Machinimoo

This little tidbit is hot off the presses! I just got done speaking with BuhBuhCuh Fairchild, who updated the Alt-Zoom Studios page for the 2nd Annual Ed Wood Festival.

• Ed Wood made films so bad, they were good. This weekend, Second Life residents have 48 hours to make a movie in the spirit of Ed Wood.
• Halloween Night, 7pm SL time, we will screen these movies IN Second Life at our theatre in Lukanida.
• Last year, the Ed Wood Festival was Alt-Zoom’s first ever machinima festival, and so we are celebrating our first birthday as well by giving out L$60,000 in prize money for Worst Film, Worst Story, Worst Acting, Worst Costumes, and Most Disturbing Film!
• On Friday, at midnight, we will announce a title for all the films on this webpage here. You will have the next two days to make it, good or bad.
• To submit a movie, email a file or URL to edwood@alt-zoom.com, or give a link to Buhbuhcuh Fairchild or Moo Money in Second Life by Midnight, Sunday (pacific time).
• Submissions need to be in a downloadable format – Quicktime, WMV, or AVI is reccomended – NO FLASH!

It’s my first Ed Wood Festival and I’m super nervous about it. I want to make Ben proud and get a lot of entries for it. Hell, *I* don’t even know the theme to it yet.

Just 10 SHORT days left until the in-world festival. Eep!

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I just wanted to update everyone on what I was thinking and feeling right now about the upcoming festival. I also thank some important machinimists, Pierce Portocarrero, Paul Marino, and Overman, that inspire me.

Thanks for sponsoring me, podcast.com!

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Today is now officially known as “the day I couldn’t stop smiling”.

A couple of weeks ago, a Wired reporter contacted me to ask me some questions about my work with Alt-Zoom and the camera. She mentioned that she was doing a piece on “Must-Have SL Gadgets“. Here is what she ended up writing about us:

7. Shouting Out from Second Life
Free

Second Life residents are making in-world movies — called “machinima” — using the wide variety of locations in the 3-D world, as well as on their own virtual movie sets built in world. For smooth camera work and easier retakes, the Alt-Zoom camera (SLurl) is free, part of the Machinima StarterKit available in Lukanida (SLurl). Creator BuhBuhCuh Fairchild, aka Ben Linden (Second Life employees take the last name of Linden), was so enthusiastic about the art he hired his own part-time employee, moo Money, to help run the Take5 Machinima Festival.

This is so exciting! The article even got Boing Boinged!

My journey to insanity is over! I was contacted by Koz Farina, of Podcast.com and Secondlife.Podcast.com, about being sponsored for my trip to New York for the Machinima Festival. Now I can spread the good word of Second Life to other machinimists.

For those that have heard of Koz, he is also of BlogHUD fame. During the next 20 days, I’ll be blogging my thoughts, doing vlogs, calling in to do audioblogs, and posting footage of the event itself. Stay tuned!

In other news, the panel spots are all full, but my outline of our panel was so awesome, that they might want us to do a workshop for AMAS members! That’s so much cooler in a way! I’m really excited to see the enthusiasm for Second Life machinima.

As for travel info, I arrive on Thursday night, November 2nd, and leave on Monday afternoon, November 6th. That gives me 4 nights of clubbing and 3.5 days of work! If you live in the New York area and I know you from Second Life, contact me if you want to hang out!

Did you know that Alt-Zoom Studios has forums? Well, we do! It’s true! No really!

In all seriousness, with the official Second Life forums being frequented less and the Alt-Zoom forums being over a year old, they could be a great resource if machinima enthusiasts signed up! I’m going to be posting all the info for the Festivals there. Also, there is a Job Center section where members can post if they’re looking for work or need staff for their machinima!

***Please note that due to spammers signing up for accounts, I’m asking that you post in the non-member discussion area with your SL name under “Registration requests” and then IM moo Money in-world so that I can verify that you are indeed you.

I’d just like to give all the machinimists a heads up about the Take5 Machinima Festival format this month. In honor of October, we’re having an Ed Wood Film Festival. Machinimists will be given a theme roughly 72 hours before Halloween and tasked to make an awesomely bad horror film in that time. It’s not supposed to be a masterpiece, so anyone can participate! I’ll have more details on the time of the party in the coming week.

Who was Ed Wood?

• Ed Wood was a filmmaker who created ultra-low budget B movies. He was posthumously recognized as the “Worst Director of All Time” for films such as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda. He wrote, directed, and sometimes acted in his films. He also made them fast – filming sometimes as many as 30 scenes in a single day. Find out more from wikipedia.

What is Machinima?

• Machinima is the art of making a movie using a game engine to render the action in real time. While it is not as sophisticated as a tools like 3dMax or Maya, Creating a film in Second Life is free, easy, and fast. For more information, check out Machinima.com.

How do I make it?

• It’s pretty easy – stay tuned to this spot, A really fast and bad tutorial can be found here. I will also answer questions at our forums.

Other stuff

• This festival is put on by fans of Ed Wood and Second Life. No Infringement is intended on either of them. By submitting a entry, you grant Alt-Zoom Studios the right to use your film in promotional material, unless you request otherwise. Films with illegal or broadly offensive elements will not be eligible for screening or prizes.

It’s always nice to discover cool machinima when I’m lurking about. I was looking in the YouTube Second Life group when I came across this one:

I’ll touch upon the awesomeness that is Pierce when I’ve been awake for a bit longer. In the meantime I’d like to say that I’m *SO* glad he’s back from his break.

Did you miss Wednesday’s Festival? Did you love the movies so much that you want to bring your friends and see them again? Now is your chance! I will be holding a euro-friendly Take5 as the one in the traditional timeslot always conflicts with bedtimes. Hope to see you there!

• Who: Alt-Zoom Studios
• What: Take5 Machinima Festival
• Where: Lukanida
• When: October 1st @ 1pm PST
• Why: To celebrate machinima!

There were some tough choices, but the results are in!

gameOver – by Pierce Portocarrero, Winner Best Movie
Submarine – by Torley Linden, Winner Best Editing
Dream – By Silver and Goldie Goodman, Winner Best Story
Skoopf Skates – by Nylon Pinkney, Winner Best Cinematography
Cyber One – by Ansible Berkman and Tao Takashi, Winner Technical Accomplishment

The interesting thing about the winning machinima is that each fits into a different genre. “Game Over” could almost be considered “anime” or “cartoony”. “Submarine” is like a musical anthem to watermelony-goodness! “Dream” is about fulfilling the request of a first-life news anchor that specializes in satire. In “Skoopf Skates”, a late-night rollerboy finds company when he least expects it, making for a hilarious commercial. Rounding out the winners is “Cyber One”, a RL and SL blended informational piece about classes taught on Harvard’s Berkman Island.

Let me know what you think! Also, check out the other 14 fabulous videos available from the September Take5 Machinima Festival.