The Dark is a six episode anthology series.  Six stories by six authors which explore the theme of The Dark.  

The scripts were picked by an OWC that took place right here at Simply Scripts.

This episode is called Issues and it's written by Pia Cook.  If you'd like to read the script, you can read it here.

Longing for love, can make you do bad things.



Don't forget to LIKE The Dark on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Dark/137592462958475

Pretty good, pretty, pretty good.

To be honest when I saw some of your threads and bits of this Machinima stuff you have been playing with I was a little dubious, I couldn't see it turning into much at all.

I was wrong, this is good, well done Pia, and everyone else involved. Well done Mr. C., you have done a very decent job here. It is clear you have put some real effort into this and it shows.

That was absolutely awesome!!!

Well done MC, Pia and crew.

At times it was like watching, um, well, not a real short because it stil looked animated, but, something more...

The voices sounded so rich, they gave it an added boost, to push it beyond a machinima.
Does that make sense?

The balck and white suited it perfectly, giving it that noir look. And when the colour used - red - appeared, it heightened the effect.

This project is really something special!

Cheers stevie

PS - how do i save the link, Michael? If I wanna show it to friends?

Quoted from stevie PS - how do i save the link, Michael? If I wanna show it to friends?

The direct link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKCRNEge3tE

Don

That was great! The direction was fab. Nice use of music and even the slow mo at the end Michael.

Pia, Girl, you can act. Am completely impressed by how this came out. I'll admit, was way above my expectations.

Great job all of you....

James

Quoted from mcornetto The Dark is a six episode anthology series.  Six stories by six authors which explore the theme of The Dark.   The scripts were picked by an OWC that took place right here at Simply Scripts.

Where is that old thread, by the way?

This was really great, from the script to the animation to the sexy doctor voice.

Good to finally see a quality-made machinima video here on the boards.


Phil

Hey, guys.
That was very good.

Michael, having fooled around with making several couple-minute shenanigans at xtranormal.com I can truly appreciate how much hair-splitting work and rework and rework and tinkering that goes into what you've done here.
Admirable.
And there are six of these, eh?

Pia, is that your voice?
Goodness.
It's good. I like it. Sounds like a casual, female version of the tape recording Schwarzenegger used in True Lies. It's nice.

(Not so sure about the receptionist's dialog delivery, though.)  :-)

And the music was great, too.
Good selection and sensible voice vs. music level mix.
(Around 30% to 35% for the music, mostly?)

About how many hours is invested into this production?

********************

Darren -  
FEB OWC 2010
http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-feb10/

Hey all, thanks for watching.

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley Where is that old thread, by the way?

I think this might be the thread you mean...

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-feb10/m-1266780228/s-0/

It's amusing, I just gave it a read.

Quoted from RayW And there are six of these, eh? Pia, is that your voice? (Not so sure about the receptionist's dialog delivery, though.)  :-) About how many hours is invested into this production?

There will be seven.  There's an extra one that's sort of a special.  I'm about two-thirds through the December one.  But I'm a bit worried about getting all the music I need so it might be delayed.  Help me get music everyone!

Yes, that's Pia.  She's also in Computer Girl which is a series you can see on my You Tube channel.

The receptionist has a lot of VA experience and she also makes her share of Machinima.  Most people seem to not like her voice for some reason.  But I thought it was the perfect voice for an older unremarkable receptionist.   I still do.  When I asked her to do the part, I asked her to do it like Della Street.  I think she nailed it.  

This stuff is taking a lot of hours. More than I really expected because I have to do mods for the program and those involve quite a bit of trial and error.  Plus I'm doing much more than I usually do with the puppets in order to get them to act a bit so set up of the gestures is pretty slow.  As time goes on I seem to be getting more into a groove with it and so it might be going faster than it did in the beginning.

MC,

I liked this one a lot.  You captured THE DARK atmosphere very well.  I especially liked the close-up of the patient and the stealth placement of the red rose in her office.  Nice touches to an excellent project.  Not sure about the voicing of a doctor in the beginning, it was kind of soft.  The patient' s voice was very strong.  The receptionist voicing was odd until I realized she was supposed to old.  I liked looking down the gun barrel at the end.

Gary

Great job Michael! We all know the sheer amount of devotion and time you've poured into this project, so it must be fantastic to finally see the first episode online.

A terrific start, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series (particularly Episode 3, for some reason!).

Just watched it - It's perfect! Very nice job! And I think that goes to everyone involved.

I haven't followed that OWC production threads, I know there should be several more, have they been already produced? I'll browse some more, if they all are like this one they are definitely worth seeing.

Nicely done by one and all!

It all comes together and I didn't see the end coming.
I enjoyed Pia's voice, reminded me of Genvieve Bujold.
I even think there's a movie or two where she plays a shrink.
I did think the patient's voice seemed recorded at a different level than hers.
However, my hearing isn't great and it seemed to correct itself later.
My roommate is an animator and game designer, so I know it takes lots of hours!

Looking forward to more, thanks lots for sharing!

Regards,
E.D.

I think Cornetto did a great job on this!

I can't wait to watch the other ones.

...and yeah...I was concentrating on not sounding too weird which people usually tell me I do.  ;D

In all the times we've spoken, I never thought you sounded weird.


