2023 Machinima: People I Learned the Most From this Year
Fair warning!
I don’t know any of these people; I just admire their work and have learned alot from them during my machinima ‘process’ this year by watching their videos and social media channels. I think if you are trying to ‘study’ machinima, I think these creators are great to learn from.
Francesca Sparrowtree
Can a photographer influence a 'machinima maker’? She does for me. If I could make my episodes be a tiny hint of the essence of what she captures in a picture, I’d be winning. I’ll never get there, I don’t think it’s even possible, but she’s such an amazing inspirational fantasy photographer. I know she’s not doing work right now, but that doesn’t mean that her stuff isn’t inspirational. Check out her Flickr here to see what I mean. This one, this one, and this one are some that I find particularly amazing.
Teal Aurelia
“She’s so HIIIIIGH HIGH ABOVE ME, but she’s so lovely. :)” I insantly think of this song when I sit down to answer this question about what I ‘learned from Teal’ this year. She’s amazing. I first noticed her work when she did this ad for Signature body. (The fact that at this moment the video on YouTube doesn’t even have 400 views - WHAT?!?!?!) I remember jumping up and down and screaming in my living room because I thought it was SO good. It was this video that made me think that maybe - just maybe - it was going to be possible to try and actually make a show in Second Life. But as much as I love that combat video, my favorite thing about her work is her humor! She has GREAT marketing smarts. Her ‘body’ video was PERFECTION. I LOLed.
GodivaSL
She’s one of my favorites. I can only hope that one day I can do a car style scene that is HALF as good as the one that she does in this video. And then the horse? YA’LL. The dance that she does out of the car window was an iconic one this year and where she placed it was perfect for what I think she was trying to convey in the video. And did you see her Top Gun, too? YA’LL.
Graves Ghostly
I’m a huge fan of Graves and these last few months, I’ve gotten the opportunity to interact with them on X. This video they did for an Abnormality event had me dancing in my seat. The smart use of color, their musicality (that predator head bob at around 45 seconds?!), and the random cameos from the dodo bird!! This video was one that really pushed me to want to try using different ‘scenes’ when making a dance video and to find a way to get clearer footage than I was getting. Graves was a HUGE inspiration for me this year.
The first video I saw from this creator was Cosmic Void. I remember being struck with how witty the ‘basketball - spinning on one finger’ idea was with the planet and the sounds that he used for the over all feel of the entire short. I wanted the video to keep going - to know what this epic ‘space god’ was going to do next. That was the first time I felt that about something I was watching in Second Life. I think the most important thing I learned from his work, overall, is how important sound is for video. He’s a professional, so he has a nice eye for camera angles, and I think he uses them in a smart way to be able to make a scene look more ‘full’ than it actually is (alot like Sere). This is a brillant technique the he uses in many of the videos and headers he does for the Second Life social media platforms. I have found that if I do the same thing, it makes it easier to film higher quality content because the load on the region/area/lag/whatever is lower.
Huckleberry Hax & Caitlin Tobias
These two made TWO movies in Second Life, one of which was WAAAAY before there was all the ‘bells and whistles’ we have now to film and edit with. The most recent movie came out at the end of last year (2022) and I can only imagine a tiny bit of the dedication it must have took to create those films. Gonje (the other Bay City Studios Producer) and I are married ‘in real life’, so we can literally sit in the living room and talk shots out. I can walk across the room to his screen and help with something or point something out to him. And sure - you can do that with people that AREN’T there, but all of that takes processing power on your computer. It’s not like you can really keep a zoom screenshare open WHILE you film and run two or three viewers and still get footage that’s good. The team work they had to have had to do that film is honestly earth shatteringly impressive. I recall their project often when I work on my own - maybe even more than any other project out there right now with Second Life.
And Caitlin’s little location shorts she does on Twitter / X? If you aren’t following her, you’re missing out. No, really. She’s so funny…and so witty. I appreciate her humor. :)
