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S6 E212 How Second Life Brought “May It Be” (Lord of the Rings) to Life with Cinematic Machinima (Feb 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 4, 2026 Leave a reply

What happens when Tolkien’s world, Enya’s music, and cutting-edge virtual performance collide?

In this episode, we explore a breathtaking Second Life film that reimagines “May It Be” as a haunting, hopeful journey through shadow and light. From gothic landscapes and cinematic lighting to an unexpectedly intimate motion-capture reveal, this episode showcases how virtual worlds can deliver not just spectacle, but genuine emotional resonance.

If you love:

  • Lord of the Rings and its timeless theme of hope against darkness

  • Machinima and virtual cinematography at its most poetic

  • Innovative uses of facial mocap and performance in online worlds

  • Discovering undiscovered creative voices with serious talent

…then you won’t want to miss this.

We dive into a strikingly beautiful piece of Second Life machinima: Anna Kurka’s cinematic cover of Enya’s “May It Be” from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Tracy brings the pick, introducing Anna as a Belgium-based virtual performer who blends singing, storytelling, and atmospheric world-building into emotionally rich visual journeys.

Set in the hauntingly gothic Second Life region “Infinite Darkness,” the film pairs slow, ethereal fly-throughs of ancient forests, ruins, mist, and light with a tender, intimate vocal performance. The hosts explore how the imagery echoes Tolkien’s core themes of darkness and hope, fear and resilience, the liminal space between night and dawn, and how Anna’s more human, grounded interpretation contrasts with Enya’s otherworldly original.

The discussion also turns technical, with a spoiler-friendly deep dive into the surprise ending: a remarkably convincing facial motion-capture performance inside Second Life, raising fascinating questions about virtual production, real-time mocap, and how far user-generated platforms have evolved.

Along the way, the panel reflects on Tolkien’s enduring emotional power, the courage it takes to reinterpret iconic music, and the often-hidden talent within virtual worlds that deserves a much wider audience.

Audio Only Version of this Episode



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

May It Be – Lord of the Rings | Enya Cover by Anna Kurka (Second Life Machinima) released 5 October 2025

Enya – May It Be (Official Lyric Video) released on YouTube on 31 July 2020

Tracy had a chance to ask Anna about her work in Second Life, and she graciously wrote me a few answers.  I’ll copy the interview on our show notes for those interested in hearing more about Anna and her approach –

TH: How did you get into machinima? How long have you been singing in SL? Why songs and why machinima in SL?

AK: Actually, I got into singing first.  I was just an amateur singing in the shower and such.  I started singing around the summer of 2024 & I was talking to someone in SL which does actual live shows on SL (possible through the use of shoutcast, in the world of Second Life) and I told him I like to sing but I’m too scared to do anything with it in “real life”.  So he told me to maybe sing as my virtual avatar “Anna Kurka” instead.  So I did.  

I sang karaoke cover styles and posted it on youtube with just static images or a little bit of moving images.  He helped me to sing better along the way.  My real life partner actually told me “why don’t you do video clips?”…. So that is how I got into machinima!

One of my videos tells me the background on how I got started like that

“Anna’s World” tells how I started singing and how I created “Let You Down”.

TH: Why do covers?  Have you done originals? 

AK: I started out with covers because it is easy, just take a karaoke track and go to town!  After a while I did try my hand at an original as well, it is on a seperate channel though.  I’m not really that good at using a DAW/Sequencer and making my own music, but I sure tried!   What I also do is take an existing song and just take the lyrics & rewrite the music – to make it my own. (Like on “Let You Down”) – On “Little Flower”, I actually took a fully instrumental track and added my own lyrics.

Original track:  Echoes of Time:  

TH: Do you do this in real life, etc (or do you sing in virtual concerts)?

AK: So far no, I like being hidden behind my avatar & nobody really knows who I really am.  It is safe & fun.  As for virtual concerts, that would mean singing live over prerecorded tracks.  I’ve been asked to, as there are many singers in Second Life doing the same thing, but for now I’m too scared to “F up” :o)  It will happen one day.

S6 E205 Machinima News (Dec 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes December 18, 2025 Leave a reply

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into a grab-bag of big creator news, starting with YouTube, and yes… the “slop” situation.

