UPDATE: I’ve been notified from an official that Burn 2.0 will have to be hosted on Resident owned land. The size of the event depends on donations to the organization. At this point, I’m told they are hoping to raise enough for at least 4 regions, but aiming for 12. This is a significant downsizing from their usual 20+.

A few months ago, I made a choice that my days blogging about Linden Lab were over. I didn’t have anything positive to talk about and in the famous words of my mother, “If you can’t say anything nice…”

But much has changed since that post. The return of the man whose vision I believed in from it’s earliest days has returned to the helm and set this beautiful and bizarre roller coaster ride back on track. Philip Rosedale has always been a creative I can enthusiastically get behind. I don’t know what will happen or what changes are in store, but in the month since his arrival, good things have come to pass, and this is surely the silver lining I’ve been looking for desperately.

It was announced today that Burning Life, the community event that began in the early days of Second Life and was inspired by the real life Burning Man event that takes place in the deep Nevada desert and attracts hundreds of thousands of people from around the world annually. They set up art camps and, construct shocking and amazing builds, and after a week they vanish, leaving no trace they were ever there.

The Second Life festival evolved over time, eventually becoming an official regional Burn, recognized by the founding organization. The event has always been spearheaded by volunteer resident organizers of Second Life and is sponsored by Linden Lab who donates all the land required, as many as 22 regions, for the online community to show their virtual art exhibitions during the festival.

It was announced today that Burning Life has been handed over to the official Burning Man organization and will no longer be known as Burning life, but Burn 2.0 instead.

Of course, the blog post didn’t go into much detail and left some Burning questions (Pardon the pun.) My confusion began here, in an excerpt from the official blog:

“After seven years of support, the Lab has decided to transition the organization and ownership of the event to the official Burning Man team effective immediately. Burning Life will be renamed BURN 2.0.

As we shift our focus to usability, the basics of running Second Life and ultimately, doing less better, we thought this was a good opportunity to take a project that has run pretty well since it’s inception and return it to the community who inspired it.”

It wasn’t clear whether it was going was going back to Burning Man officials for them to decide whether or not to carry on the virtual tradition or organize it, or, if it was being still going to be organized entirely by the community who they were returning it too. And if Linden Lab was stepping out of it, where would the land required to continue the event come from?

I didn’t want to speculate, so I went to Blondin Linden who is the Community and Experience Manager and simply asked how residents will acquire land for the event and if Linden Lab still intends to provide them the land. Will they stop supporting it entirely?

I don’t know Blondin very well, and he’s not typically the first person I’d go to with a question, but he responded saying; “The specifics of the event will be up to the Burn 2.0 organizing committee”

So, I wondered: Are those internal people with Linden Lab or a committee put together by the lab kinda like the LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts)?

“It will be up to Burning Man to decide,” was the answer.

So, apparently, the newly minted Burn 2.0 is officially out of the realm of Linden Lab and how the residents will be integrated into this iconic virtual event remains to be seen.

Regardless, Blondin apparently didn’t have his happy time kool-Aide today

“Was it not clear from the blog?”

No darling, not completely. Not much was clear at all, actually. Words were slung around appearing entirely out of context. “Doing less better?” I adore Philip, mind you, but blogging isn’t his strong suit; He’s an imagineer. Phil’s blog post was minimal with actual information and instead angled toward focusing on traditional PR sunshine.

“Over the years Burning Life has shown us again and again how creative and innovative Second Life Residents are. From music and performance, to intricate installations and the occasional snail ride, Burning Life has been a joy and a surprise to experience, and I feel confident that this legacy will live on as BURN 2.0 continues to be organized and run by a coalition of passionate Residents.”

So is it being run by resident? Is it being run by a Burning Man committee? Who knows.

Regardless, I think that Burning Life leaving the arms of Linden Lab is a positive movement. It crosses boundaries, further involving the real life event and this, it’s partner event. It gives it an authenticity it didn’t have previously and will broaden the scope of it’s appeal to residents of Second Life, and those unable to attend Burning Man in the flesh, providing them a virtual alternative.

