This episode is Ricky's December film pick, Artists of Second Life by Teal Aurelia. We discuss the emerging trend of photography in virtual worlds and reflect on the significance of the compositing used by the creator of this film, which has a surprising backdrop to the runway style presentation of 'inspiring' characters. Plus, we reflect on the state of TV advertising today!
Machinima, real-time filmmaking, virtual production and VR. Four veteran machinimators share news, new films & filmmakers, and discuss the past, present and future of machinima.
Phil Rice 00:11
Hello and welcome to the Completely Machinima Podcast. I'm gonna go ahead and introduce the hosts today. My name is Phil, and with me is Tracy Harwood and Ricky Grove and Damien Valentine. So today we are talking about a film that Ricky picked, called Artists of SL, SL meaning Second Life. Ricky, tell us a little about it.
Ricky Grove 00:36
Sure, it's Artists of Second Life by Teal Aurelia. Second Life always gives you unusual, interesting names. I thought that was a good one. I chose this film because, well, it was short. And it's very well made. It's a promo for those who use Second Life to create art. And I think it's quite ingenious. The narrate the narrator of the film asks who inspires you and then a series of Second Life artists and presumably their works are included afterwards. It ends with the quote, be brave enough to use it. It shows both the power and the limitations of Second Life. All the characters are somewhat idealised and perform the kinds of animations we see and there are hundreds of Second Life machinima. But overall, I think the film is worth a look, the editing is particularly good, and the style is engaging. Teal Aurelia has a nice video on her editing process that she uses, along with music video on her Vimeo site. This is a director I'd like to follow in terms of her talent and her creativity, we'll be sure to provide a Vimeo link to her channel. I Second Life has always been a sort of. I've had I've always had mixed reactions to Second Life. On one hand, it can do some things that no other platform can. They can show and do things. And then on the other hand, it can become the most infuriating cliches of idealised people with the same animation and physical mechanics shown over and over again with the same subjects. This one although it has, like I said, it has both the good parts of Second Life and the bad parts of Second Life. But I think overall, it's an interesting way to promote art. I liked the ideas behind it. And I think it's well presented. What are you guys think?
Damien Valentine 02:43
I am. One of the things that stood out to me was that the characters obviously rendered in Second Life, but they will see against a blue or green screen because the background footage is all from cyberpunk 2077. I played that game to death. So as soon as that first shot theatre, I know exactly where that Yes. But it's done in a way that unless you look really closely, it the characters look like they belong in that environment. It doesn't look like you just slapped one engine over another they actually blend really well. So there's a lot of erasing. No energy way into editing that together. So I know you've mentioned that there's a sort of behind the scenes video to this. So I need to go back and watch that to see how she did it.
Ricky Grove 03:29
It's not, it's not a behind the scenes video, but she talks about her editing process in general. Okay,
Damien Valentine 03:36
I still need to go back and watch it to see what she did. Her whole process, I thought, its a green screen technique. Okay. But blending the two Second Life and Cyberpunk together. I thought that was an interesting choice. And it worked really well.
Phil Rice 03:51
Yeah, I knew there was compositing going on. But I didn't I have not played Cyberpunk. So I didn't recognise where from. It's not that the compositing was done very well, like there weren't, you know, green fuzzies around anyone's head or anything that I noticed. But I just, I could just tell from the quality of some of the depth of some of those renders. Okay, that's, that's not something Second Life can do. I know that from having spent a lot of time in there years ago. So I knew that there was compositing going on, but it was very well done. And frankly, I've, I've long thought that there's, to me, there's two keys to where you could get something really good quality out of Second Life and one is use compositing liberally, because the characters can be very interesting. And you can you could also composite certain props if you want it to and let some other engine do the backhaul work on the background and the other thing is editing. This thing had both done very well. The editing may this. The I would say the not downfall but the the weak side of many an SL production is lingering on shots. Well, frankly, this is true of many engines, isn't it? This is true of The Sims as well. You linger on a shot, instead of covering over Moviestorm. You know, new Moviestorm, video makers would do this a lot. If there's an awkward animation, cut around it, plan around it exactly. And you can end up you keep just the good bits. And Second Life, it's the same thing. And this, this video does that exceptionally well. I found it very enjoyable. I feel like it. I wish as we spoke about quite a few months ago, when we were talking about Second Life and how second life tends to promote itself. That they cater to certain audiences only. And they cater less to artistic audiences, in my opinion, looking at their marketing materials. This is Second Life's true hidden strength is is artistic work. And it's easy to forget that because for every Lainy Voom that you have, there's you know, there's a 100 you know, be something more than you are in Second Life themed movies, which is just like, Okay, we get it. You know, okay. So yeah, I liked. I mean, this obviously wasn't a story. So I'm not comparing it in that way. But in terms of making use of Second Life as an engine for generating good looking visuals, in conjunction with other tools to amplify the strengths of each just brilliant, brilliant choice. And yeah, wonderfully done. Probably the only reason this isn't picked up as a promo of Second Life is because of those enhancements from those other tools. But yeah, for the purposes, they're using it, it's perfect. It's great.
