Tales from Behind the Scenes

Now that I’ve gotten some rest (in other words drank 3 red bulls and one espresso)  I can now do a little write up for Mad People, as I said I would in my last post.  I’d like to start by saying that this project probably would still be in the gutter, if it had not been for the inspirational sim that is Jabberwocky.

When I was working on this project last year, a thing that I felt was lacking the  most for me was that there was no setting at all.  Everything was shot inside my photobox studio with a black background.  So sometime last month after taking a long break from Second Life  I started to wander around the metaverse like I normally do, and I happened to just explore Jabberwocky that night.  The last time I really explored this place, there was still a lot work still being done since it was new at the time.  That night I was exploring the tunnels,  and I was just amazed by how wonderful everything is turning out.  Surrealia (Jovial) really did an amazing job with all the cool stuff she added since I’d seen it last.  So figured this place would have been a great back drop to that video I’d trashed a year ago.  I still hadn’t made up my mind to finish it yet.  Fast forward a week later I was sorting out my external drive and deleting really old files I didn’t need, when I happened upon the old render clips I didn’t realize were still saved on my drive.  So I watched them, and that’s when the buzzing in my brain started and I said to myself, “I need to finish this project”.   And that’s just what I did folks.

It wasn’t as easy as just starting up with all the footage and re-shooting a few filler scenes here and there.   A few problems I encountered were 1. I had deleted everything I previously shot, 2. the previous concept had failed me, and 3. I couldn’t remember all the props I had used previously.   So I basically started from stratch again. I reshot everything, there were a 2 stock clips I ended up using during my final edits, but everything else was completely new footage.  The concept I had previously was a personification of the Tarot  into bondage/fetish theme.  This concept did not work out so well initially because for one there were too many cards to feature within the time allotted and some of the cards didn’t translate well into the theme.    However there were a few cards that after I had edited them the first time, I was completely amazed at how well they turned out.  And I ended up using those same characters and I added new ones as well.

The Star – one of my favorites from my first attempts

Wheel of Fortune – also from my first attempts

The Chariot -  an unplanned representation, many thanks to Surrealia for creating this animation

The Lovers – another favorite from my first attempt

The Hermit – also from the first render however this version came out better.

Justice – new character,  also unplanned i happened to be shopping and i saw the outfit, my initial thought was ” Woot leather daddy cop!”

The Tower – it was first represented as a human in the first attempt but this time it is the location at which the mad people live.

The Hanged Man – another first attempt character

Judgement (The Angel)  and The Devil – both are new characters, initally i was going to just use the Judgement character alone, however I decided it would be much more interesting to have the Devil in this scene as well.

I used these Tarot representations because to me  the images are so expressive. Whenever I would look at a real tarot card I would always enjoy the story and the meanings of each image .   I wanted to create that feeling as well with these characters.  I gave it the bondage element because I wanted to showcase these same Tarot images but in a non conventional way.  However in the first video I made it clear, that these were Tarot cards, but this time around not so much.  I left it obscure because,  I felt  these images where strong enough on their own, without me having to put a label on them.  For the concept this go around it was a little different and once again this is where  Jabberwocky inspired me again, and the quote from Alice in Wonderland,  “but I don’t want to be among mad people”;  I wanted this video to put the viewer among “the mad people”, however  these mad people are garnished with my own personal touch.  I also wanted to take it out of the realm of Alice, and make it seperate.

Well here’s a little closer look at my thought processes on making this film.  Until next time…….