Machinima Magic in the Making

Once again I’ve had the privilege of participating in the making of a machinima under the careful production of Kira Madrigal. You may recognize the name from my earlier posts on Pop Art Lab’s incredible expo. The whole experience won me over as a fan and advocate of machinima.

This time I got to participate by building a set, one of our early outfits shows up in it and I even have a bit part myself (as an angry mom :p) Building a movie set in a virtual environment was the most enjoyable part to me. There were no heavy materials to lug around, expensive waste or splinters. In about an hour the entire bedroom in the video was up and ready for filming.

Seeing my flimsy fabrication turn into a girl's room in the actual production was pure magic. There are few things as rewarding as creating from pure imagination. I feel a bit like Barney the Dinosaur with his magic imagination bag. But enough of my experiences, I want you to go watch the film for yourself and tell me what you think.

Before I turn you over to this visual treat, though, I'd like to introduce you to the key players that made this production possible. The original music, titled Miss Guided, is by a long time friend and extremely talented musician, known virtually as DirtyDee Sweetwater.

Dee is a professional performer with charm and talent following him around almost as thick as as his fans. Dee started his musical career in his early teens in the US, and performs regularly in venues both virtual and physical. The song featured is written by him, a beautiful ballad that sings to a girl that can't see her own worth, and his desire to "trade her bad for good".

One of the reasons I think that this song strikes such a chord with so many is that it sings directly to the part of ourselves that we'd like to hide. Inside even the most outgoing person there is another shyer person hiding behind their eyes, peeking out sometimes to question their worth. I know I have one.

The individual orchestrating the visuals is very special to me, and I am so excited to see her unique vision of the world being translated for the rest of us to see. She paints mood in pixels and lighting, and is developing herself to be a highly professional machinima creator that is producing commercially as well as purely artistically.

Dissatisfied with merely creating moving images set to music, Kira Madrigal has an intense devotion to the story playing out in much of her work. In this story we see a young woman, the Miss Guided from Dee's song, as she tries to break free of the prison created by her lack of self esteem. Her life is the the epitome of middle class adolescent angst, she has everything but can only see what she lacks.

A few minor notes; I'm the angry mom in the frozen 'fight' image midway through, and the shirt that I'm wearing was created by one of my favorite designers, Yohane Rockett of Strayer. The white and gold 'princess dress' in one scene was one of our earliest releases, now retired. The whole thing was filmed on a platform above our shop area and in the public park land we are lucky enough to be adjacent to.

I hope you enjoy this production, I see lo fidelity film making as having a bright future, and Paramount Pictures agrees with me as proven by their recent creation of Insurge Pictures, a production arm dedicated to proving that creativity can be profitable.

The technology available for small productions such as this means that excellent music videos are no longer regulated to the bands with bucks. I hope you enjoy, and all my best wishes to these two excellent artists... give us more!

The prior post has the video embedded for your convenience, or go to Kira Madrigal's YouTube channel to watch more of what she's doing.

MissGuided - DirtyDee Sweetwater (Second Life)

Partyin' Like a Pop Star

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest to a machinima expo sponsored by Pop Art Lab.

The virtual venue was an eclectic mix of disco Tron and college amphitheater, complete with neon and multiple big screens to show off the machinima offerings.

And what offerings they were!  My personal favorite remains the submission by Kira Madrigal, due in a large part to the focus on telling a story visually.

In her interpretation of Giana Factory's Pixelated Truth, the music used for all the videos, she plays out the life of a game character from the actual character's point of view.  The player behind the game character is a little girl, too young for such games. 

In one of my favorite scenes the little girl sits staring at traditional toys, unplayed with.  Later she has returned to her computer where her game character, a scantily clad woman, dances suggestively.  This small girl is far to young to be acting as a woman, but with games so accessible in our society we never really know who is behind the avatar we see on screen.  As the song pleads, "Please save the youth..."

Despite the concern at seeing such a young girl playing an adult looking video game I find myself drawn into the game character's existence as we watch it play out, and find myself feeling genuine sympathy when the game character's life is ended and she ceases to exist.  The story plays out well, elicits genuine emotional involvement and fits with the lyrics.  I want to congratulate this machinima maker on a well done production, and hope to see more offerings from her in the near future.

