Is SL Machinima Any Good?

I've been wondering this question for a long time. So often SL machinima is crappy, and even embarassing. Looking at it sometimes, I'm reminded of those people in the 60s who would be on peyote or LSD trips. They'd write down what seemed penetrating insights or draw what seemed like fabulously rich paintings. You'd read it, and see that it was just addled scribblings. They'd come down off the high, and go, "Oh, yeah. Hmm, well but I was seeing trails...it seemed like something at the time..."

Hey, I'm the original maven of making endless graphic novels based on screenshots tortuously set up for hours using little props and sims avatars from the offline sims. I remember the HOURS we all used to spend struggling to get the sims posed, moved through a story, captioned, propped -- such hard work! the results, put on RealSlideShow, were often less than the experience of being in the game itself or sharing the albums with others who also lived in that world.

By the same token, machinima, when you come at it unprepared, looks like a lot of clunky, blocky, choppy junk. Trying to get people at work or from my family to focus on it, I fail. There are few very really well-down machinimas from SL. Among the excellent ones that succeed as both what they are (plays made inside SL) and as artworks standing along other human artworks, Eric Linden's "Bells & Spurs" really stands out. It's a combination of his clear skill as a builder, cinematagrapher and story-teller, but of course he cheated by using stuff not available in the client like animated mouths that talk. Or...is that cheating? Maybe in today's concept of Web 2.0 with all the mashing and connectivity, iti sn't really cheating at all?

I remember we spoofed the art world debates by making the Academy of Siminalism and the Academy of Maxisalism. The siminalist or minimalist would only accept albums done in that canon, involving only inventory items like the cactus. The Maxisalists were those maximalists who accepted anything that the Maxis-made game could absorb inside it as an upload (in offline). It was a lot of fun. So I suppose there are purists for machinima and those who find it tarnished by its pollution from other software or games.

Pierce Portocarrero's piece is another excellent example of pushing the limits of machinima by making a world as I have previously noted in which not a single recognizable artifact from SL is included except the freebie tea crate. It is a triumph of wresting action and drama and emotionality out of this very limited genre.

Another W-hat penis production actually almost manages to rise above their usual drivel with its puerile phallus pushing and abusiveness by adopting the faux 1930s or 40s newsreel style, as if a wholesome educational film for children to see in between their Will Rogers episodes. With its sepia tones and plummy 30s British film voice, it almost makes it, because that can disguise the stupid penises for a few frames. But then by the nth penis and in-out frame, you're done, and the joke isn't funny any more. W-Hat never, ever rises to the level of a Monty Python or a Saturday Night Live.

The machinima made aired on Hamlet's site trying to spoof the SNL "dick in a box" bit was mildly funny, but also too short, and too repetitive. Gags on machinima don't work past a few frames, and SLinematographers haven't figured out how to restrain themselves for the sake of their art.

Robbie Dingo's famous machinima is the sort of art work that you are never supposed to criticize. It's about a disabled man who is able to fly while sitting in his wheelchair, a beneficiary of the possibilities of SL. I don' know if Robbie is disabled in RL, but that wouldn't free one from the critique to be made here: that it is a facile and emotionally a bit manipulative. What's to say about SL here, really? The camera rests far too long on the computer and the screen and therefore sets up what is also a kind of visual gag or prank -- but ostensibly for a good cause -- when it suddenly pulls away to show the man in the wheel chair. It's a cliche to show man in wheelchair and avatar flying in SL -- what else was possible?

You inevitably wind up asking that question about whether SL is really the enabler for the disabled as we would wish. It also raises the question of why the Lindens and may of their celebrants always seize on this aspect of SL as a means of redeeming its sinful soul. When journalists ask hard questions about SL, when Robin sits on a panel in RL and is asked why people spend all these hours on SL, etc. the reply inevitably involves a high-minded rhapsody about the enabling of the disabled. That's good, and beneficial, and wonderful. But it does open up the question -- ok, but then what's the rationale for everyone else? Are we all disabled in some way if we need a Second Life?

