Everything
I learned I learned from the movies.
Audrey
Hepburn
My regular
readers (Both of you!) may remember when I met Ashley
Carter, the storyteller, a while back in Second Life (SL).
For those of
you who either don’t recall or haven’t read that particular opus of mine,
Ashley tells stories with images taken from SL.
(Seriously, read it! Not for my
sake but for
Ashley’s, she’s one of the truly creative folks inworld!)
Recently, I
met Ashley again and she began to tell me about her latest project so we agreed
to meet again for another interview.
(Significant Other thinks that she was just too polite to tell me to get
lost.)
Anyway, we
met and Ashley told me what she’s now up to.
Ashley’s
latest project will be a series of animated shorts based on her VOIDAR
storyline. (VOIDAR stands for “Voyage Of Immense Danger
and Reward.” Told you that you should have
read that last story!)
The first
title in the series is “Fighter in the Ring” and will be a telling of the main
VOIDAR story arc and each video will be a tir-in with the others.
This particular
story takes place in a prison holding cell where Ashley and a few other
VOIDAR
members are currently being held.
Ashley takes
a different approach to inworld machinima than what others
do. She won't be filming directly in
world, but taking shots and editing/animating them with Adobe software.
She studied
animation in Real Life (RL) and think it’s the more natural way to tell a story
than simple pictures. The audience gets to show more, listen to it, and
experience it differently.
Ashley doesn’t
wish to spend too long on pre-production as she picks up most things as she
pieces it together. For this video, she spent no more than three days mapping
out a rough storyboard, collecting any additional items she needed, and just listing
some bullet points for what she wanted to happen. (Really, did George Lucas need any more
than this?)
I ask Ashley
about auditioning the cast for her video.
She replies
that she first asks her inworld friends if they wish to take part, but flickr
is
really the best source for finding new residents. With her last video, she
received more than sixty requests from flickr alone from residents who wished
to get involved. (Including yours
truly!)
Ashley has actually
already begun production. So far, she’s put together thirty-eight seconds of
footage, including the logo introduction. She wantsto keep it relatively
short, no more than three minutes, preferably two minutes
and thirty seconds. But things change constantly!
What she likes about this
style of animating is just how simple it is to complete the
work.
I thank Ashley and take my leave after copying
down my notes. (Why do the latter you
ask? Once, after a long interview, I TP’d
away only to find that I’d lost all my notes along the way!)
(Ashley’s very
busy now so I only had thirty minutes for the interview and made the most of
it!)
Ashley is
working on a very exciting project and based on her prior work, the results
will be exceptional.
Ashley is
the creative sort who never gets comfortable, she’s always forging ahead,
pushing and challenging herself.
This story
is the first of three that I’ll be writing about Ashley’s animated series. My next story will be about the actual production
of the videos.
Stay tuned
for more!
I’d like to
thank Ashley for taking the time away from her busy production schedule to meet
with me and for her frank answers.
As always, I’m grateful to all
inworld for their kindness and time in stopping to talk with a stranger who was
passing through their lives
I can be found on Google+ as
webspelunker Ghostraven.
On Skype I’m webspelunker
Ghostraven.
I welcome feedback from
readers, please either comment on my blog or
e-mail me at webspelunker@gmail.com
.
If you would like to read about my other adventures in Second Life please click here.
If you would like to read about my other adventures in Second Life please click here.
Open roads
and kind fires!
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