Are horses sensual? You bet they are….
(Ask any woman who remembers having contact with horses when she was growing up. A horse can be a girl’s first love!.)
As I said in my past post, this video marks a perfect dozen for Natascha Randt and I.
I think once again, and at the point when we are almost done, but not quite, those small details seem very important, and yet somehow we miraculously agree so easily on the changes. It’s not easy for Natascha to “render it all again one more time, 10 more times! Yet, there are moments I feel we are looking out of the same eyes. It’s such an odd sensation and Nat says, “Ha! I knew you would say that.” She knew because she was thinking it too, and I always marvel at this post-pro stage, where it just comes together as a truly finished product, how easy it is for us to agree. I give so much of the credit to her, as I know that normally machinima filmmakers are total loners, who rarely would allow someone else to give their opinion , especially at that last stage.
We have people to thank too:)
No matter how weird the task we give to RAG Randt our Blender Sculptor in residence, he comes through. He confided to me he has been called this before (less euphemistically) but had never made one, when we asked him to make us a nice “horse rear” (like in rear-end not rear-up)
Thank you RAG for our horse – hindquarters & Dale for getting that tail to flick just right
Then Dale Innis, our scripter in residence, took it up to his secret lab and fooled around a few nights on getting a tail to move to the same rhythm as a boot.
We called upon our magic screen couple, Shesa Quandry & Gamma Infinity who demonstrated a high level of on-screen chemistry, to play dual roles in both two-legged and four-legged parts. Dale tended bar in her elegant style and also galloped like the wind. All I had to do was sit on a bar stool and swing my boot, and then rear up and lead the herd, but Natascha..oh my, Natascha had the tricky multi-tasking role of totally transforming herself into the exotic dancer and a black wild stallion who held a Space Navigator to film it all while she ran. We hope you will like the finished product of this collaborative wave of creativity.We give you our latest passion,
“Drink Me With Your Eyes.”
“Our eyes are the window of desire; so powerful they can make horses grow restless in the night. When all is sublime innuendo, it can spark a spontaneous stampede.”
Please watch in HD and Fullscreen for the full experience and as always comments are very welcome here or on YouTube..or…both Enjoy!
I will include the poem with its small translated parts below.
I am hoping Nat will also tell her side of the production.
Here is Nat’s blog post on it too in German: Drink Me With Your Eyes
This idea, the poem, and the music were born on a sublime musing about sensuality one night in Second Life. Our virtual world continues to inspire all kinds of musings that hopefully will translate into music, poetry, and with Nat’s help, machinima.
Drink Me With Your Eyes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A tiny Spanish feeling
A bolero and a glass
Un bolero y un vaso (a bolero and a glass)
A bolero and a glass
Cocktail of East and West
Poured into this dress
Gesticulating, swaying saying,
“Drink me with your eyes”
“Solo con tus ojos.” (only with your eyes)
“Drink me with your eyes”
“Solo con tus ojos.” (only with your eyes)
“Drink me in.”
The horses tied up to the fence
Their tails flicking on the breeze
The horses tied up to the fence
Their tails flicking on the breeze
Las colas de los caballos (the tails of the horses…
Me recuerdan tanto de ti …remind me so much of you)
Las colas de los caballos (the tails of the horses…
Me recuerdan tanto de ti…remind me so much of you)
When you were in your dance
Bailaste solo por mi (you danced only for me)
Your dance was just for me
Bailaste solo por mi. (you danced only for me)
And the horses grew impatient
They wanted to be set free
And the horses grew impatient
They called to us to set them free.
And we freed them all that night
Against the crashing sea
And they galloped down the shoreline
Their tails dancing on the breeze
Las colas de los caballos (the tails of the horses…
Me recuerdan tanto de ti… remind me so much of you)
A tiny Spanish feeling
A bolero and a glass
Un bolero y un vaso ( a bolero and a glass)
Las colas de los caballos (the tails of the horses…
Me recuerdan tanto de ti… remind me so much of you)
“Drink me with your eyes”
“Solo con tus ojos.” (only with your eyes)
“Drink me with your eyes”
“Solo con tus ojos.” (only with your eyes)
“Drink me in.”
Karima Hoisan
June 29, 2013
LINC Island SL
Digital Rabbit Hole 
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Oh well of COURSE it is magnificent! You two are a brilliant creative partnership! i loved this one… so exotic and sensual… graceful and haunting. The horses are beeeeeautiful… the dancing… the original Karima music…and her velvet voice. i love the phrase “…drink me with your eyes…” and where it travels around in this lush poetry and imagery and movement. Cheers to you both… you keep out doing yourselves…. thank you for treating us to this gorgeous machimina! you are both masters!