Robostudios (Anders Ogres) is now showing their trailer for a big project studying SL they've been working on for months. I'm one of the people interviewed and the first frames happens to show my community of "Free Tibet" in Wakeley. It was a film undertaken long ago before there was media frenzy about SL, and therefore it's to be credited with early awareness of its importance -- and getting a complex job done finally at a time when it will get maximum publicity, I suppose.

Still, I'm disappointed from what I see of the trailer. Yes, I know, we're supposed to wait for the whole film before judging a film by its trailer. But I am already troubled by a number of things that show this project may be no different from others.

First, the film-makers inevitably fell into the meme of making a promotional commercial for SL making it sound like a travel advertisement instead of setting up a critical stance which could have more credibilty. They can celebrate SL without sounding like they have been hired by its media department. It's as breathless as some of those promos made for the promo contest that the Lindens used with the jetskis and the nearly naked girls dancing.

And ugh, there's my least favourite purple-haired enemy FlipperPA Peregrine spouting about his hilarious gas station as a model of how SL can be used. I haven't noticed Mobil and Chevron and others rushing to use this model ROFL, but the point is, the film-makers again fell into the easy lap of the FIC because something as prefabbed for them so they didn't have to look for it (a ready and very shopworn and tired example of RL and SL -- you wonder if something like the terrorism or health emergency preparation sims might not have been more dramatic -- perhaps, they, too appear).

When I expressed disappointment in the FIC appearances, Anders didn't get it. He thought I meant that there was no criticism of SL. He said he could only find two people to speak criticially, Lewis Nerd and me. Hehe he must not have looked very hard, and not talked to the legions of people with criticism of SL for all reasons.

What happened -- as always happens -- is that the little FICoids found out some potential high--profile project was in the works and inserted themselves into it (we've seen this happen before with things like the Fortune magazine article or the Business Week). The FIC want to rule the impressions. So whether Anders went to them as part of an unwillingness to do homework and find creative alternatives, or because they descended on him, I don't know, but the results are the usual tropes and memes.

I'm personally miffed with Anders because after spending hours of my time and dogging me to sign permission forms and such, he then turned around and asked if he could use the footage of my avatar to shoehorn a point he wanted to make as editor, that there are all kinds of people in SL, even grannies in their 50s. He wanted to show my male avatar and have my voice speaking to help support his thesis.

I don't even have grandchildren; I have children. I don't play a granny in SL, I play a male who is like a 30-something or 40-something depending on the avatar. So it's a slap in the face of how I chose to play my second life, and a refusal of Anders to get it about how people change gender.

I told him to get Misty Rhodes, a RL granny, to be the granny, and I guess he did. He was more interested in making a facile editorial point and shoe-horning the memes into place than he was in covering SL as it is.

What about Nylon's Copybot? Isn't that good? Well Nylon is probably the best machinimist out there, and does more than even Eric as far as props and action, though the stories are more lame. Her ads are the best of the stuff. CopyBot seemed to me to be based on a premise offensive to most people who suffered from not CopyBot per say, but the arrogance of elite coders in libsl and their supporters among the FIC. It's a spoof based on a rather cruel premise, that people are FUDded and stupid -- when that isn't what happened -- instead they were mad, they got it, and they lobbied the Lindens legitimately to stop it.

RacerX Gullwing has some lovely machinima I show in Coney Island at times -- fanciful, funny, and with great costumes and props.

An example of helpful machimia is on the new L-Word island which has clear, well-paced instructional videos made of machinima. Those film-makers there (not sure who on the Sheep made them) were able to keep the viewing area clutter free. So often, machinima suffers because it doesn't have a nice crisp setting. It is trying to film Second Life like an eye and cover every one of its many cluttery objects. That makes for blurry and chunk viewing. Machinima works better when you rigidly control the view area and set up minimal props. That's why Eric Linden's work could look so well because he took the care to have the most superbly built sets and props with clean lines and no clutter.

There's nothing for it -- machinima, even the best, even on the best viewing machine, is not as good visually as Second Life itself, the ultimate movie.

I'll put the links to these films in later.

Comments

[caliandris]

So...machinima is only good if it is a fictional film or critical of SL. It can star me but only if I don't have to talk... but if anyone I hate is in it, especially if they're FIC, it's no good?

