this prestigious festival each year and it is also one of
the qualifying festivals for the Academy
Award for Short Films.
‘Falling’ depicts a
chapter in the life of Susa Bubble, the central sadly beautiful character in
many of Rose
Borchoski’s Second Life installations. We have blogged Rose’s
work before of course; once almost exactly a year ago as part of the ‘The Path’ and again more recently with her
‘The Inevitability of Fate’ installation.
‘Falling’ records
how Susa is now
broken in so many ways that her personality has spilt into 33 different complexes.
Susa no longer
knows who she really is and consequently is falling…
When Iono originally released this machinima in March 2012,
I commented on the YT page “beautiful and
moving”. It remains so for me today.
Congrats and good luck to Iono, Rose and of course Susa!
SaveMe Oh is one of the
most interesting and unique artists currently working in Second Life. She
herself is not however easily categorised, and neither is her work – if indeed
the two can in fact be split.
She has been ejected and banned from more SL regions, art
galleries and installations than anyone else I can think of.
SaveMe has, among her other talents, an unerring ability
to piss people off.
Although SaveMe is a prolific filmmaker, a creator of
in-world installations and a performance-artist of some repute it is probably fair
to say that, actually, it is “SaveMe Oh” herself that is the “artwork”. And I
don’t say that lightly; I am quite aware how trite and clichéd it may sound.
SaveMe’s mere presence always causes an effect – sometimes
hot, sometimes cold – but never tepid. I have been at a number of exhibitions
where worried curators have in hushed whispers asked, “Is SaveMe
Oh coming?” More often than not their ban hammer is primed and ready.
And make no mistake - there is no doubt that SaveMe’s
presence can be disruptive; there is no doubt she is capable of being wicked, even
cruel; and there is also no doubt she is openly critical of other artists.
But despite this – perhaps even *because* of this – her work
always carries with it a sense of humour and fun…so long as you yourself are
not the target!
I first met SaveMe – and I wouldn’t expect her to remember
this – but I first met her at an AM Radio installation, no less, when I’d
only been in SL a few months. At this particular installation it was possible
to “spray paint” graffiti onto the side of a railway locomotive. I was there to
film a sequence for No Self Control; SaveMe was there for her
own nefarious reasons. We both wanted to use the spray-paint tool at the same
time. SaveMe graciously let me go first. I studied her profile, as I do most
anyone who comes into my range, and found my way to her films
and blog. I have to say, it took me a while to “get it” and actually
enjoy what she is doing. Over the last 2+ years I have had long discussions
about her work with Iono Allen and Tutsy Navarathna, both of whom respect what she is doing; I have also watched many of her films and also attending her installations and performance
art.
Asrecognition of her work,AviewTVare currently running aretrospective of SaveMe’s machinima. The venue, like SaveMe herself, is larger-than-life, fun and utterly
uncompromising.
I spent two hours there on Sunday evening and will return
again during the week. Her movies are streamed to various “screens” of all
shapes and sizes. It was very enjoyable and I recommend it.
I had seen many of SaveMe’s films before. Some of the films
contain nudity, many are provocative or controversial but the one common thread
running through all of them is their *great* soundtracks!
Whether it be a self-hypnosis track, a Leonard Cohen song,
El Tigre, Elvis Presley, Bessie Banks, Minnie Riperton, Billy Brown or any of a
host of many others the choice is always engaging, and often fun.
Using her work to convey her ideas, concepts, feelings,
disdain and scorn seem important to SaveMe. If SaveMe has an opinion she'll find one way or another to express it regardless of what we might
think of that opinion or of her for expressing it. And if SaveMe’s intention is that her work
provokes a response, any response, then she has succeeded beyond most any other
artist I know of in Second Life. I certainly doubt that SaveMe is attempting to
make us gasp with her technical prowess or regale us with special effects; I suspect this is of little or no
interest to her.
Selecting one of SaveMe’s films to embed here was quite difficult.
There are many I could have chosen. In the end I opted for ‘Go To Hell’ released three years ago.
