Medieval Fest III

The third medieval festival kicks off in early September on Raglan Shire. The square and the castle have been set out, the dunk tank has been dusted off and refilled, and my vendor has once again been thrown out into the Wares tent. Astonishingly, the Rennaissance outfits I made 2 years ago have undergone very little modifications over the last couple of years. I was really pleased with how they turned out originally, and have stuck with the design since. Folk still seem to like them; I always sell a few each year. I guess outfits for the guys are always pretty limited at the best of times.

My friend Bo has volunteered to run a treasure hunt this year (ha! silly Bo!) and asked Artisans for goodies to act as prizes. I managed to knock out a medieval herald's trumpet at the suggestion of Xavian Starsider, found a nice fanfare and asked the ever-brilliant Etheria to make an animation to go with it, which she managed to do within an hour - I'm always blown away by how quickly and perfectly Etheria is able to do these things - and that's it, done!

Have been SLOWLY putting together another Machinima based video, this time to act as the music video for ones of Songbird1028 Sorbet's songs (album out in Funny Bunny store in Heron Shire, amongst other places!); it's slow, partly deliberately. I really want this to turn out well. I did some sound effect editing last night, that I was really happy with. So far so good; I've edited a minute's worth of footage in, and it's only the lead-in sequence to the song! It's gonna be epic, but I'm looking forward to putting this together.

Have also been asked to do another video promo for Lone Star Ranch's Zephyr. She's a lot of fun and a very sweet and generous person, and it will be a real honour to do some work for her. Just need to find that 'angle' on which to base the video.

I've also taken up a new ground level shop on Raglan Shire too. Zayn opened up a square with 5 classic Raglan shop units in that look great. Have got some fab neighbours, and am looking forward to making that area a real success.

Phew. No wonder I feel tired!

Musicality

Heee! This doesn't feature me, but it does have some pictures of a bunch of tinies playing some instruments I made. Wonderful!

Click here for the Nation of Victoriana article

Blatant Advertising

I caught up with Wynx Whiplash the other day, sporting a brand new avatar she was working on. I'd been wanting to showcase a new avatar for her in the form of an advert for a while, and here was a perfect opportunity. This was filmed, edited, uploaded and presented in an afternoon. Am pretty pleased with it.

Tiny New Wave

So I finally cobbled together a machinima project that's been swimming around my head for a while. It took about 4-5 days to film (on and off), and edited it as I went along. It's called 'Le Squabbit Et Les Admirateurs', which basically translates from French to 'The Squabbit & Her Admirers'.



The Squabbit in question is Karmagirl, who spends most of her time as a cross breed squirrel-rabbit (squirrel head, bunny body), hence the 'squabbit'.

If you ever seen a French New Wave movie (Jules Et Jim, Breathless are two good examples), you might understand where this is coming from. Personally, I just can't get to grips with them. It's all a lot of unrequited passion and despair, and despite the often jovial stuff that's going on, there's always an underlying sense of dread about them. It's like the cinematic equivalent of a bull-fight; no matter how wondrous and balletic it might look at that particular moment, you know it's not going to end without bloodshed. I've studied film academically, so I have a lot of respect for the contribution to the medium that the pioneers of the French New Wave made; I just can't bear to sit through their movies a lot of the time. Maybe it's an 'era' thing, who knows...

The narration is a sound clip I found online. It sounded suitably ludicrous to use, and the accordian music was suitably stereotypical. The subtitles absolutely DO NOT relate to what is being spoken. My understanding of the French language is minimal at best. I know enough to get by, but not enough to translate this. So I made up the subtitles; which in a way, is a bit new wave, I guess...

Happy Birthday Jin

One of my good SL-friends, Jin Barbosa is enjoying her birthday today; I won't reveal how old she is! Although I don't get to see her as much in SL these days, Jin - and her partner (RL and SL) Bo - will also hold a special place in my heart. They are two of my oldest friends and have been a valuable source of support and friendship over the years. Happy Birthday Jinjin!