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Ohh Jan, thank you so much for your glowing review…I am so glad you enjoyed our new film..and I loved your adjectives “exotic-sensual-graceful-haunting..We were trying to weave that sort of web and how nice you allowed yourself to be captured. 🙂 Thank you, thank you my supportive best friend in the “atomic world” It is our pleasure to treat those who love to drink our movies in, as deeply…as you do. Big grateful hugs to you
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Excellent! Thank you, Karima and Natascha, for making this! It’s wonderful!
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Why thank you Henri for your lovely words! It’s our pleasure to share it with you.
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Dear Kari,
your collab is just tremendous ! Besides the technical challenges, you take on, besides the creativity you both develop, the combination of words, music and movie is unique and unmatched !! How lovely to see my ” Flamenco dancer” on the wall ! 🙂 I already had forgotten, I gave you this painting too……must have been ages ago ! I remember, I worked on it in Chile and it drove me crazy, because I`m unable to paint humans, 🙂
And , of course…..who could resist galopping horses with long tails ?
Big smile and big hug ****
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Aww thank you Isabel for your beautiful comment, and yes I knew you would enjoy seeing your Flamenco dancer on the wall.:) When we were decorating this little set, I brought some things over from my Kantina next door, and I just knew I had to use it:) By the way, I will keep this little surreal bar up on LINC so anyone can go for an old time retro slow dance in a cozy spot right on the shoreline. Big hugs to you my talented friend, and thank you so much for watching and enjoying our latest collaboration.
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~AKA Gamma 😉 Wonderful work Kari and Nat! Knowing the poem and during the filming, I had an inkling of how it would be stitched together but am amazed at the final product! I’m honored to have been invited to take part in such a beautiful piece of cinematic art 🙂
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Hey Gamma..what a nice surprise to find your comment here and on YouTube too. What I said in the post above is true and no joke. You and Shesa had a “screen-chemistry” that you almost never find in machinima.. Nat’s very sharp eye found the perfect angles to show you both off too. Thank you again for giving up your time, for galloping all over my sim *smiles.. and for being so willing to participate in our project. I think you are now part of our small but very loved repertoire in our video productions. Thank you for helping to make Art in Second Life.
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It was great being able to first hear you read the poem, and then see this great machinima version of it. Congratulations to both of you…the Kari and Nat magic continues!
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Thank you small otter critic..and for your support of my poetry and our machinimas for quite a long time now.. I am glad you got to watch it “come to life” so to speak.. or maybe come to second Life:)
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It was a pleasure as always to see this being made, and now to see it all done. Love being able to be the small mouse (well, bartender / scripter / horse-extra) in the background while the geniuses are at work. 🙂 And always such a lovely rendering of the thoughts and spirit and words in the original poem! Another work of art…
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Always a pleasure to have you with us Dale, and your little scripty savvy and cool work-arounds, made us be able to make the effects we could imagine, but were unable to find already made. Inspiration when it hits, is like that stampede in the movie..just a rush and many get swept up in it and it is one of the best parts of Sl for me. To collaborate with the only goal being, to make Art, is so very exciting. I am happy to see you think we accomplished our goal this time 🙂
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Pingback: My acting career continues! :) | Dale Innis's Weblog
First of all, a BIG Thank you! to you all. For watching our 12th movie and all the nice comments. I really appreciate!
At this point, normally I often told about the production and the movie and many other things. But before I will do that, let’s talk a bit about collab.
I’ve heard alot about collaboration and teamwork these days and some really weird things.
And it seems to me that many people have wrong thoughts about the meaning of teamwork, our teamwork. Or let me say different views.
A collaboration is not a thing of “I make this and you make that”. It is a thing of “we make that together”. It is not something like “Oh look, I have this poem (or Installation, or picture or whatever), what can you do with that?” It is more like “Oh look, I have this poem (or Installation, or picture or whatever) what do you think about?”
And then it is not a “Oh look, what I’ve done with your poem (or Installation, or picture or whatever)” It is a “I think we can do this and that (put in a zillion things) and then the magic of teamwork begins. Brainstorming, discussions, just talking about, mixing up all the ideas, make compromises and so on. There’s is no place for something like envy or jealousy, we always give our ideas or tricks or whatever to each other.
Being honest, sometimes it can happen that we, let me say, go different ways. BUT and it is really a big but (no pun intended 🙂 ) we always find back to the path we go together. (If that is the right term).
It’s a we, a together, an our. We both do it, from the very first beginning to the end, together.
