While I did ending up using the medium Xtranormal as part of my Textual Transformation Project, I do, however, have many problems with this new found form of animation as a medium to be taken
seriously. One of my biggest critiques lies in the difficulty of conveying your (the author's) intended message to an audience. Simply, the majority of the time, you just can't. The program doesn't allow you enough freedom to do so, and in the end, you're stuck with slim pickins and forced to choose from a very limited array of options. This new medium is devoid of the elements which make film great (e.g. real actors-whether in front of the camera or doing a voiceover for animation, post-production editing, endless possibilities for set locations, etc.); essentially, the biggest flaw is the mere fact that this medium was intended for an armature-level audience, seeing as it’s basically a “do-it-yourself” kit for Web 2.0.
Obviously, this was Xtranormal's intention--to create a user-friendly animation medium that allows the average person to operate with no real difficulty--but I feel that it is also their Achilles Heal, the one thing really holding them back from entering the next phase of global media success (such as Facebook or Youtube). However, I suppose that the majority of internet users are, in fact, amateurs with regards to something like animation--but still, there's something really problematic with this medium, something that could be easily addressed and fixed in no time...ah, yes, of course, it's the acting (or lack thereof).
The actors speak with such blatant artificiality and awkward pronunciation that the whole production just seems, well, fake; their dialogue is akin to that of a robot, which I suppose in a way, they actually are. The dialect and accents available for your "actors" are very limited, only providing users with a few stereotypical options--like "American English Female 1" who, when choosing that option, repeats the phrase "You bet-ter bring it, girl-friend." Christ, they sound about as human as Arnold Schwarzenegger did in The Terminator.
On that note, another bothersome issue is the fact that you are only able to choose between 6 or so "settings," which, as you could have guessed, are very bland and boring. You can only have upwards of two "actors" on screen during the whole production and you cannot change "sets" once filming has began--for it has to remain static the whole time, which is ultimately how the entire medium is, static. Of course, all of these problems can disappear if you decide to pay more money and receive the "upgrade."
With this particular animation, it was very difficult because I attempted to recreate a musical scene from my Disney project. So not only did I have to include the awkward dialogue exchanges, but had to take the dialogue (which eventually evolves into a song and dance routine), place it into the program Final Cut Pro, download the instrumental version of the song, superimpose that into the animation, then convert that to a quicktime file, and upload that to Blogger. Talk about frustrating! And the hardest part about the whole process was aligning, to the best of my ability, the lyrics with the instrumental beat--trying to add just the right amount of "pauses" ("I'm thinking" or "I'm totally stumped") in between the actors' speaking lines as to have some coherent rhythm and tempo. A very, very tedious and time-consuming process for a video that's only 2 minutes long.
In retrospect, I find the entire Xtranormal medium to be quite frustrating, to say the least (especially if you're trying to make a music video!) While I was pretty aware of this before taking this project head-on, as I had used this program before, I wanted to create a sort-of experiment that explored the flaws and limitations of this medium. As such, I believe this is pretty damn good evidence that, in a lot of ways, it is far inferior to film or any other form of moving picture art. Don't get me wrong, I had fun putting the video together, but I simply believe that Xtranormal needs to undergo and serious transformation, an upgrade, something to rid themselves of this amateur stigma that has come to represent, in my eyes, the entire medium as a whole.
Now, enough from me...What do you guys think about Xtranormal? Do you think it will become extinct in the near future? Is it simply not good enough to live on? Do the problems with the medium outweigh the potential benefits (or vice-versa)? Please, feel free to post your comments, concerns, questions, rebuttals, what have you, below...