The reason is that is seems to be a personal story and conveys personal
emotion, something I enjoy in any film but which is particularly difficult to
do in machinima.
Check out SaveMe’s blog,
the ninety-odd films on her Vimeo channel
and visit the Retrospective for a better appreciation of
SaveMe’s work and her influence – both hot and cold – within the Second Life
art community.
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'...
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.
that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
(click to enlarge images)
For at least a year Bobo Puddlegum and I have been kicking around ideas for a machinima loosely based on the 1999 black comedy-fantasy ‘Being John Malkovich’ – a film which, seriously, if you haven’t already seen you really should make the effort to track down and watch.
It is brilliantly original, funny and, in parts, really quite bizarre.
Just like Bobo himself in fact!
However due to schedule conflicts, other project commitments and RL generally, none of these ideas have managed to come to fruition.
Three nights ago though, I had a dream!
Usually my dreams involve giving finite but infinitely-expanding blowjobs to respected UK physicist Brian Cox – a name which has more Freudian connotations and psychoanalytic comedy-value than anyone truly deserves, no matter how bad their karma. Whenever I dream of Cox, I always wake suddenly when, just as I approach the event horizon, Brian prematurely ejaculates down my throat at the speed of light.
I dream some weird shit sometimes.
But this particular dream, which dear reader I assure you I have no intention of boring you with, managed to combine elements from Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’* with ‘Being John Malkovich’, Bobo Puddlegum and, significantly, the forthcoming 2012 MachinimaUWA V machinima contest.
The dream of three nights ago provided the broad conceptual subject matter for my MachinimaUWA V entry. No! It doesn’t star Brian Cox (although I am sure I could find an opening or two for him!) but rather a film which is to be entitled “Being Bobo Puddlegum”.
Bobo & I will need to work out the details and finalise a script. We’ll also need to know what the MachinimaUWA V theme will be. However, there are some things which are already clear:
1)It will not be disrespectful to other peoples’ art work. Although, most likely it *will* be irreverent this will be done in a respectful and humorous way.
One day I intend writing about the work of SaveMe Oh who frequently walks the precarious tightrope between irreverence and disrespect. The debate rages which side of this equation she most often falls!
2)It will not be a porn movie. I cannot rule out nakedness – Bobo’s natural state – but it most certainly will not be pornographic and very unlikely to have any sex scenes.
I understand and accept the fact that this almost certainly means that this particular film will be of no interest in certain circles. This is fine.
3)It will essentially be a comedy. We hope. Or light-hearted, at least.
With all that settled, Bobo & I thought it only right to give Jayjay Zifanwe fair notice to organise a Plague Doctor, because that pandemic pestilence that is the Puddlegum’s are about to befall the previous piety and purity that is MachinimaUWA.
Sorry.
Bobo & Pixie Puddlegum xx
* 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is subtitled 'A Trivial Comedy for Serious People'
The 'Being Bobo Puddlegum' poster created by Bobo Puddlegum.
All other images by Pixie Puddlegum.
The 'Plague Doctor' performed by Tutsy Navarathna at Innsmouth region
MachinExpo 2011, probably the most important of all the machinima festivals, is being held this weekend. A significant point about MachinExpo is that there are entries from numerous digital media, not just Second Life (SL). In fact, in the top entrants, SL machinima entries are easily outnumber by other forms of machinima.
In a few weeks I hope to do a review of 3D cinematic tools such as MovieStorm and iClone - popular and *effective* alternatives to using SL for making machinima. You'll see examples how these applications can be used in the film links below or by visiting their web sites.
Chantal Harvey, Pixie Rain, Tutsy Navarathna
MachinExpo is broadcast live across the internet from purpose built studios within SL.
Although there is a small studio audience, most avatars watch the broadcast from the UWA Theatre. But even that doesn't really tell the whole story because, by far, the majority of the viewing audience watch over the internet. Many of the viewers would never have even been in SL.
