Update November 19th: As per Pixie Rain’s comment, Tutsy NAvArAthnA’s Narcissus, the only Second Life entry to be make it to the Expo’s Jury-selected showreels, went on to win the Jury Grand Prize. Congratulations to Tutsy!
Linden Lab brings word of the 6th annual Machinima Expo which will be taking place on-line on November 17th, 2013.
Showcasing 38 films varying in length from just over a minute to over an hour in length from all over the world and filmed in various formats, the Expo is a showcase event for machinima makers of all genres.
Second Life features in a number of the Expo Screening Reels, with pieces such as Steve G. Hudek’s Simulacra, Hypatia Pickens’ Slow Light (see below), Episode 2 (Jo Yardley) of The Drax Files by Draxtor Despres, Joe Zazulak’s The Mirror Lies and Inevitablity of Fate by Iono Allen, to mention a few.
Second Life also made it into the Expo Jury Reels as well, with Tutsy NAvArAthnA’s Narcissus (see the English version below)in with a chance of winning a Jury Award,further demonstrating the recognition the platform has as a medium for machinima making.
All of the showreels can be seen at the Machinima Expo 6 uStream page, while further information on the event as a whole can be found on the Expo’s website. Events on November 17th commence at 10:00 SLT and run through until 17:00 SLT. They will include presentations on various aspects of machinima making, the Jury award announcements and more. Everything can be seen on-line via the Expo’s uSteam feed (see the link above) or via the Expo’s Facebook page.
Following the on-line event, there will be a special Machinima Expo party in-world in Second Life, which will be starting at the unusual time of 17:20 SLT.
Christmas is a time for giving, and on Sunday the 8th December, 2013, Bay City will be hosting their annual Christmas Tree Lighting and fundraiser.
Activities will commence at 13:00 SLT and run through until 16:00 SLT and will take place at the Bay City fairgrounds. On offer will be:
Live entertainment
A skating party
A silent auction
refreshments and fun.
This year will see Grace McDunnough and CelticMaidenWarrior Lancaster take to the stage to provide the live music performances, and GoSpeed Racer will be spinning the tunes as the event’s DJ.
The silent auction will take place throughout the event, and will conclude at 16:00 SLT, when activities officially draw to a close. All proceeds from the silent auction and from donation bins at the venue will go to Child’s Play Charity, a 501c3 non-profit organisation offering online communities such as the Bay City Alliance an opportunity to help seriously ill children around the globe during their hospital stays with the purchase of games and gaming equipment.
Grace McDunnough (l) and CelticMaidenWarrior Lancaster (r) will be performing on stage at the event, and GoSpeed Race (c) spinning the tunes as the event’s DJ
Request to Second Life Designers and Artists
To assist with the fund-raising auction, the organisers of the tree lighting are asking that SL designers and artists to consider donating fun, interesting, unique, or other transferrable items (or a no-copy object that an auction winner can use to redeem their prize in the case of no transfer items) which both reflect well on Second Life and which can be offered as auction items.
If you are willing to provide one or more items, please contact Marianne McCann for details on how to participate.
About Bay City and the Bay City Alliance
Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab™ and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.
It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library SL.
As always, all times SLT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.
Sunday November 10th, 18:00: Fortunately, the Milk
“This is quite possibly the most exciting adventure ever to be written about milk since Tolstoy’s epic novel War and Milk. Also it has aliens, pirates, dinosaurs and wumpires in it (but not the handsome, misunderstood kind), also a never-adequately-explained-bowl-of-piranhas, not to mention a Volcano God.”
– Neil Gaiman.
What do you do when your wife is away on a business trip, you pop down to the corner shop to get a pint of milk for the kids’ breakfast, get caught in conversation and eventually return home to the accusing stares of your two children delivered across milk-less bowls of cereal? Do you admit that yes, in fact you had been gossiping, or do you opt for the safer way out and offer-up the most outlandish tale?
Guess which course of action this particular father took?
Join Caledonia Skytower as she gives an encore reading of Neil Gaiman’s delightful tale in the art of trolling the kids, which will take place at Magicland Park.
