Where to begin?
I will not make this post too long or long-winded..I really just invite you to scroll down and see the YouTube at the bottom hopefully in HD and Full screen.
I use this little creation as another perfect example of crazy creatives getting together to produce a few minutes of visual and vocal insanity. As those who read my blog regularly know, one of the things I most love about our Second Life, is the possibility to collaborate on artistic projects.
The first time I read Dale Innis’s poem about dactyls, and caught the “dactyl beat” and the idea, I knew I wanted to perform it. Without mentioning that, I wrote a piece of music and background voices and noises, and recorded it, and sent it off for approval. I got the green light from Dale, so I tempted my favorite visual genius, Natascha with yet another juicy carrot(the poem and soundtrack.) I knew this would distract her from our main project we have been working on for the past 5 months for UWA but….I just couldn’t help myself…because I knew if she heard it, she would want to do it!! I wasn’t wrong..(haha) So here it is… filmed both in Second Life and Kitely -Virtual Worlds on Demand, it’s a crazy 2 minute ode to the laws of creation and the spoken word. I hope you enjoy it. We have entered it as our short film before our feature film for this year’s prestigious UWA Vl Machinima Challenge.
Poster by Natascha Randt
If you don’t get this stuck in your head for a few minutes after viewing…well I guess you are just not a dactyl aficionado:)
Digital Rabbit Hole 
Such a great thing you two have done with my tiny poem! 🙂 I do love collaboration and serendipity, and SL is so full of both. I’m glad I worked up the nerve to show some of my little National Poetry Writing Month poems to Karima, who is unlike me a real poet. And look what happened! I am honored to have provided a humble seed for another Kari and Nat special…
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…and what a surreal tree grew from your rhythmic seed Dale!. I loved the poem first time I heard it, and had such fun turning it into a little soundtrack to tempt Nat. You are a poet, so just accept it..and go out and write more poetry..any month is good you know:) Thank you for sharing your many talents with us!
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Reblogged this on Dale Innis’s Weblog and commented:
Y’all know how shy I am and reluctant to blow my own horn 🙂 but I can’t resist passing this along. I did National Poetry Writing Month in my RL weblog (maybe I should post them all here too!), and shared some of the results (one poem a day for a month) with a few SL friends. Karima Hoisan (see prior post once I can figure out how to link to it from a reblog) liked the rhythm in one of them, and to my enormous surprise she and her frequent collaborator Nat made this extremely neat machinima around it. From little nuts do mighty oak trees grow! 🙂
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I am lost between artists, lol. Dactyls omg, sounds like dinosaurs, hahaha, really. Ten little dinosaurs dancing the night away…one and a one one and a one.. Okies, seriously. The beat kicks me into something mad, insane, funny visuals. First I thought of lots and lots of rubberducks but they don’t really fit. But one must be in, hehehe. Ok, I never meditate, but what will you see, if you do, with your inner eye… so the whole thing is a bit what I would see then:) On the other hand, it was clear to use a lot of chromakey and this Harold Lloyd clock and for some reasons the sunken garden. Anyway, happily we have done something that is not often seen in a UWA challenge, a not sooo fateful video. To be honest, our first entry is fatefully, too. Confusing, confusing, But Dactyls is in one way our second entry. Second or first is not a ranking, more an inside-joke 🙂
For me the Dactyl video is a gem, born by two artists, with a little help from me as the midwife 🙂
And btw the end credits stillness is in my opinion a great contradiction and gives the audience time to reflect on this: Dactyls are Dharma, too 🙂
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I thought “Poor Nat” just as I sent off the recorded poem, because I knew what she least needed was another project atm. Still Life is like an assembly line, and you don’t get much time to think.”Should I take this or let it pass by?” Sometimes I think it’s better to just “take it” and figure out how to deal with it later.We say in Spanish, about a pack horse or mule, “The load adjusts itself along the way.” So when I read the poem, I knew what I should probably not do,( but couldn’t help myself) was let it possess me until I had to write some music,and find the beat to recite it to. A dactyl is a very cool rhythm..one long followed by two short..eg: TEN der ly, ACH ing knees, ONE an a, SI lence and.. And so on….
