Note: I am consulting a better person than I to help compile a list of names of those latecomers who comprised phase two of the talks. After the initial gathering Phil wrote about had almost disbanded, new machinimators showed up and the talks lived on, albeit in an unofficial capacity.

Will post again when I get the names right, and topic overviews nailed down.

Thanks for letting me hang out with you guys at Fleef’s. I’m pretty new to the machinima world and still trying to get my bearings, but hopefully I’ll have something substantive to contribute one of these days. For now I’m still learning my scales and chords, so to speak. Oh, I’m temporarily in Vancouver, but am really from Texas.

Thanks for organizing this, Phil. Thanks to the rest of you for making me feel welcome!

Second Life is not, I believe, an appropriate setting for a machinima conference that is supposed to discuss all forms of machinima and be platform independent. The moment this conference becomes a Second Life Machinima conference, then I’d agree with this as an appropriate hosting location.

Put it this way - would you host the conference on a WoW public test realm? No. Then why Second Life? I do not enjoy SL. It is not an environment I wish to participate in, personally - it is directly composed of all the social norms I wish to get away from when I create machinima or play computer games, and this desire for escape determines the games I choose to play or not to play. SL’s social environment has evolved into something of a glorified sorority or clique - something I truly despise.

Aside from the social aspect there is the risk of this conference now becoming SL-centric instead of embracing broader uses of gaming technology in machinima. Personally I think the greatest advances in machinima of late have been in mixing media, such as Baron Soosden’s recent music videos.

I would not force WoW on a machinimaker who is not interested in WoW, I would not force them to create a character to participate in a conference - so why is SL okay? Just because most of the avatars created are somewhat humanoid, doesn’t mean that I like the technology or want to participate in discussion in this environment. The highly conventional social setting actually forces an expectation of humanoid avatar creation - something I do not wish to do when representing myself to an audience. Added to that, it IS platform-dependent and not as backwards compatible as WoW - many reasonable but older graphics cards (probably mine included) will not support it or will not perform well with SL.

Second Life, to me, is rather faddish. It cheapens our broad discussion, it becomes ‘trendy’. It limits us.

Sadly, I will not be enjoying this next conference, or any future conferences in Second Life.

If Friedrich Nietzsche were alive and well today, he would probably be a serious Nine Inch Nails fan. And knowing that you, as “the Overman” nonetheless, have created a video dealing with many of the religious and philosophical issues that he writes about would just throw him into a state of absolute frenzy! His book “for no one and every one” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) has obviously had a beneficial, albeit creative, influence upon your artistic and thinking skills. In short, thank you for the inspiring NIN/Nietzsche/Nihilism song and video!

It cleary acknowledges everyone of the rules of the men’s room while keeping them entertained at the same time.

Two thumbs up! I really enjoy all of your works.

`Edward Aldridge, 47, punched his victim twice after he used the urinal next to him in a pub in Christchurch.

Aldridge accused his victim of looking at him, reports Metro.’

I don’t want to make a big issue out of it, but I suspect greater turnout is due to the number of people who’ve already taken to Second Life. If you’re going for a more Second Life centric audience, I suppose this makes sense for you.

I’ve just recently discovered your work and this is an excellent piece. You have a great eye for shot composition and your editing is as clean as any professional could do. Also very impressed with your knowledge and manipulation of TheSims 2 to covey such powerful emotion in your shots.

Bravo. Great work! In my opinion you are the best of the Machinima directors!

Thanks for the link to Elf’s post. I’ve been looking all over for it. What an informative post. Time to print out and spend more time working out his comments.

FYI, the version of “The Dumb Man” is a slightly revised one created by Lainy Voom for the machiniplex premiere. She tightened the timing on some scenes and did a few other tweeks.

Thanks for having these monthly get-togethers. Not only do they bring the community together, but the gossip and news sharing really helps to stay up on the steadily widening circle of machinima production.

-Ricky

The man who sheds light on all my personal neurosis.

Great stuff here sir.

Argh!

Nice job, and congrats on owning it!

*Yeah, I know, coming from the guy who beats a joke into several layers of the earth’s crust, I shouldn’t talk. It’s probably just that I watched them all back to back; I think they would be more effective split up. Just MODO.

Ricky

I have to say, that’s pretty good quality for an embedded player. It loaded really quickly for me too.

hehe; just kidding. Great work, Phil! Good to see you working in Moviestorm.