dicreasy2 | Interlude out-takes and behind the scenes

Well the interlude is done, and that means that it is that time again when I share my thoughts and some picspam from the making of it. If you've not read Vicky's interlude, I suggest you do so before clicking on the cut, since this does contain items of a spoilery nature. :)

Ok so where to start? Probably why I did this is a good place.

Why do the interlude?

I wrote the interlude for several reasons. Firstly, both Vicky's siblings have had their turn in the spotlight. Eddie because he is obviously the heir and his continuing story arc has been the main event for generation four, and Alexandra had a very large part of generation four's university time allotted to her with the storyline involving Joe and Anthony. I really didn't want the baby of the main house to fade into the background or for anyone to feel they hadn't got to know and cheer for her at some point in her life. It was a case of working out how and when.

The idea of setting Vicky up as a detective of some sort came to me at the beginning of the year sort of time. It really did just appear in my head one day and I knew as soon as it did that I really wanted to do it, it was a case of when.

That's kinda where the second reason for doing the interlude comes in. I've been pretty...apathetic about playing this year, although I'm not entirely sure I can put my finger on exactly why. Part of it might be because I've had various things going on in real life, which, although not exactly earth shattering, have left me feeling tired and not really like ploughing on and making progress with a computer game. In addition, I've been feeling a bit burnt out with having to spend so much of my free time slogging through my rotation in order to try to keep to my aim of getting a chapter out a month. I didn't feel like I had time to do anything but play Regalton, and the fun was starting to wane. I wanted to do something that didn't demand playing the neighbourhood, and so I played an asylum challenge in a different neighbourhood, and wrote a completely staged story for this one.

The third reason links into the feeling that I was playing all the time: there are a couple of events coming up in the neighbourhood that I am really not looking forward to, namely the deaths of William and Beth. I've snuck a look in SimPe and I know they have only 6 days left each, and that is not enough. I adore the pair of them, and I've been putting off playing them for a bit to delay the inevitable. Silly I know, but I've been playing William for over 2 years and Beth for very nearly 2, and my game is not going to be the same without them.

Plotz? Plotz!

So it became inevitable that I was going to do something with Vicky as a detective, and I very quickly realised that Rosie would make the perfect partner for her. The two of them had become very close at university, and their characters really compliment each other, so I knew they would be able to bring individual strengths to an investigation. What I needed now was a case for them to investigate.

I quickly discounted a murder, since I wanted the idea that they weren't getting much business and thought a murder would be far too high profile a case for them to investigate. Missing pearls or other jewellery was something else I considered and discounted, even though it got a quick mention at the beginning of the case.

Inspiration struck as I was sorting for a chapter and found the pictures I had taken the day Celestia was conceived. You see I came up with the idea that Theo would be duped into riding a dance sphere and getting pregnant as an explanation for Celestia's birth. It never made it into a chapter since I couldn't work it in without it feeling shoe horned in, but I kept the pictures, and left the community lot I had shot them on as it was.

Yes that is Lum and Lew. The reason they were chosen as the scientists that tricked Theo into the dance sphere is very simple. I filmed this on a community lot, before Operation Victorianise Everyone, and before I discovered Pescado's clothing hack. Lum and Lew were the only two townies who turned up in Victorian clothing, so they got shanghaied into being the scientists.

I reshot the abduction pictures, but the others are all from the time Celly was conceived and born.

One advantage of desaturating them to show them as memories was that it disguised the fact this was before I made my alien skintone so Celly is a slightly different colour.

The story Theo told in the interlude, was exactly the one I was going to use in a chapter, right down to the scientists badgering Theo after Celly's birth. The fact that there would be people interested in Celestia because of what she is, got me thinking and wondering about someone kidnapping her because she is green.

That was my starting point, but the rest of the plot came to me piecemeal over the course of about seven or eight months. Partly, that's because I wasn't really thinking about it. At least I didn't sit down and brainstorm the entire outline until after I'd finished the asylum. Instead scenes would just pop into my head at random intervals. Which, come to think about it, is how I normally work. Anyway, it was 2 of the scenes that popped into my head that cemented an idea I'd been toying with.

