Questions For Machinima Makers
Hey, just curious about a few things... First, just so I know what you do personally, please tell me if you do music vids, movies, etc. XD Knowing what you do personally might help me get more clea...
Forum Discussion
Hi there, my name is All Harlow's Eve on youtube and I make sims 4 series. So they're individual episodes, which is relatively different from movies and music videos.
I'm rebranding my channel so I've just started a new youtube voice over series and I plan on making each episode approximately 20-25 episodes in length. I know to some that may be long, but it's what works best for the story I have written so I'm gonna stick with it. I take my series very seriously and I prefer to plan everything out in great depth. I've written 3 episodes of season 1 prior to filming anything and I've rewritten the episodes a few times so they all flow together nicely. I also prefer to make storyboards so I know what shots I want to take for each scene. I create characters, build locations, write episodes, and plan it all out before I start. I find this works best because if you just "go with the flow" you may end up writing yourself into a hole and just end up making it more difficult for yourself. This is just a personal opinion, just do whatever works best for you!
I do not make any of my own poses, but I do have experience with Blender. I just find there's already so many amazing poses and animations out there that I can just get creative with what's out there. Like I once used an animation of a sim jumping into bed and then reversed the same animation of the sim in my video editor to make it look like they climbed out of bed. You just have to think outside the box!
So I'm working on a voice over series and I use animations to get my sims to talk. I rarely use in game animations unless it's for something like a basic walk. There are SO many generic speaking animations out there, especially on youtube. A creator I really like for animations is BROKENSims.
I really don't have any tricks to get clips of my sims running, they usually run if you give them a far enough distance so I'll just set up camera angles where I know they'll pass by so I can record them. If you're interested though, there are running animations which may be easier to capture on camera.
I prefer not to use a lot of script mods in my game just because I already have so much CC installed and it takes a while to start up. Though I do have 3 specific mods I could not live with out: Andrew's Pose Player (I mainly use animations so this is a requirement), NoBlu and No Glo (two lighting mods that make your game and videos so much prettier). I could not live without all my CC, it makes everything look so much more realistic.
Okay so I'm kind of the worst with copy written music as I kinda just use a small portion of a song in my video and then pray it doesn't get taken down. Or I'll find covers on youtube of the songs I want to use and use those instead. Another option is to find original songs on youtube, I specifically love Miki Ratsula for this as she creates gorgeous music that sounds studio produced. For sound effects, you can download royalty free sound effects from many different websites and this is what I usually do. I find they're not quite as strict on sound effects as they are on music.
For me personally, along with many other youtube based machinima makers, I upload a short casting call video to youtube. This is helpful to get the word out about your channel and notify your subscribers about an upcoming film, series, etc. A simple formula for a casting call video includes these aspects: List of Characters, the lines for each character you want people to record for their audition (this is usually 2-5, I stick with 3, lines that potential voice actors audition with), an e-mail they can send their auditions to, and a due date for the auditions to be in by if applicable. I also upload a casting call to castingcall.club which is a hub for Voice Actors and Machinima directors to interact and hold auditions. I can't like anything as I'm a new member, but feel free to check out The Key Sims 4 Voice Over Series Casting Call if you want to see an example of a casting call. I tend to look for voice actors who can display a wide array of emotions. This is why sometimes picking the perfect audition lines is the most vital step. I've never had someone cancel mid-story (thank goodness). Also if you don't think someone displayed the right emotion on an audition line or maybe you want to give them new lines to record so you can see what else they can do, feel free! I e-mail so many people who audition back with additional lines because I need to know if they're capable of doing a variety of emotions.
Overall, my advice is this. STAY ORGANIZED. Especially if you plan on doing a voice over series or film. Document who has auditioned and what you liked or didn't like about their voice and if you have an idea of who they could be good at playing. This will save you SO much time in the long run. Especially if you have 40 people auditioning. Also, if you wanna look professional, download a free script writing program like Celtx to format your films or videos properly. This looks good to your voice actors and they'll want to stay on the project if they see you're committed. Also, DO NOT get ahead of yourself. I've done this so many times. Don't open a casting call if you have not fleshed out the idea of the series/film, the characters, etc. It can make voice actors not want to audition for any of your future projects if you're known for cancelling your projects mid-way through. And as someone who voice acts, THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ME SEVERAL TIMES. Even AFTER I have received a role and it is very disheartening. I hope all of this was helpful. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I love talking about this stuff.
