That immense, unmeasurable love
Goes beyond anything
Goes beyond wherever I go
Beyond what I am, my pain
My Line of Equator
That's just a literal translation of one verse of one of my favourite songs ever,
Linha do Equador. Now I might as well talk about my personal thoughts and emotions here, because, really....
Ravi Redfield is a pleasant singularity in the adult arts scene.
Nobody like her makes my work so easy and comes so close to what would be my ideal: she is incredibly eager to share (via
her blog) with the community the inspiration, motives, thoughts that are behind her movies.
The interactions with the actors, the story of their casting in one role or the other.
The story of what happened, to make the movie what it is.
Still, her work speaks by itself, and speaks strongly. It was like that in her
debut movie, from that joyous ode to life that its very opening is, to the multiform, and sometimes duplicitous, nature of the feelings involved in
Onyx Blaze.
In this movie, actually, Ravi 'speaks' (with the voice of the premier voice actress in our scene, Leannan Wolfgang), giving us in the opening narration the tone of the movie.
"Greetings, my name is Ravi.
Since mankind existed, we have built relationships , communities and societies.
City states were founded, empires and nations, but all this is based on 2 people that find each other and live together.
In all ages there are more than one combination between a man and a woman.
Let me invite you to a journey of relationships that shows the most common these days."
Ravi's journey spans between 5 scenes, with a heterosexual couple, a lesbian couple, a gay couple, a transgender one, and ends in a polyamorous 'family'. Every scene has points of interest and subtle nuances in the way it is portrayed.
One bit I am quoting, to exemplify the thoughtful yet spontaneous esprit that animated Ravi putting together the movie...
" The last sequence with visual effects is the transgender couple. When I was editing it the records appear too blurry to me. And the loud sounds of a big city seemed not to fit. I tried some effects and after minutes I found out that it would be best to sharpen all the scenes. Transgender are not a blurry image.
They are real and live upon us in Second Life. I always wanted to show that transgenders are not fuck dolls or always horny. It was my main concern in this part to show them like every human. Sensitive, seeking for love and harmony.
It was the only one time where Ravi take an active part when they were dancing. Maybe it is only my imagination, but I also wanted to show, that to be naked between transgenders is a full natural thing. So is having sex. That's why she sit close to Erika and Phoenix while they had pleasure. To make all the scenes sharp has to focus the watcher how clear transgender see their own body. That they accept and enjoy it all what they are. There are no genders, only human beings."
I especially appreciated this role of Ravi as 'narrator', and it made me indeed smile how she sorta turned the table by being part of the aforementioned scene. Which I found quite appropriate, at that point of the movie. There's a beautiful irony, i believe, in how varied are the options, and how liquid the roles can be, in SL especially.
Watch the movie. It's a movie with feeling and a message not hammered down your throat : a journey made in SL through a lot of potential situations you have almost surely met here in SL, with the opennes that marks this world. It has the sexual flow of a Ravi movie, who can somehow handle the naughtiest and most prurient situations with the same candor of her fluffy tail.
And it's a murder mystery ! ...ok , ok, I made that one up.
I thoroughly enjoyed it: I had the luck of also being a part of it, but Ravi said already better than I could, how the mood on set was, and in general how she works, what she needs in the movie, how she shoots. From my own perspective, I can only add that the shooting was to me a total breeze. We had the look sorted in advance - I appreciate a lot a director's input on that- and my partner in the scene Mels was as Ravi said, her pleasant and fun self that most people in the group know, but also very professional and helped with competence with every little 'challenge'. A real pleasure working with them both, and being part of it was something really special.
Below lies the movie! Featuring Ravi Redfield, Talisker Braveheart, Iris Sweet, Katina Cazalet, Melanie Oryl, Crow Mistwalker, Robin Rondini, Erika Thorkveld, Phoenix Sparks, Yana Grau, Mirko Panacek, Leannan and James Wolfgang, and way too many party guests to name them all, it IS one to watch, so do it, enjoy it, read Ravi's blog post about it!
Thanks!