Trusting each other. It’s a process of give and take and of learning. It’s not my or your fault. It’s our fault, when we bombed out. On the other hand, when it is successful, it is our success. And it is only finished when we both say: “YES! That’s it!”
Two things are the most important. First, trust each other, the second is, successful or not, we always stand behind our baby!
Maybe all that sounds a bit confused, but I want to write that, to let some people understand how it works. Oh I can say that just in other words, with a quote from Laibach:
“Our souls are from the wild
and wings to reach the sky
let the sun fall into the ocean,
let the earth erupt in flame
It is enough to have the strength
and knowledge
to raise our dream machines
into the sky
…We are driven by the B-machine
(Wild B-machine – that never stops)”
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Beautifully written Nat, and I am so glad you did too! I think maybe there are more practical collaborations going around, and they have their place, but what you and I do, I think might be the exception to the norm, when people think of collaborations. As an example, I read a poem for Spiral Silverstar’s (Joe Zazulak’s) film using the poem by George MacDonald’s “The Wind and The Moon.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tmrU-6ruh4 I just read, and Spiral did all the rest. It was his film and he chose some beautiful music too, behind my voice. I am so happy I could help out, collaborate with him, by doing this reading, but this is not what Nat is talking about, nor is it what we do. We just learned to do it this way (our way) maybe because of who we are, and most importantly the great mutual respect and yes the trust we have in each other. Trust and respect, and another ingredient, I hinted at in my post, the fact we are very much on the same wave-length. We say, “Yes, Yes..Yes!!” more than we say, “Hmm I don’t know about that.” Our brainstorming sessions start from the first moment we stand and say..”Ok..we need this and that..and then the other will say “Oh yes and that and this….” and this process carries all the way into post -pro editing. Nat in the visual area does many things on her own of course..but when she shows me a few minutes of a scene..I almost always like it, but sometimes it sparks a new idea that could be added, and I comment and she tries it..and so on and so on.For us, this is collaboration. It is a precious gift I have said before, given to us both. I know how lucky we are. We have celebrated the successes and we have cried together, when a movie we believed in was not accepted by the critics.. Our failures and our success are ours.What Nat said above is very true, and I am moved and very grateful she brought up this point.The quote at the end is so perfect! Here’s to many more my partner..many many more!
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This is absolutely wonderful. Congratulations – again – to the team of Natascha, Karima, and Dale. I hear the words swirling, see them dancing in my head – raptures of liquid music and horses hooves on the sand… Stunning!
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Thank you so much Mireille for leaving your comment. It means a lot to hear that you were caught up in the “stampede”:) I like the term “liquid music” it was what I hoped for to wash over the watery floor, the dark bar, the ocean so ready to sweep it all away in a wave:)
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Back again for some eeehm waffle about production and all:) First of all, the whole movie is Karima’s idea and vision. She had this clear concept about what and how:) And then I came along with some ideas and some “That doesnt work, because…” and so we go together again. One of the most important thing was the dancing girl. Other important things were the moving horsetail, the horses themselves, the bar, the wl setting and the lines “Cocktail of East and West
Poured into this dress” Woaah the two lines are so wonderful, but how can we make them visual? We had a thousand of ideas of how we can do it. With a greenscreen avatar, with a splitskin and many others.
But then our extras, hm, not really extras, so let me say our actresses, Shesa and Gamma made it. Yes really! It is what Karima said “screen-chemistry”. I was shooting a lot and when I checked the footage, I had this big “YES! Thats it” in my mind. Two close-ups and a smile. Short but so perfect.
The horses, wow, that was a long search. But finally we found that cool mesh horses with that nice moves. That was the biggest fun, shooting the horses. The only problem was, as always, the lag. Because of the lag I had to use a different wl setting, and sometimes no shadows! NO shadows. Darn. Unbelievable. Hahahaa, yes really. But in postpro I could compensate that. I love it being in postpro. The same clip on 3 oder 4 overlay tracks and play around with fx and transparency. It’s like magic!
The horsetail, moving in a special way. How can we do it? We cant. But. The scripting cavalry came over and Dale did it again. YAY! Great. We have that moving tail but we also needed the thing where it has to be attached. The horse bu…eehhm back, I mean rear…eeehm, you know what I mean. Okies, RAG made it. Hehehe that fat horse bu…eeehm.
And with a faboulous trick all that worked! Really cool. If someone watched us while shooting it, they would rofl until doomsday, lol.
