I recently had an opportunity to speak with 0THELLA, the Editor of MAGE Magazine. For those who have yet to read the magazine or watch the videos produced by this talented group of Second Life artists, MAGE Magazine is a fantasy and science fiction genre magazine featuring stories presented in comic book form. They also produce machinima videos and help artists that are new to Second Life to learn about the mechanics of virtual photography.
Thomson : Thank you for meeting with me, I know you have a busy schedule.
0THELLA : My pleasure Ian, you’ve done so much to bring awareness to MAGE Magazine with the Ozymandius interviews that I feel spending a few moments to talk with you is the least I can do.
Thomson : I’m glad I could help.
0THELLA : If I may, could I begin this interview by issuing a mission statement?
Thomson : Be my guest.
0THELLA : MAGE Magazine is a group that was formed to give artists, new to Second Life, a place where they can develop their techniques and share their ideas. In a way, the MAGE Magazine group is a lot like a classroom in which the students learn from each other. We all have our own unique experiences in Second Life and in real life. These experiences influence our style and the techniques we use to create. I’ve encountered Second Life artists who keep the process by which they work a closely guarded secret. But, once you understand the basics of Second Life photography you realize that there is no big secret as to how these artists create wonderful images. A lot of it has to do with the experience of experimenting with different techniques and finding the right location and subjects to take your snapshot. There are some members of our team that rely entirely on the camera’s windlight settings to produce breath taking images while others rely heavily on photoshop to touch up, generate special effects or distort their images. In Second Life it also helps if you are a builder, or know someone who can build statues, clothes, props and other objects to use for creating your images. Because most of our production team are new to Second Life, this is a component that is missing. Of course there is Andressa DePrims who has done a great job building sets for us but, without taking anything away from Andressa’s hard work, a lot of what we use are freebie or dollarbie items from the marketplace that have modify permissions. As the editor of MAGE Magazine it is my responsibility to find sponsors to help finance the magazine, so that we can provide our photographers with the lindens to buy quality clothes, props and other items.
Thomson : Wow, that’s quite the mission statement. So would you say that the difference between a great Second Life photographer and a mediocre photographer is determined by the amount of money they spend creating a set, or purchasing a statue or clothes for the models?
0THELLA : It definitely helps to be able to afford to hire a builder to custom make objects for a scene you want to shoot, unfortunately most of the builders I’ve encountered expect to be paid rates we simply can’t afford. I’ve tried to negotiate deals in which MAGE Magazine would advertise the builder’s products so they could sell it in the marketplace, but everyone I’ve met with expects to be paid up front. So the benefit of wroking as a team is that each member of the group explores different sims in SL, so sometimes, you don’t need to build or buy a statue, if there is a sim that already has it. By de-rendering objects that you don’t want in the frame or by adjusting the windlight or draw range, you can create your own background. We also have backdrops that you can attach to a part of your avatars body, and, as long as your avatar doesn’t move you can edit and rotate the backdrop into a position behind your subject. So, for example, the ALDO the ALIEN episode where I wake up from ALDO’s nightmare and find him lying in bed next to me was shot in a furniture store. The beds where very expensive, over a 1000 lindens each and I was only going to use it for 2 shots so, Andressa, who was playing ALDO lay in the bed then attached a small wall to her head, then rotated it and moved the wall so that it appeared to be the wall of the bedroom, when in fact, we were in a large show room with several pieces of furniture and advertising billboards in the back ground.
Thomson : That’s very innovative, although some might say a little unethical, photographing objects that don’t belong to you.
0THELLA : Second Life photography is a very popular form of expression. People take photos in night clubs and strip clubs and it wouldn’t surprise me if there are some peeping Toms who take snapshots or videos of people having virtual sex. A word to the wise, you can de-render another avatar’s mesh clothes, so unless you have an alpha layer covering your swimsuit areas, you might want to consider wearing system undergarments. But getting back to the ethics of using someone else’s sim to create images, if a sim owner or a store owner doesn’t want their inventory photographed, then they should put a “No photography” sign at the teleport landing area. If anything, because the MAGE Magazine photographers choose the best angles and take the time to create an attractive lighting set up, the sims look better in our magazine then they do in Second Life. The same can be said of a lot of the clothes that our models wear, they look better in our magazine then they do on the marketplace images used to advertise these clothes. So we’re doing the sim owners and the builders a favour by making their products look good.
Thomson : If you had an unlimited budget, would you prefer to create your own studio and shoot all your scenes in the studio?
0THELLA : Yes, this is what we’ve done with some of the sets that Andressa built. However I’m the kind of person who is inspired by exploration. Part of the writing process comes from wandering through different sims and seeing something that looks interesting. For example, the choice to set the Saga of LADY DOM in a medieval setting comes from the fact that there seems to be an infinite amount of Gorean and Medieval role playing sims in Second Life. So by allowing the virtual environment, the work of other builders and sim owner, to inspire me, the stories and the presentation of these stories becomes more organic, because I’m not just portraying my own vision of a virtual world, I’m portraying a collective vision.