Starry, starry night.

I didn't really want Celly to be the only sim kidnapped, but there is a distinct lack of green children in my game, so I'd been thinking about adding a few guest stars. My list was very tentative, when the scene where Vicky meets Dean on the street while he is looking for Derri came to me. I knew right then, I had to ask Stacie to borrow her boys, and I'm so glad I did.

Likewise, the scene with Pipi and Myotis looking up through the window came to me practically as it appeared in the interlude. The only thing I changed was the direction the picture was taken from since I couldn't get my original idea to have the impact I wanted.

I'd really envisioned being able to see the stars through the window, and the angle looking up more, but I really couldn't get it to work, so I reversed it to the shot of looking down at the twins through the window.

The other alien guest stars came pretty easy after that, with their families coming along for the ride, and I found I was ending up with far more guests than I'd planned. Not that that stopped me from continuing to add more because I felt like it.

Just in case any of you have been living on Mars since the conclusion of Marina's BC for Elle, and haven't realised it, yes Ellie is moving to Regalton to be with Stuart., because, eeeeeeeee they're soooo sweet together and I have much love for the two of them. I've been thinking a lot about their relationship, how they will meet and how it will develop. It is still very much a work in progress, but I loved the idea of her and Stuart nearly meeting in this as children.

Everyone else came to me as I was writing because I thought it would be nice to have a mix of my townies and downtownies and legacy sims people might recognise.

Moar plotz.

Once I sat down and worked on my outline, all the pieces came together pretty easily There were a couple of things I got a bit stumped with how to resolve, but for the most part it went well. Behold 2 pages of my outline:

This covers from tea at Gil's to Louisa, Peter and Andrew leaving the office, and contains a fair amount of brainstorming.

One thing I knew right from the start was that I wanted Vicky's instincts to be key to solving the case. I also wanted them to be not brilliant at what they were doing, since it was their first case and I wanted them to be learning as they went along. I would hope I managed to get that across. Of course there was that element of luck too, because it was an opportunistic crime and the kidnappers had no connection to the families of the children. They saw them around Simdon, followed the family, and when the opportunity was right, snatched the children. That luck with solving a case is present in real life police work, so I felt I could get away with it.

I also knew that there had to be a red herring, in this case I went with Lum and Lew. Mikey wondered what happened with them, but they are innocent, and will probably try to get funding for their research again, but they won't be bothering the family at all.

The real reason behind the kidnapping was more problematic, but I remembered how popular freak shows became in the era, and thought that an unscrupulous owner of one would probably be willing to pay good money for a selection of alien children who could be made to perform and bring the crowds in.

Writin'

As a lot of you know, I approached writing this the opposite way to how I normally write. Usually I'll have ideas for scenes planned out in my head, often including dialogue. I'll then shoot them, but not actually write anything down, other than a rough outline, until I'm writing the entire chapter, which will also contain gameplay shots. This time I knew I was going to be working on something that would need to be entirely staged, so I wanted a shooting script to help me make sure that I got everything I needed.

I have to say there are advantages and disadvantages of working both ways. Having a shooting script made sure I didn't have to go back and reshoot things because I was missing a shot, or the tone of the scene had changed slightly as I wrote so the picture I had didn't fit quite as well as I wanted it to. It also allowed me to be more aware of what each picture needed to look like, so my staging and posing of sims was done with slightly more care than usual. Not that I'm careless or don't give it much thought normally you understand, just having written something like:

Vicky watched Theo raise his cup to his lips, noticing that his hands were shaking slightly. Rosie had been right, their cousin was unsettled about something. She stole a glance at Doc, who was staring at the tan liquid in her cup, as if she had never seen a cup of tea before in her life.

made me want to stage Theo and Doc drinking from fine china, whereas working my normal way, I might have had them sitting on the other side of the desk, their teacups sitting on the desk untouched, because the idea for their actions might not have come to me yet.