My one concern is that I see Linden Lab taking yet another step backwards from their community. Although severing this tie is advantageous to all involved, with as many that have been severed I feel this community is still dangling by a thread.

Phil’s recent announcement that he wanted to host an in-world talk excited me! It harkened back to the days of him standing on a stage with about 20 of us discussing his hopes for the future of Second Life. However, there aren’t just 20 of us anymore. There are thousands upon thousands. The notion of one of those old time, grand inworld meetings suddenly seemed impractical – if not impossible. But I love where his head is. I still adore the fact that this is personal for him. I adore the fact that the mere expression of interest, which was lacking in his absence, has revisited our world.

I am seeing positive movements inside Linden Lab, and while there is still tremendous amounts of work to be done, and though some the losses we incurred by losing so many gracious and deliberately involved community facing employees cannot be regained, this is the beacon of light needed. I still cannot negotiate the logic of letting go some employees who had been so pivotal and so passionate in lieu of the blasé, mechanical few that remain employed. But, I digress.

I believe that we’re moving toward a redemptive era, too a place where someone like Mark would have flourished. Mark Kingdon was without question, the right man at the wrong time. My favorite quote regarding this specific topic, forgive me if I can’t remember the author, was this: “Mark was a suit during a time when Linden Lab still needed people in Lab coats to experiment and play, to form and nurture what it will become.”

One day, as with any business, they’ll need talented suits like Mark.

But not today.

It’s an exciting time to be a part of Second Life.. of course, I probably don’t need to tell you all how thrilled I am…

“Is it not clear from this blog?”

A few things to report on the series front! I know many of you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of episode Three, which I promise is coming! However, there’s much more in the pipeline for the Phaylen character. While many are familiar with her rather iconic and, shall we say, explosive beginnings, some of the original episodes from the first season of DiVAS will be leaving the internet proper sometime in August for good. This only includes the first 3 Episodes of the series first season.

But, why you may ask? The answer is quite simple. They’re being remade. After three years behind the camera it is glaringly obvious that the first outings of the DiVAS series do not adequately represent myself as a filmmaker, nor are they complimentary to the rest of the series in terms of production standards or quality. Another critical factor in this decision was this: Early on when we were all just beginning, we were stumbling around in the dark. We didn’t know much about Machinima or video production, or more importantly, the law! Truth be told, in early episodes of DiVAS we used music we didn’t exactly have the rights or permissions to use, and while YouTube has been kind enough to let them remain active as long as the rights holders can monetize them, it is no longer conducive to the statement I’d like to make, or the impression I’d like to leave as the creator of the show.

For a long while I’ve wanted to remake them. Over a year ago Evie and I had both expressed our desire to see them redone in a manner that more appropriately exhibits our growth and potential as filmmakers. The revision also provides full ownership over the Episodes as all the content will be self-created rather than containing audio tracks from other sources. OH, ladies and gentlemen, if we only knew then. But that’s what this journey is about. Growth and experience. Now it’s time to take that and revisit, revise and re-imagine Phaylen’s origins.

These three episodes will be removed from all outlets beginning in August and will not reappear in their new incarnation until after the DiVAS season 2 Finale in November.

Many people have requested a transcript of the speech I delivered to the senior class of Saint Leo University as my Avatar, speaking from a virtual podium a couple of months ago. In their final semester they had explored the future of Virtual Worlds and it’s inevitable implications on our world culture. It was an honor to have been invited to address the Students just days before their commencement.

“Wow, you guys. I can’t thank you enough for inviting me here to be with you today. I have to admit I never expected such an invitation. I’ll admit I’m like, a little surprised, especially given that Saint Leo is the first and oldest Catholic school in your entire state. You know.. so I have to ask your faculty back there purely as a courtesy; You do know who you invited, right? Okay, good. Just checking. Wanted to make sure, you know, so I can stop waiting for the other stiletto to drop… Back when I was in school, I was always picked first for sports, like basketball and dodgeball, things like that. That was a huge ego boost- Until in the 11th grade when I figured out that it wasn’t because I was any good, but because people just liked to throw things at me and have it be legal. Just in case, I brought my face guard with me. Just in case. Can never be too safe, whether you’re playing hockey or talking to people who might possibly have smuggled in tomatoes…

Seriously, I’m so delighted to be with you today at this milestone in your lives. I think it speaks volumes that your own participation in this virtual worlds has also contributed to it’s evolution. Merely Seven years ago, few could have imagined that we’d be here together though separated by hundreds of miles, sharing the same space. Who would have thought that I would be up here addressing you, the graduating class of 2010. I certainly never did. I thought it more likely I’d be addressing a jury in my own defense. Something like that. But look at us now, World. Look at you, ready to embark on a brand new life adventure and shaping history before you set foot out that door.

