Machinimoo

I have a lot going on in the next few months. I knew it would be an intense time for me. I’d signed up to help with some volunteer things, and have my normal jobs. I’ve been really stressed and not happy lately. I’ve started to block out the negative things in my Second Life to make things better in my First Life.

When SignPostMarv Martin asked me to help out with the Machinima area of SL4B, SL’s 4th birthday party, I said I would gather Machinima links from over the years to put on the plot. After that, I discovered that when I didn’t attend a meeting, he’d signed me up to hold a Machinima contest during that meeting. This was NOT okay and I let him know so. Then I discovered that I’d have to build a plot, which I am not good at, so I picked one out and worked towards finding builders for the plot.

Today I was asked by “messenger” if I’d be in charge of all the media in SL, such as podcasts and things like The Grid Review. This was the last straw. I left the SL4B group. I am far too busy and stressed trying to plan SLCC and earn my way there with less than three months to go to be worrying about this. I wish them the best of luck.

On top of that, I had someone try to get onto the Machinima track last minute based on their status within the community. I won’t name names, but they wanted to teach a class that was similar to what I already have planned for the track.  They had months to express interest in the track and if they’d have looked on the SLCC07 website, they’d have seen that I had something planned.  I told them that if their idea didn’t overlap mine, I would extend time from my class out for them, as the entire track is full and has been for a while. They asked me to outline my itinerary to them, and not the other way around. This took me aback because they’re trying to get space on the track and I’m trying to accommodate them. I have time to plan the class because the convention is over two months away, but I had already told him the basic details of what I was going to teach. I dunno, maybe I’m being irrational.

They then sent me an email stating that they assumed that Ben would be teaching the class, so they’d just drop him a note. You see, they didn’t want to step on his toes and felt it would be the perfect opportunity to collaborate. My jaw literally dropped open. When he wasn’t getting anywhere with me, he incorrectly assumed that Ben, my boss for Alt-Zoom, would be teaching this class, so he’d go around me. I informed him that I was the sole planner of the Machinima track. I was teaching the class, so he would go through me. He would be stepping on my toes. I did say, however, that if our classes complemented each other, that I’d be more than happy to extend out my class. He sent me a response saying it’s best to just leave it at that.

I have also extended this blocking out the negative to friends. I blocked a friend from all of my messengers yesterday and it killed me to do so, but I felt that our history was too distracting to think about. Seeing him in my list just saddened me, because between him and another person, I felt stuck in the middle of drama that I do not need.

Maybe I’m going crazy. I’m not sure. I keep telling myself that if I can just survive until SLCC, it’ll all be worth it, but I have to get to that point first. If we’re friends and I haven’t been around much, I apologize. I’m doing a million business things at once and trying to find time for fun, but it’s not working out. Know that I have not forgotten about you. I just don’t want to end up flipping out and being snippy.  Man I’m ranting a lot and I’ve said way too much already.  I just hope you guys understand.

After the success of the Alt-Zoom Studios Take5 Machinima Festival, and discussion the following day, at SLCC 2006, I was asked to be in charge of planning my very own track for SLCC. SLCC is the Second Life Community Convention, which will be held in Chicago on August 24th-26th at the Hilton. Now in it’s third year, it’s hard to believe that the original one had just a day of content!

SLCC is divided into four tracks this year: Business, Education, Social, and Machinima. I am so honored to be overseeing the Machinima track in it’s entirety. I won’t be alone, though! I found a great helper in Sidra Stern, a fellow SL Machinima enthusiast. Much thought has gone into the type of topics that will be discussed. I noticed that my SLCC page for Machinima over on the official blog was looking a bit sparse, so I figured I’d better start sharing what I have in store!

Confirmed:

• Keynotes for both Saturday and Sunday. One will be BuhBuhCuh Fairchild, one of SL’s founding fathers of Machinima. The other will be the ILL Clan, seasoned Machinima veterans and makers of Trash Talk with Ill Will.
• Global Kids, led by Barry Joseph, will highlight some of what they do during their intern program, included teen made Machinima. We’ll even have some teens speaking!
• Reallusion, makers of Crazy Talk and iClone, will be on-hand to explain how their technology can help with Second Life Machinima.
• Michael Verdi, of freevlog, will highlight how Machinima can be used to vlog with Second Life avatars.
• A basic Machinima class on the big screen, plus a surprise guest that will show us proper editing techniques.

Tentative:

• Will be asking Campfire, a viral marketing company started by two of the people that made The Blair Witch Project, to explain how viral marketing can work with Machinima.
• Content companies will be on a panel about why they choose to use Machinima and why their clients now insist on it.

Do these sound like interesting sessions? I’d love some community feedback on what you’d like to see. If you’re interested in going to SLCC and involved in Machinima, please let me know!

On another note, Millions of Us is the lead sponsor, but the Machinima track still has a sponsorship slot open and it’s a great deal. Please contact me if you’re serious about sponsoring.

If you have general feedback, please leave a comment below this post, but if you’d like to leave a more serious note or interest in sponsoring, please email me.

