Chantal Harvey, Machinimatographer

Fab Outlander and I were invited in Chantal Harvey’s film studio to discuss her past and upcoming projects. With over 140 machinimas under her belt, Chantal is what you could call a pro machinimatographer. We had a fun time talking about and watching films on her giant screen. Below are the highlights of our long chat.

Tell us about this winter’s Mamachinima festival.

It was a celebration of machinima, not a contest. The top 40 machinima makers entered with 51 films. It was not only Second Life but also iClone and Half-Life. It went on for six hours and was presented in-world, and in RL Amsterdam (I’m Dutch).

You know, we didn’t expect a lot of people in RL. But, wrong: it was packed, we had to borrow chairs from the neighbours.

You encountered a big success, didn’t you?

Oh yes, the sim was full up! 99 avatars were there most of the time, and many complaining they couldn’t get in. We’ll need four sims next year. Organising it all almost killed me!

I had big machinima names hosting, like Dizzy Banjo, Phaylen Fairchild, Lauren Weyland, Poid Mahovlich or Rafale Kamachi. Even Galaxy Girl performed for us: her spaceship came out of the water, after the last film. Even now, the YouTube page that has all the films is the best machinima account around.

The best thing to describe the festival is this: a bunch of griefers came, halfway… and they sat down and watched all the films!

Just in case our readers don’t know what exactly a machinima is, can you give us your personal definition?

Well it is a combination word, ‘machine’ and ‘cinema’. Basically, it is making movies in virtual platforms like Second Life, World of Warcraft, Moviestorm, Sims, Half-Life, Google Earth. 3D-filmmaking techniques are applied within computer-generated games. For me SL is interesting, as we can build everything we need in here. But I am exploring different worlds now, all machinima interest me. There are limitations of course, the hardest thing is emotion. We all struggle there. That’s why Lainy Voom’s machinimas move me, she has it.

Why is that, the relative lack of facial expressions?

Yes, that and the body language. It’s hard to do it well, and I strive for perfection. In the Musimmersion machinima I did something in postproduction, did you not notice? It took me a day’s work: I made her lips move. I find it silly, in a video, to have a singer whose face doesn’t move. You can trick a bit now using the voice function, as long as the person isn’t on a stream or on Skype. It’s not bad. I did many like that, the Lauren Weyland ones for instance.

How many people work on a typical machinima?
Between one and 25. But I have a great team. I have a writer, several audio people, builders and actors who stay up all night just to have their avatar in a film. I send films to America, to a guy that does Foley for me. And to Denmark, to a composer who works with a philharmonic orchestra in RL.

How do you coordinate people; do you use voice?

And typing. I make notecards for the actors, and use mail, Skype, voice. And when I say “Action!”, they have to wait for three seconds to go, as I need to get rid of UI and hit Fraps. I work with a second unit too, sometimes, just like in RL.

So how much of the work is done in postprod?

On average, a machinima takes me between 10 and 20 hours. Some take months, like The Rings, the rock opera I did for the Diabolus Art Space group. I filmed that seven times, and the editing took three months. It’s a 44-minute machinima, and it’s on the Linden Lab showcase now.

Usually you stick to a rather smaller formats, like 9 minutes for Youtube?

Yes, Youtube videos are 10 minutes, which is long. When I finish a film or machinima, I look again, and my trick is to take off another 10% of the time span. Shorter is more powerful. But that’s inside information on my editing style! (lol) The good thing is, more and more people are asking me to do machinimas for them. So I get a good choice now.

Do you have to reject many projects?

Not many… I try to learn, improve, do something new every time. I do get a lot of wedding invites, hehe. It’s hard to say no, but I manage nowadays.

Most of my work, and I made 140 machinimas now, is artistic and free. But I do paid work, too. For example I worked for the tourist office of Cantal, France. They are showing my machinima in their RL offices, all over the province – it was on national TV too!

How do you find the time to organise all this?

I have two jobs in RL, a husband and a child. But I don’t need much sleep, that’s my blessing: I sleep 5 hours a night; I have been doing that for 25 years now. And also, machinima is a passion. I want to bring machinima to RL, that’s my main goal. And I want to learn, connect, improve. I am an editor in RL – that helps of course.
Do you hope to make a living of your machinima making at some stage?

Oh I hope so. I managed to make it for a while, but now, there’s not much paid work anymore. I would like to make a movie… a machinima destined to RL audiences.

Very ambitious, and interesting. Any other projects?

I have four projects now. I started a series of 100 one minute art machinimas, five are online so far. It’s called 1minART. When done, which will take me a year I think, I will have 100 minutes of top art. I am doing a short film called ‘White Roses’, that will be out next month. It’s written by Rafale Kamachi, a fantastic writer. She does the Sail Away Project, for which she is looking for a storyboard artist by the way. There’s two more projects I need to edit, and I entered a French festival, hoping to visit there in RL. Oh and I started a series, with a very famous SL person. After doing the Musimmersion machinima, I also told Grace that she could call me if she wanted something special done.

So you don’t have four projects, but more like twelve!

Hmmm… perhaps it s just ADHD. Thank God I don’t need Ritalin!

And you also have MaMachinima 2010 in February?

20^th February, yes. This year it will be held in several RL cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, St Petersburg, Vilnius. Any city is free to join: all you need is a screen that’s bigger then a square meter, and a good audio system. They will have to figure out the rest, PR, com, etc. Of course we want the MMIF logo, and it has to be totally non commercial. It’s for the art of machinima, and the filmmakers come and share with the RL and SL audience.

What about the entry rules for machinimatographers?

The only rule I gave was: enter the work you are most proud of, so it’s the best selection in 2009. Also, they have to hold all audio rights. We can’t have machinimas to pop songs.

Well thanks Chantal for your time and answers. I’ll finish this long post with your latest 1minART video.

June 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm | Uncategorized | No comment

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