This weekend marks the start of an exciting film event in Second Life. The famous 48-Hour Film project that tours the world is reaching a virtual world. On Friday, January 11th, contestants will be given a character, prop, and line of dialog as base for their machinima. Then, the teams have 48 hours to turn around a complete production.
"The competition kicks off Friday, January 11th, at 4:00 p.m. Second Life Time (7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) with a representative from each team meeting in Second Life to receive a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialog to be worked into their film.
Teams have until Sunday, January 13th, at 4:30 p.m. Second Life Time (7:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) to submit a completed entry.
There should be some cool short movies coming out of this contest, hopefully they will also be posted on youtube so we can all watch (outside of Second Life).
CSI: NY - The Joy and Perils of Machinima on Primetime TV
Even though it's been a few days since the premier of the CSI: NY machinima blend piece, Down the Rabbit Hole, I still don't have a very clear reaction to it.
On one hand, the quality of the commercial machinima is incredible and I'm happy to acknowledge that this is a big step forward in mixing the technique with traditional movies/entertainment. Seeing machinima of Second Life on my TV screen was like seeing an old friend!
However, the joint efforts of CSI, Cisco, and The Electric Sheep, are part of a larger marketing campaign. As such, I am left with two large puzzles:
1. A technical issue: The Second Life seen in the CSI episode is the enhanced, Windlight edition, that is not yet available to the general public. Hugh Hancock alluded to it in the Machinima for Dummies book as an improvement on the graphics. Unarguably, it does a lot for the appeal of the platform, but I wonder how many people logged on to discover that the world isn't as pretty or doesn't work quite as seamlessly as it did on TV. Then again, I suppose this wouldn't be the first time television has lied. :)
2. A consistency point: Somehow, the goal of the CSI show seems at odds with the invitation to have people join a virtual world. I don't typically watch CSI, but these kinds of police shows have an underlying theme -- that some kind of mind perversion is what creates criminals. The machinima section here basically depicts the technology that may enable those outlaws. Although there was a reference to the empowering characteristic of virtual worlds for people with disabilities, the sheer force of the imagery presented is making viewers think "hey, this looks so sexy, I have to try it!" The real murder under investigation starts to feel unreal, if you don't lose sight of it altogether.
I hope Paul will chime in with his views on this moment in history. I'd also love to hear from other machinimists, with their thoughts on the episode and of Second Life as an up-and-coming machinima platform.
Bloodspell, the feature movie production from Strange Company is an epic culmination for one of the most fascinating and groundbreaking machinima series. The main accomplishment? Pure, unfettered entertainment that reaches the audience through powerful storytelling and compelling cinematography.
Hugh Hancock, writer and director, was present in Second Life this Sunday (event produced by machiniplex.com ), to receive feedback and be overwhelmed by excited fans. Countless secrets of the trade were shared with humor, including setting up cinematic dolly shots ("we were using calculus, it was scary!"), the incredible play of color & contrast achieved in post processing("thau shalt not shoot people wearing brown on a brown set"), and badger-based lighting technique ("the best thing we learnt about lighting is 'hey, let's have some!'").
As a deeper statement for things yet to come, the message of Bloodspell is clear. Simply take a look at the Creative Commons tag and the introductory cracks at the traditional, pre-movie legalese we're used to seeing, my favorite:
"Piracy is a crime....so don't steal any boats."
Beyond the technical talk and jokes, the most remarkable feat of the movie was its ability to make me forget that I was looking at a game environment. The only thing that broke my immersion were the character skins, but that can be attributed to being spoiled by the advances I have seen in Second Life. To give you a feel, you can check out a few samples on the Uncanny Valley page, any work by artist Darkdharma Daguerre, or Robbie Dingo's machinima blog.
Destroy TV reaches far and wide - one frame at a time (updated)
(Updated 6/23/07 to include Annie Ok's contribution to project) For those of you keeping tabs on the Machinima frontier, pay close attention to Jerry Paffendorf and Christian Westbrook, if you aren't already. The duo are explorers into the virtual playground of Second Life - and they've become extremely adept at finding the world's edges and figure out ways to stretch them further.
Their latest endeavour is Destroy TV - a multiuser avatar in SL that catalogs its existence to Flickr, Twitter and YouTube. Recently Jerry and Christian collaborated with curator/artist Annie Ok to bring Destroy TV to the public, with an interactive installation of DTV run over the course of 10 days at the Fuse Gallery here in NYC and Art Center in SL. During this time Annie/Destroy explored large parts of Second Life, and was even married during the week-plus event (to Walker Spaight of 3pointD no less!). Annie describes it as one of the most intense and immersive experiences she's ever had - living as Destroy in SL for 10 days straight.
The fascinating part of the installation for me was the time-lapse of the virtual life, now released in its Director's Cut edition (in multiple gigs of MPEGs). Lifelogging, as Jerry describes it, is a unique look at the click-to-click moments of a virtual entity. With a stream of nearly 100,000 screen caps compiled together, the film becomes the Machinima equivalent of Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi. Yet one more way Machinima embraces old practices using new technology.
Destroy TV's life begun under the sink of Jerry and Christian's apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where they placed the DTV Macbook and cam software so that it was out of harm's way (save any leaky pipes). With a start there, I look forward to seeing what other projects spring forth from their kitchen.
Update: For giggles, I mashed some DTV footage (and sped up quite a bit) with a sampling of Phillip Glass' "The Grid."
Just came across this blurb over on the Second Life News Network. NBC's new Second Life-powered endeavour Virtual NBC, has hired Pierce Portocarrero for a new Machinima series, involving a family who frequently connect to SL.
For those not familiar with Pierce's award-winning work, check out his site at Oddwadd.com as well as his recently released piece around the film "300." It's really great to see NBC hire someone of his caliber, and I look forward to the series once it released. Huzzah!