Another favorite amazed me with how much it resembled a contemporary music video.  Created by Arbit Delacroix, it featured all the traditional trappings of a good music video.  Visually stimulating, plenty of images of the band playing and excellent scenery... I especially loved the recreation of the old school video game machine that sported Giana Factory graphics.  It was the visual metaphor of life and performance art as a game we play, but is it us playing our own game or is someone else at the controls 'playing us'?

The whole affair was a fantastic production, and the real winners should be Claus Uriza, Persia Bravin and the rest of the Pop Art Lab for their hard work putting this important expo together.  All the elements were there, attendees got to meet and speak with the danish band, Giana Factory.  Rhett Linden gave an engaging and informative talk on machinima opportunities in platforms such as Second Life.  Chantal Harvey, also a long time supporter of virtual arts, charmed us with her presentation.  Press, artists and fans overflowed the actual theater and the entire production was broadcast live on Treet TV.

Congratulations to everyone who made this expo a success.  I hadn't really experienced a lot of machinima prior to this experience, but now I am sold as a supporter for this art form and plan to continue my support.  Machinima opens up opportunities for music artists and more to visually present their work without a huge investment.  For the first time, creative inspiration trumps a fat wallet, and anyone with the talent, vision and determination can create a masterpiece.

You can watch the entire broadcast yourself on Treet TV here, or watch all the entries, including the winner at the Pop Art Labs site here.

Pop Art Lab Machinima Expo 2011

This is where I'll be this weekend... I can't wait to see what a virtual machinima expo is like! All the details will be up by Monday ^.^

Pop Art Lab Music Video Entry - Pixelated Truth

The judges decide this weekend!  I'll keep you posted on the big party.
This is one of the entries done by Kira Madrigal, and filmed around our shop area.

Pop Art Lab 2011 Machinima Party - Wooot!



During the filming...

 Remember the machinima I recently had the opportunity to help out with behind the scenes?

I was just asked to go to the big Pop Art Lab awards ceremony with the film maker, Kira Madrigal. 

Needless to say, I'm stoked.  This is like the virtual equivalent to the Oscars!  Roll our the red carpet...

I have to make something to wear!

Pixelated Fame - The Making of a Music Video

Forget watching the Oscars, I recently helped machinima maker Kira Madrigal in the making of a real music video being filmed for the pop noire Danish band, Giana Factory for a competition sponsored by Pop Art Lab. 

The elements were all there; setting, actors, plot and a cranky and demanding director.  As far as my role, it was more like backstage support and costuming, which was more then enough for me.  The result is a well orchestrated music video offering that I hope you will go to watch, 'like' and comment.

The video is an impressive achievement in itself.  I saw actors from across the globe get together to complete a cinematographic project.  The special effects were first rate and the cast handled themselves professionally.  No expensive costumes, no stuntmen, no travel expenses and no catered lunch cart were needed.  The whole film had a budget of about $5.  This was only possible thanks to the Second Life virtual platform, and it really opened up my eyes to a whole new (virtual) world of possibility.

Imagine a universe were creative thought could be directly channeled into a marketable product, and all the usual hurdles of cost and expensive marketing were nearly non existent.  An individual could literally dream up an idea, wave their hand and create it from air.  It sounds to good to be a reality, but what you just imagined is very real. 

Second Life, and similar virtual worlds, are the latest frontiers to be conquered.  They are the modern day equivalent to the American Dream that was born on the western frontiers.  Those were the days when any man could be president, and a man or woman's fortune was created out of will, knowledge and imagination. 

Later years saw the American Dream bulldozed under legislation and red tape, and the catch phrase became "you have to have money to make money" and creativity became something for daydreams. 

Daydreams are now reality, as this music video proves, thanks to the efforts of a Kira Madrigal and her dedicated film crew, Giana Factory, Pop Art Labs and Linden Labs with Second Life.  To paraphrase Gandhi, "My (virtual) life is my message."

Editors Note:  I've gotton so excited about this ongoing project (helps that i've gotten invited to the awards ceremony :p) that I've decided to cover the Pop Art Labs Machinima contest up through the awards ceremony on March 26th.  You can read all the Machinima posts here.