Machiniplex Premiere: "Joy of Music" by Chantal Harvey on Sunday, Jan 31st

Machiniplex is proud to announce a Premiere of Chantal Harvey's new machinima "Joy of Music". We will be screening the film next Sunday, January 31st at 1030AM to 12PM (noon) Pacific Time. The location is Pooky Amsterdam's "StudioDome" in Second Life. Our thanks to Pooky for helping out with the Premiere on short notice.

Chantal Harvey has been a major presence in Second Life culture and machinima for several years now. She's created over 30 machinima films, is the producer for the 48hour film project for machinima and is the founder of the MaMachinima International Festival which will take place on February 20, 2010.

"Joy of Music" is the pilot for a new machinima series for children (and adults). It was written by Madcow Cosmos and was filmed on location at IBM2 sims in Second Life. The audio is by Lorin Tone, the boy is played by Judi Newall and the voice over is by Lauren Weyland. Directed by Chantal Harvey.

We feel that "Joy of Music" is Chantals finest work to date. The combination of technical excellence and surreal style reminds us of early Disney. Add to that a superb voice over and great sound and you have a top level machinima, the kind you want to show people who have never heard of machinima.

Chantal (and I suspect some of the crew) will be on hand after we screen the film to answer questions and discuss the details of creating this unique and entertaining machinima. Come early as it may be crowded. Should be a lot of fun.

DATE: Sunday, January 31st from 1030AM to 1200PM (noon) Pacific Time
LOCATION: Pooky Amsterdam's "The StudioDome".
SLURL:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spindrift/66/217/701
               located in the virtual world of Second Life

If you've never been to Second Life before it's very easy to get started. The program is free and is a snap to install. You probably should go through the orientation that Linden Labs (creators of SL) provides so you'll know how to move around and use the interface. The Premiere is "beginner friendly" so there will be plenty of people to help you out.

Second Life info

We will be conducting the Premiere using voice chat so you'll need a headset and mic. But if you don't have a mic, you can use text chat to interact at the Q&A.

Come to the "Joy of Music" Premiere and chat with the director afterwards. It's a great opportunity to learn more about machinima and find inspiration for your own work.

See you there!

1st Machiniplex Forum with Jorge Campos a Great Success

Get those feet off the couch, guys. 

Had a great time at the first monthly forum hosted by Machiniplex today. The event was hosted by Machiniplex and took place at Chatal Harvey's MaMachinima studio in Second Life. Guest of honor, Jorge Campos, spoke at length about his methods of creating machinima in Moviestorm. He's an amazingly productive director and it was a real pleasure to chat with him about it. A long time lover of writing, he develops his scripts simply, but with great passion. "Take a person and put them in a situation they don't like" was one of his comments.

While he waits for his carefully chosen actors to send their recordings to him, he builds the sets and lays out the scenes in MS. He focuses on dialog and monologue driven stories because that's what interests him the most. He likes to finish films and strives to "get it done". Considering the usual high quality of his films, Jorge has a natural instinct for telling stories via animation. And he doesn't waste time "over-thinking" his scenes (like I do). It was refreshing to hear his direct and simple answers from the other filmmakers in attendance.

Jorge spoke at length about what some have considered his "break-through" film, Ad Hominem Attack (a personal favorite of mine). Based on an original story by Jordan Harper, Jorge wrote to Jordan and asked if he could adapt the story. After getting permission he did some editing to make it cinematic and shot it in Moviestorm. Jorge spent considerable time getting the rain right in the film and had to keyframe a lot of it. He also shot greenscreen for the climactic scene which took him a lot of time. It sure shows it in the quality of the film. Jordan Harper liked the adaptation and has it posted on his website

Jorge is a little tense before the forum starts. 

Interesting that Jorge never created a film in GTA (Grand Theft Auto) as it's style fits many of his serious films (he usually works in two styles: comic and dramatic) and Jorge said it was because he uses a Mac and the game hasn't been ported to the Mac yet. But he agrees that it would be an interesting game to shoot movies in.

