I would like to say that the editing, the choice of music, the underlying emotional theme and the quirky references to obscure data-base jokes are what sells this vintage Kate video to the youtube audience..but thanks to insight I know differently.
Yes, this is my chance to personally thank all those german and thai gentlemen of a certain age (55-64), who are boosting my viewing figures.
What surprises me most, is that they must be an optimistic bunch. I would expect a sudden loss of interest after they had clicked through from the more popular "Crotch Boots and Shoulder Gloves", but no, they persist right to the end..more than that..statistics suggest that they must be watching AGAIN.
I am really glad for the new detail in youtube's viewing statistics. I can now get a much better idea of who is watching my films, and why.
Particularly with the music videos, it sorts out who is searching for a particular song and isn't necessarily fussed about which video goes with it, from those who are more interested in the story.-Kate
Insight and Thigh Boots
Musical Experiments
Mike and I are currently pursuing parallel tracks. Whilst he is looking at 3d modeling using sculpties, I am invstigating the various programs available for music creation and editing. 
Music has a huge effect on our perception of film. Music invokes emotion, and the same scene could adopt a completely different mood depending on the background track chosen.
Some machinima makers are able to compose their own music, or adopt a team member who has musical skills into their team.
Others use existing tracks, issued under creative commons license by their original creators.
Some take the risk of being rejected by video upload sites, and use copyrighted works, songs which are currently popular, or classic greats.
Few have the luxury of employing a professional composer, and even less creators have access to an orchestra!
As technology moves on some of these restrictions ease, samples take the place of a orchestra..but without a musical score or someone with the skills to use a midi editing suite then film makers are stuck with cheesy backing track generators.
I don't expect to morph into Benjamina Brittain over night, but it has occurred to me that some facility with music creation programs may add some flexibility to the existing options.
If we can change instruments, alter a piece from a major key to a more creepy sounding minor key, if we can speed up or slow down a tune we suddenly have many more options available.
Most midi files have unsuitable licenses, even if the original score is public domain..what if we can input sheet music into a midi program, how horrible would it sound?
How much effort is it to improve the feel? Would we need expensive orchestra samples or can we use VST instruments and use post production to boost the richness of feel?
Could we combine midi with an existing audio track? How about fractally generated tunes, could they be used for ambient background music?
Is it possible to make anything other than dance music using a tracker?
Maybe there is some sort of tipping point, as programs get easier to use, and sound cards and equipment become cheaper, optical scanning devices take the chore out of loading 'paper music' into pcs, xml files rationalise sharing music scores between programs.
Composition is a skilled job, but then so is 3d modeling and animation.
Maybe there is some way of treating music in the same way, as if it were an element to be combined and adapted within a scene.
Then again, maybe there isn't. I guess we'll see.
Photos in this post are of Ricky's second life avatar, GToon, and Phil Rice's mini-me, Sol Bartz (looks like he is asleep again :) )
Consulting The Oracle
When we began this blog last year we described how we would approach our machinima making. Due to the constantly updating environment / tools, and the number of unknowns in terms of what could and could not be done, we decided to prepare and research thoroughly, and then film to a pre-made schedule.
Mike knew that this way of working suited his style when shooting live film, so it made a good starting point.
So between short projects last year, we spent a great deal of time researching tools, trying things out, building example sets, trying out animations etc..and reached so many dead ends that by the end of the year we had had enough. We needed a fresh start.
Throughout the year, Mike had been developing thoughts about organic film making. I knew that my almost random 'try this, try that, do something totally different' approach would not sustain an extended project, and welcomed Mike's ability to organise and persist down a particular path. He began to see method in my seeming madness, and discern those parts of a non structured work pattern which worked well in this new(ish) media.
Mike's feedback enabled me to understand why, as an independent film-maker, I had developed such eccentric work methods. With no previous experience I had simply adapted to the environment. As my technical abilities could not supply the visuals for a structured script I would write as I went along, or grab a handful of clips, and make a story from what I could put together. The story seemed a great deal easier to change than the character animation.
Then I met Phil Rice, just as he was in the process of being profoundly influenced by Tom Jantol. Tom was developing a theory of Anymation, an approach which asked the tools to bend around the story, rather than the reverse. His aim was to lever machinima films away from the environment and characters creating by gaming companies, and to use mach tools simply as a means of telling an original story.
Phil and Tom co-wrote a 'manifesto' for this new Anymation approach and it seemed to offer a leap to freedom in some way that I totally responded to.
I think that, like many times in my life when I have absorbed new ideas, I found that I modified my thoughts as I went along, integrating previous experience and learning with new experiments and discussions.
This year I found that my take on Anymation, that somehow the tools should be utterly subdued to an intitial vision was too extreme. As Mike and I worked together , noticing what did and did not work, we realised that we have most freedom when we set up a dynamic between the tools and the story. If we became too hung up on telling a tale in a particular way we become stuck. If we surrendered to what we perceived to be the limitations of the tools, our work became bland and uninteresting.
We began to reorganise our concept of story itself. There's a saying which you may have heard before, 'the map is not the territory', a reminder that a map is always an abstraction and simplification of reality, and therefore has aspects of that reality missing.
My new realisation is that 'the script is not the story'. A script is a starting point from which the story develops. Then the actors, the director, the music and all the spontaneous things then add to or detract from the final product.
We don't know the story before we begin, we find it as we go.
This time around, with Mike, instead of stepping into a fog I have a road map. We may change direction, but we have the bones of an idea before we set out.
Now, instead of a tight script and a fixed shooting schedule he has the same road map.
Lets see how it works out :)
You make me feel like dancing.....
Mike and I are obviously very serious movie makers, dedicated to our art and therefore most unlikely to be found leaping around in the pineapple office doing something called 'the simpson's dance'. You won't find us doing 'starjumps with grimace' or 'the one legged chicken polka' either. Nope, must have been those pesky avatar clones out on the town again, we deny everything.
Although after our first animation upload we may possibly have become a little... over-excited.
It can happen like that, sometimes things just WORK. In machinima things so often don't work as we might expect that when something actually, first time, with no hassle..just does 'what it says on the tin' it can all become a little overwhelming.
Ok so it worked yesterday, something hideous may have intervened in the meanwhile, maybe the SL viewer has been 'improved' since then and many random things will simply stop doing what they very nearly always did before...but still.
There will always be that day, when what we did worked first time. I won't subject you to the (alleged) photos of middle aged avatars leaping in glee, you may just have eaten after all. I'll post some tasteful and calming garden shots instead..
(..and because I am still in a less grumpy mood than usual, neither will I subject you to the 'Mozart concerto for bagpipe, recorder and barking dog' which I murdered earlier this afternoon in a midi editor)
There are still 34,647 things to do for this new project, but item 34,648 is firmly and gleefully ticked off the list.
Woooo!
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