The Adventures in Dating finale, “Facing the Future,” is finally available for viewing. I tried to get the movie done before the end of the year but clocking in at 26 minutes and 76MB, it was like working on two episodes at once—not to mention that I didn’t plan to spend Christmas through New Year’s in front of my computer. ;) Anyway, because of the episode’s size, I’ve made several viewing options available. You may watch directly on my site or you may download either the good or lower quality version to watch from your computer. Before you watch though, there is one very important piece of advice you should follow. To get the full effect of the episode, you MUST watch the entire thing from beginning to the very end. You’ll see what I mean.

I want to say a very big thank you to my cast: Artcgrrl, M1tchm, Scapino, Blessed, Dave, and X.Muse. I have to say a very special thank you to a few other people. First to Carisa who was the original Cecily but had microphone quality issues and so I couldn’t use her lines. Next, thanks goes to Adele who quickly agreed to fill in for Carisa, recording the lines multiple times, but her mic quality didn’t work for me either. Finally to Blessed who not only rushed to get the lines and retakes done before leaving for the holidays but agreed to buy a new microphone when I couldn’t work with the quality of her old one. I really was unsure I’d get this episode finished with the Cecily issues but all these great people were willing to step in quickly to help out. I have to really say that ALL my actors who have been so amazing and have truly helped me to realize this series. They know what a demanding director I am—asking for multiple retakes, to record lines with comforters over their heads to reduce reverb, etc. and they always did these things for me affably. They are all so talented and have really pushed me to work on and improve my own acting.

Ok, it’s movie discussion time which means don’t read further until after you’ve watched the movie as the following contains spoilers. Believe it or not, Emma’s ending monologue was one of the first things I wrote when I started working on this series. Of course, it’s been tweeked and reworked a bit since then but the essential message has remained the same. It was really important to me that the story remain open-ended. My goal was to portray two plausibly real women in real life situations and I never planned to have a formulaic happy ending all wrapped up in a nice bow because I like to give the audience more credit than that. Just as in real life, we don’t know where our lives will lead us and we can never be sure how things will turn out, no matter our intentions or plans. In the finale, we’re not really sure if Ellen’s marriage will really work out in the long run or if Eli and Emma will be together again.  Initially, I planned to have Emma and Eli’s relationship just end for good but decided to add the phone call at the end to leave it open to interpretation.  I’m hoping I left the series in such a way that your experiences in life and with watching this series color how you perceive the sisters’ future. I would love to hear your thoughts on how you think things will turn out and why. I have an idea of how I think they end up but I’m not totally sure myself.

I think the thing that’s most important in this episode is everyone’s perspective and relationship to each other. We hear how Ellen’s philosophy has changed because of her marital problems, how Emma’s grown and tries to better herself and also, for the first time, Cecily’s views on marriage. I wanted to provide different, yet realistic, perspectives on relationships from women who’ve had a bit of life experience. In listening to Cecily’s conversation with Emma, you can also tell how close they are and that their friendship will last a lifetime. In the final scene with Ellen and Emma, it’s clear that they’re mending their relationship and Ellen is learning to open up to Emma while Emma is learning to be a better listener and to not judge. Whatever may happen to Emma and Ellen in their love lives, it’s clear that they have loving, caring people around to support them. I’ll discuss the significance of the scenes and dialogue more thoroughly when I get around to writing the production notes for the finale.

I’m sure many of you are wondering what I’ll be doing next—if I’ll continue making machinima or if I’ll be moving onto Sims 3. My short answers are that yes I plan to make more movies and no, I don’t plan to move onto using Sims 3 (at least for a long while). I will blog more about all this in the future so sit tight. I hope you enjoyed watching the AinD series in its entirety and for those of you who’ve stuck with me since the beginning, so patiently I might add, thank you so much for your gracious support.

EDIT:  I went through 65GB of bandwidth on the release date.  I’m pretty sure that’s a record on my site (which was partially helped by the file size, no less).  Anyway, who are all you anonymous drive-by watchers?  

Adventures in Dating Episode 15, titled “Next Steps,” is available for viewing on the AinD site. In this episode, Ellen makes a decision about which man she’ll be with and Emma starts doubting herself.  Thanks, as always, to my fantastic cast Artcgrrl, M1tchm, TLMeyn, Scapino and Dave.  A special thanks goes out to Artcgrrl who provided the art critique and Ellen’s words (you’ll see what I mean when you see it).  There’s no way I could’ve written those lines. I wanted to release this early exclusively to mailing list subscribers but as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been having issues with the program.  Anyway, I’m glad to get this episode out since I’m determined to finish the series this year and with two months left, it looks like I’m on track.  I hope you enjoy it as we near the conclusion of the series. Whew!

