In the ultra trendy Los Angeles Arts District, I had a real blast using 3D avatar-making tools by DNABlock to get the word out about the upcoming pixEOS rare digital art market. You can probably see my excitement from this video, which shows me animating a fighting avatar from the Chain Clash game as it mimics my facial features (which still sort of boggles my mind).

After watching this behind the scenes production video, some may be justified in wondering, "Why is this older man doing a voice-over for a young female character?" It's a completely fair question. Here's the back-story; I had the text "script" for the pixEOS video only in my head, and a tech person there assured me that by pressing a speech audio filter, my male voice could automatically be recorded as a female voice fitting to the female avatar. While I never in a million years imagined that such a thing would be necessary, I gave such a filter a try. Yet the first filtered audio results actually turned my voice into what sounded like my dearly departed 70+ year old Italian Auntie Theresa. She used to smoke a lot in her youth, and sounded like it. I am sure the audio can be refined more, but for the purposes of this video, my unfiltered voice will just have to do.

Hard at work in the background can be seen Christine Marzano, at the far computer desk. She is the real person whose face was used to generate the derivative digital being that has now become the pixEOS Chain Clash fighting avatar. Such creative experiences brightly exemplify the Southern California vibe for me: techie, fun, entrepreneurial, and full of surprises. I sure do appreciate living on the sunny side of life.

Joe Chiappetta
http://SillyDaddy.net