So that little hypnotic beat hooked Nat once again into not being able to say “No” :):)
We went to Kitely and shot the skyscraper people scenes..and landed at UWA, and the rest is history. Thank you Nat, but I don’t think you were the midwife..This precious baby looks just like you *smiles..So I think you are the mother…once again!! Me? I am just the Nat whisperer..hehe I know what might make her make a movie:) and Dale was the seed of the surreal outcome. Got to love SL for all of this..Big Hugs Nat..No one else like you, in any world!!
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Hahahaha omg, the Nat whisperer…
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Haha, Nat, I felt just the same way, that I was only the, I don’t know, accidental sand-grain that had the good fortune to fall into the shell of you and Karima, and get a pearl accreted around me. All serendipity! 🙂 DAH da da DAH da da DAH da da DAH!
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I think its all fate, Dale. I don’t know whether you know, that a German band called Trio long a go made a Song called Da Da Da…:)
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My Soul…..!!! Has been psychedelicized!!!!! Karima, Dale and Nat…What a wonderful piece of work!
I know all the hard work that went in to this. The three of you make a great team. The rub is….
That now we expect more out of you.
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I won’t claim to have done any hard work for this one! 🙂 But NaPoWriMo (thirty poems in thirty days) that I did this little poem for, was great fun, and got me thinking about poetry as something I can actually do, which I hadn’t in a long time. And then the unexpected benefit of this magic! 🙂
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Thankies Hoyt 🙂 Expect us, hehehehe
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Smiling at Hoyt!! I know you don’t mind re-tripping..back to those old psychedelic patterns and days:) I think maybe none of us actually lived that period from the inside out, but Machinima can make anything possible..if you find the right FX or work-around:) Nat is sooo good at that too..and I guess my build on Profound and Profane set the first pace….and got that “donkey” (inside joke and said respectfully 🙂 to kick into second gear. Thanks for your great comment Ruco..
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Dale, honey… you and I both know all those two need is a spark. Next thing you know, Rome is burning. ;o) Your poem is absolutely delightful, even when the words are just read from the page. Its easy to understand how it “ignited” them.
Nat, lol… I strive to never get caught “inside the box” with you guys… but I did wonder about duck. hahahaha. Now I know! ;o) As always, your “sense of cinema” is amazing.
Here’s a thought… instead of putting it in matriarchal terms… lets turn to science! Dale was the spark, Karima… an endless supply of fuel, and Nat was was the fire! ;o)
Hugs you all. As always, I am amazed, and must spend hours trying to get this silly smile off my face… whenever I enjoy your passionate creations.
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Awww, Shesa, thank you! / blush 🙂
I do like spark / fuel / fire…
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Hahahaha OMG Shesaaa…thankies from the 10-70. If we finished Rome, I think Carthage will be next:)
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Shesa!!! You are soooo funny!! I love being the fuel..I do a poem I wrote called “Crude Oil: It is about the passion of Life that I feel sometimes flow in me “Never ceasing, always pumping, her life’s blood was crude oil…and how it burned!!” Soo that is a great role you picked for me. Nothing like getting sparked from the outside now and then..The muse takes the day off, and another’s muse steps in.. Just like you I heard that great beat in Dale’s poem the first moment I read it..I KNEW// I just did..and poor Nat doesn’t have a chance to smoulder, because a spark and a lot of high octane means “Kaboom..Nat is on fire once more!” haha Thank you Sweet for your loyal and warm and sincere support in all that we do .Hugs you tight….
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Whimsical! -Henri Godenot
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Thanks Henri!
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Me encanto amiga! tu acento es perfecto para el poema.
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Hola Tita!!! Gracias amiga…was a fun little coming together of three crazy creators:) Me alegro tanto que le gustó. Un abrazo fuerte !
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