Busy Mode

“The Resident you messaged is in 'unavailable mode' which means they have requested not to be disturbed…”

Second Life Viewer, Feb/March 2012

I have been working on a film for a few months now - an experimental work using relatively straightforward concepts in what I hope will be an entirely new and exciting way. Certainly it will be a first in SL adult films and I am not aware of it being used yet in other machinima.

As an experimental piece (to practice using Adobe Audition and dynamic-linking for a University module), I do not expect it to be especially popular or “award winning”. I am perfectly fine with that. However, I do hope to “set the bar” for anyone who wants to follow-on and create something similar.

The problem is, I am getting nowhere quickly! I keep getting distracted on other projects, all enjoyable, but also all very time-consuming.

For example, I spent approximately six weeks chairing the judging panel for THE SEXIEST® machinima awards; blog-posts like Innsmouth or Bryn Oh will typically take up all my weekday evenings over a two week period. All this is on-top of my Uni studies and homework which, of course, takes priority.

Over Christmas I had three weeks holiday which I had originally intended to devote to this experimental film. As it happens, I actually spent one afternoon; the remainder of the time was spent on other productive but unplanned tasks.

It used to be that I would log into SL and dance on one monitor while working in Premiere Pro, After Effects or Photoshop in my second monitor. However, nowadays, the constant stream of IMs – from the very moment of logging in until I log out - makes that nigh impossible. They are all lovely IMs from lovely people but, it has to be said, are very distracting from a productive and creative point-of-view.

So….until this film is finished, I’ll be logging into SL less and will not be publishing any “in-depth” blog-posts. This is a shame because I find both activities immensely enjoyable and satisfying but if I don’t do this I fear the experimental film will never get completed.

As soon as the experimental film is complete, I’ll start work on my UWA5 entry. Problem is Bobo is still away on his world cruise and that ‘ole salty seaman is the star of the film!

We don’t know when he gets back but he is greatly missed at Lar’s.

Pixie xx