Tracy kicks things off with what looks like YouTube’s latest attempt to clean house: platform changes that claim to improve privacy and the viewing experience, but also mess with how videos behave when embedded on third-party sites. If you stream shows inside places like Second Life, that’s a real headache, because some embeds and API-based workarounds are suddenly unreliable or broken.

But the bigger story? YouTube appears to be cracking down on the explosion of low-effort, mass-generated content. The buzz is that Gemini is being used to evaluate whether videos look human-made, original, and honestly presented – plus there’s talk of internal “trust scores” that creators can’t actually see, but which may influence how channels are treated behind the scenes. Tracy even tests how an AI describes our channel, and it basically nails the vibe: a legit passion-project podcast with deep experience… while also very clearly not the unrelated, controversy-riddled “Machinima Inc” from back in the day. Check out this video –

Phil jumps in to untangle the embed drama: it may not be “AI policy” so much as an ad-delivery and revenue control move because some embedded browsers can bypass ads, and Second Life gets caught in the crossfire. Workarounds exist (including the very ironic “embed it somewhere else first” method), and Vimeo comes up as an alternative… but with price hikes that feel more “premium platform” than creator-friendly. Locked-in subscriptions, anyone?

Then it’s off to the creative tools corner: Phil’s been deep in Blender, and he’s found some very machinima developments, like a third-person controller kit that basically turns Blender into a game-like character puppeteering environment. On top of that, there’s a newly released Blender cloth-building and simulation tool that could become a budget-friendly alternative to pricey standards like Marvelous Designer – huge potential for indie creators who want great-looking outfits without a studio budget.

From there, the conversation swings to Reallusion’s latest move: Video Mocap, turning ordinary video footage into motion capture data, integrated straight into iClone’s workflow. The group talks practical realities (camera framing, background contrast, space constraints, upper-body capture modes) and why this could be a game-changer for animators who don’t have mocap suits lying around.

We also touch on Unreal Engine’s rapid evolution and its ever-improving animation tools—plus the eternal question: with tech this powerful, why aren’t we seeing more great films made with it? Check this out –

Damien drops some rock-solid creator advice: don’t try to learn new tools by making your magnum opus. Make a short “training film,” and if you switch platforms… remake it. Same story, new tech, better skills. Simple, smart, and honestly kind of brilliant.

Finally, we hit a spicy AI update: major AI music platforms (Suno and Udio) have reportedly reached settlements with record labels, meaning they’ll rework how training and licensing works going forward. That could reshape what “responsible” AI music use looks like in 2026 – and what it’ll cost creators.

And to wrap up on a lighter note, there’s a shoutout to NeuralVIZ and a fun character-driven sci-fi project, The Adventures of Remo Green, as a reminder that experimentation can still be entertaining (and weirdly impressive).

And that’s the episode: YouTube changes, creator workarounds, new animation toys, and the future of AI tools, served with equal parts curiosity and chaos.

And btw, to hear more about Ricky’s epic bus trip, check in on next week’s episode!

Here’s the audio only version of our episode –



and here’s the YouTube version –

Tech Update 2 (Mar 2023)

Tracy Harwood Blog March 13, 2023 Leave a reply

We’ve seen a number of tech developments in recent weeks that we’ll share in this post. Everything from free tools, great content packs, wrinkles for those of a certain age of course, mocap for newbies, nuisance scores, heads up on a lightweight headset, and more!

Lights, Camera, Action

A member of Chantal Harvey’s popular Machinima Mondays‘ Facebook Group posted a video recommendation by Kevin Stratvert of five free screen recording tools that all machinima and virtual production folks should have in their applications folder. He usefully goes through the process of using each of them in his tutorial here –

We highlight just a few of the exciting things we’ve seen in the last few weeks for Unreal Engine. A show and tell tutorial on making ragdoll puppets, reported in 80.lv, featuring 3D artist and animator Peter Javidpour, gives a great breakdown of the process, including how to rig the virtual camera. The process using Blueprints was used in his recent short release, My Breakfast with Barf, link here –

Also using Blueprints, Machina-Infinitum.com released a content pack for making procedural fractals. They look really beautiful – and perfect for that next cyberpunk-cum-inceptionist film. The pack isn’t free at $99, but it looks like a good investment, available on the Unreal store here. Here’s a link to their YouTube channel and tutorials for using the assets –

And also not free (£170.70), another excellent content pack. This one contains realistic building assets from what looks like the Whitechapel area of London, called a British City Pack, by Polyspherestudio.com. Here’s an overview on their YouTube channel –