You know the drill.  This next segment contains spoilers so please read after you’ve watched the episode. Ellen finally makes a choice between Nate and Ryan. I wanted this choice to be a really painful one for her because you could really argue for both men.  Jane definitely swayed her decision but it was Ellen remembering her past with Ryan, of happier times, and all the history they’ve shared that really pushed Ellen to make her choice.  It’s interesting to think of Jane’s position- I think generation has a lot to do with how she thinks.  The older generation tends to believe more in duty and loyalty while younger generations tend to believe more in self-fulfillment.  Which position is right?  I don’t think you could really answer that since there are so many facets to each belief.

As some of you speculated, Emma’s lifelong desire for marriage is something she can’t seem to forget.  She knows her relationship with Elijah is worth giving it up in the meantime but as the relationship grows and her feelings for him deepen, she can’t help but think about the future.  It’s clear that Emma is trying hard to overcome it but how much of what you want, or even who you are, do you give up to be with someone?  I’m sure all of you who have had or are in a serious relationship have dealt with this issue to some degree.  It’s the nature of relationships, isn’t it?

As is my new tradition, I have music to share with you.  I couldn’t decide which ones to share so I decided to share all four songs.  They are in the same order they were in the episode. The first is by Faultline but yup, that is Chris Martin singing the song.  The second is by The Swell Season who are also the duo from the movie Once that I raved about.  Third is a song that really isn’t significant to this episode but The National is one of my favorite bands at the moment so I wanted to share it.  Their last two albums are excellent, The Boxer and Alligator, and I recommend buying both if you like them.  Lastly is the song “Breathe Me” by Sia which I’m sure many of you have heard before.  The song actually inspired that final scene.  Snatch them up now because I’ll be taking them down in a week or so.

Faultline (feat. Chris Martin) – Your Love Means Everything Pt. 2
The Swell Season – This Low
The National – Guest Room
Sia – Breathe Me

Episode 14, titled “Uncertainy,” has been released on the AinD site.  I couldn’t show this episode as an embedded flash file because there are some slow camera pans in it that become horribly jerky in that format. So, I decided to present the movie as an embedded windows media file.  If you are unfortunate enough to still have dial-up or other prehistoric forms of connection, I’ve offered an alternative link which includes a much smaller, lower quality movie file for download. In this episode, Ellen and Emma each face uncertainty in their relationships.  Thanks to my amazing cast Scapino, Artcgrrl, M1tchm, and TLMeyn.  As always, it’s their acting that really breathes life into the characters.

As usual, the next segment of the blog should only be read after you’re seen the episode since it contains spoilers. If you noticed in this episode, there are lots of custom couple animations in it.  Many of these animations were ones I pictured when I wrote the script and before custom animating was feasible.  They were certainly a pain to make, especially since you can only work on one partner at a time in Milkshape, but it was worth it to be able to bring my original vision to the screen.  I’m sure the first thing most of you are wondering is if I will make them available for download.  Currently, the answer is no because they have been piled onto my Overlay hack which is in a sorry state with tons of test links and not in any condition for release.  I’m making custom animations as I need them for each episode so perhaps when I’m done making them for a while I’ll release them.

I’m sure many of you were glad to see Emma and Ellen back together again so hopefully you’ll stop  asking me about that. ;)  Who could’ve guessed that it was Jane who encouraged it and hopefully by now, you have a different view of her than when you saw her earlier in the series.  She’s still a meddling mother but you can’t help but appreciate her genuine intentions. You probably guessed too from the last episode that Jane’s interference in Ellen’s life would lead her to reconsider her relationship with Ryan.  I know many of you have been rooting for Ryan simply because he’s her husband but you have to remember that Ryan has been completely absent emotionally and physically from Ellen’s life since the beginning of the series.  Those of you rooting for Nate have been doing so because he’s such an admirable man and has been there for Ellen with what seems to be both heart and soul.  Up until now, the question has been ‘Whom do you choose?  Ryan simply because she’s married to him or Nate because he’s been there for her?’  I think with Ryan’s revelations about why he’s been so non-communicative and prioritizing work over marriage, it will make the question harder to answer.  For Ellen, is a better understanding of Ryan’s motives a good enough reason to stay with him?

