Beautiful SL Machinima Music Video Created & Performed by Ole "Mr. Bones" Etzel Who's a Rising Star Don't You Think?

Good God this is a lovely and beautiful Second Life machinima created by Ole "Mr. Bones" Etzel of a song by bluegrass singer John Hartford which is performed by Ole himself in a singing voice that is raw, plangent, and true, and reminds me a touch of the late great Elliot Smith. Turn up the volume, fire this up in HD, and play:

Though you might be surprised, IRL Mr. Etzel is actually from Germany and is a self-taught musician, who also taught himself to create machinimas to accompany his music. He wrote us a statement about himself and his music and this machinima here, which you might also want to read:

Mr. Bones Sings, In Tall Buildings is inspired by my deep love for US-American songwriters like John Hartford, the beautiful creationism of Simotron Aquila at Eupalinos Ugajin's LEA Sim and a new skill I learned for making machinima that I wanted to test.

Since using green screens to cut out avatars, as I explained here, became standard for me when making movies, this time I understood how to make more individual shapes for masking parts of my video footage. For example in the scene with the escalator from 0:39 to 0:43 I recorded one shot of the background without the avatars, then recorded the single avatars in front of green screen prims and then finally masked the background so I was able to put the avatars between the escalators' handrails during the After Effecting process.

Like this it is easily possible to safe money for paying actors and time for organizing them and instead making your own full adjustable mass-crowd-scenes. I like to use the masking for creating my own depth of field-effect too, avoiding the sometimes quite random approach of the built-in-DoF that, from my point of view, works way better with photography than with recording moving pictures.

Since I was born in a small village near Hamburg in Germany my parents raised me with the music of artists like Simon and Garfunkel or Roy Orbison what gave me a fundamental understanding of harmonies from the beginning on. For unknown reasons it took me many years to finally become patient enough to learn. So in 2006 at the age of 28, after the Soccer World Cup in Germany had ended, i was left with an empty feeling inside not knowing what to do or what to hope for. So I grabbed the old guitar I had in a dusty corner of my flat and from that day on I autodidactically teached myself to sing, play guitar and banjo. Project continues...

For me it was the one and only reason to start making machinima finding a way to make my own indie movies for the music i recorded. So the first machinima I ever made was a music-video for a banjo melody I recorded. Everything I learned about making movies in SL and the evolution of my characters Mrs. and Mr. Bones began afterwards. Still after all the years i could not find a software that gives me more freedom in producing my videos than Second Life does. It is a fantastic tool for the production of digital movies without needing the huge budget of a "real life" movie company or the time of a professional animator. My biggest problem, paying for virtual land to record bigger sceneries, is forgotten since i use green screen and then afterwards put the bigger picture together in After Effects. And there is still so much more I can learn. Fun.

Fun, and frankly pretty great. I have a feeling we'll see more excellent machinima from him, but maybe it's his musicianship that will burst him big into the stardom, in the metaverse and beyond.

Tweet

Comments

[Cole]

HAHAHAHAHA thats my hello kitty guitar I gave him roflsauce <3

[Eupalinos]

Bravo Mrs Bones, after your chainsaw in my avatar body I now have your voice in my brain :-)

For those who want to visit the build "Wandering off the point" by Simotron Aquila where the video was taken : http://www.flickr.com/photos/eupalinos/7029396075/

[Simotron Aquila]

I'm so glad my work inspired in some way the great Mr. Bones!!! (and I hope it will happens again and again! ^^) and yes... it's a star!! great machinima maker, great singer and musician! Ole... we love you!

[Penumbra Carter]

Very lovely Mr. Bones, don't let anymore dust settle on that guitar:) Thank you for describing your method. Second Life is rich with imagery, I have always enjoyed your machinimas, interpretation and play.

[Hanno Tietgens]

Ole, das ist super. Like :)

[Motita]

Ole Ole, my favourite pirat!! I've been your fan for 4 years and I will be forever :D <3

[Ole]

arg, because mr. bones' wife can easily become quite angry sometimes <.< we do not want to forget she has some talents in music too... somehow or other http://www.flickr.com/photos/boned/4755936848