Machininamator Thoughts
There is really nothing like seeing a new video by Remi Marocelli to realize that, despite being a Machinima Master, that you have a long way to go. Some people just have crazy talent and the rest of us need to work at it a bit. His latest offering is a Sims rendition of a classic movie scene from The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro.
I watch videos like this, and videos from some of those awarded Machinima Master here at SimsFilmFest like SimsBerrry and Majestic Keys and Vanity Films and some of those who I am sure are are well on their way to Masters like Aaron Issac Berry and Pearlareign and ZeeGee, and wish that I could create these kinds of beautiful works. I envy the storytelling abilities of so many people. They weave these amazing stories with incredible characters and bring them to life in The Sims.
Meanwhile I’m over here writing stories with conspiracy theories about aliens communicating with chipmunks through lawn gnomes to have them make crop circles, and stories about a cop who becomes a superhero because of a zipper malfunction and getting stuck in his Comic Con costume, how a sea monster legend established a town, and wondering what would happen if someone found a yeti and interviewed them. Oh, and let’s not forget about stopping a zombie apocalypse with cow plants. There is a sequel to that one in the works.
Believe me, I know that a lot of people can’t write that kind of stuff. Part of me wants to say “You have to go with your strengths”, but is it really a ‘strength’? I’ve just always seen it as This Thing I Do™.
The weird stuff flows out of me like a river out of control. I can’t stop it. Sometimes I wish I could. I want nothing more to make just one machinima – ONE MACHINIMA – that people can get behind and trigger the feels and say, “That was amazing!” Instead of well devolved characters that grown through a story, I create characters like these two: a director with projects like Drag Queen Slumber Party, Iron Chef: Cannibal, and Dating App Horror Story under his belt and an anthropology major working on a senior thesis titled When Nutella Runs Out: Surviving Isolation in a Quarantined Disaster Area. And then there is Chaos Davies, who is probably trying to live up to her name. She’s a nature documentary host who’s projects are part truth, part extraordinary theory, and part…chaos. Even I wonder sometimes how she has her job. I have trouble finding voice actors because my projects are “too weird”. Yes, I’ve been told that more than once. No one ever watches my projects and tells me “I wish I could make something that weird” because no one wants to be The Weirdo™. No one wants to be told that something they spent weeks of work on and poured their heart and soul into that it’s weird. And yet, here I am.
Even when I try to do something serious, it turns into a parody of what it was supposed to be heavily laced with satire. It just happens, like allergy season. I’m afraid that is what is going to happen with this It’s Mostly Sandy in Oasis Springs project. I am trying to do something that is less unconventional and idiosyncratic with this project and I fear I am going to fail, that just because it’s been born in my brain it’s already covered in weird juice and there is no sanitizing it. How in the world did I ever make Masters?