It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? When I arrived here back in 1912… What? Did I just age myself? They didn’t have hair this fabulous back then, darlings. This world was an empty canvas when I first stepped foot on this terrain. It was dotted by a few landmarks built by pioneers completely unaware that they were making history in the process. The community was small, sort of like inhabitants finding their way together on some unexplored deserted island. Our experiences, our developing knowledge of this new world enriched the experiences of each other. We shared our creations freely, collaborated on new ideas and wondered how far we could go when it came to simple things like how high up we could fly, or how to make a vehicle move realistically. We were pushing boundaries and making new discoveries every single day. It was not altogether unlike your experiences over your academic life. We were learning, we were adapting. We were growing.

I think of virtual life very much like real life but in fast forward. Seven years ago, I looked like this… hysterical, yes. Hideous, yet I can’t burn it because it isn’t real. Amazingly enough I looked very much the same in real life the 80′s. I thought I was so hot then, but then someone had to take a damn Polaroid that you run into 20 years later and you think, “Wow… I look like I had a run-in with some rabid elves,” You know. But, there is some consolation. You know you can’t help but get better with age. It’s only uphill from that sorry state, honey. I could have come up here in a Hawaiian print moumou and a mullet and I’d still be proud to show you how I looked back then. It’s an improvement. Trust me. But virtual life moves much faster. It’s like Earth, but spinning at light speed. Soon we had a currency exchange, where our play money suddenly represented real life dollars. In the blink of an eye we had electricity, or what we here in pixel form call Light Sources. Then we had objects that were no longer stiff but they could move fluidly, sense wind direction, and we were making new clothes and objects out of them. Then we had environments. The skies, the sun and moon were no longer just static representations of day and night in our world but instead they became visual tools we used to capture in our images, photos or film, or simply to expand our degree of immersion. Suddenly, we had ears, and we no longer relied on only our keyboards to communicate via text; We could hear each others voice. We could have real conversations and collaborate in real time. The evolution of virtual living was happening so quickly that we simply didn’t know it. Well, we knew it was changing at a startlingly fast pace, but no one back then could have predicted that it would become what it is today. A viable, usable place for the advancement of education studies and practices, technology, brand new art forms, business, dynamic social interaction so much more. We use the words “Real Time” to describe our experiences in virtual worlds, but our “Real Time” to the metaverse is less an exchange and more of a fractal; A small part of a much greater collective which is constantly piecing itself together and we are the ones shaping it through those experiences in places like this, whether we realize it or not. I was a not. People often seem all impressed I’ve been here as long as I have. I wish I could tell you I was looking to be a world shaper, a visionary partly responsible for imagineering what the future of virtual worlds were to become. Fact is, I was looking for something to kill for some experience. I was a gamer. I came from an MMORPG that I was tired of and I wanted a new challenge for free. I was poor, and this was advertised on some site a Google search returned as a free beta. Everything that came after, on my part anyway, was purely by accident and completely unintended.

That remains today one of the single best accidents… aside from my conception… of either of my lives, real or virtual. Today, the same can be said, I’m certain, for millions around the globe who find something here that changes them in some way. Changes the way they do business. The way they interact. The way they think about other people; The way they perceive all that exists well beyond our real life borders expanding their world infinitely. Granted to some, all this probably still sounds like a new age Science Fiction Novel in the same way that computers and robotics sounded Thirty years ago. Those who spoke about them and evangelized their world changing potential were barely lucid extremists with wild ideas. People whose feet weren’t planted firmly on the ground. Now let me ask you, Do I look like a woman who has wild ideas? Sure you laugh… why are you laughing? Okay, maybe a little, but it’s those wild ideas that really mold the possibilities of tomorrows reality, virtual or not.