Ricky Grove 07:13
Did you find it disturbing at all?
Phil Rice 07:15
I did find it disturbing.
Ricky Grove 07:19
I mean, we're talking about 917, the film that we talked about last week, right?
Tracy Harwood 07:25
Yeah, I found it disturbing. I think this is a really interesting, short about Teal, Teal Aurelia's inspiration as an artist in the form of characters in Second Life. Now I had a little bit of a look at her background. She's a CG animation student, recently graduated, I believe. And video to me appears to be a part of her portfolio. As, as I think what she's setting up to do is freelance work, which is about creating machinimas for Second Life creators. She's got a really interesting Flickr account with some fascinating photos on it, which I would, which I would guess are partially the underpinning impetus for film. Now, I'll come back to photography. But what I will say is, as we've sort of said, in the past, photography is fast becoming one of the most use alternative capture mediums in virtual worlds and games. And I think that's kind of partly what's going on here too, What's not so clear here, I think, is the aspect of the characters that are so inspirational to Teal. I'm surmising that this is actually an homage to those characters. But it's not about what they look like. It's about what they do in the virtual space, which is perhaps what she normally captures. So to me, this is like a runway show or a fashion show or beauty parade, where the music complements the presentation and shows this kind of snapshot of characters and their looks, but actually, they're kind of out of sync with the environment, which you guys are both picked up on as well. I quite like these kind of steamy poses to camera, and then kind of some kind of movement. I think I think it's really interesting. Also, that's that since Second Life is all about community, this whole film to me doesn't actually give a sense of community as such, but it's a collective of individuals if that kind of makes sense. The point being here that they're not necessarily folks that you would normally find in the same space, or at the same time, and I'd be really interested to hear more about the nature of the inspiration beyond these images. But that detail isn't in this film. So for me, it's a really intriguing kind of style of capture. It's sort of halfway between machinima and photography. And I say that because I'm, I'm guessing that these folks have lives in these in Second Life. But we don't know what it is. I did also look at the making a video that Teal has posted about how she created this and was really interested to see that green screen has been used, which kind of made me wonder, maybe it's because of that separation of character from scene that that's, that's kind of why it came over more of this sort of beauty parade. Plus, there's one thing that I mentioned, because ever since Ricky mentioned it a few months, two months ago, it's something that I've noticed more of. You know, kind of sliding across the ground plane when walking? Well, it's something obviously that second life creators don't even seem to notice. But it's in here, too. And I wonder, because green screen has been used, I would have thought it would probably have been relatively easily addressed. But then again, I was thinking maybe if it's so much a part of Second Life, maybe what there was, is this kind of deliberate decision to, to leave that kind of floor sliding in here. And there's a scene where you were you were you see that really, really clearly. But overall, I felt it was upbeat, as fun. It's really quite an interesting cultural format. Not really sure what to call it. But very interesting in its format, I think.
Ricky Grove 11:56
Wel your comment that it was a combination of machinima and photography, I think as well, well taken, that's exactly what it is. And I liked the trend towards street photography in virtual worlds. I think that's fascinating. I've been following it for months and months and months. And it's really interesting. I think that's probably part of the appeal to the of the film for me.
Tracy Harwood 12:19
Yeah. Yeah,
Ricky Grove 12:21
I think the ideas are not particularly unique, they tend to be more or less on the level of a Hallmark card, find inspiration and use it. But then again, I I'm a bit cynical when it comes to that sort of thing. So it's hard to convince me of that kind of thing. However, in support of that idea, I think that film was just great. And in supporting and pushing that idea, but you're right, it, it didn't really get it, it tends to be more on the surface, that really, if you start looking at the depth of it, you start seeing it's really doesn't give you all of the information that you need in order to make those in order to prove those statements that are being made.
Tracy Harwood 13:09
Exactly, exactly.
