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.

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.

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!

MP3 File

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!

Download File

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!