On the other hand, having the pictures in front of me often inspires little things. For example this picture:

completely inspired me to write Stuart fidgeting because of the starch in his collar. No idea why I was inspired to do that, but I was, and I doubt I would have been if something in this picture (perhaps the expressions on all three sims' faces) had sparked that thought.

I think I'll be sticking with the method I've been using up until now, but I certainly won't rule out writing a shooting script for more involved scenes and projects in the future.

This interlude was an opportunity for me to lay the foundations to a few things that will be upcoming in the legacy itself, and especially develop the characters of generation five some more. Most of them are about to become teens, and what with Eddie' plot taking up so much space, I wanted to flesh the kiddies out a bit more and start introducing the people they will become. So in this you all got to see a glimpse of the very capable woman Bethany will be, always in the right place at the right time, with the right words. If she wasn't so darn self-effacing, she'd be annoying. You also saw the Christopher who's always slightly wrong and has to compromise in life. Also David who always tries to fit in, but really is better if he is his himself. Peter the sensitive soul who takes far too much responsibility for everything that happens around him. Andrew who is there to pick up the pieces when his brother loses it. Celestia, latest in a long line of bold and daring women in the family, and of course, these two:

I adore these two little boys so much, but I know that Bertie is only 2 days from becoming a teen, 2 days that will be very busy, and contain a holiday to be precise, so I wanted to show them interacting as children in this. I could talk for ages about them, so I'll try to be brief. Whereas Eddie and his siblings have had very separate plots, these two's will be intertwined. Key to their story is their relationship, so I started to put in things that will be developed as they grow and will hopefully pay off in the end, such as Bertie's dependence on others, and Stuart's fierce love and loyalty for his brother. One other thing that I did want to say about Bertie though, is please don't think that he is shy and timid in the way that he isn't sure of other people, because that couldn't be further from the truth. Bertie is actually maxed outgoing, and I'm using that in a different way to one I have before by having him need to be with people all the time.

Lights, camera , action.

Shooting this was exhausting, I'm not going to lie. It took me about a month to shoot both parts, and there were times it went incredibly, incredibly slowly. It was also frustrating at times.

Both Vicky and Rosie are very expressive and I had to shoot around all sorts of funny faces when I had them speaking.

They're also both pissed off at the burglar still. As is Louisa. So many times they would start grring over it.

This also kept happening if I placed someone who had been sitting in a chair onto an OMSP and onto another surface. Very annoying.

Getting angles right on a couple of lots was tough too, because there were things I really wanted to show clearly., but found it really difficult to do so.

I couldn't have made this without the freezerclock, various animation boxes, and SilentLucidity's new OMSPS.

I used the OMSPs to not only place items and props:

But sims too:

(Bonus shot of Stuart 'cos he's a cutie).

Even if I wasn't putting sims at angles, I used them a lot to get sims closer than the game normally allows without stacking them:

I mentioned animations boxes, the one I used and abused an awful lot was the OFB one by Jaydee.

Every time one of my sims was looking around looking lost, or was pondering something, or reaching for something, you can almost guarantee it was an OFB animation.

Shooting so much of the story at night was challenging because I had to keep it looking dark, but also add enough extra light so that you could see the sims' features. This was especially important with enlarging the pictures to put into a powerpoint and then converting that to a pdf, since I've found that, on my monitor at least, pictures in the finished pdf, look a lot darker and richer in colour than the original jpegs.

I tried to keep it subtle and natural. Oh and in case anyone is interested I shot all the night bits at 6.00 am in order to get round the child curfew.

Another thing I came across was sims turning up where I didn't want them, made worse by the fact that I was shooting on community lots most of the time. The worse lots were the less salubrious lots. With AL, the game is meant to send the different social groups to different lots according to the lot's class. Doesn't affect townies, downtownies and playables. Several sims found themselves being given makeovers so that they didn't resemble their normal selves at all:

This is Abigail, Theo's aunt, Violet and Thomas's daughter. She turned up when I was setting up for the inn, but left almost as soon as I made her over. She turned up on another lot, and got posed underneath a lamp-post.