Monday November 11th, 19:00: Science Fiction: The Planets Series
With Gyro Muggins.
Tuesday November 12th, 19:00: Treasure it the Heart of the Tanglewood
Faerie Maven-Pralou continues her reading of Meredith Ann Pierce’s 2001 novel for young adults.
Hannah lives by the fearsome Tanglewood with a few talkative companion animals. She doesn’t age, and she has no memory of anything but this life of isolation. Once a month she plucks the flowers that grow from her head, a painful process in which “each yank made her whole scalp ache”, and brews them into a tea for the wizard who lives deep in the woods.
When Hannah falls in love with one of the many knights who seek the treasure of the book’s title, she starts to question the wizard’s motives, finding he has turned the knight into a fox.
Escaping the wizard’s manipulative grasp, Hannah sets out to find a cure for the knight, an adventure in which she discovers her own identity and the repercussions of some of her actions while under the control of the wizard.
Wednesday November 13th, 19:00: Miracles: A Trio of Island Tales
Caledonia Skytower reads another of her own original works.
Thursday October 14th
16:00: A Leprechaun´s Tale 2
With Dubhna Rhiadra.
19:00: The Best little Stories from the Civil War
Behind the bloody battles, strategic marches, and decorated generals of the American Civil War lie more than 100 intensely personal, true stories you haven’t heard before, including the story of former U.S. Senator Robert Toombs of Georgia, who warned the Confederate cabinet not to fall for Lincoln’s trap by firing on reinforcements, thereby allowing Lincoln to claim the South had fired the first shots of the war at Fort Sumter or that of Private Franklin Thomson of Michigan, born as Sarah Emma Edmonds, who fought in uniform for the Union during the war and later was the only female member of the postwar Union Grand Army of the Republic.
Join Shandon Loring as he delves into this fascinating volume of over 100 true short stories from that bloody period of US history.
In 2012, to mark the Dickens Bicentenary Year, the folk at Storyfests SL organised The Dickens Project, a 13-day celebration of Dickens’ work, primarily focused on A Christmas Carol, but which included selections from other novels and short stories. Over the course of the event, 20 hours of readings and performances took place, featuring an international cast in a purpose-built themed environment in Second Life. The latter not only reproduced the world of Dickens’ novels, but also provided a number of levels of interaction for visitors and audiences, allowing them to learn more about Dickens’ life and works, and the era in which he lived.
In June, I reported on moves to broaden The Dickens Project as both a real life and virtual experience, as explained by the project’s creator and producer, Caledonia Skytower in a video which looked back at the December 2012 event as well as looking at the future potential for the project.
Now, a part of this potential is to be realised.
In December 2013, and for a single performance, The Dickens Project will cross the divide between the real and the virtual. At 13:00 on Sunday December 1st, three noted voice actors will give a special reading of A Christmas Carol using a text adapted and annotated by Dickens himself when he presented the story in person, together with some additional text from the full novella. The event will take place at the Knights of Pythia Temple in Tacoma, Washington, USA; however, only one of the artists will be present in person in the form of Judith Cullen, Caledonia Skytower’s alter-ego.
Judith Cullen (Caledonia Skytower SL) and Kevin Lee (Kayden Oconnell SL) with Shandon Loring (c) will be presenting a special SL / RL performance of The Dickens Project on December 1st, 2013
Both of the remaining two players for the piece, actor, director, stage manager and playwright Kevin Lee (SL: Kayden Oconnell), and the Seanchai Library SL’s Chief storyteller, Shandon Loring (playing the central role of Ebenezer Scrooge), will be joining Judith through the magic of Second Life, and their presence at the in-world Dickens Project set will projected onto a large screen at the Temple.
The RL / SL cross-over performance will feature both in-world and real life audiences, and while free to both, donations will be accepted with proceeds from real life benefiting My Sister’s Pantry and those from the the virtual world benefiting War Child North America.
The Knights of Pythia Temple, Tacoma, where the performance will take place in RL
The performance will come ahead of a season of in-world performances of The Dickens Project which is due to commence on December 12th, 2013. I’ll be providing more details on this in the coming weeks.
