My submission for the Matrix Machinima contest. After reading the rules, I had to think of a way to show 'getting in touch with your dark side' without showing or talking about anything too explicit. So I went with a fake ad for a Wireless service in the city of Paragon. A Super Hero has a conversation with, literally, his Dark Side. (Which allowed me to voice them both with the Dark Side having a slightly lower pitch. After all, they're just two parts of the same person.)

This is my first attempt at machinima so comments are appreciated. EDIT: Why are so many people finding this hard to believe? It was simply a matter of positioning the camera correctly and in many places, recording hours of footage, finding the exact frames/angles I needed, and cropping out the GUI.

I also felt pretty constrained by the guidelines in terms of what I could write. I couldn't go the 'edgy' route because of fear of disqualification. And naturally no talking about drugs or alcohol or domestic abuse or anything that might be considered 'Dark Side.' Remember that Family Guy episode where Superman's in hell for ripping a hooker in half like a phone book after she made a crack about him being faster than a speeding bullet? THAT'S the dark side of a superhero. But seeing as this is an official contest, everything has to be nice and wholesome and I wasn't gonna take a chance by writing anything implicitly rude or controversial. Also, I'm not used to writing skits like this. I usually go with a longer format piece of work. And as for the voice acting, well, I'm not used to it at all. Forgive my strangely cosmopolitan accent--I've lived all over and I've consequently developed a sort of hybrid accent. As for how I spoke, it's meant to be a sort of ho-hum conversation without any real substance juxtaposed into a strange environment (like Paragon and during a prison riot). Also, don't expect it to be uproariously funny--it's meant to be a wireless ad and no wireless ad has ever elicited more than a chuckle from me.

I used Fraps to record the footage and I edited together with Sony Vegas Pro 8.0. I recorded audio with Audacity and I made the title card at the end with Photoshop.