Machinimoo

*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

A couple of hours before the event, the crew began testing the sound system. It was exciting to be up that close. My poor digital camera speakers couldn’t handle it though.

I’ve owed this video for a long time, but I had to find the right conversion software that would do it. For some reason, the codec on my digital camera isn’t supported by Windows Movie Maker or Sony Vegas.

Anyways, this is the video of my experience at the Jay-Z machinima event for the Jimmy Kimmel show as we wrap up and pack up. Enjoy!

* Be warned that Jay-Z uses some languages while rapping in the background…

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.

The Machinimasia Festival took place yesterday.  Not sure what time because of the conversion, but they haven’t announced winners yet.  The sole Second Life entry that made it, as far as I can tell, is Pierce Portocarrero’s Game Over.  He’s a finalist in the Open Category.

Did anyone else submit to this?  Why hasn’t LL made a comment on who they sent to the Festival?  Is it because only one person was nominated?  Wouldn’t that mean that Pierce should have gone?

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!

In the grand scheme of things, there are very few machinimists in Second Life that contract out for their work. Because I promote machinima, I am often the first line of contact when someone is looking for a machinimist. I rarely take on projects because I want to provide the best opportunity I can to promote machinima, therefore I’m always recommending other machinimists. Between promoting machinima for Alt-Zoom and signing on to work for The Grid Review, I’ve realized that I’m going to have to manage my time wisely now that I have less hours.

This is probably going to sound silly to most of you, but I’ve started to project manage my own life. I’m scrapbooking transcripts, saving notes, jotting down ideas, signing up for invoicing software, signing up for time-tracking software. I’m not even sure if I’d call myself a business, but I need to manage my time in a structured way. I’m obviously going to be hit for self-employment taxes, so I need to be prepared. Record expenses, save receipts, document everything.

Why am I telling you this? I’m not sure. Lack of sanity and hope for clarity? Is there anyone else out there in Second Life that is going through the same thing? I’d like to know that I’m not alone.

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve heard of the recent debate over the LibSL Copybot. I was privy to a demo of it some days ago and the first thing I said when it copied my prims was that people were going to flip out over it. I see it from both sides, but when machinima is attacked, it’s personal.

Goldie Goodman does a great job of defending machinimists:

WHOA! Let’s please slow down. There are already devices built into the system that can make a “copy” of anything and that’s the cameras. The fact that cameras exist in SL, however, doesn’t give anyone permission to take a snapshot or shoot machinima. The issues that machinimists and photogs face in SL need to be taken into account before any “solution” is enacted to the CopyBot problem. ALL copyright implications must be considered — those that affect the replication of objects in-world, AND those that affect the taking of photographs (which by nature entails reproducing images of user-created content). Under the “first use metadata” concept , for example, anyone taking a photo of anything in SL would need to get the permission of each and every “first use” creator for each and every object that appears in the photo. Think about it. When you buy clothes for your av, your av’s name is shown as the “owner”, even though the “creator” is someone else. It seems logical that the current “owner” of the clothes — the one who bought them legitimately –should be able to take the his/her own photo, and to give permission to others to photograph his/her av wearing those clothes. The “first use metadata” concept destroys that reasonable right. There could be numerous unintended consequences. Let’s PLEASE be careful here with whatever action is taken to protect content creator’s rights.

As for Cory Linden’s take on the issue, he states this in a separate blog entry:

Please recognize that using the Terms of Service is not a permanent solution. Nor is it shift in Linden Lab’s support of libsecondlife (who have removed CopyBot from their Subversion repository), machinima creators, or others who have explored Second Life beyond the features of the Second Life client. I continue to feel that libsecondlife is an incredibly important part of Second Life’s development and community.

I ask you PLEASE to keep a clear head when considering reporting people for using your content in their machinimas. There is a high probability that they have purchased what is being used in their scenes. I really hope that we can all come to some sort of harmonious agreement.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts?

I blogged about Four Eyed Monsters a couple of months ago, but I’d really like to comment on it again. As a machinimist, the toughest challenge is getting the word out there about our work. These are RL independant film-makers trying to get the word out about their work. It’s a match made in heaven!

There’s a movement sweeping your Second Life and I think you should know about it! Since September an independant film, titled Four Eyed Monsters, has been playing in various cities throughout the United States.

You might say to yourself, “but Second Life isn’t a city!” That’s the beauty of it! If they receive 150 requests on their website for a screening, they’ll stream it in-world for us! How are we doing so far? We only need 25 more requests. How can you help? Request it! They even added a dropdown choice for Second Life in their locations.

Here is a description of the film:

A girl and a guy make a rule to meet up and not speak to each other. They have sex while still never having spoken! Instead they use notes, pics, music and videos get to know each other and slowly start to meld into one beast that has 2 mouths, 4 eyes and 8 limbs and takes up 2 seats on the subway!!! How long can their relationship survive as an art project??? And by the way, all of this really happened…

To stay informed, there’s also a Four Eyed Monsters group in Second Life! It’s open enrollment, so join now and show your support!