Todd Stallkamp, our friend who works at EA, made an intriguing comment on my Broken Obama video that he was working on something similar in nature. With all the Expo hub-bub, I missed it when it was first released, but in playing some catch up on my YouTube subscriptions I stumbled upon what Todd was talking about:
Ultra short form work is a unique brand of challenge, every second of footage counts. This is a great example of how to do it right.
If you like this for reasons other than Sarah in a bikini, you might also enjoy the other video Todd made, where Palin and Biden kick it up a notch in a debate.
Psst! Don’t miss the brand new overcast #041, live from the MFF weekend.
Our friend and fellow filmmaker Phillip Barton put together nicely edited glimpse of some of the events at the International Machinima Expo 2008 which occurred in Second Life on November 9, 2008. Thanks, DigitalPhil!
Whole buncha footage is coming from this event. Ben (zsgamemaster) is encoding like a madman, and then I’ll be editing it into usable chunks for release. He basically Fraps‘d almost the entire event!
MachinExpo featured three special artist exhibits, I’ve highlighted the ones on Tom Jantol and Peter Rasmussen with my previous two posts. The third in this series consisted of an enormous glass skyscraper, easily the tallest structure on the entire sim where the Expo took place. Atop the skyscraper is a video player with Marque Cornblatt’s work, which is a study of the virtual self. In addition to several video self portraits Marque created, we also have made available his thesis on the subject, titled “Rise of the MediaSapien,” well worth a read.
All the Expo exhibits are still up through the end of this week, and after that they go away for good. So if you either missed the Expo altogether, or like the rest of us who attended were caught up in the flurry of screenings and/or live events, I encourage you to take this opportunity to see Marque’s exhibit and experience his work with a friend. Pay careful attention to the portraits lining the path leading up to his exhibit - press play on your Second Life video player to see the portraits come to life in a fashion similar to how Marque exhibits them in real museums.
Speaking of real museums, in one of the more bizarre coincidences I’ve ever encountered online, Marque Cornblatt is one of the artists participating in an exhibition in the main gallery at SomArts Cultural Center, an art museum in San Francisco. The exhibition is titled “Synthetic Masquerade,” and is a showcase of avatar-related art. Lainy Voom has several pieces in this exhibit as well, but that’s the not the coincidence to which I refer. Care to guess where SomArts in San Francisco has its virtual online prescence? In Jamville, right around the corner from the MachinExpo site. Crazy, huh? The exhibit runs through the 26th of November, so head over and check out some really amazing artwork.
Here is the location info for both places:
Enjoy!
It was a special and touching moment at this year’s Machinima Film Festival to see Jackie Turnure accept an award on behalf of Peter Rasmussen for Outstanding Contribution to Machinima, an award which will hereafter carry Peter’s name.
Since Peter passed away earlier this year, it has become challenging to get hold of his feature film, Stolen Life, available only on DVD and through one pay-per-view video site in Australia. So I decided that as part of Peter’s memorial exhibit at the Machinima Expo 2008, I would secure permission to show some never before seen footage from that extraordinary film. Permission was obtained, and that excerpt runs over 20 minutes long and is available exclusively at Peter’s exhibit at the Expo site in Second Life. The clip showcases Peter’s gift for dialogue, and demonstrates remarkable displays of emotions with distinctly non-humanoid characters. The tremendous voiceover work by Claudia Black and Chris Jones certainly helps propel that well-written dialogue.
If you’ve never seen more than the trailer for Stolen Life, this is your one foreseeable chance to see a nice chunk of the full film for free where you can get a feel for Peter and Jackie’s pacing and storytelling abilities. I’m told that in the not too distant future, the DVD may be made available again, and as such this is a great chance to get a sampling of the full movie to see if it interests you.
Grab a friend - it’s a lot of fun to be able to discuss what you watch with a friend - and head over to the Expo site in Second Life, then look for the enormous spaceship “lander”. Inside is Peter’s exhibit, with a reel that includes the above mentioned clip as well as a chapter from his other feature film, Killer Robot, and his wonderful short Rendezvous in its entirety. Enjoy a glimpse into the work of this truly remarkable filmmaker, who incidentally was the person who came up with the whole idea of the machinima audio conferences we’ve been holding.
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jamville/151/214/23
Click through here to be able to watch this in HD if you can.
Tom Jantol put together this exquisite video, narrated by Frank L. Fox, as the header for the reel showing at his MachinExpo exhibit. Based on this text that Tom and I put together a few years ago now, it introduces the viewer to the philosophy of Anymation. You can find this text in virtual book form at his exhibit or in the vending machine near the Expo entrance. This, and other exhibits, are open for the remainder of this week, so if you didn’t get a chance to check out Tom’s work, grab some popcorn and a friend and head over to the MachinExpo site in Second Life while you still can.
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jamville/151/214/23
