Allow me to provide some small clarification to what Jill’s Song is, in the general sense. Jill’s Song is not only a standalone film, but is also in fact a companion piece and effectively a type of teaser for another, much larger film (currently in early production). This other film focuses on the events that occur after the therapy session seen in Jill’s song, as well as the events before. Jill’s Song is a character piece meant to introduce Jack Stone, and give a bit of insight into his feelings.
I am extremely pleased with the responses we have received. It’s original intention (and that of the larger movie) is and was to try and push machinima into a new or different territory. Regardless of whether one enjoyed Jill’s Song or found it boring, it is practically unanimous that it succeeds in exploring new ground. There have been some criticisms, which were honestly expected, which I am going to address now:
1. The story was long winded, and did not keep my attention.
A: Yes, this is one of the pitfalls of not doing a “Red vs Blue” style show. People are watching machinimas with the presumption that they are going to be “wow’d” by snappy game references and zippy visuals. For those kinds of people, Jill’s Song will probably dissappoint. I am actually really suprised how few people gave this criticism. That being said, it has been the biggest complaint, and we are totally fine with that. For those of you who were put off by the lack of variety in the film, please do not let that dissuade you from enjoying the upcoming, larger film. Jill’s Song is intentionally very focused and limited, and I think that works for what it is; however, I can guarantee you that the larger film has far more variety and will hopefully keep you guessing and interested.
2. I was distracted by the horrifying eyelids from the main character. They looked like freakish mutant growths. Also, the main character’s stiffness was rather distracting. (This includes some of the other criticism regarding the animation.)
A: I would have loved to solved both of these problems, and I tried. Unfortunately, it was not feasible to fix them. The way that Source performs body animations, and the animations presented, they simply were not versatile enough and ended up looking terrible. It was basically impossible to create decent body animations for the character while sitting down; the two did not blend very well. The eyelids are exactly as Valve modeled them, so it is not fair to blame me… blame Valve. I have accepted that we are not going to achieve photorealism any time soon with the Source Engine, so I would like to ask that any character flaws be taken with a grain of salt. Remember, this is just a video game we are working with.
3. The ending credits sequence was really weird and totally put me out of the mood that I had experienced after watching the main feature.
A: The ending credits might appear a bit (unintentionally) silly, but every single shot used is relevant to the larger story of Jack Stone. The credits were a deliberate choice, and though they may seem weird at the moment, they will make a lot more sense in time.
If anyone wants to field any additional questions or complaints, please go ahead and speak them. I will try to answer anything that comes up.
Thanks, though I didn’t think the eyelids were that bad. The model is six years old, but thanks a lot for the post.
Jack an Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. then they died. Thats all I know about that story.
I disagree about the duration of the film being too long in general. Where you took it gained its impact from the buildup; these things take time.
While I don’t think it was too talky, I do think that perhaps the way it was written contributed to it feeling long for some folks. A long stretch of time was spent exploring the abstractions of the music metaphor, and that doesn’t provide a lot of fodder for engaging the viewer’s visual imagination, which can really help carry a scene like this. Some asides / anecdotes to break that up - Jack stops for a moment to tell a little tangent story with some vivid ready-to-visualize details, for example - those would have helped keep viewers engaged who don’t enjoy spending all that time in the abstract realm. But overall, the length I feel was necessary to give time for the foreshadowing of something sinister and at last a full-on arrival at Planet Evil in that fantastic last line. You can’t rush something like that and have the same emotional impact.
The eyelids and some of the mouth shaping bothered me a bit, but I was given a long time to scrutinize that face, and the part of one’s brain which does so wasn’t really given much else to do b/c of the abstract nature of most of the monologue. So those model / anim flaws were really naked. I doubt it’ll be a big issue in scenes with other stuff to look at. And like you said, there are limits to what could be done for that anyway.
Ricky’s voiceover performance - and your animation of it - was magnificent. The two are inseparable in their greatness, and are (obviously) what is revolutionary about this as a piece of machinima. The subtleties Ricky voiced and you so skillfully captured in that face… win win win.
I’m probably totally alone on this last item… but I wasn’t fond of the music. I think a piano piece with more emphasis on a melodic voice would have been much more emotionally effective for the piece. Instead, it was largely arpeggios through what was, I’ll admit, a very nice chord progression, and the melody was rather obscured. I’m thinking of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as an example of this done really well. It’s a piece composed almost entirely of arpeggios, yet a melodic line sings through and defines the piece (when it’s played properly, anyway). Sans that melody, Moonlight is not nearly as interesting. Jill’s Song would have been more effective, I think, if it were driven more by melody rather than by chords.
