MACHINIMA is the latest innovation in user-generated content to gain mainstream prominence – a new media, film and art form that is rapidly evolving into a new form of cultural and personal expression online.
Machinima is the production of videos and films inside a 3D virtual world, using the variety of characters and locations found there to produce pieces that are edited, scripted, and distributed just like productions done in the real world. Currently, Google’s YouTube returns 124,000 machinima related videos uploaded to their Web 2.0 pioneering website.
While originally a user-generated innovation with video and computer games, machinima has become so widespread that several filmmakers, from amateurs to professionals, worldwide now produce these videos in the variety of virtual worlds that exist online. The art form is attracting the attention of film-makers such as director Per Fly in Denmark, who has produced scenes in her new movie using machinima in World of Warcraft. Even established film festivals, such as the Sundance Film Festival, have started to consider machinima in their competitions.
As part of our interest in understanding virtual worlds, and how people innovate with and in them, we at Roskilde University, RUC, are announcing an international competition to highlight machinima production in Linden Lab’s Second Life.
The competition is announced to coincide with the inauguration of a new research presence RUC has established in Second Life:
”Metrotopia – City of Superheroes, Superheroines”
The inauguration event of this virtual world research lab will occur in Metrotopia, in Second Life, and the event will stream live to the blog: http://worlds.ruc.dk. The inauguration day will follow this schedule:
Friday, August 28. 20:30-1:00 Copenhagen CEST (2:30pm – 7:00pm EST, 11:30am-4pm SLT)
20:30 CEST (2:30pm EST, 11.30am SLT)
Arrival at ”The Costume Bazaar” to change into your own superhero outfit
OR, if you have one already, bring your own!
21:00 CEST (3:00pm EST, 12.00pm SLT)
Opening Address from Professor Sisse Siggaard Jensen, Ph.D., RUC
Announcement of the Metrotopia Second Life Machinima Contest
21:30 CEST (3:30pm EST, 12.30pm SLT)
Ghostbusters Supershow
22:00 CEST (4:00pm EST, 1 pm SLT)
Live concert from USA: Friendly Fire
23:00 CEST (5:00pm EST, 2pm SLT)
Fight Night in the Fight Club Dojo
Party at the Museum of Superheroes with DJ Otawan Fouquet
1:00 CEST (7:00pm EST, 4pm SLT)
Good night
Practical information:
Download the Second Life program: www.secondlife.com
Link to Metrotopia: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Research%20Island%20Denmark/9/9/26
It was a night of music, dancing, amazing costumes, and a chance to meet new friends. As someone working behind the scenes to keep the event moving smoothly, I was very glad to have the experienced hands of Doctor Asp at his keyboard, miles and miles away from mine, helping me to coordinate the moment-by-moment schedule, and handling schedule changes that could have derailed us had we not been able to be in instantaneous communication despite geographical distance. To me, that was the most fascinating aspect of Friday night’s event. Here we were, on the research project, in two places geographically — a farm and a university campus — and our event’s manager was in another city hours away by train but immediately there inworld thanks to the internet. Add to that performers who were across the ocean in America, and the visitors who were scattered around the globe — it was truly amazing to think that I was helping to coordinate a truly global event made possible due to the media technology that are virtual worlds. That sitting alone in the dark on a Danish farm, as summer drifted into autumn, I could reach out and impact the lives of so many people, even if only for a few hours. The experience was humbling.