Machinimoo

I’ve been trying to keep up with all this web 2.0 stuff and somehow merge it with Second Life. I think Facebook is much less offensive than MySpace and is better at connecting people. With that said, I’ve created a group for Alt-Zoom announcements and Machinima-related things. Some of you may be full on groups, or have announcements turned off, so you won’t see the events scheduled. This way, you can just check the Alt-Zoom page to see if there’s a class or ask advice.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?

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.

I’m totally going to regret uploading this. Apparently I drunkenly interviewed Eric Call about his Festival win this last weekend in New York. I forgot about it until reviewing footage just now.

Download File

Many apologies to those eagerly checking the Alt-Zoom Studios site for the winners. Ben and I were in New York for the AMAS Machinima Festival. The good news is that they’re up now! You can go here to check out all the entries, or just browse the participant list below:

Thank you to everyone that participated! I had so much fun waiting to see what you guys came up with. I wasn’t disappointed.

I recently blogged about Kiwi Alfa, an up-and-coming machinimist that overhauled the Alt-Zoom camera. He finally finished his moving display of the Silent Witnesses plot. Keep in mind that this entire thing, save for the end credits, was filmed using his modified version of the camera and about 30 waypoints. Thank you, Kiwi.

Warning: Keep your tissues handy.

Well, actually, I got back last night, but I’ve been sick. I don’t know what it is about traveling that does me in.

So my thoughts about the Festival will come out in my blog over the next couple of days. I had a really good time, even if I thought SL got robbed in terms of winners, but that’s another blog entry in itself.

For now, I have some pictures!!!

Click my fave pic of me to go to the rest of the photoset.

Thanks to secondlife.podcast.com for making this happen.

Paul Marino contacted me last night regarding the Machinima Festival. Being that Pierce will be on a panel and I’ll be moderating that panel, he needed our bios for the Fest program. Eeek! We didn’t have bios. Here is what we came up with:

Sasha Rudie, under the pseudonym moo Money, was hired as the Community Manager of Alt-Zoom Studios, a non-profit organization centering around Machinima, within the virtual world of Second Life in May 2006. Since she began, the Take5 Machinima Festival, a virtual Machinima festival run by Alt-Zoom Studios, has grown from two Machinima productions to over 20 Machinima productions submitted by residents every month. She dedicates most of her time to educating SL residents about Machinima. Most recently, she helped lead a discussion on Machinima at the Second Life Community Convention in August 2006, as well as assisting a successful real-life Machinima Festival during the Convention. In her previous online life, Ms. Rudie was a volunteer employee of Stratics as an online journalist. She reported on such games as Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and The Sims Online.

Pierce Portocarrero has honed his skills as a director of Machinima inside the synthetic world of Second Life since 2004. During this time, Pierce has had the opportunity to produce numerous short films, work with MTV, and receive coverage on Fox News. In addition to his many side projects, he has spent the last two years working on a feature length documentary in Second Life, “Ideal World”, which is scheduled to be released in 2007. In the fall of 2006, Pierce went back to his small-town roots in Georgia to form OddWadd, a Machinima production company dedicated to serving the needs of commercial businesses, artists, and residents within Second Life. In the panel circuit, Pierce cut his teeth discussing flash video at SXSW. Mr. Portocarrero holds a degree in Interactive Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

W00t!@ We get to be in a program viewed by like 1500 people. This should help raise awareness about SL machinima. Only 3 days left! Thank you, secondlife.podcast.com for sending me to New York.  I’ll make you proud.

When Ben put out the call for machinimists to participate in the Ed Wood Festival, he wanted to open it up to anyone. He sent notices to several of the bigger gaming news sites. I don’t know if he anticipated a negative reaction, but he certainly got one on Kotaku.

It started off with a writer calling SL residents incompetent:

Ed Wood and Second Life go together like chocolate and peanut butter. After all, Ed was a director of inspired incompetence; Second Life is an entire virtual world filled with that incompetence.

Then it progressed to comment flaming, with readers speculating that it must be a slow news week and that they might actually HAVE TO WORK. Ben had the perfect response, though:

;.; My news was better. And I have to take issue with the statement that SL is filled with incompetence – unlike most VWs, competence is not measured by how long you are logged in, killing rats, but rather, how good you are. I understand it is hard to get used to a world that is mostly built by the untrained, but having been a part of that community for over 4 years now, it is amazing how competent those same untrained users have become as time progresses.

That is kind of the crux of the problem – those who are infatuated with SL (like myself) see it for it’s potential, and are investing in that by contributing to the community early. Those who hate on SL, like all the previous commentors and many of Kotaku’s authors, see it how it is today, and are unwilling to invest in it when there seem to be so many more “complete” worlds, even if they are unlikely to grow to be more.

Oh well, it’s still a fun time, and it does draw on many of SL’s strengths – so I hope some folks may want to participate in this years festival.

You rock, Ben! Keep up the good work and thank you for caring about the community.

Machinimists ended up getting an extra hour for their machinima due to the clocks rolling back this morning. I won’t tell Ben if you won’t!.

There’s been some great response so far regarding the Ed Wood Festival. A couple of people new to machinima entirely contacted me on how to make it, citing Ed Wood as a hero. I’m really excited to see what people come up with.

Last night, Rhiannon Chatnoir and Frans Charming put out a call for extras for their bad machinima. When I arrived, I received a starfish head and joined the crowd. It was super laggy in Midnight City with 41 people trying to move about. Nothing rezzed, people ran into each other, and it seemed like everything was in slo-mo. Luckily, Aimee Weber was there to save us! Or shoot us down. :O It was a lot of fun!

Are you as excited about the 2nd Annual Ed Wood Festival as I am? What a title! “A Zombie Stole My Heart“. There’s endless bad potential here, guys.

Here’s the drill. The title’s been announced, so now you have roughly 47 and 1/2 hours to make and edit your machinima. Given that the goal is for it to be bad, it shouldn’t take long to make.

If you need any help, feel free to IM moo Money. You can upload your links to blip.tv. When you’re done, you can give me the URL or email it to edwood@alt-zoom.com.

The official rules can be found here.