The manually induced depth of field effect just didn’t feel quite right in places, it wasn’t quite convincing. Not quite enough blur on the back pane? Or perhaps not quite the right kind of blur?
The segments where you cut away to the other set w/ the washed out lighting - staggering. Great job on the sound on these cuts, too. Reminded me of the strange ghostly moments in the Rusty Whispers series; jarring and eerie and just plain wonderful.
Keep up the great work, gents! I don’t know if you realize it, but you’re some of the very best who’ve ever taken part in this craft, and are a continual inspiration to your filmmaking peers.
Please. Don’t. Stop.
Lit Fuse, I don’t want to sound rude - I am nearly in love with all your movies - but you have some serious problems in this part of text: “The eyelids are exactly as Valve modeled them, so it is not fair to blame me… blame Valve. I have accepted that we are not going to achieve photorealism any time soon with the Source Engine, so I would like to ask that any character flaws be taken with a grain of salt. Remember, this is just a video game we are working with.”
Well, eyelids are less problem then signs of approach I see here.
“…any character flaws be taken with a grain of salt”? You can’t ask this from viewer. What about viewer outside of Machinima world, one not knowing nothing about game engines. My mom, for example. You don’t care about my mom? :)
“Just a video game”? Take some other engine or tool.
“Don’t blame you, blame Valve”? Sorry, you are master of your movie universe. And therefore all blame, if there is any, is on you. Because, if only engine can be blamed for not so great stuff, does this mean that only engine is responsible for great stuff?
I don’t think so - your mastership is the key for great stuff.
So, where exactly you make a line in that case, line between your craft and engine’s capability?
Hope you don’t mind telling this, your movie is beautiful, and obviously you are much, much bigger author then any engine problem can be. Therefore, take care of problem.
Simple as that.
Tom, I don’t care about your mum.
The fact is that yes, the capabilties of the Source engine (and machinima itself) ARE a limiting and defining factor in what we can and can’t do. We can’t just snap our fingers and reprogramme the engine to build eyelids that we deem acceptable - it’s just not possible. We work with what we’re given, as does any movie maker.
OK. My mum is strong old lady, she understand. She was convinced that any film maker choose tools to work with and nobody “give” them anything, but we are never to old to learn something new.
Funny thing is that she didn’t even notice nothing wrong with eyelids, she think it is perfect movie, she just didn’t like idea of such good author limiting himself and his audience because of… engine.
I will tell old dragon to shut up now.
I just learn that you work professionally as Machinima maker. If that is what you mean by given tools, then I understand and apologize. Didn’t know that. Sorry and keep up with excellent work.
Wait, you mean your mum actually watched it? Ha. I thought you just threw her in as a random, off-the-wall example.
don’t worry tom! your opinion is not offensive. you’re just holding us to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. where we make compromises, you would rather have us go the extra mile and develop new models and rigs or have us work with some other toolset. Thing is, we like source, it’s comfortable for us and we know how to use it pretty well, we’re willing to let a few small technical issues slide, as we know that we can make up for these in other areas.
also, I can’t really go with a “proffessional” title just yet. Till I actually start work, which could take a little bit of time.
Just a point of clarification re: slique’s first comment, and this might just be a matter of semantics, but it wouldn’t require reprogramming the engine to fix the eyelids.
What it *would* require is a new character model with the rigging tweaked to their liking. Ironically, I think modifying the engine would be an easier task! Rigging a character to work properly with Faceposer (including all the face muscles) is excruciatingly hard. Maybe someone out there has done it, but I’ve not seen it and know many who’ve tried. So I can respect that at some point a decision has to be made to live with a particular flaw in order to get the project finished before our sun burns out.
As Tom pointed out, the IDEAL which I think we all cherish here is that no such compromise should EVER be made. But sometimes practical matters trump the ideal.
Just thought that I would clear up that I wasn’t trying to insult Tom’s mother. My ‘I don’t care about your mum’ comment was simply a tongue-in-cheek remark to what I thought was just a random example of someone who might come across our videos without any pre-existing knowledge of what Machinima is.
So yeah, my apologies, Tom’s mum!
those brits have no sense of tact!
