Entry deadline has been extended until 22nd November 2009!
MACHINIMA is the latest innovation in user-generated content to gain mainstream prominence. It is a media, film and art form rapidly evolving into a new form of cultural and personal expression online. As part of our interest in understanding virtual worlds, and how people innovate with and in them, we at Roskilde University, are thrilled to announce an international competition to highlight machinima production in Linden Lab’s Second Life. The contest is about filmmaking in Second Life and especially in the Metrotopia City of Superheroes and Superheroines. The theme of your film is entirely open. The only requirement is that one or more scenes in your film take place in the City of Metrotopia, Second Life (SLURL)
Send us your machinima by November 22nd 2009 and enter the contest for the awards of 25,000 and 50,000 Linden dollars.
CONTEST RULES
Your submitted Machinima film may be superhero/heroine related or may revolve around another theme or storyline of your choice. The only requirement is that one or more scenes in your film take place in Metrotopia. The maximum film length is 5 minutes.
SUBMIT VIA YOUTUBE
To submit one or more films you need to upload them to YouTube and then send the appropriate link to dixi@ruc.dk along with your film title, name and contact info. Please add “(Metrotopia Contest Entry)” to your film title on YouTube. We will collect entries as favorites on our contest channel and embed finalist films on this blog. (Films with highly inappropriate content will be excluded.)
PRIZES
Metrotopia Machinima will award cash prizes to the audience best choice and the jury best choice (the jury will be particularly interested in stories relating to Metrotopia in a compelling and creative way). It is possible to win both awards. 1st prize audience award 25,000 Linden dollars and 1st prize jury award 50,000 Linden dollars (can be converted to US$ or €).
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline – November 22, 2009
Voting period – November 24, 2009 through December 9, 2009
Winners will be announced – December 11, 2009 on worlds.ruc.dk
TERMS OF USE
You retain all of your ownership rights to your film submission. However, by submitting you also grant us (the Virtual Worlds Research Project) a license to use, reproduce and distribute your film.
SUGGESTED FORMAT GUIDELINES
Resolution: Minimum of 320×240, maximum of 800×600.
Frame rate: Minimum 20 frames per second.
Audio: Minimum 22khz 16-bit audio.
Size: 100 Mb
VOTING
Further instructions on voting will be posted. Unusual activity will be monitored and will result in an immediate disqualification of the submission.
ORGANIZERS
The Metrotopia city and research laboratory is one of several subprojects under the Virtual Worlds Research Project. This large collaborative project, running from 2008-2011, joins university researchers at two Danish universities (Roskilde University and Copenhagen Business School) and a range of different partners. The project is funded by the funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council, KINO and explores sense-making and user-driven innovation in virtual worlds – Machinima being one of several research areas in which virtual worlds are used innovatively.
A nice little description and overview of Metrotopia by Apollo Manga – http://www.examiner.com/x-4734-Second-Life-Examiner~y2009m8d31-Metrotopia–City-of-Superheroes
Interesting, I like.