It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library SL.
As always, all times SLT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.
Sunday November 3rd, 13:30: Tea Time at Baker Street
Sherlock Holmes (l, standing) and, Dr. Watson receive two distinguished guests in “The Adventure of the Second Stain”, Sidney Paget / Strand Magazine, 1904
Caledonia Skytower and Corwyn Allen read The Adventure of the Second Stain, from The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes and Watson received two very distinguished guests, who between them have a serious problem of some considerable import and delicacy.
None other than the Prime Minister, Lord Bellinger and the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Trelawney Hope, inform Holmes that a document has been stolen from Hope’s dispatch box, apparently while the latter was at Secretary of State’s home. The document, a letter from a foreign potentate, could result in very dire consequences – even war – if delivered to the wrongs hands.
Both the Prime Minister and Hope impress upon Holmes that such is the nature of the document that no-one in Hope’s household, not even his wife, knew of its presence prior to the letter vanishing when Hope himself was out of the house for a number of hours.
Taking the case, Holmes decides to call upon a number of spies who may have a vested interest in obtaining the letter on behalf of their governments, only to find one of them has been murdered. Deciding that this could not be mere coincidence, he finds the mystery deepening when Hope’s wife, Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope, arrives at his home, demanding to know the contents of the document, whilst also begging Holmes to tell her husband nothing of her visit…
Monday November 4th, 19:00: Science Fiction: The Planets Series
With Gyro Muggins.
Tuesday November 5th, 19:00: Treasure it the Heart of the Tanglewood
Faerie Maven-Pralou restarts her reading of Meredith Ann Pierce’s 2001 novel for young adults, which was unfortunately interrupted in August.
Hannah lives by the fearsome Tanglewood with a few talkative companion animals. She doesn’t age, and she has no memory of anything but this life of isolation. Once a month she plucks the flowers that grow from her head, a painful process in which “each yank made her whole scalp ache”, and brews them into a tea for the wizard who lives deep in the woods.
When Hannah falls in love with one of the many knights who seek the treasure of the book’s title, she starts to question the wizard’s motives, finding he has turned the knight into a fox.
Escaping the wizard’s manipulative grasp, Hannah sets out to find a cure for the knight, an adventure in which she discovers her own identity and the repercussions of some of her actions while under the control of the wizard.
Wednesday November 6th, 19:00: Fortunately, the Milk
“This is quite possibly the most exciting adventure ever to be written about milk since Tolstoy’s epic novel War and Milk. Also it has aliens, pirates, dinosaurs and wumpires in it (but not the handsome, misunderstood kind), also a never-adequately-explained-bowl-of-piranhas, not to mention a Volcano God.”
– Neil Gaiman.
What do you do when your wife is away on a business trip, you pop down to the corner shop to get a pint of milk for the kids’ breakfast, get caught in conversation and eventually return home to the accusing stares of your two children delivered across milk-less bowls of cereal? Do you admit that yes, in fact you had been gossiping, or do you opt for the safer way out and offer-up the most outlandish tale?
Guess which course of action this particular father took?
Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads Neil Gaiman’s delightful tale in the art of trolling the kids.
Thursday October 17th
16:00: A Leprechaun´s Tale
With Dubhna Rhiadra.
19:00: Weirder than Weird
If you love quirky and dark short stories but have become discouraged over the lack of originality these days then this book will renew your faith! “Weirder Than Weird” is full of dark and creepy tales as well as a few oddballs that Rod Sterling would probably feel right at home with. With Shandon Loring.
21:00: Seanchai Late Night
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Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.
I think everyone expected to see a man emerge–possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I did. But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous disks–like eyes. Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me–and then another.
“The Cylinder Opens”, Chapter 4 of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds
October 30th 1938, and across the airwaves originating from New York City, comes the familiar announcement to thousands of radios within receiving range: Mercury Theatre on the Air is once more live and broadcasting. But this was to be no ordinary presentation by the company co-founded and led by the rising young genius, Orson Welles.