Phil Rice 13:11
I think I've realised now that I, because I didn't watch this. I looked at this as an advertisement. And I mean that purely in terms of the form so like I wasn't looking for, I wasn't looking for deeper story, or, and I think that's why my eyes forgave the feet. It wasn't just because I've been in Second Life, and I've gotten used to it. It also was, well stuff like that's done in advertisement is it's kind of surreal, and they're almost disembodied, and there's layers of compositing going on. And I don't know I kind of I kind of feel like maybe this was that this is a demo piece or a piece of resume, like you mentioned Tracy, but also an excuse to kind of to give shoutouts to people that inspired but not not looking to tell or even allude to their whole stories or something deeper, it's more about showing some technique. Yeah, cuz I, for whatever reason, those things, those are things that would have jumped out to me that the technical things that you mentioned, Tracy, as well as the, the lack of a foundational story of some kind. And I find that I didn't even look for those things. And I think it's because I immediately thought, this is an advertisement. And like much of the advertisements that I watch in real life. I really didn't care what was being advertised either. I just am a fan of the form like when it's important That is executed, right? I don't care if it's for Levi's, or Bush, I don't I don't care, you know. So yeah, that's, that's, we'll see, I'm really interesting.
Ricky Grove 15:11
When advertising comes on, I immediately start shouting at it when it's irrational, or it makes claims, completely unsupported by just laugh and geer. That's a lot of fun.
Phil Rice 15:22
That's just the 917 terahertz signal coming out of the TV.
Ricky Grove 15:28
On Hulu, in particular, you'll be watching something and then a dad will come up that's a minute and 17 long, and it's just completely irrational. Because your mind is in the mindset of the series that you're watching, right? And there's suddenly they're hawking some sort of drug, and they're telling you that death could result from it. It's a possibility that death can and you're like, what the hell are you get out of here? You know what I mean? So
Phil Rice 15:54
yeah, the best was Hulu. The best with Hulu is when they clearly don't have enough advertisers for that slot. So you see that same death drug ad six times in the in the 44 minute episode, you know, oh, yeah, that's my favourite. You know, I've
Tracy Harwood 16:12
given up on terrestrial TV because I can never get into whatever it is that's between the adverts. And I always look at the adverts now as the main show. Because I read minute and a half. I'm just about keep my attention for that long. Yeah. But sometimes that
Ricky Grove 16:25
creativity is more evident in the advertising. Content.
Phil Rice 16:30
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I've, I've, I've always been a fan of the short form. And commercials are sometimes moments where some real artistry can be displayed. Most of the time, it's mindless, garbage, you know. But occasionally, I used to back when the Clio awards were always advertised on TV, which is the annual awards for the best of there's some interesting stuff that happens. And actually many directors that we now know of as film directors, got their start in that is my understanding of many that I am fans of I researched their lives and find out that's, that's where they started is that short form? And of course, I love short form comedy as well, you know, comedy sketches and stuff. So yeah, yeah, anyway, good pick, Ricky.
Ricky Grove 17:19
Well promotional work and informational info ads are really great forms from machinima. And I think there's a lot of things you can do with them. I've been working with a new editor that I've really enjoying, by used to create our two of our videos for the November series that we did called Create Studio Pro. And it's an editor that is a cut down version of video editor, but what it's clearly focused on the short form, the minute to two minute piece. And not only does it give you pre formatted advertising for all kinds of things, YouTube creators back not to the audiences, the sellers, and marketers, and personality types, and YouTube and eBay, and all of that. But it also gives you music, free music for all of them, tonnes and tonnes of music, and a very easy way to animate and put things together. I really enjoy it. And so if if you're thinking of putting together a promotional video, and you're doing Second Life, or Half Life or something like that, it might be interesting to get the content from the from the game, and then check out Create Studio Pro because they're, it's super cheap. And it's a perpetual licence, so you don't have to get a subscription to it. Is
Phil Rice 18:44
that downloadable software, Ricky or is it cloud? Yes,
Ricky Grove 18:47
it is. It's downloadable software. I think it was like $67. For Yeah,
Phil Rice 18:52
The websites Create Studio.com. I just looked it up because I like it, look at
Ricky Grove 18:56
it. It's got some limitations, and source problems. But I found whenever a piece of software excites my imagination, I'm already for it. And very few things keep me from realising the things that I want to do so in in connecting your comment about this being a piece of advertising, advertising is good. If you're a machinima filmmaker, create Studio Pro might be a good piece of software to look at to create those short pieces.
Phil Rice 19:27
Alright, that'll wrap up this episode. Thanks for tuning in with the, what's this podcast called Completely Machinima. Be sure to give us your feedback for two years. I know be sure to give us your feedback over and Completely Machinima.com and check out our blog with all the latest news and developments going on in the world around machinima. Thanks for tuning in.