And in that tomorrow, when you are telling your own children about the day you sat here with this big haired skinny old Avatar – from your own living room, while they are sat in theirs, possibly half way around the planet from where you are, they won’t laugh, because those ideas, to them, will be their reality. The beginning threads of this are being woven into the fabric of our collective right now, and they continue with you. For me, I consider it an unexpected privilege to have watched it happen from such a close perspective; to have in some way been a part of it. But it’s not done yet. There remains much to be discovered and so much more to be revealed as we move forward in this mach speed, formative Meta-Era. From wherever you’re sitting, I encourage you to participate and observe with an awareness I didn’t have back then, and that is just how pivotal these times are. The groundwork is still being laid, and if I can promise you one thing, it’s that what has been done will never be undone. It is without question that the world is being changed forever, and you are a part of that.

Now, I’ll thank you each and pay you a dollar for having kept your tomatoes in your pants and purses. I’d like to thank you faculty for apparently thinking they couldn’t do any better than me. And thank you for allowing me yet another unforgettable virtual experience that I’ve shared here with you today. Good luck with your tomorrows.”

Awhile back I had the pleasure of meeting the staff of Scruplz Magazine, a delightful group of people who did a beautiful story on the Virtual me and my history as a filmmaker (And beyond.) for their June edition. They also feature some really breathtaking photographs from the set of my new film.

Scruplz is a high quality Virtual Arts and Culture Magazine with incredibly high standards, so I consider my inclusion a tremendous honor!

I’d like to thank the staff there for making it such a pleasant experience, for their exemplary professionalism and their dedication in crafting such a thoughtful piece.

I know you’ve been waiting since February for the next installment of DiVAS which has found Phaylen in the iconic World of Warcraft. They have, by far, been the most successful episodes in the two year history of the series. As it stands today, DiVAS has been screened around the world at festivals and expositions, and has reached new audiences via the web.

DiVAS also stands as the first and most successful series to come out of the virtual world of Second Life. It’s also the first to cross virtual world platforms, introducing a character native to one medium and inserting them into another. The series is constantly moving into new territory with each new episode as the storyline progresses which will lead to the Finale in November.

And over the last few months of production, DiVAS has been taking yet another brave and groundbreaking step for it’s third episode of the second season.

Currently, much surrounding this episode is shrouded in secrecy so I can’t yet provide you any immediate details about the cast or release date (Not all the performers are confirmed.) I promise that this will be an unforgettable episode, and there will be much more revealed here in the coming days…

It seems to me now how unfortunate those words are. For so long, Linden Lab, the company that brought forth the cultural phenom known as Second Life, was on the frontlines of technological innovation, literally impacting how we use 3D immersive spaces. I thought of Linden Lab was destined to go down in history as the birthplace of mainstream virtual integration in everyday living. Some will recall, it wasn’t that awfully long ago, let me remind you, that computers were thought of as a lavish, specialized toy that no one would ever really grasp. Those who started on Commodores know what I mean. They were ugly, chunky at best and largely expensive despite being a coders dreambox. As the computer evolved to embrace more applications and other developers began creating progressive technologies with those tools, it literally marked the dawn of the technological era. Of course today, they’re teaching practical computer usage to first graders, and they are staple in the homes of any traditional family and almost every workplace imaginable. The computer is now a fundamental life tool.

What brought it this far were those beloved geeks who sat for hours on end in front of their bulky screen writing code for programming. It was the people that shaped the direction, that determined how we might use it, how we could use it- from editing programs, to photography manipulation software, the origins of technology can be traced back to the inspiring people who simply gave it purpose – and then a million purposes.

I once believed that in ten years we would look at Linden lab in the same way we look back on the early technologies of our time- as a company that pioneered a new way we interact and conduct our daily affairs; be it business, education, content creation or development, the makings were all there.

How could it change so dramatically, so fast?

