Collaboration, by Karima Hoisan

 The following is a guest article by Karima Hoisan. Well-loved in both SL and on Kitely for her poems and sim-sized installations (called 'worlds' in Kitely), she shares here some thoughts about the most significant collaborations in her career. On her blog Digital Rabbit Hole, you will find many poems including this tribute to Natascha, called 'Lone Rider'

When I hear the word “collaboration”, I think of two people: Natascha Randt and Dale Innis.

In 2012.  Natascha and I knew about each other, but not well, until one day she said, “Let’s try something together.” In our first collaboration, we took 2nd place in the 2012 UWA Machinima Competition “Seek Wisdom”. We just kept going and going from that day on, until last September, when Natascha passed away while waiting for an artificial heart. She was 40 years old. 

In these last 10 years we learned so much, how and why we worked together so well. Our collaborations were not the norm, but they were successful and a delight to be a part of. 

I will quote Natascha here:  ‘A collaboration is not a thing of “I make this and you make that”. It is a thing of “we make that together”. It is not something like “Oh look, I have this poem (or Installation, or picture or whatever), what can you do with that?” It is more like “Oh look, I have this poem (or Installation, or picture or whatever) what do you think about it?” And then it is not a “Oh look, what I’ve done with your poem (or Installation, or picture or whatever)” It is a “I think we can do this and that (put in a zillion things) and then the magic of teamwork begins. Brainstorming, discussions, just talking about, mixing up all the ideas, make compromises and so on. There is no place for something like envy or jealousy, we always give our ideas or tricks or whatever to each other.’

We just learned to do it this way (our way) maybe because of who we are, and most importantly the great mutual respect and yes the trust we have in each other. Trust and respect, and another ingredient, I hinted at in my post, the fact we are very much on the same wave-length. We say, “Yes, Yes, Yes!!” more than we say, “Hmm I don’t know about that.” Our brainstorming sessions start from the first moment we stand and say "Ok, we need this and that".. and then the other will say “Oh yes and that and this.” and this process carries all the way into post -pro editing.

Dale Innis and I have been building worlds on Kitely since 2012 too. At first I asked Dale for his help on a total water world, where sharks abound and it is at midnight. He built some perilous boats that sank slowly and moved randomly… They were perfect!

 Dale, an accomplished out-of-the-box scripter and I, the one with the ideas and a good imagination, are such a great team because we both have skills that fit well with each other and the last 14 worlds out of 20 I have on Kitely are possible because of our collaboration. Without one or the other, not one of these 14 worlds would have seen the light.

I’d like to share “Unmindful,” built by Dale and I on Kitely and shot by Natascha

To close, I want to include a YouTube where the three of us. Natascha, Dale and I formed a team in Opensim to make a world to set a boat, built in Second Life, afloat and win 3rd place in the UWA Competition that year.

I had land  on Kitely and I grabbed a world and built the setting for “The River of Forgetting”. Dale and I invented special effects without particles, people “throwing things” off the ship etc. while Dale put the ship to sail, Natascha using all her camera tricks and edits made a polished film of all that was there. Silas Merlin, from SL, the ship’s creator, just gave it to us to take to Opensim!!!

To sum it up: humility, trust, egos left at the door, are so essential when one is collaborating in a project. It makes no difference who thought of what, just that all agree to do what will make the project successful.

When a collaboration is working, it’s never work, it's pleasure. It's feeling joy and satisfaction throughout the process.

River of Forgetting A Randt & Hoisan Production

By Karima Hoisan