Henry kept walking into shot, so he got made over like this:

Mwhahahah.

This is my Ramin Centowski clone from William's plot, with Abhijeet in the background.

It's also how Jan Tellerman got made over to become Lilly. I want to say that until someone mentioned it in my thread at Boolprop, it didn't even enter my head that this is the same hairstyle Lark's simself wears. I just liked it and thought it suited Jan. I'm really sorry if anyone thought she was Lark, because I would never, ever do anything like that to someone's simself. I was thinking about creating a character, and didn't realise about the resemblance that character had to a simself when seen from a distance in dim lighting. I really do apologise.

Anyway, more sims turning up where I didn't want them:

At the Inn, Jamie and Marielle ended up playing cards together and I realised that Jamie's blush is radio-active.

At Lum and Lew's office while reshooting Theo's abduction. "Make him go away!"

No one is immune to Vox's charms.

Briggs turned up at Barsoom Road Market while I was shooting there.

Lew turned up at the H&M lot.

I did a lot of experimenting with camera angles and therefore ended up setting up a lot of things that didn't make it into the story.

Their expressions when they entered the inn.

The market and its traders.

Shooting in the carriages was really difficult. Outside the reflection on the carriage made it really difficult to see the sims inside.

The doors also don't open, so poor Alexandra had to stand like this.

I edited this pic to make it look like there was an open door behind Alexandra, rather than her being impaled.

I installed a camera hack a few months ago, and I'm still getting used to it. I do like it, but I've found it seems to do strange things to the perspective, even when I don't zoom in. Remember this pic?

Stuart and Bertie look really close don't they?

This is where they were actually standing:

I am getting used to it though.

We're getting to the random pictures now, and I thought that Cait might want a close up of Ed and Ein.

I also thought that Stacie might want a close up of all the pics in the Whedonberry home:

I had a lot of fun making these.

Last couple of things before I get really random.

I really wanted to show Larch talking to Andrew and noticing the children's injuries before making a comment and looking pointedly at Di, as a prelude to the fact that the Vetinaris would be beating the snot out of the baddies in the credits. I couldn't get it to work though, and so it got cut.

I had a few hacks I downloaded for my Halloween shoot still in the game, so I had a lot of wolves turn up on the lots. For the most part they were annoying only because they kept getting into shot. This one took it too far;

REALLY not happy with it. No one does that to my baby.

Cute pictures are cute. Oh and Celly and Ivan weren't friends at the time of the hug.

First thing Connor and Indy talk about when I teleport them onto the Harrison lot to shoot the last scenes?

"You rock the hat."

"I know."

Cass was in the tearoom, and he was covered in flour, but I cut his scene because I thought adding yet another green sim to the story was too much, so he was mentioned, but never seen.

I <3 Celestia.

*sigh* There are several reasons why I had Bertie injured in this, one of which was showing Stuart's reaction to it. The big one though, i can't talk about yet, but I will reassure everyone again, that Bertie makes a full recovery. He suffers from headaches for a bit, but physically he is fine, thanks in no small part to Rosie and her care of him.. See, having a doctor's daughter on the team is very handy.

I loved that Vicky found Ellie and started talking to her.

Towards the end of the shoot, I started to experience a few oddities and problems. They included A&A's lot freezing and crashing on me, and on one occasion I couldn't even get into it. I also had strange things happening on the factory lot. The social worker turned up, even though at all times I was shooting, at least one of the adults were unfrozen, and time was stopped so the kids weren't skipping school. Then I forgot to freeze time one day, and when the sun came up all the kids cheered. Since I had showheadlines off, I didn't see any notices so I wasn't sure what it was. When I shot the credits, I found out.

SNOWDAY!

But....

That's a lot of snow!

Goodness knows what was going in with the game.

So that's what went on behind the scenes with this. I've probably forgotten a few things I was going to talk about, but I think I've talked enough for now.