Some talk about shooting films in Second Life ensued and there was a lot of interest and enthusiasm. It was fun also to talk about Dragon Age with Michelle Pettit-Mee in attendance as she was one of the cut-scene artists for the game. She said she always finds things she wished she'd have done differently when she plays/watches Dragon Age. I think it's the glass "half full/half empty" thing. But then again I do the same thing with my own work. Sure thought her cut-scene work in the game was excellent (as was all of the other artists work).

A great pleasure to see James Spencer, one of the Pixel Eyes Productions crew and co-director of the amazing machinima Shelf Life. He came to the forum for what was his first Second Life experience. Man, for a first SL trip his avatar sure looks groovy. Thanks for coming, James.

My thanks to all who came to this first forum. I think someone was recording some of the audio so we might have it to post in the near future. I'm very excited about this forum series. We hope to do some workshop style forums as part of the series as well. Certainly Phil and I will do a sound workshop. Will announce more as we develop ideas.

Keep making movies!

Open Machiniplex Forum on "Productivity" with Jorge Campos on Sunday, January 10th

Jorge Campos, machinima filmmaker who ,as I write this, is creating/editing/shooting another film idea that is boiling around inside of his imagination (hardest workin man in machinima). Phil, Damien and I were all impressed with his film "Ad Hominem Attack" in particular and Jorge was one of only a handful of filmmakers who screened more than one film at the recent MachinExpo 2009, I we surprised at how good the overall quality of his films were considering how quickly he manages to produce them. Well, if you've wondered how ahe does it, now is your chance to chat with Jorge who is our special guest for the inaugural (January) session of forums which will take place every month on the second Sunday in the virtual world of Second Life.

Jorge's Vimeo site has most of his major films and he's got a strange/funny series called "The Clarks Show" going as well. He's also the winner of the recent 48hour machinima film competition with his "Ring of False God".

The Machiniplex monthly meetings are open forums dedicated to providing a place for monthly discussion of machinima films, culture and technique. All skill levels are welcome, so if you are just starting out you'll find a welcome atmosphere.

The forum will be mostly in voice chat so you'll need a good pair of headphones and a mic if you want to participate. There will also be a text chat going as well, so if you don't have a mic it's still good.

The location is in Second Life at Chantal Harvey's "MaMachiniMa Studio". The slurl is here:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/RastaOpen4/80/78/61

Bring your questions and ideas about how to be a more productive filmmaker.

Note: Second Life is a virtual world that is free for everyone. You'll definitely need headphones if you plan on listening to the conversation. A mic would enable you to voice chat. We will also be running a text chat at the same time. Come early to test your equipment.

See you there!

PS Special thanks to Chantal, an accomplished machinima filmmaker in her own right (see her new film The Joy of Music on Vimeo) for providing her studio for our first Machinplex forum.

Machiniplex Machinima Forums to Start on January 10th

Phil and I hanging out at Chantal's place

The first of a series of monthly Machinima forums/chats will start this month on January 10th (Sunday) from 10AM to 12PM (2 hours) in Second Life at a location TBA. The goal of these monthly chats is to share information and machinima techniques with one another, talk about new films and/or production issues, discuss current events and news in the machinima community and to just have fun getting together with people of like minds. We hope to feature a special guest for each forum who will discuss a technique or skill they are particularly good at in machinima. January's guest will be the very talented filmmaker, Jorge Campos, who has developed a method of creating films in Moviestorm quickly, but without losing quality. We welcome Jorge to our first meeting.

Jorge Campos

The location of the January meeting is still to be determined, but it will most likely be Chantal Harvey's island studio (which is very cool). We will confirm the location and publish the slurl very soon.

I'll be creating a Facebook event and sending out invites. And here is a link so you can add it to your Google calendar.

Machiniplex is Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, Ricky Grove and Ingrid Moon.