Welcome to Betterverse.org, a chronicle of the evolving and innovative efforts to use virtual worlds to promote various real world causes and improve the lives of people all around the globe.
In follow-up to our interview with Frank Dellario on the upcoming "Deep" film using the Source-game engine, here are two teasers for the film that show what the final movie might look like.
To me the graphics still look a little rough around the edges for a theatrical release film. But it's still in pre-production, so lots of room for changes and improvement.
My buddy Frank Dellario, founder of the legendary Ill Clan machinima filmmaking crew, talked with me today about the recent announcement that for the first time a major motion picture was going to use Valve's Source game engine to create animations.
For those of us who have been following the growth of the art of machinima, this is the first time that machinima will be used to create digital animations for a motion picture. Previously, machinima has been used to create animations for television shows like "CSI", which the Ill Clan worked on. And machinima has been shown in documentaries like "Login 2 Life" and for special TV productions like "When Strangers Click." But never in a major-release film.
Frank talks about the larger implication of a film using a game engine to create animations, as well as the Valve Steam online system to distribute the film. Definitely a lot of interesting food for thought for anyone interested in machinima, the film industry, and how digital effects are produced.
My friend Daria told me at the Digital Media and Learning conference last week that Global Kids has finished three episodes of the youth-run Second Life talk show "Let's Talk Sustainability." "Let's Talk Sustainability" supports teens to develop expertise regarding sustainability, online broadcasting, and virtual world construction through producing a virtual talk show. LTS features interviews with STEM-related professionals, pre-produced videos, and audience activities. Each show is designed to introduce audiences to what they can do to live in a more sustainable world.
Does your nonprofit organization have an inspiring, funny, or heart-wrenching story to tell? Are there digital tools that can help you tell your story better? If you answered "yes" (and you should!), then TechSoup challenges your group to come up with a short digital story for the TechSoup Digital Storytelling Challenge.
TechSoup’s annual Digital Storytelling Challenge (also known as TSDigs), powered by Lights. Camera. Help., has launched for 2012. The Digital Storytelling Challenge combines professional instruction and friendly competition into a hands-on media-making project. Organizations participate in a series of short, interactive online trainings, apply that knowledge to create their digital story, then submit a one-minute video or five-picture slideshow to the TSDigs Challenge by February 29.
A panel of expert judges selects the very best entries to win terrific prizes consisting of tools and resources to take their digital storytelling to the next level. Organizations also keep and can use their digital story as a vital resource for promoting their work and connecting to constituents.
For nonprofits active in virtual worlds, 3D immersive worlds are such a compelling storytelling medium with rich images, video, and characters. So get cracking on telling the digital story of your organization today! Remember the deadline is February 29.
Then mark your calendars for March 28, 7 pm PT when TechSoup will be throwing an Awards Screening Party at TechSoup HQ in San Francisco and Live-Streaming in Nonprofit Commons in Second Life.
Hamlet at New World Notes pointed me to this remarkable machinima video that dramatizes a virtual marathon organized by the group IMRIC to raise funds for several worthwhile medical research projects. I love the rich quality of the filmmaking, the use of voiceover, music, and atmospherics that draw the viewer in. And the connection to Albert Einstein is very well done.
I hope they publish the figures about how much was raised afterwards. I'm not a big fan of using virtual worlds for fundraising efforts like this, in comparison to other forms of fundraising. But creative efforts like this can certainly raise the profile of important research and researchers working on finding cures for these terrible diseases and afflictions.
By the way, if you were inspired, it's not too late to donate. Head to the IMRIC site for more info.
This weekend, November 18-20, is the fourth annual Machinima Expo, a showcase / competition of the best machinima films of the past year. Machinima, the art of creating digital movies using video game or virtual world tools, has been around for awhile now, but the state-of-the-art has moved far beyond just screencaps of aw3som headshots to entirely new forms of filmmaking. Unlike more conventional digital animation, machinima uses cheap and widely available tools that anyone can use to create compelling art and entertainment.
To see this year's crop of winning machinima films, you can head to the different Second Life venues or watch online at machinima-expo.com. Check the schedule for screening and presentation times. There will also be a keynote address by machinima scholar Henry Lowood, panels, discussions, presentations, a debate on current machinima practice, and workshops on how to make machinima.
BTW, have a look at my list of "machinima for good" for examples of how this artform can be used to educate and promote different causes. And feel free to suggest new ones that I have missed!
In case you would like to watch the virtual world documentary "Login 2 Life" with other avatars, I have placed a movie player in the Plush Nonprofit Commons amphitheater (teleport link). Because this is embedded from a web feed, you and your fellow viewers will have to hit "play" at the same time to actually watch it in sync. (You can of course, also watch this film on the boring 2D web at this link.)
I would love it if we could get permission to stream this "properly" so we could all watch the movie at the same time, perhaps with some of the featured subjects there with us. But this is a nice start.
Draxtor Despres shares the exciting news that the new virtual world documentary "Login 2 Life" is now streaming for free online. You can now watch the film in its entirety at this link. We believe this will only be available for one week, so watch it while you can!
On Friday, October 7, Daniel Moshel, director of the new virtual world documentary "Login 2 Life" spoke at the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life . A full transcript will be posted soon. But I wanted to share with everyone the main comments from Daniel Moshel, which I found very interesting:
Rik Riel:Daniel, perhaps you might introduce yourself and tell us what motivated you to make this film?
Daniel Moshel: Everything started when the MMO World of Warcraft was released and I subscribed. Immediately. I was overwhelmed by the vast territory and the huge range of possibilities to play the game with others. In the 1st year, I spent 30 whole days online.
In this time I watched lots of the machinima work on YouTube, and I was very impressed by the variety and creativity of these flicks. You could find music videos, spoofs on TV shows, short films and ads made with game engines. The only thing missing was a documentary. This fact and the question "Who is the human behind the avatar's appearance?" formed the basic idea.
This morning, the Nonprofit Commons was fortunate enough to feature the director of the new virtual world documentary"Login 2 Life," Mr. Daniel Moshel, for our weekly meetup in Second Life. Daniel shared a number of interesting insights into the filmmaking process and his general views about synthetics worlds and online game spaces. We will be publishing the chatlog here and on the NPC blog shortly.
Meanwhile I wanted to share some exciting news imparted by Draxtor Despres. Not only is the film premiering in Germany on October 17, it will also be streaming for free online for a week starting that day! According to Draxtor, "it will premiere 10/17 midnight on ZDF & stream via their website http://www.zdf.de for one week all over the planet [no geo-blocking YES YES YES]."
For those interested in watching it together, perhaps we could host a stream in the Nonprofit Commons that week? It's a very good film, so not to be missed, however you see it.
[Pictured: Draxtor Despres, Jaynine Scarborough, Gentle Heron and Daniel Moshel.]
