The Right Way to Innovate Second Life Machinima

This mysterious and gorgeously noir-ish video suddenly cropped up on my SL machinima feed, but the visuals were so unique and unlike anything I'd ever seen in the genre, at first I didn't believe it actually was created in Second Life.  But something about the gravelly voice coming out of the tracksuit goombata gave me a clue, because the last I heard it, it was from a guy selling SL nautical gear with the irresistible slogan, "It's just a f***ing boat."

The work of longtime Second Life machinima creator Trent Hedges, it turns out this clip from "The Right", a short still in development, was even featured at his presentation during the last SLCC.  "The scenes where all shot in SL, yes," Trent tells me. "Lots of greenscreen as the actors and the scenes were separated."  The trick was to take the raw SL-made footage and then in post-production, shape it into something more darkly textured, and tinged with hallucinogenic clarity.

For example, Trent continues, "The mirror shot is a faked reflection using a green-textured dirty looking mirror in the original shot-- replaced with another video clip in the final shot."  The avatars were processed through iClone.  "David, our main character, is actually just Trent Hedges with different glasses," he says.  Lip synch was also done in iClone, with some Crazy Talk thrown in.

Trent expects "The Right" to be finished this summer, but declines to say more about the story, as to not to give away its secrets.  In any case, he adds, "It's more about trying out some new techniques and getting away from the standard look i see in so much SL machinima, and trying my hand at a full production totally solo."  He's doing that not just for this video, but as a freelancing filmmaker using SL as his studio.  "Virtual actors and green screening make this a possibility for a lone wolf production." 

Comments

[HatHead Rickenbacker]

Hmmmm, it an SL machinima or an iClone/CrazyTalk machinima? (Reallusion makes both iClone and CrazyTalk). Looks uber cool tho!

[Lainy Voom]

This looks freaking incredible, amazing job!