Phil

Did that jogger call Pia "old cow"? That jogger got what she deserved.  ;D

Well done guys. Congratulations.

Thanks for watching all.   Remember to tell your friends to watch.  This business is built by word of link so get your linking fingers moving.

And BTW Babz reckons Pia would do great VO.  I agree.  

Just a note that Machinima.com has finally posted Issues.  It's actually a different version than the one you have seen.   Can you spot the differences?

http://www.youtube.com/user/machinima#p/u/4/fTb6eyn9LuU

I am extremely impressed by this. First off, I want to say that I completely "get" the odd sound of the receptionist's voice in the beginning. Or at least I think I do. I remember hearing this kind of voice I think in an old Frankenstein type show or something like that? Am I correct?

Anyways, it to me, is the foreshadowing of "the evil doctor" scenario. What I felt in this piece was the tone that came over perfectly. Nothing external overshadows the internal struggles that were going on inside these characters' heads. Also too, I think the fact that this is computer generated, lends a kind of unemotional quality to it even though we're dealing with emotion and I think that makes it completely interesting to analyze.

I remember reading the draft script and I didn't like the crutch that the doctor had. It felt like too much. I'm glad to see that gone.

It might have been nice to see the doctor "try" a little harder at being received by her patient. She does check her face in the mirror, but I'm not sure that that's enough.

What makes this unique is Pia's quiet voice, probing, as it were, into the mind of her patient. As this takes place, although the audience attention is intended to be fixed on the patient, they're driven to pay attention more to the doctor. Why? The sound. This is perfect in my opinion. What the audience is "seeing" with their eyes, focused on and what they are "working" with their ears is different.

I can imagine how much work went into this production. Wow! And I bet there are more secrets inside besides that red rose. ;

Sandra

I just checked out the Machinima channel. Some of the lovely comments were...

"whats up with the voice of the therapist?"

"wtf, is wrong with that chick's nose?"

;D ;D ;D

But then there were comments like

"Ooooh, what a twist!"
"that was really good."

All and all I think the commenters are being really nice to The Dark.  Though one wonders where this guys head is at.

"where are the sex scenes? Oo"

I loved it, and I particularly loved Pia's voice-work -- she is nutty to think it is anything but excellent.

I also noticed the therapists nose (prior to reading the comment above), but I think it is appropriate, because (I think) she is supposed to be "unattractive" -- although I have to admit I did not really get that from the character.

She seemed kind of cute, particularly with that sultry accent haha.

Marvelous work, Cornetto.  I am so impressed.  Really.

And how neat that Pia got to perform lines she had actually written.

Did you enjoy having that kind of control, Pia, or did it only increase the pressure -- knowing that as writer and performer, any bad lines would pretty much be "all your fault"?

Quoted from bert I also noticed the therapists nose (prior to reading the comment above), but I think it is appropriate, because (I think) she is supposed to be "unattractive" -- although I have to admit I did not really get that from the character. Did you enjoy having that kind of control, Pia, or did it only increase the pressure -- knowing that as writer and performer, any bad lines would pretty much be "all your fault"?

The version of Moviestorm that I built this with has no "unattractive" women - not even the older ones - so unfortunately I did my best on that score.  The newest version of Moviestorm does allow for unattractive women, unfortunately it came out after I was already well into this project and I couldn't easily change the Doctor.

The voice actors give me three interpretations of each line and I pick the one I like.  So while she might have had some control over it, it was ultimately my choice.  

Very well done, everyone. Quite impressive.

I do think Pia's voice was too quiet at first.  It sounded off and a bit odd.  Later, though, it was excellent.

I also think the doctor's looks were too good for what she was supposed to look like.  This was a detriment to the story, but if it was unavoidable, what more can you do?

Nice job!!

Very impressive. It played out exactly how I envisioned it when I was reading the script like half a year ago.

Well done!

Allllright!  ;D I've been waiting to see this!

Very good job, everyone!

Pia, I think your voice was perfect for the doctor. A little quiet at first (were you trying to be quiet at home?)  ;D but very, very good, my friend.

I also liked the doctor's last line. Made me chuckle.

I can't wait to see the rest of them.

Congrats!

Cindy

Hey Guys,

Just checked this out, and thought it was pretty damn cool.  Nice job.

Pia, for what it's worth, I thought the voice work was excellent, and like Phil said, pretty sexy.

I guess I'd agree with Dreamscale in that I thought the Doc could have been made a little more homely.  Then again, that may say more about me than anything else as I'm critiquing (sp.) the looks of a machinima.  Whatevs, don't judge me!

Craig

Thanks!  :)

Anyway, I'm bumping this only because I had a link to it on my personal family YT channel and my husband told me to get rid of that link because it was too adult and all our family and friends would be offended............................

I've told them, if I die not to read my stuff!!   ;D

Really?!? He thought they would be offended?  For this innocent little script?  

You better make sure they don't read your other stuff. :-)

Quoted from mcornetto Really?!? He thought they would be offended?  For this innocent little script?   You better make sure they don't read your other stuff. :-)

If people are offended by that, then I'm definitely not going down to the basement and digging up... No, that makes me really scared. I'm going easy on the pepper. Salt wins.

Sandra