Orson Welles
War of the Worlds has gone down in history as one of the most famous radio broadcasts ever made. Transplanting the story of a Martian invasion from 19th century rural England to the east coast of America in the 1930s, the Mercury Theatre on the Air gave a dramatisation that was – by some at least – taken all too literally as it reached out across the airwaves (although it appears much of the upset linked to the show actually occurred in the days after the broadcast, rather than at the time).
The confusion that did occur during the broadcast was most likely the result of Welles’ own clever structuring of the show, which was presented as a series of eye-witness accounts being reported-on “live” from a number of locations in upstate New York and in the city itself, and which saw the first “breaking news” announcement timed to coincide to the period when many listeners would re-tune their radios to CBS after listening to a popular show on a rival station.
On Friday November 1st, and with special permission of the estate of Howard Koch, one of the two co-writers of the original script, the Avatar Repertory Theatre (ART) staged a performance of Welles’ War of Worlds to mark the 75th anniversary of the original broadcast.
The production, which had first been performed in Second Life in 2011 by Seanchai Library and friends, brought several of that production’s cast back to the stage, together with new faces and voices from the ARTs team, all of whom once again filled the original stage set.
War of the Worlds, Avatar Repertory Theatre
The set for the production was simplicity itself; eight members of the cast standing in the windows of what appears to be a broken and shattered building, perhaps a shop-front in one of the towns the Martians passed through en route to New York or which might even be the ruined remnants of one of that city’s towering skyscrapers. The wall behind the actors changed as the production progressed, displaying various backgrounds which helped enhance the story and offer visua cues as the settings for the unfolding tale changed.
Kayden Oconnell as Professor Richard Pierson
Reprising the role of Professor Pierson, Kayden Oconnell stood a little forward of the main set, framed by an empty doorway.
Given Pierson, the pivotal character in the piece, had been played by Welles himself back in 1938 and already regarded as an actor, director and producer of some considerable renown, any adaption of the radio play needs a lead who can fill Welles’ shoes with confidence. Kayden Oconnell is just such an actor. In reprising the role, he brought with him the same gravitas, tone and authority he presented to audiences in 2011.
Alongside of him, the rest of the cast, often performing more than one role, also presented the material with authority and skill, so much so that if you closed your eyes, it was easy to imagine yourself back in a war-jittery America, listening to the most chilling “news” being broadcast on a dark, early winter’s night.
But the production wasn’t all words; great care had been taken to add both aural and visual effects, as with the original broadcast. Thundergas Menges provided the sound effects and music, the latter of which did much to recreated the feel of the original broadcast through the inclusion of pieces Welles had used to represent the various bands playing during the “regular broadcasts” from CBS which his “news bulletins” would periodically interrupt at the start of the piece.
The visuals with the piece were once again a treat, and added another famous ingredient to the mix. As the Martians started on their attempted conquest of the Earth, a huge fighting machine taken from Jeff Wayne’s more recent but equally famous adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel, reared up over the audience, heat-ray menacing and ready to fire.
“They were inside the hoods of machines they’d made. Massive metal things on legs … giant machines that walked…”
I thoroughly enjoyed War of the Worlds when first presented in-world in this format back in 2011, and found myself equally enthralled this time around. In both cases, the cast presented a piece that offered us a window into the past and those chilly October nights when the fear of war was once again on the minds of many people, while at the same time presenting us with an aural and visual treat we could enjoy simply as a re-telling of one of science-fiction’s all-time great stories.
My only regret is really that this was only a single performance; it’s a piece I’d happily sit through again, and would, were it possible, encourage everyone to go see and enjoy.
Bravo to all involved!
The heat-ray strikes!
War of the Worlds was staged at the Avatar Repertory Theatre’s New Theatre. It was directed by Caledonia Skytower and featured the voice talents of Corwyn Allen, MadameThespian Underhill, Ada Radius, Avajean Westland, Sodovan Torak, Em Jannings, Thundergass Menges, and Caledonia Skytower, with Kayden Oconnell as Professor Richard Pierson.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 