With the debacle that was the introduction of their Viewer 2.0, which was literally dwarfed by the shadow of much more intuitive and convenient viewers already developed by the users of Second Life itself, they seemed set on a path to take the world from the customers and redefine it entirely. To me, I find that an enormous affront to the hundreds of thousand of users of the service upon whose backs the world was built to begin with.

But now, the decision has been passed down from CEO Mark Kingdon, who took over for Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale just a couple of years ago, to make Second Life more like “The Web.” Viewer 2.0 was a huge clue, given it possessed an intrusive search bar in the same way a browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer does, and also boasted other eerily similar traits like a favorites tab and much loathed drop-down menus that appear on edited objects.

Second Life is not the web. It cannot be the web. While it had the potential to change how we use the web and integrate that into our tools in Second Life, it should never attempt to be the web.

Why do I make such a statement?

The web is, quite obviously, a 2D environment. It is ripe with text and blinking ads. It is a place to streamline information to a casual browser – keyword here being “Browser.” It’s basically a much more exaggerated version of facebook. Millions of people putting out into the metaverse millions of things like pictures, music, random thoughts. It’s people searching for information, playing flash game applications during their idle time. The web is an extremely nice companion to Second Life. How many of you have your twitter open simultaneously while in-world? But Linden lab should not remove their user from the process of determining direction by forcing a new experience through a browser window. We’ve had that already, it was called AOL. Since 1983.

Second Life is a richly layered interactive world. Not a series of static web pages and hotlinks. Second Life is visual, everything we see has been created by the residents, and we can see it being created in real time, growing infinitely by the day. Second Life is a stimulus. People rarely log into SL to read web pages, or shop for razors on Amazon. They come in to listen to the performers, to attend a classes, to socialize with friends, to create something from the recess of their imagination and to share it with everyone else. Second life is far more than the content on it’s base terrain because if not for the people who have put it there, it would cease to exist.

While the web itself is undeniably ripe with societies on various forums and social networks, the spontaneity of experience is lacking. Those forums and social networks were created for a purpose, and the users fulfilled that. Second Life begins with users intending to create it’s purpose each day, and often that purpose is ephemeral. They can come back to the same place an hour later and do something completely different. For a world that was founded on 3D technology and visual stimuli, it seems disheartening to have it reduced to something whereupon we navigate it through a poorly designed, visually intrusive browser just because Linden Lab heads now want it to be the web. They apparently want us to interact with it as we do the web.

I don’t want to use Second Life in the same way I use the internet. They are two entirely different beasts. Second Life fulfills primarily an entirely unique purpose for me, and so does the web. At times those purposes may be complimentary, but to try to merge them would be nothing more than ignorant and the results would be unkind.

I love how in this interview (link) with Mark Kingdon, it openly declares he “believes that Second Life has continued to thrive because it nailed a particular kind of customer: the creative class.” My mouth drooped a little because I know that our creatives have taken the worst hits Linden Lab has had to throw. They’ve had their content stolen, lost sims do to an increase in prices, and are largely ignored by the company that has gone on to catering to corporates and “Gold Members.” However, let it be said this time more plainly if I may. The creative are the ones paying their bills.

But the creators were not considered when introducing Viewer 2.0 or the attempt to manipulate the entire way we interact with the world- new users were. That sentence made me flinch. While new users are critical to any growing company, it’s the ones who are there, the very ones that Kingdon openly admits  that Second Life “…has become a full-time job for some people,” that are shaping the world and creating the content and applications that enrich everyone’s experience.

They changed the viewer to make new users more “comfortable,” while many who relied heavily on the flexibility and function to make their living found it unfriendly and often incoherent. Unfortunately, regardless of the public backlash regarding Viewer 2, Linden Lab is still pressing on with making Second Life more of a web application than a virtual world. Is Second Life something you do passively? Not many- most are busy from the moment they log in until they shut down.

Kingdon claims they hope to make Second Life more conducive to our social networks; That being facebook, twitter, ect. And I wondered why given that Second Life was already positioned as the definitive social network. Sure we can toss out random thoughts in 150 characters or less on twitter and play our passive applications on facebook, but how do those experiences, even for a moment, parallel that deeply interactive ones we have while in Second Life? None are as immersive. We have brief interludes with social networking sites and web pages; But, we engage with Second Life. We use it in a million different ways without leaving our seat.