I have spent a lot of time with Anders and talked to him a lot, and I count him as a friend. I think he has done his level best in difficult circumstances to make a film about SL. I think that it would be wise to suspend your judgement of his project until you have been able to see the machinima, and not before.

[King Frederick]

I refuse to call anything I make a "Machinima." They're just clips of second life action with music playing over them.

Nevertheless, you never commented on this one I made!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2660402082385922625&q=war+in+christmas+town

As for many of them containing "penises" -- well, lots of those "penises" are penises that are already on the grid. Second Life is a penis-heavy world. It is a penis-driven economy. Much of what is done in Second Life is done to tittilate a penis. Or occasionally a vagina.

So when news organizations like CNET ignore all this and paint Second Life as just another amazing technological development where companies can come in and participate in a wholesome virtual environment, it is a perfectly appropriate satire when penises start flying into the room, buzzing around the chandalier, and singing their penis songs.

As one person put it (I forget where I read this, but its apt) the penis is becoming the "face" of Second Life.

If you don't like this, then start a cultural revolution in Second Life as in the video I linked to above.

[Eric Rice]

Machinima is not limited to Second Life. It's filmmaking using gaming engines.

Very few tend to blend things like EVE, WoW, SL, and others, but there are certainly hordes (no pun intended, ok mebbe a little) of machinimists out there.

[Prokofy Neva]

Eric, duh, Machinima is a form that is related to any use of a video game or synthetic world to make a movie. Like, duh? Please. When I'm writing a blog about SL, I don't feel as if I have to bend over and explain to everyone that machinima is a broader term. Indeed, in our context, it's pretty much come to mean SL-made-movies, frankly. That's just it -- try to pay attention to the usage, and not get hung up.

If there are hordes of machinimists out there, are they any good? Is the stuff made in WoW with its frozen routines and paths more interesting because the graphics are better or something? Seriously, this is an inquiry.

Caliandris, I would have hoped to have pre-empted that kind of snide remark by saying right within my piece, yeah, I know you're supposed to wait until the film is out.

But shit, why do I have to be manipulated into shutting my mouth when someone puts out a trailer? Hello??? Why??? If they get to put out a trailer and try to build buzz, why don't I get to criticize what I see so far in the trailer?

And the problem isn't the FIC. You can be FIC or have FIC in your machimia, as the ESC do on their islands, and make good machinima. That's not criteria, whether or not it has someone you like in it.

If the movie was good even with Flipper in it, I'd say so. But it's absurd. It was a movie with a wider agenda, a broader take, when I was first in touch with Anders. Now I find he telescoped down to doing the narrow FIC thing. I don't know what happend to cause that along the way. Perhaps with a berth on YOUR island with your store, he came to see things YOUR way, hmmm? I dunno..

I was perfectly cooperative with Anders, too, and appreciated that he worked hard under difficult circumstances. It's a very, very hard beat to cover technically and socially. But I then began to get annoyed not only what I described here but at other things which I felt were just using people. it doesn't detract from his work if it is good. It has some great stuff. But he really went in the wrong direction making it the ad spot promo style with the Disney style voice, "Imagine a world where you can be anything you want, and fly" blah blah blah.

Aren't we past that now, in year four of Second Life? Now that we imagined what we could be, and it turned out to be not so thrilling, could we go deeper?

Spin, I'm waiting for you to point me to some good machinima out there.

[DeadMertz]

I think Eric Rice's point was that your entry starts with a very general statement "So often machinima is crappy..." and even the title puts to question the medium itself. I'm not very familiar with Second Life (or most of the machinima made within) and I wound here via a Technorati RSS feed. I didn't realize you were refering to specific SL machinima until about halfway into your post.

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, now you know *shrugs*.

[Prokofy Neva]

fixed! Um...show me something good in any game's machinima, I'm not getting this...

[Luciftias]

Me, I just don't find machinima convincing or interesting at all. Maybe someone will produce the "wow" machinima one day, but I haven't seen it yet.

[Desmond Shang]

Don't forget Ordinal Malaprop's!

Short pieces to be sure, but some are positively brilliant.