I'm rebranding my channel so I've just started a new youtube voice over series and I plan on making each episode approximately 20-25 episodes in length. I know to some that may be long, but it's what works best for the story I have written so I'm gonna stick with it. I take my series very seriously and I prefer to plan everything out in great depth. I've written 3 episodes of season 1 prior to filming anything and I've rewritten the episodes a few times so they all flow together nicely. I also prefer to make storyboards so I know what shots I want to take for each scene. I create characters, build locations, write episodes, and plan it all out before I start. I find this works best because if you just "go with the flow" you may end up writing yourself into a hole and just end up making it more difficult for yourself. This is just a personal opinion, just do whatever works best for you!
I do not make any of my own poses, but I do have experience with Blender. I just find there's already so many amazing poses and animations out there that I can just get creative with what's out there. Like I once used an animation of a sim jumping into bed and then reversed the same animation of the sim in my video editor to make it look like they climbed out of bed. You just have to think outside the box!
So I'm working on a voice over series and I use animations to get my sims to talk. I rarely use in game animations unless it's for something like a basic walk. There are SO many generic speaking animations out there, especially on youtube. A creator I really like for animations is BROKENSims.
I really don't have any tricks to get clips of my sims running, they usually run if you give them a far enough distance so I'll just set up camera angles where I know they'll pass by so I can record them. If you're interested though, there are running animations which may be easier to capture on camera.
I prefer not to use a lot of script mods in my game just because I already have so much CC installed and it takes a while to start up. Though I do have 3 specific mods I could not live with out: Andrew's Pose Player (I mainly use animations so this is a requirement), NoBlu and No Glo (two lighting mods that make your game and videos so much prettier). I could not live without all my CC, it makes everything look so much more realistic.
Okay so I'm kind of the worst with copy written music as I kinda just use a small portion of a song in my video and then pray it doesn't get taken down. Or I'll find covers on youtube of the songs I want to use and use those instead. Another option is to find original songs on youtube, I specifically love Miki Ratsula for this as she creates gorgeous music that sounds studio produced. For sound effects, you can download royalty free sound effects from many different websites and this is what I usually do. I find they're not quite as strict on sound effects as they are on music.
For me personally, along with many other youtube based machinima makers, I upload a short casting call video to youtube. This is helpful to get the word out about your channel and notify your subscribers about an upcoming film, series, etc. A simple formula for a casting call video includes these aspects: List of Characters, the lines for each character you want people to record for their audition (this is usually 2-5, I stick with 3, lines that potential voice actors audition with), an e-mail they can send their auditions to, and a due date for the auditions to be in by if applicable. I also upload a casting call to castingcall.club which is a hub for Voice Actors and Machinima directors to interact and hold auditions. I can't like anything as I'm a new member, but feel free to check out The Key Sims 4 Voice Over Series Casting Call if you want to see an example of a casting call. I tend to look for voice actors who can display a wide array of emotions. This is why sometimes picking the perfect audition lines is the most vital step. I've never had someone cancel mid-story (thank goodness). Also if you don't think someone displayed the right emotion on an audition line or maybe you want to give them new lines to record so you can see what else they can do, feel free! I e-mail so many people who audition back with additional lines because I need to know if they're capable of doing a variety of emotions.
Overall, my advice is this. STAY ORGANIZED. Especially if you plan on doing a voice over series or film. Document who has auditioned and what you liked or didn't like about their voice and if you have an idea of who they could be good at playing. This will save you SO much time in the long run. Especially if you have 40 people auditioning. Also, if you wanna look professional, download a free script writing program like Celtx to format your films or videos properly. This looks good to your voice actors and they'll want to stay on the project if they see you're committed. Also, DO NOT get ahead of yourself. I've done this so many times. Don't open a casting call if you have not fleshed out the idea of the series/film, the characters, etc. It can make voice actors not want to audition for any of your future projects if you're known for cancelling your projects mid-way through. And as someone who voice acts, THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ME SEVERAL TIMES. Even AFTER I have received a role and it is very disheartening. I hope all of this was helpful. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I love talking about this stuff.