Why deign to become web-like when the tools you have at your disposal in your own box are far superior. It’s a step backward in innovation and progress. Let the web be the web, let Second Life residents determine how to integrate it into their own experience, just give them the tools.

It frustrates me because, with this newly determined direction, they behave as if the users of Second Life are unreliable. Has it not been users that built a world on your bald terrain? Was it not users that developed the economy with content they created and sold? Was it not users who recognized potential in any number of industries and harnessed it, be it the land industry (Anshe Chung) the Sex industry (Stroker Serpentine) the virtual design industry (Scope Cleaver) the art industry (AM Radio) The media industry (Treet TV.) and countless others? Was it not users who developed amazing new programs in Second Life over the last couple of years ago that further engaged the users and heavily contributed to this “Market Boom” – People like Sion Zaius who developed artificially intelligent pets that populated to grid to some 160,000? Or those that followed who are encouraging people to buy and sell in large sums? It is your creators lining your pockets. It is your creators that seeded the world. Those who come after will contribute, but why change the experience explicitly for their “Comfort?” Did you forget it was the real world educators who sought to use SL as a new device in their classrooms. It was the singers who saw opportunities to perform to welcoming audiences. It was the filmmakers who saw a world worthy of filming. The artists who discovered a new canvas. Linden Lab did not have to define their purpose, they gave it their own. Linden Lab did not have to define their direction, ther forged their own path.

But somehow all that’s forgotten. They need to give us an impeding viewer and put out feelers for “New Users,” going to the extremes of changing the interface entirely to mimic a web browser – which only says to me that some higher-up in the company found it too hard to use. For some reason, the do not seem to trust the users anymore, despite having been carried this far by their respective achievements. It’s sadly unsurprising given that the community has been set on the backburner for some time now, with only an occasional stand-in to  incorporate something on their behalf- and even then it’s the volunteers who do the legwork.

Second Life suffers from severe corporate midirection, and it’s because they have diminished most of their relationship with their own community. They don’t know who you are. They hired a conversation manager you never hear from, and the person filling the role of a “Community Director” has never done anything notable in-world that I’ve witnessed- in fact she appears to be a ghost figure. It’s obvious there’s nothing about community in her role despite the title. And the developers behind Second Life’s new viewer 2.0 could not have had any type of relationship of necessity with the world, or they wouldn’t have dreamed up such a tremendously unintuitive viewer. Do they think that will help these “New Users” learn to build as their builders do? Will it ease the learning curve? No. It makes nothing easier. In fact, it’s altogether more complicated. If it looks like a browser it should behave like one, yes? But Second Life is not a flat world pocked with clipart and text. There are no web pages to be seen. From my perspective, it will only skew the experience for everyone.

I’d feel the same way if my coffee maker suddenly started churning out milk. The mechanics of the machine are so dissimilar. But that doesn’t mean i don’t like milk in my coffee.

I’ve been a Second Life evangelist for many years now. I first set foot in this environment when I was fresh out of college at 24 years old. Granted, it was a different world then than it is today. No one back then expected it to become the mammoth it is today, but the process of getting there was exciting. Good things came at each new turn. New tools, new implementations, new people, new ideas manifesting all the time and put into action. As little as two years ago they had employees on the ground incorporating community initiative to further enrich their Second Lives. Suddenly, Linden Lab has detached entirely, those once exciting directions and that anticipation I remember having regarding the future (Lights! Flexy Prims! Sculpties!) has given way to my disappointment or complete indifference. I could have filled a thousand blogs with all my praises for Second Life and Linden lab 3 years ago.

That said, like so many others, I too am no longer going to write about Linden Lab, or share my perspectives on their decisions and directions via this blog. Second Life is a tool, not altogether unlike Final  Draft on which I write my screenplays, Sony Vegas on which I edit my silly cartoons, or this ottoman on which I prop my feet. It has been proven, uniformly, that they have no interest in listening to their users, as exemplified in their recent official poll which asked “Do you like Viewer 2.0″ and 83% of respondents said “No.” They may as well have been talking to a wall.