[Prokofy Neva]

Oh, I had no idea Ordinal had them! thanks for the tip, I'll look that up.

[Decomposing Monstre]

I'm the author of the "Puerile Penis Pusher" Prok mentioned in her blog, and I too hate the word "Machinima"

[link to aforementioned puerile penis production]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUqrHwX6xM8

There's no way I would have called my video a "Machinima" if it weren't for the fact that it's what most people in SL seem to identify with. I used to write off 'machinima' as an actual narrative/art form, but a couple of videos I've seen since then have changed my mind. (Namely Bells and Spurs, and some other one with Gnomes or something)

Still, i'd take real video camera over a virtual one anyday. SL is too limited in terms of functionality and is too frustrating to work with for me to make anything beyond a couple of silly videos for fun.

Also Prokky baby you kind of missed the point of my video, but I'm thankful anyway. The puerile penis pushing had context because quite frankly, I've never seen anything with more bizarre fetishes and disturbing ideologies
than I have in my brief time in Second Life.

That was what I was trying to get across in the video, that if you look beyond the virtual shoe buying aspect, Second Life shows us a dark icky side of our humanity that you don't see in everyday life, and is quite frankly disturbing. I choose to deal with it by crudely highlighting it with Satire, since it's something everyone else seems to simply ignore.

[Prokofy Neva]

Puerile penish pushing is just as much a bizarre lifestyle as the next bizarre lifestyle in SL. Those who engage in constant puerile penish pushing and slamming on to people's heads in press conferences can't expect to get a hearing, or gain any kind of credibility, in using this crude method to condemn other bizarre lifestyles.

Going to the lengths of showing these types of disgusting fetishes which have taken root in SL merely replicates them. There's no commentary, not even any ridicule. There's no frame. It's a bang over the head, without subtlety -- the usual W-hat stick in the eye. Contrasting the happy little tree picture that the Lindens and their pets portray of SL with shocking material is a gag that works once, twice, but by the third frame, more commentary and more camera tricks are needed.

More contrasts, better camera work with close-ups, etc. and a much less heavy story line is needed. That's probably beyond W-hat because satire doesn't grow out of hatred of humanity and contempt for other people; it grows out of respect for ideals.

The W-Hat stuff is a crude and stupid as it is because when they even rise to the level of a prank that gets a laugh, it still bludgeons. They are unable to use restraint even to be funny. Their trackrecord of criminality also makes it less funny.

[jamie bergman]

Interesting article, Prok. However, I must add that I see this as a relatively "fluffy" article on your part and I feel you are better than that.

Your real genious lies in politics and discerning the behind the scenes machinations that end up determining official (and unofficial policy).

Don't you think its time that you educate the masses by releasing an article which addresses the current political state of SecondLife? I do.

We have our beloved monarch, King Philip I who sits atop a throne that some would argue is beginning to crumble. Metropolitan Aimee Weber has been quite active as of late - not to mention the boyar merchant (think Flipper) who has been actively campaigning for their own interests. Last, but certainly not least, serf Lordfly Digeroo has been inordinately silent. What is he up to?! What are the serfs doing?

Anyway, just a thought. You always seem to explain political intrigue so well.

[Prokofy Neva]

Metropolitan Weber must be watched, I agree as she regularly commits treason against the Motherland. You know what to do. Boyar Merchants Flipper, Forseti, Boliver -- let them puff and expand as they will fall over of their own weight soon and we shall be able to nationalize them.

Lordfly is not a serf; he is a yamshchik, the nobleman's coachman. He leads the horses that do the building and scut work for the boyar merchants' foreign investors. Germans, Japanese, Americans -- infidels everywhere, harming our Mother Russia, Jamie, it's a scandal. I always aid educating the peasants and making them even partly literate as they remain, would lead to this.

The machimina is their means of subtle propaganda to mind-meme the intelligentsia. It's succeeding so far. They all think the face of SL is a phallus; they all believe they must seek refuge from phalluses in private enclaves (this is King Philip's diabolical plan) that in face will become worthless as abandoned use car lots in Flint, MI when suddenly, licenses to make SL and roll out land like bolts of cloth will be issued to some, and not others...