Demon eyelids from hell aside, the video itself was really good in my opinion. I can see there’s a lot to look forward to here. If you have time in between being professional machinimen!
Eh, about my mum: she is real, of course, but Slique was right, she was used by me as metaphor for all non Machinima people.
Nobody is offended here, I even like clarity of statement: “I don’t care about outside of Machinima viewer”. I couldn’t disagree more, but this is your opinion and OK, fine by me.
As I said, this professional or semi professional thing makes my first comment obsolete, almost stupid, but - let imagine we talk about making movies in general, let take for a moment some outside view - how this really sound to you: “Don’t blame me, blame tool”?
Can you imagine dentist saying this when he make some mistake? Why is anything different with movie makers? Or to give instructions to viewer what to look, what not? Come on…
I didn’t notice any eyelids problem, I am talking about principles.
And it is very, very important subject, never mind I picked wrong moment, wrong crew or wrong movie.
As usual.:)
Hi Tom. :) You’re too hard on yourself sometimes. I think you’re being understood here, and I’m not getting the impression anyone’s upset with your comments.
I do have a question for you though. You’ve been saying the pro issue is a reason you should maybe retract your comments. I’m not sure I’m understanding what the pro thing has to do with this particular situation; I don’t think the two things are connected (them using Valve’s model, Zach and Rob getting jobs at Bioware). Or are you alluding to the fact that they want to try to get this done before they make the move? Thus no time to create new model from scratch?
That *MAY* be the case, but I suspect the decision would have been the same regardless of job offers on the horizon, because it was a matter of making a choice in favor of efficiency rather than perfectionism, and they desired that efficiency of production long before Bioware came along. (Not wanting to put words in anyone’s mouth. Am I being accurate here, guys?)
yes , that’s an accurate assessment
Phil, I was under impression that their professional job is connected to Source. That they MUST work in Source. (loose track who working for whom, in what company, in what engine, sorry)
So I guess I must take my apologizes back? And what about my mum now?
Just kidding.
Of course they have no time to build new model, it is close to impossible to make one in Source but - and here lies my misunderstanding because they talk about Source as absolute must - there is no need to abandon engine or to reprogram one to correct some mistakes.
What about composting, different camera work, close ups of just mouth, over shoulder from back side of talking character shots, … and many other DIRECTING stuff and tricks, right to this unholy point: if your tool can’t do something, don’t do it.
I have enormous desire, not to mention full draw of materials, to shot car chase scene or massive medieval attack on castle, but my engine and my present knowledge of Anymation techniques cant provide this - so I want do it.
For now.
In my Wizard that submarine was under the water in first iteration but water looks bad so I made flying one - weeks of work went to garbage.
We, the authors are in charge, we are the bosses. No instructions to viewers what to and look what not, no “blame something else”, just… well… movie. If something isn’t right with our movie, it is only our author hand to blame.
I am feeling little uncomfortable talking about this as consequence of something in this movie, because I don’t see any problem in this movie, I wouldn’t change a thing - but come on guys,
it is also little uncomfortable for me to talk this basic, obvious stuff over and over and in same time sound like some exotic self righteous ass from another planet.
Are we entered - and I didn’t notice - atmosphere of “Every author have his own priorities” planet or “Author’s freedom under Engine Empire” universe?
OK, I am fine with that. Just point me in right direction so I can back home.
ah, I am so poetic, and this lousy English… blame the keyboard. :)
It would have been a little hard to have multiple shots of Jack, all excluding the top half of his face because people didn’t like his eyelids.
It would look even worse if he didn’t blink at all, that’s something that you would unconsciously pick up as being much more unnatural than a few growths of his lids.
Frankly, I didn’t even notice the eyelids the first time round and I usually pick apart these guys work looking for ways of improving my own filmmaking. Benchmarks and all that.
I don’t know what the fuss is with the eyes… Maybe if you would have given me a chance, I could have fixed the skin… If it is a texture problem.
I loved this film…But damn, I never knew some people had such short attention, one friend did not even watch it, to boring he says… :/
Damn Zach, between our emails and this page, you’ve been the midwife of a semi-philosophical debate on the very nature and purpose of art.
Take over the reins and drop in on it sometime.
Peace
I think you of all people know , I can only be philisophical on those long drives down the back roads of Altha.
Or when your drunk.
lol.
The two went hand in hand.