Bart Cheever, our VP of Production also happens to be Bart Blackstone the DJ. I beamed him into my virtual studio the other day and we talked about his Kill Bill mashups (download Hanzo Steel Vol. 1), The Postmarks, Yo Gabba Gabba and more.
So, I must apologize for not posting this sooner… things have been a bit crazier for me than I’ve anticipated over the past couple of weeks!
I wanted to post a BIG thank you to Phaylen Fairchild, Evie Fairchild, Kit Maitland, Stampshady Grimm & all the other hard-working folks at New Media Cinema for their participation in the first of what I hope will be many mini machinima festivals - MMFs? Need to come up with a better name than that! But back from that little digression, we had a really nice turn out on and audience participation was so fun… I really appreciated it when they would give me a hard time for starting the wrong segment!
Of course I was so frizzy frazzied that I didn’t get any screenshots, but I snagged the gorgeous picture from Evie and defaced it horribly, just to celebrate our Divathon. Phaylen made me do it! Thanks to everyone that showed up, as well! I really had a blast and I hope you all did too. I know I’m very much looking forward to their next project, Ctr-Alt-Delete. From their blog, “This hyper-tech new series from the team that brought you DiVAS follows the high octane adventures of Jonas Darcy, a man whose consciousness was exiled to virtual reality and his code wizard sidekick, Noir.” Can’t come soon enough!
I’m also looking forward to our next MMF installment - I’ll announce what it will be before too long, and I swear I’ll come up with a better name for these things! Hoping that all of you are enjoying your lovely summer, winter or whatever it is where you are!
If you haven’t heard of the obscenely popular machinima short series called “Divas“, then you my friend have been missing out. Now, you could rush over to the site to check out all the episodes, or you could join us on Friday night for a 3 hour marathon at the New Globe Theater! We plan to stream all six episodes back to back and have a Q&A session for all machinimaists (is that a word? help me out!) out there. Best of all? Phaylen, Kit & Evie have agreed to allow an exclusive to this event: a preview of their latest project! There will be schwag, hot ladies and lots of laughs. While I’m all for going out on a Friday night, I highly urge you to stay in this weekend, dress to the nines and join us - it’s sure to be divalightful!
Friday, July 18th @ 6pm SLT – Millions of Us, New Globe Theater! IM Lyra Millionsofus if you are having difficulties finding the place!
Passage to Zhong Fu was originally created by me, Poid Mahovlich, duckyfresh Wantanabe and Dizzy Banjo for the 48 Hour Film Project in Second Life. If you’re unfamiliar with how the 48 Hr Film Project works, what happens is that all teams are given 3 random items that they must include; a prop, a character and a line of dialog. Addtionally, each team is randomly assigned a genre that they must work with. For this, all teams had to have a flamingo as a prop, the character Tony Martin - teacher and the line of dialog, “That’s the way that it goes.” As for genre, we were tasked to make a “road movie.” We had blast putting this together and are pretty happy with the results. Of course, since we were one of the event’s sponsors we weren’t part of the competition.
After turning in our cut on Sunday night, we knew there were a few more things we wanted to do to the film. So what I’m posting here is a little different. This is probably the 50-something hour version. We added back in the scene with the cage which we originally had to cut to meet the time requirements. Doing that meant that Dizzy had to compose some new music as that scene really joins the two before it and the one after as a single musical section. Poid and I also shot a new ending scene. The original had Poid walking down a city street but that came from the initial idea which sort of evolved as we shot and edited the piece. I like this ending much better because it brings us back to where the film starts, having changed - which, I think, is the theme and was the inspiration for adding the I Ching quote at the beginning.
We’re going to show it inworld on one of the Princeton Sims. Please join us this Sunday, February 3, 2008 from noon - 2 p.m. SLT. Screening SLURL. The event will feature live music by Dizzy Banjo and will take place on an ephemeral landscape designed by Poid Mahovlich. Come and interact with the cast and crew, props and scenery used in the filming.
Millions of Us and¬†Crayon¬†realize the winning design for Coca-Cola’s “Design a Coke Machine” Contest, concepted by Second Life resident¬†Emerie May.
Electronic Musician Kirsty Hawkshaw and Second Life Filmmaker Rob Wright Collaborate
We are launching an artist-in-residence program to discover and celebrate the work of emerging artists in the virtual world and social network space.
The first artist-in-residence will be UK-based Rob Wright, known as “Robbie Dingo” in Second Life. Wright has won widespread acclaim for a short film ‚Äì a 3D interpretation of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” ‚Äì that was produced entirely in Second Life. His first project commissioned by Millions of Us is a film interpretation of the song “Meteors” by Kirsty Hawkshaw and produced by Ulrich Shnauss. Kirsty is a prominent figure in electronic music known for her distinctive vocals and her work with the band Opus III. This video can be seen above.
Millions of Us’ artist-in-residence program will sponsor a number of artists in the coming year. The artists will collaborate informally with the Millions of Us creative team and work independently on their own projects. The relaxed atmosphere, unstructured program, and technical resources provided by Millions of Us are intended to spur unconventional results.
“Millions of Us is committed to finding the best talent in virtual worlds and all new media in order to bring them to a larger audience,” said Douglas Gayeton, Chief Creative Officer. “This is in part because we want to bring the freshest thinking possible to our campaigns, but also because we are inspired by the rapidly evolving work being produced by today’s digital artists and want to give back to the community.”
For more information on how to apply for the Millions of Us artist-in-residence program, please contact Celebrity Millionsofus within Second Life or via email: celebrity@millionsofus.com.