As for explicating political intrigue, as I said there are spies and subversives everywhere, at any time I could be kidn---

[dial tone]

[King Frederick]

I'm curious -- how many "penises" are actually in the W-Hat videos thus far?

""Puerile penish pushing is just as much a bizarre lifestyle as the next bizarre lifestyle in SL""

Using an absurd penis in a joke is much, much better than using an absurd penis absolutely sincerely.

[Ace Albion]

I think the point might be that the seemingly endless "Look At How Sick This All Is" satire is actually higher profile and more publicly icky than whatever anyone else is getting up to on their private poseballs. Just like in "real" life the city is full of people getting spanked or urinated on in their private bedrooms (or, I hope, bathrooms for the latter- if only for the clean up). Everyone basically frowns a bit and gets on with their life.

When Andrew Orlowski wants to rag on SL, it's a W-Hat video he links to, to show how sick it is. So the satirists have become the poster children for "filth" on SL.

I don't see the biting satirical comment of Chris Morris in these stunts, I see cheap knob gags.

[King Frederick]

"I think the point might be that the seemingly endless "Look At How Sick This All Is" satire is actually higher profile and more publicly icky than whatever anyone else is getting up to on their private poseballs."

I think any one of those things in that video can be easily seen in second life if you just walk aroudn a bit. I have seen several comments along the lines of "I only had to walk 15 meters in Second Life to find a person in an octopus avatar simultaneously spanking, urinating on, and getting sodomized by 5 men in fox avatars" all the time from first-time players of Second Life.

"When Andrew Orlowski wants to rag on SL, it's a W-Hat video he links to, to show how sick it is."

I think that's because W-Hatters are honest about what the platform is and what a majority (if not at least a very high number of) people are using the platform for. It's all nice to say that Second Life is a good platform for hosting virtual collaberations, but I don't see 50,000 stores selling items for companies to virtually collaberate. You will find more Dog penises in Second Life then you will board rooms.

[Ace Albion]

I don't disagree with the basic point, King. But I've been actively involved in all kinds of things in SL, and I really don't see all this stuff *everywhere* except when I went somewhere to see it. I think the people who do, are basically going to the places where it takes place- it's a kind of curiosity. Or there'll be some guy without pants on at the info-hub. SL is what you make of it, and most new visitors, *especially* the blogerati, can't wait to get themselves offended by some spunking donkeyman, so they go searching for Bukkake Farmyard or something and then rant about the filth.

My point about W-Hat videos is simply that they've become the "problem" they're trying to expose. It's like some madman beating someone's face in with a claw hammer screaming "Why doesn't anyone stop me?"

As a wise man once said, "You go looking for dogshit on the beach, you're going to find it."

I spent the majority of my early SL time at the blacklibrary and a rock club. Nothing icky at all. There was a time I was chatting with friends on their porch when some furry wolf dude flew down with his lipstick out, so to speak, but that was about it :)

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, I agree, Ace. They *are* the problem. If you shit on people, you can't then point and laugh and say, oh, wow, they have shit on them!

I see an awful lot of stuff from my tenants. And actually, most of them are the garden-variety vanilla types. The really grotesque bukkake furry fisting blah blah are a minority. Or sometimes people might buy a device out of curiosity or to laugh at it, but it doesn't really become part of their repertoire. There's an awful lot of BDSM and Gor in SL. But even these lifestyles are not in your face out in the open. You have to decide to go looking for them.

I often see the newbie arriving naked with the woody and going around hitting on people in the WA who are grossed out. I find even without Lindens or mentors responding, they don't bother to as much any more, the people seeing the asshat going around like this are peer pressure that often gets him to stop or at least fly away from PG.

Really, it's merely the Time magazine knock-on affect that makes every blogster and wire reporter come looking for this. I agree with Ace, that I go for days without seeing any of this anywhere. Sl is what you make of it. It is a reflective mirror.

[King Frederick]

"I've been actively involved in all kinds of things in SL, and I really don't see all this stuff *everywhere* "

Then you never do even cursory things like browse for groups or places.

