Thanks to real life getting in the way, I didn’t make the June premiere of Month of Machinima, and have only just this weekend managed to sit down at the LEA with a small bunch of people and watch this month’s offerings on the theme of “Mixed Realities”.

Before getting to the films themselves, LL have added a further means to view movies; as well as the LEA theatre itself and the YouTube channel, you can now pick up an AviewTV pack scripted to play back the entries. For optimum viewing, however, I still recommend YouTube.

Now I have to say that “mixed realities” to me suggests films that combine mediums and ideas: machinima and real life; the “reality” and “fantasy” to create a visually compelling short film.  A pity then, that of the month’s entries, there are two that come across as promotional videos – one for the sim in which it was filmed, the other for an in-world group of musicians. While undoubtedly skilfully executed, they seemed to fall wide of the mark when it comes to the month’s theme; as do a couple of other music videos which also seemed to fall wide of the mark, theme-wise.

In fairness, I have no idea how much support the event is getting – it could be that there were insufficient entrants that met this month’s criteria and the judges fell back on entries from May; however, with due respect to all concerned, I sat down to watch this month’s selection with a high degree of anticipation and came away somewhat disappointed.

RockseaTV offers a short film that is a lot – to me – closer to the mark, presenting and avatar’s daydream of falling into the real world. BaySweetwatertakes things a step further in Domo Arigato, Roboto-san, where we see footage of the Fukushima disaster, where robots were used in the aftermath, together with footage of a robot scooting around in Second Life – a celebration of both the use of automated machinery in the role of life-saving and the potential for Second Life to act as an immersive training environment for such tools and equipment.

My personal favourite for the month, however, is Magical Glorious Morn – a tale of an old man living in the bayou, who just might be plagued by unseen – and malicious – laughter. Is someone playing a prank? Are there in fact leprechauns tormenting him? Or is he simply going mad in his isolation?

Above: Domo Arigato, Roboto-san; below: Magical Glorious Morn

Next month: Games!

This week sees the premiere of the next set of entrants in the Month of Machinima event. June’s theme is “Mixed Reality”, and the films will be shown at the LEA theatre prior to being available on the MoM YouTube account.

Full details:

• Premiere:  “Monday 1st June”, 10:00 PST (that’s from the official blog post, so look out for it on either Monday 30th MAY or WEDNESDAY June 1st!)
• Theatre teleport points: LEA 1, LEA 2, LEA 3, and LEA 4.

LEA Avatar Games

Also kicking-off on Monday are the LEA-sponsored “Avatar Games” – aka running an art-related obstacle course – on the LEA 3 sim. These games will take place at the somewhat inhospitable for non-US users time of 16:00 PST (a time when most of Europe will be either in bed or heading that way, while Australia & the Far East will be heading for work).

For those wishing to enter the event, you’ll have to submit an entry form and hope you get picked – the event is limited to 10 competitors a week. It’s unclear as to whether those not selected one week will be carried forward to the next, but I’m going to presume so.

Spectators are welcome at the games, although no actual Surl for the event was included in the official announcement, but if you wish to watch, the link given above for the LEA-3 sim should get you to the right place. There is also a wiki page on the event.

LEA Sandbox

Opened rather quietly on May 20th, the LEA Sandbox has been created to give (quote) “Residents space to build and play and experiment with the tools of Second Life as a medium for artistic expression”. If you want to find out more on the Sandbox:

• There is a wiki page on the subject you should read
• The Sandbox itself is on LEA 5.

The inaugural Linden Endowment of the Arts (LEA) Month of Machinima (MoM) kicked-off today at the LEA theatre. On show were the entrants for the May competition, a bewildering array of films covering a wide range of subjects, some dark, some humorous, some musically inclined – all of them outstandingly brilliant. While it is somewhat unfair to single any single film on offer out, I have to admit there were two that I really did like rather a lot… of which I’ll return to in a minute.

The event was well-attended, despite the loss of one of the sims serving the theatre as a landing point (LEA 3 was offline), over 50 people were in attendance, with Linden Lab represented by, among others, Courtney and Blondin Linden.

The finalists were all largely present at the event, and it was good to see Toxic, Draxtor and Crap there – and to get a few words in with Crap, who produces some of the most irreverent and funny machinima in SL – as anyone who has seen “Vinnie Linden” will attest.

Machinima is a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved creativity in Second Life – and in a form that can be carried outside of the virtual boundaries enforced by SL and other similar grids. The talent on display during the opening demonstrated this in full force – even if some of the resultant films were a little bewildering in terms of message and content.

Such is the power of Machinima and the depth of talent available in SL, I’m now more than ever convinced that Linden Lab needs to properly harness the available talent to help them fully and properly promote SL to audiences outside of the grid – something I’ve touched upon previously, and passed mention of while chatting with Courtney Linden, albeit briefly, yesterday.

As it stands, the MoM has had a great start; and I hope LL will continue to push it throughout the month, not just via the official YouTube account and upcoming playlist, but through further showings at the LEA Theatre. I certainly hope that future MoM events will be given equal (or even greater) exposure by LL.

For those that missed the event, be sure to check-out the official MoM YouTube account – the playlist will be up shortly (if it is not by the time you read this).

So, which movies did I particularly like? Well – first there was Bakerman’s Trip:

Then there was Crap Mariner’s brilliant Oscar Goldberg Speaks Out: