Jane Austen’s English Countryside Machinima

 

This year 2016 is celebrated the 200th anniversary of one of the most famous novels by JANE AUSTEN, “Emma”, and next year is her  bicentenary death anniversary on the 18th  July. I felt very happy when “Jane Austen’s English Countryside” by Tigre Milena and Armon Aeon,  an Immersive Experience about this Famous Writer’s World, was announced in Second life; and later, I felt honored of being called for making a machinima on this theme, one of my favorites writers.

How I planned the Machinima

Have to make a machinima of an Universal theme or Character like Jane Austen puts me on a dilemma, because I want to display what her world means for myself – feelings, protocol and contention- but all of us we have our “images “ on memories of Austen’s books, readings, movies, tv serials… The detailed development of “Jane Austen’s English Countryside” was a great help because it has been done with great respect on  the original buildings, elements, the museum contents are made high detailed. The environment maintains perfectly the realistic world of the writer and adds the magic Second Life and Virtual Worlds provokes and makes blow our imagination living an immersive experience as Hiperrealistic Contemporary response.

About the music: original soundtrack by Yadleen

The first I use to do i search for a good music for any machinima or movie I do. I think music holds the 50% of any movie. This time I asked to Yadleen to compose an special soundtrack for this movie because Jane Austen was a woman, and probably we are women who best use to understand her meaning. Her work was great and did it really quick, plenty of inspiration.

Her music files are at this link and this soundtrack could be listen here (4:12 min): https://soundcloud.com/clara-music-1/jane-austen-audio/s-kpSCZ

Later I wanted to add a “daily scene” the ladies music scene (between 1:37 and 2:12 min) so I cut Yadleen’s soundtrack to add a song Jane Austen loved to sing. It’s titled “The Joys of the Country” by Charles Dibdin. Charles Dibdin was a funny composer and performer who wrote “The Joys of the Country,” which Jane copied by hand and used to play and sing it.

“Like Anne Elliot in Persuasion, Jane Austen frequently played the pianoforte for the enjoyment of her family. She practiced several hours every morning before others in her family began their day.*”

*Source here

The visual aesthetic of this scene (1:36  – 2:15 min) was worked as a flashback, with a totally different look of the rest of the machinima.

The intro Scene

The intro scene of this machinima was filmed in a quicker speed and later ralentized on editing (from 0 to  0:18 min) I used parallax imaging techniques to move the ground and simulate an “incoming visitor who approaches” . Colors are retouched to enphatize a sunrise with a bit of fog inspired by Yadleen’s music.

Landscapes of Jane Austen: William Turner and John Constable

I can’t avoid remind Turner or John Constable thinking on “English Countryside”. J. M. W. Turner or  Joseph Mallord William Turner lived between 1775 – 1851; Sir John Constable between 1776 – 1837 and Jane Austen between 1775 – 1817 so were all in same timeline more or less. Landscapes developed by Armon Aeon and Trigre Mylena fits perfectly with the ambient and nature of Austen’s world so was easy to give them that touch had the paints of Turner and Constable. Examples here:

• Wivenhoe Park, Essex (1816)

Oil on canvas 56.1 × 101.2 cm (22.1 × 39.8 in)

Location: National Gallery of Art – Gallery 57

Sir John Constable is one of my favorites painters of all times. I call him always “Sir” because when I went to London to the Tate Gallery, I asked to one of the museum’s staff where was his artwork displayed. Was a tall old man that looked to me, smiled and answer me: “SIR John Constable, please….”  🙂

This paints are a good examples of lighting, color tone, reflections I tried to achieve. (0:53 min; 1:26 min; 3:09 min)

• Perspective View of Fonthill Abbey from the South West

Gouache, watercolor, paper

Dimensions: 50.2 x 77.5 cm

Location: Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire, UK

J. M. W. Turner is the master of painting clouds and skies! He gave a real presence to the “air”. To paint the sky on his style and palette was something i had done at the machinima too ( 0:34 min; 1:05 min by example )

Voice Overs by Caledonia Skytower

I thought was important display some of the activities they have at the sim in virtual worlds on this machinima: readings, dance and other music events. Readings are done by the avatar Caledonia Skytower often, so I use her voice to describe the storyline and remind few relevant quotes from Jane Austen’s books. (1:10; 2:21 min)

“Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.”

― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid..”

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. ”

― Jane Austen, Emma

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”

― Jane Austen

Clothes and Avatars Appearance

Regency dresses are perfectly described at the Jane Austen’s House Museum in Second life. Tigre Milena and Armon Aeon avatars are good example of that period look, but we had a lot of others avatars working as extras very well dressed. Dido Petra Hass – owner of the Nitroglobus Gallery- kindly participated at the female singing scene, Apmel  -who let me use a couple of his avatar pictures- and other avatars were featured are Dagmar Kohime,MeteorMags Resident, Emma Swan, Demund Broek, Kate McCride, Kayden Oconnell, Serenity Green, Lyr Lobo, Qwibble Resident, Rick Qargen, SisterButta Resident, Iso Huet, Ewan Bonham, Yadleen, Ross Gartner and Iono Allen.

 You can find a lot of stuff online about Regency dresses online, is a trendy theme in places like etsy There are few festivals around the world where people go wearing this clothing style .

(2:34; 3: 37 min)

Special Effects

There 2 special effects used in this machinima: parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.  Its worked in Photoshop. The second one, more visible, is an After Effects a flipping Book template customized with my own footage, lighting and pictures of avatars, animals that displays the book passing pages with different scenes showing you can live directly your own story as immersive experience at LEA 8 in Second Life 

Lea 8 http://bit.ly/1Y1rLIL

Background Images of the sim I used are here:

• YouTube Link https://youtu.be/PxBr5LJjOQk
• SLartist Link http://www.slartist.com/jane-austens-english-countryside_92db940dc.html