A quick browse of groups:

Philosophy: 1 found
Religion: 1 found
BDSM: 27 found

Jewish: 1 found
Furry: >100 Found

etc. etc. Not exactly a cross-section of western culture.

You can't kid anyone here. After spending even a week on Second Life it becomes obvious what most people are using the platform for. That's fine, but lets not kid ourselves. The person who wrote that the penis is "the face of Second Life" is absolutely right.

In the end people buy virtual "houses" to fill with sexballs, not with tea sets. Although I admit the copyrighted material they stream through their televisions is also pretty entertaining.

"If you shit on people, you can't then point and laugh and say, oh, wow, they have shit on them!"

Analogy broken. It's more like finding a bunch of people who gleefully shit on themselves and then documenting it and adding it to music.

[cyrus huffhines]

I really think, bullshit aside, the only way you are going to find the usefulness in this medium (if there is any) is to let loose every usc, ucla and nyu film student for class projects and make a ton of this stuff *outside* the crappy corporate and amateur videos made by people only sort of interested in making shorts with real narrative etc. I have seen a few neat ones by a variety of people, but *none* have had a coherent storyline begnning to end.

[Prokofy Neva]

Cyrus, those people you wish to let loose would probably find regular video cameras filming real life a more vibrant way to get across their message.

The machimina in SL has really been hijacked by commercial interests and the FIC types who are really merely a subset of LL's commercial interests. I'm still waiting for that really great work of art outside the few I've mentioned.

No, King, if people who shit on themselves do so out of the public eye, filming them is in facting shitting on them more and saying,wow, the face of SL -- just because you forced the impression by hunting for it and filming it.

It's supposed to be either an arch satire or a humorous rap on SL, but it's just a bludgeon because you are all mediocrities.

I personally know of 4 groups with philosophy in their names that meet frequently, and that's not counting "Thinkers" which is that. The problem is that unless a group has that as the first word in their name, it can't show up now, groups are broken.

SL is a mirror, it reflects back yourself, and what you wish to see in it.

[King Frederick]

"people who shit on themselves do so out of the public eye,"

Everything in Second Life is public, it's a public server. Linden Labs doesn't even charge to use it. Furthermore, 90% of these places are welcoming of strangers. I can log in right now and walk in on a pedophile party, a scat party, a rape party... anything, its all there.

And all the groups, land descriptions, etc. are all out in the open, right there in search.

How do you shit on someone *more* after they've spent an afternoon dressed like a donkey making out with someone dressed like an ostrich?

And are their stores -- filled with animal penises, naked kid skins, rape-fantasy devices, etc. -- all "private" too?

"It's supposed to be either an arch satire or a humorous rap on SL, but it's just a bludgeon"

Yeah, I've seen what you consider 'humorous' satire.

"I personally know of 4 groups with philosophy in their names that meet frequently, and that's not counting "Thinkers" which is that."

That's quaint! For every non-sexual, non-"immature" group I can point out 100 of the sort you'd like to pretend are in the minority.

"SL is a mirror, it reflects back yourself, and what you wish to see in it."

Mirrors don't reflect back "what you wish to see," they reflect the truth. The videos I've made have been funhouse mirrors, certainly.

One observation I've made is that the people I know tend to know other people I know. Like the same group of 100 people or so. But then I realized why: Those 100 people, who all seem to be separated from eachother by no more than a few "degrees," are the same 100 or so people who use Second Life as more than just a masturbation or camping chair device.

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, someone who is preoccupied with the masturbation and camp-chairing of others and endlessly griefing it, obsessed with it, taking pictures of it, exaggerating it, even making a finicky machinima about it, is someone who themselves uses SL for a masturbation and camp chair device, too.

[Decomposing Monstre]

"Um, someone who is preoccupied with the masturbation and camp-chairing of others and endlessly griefing it, obsessed with it, taking pictures of it, exaggerating it, even making a finicky machinima about it, is someone who themselves uses SL for a masturbation and camp chair device, too."

That's a awful analogy, so i'll make an incredibly awful one of my own for context.

Would someone who does research into human rights abusers, documents it, writes about it and tries to show the world about it be a human rights abuser on their own?