*taps the mic* Is this thing on? Wow! It’s been a crazy few months. As some of you may already know, I’ve been blogging over at Second Life Insider. While I’ve been getting used to that, among other things, my blogging here has suffered quite a bit. I’m hoping to change that.

On to the subject matter at hand. I was speaking with Tuesday McKay (Betsy Weber of TechSmith) and she informed me of an event for Coca Cola going on at crayon island. When I arrived, the buzzword there was PodCruise Miami. What is it? A 4 day cruise from Florida to the Bahamas! It’s pretty damn cheap. It takes place from December 7th-10th, 2007. My roomie will be TheDiva Rockin. I’m so excited!

What is PodCamp?

Per the Podcamp Wiki:

PodCamp is a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and anyone interested in New Media. It was held for the first time from September 8-10 in Boston, Massachusetts and is now spreading across the world.

Is anyone else going to this? Let me know! We’ll get our drink on.

Still trying to get the hang of blogging with the N800. Having fun with Second Lifers. Can’t wait to see more panels. Just watched qDot give a speech at Barcamp Austin. Will continue to upload pics to flickr when my tablet recharges. Bye for now! ~moo

I’m not the most technical person on the planet, so when I had a printer install go wonky, I decided I should virus scan, but I didn’t have a program on my new computer yet. I decided to let the pre-installed Norton finish installing. Bad idea. The installation went fine, but after it restarted and came back up, Microsoft stepped in and said NO, thus preventing me from opening the program. It locked me out of the internet to access tools, prevented me from uninstalling it, and wouldn’t even let me restore the system to before the install. Luckily, my dad was able to find a link to the removal software and brought it over on a memory stick. That was the longest day and a half ever!

The 14th and final episode of the machinima series* is being released tonight and Strange Company requests your attendance! After this, the series will be made into a feature-length movie.

Come hang out with Hugh Hancock, of Strange Company, and also one of the coiners of the word “machinima”, and your fellow machinimists on Lukanida. IM moo Money for a TP!

*There was some confusion so I’d like to clarify that this is machinima that is filmed in Neverwinter Nights.

From the Bloodspell website:

It is a story of a world where men and women carry magic in their blood, and spilling it can unleash terrible power.

Where these “Blooded” hide in fetid slums from the Church of the Angels, commanded by their divine masters to “cleanse” the Blood Magic.

Where choices are fraught, alliances rarely safe, and blood is all.

A young monk named Jered flees the Church when his own Blood Magic is released. Now he must survive the pursuit of the Church, the gladiatorial pits of the Blooded underground, and the hidden truths of the ancient struggle. The choices he makes will tip the balance of the war between Church and Blooded, and change his world forever.

Mixing a vivid world with fast-paced action and punk attitude, we think BloodSpell will be like no film you`ve ever seen.

As much as I love machinima, my computer personally hates it. Why? Well, it’s a 1.6ghz with 1gb of ram and a 64mb video card. It cries and begs to be put out of it’s misery. Soon it will be retired…and replaced with this!

22″ widescreen, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13ghz, 2gb ram, Geforce 7600 vid card with 256mb ram, 500gb hard drive.  It’s so hot!

About two weeks ago, I got an interesting IM. It said, “Hey. Wanna go to LA for the Jay-Z concert?” As the week went by, it became very real. I was suddenly on a plane to Los Angeles to perform virtual camerawork for the Millions of Us/Campfire/Leo Burnett Detroit/Pontiac (whew!) project. They staged a mock concert to go alongside the Jay-Z Hollywood Blvd concert performance on the Jimmy Kimmel concert.

It was an intense two days, going from Tuesday, the 21st, and arriving home on Thursday afternoon, the 23rd. In that time, we went through many dry runs, setting up camera angles, trying things out. Many have criticized it as an overhyped event, but to me, it was very rewarding. What they don’t understand is that for some reason, the editing room guys cut most of what was to appear on the show.

I’ve included the video so that you can see that it was indeed on a screen. If you look not at the big screen on the stage, but the smaller screen on the right of the stage, there is the feed of what I was filming. Hopefully in the future I can get another opportunity to have my work appear on live tv. In the meantime, I’m quite proud of this.  Thanks for making it happen, Pontiac!

I’m alive.  I know I haven’t been posting lately, but I’ve been doing research on having myself cloned.  Not the copybot type of cloning, but the real sheep cloning.  I’m spending more time in IMs with offers and project ideas than getting things done lately and it’s taking a toll.  I’m back here though, getting in the swing of things, and I’ve got some exciting posts ahead.

I’m a total stats junkie and I noticed that my blog was getting an unusually large number of hits today.  I finally decided to poke around on WordPress and discovered that my blog was listed in the top posts for “Machinima in Danger?” and for growing blogs.  I guess the key is in the titling of entries.  *ponders*

Anyways, if you’re new to reading my blog, it’s about…machinima!  Make yourself at home and I hope you come back.

P.S. Don’t forget to say hi.