Chantal Harvey, Pixie Rain
I was asked to attend with Tutsy Navarathna whose UWA III winning 'A Journey Into the Metaverse' was one of the eleven machinima selected to compete in the contest.
My role was to answer the audience's questions about Tutsy's film and his film making techniques, on his behalf - due to language difficulties and chat lag caused by
bandwidth deprivation.
The questions that the audience posed were intelligent and knowledgeable - and ranged from machinima techniques, software and aesthetics.
Tutsy's role was to provide much needed eye candy (joke!!).
Pixie Rain, Tutsy Navarathna
All eleven of the competing films are screened at the festival and each Director participates in a Q&A session.
The standard of these eleven films is really quite daunting. The Q&A was very interesting but what stuck me deeply is how machinima really is becoming a worldwide phenomena - and SL just a small slice of the bigger picture.
From the eleven competing films, there are four prize winners. I have to tell you, all four are sensational. But what is truly interesting to me is that only one of those four is actually filmed in SL - the others were filmed using alternative software. "Mastermind" - the 2nd Runner Up - was particularly surprisingly to me personally because I had absolutely no idea that such incredible film making could be done within video games like Grand Theft Auto - even through I was familiar with Ian Chisholm's 'Clear Skies' series, filmed in EVE Online. All four winning films are definitely worth watching and, imo, *should* be watched and studied by anyone serious about the emerging art of machinima. In traditional reverse order, then....the MachinExpo 2011 winners are:
Grand Prize Winner: Haunter of the Dark by Phil Browne (iClone)
I accepted Tutsy's award on his behalf - electrical storms in India having decimated his broadband connection - and gave the following acceptance speech for him:
"I am so honoured to be presented with this award. The quality of the entries are stunning in their scope. It is humbling to be compared amongst them. Machinima, as an emerging art form and as a form of social expression, is starting to find its own definition. As early adoptors we are casting the foundations but, it is the future of the form and the changes ahead which are truly exciting! Thank you."
After the Award Ceremony, Bobo Puddlegum & I moseyed on down to the After-Event Party and boogied away with DJ Hathead to '70s dance music.
A $L20,000 prize pool has been allocated to the three audience members who most closely decide the order of the top ten finalists as decided by the judging panel.
Simply email your top ten to jayjayaustralia@hotmail.com or drop a notecard on Jayjay Zifanwe in-world.
Here is my personal Top 10 (listed alphabetically by film name) Two of the entries have already been posted on this blog:
I believe each one of the machinima listed below have something valuable to offer - for learning from and for improving our own work.
All are definitely worth watching, if only because they are good films!
What order I finally rank the ten will forever remain a secret between JayJay & I!
Before I get to my list, I especially wanted to draw your attention to the entry from Nina Camplin (Fuschia Nightfire in Second Life). It is both unique and stunning.
Nina is a mural artist from the UK. Her UWA IV entry had her deconstruct "the art of the artists" and reconstruct them into RL paintings. She filmed the painting process as it progressed and used the footage to create this truly amazing machinima.
If you decide to watch only one of the eighty entries, then this is the one I would recommend. The soundtrack, incidentally, features the singing voice of CoMa whom we blogged in June 2011.
The closing date for UWAIV machinima entries is 10th November. The theme is "Create something that will take our breathe away". The judging panel comprises twenty experienced art and/or Second Life (SL) luminaries.
Although I can not be entirely sure I have seen each and every entry, I have seen many of them.
As usual, the standard needed to win an award will be high. And rightly so if the UWA machinima and art contests are to retain the respect and authority that it has gradually and deservedly built up over the last few years.
The UWA competitions attract the best-in-class but, significantly and probably contributing to its success, it also encourages newcomers, beginners and amateurs. Personally, I think it that this is a great thing.
'Journey' has recently been voted to be part of the exclusive jury-nominated Machinima Expo 2011 contest. The winner will be announced 19/20th November and we wish Tutsy lots of luck!