Emma’s relationship with Elijah has always been a positive one and full of growth for her.  Their relationship is as great as she thought it could be but she is having concerns about their future.  Despite her reservations, they do move in together and it seems to be the right decision. This is where all those custom animations were so important to convey the intimacy and meaning of their relationship.  It’s those quiet, simple, and intimate moments that can really define a relationship.

Well, I’ve babbled enough.  I have two gifts for you- songs from the episode.  The first one is “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop” by Landon Pigg from the opening scene and “On Your Side” by Pete Yorn from the closing scene.  Both are great songs but the latter one holds a special place in my heart and is one of my favorites.  The entire Pete Yorn album that it’s from, Music for the Morning After, is amazing so I’d recommend buying it.  As usual, I will take these down in a week or so so grab them now while you can.

Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop
On Your Side

Adventures in Dating episode 13, titled “Headlong” has been released on the AinD website. Thanks to my amazing cast: Artcgrrl, Tlmeyn, Scapino, and Dave. I had a really hard time working on this episode as you can tell from the shamefully long hiatus between this episode and last. It’s been quite a commitment to work on such a large scale movie project and the prospect of working on the final few episodes feels more daunting than when I started the series. It’s not just the episodes but having to make clothes, hair, and now some custom animations (about 1/2 dozen were made for this episode- some you can’t tell but they helped with the dialogue scenes) really burns me out. As I’ve mentioned dozens of times before, the series will get done I just don’t know when so it would be helpful if people didn’t question my intentions. Dealing with this and asking about release dates on emails and posts is more discouraging than encouraging so please be patient.

*DOWNLOAD Notice: The movie links on the website no longer uses a php file to open up the save dialog box because it no longer works. You must wait for it to stream which may take a bit when buffering and depending on your connection. Comments reporting that links are not working will be deleted.

As always, please do not read further until after you’ve watched the episode since the following contain spoilers. The episode title was inspired by The Frames song “Headlong.” In general, coming up with titles for the episodes are hard but this time, I realized the song title not just fit the first scene but the whole episode as well. Both Emma and Ellen are diving headlong into their desired relationships- Ellen with Elijah, and Ellen who finally tells Nate she wants to be with him over Ryan. I’m hoping that in that scene with Ellen and Nate, you were surprised to see Jane make an appearance and subsequently interfering in Ellen and Nate’s potential romance. I think that it’s really hard for children to think of their parents with lives and a past before they were parents. Especially in this case, Jane has always been a nosy, overbearing mother whom no child would want to listen to but she reveals a whole other side of herself. I’ll talk about this a bit more in the production notes when I get around to writing them.

So, the big thing that happens in this episode is that Emma finally loses her virginity- the poor girl. I always imagined that scene with the Doves‘ song “There Goes the Fear” which I always found wonderfully romantic, especially the lyrics “Close your brown eyes and lay down next to me.” There’s an album version that I don’t like nearly as much but I was lucky to get the acoustic one. I was at a show (can’t remember the band) and sometimes there are people distributing free promotional material after. This was before the Doves came to the U.S. and they gave out a CD that had that song and an acoustic version of “Caught by the River.” I think they are pretty rare- I haven’t seen them elsewhere so I feel lucky to have it. Anyway, you can download it by clicking on the link below; I will take it down after a couple weeks though so snatch it up if you want it now. I did put up the original album version on the radio blog along with other new songs for your listening pleasure. Anyway, my concern with the last scene as well as the opening one is the cheese factor. Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker but I find overly-sentimental and overly-romantic stuff gag worthy. I’m hoping that those scenes aren’t cheesy and don’t induce that feeling in you. If so, I apologize in advance. ;)

Doves – There Goes the Fear (Acoustic)

This holiday/winter themed movie is a group project and features the directorial skills of seven Sims movie directors. Each director submitted raw clips along with Sim versions of themselves. I edited all the clips together to the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams and we were able to produce this fun, fast-paced movie. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out since each director has such a different style and they weren’t assigned to any particular section of the song but it came together wonderfully. Several of the transition scenes were filmed by Hazeqeren and the credits sequence was shot and edited by me. Special thanks to SimplyMe for taking the additional transition scenes and footage when I asked. This wouldn’t have been finished in time without her help. The participating directors are (website included if provided):
Hazeqeren
Dektora
Decorgal
Forthsee
SimplyMe
Kateyjoo
Jpro

Thanks to the participants and despite it being a bit stressful and a mad rush to finish before the weekend commenced, it ended up being quite fun and I’m pleased with the final product. We hope you are too! Enjoy!

Also, please enjoy the Christmas music I put up on my radio blog. They are classics and some of my favorite versions. Happy holidays everyone!