"The Stolen Child", Lainy Voom's Machinima Adaptation of Yeats Poem

The Stolen Child from Lainy Voom on Vimeo

The latest machinima project from my friend Lainy Voom are short adoptions of classic poems; here's the first, a rapturous, melancholy-tinged treatment of Yeats' "The Stolen Child". As sun-dappled and ethereal as it is, Lainy tells me it was shot entirely in Second Life, with all elements realized in-camera, without post-processing effects. (Excepting the opening fade-in into the Yeats' volume.) As with all Lainy's works, there's more to tell, but watch the video first, than read on for more revelations about how she created it.

"I was actually trying to make a completely different movie," Lainy tells me, "[A] Pre-Raphaelite-inspired 'Lady of Shallot' by Tennyson." After that project creatively floundered, the footage she'd created went unused for awhile. "When I came across 'Stolen Child' something just clicked with some of the visuals, the Gelatto sky settings and the water." (Gelatto is a WindLight pre-set.) "The movie morphed itself into this new poem."

As with "The Dumb Man" and "The Fall", she created all the locations on her Second Life soundstage, putting together existing SL elements. "I had to build each one separately (about 6 sets approximately) because of prim limits on the land." She primarily used SL viewers with dynamic shadows enabled, which turned out to be a challenging process. "Shadows can look pretty dodgy close-up on detailed objects, especially if the object or camera is moving. The shadows end up being really wavy or in tiny spots. I spent a lot of time adjusting the lighting. It still looks pretty wavy but it's the best I could manage at this time."

After a rush of beautiful imagery, the watchful viewer will spot a glimmer of tragedy in a newspaper clipping on the nightstand, a moment which changes the tone of all that we've seen. "The poem (for me) is about the death of a child," as she puts it. "It is easier to believe a child is away with the fairies playing happily, than dead?"

Other technical notes: "The beginning and end shots I've used the Second Life Release Candidate or Kirstens' SD2-R7 for shadows. The other shots were taken with the normal Second Life viewer. The light settings are all variations on the official Gelatto setting. There are no filters added in post-prod, everything was achieved in SL. Edited with Sony Vegas. Resolution - filmed at monitor size (1440x900) at 30FPS using Fraps."

Comments

[Viorel Daviau]

Bravo.

[Michele Hyacinth]

Stunning. Absolutely breathtaking. ...wow...

[Doreen Garrigus]

Oh wow...