I have already blogged Tutsy's hotly-tipped UWA IV entry 'Welcome to The Other Side', which I was chuffed-to-bits to appear in. This machinima is also part of the Machinima Expo event as one of the fifty films deemed unique and interesting enough to be screened at the expo. However, it is not part of the prize contest as 'Journey' is. Another of the fifty films to be screened at the expo is Iono Allen's The Red Zone, which I have also previously blogged.
We'll return to discuss Iono's UWA IV entry later in this blog-post, but first, there a few other things I would like to address.
I have been asked a handful of times why I haven't yet entered any of the UWA competitions. My reply always is, "I am not ready yet. I am not good enough." This isn't a false modesty, I mean it.
Only after 'Rapture' did I start to think I now understood enough about the SL viewer, Windlight, frame rate expectations in SL, draw distances, the difference between client and server lag and other such Second Life related technical matters to feel reasonably confident of submitting a UWA-quality machinima.
Generally, contests and competitions don't turn me on very much and so I tend to avoid them. I did, however, have four films entered into THE SEXIEST 2010 adult machinima contest - but only because a sponsor paid the entrance fee!
I cannot deny feeling proud that all four films were nominated in their respective categories and I walked away with a 'gong' - Best Special Effects - for 'Sex With Strangers'.
The actual award now hangs in pride of place over the fireplace at 'Old Lar's House'. Go see it for yourself!
However, as I believe most independent and unbiased observers would agree, there is a world of difference in the quality of machinima being submitted to UWA contests and those submitted to the SL adult machinima contests.
And so, with that in my mind, I have not yet felt ready for UWA. However, a few nights ago, Iono *forced* me - yes, forcedme - to agree to submit an entry for UWA V, next year.
So, this is my public declaration of that intent, as discussed with Iono and Tutsy, to make it harder for me to back out!
The weekend just gone also saw the first production kick-off meetings for my next SL machinima, jointly produced and directed with Lollie Razor of Eyo Bitch Productions. We are keeping our cards close to our boobs for the time being but I am excited about this film and have been planning it conceptually for the last four months. It is very experimental and it is an artistic risk. It could very well turn out to be a flop and a disaster.
How exciting is that!!
Its release will be my last "adult" machinima for a while, I think. Although there could very well still be sexual scenes in my films, I am becoming increasingly disinterested in SL "porn", mainly for aesthetic reasons.
The point is, after the release of this next film my attention will be fully directed on UWA V.
As Serenity has already posted on Emmanuelle's blog, Pel Beaton and Scooby Mode have submitted entries to UWA IV. I sincerely wish them luck. The gradient is steep. However, one of the great things about the UWA contests is that no one is excluded and that the organising committee - JayJay Zifanwe in particular - is very encouraging. The UWA committee like to recognise newcomers and specifically mention those they see as emerging talent, even if no prize is actually being awarded in that particular round.
Personally, I give respect to Pel and Scooby for entering. I'll be watching their progress with interest and cheering them on!
In Serenity's blog-post I just linked to, she makes an extremely pertinent point but then does not go on to explore the implications of that point. Frankly, I don't blame her. Not publicly anyway!
I am simply going to quote her here and not dig any deeper at this time. I might return to consider it in some future blog-post. I definitely feel that any person making SL "porn" films who wants to move out of the realm of what is essentially roleplay and into the more serious and creative realm of *film making* really should be thinking about Serenity's point and its wider implications:
Serenity said: "When you remove the sex from our movies you begin to see the challenge ahead for creating a winning project."
Let's return now to Iono's UWA IV entry - "Virtual Love".
This machinima is delicately and deftly executed. It is a delight to watch. One can imagine the amount of pre-production planning that went into it.
It is also very, very cool!
Imo, it is Iono's best production thus far. I wish it, and Iono himself, well in UWA IV.
One final thing to say before presenting Iono's machinima. I wanted to thank all the creators of 'The Path' for popping over to my humble blog here and/or for leaving messages in-world. I especially want to thank Bryn Oh for the gift of the 'Shopping Trolley' from her 'Anna's Many Murders' installation (see the first picture on this blog-post) for my SL home. It looks great next to the sack of dung and the latrine!