Reallusion released a much awaited update to its Character Creator, introducing a dynamic wrinkle system. The plasticity of facial animations using CC4 is something we’ve often found ourselves commenting on in our film reviews, and this is a very interesting development. Check out the overview here –

Plask’s mocap app has been upgraded. This is an app we’ve mentioned before, which allows you to record, edit and animate projects in your browser. For pros, there’s a monthly fee, but for newbies, its freemium model looks like a great way to get started in mocap. Here’s an overview of it from their YouTube channel, which also contains tutorials of how to integrate the content with platforms like Blender, Unreal Engine and others –

With interoperability at its heart, ReadyPlayerMe is going from strength to strength. Its recent blog post sets out its ambition, and this highlights what great potential its avatars have to be cross-platform virtual storytellers, although as yet we’ve not seen much of that emerging.

For sound design tips, you can do no better than take a look at REAPER. Anne-Sophie Mongeau has written a great two-part article on Asoundeffect.com, which is definitely worth checking out, and whilst you’re there, you can check out the massive curated collection of sound effects on the website too.

For those exploring immersive experiences, we found another great article on Asoundeffect.com, this one discussed the impact of ‘nuisance scores‘ on the listener – we certainly have some experience of that in films we see too.

And for those seeking an alternative to the wearying headsets for virtual reality immersive experiences, Bigscreenvr.com‘s new system looks very impressive. Its just 127 grams and with a great resolution – most headsets weigh in around 450-650 grams, which is roughly a bag of sugar for those home chefs in the know – so surely will be much more usable than the current techs. It just released an overview of the new set and shipping begins in Q3 2023, and I’m more than tempted to get my order in early on this one…

You’re Welcome!

Finally this week, the Second Life endowment for the arts process is changing. For years, Second Life has been a massive advocate for its community of content creators, and the changes which give creators more time to develop their builds is another example of its fantastic support (notwithstanding the truly err colourful gif on its announcement page, our feature image this week). Here’s a link to its grant page.

S3 E63 Film Review: The Backrooms – Reunion (Feb 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 2, 2023 Leave a reply

Starting Feb 2023 off with a meme, Tracy selects a machinima that has been released as part of a massively co-created story involving numerous creators since it kicked off in mid 2019, The Backrooms. This short is called The Backrooms – Reunion by @kanepixels, released 8 Dec 2022. Is this really machinima, yep it certainly is – but we’re all blown away with the realism of the actors’ performance in this, and of course, the whole Backrooms Creepypasta phenomenon is just something else to behold too. We give you a bit of the background, just in case you’ve not come across it in your travels across the internet.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

The Backrooms – Reunion by Kane Pixels, released 8 December 2022

The Backrooms (Found Footage), released 7 Jan 2022

History of the Backrooms in videos

The Backrooms creepypasta thread discussion

The Backrooms game on Steam

The Backrooms game website

Weird Fiction and recent revival of the movement, referred to as New Weird, on TVTropes website

Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation novel, that Ricky made reference to

Freud’s The Uncanny essay, notes by the Freud Museum

S3 E58 Film Review: The Darkside EP1: Chrome Armor by Scott Barrett (Dec 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes December 29, 2022 Leave a reply

Our last episode of 2022 is Damien’s Pick of the Month, The Darkside EP1: Chrome Armor by Scott Barrett, released 22 October 2022. This is a shining example of Star Wars fandom at its best, a la Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead with shades of Red Vs Blue in the mix. Its made in Unreal Engine 5 and has some excellent mocap although how the armor has been applied, we’re not too sure!



YouTube Version of this Episode

Film and Links

The Darkside EP1: Chrome Armor –

Freesound.org, great for music and soundscape designs

Check out Gildenstern and Rosencrantz Are Dead, this clip from 1990 with Tim Roth and Gary Oldman (directed by Tom Stoppard) –

and RoosterTeeth’s Red Versus Blue, episode 1 (dating from 2003) here –

Credits

Speakers: Phil Rice, Ricky Grove, Tracy Harwood, Damien Valentine

Producer: Phil Rice

Editor: Ricky Grove

Music: CreateStudio Pro licensed music. fallbackcrush / whistling auld lang syne @ freesound.org https://freesound.org/people/fallbackcrush/sounds/413563/

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