But the very best was the materials system that comes with the latest LL viewer. Karima saw a floor I made with and she wants it in the movie. Ok, no problem. This viewer is a mess for me, but ok. We shoot. and it looks odd because of the bugs in that viewer. Bit later they had a new version, the bugs were killed in this. BUT! I crashed with it after one second. So darn! We had to reshoot, but when? I think it was that week we want to upload the finished movie, when there was a a new version of that viewer. Yes, it worked. But soooooo laggy, you cant imagine. Holy Moly, we did it against that.
Then I rendered it all maybe the 12th time or so. Wow great! But, when Karima uploaded it to yt. It doesnt work. I need a whole day or so to find the error, but finally I gave Karima a version that work, before the error occurred. I was a bit confused, lol.
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What a great piece of inside story! Thank you, Nat (yet again!).
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You’re welcome! Dale.
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Great “dessert waffle” Nat I love your comments always, but you forgot to mention one very important part; the dancer was a very extreme make-over of YOU! Little skinny mesh-shape Nat had to become a plus-size Latin/Arabic (almost looks Armenian) belly dancer. We went a few rounds on that..smiles but as always found ourselves saying”Yeah…that’s it!” in the end:)
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Thankies Karima:) Hehehe yes, after I clicked that “post comment” button, I knew there was something I forgot:)
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Natascha and Karima,
Congratulations on yet again another fine collaboration of your talents. It is quite amazing that the two of your found each other across the bio-sphere, and even more amazing the symbiotic creations that you have produced. I am in awe.
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Thank you Hoyt for always sitting right in the front row of everything we do. You are no doubt our biggest aficionado, and a great stimulus, for us, to push onwards and make a few more:)
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I dreamed that I woke up (ever done that?)… only, I wasn’t where I belonged. I was on the ground, looking up at the stars. A weight held me down. I opened my mouth to ask where I was… but instead of words coming out, a piece of food went in. It was warm and chewy, and kinda tasty! So I chewed for a bit and swallowed it down. Once again, I opened my mouth to ask where I was, and once again, in went a piece of tasty delight. I chewed and swallowed, and tried again! A third piece!
Finally, I asked (rather rudely, with my mouth full) “What is that?” That’s when a hauntingly familiar voice, that I swore I knew, but couldn’t quite place (I was asleep after all), said, “fried iguana”. I stopped chewing, and swallowed the piece whole… suddenly not sure about the “tasty” part. “I need a drink!”, I said.
A drink I received… but, it wasn’t water… it was…. coffee! Really good coffee!!
That’s when I REALLY woke up. Knew just where I had been. Sat up in bed… and realized that… I had waited FAR too long to come here and comment on Karima and Nat’s wonderful creation. ;o)
I am most struck by two of the comments above. First, to echo Gamma’s sentiment… that I am so honored, and completely thrilled, to have been part of Karima & Nat’s wonderful creation. I can’t begin to describe it. Its like being there, when history is made. The second is Nat’s comment, “If someone watched us while shooting it, they would rofl…”. Well… It was such a blast! We had such a great time… laughing and joking through the whole thing. I know… there was very serious creativity going on the entire time… but Karima and Nat never once made us feel that way. For me… there was no way to even imagine how “what we were doing” during “filming”… would turn into such a magical cinematic treasure. I am awestruck.
I can’t finish without mentioning the horses. Like many, my first love was a stallion… and I remember many dreams of being a mare. Well GUESS WHAT!!!!! LOL. We ran around Karima’s sim… and ran and ran, and ran some more. I had a Cheshire cat grin the entire time. Thank you both for that memory. ;o)
Tight hugs,
Shesa
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Oh Shesa..I didn’t really mean to “pay you back” by taking almost THREE WEEKS to answer this fabulous comment!!! Haha! Well I love your dream of course..hehe I see that little iguana poem stuck to your ribs hehe. But mostly what I want to say is thank you for being so much a part of our projects..if you are not acting you are supporting with comments and Likes and just well you are, you both are such vibrant aficionados of the crazy bursts of creativity that with the help of good friends like you, we turn into videos. You help make that all possible..and I want to just say, that here. You are such a selfless and generous supporter of all that is art and music in SL..and you sure run like a wild mare too (especially with that stallion behind you:) haha Had to include that. I ran my little fingers off that day..not to mention my horse-legs//but when Nat showed me the first clips.. I knew we HAD IT! Thank you for this comment.I treasure it…and forgive me for taking so long to let you know too.Big hugs Shesa..Come gallop and kick up your heels anytime.. I adore you and you and Gamma are The BEST!! As soon as we can find the most awesome mesh camels..you both have major roles in our next film!! I promise you!…and the one after that….and after that:)
Big tight hugs in sync with yours,
Karima
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