I certainly don’t feel entitled, as though I should have any effect whatsoever on Linden lab or their internal choices, but I’d be lying to you, dear readers, if I said I didn’t suffer from an intense passion for it’s success. I have a nostalgic relationship with that world, and it has provided me countless opportunities that, without Second Life, I would certainly never have had. It was a wonderful companion to me in those dark times in real Life we all have when just finding our bearings during that adult-life-real-obligation transition after we complete our education. It inspired me often, and so did the people, they still do. But now it’s time for me to detach and just roll with the punches as they come like the vast majority of users do. It’s time to check myself and gauge what really matters here; What they do with the world? Or what I do as a response. I have no control over what they do and don’t expect to, but I can rationalize it as business and just move forward. It’s not appropriate anymore for me to use this blog to write about a company I’ve grown disenchanted with, or a platform I’ve come to use as a mere tool like any other. So this is decidedly my last Linden Lab related post. Most of my readers possess no awareness of the company and no interest in it’s evolution. And I like it like that.

For those of you who are interested in my work or public engagements, I’ll see you here again soon for more on my upcoming film!

The World Of Warcraft episodes of DiVAS will be screening at the First Annual  Chromatose Anymation Film Festival (link) in St. John Newfoundland, Canada from April30th – May 1st 2010. The festival is supported by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council.

This marks a special milestone, as DiVAS has now appeared in Screenings on 6 of Earth’s Continents! North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia.  Antarctica has yet to catch on…

I’ve been told (and told and told) about World of Warcraft’s recent introduction of the Celestial Steed (as it is formally titled) – otherwise known more prominently as The Spark Pony mentioned in episode 1 of Season 2 by websites such as;

GeekoSystem

Cuppycake

Tera Nova

and Chicanery

I’d just like to state that this is by sheer coincidence, I’m certain. While The character Phaylen mentioned a sparkle pony in episode 1 back in January and then again in the episode 2 in February, one was not seen nor was any specification, appearance, function or otherwise eluded too by any means. I think it’s fair to presume they likely had it in development well before the release of episode 1. However, if any part of the episode influenced the community to give it the unofficial Sparkle Pony title, I am flattered beyond measure.

For those who need a quick refresher on how the sparkle pony played into Phaylen’s own adventures in World of Warcraft, see the video below.

Second Life resident Voice Doobie, a real life voice-over commercial artist has joined the cast of the short film “The End Of The World” in the lead role of Benny. 36 actors from various virtual worlds and communities auditioned for the role that would pair them with Chantal Harvey who was cast last month. Voice’s extensive background in professional voice performance and his ability to inhabit the character was unsurpassed. The role of Benny is extremely challenging and I have nothing but confidence in Voice’s capabilities as a character actor.

The addition of Voice to the production rounds out the cast, which also includes Glimmer Silverstar and Metaverse-TV personality Recka Wyuts.

After reading the original short story after the first meeting, Voice returned to the table and said “You realize nothing like this has ever been done before in a virtual world, right?”

Indeed, we do Voice, and we’re honored to have you on board.

Shooting is currently taking place and a tentative release date has been scheduled for October 15th 2010.

Big news for Pet Enthusiasts! We’re rolling out a brand new series coming your way this Fall featuring some suspiciously recognizable critters that have undoubtedly crept their way into your virtual lives!

Three fierce competitors vying for rule of virtual domain find they have a mutual enemy in a gorgeous voodoo priestess who decides to teach them a lesson by transforming them into one of the very animals they create. A chicken. A Turtle.. and a Bunny. Now, trapped inside the bodies of their own pixel and prim creatures, they must traverse the many dangers of the virtual grid and find the Priestess to change back into their original form.

The Bunny, a stuck-on-herself drama queen voiced by the One and Only Virtual Media Maven Pooky Amsterdam: The Turtle, a technological wiz kid college student voiced by Machinimist CodeWarrior Carling and The Chicken, voiced by Crap Mariner, a mad scientist who speaks fractured English, will go on an unforgettable and hilarious adventure seeing virtual life through the eyes of their very own pets.

You’ll never look at your AI pets the same way again!

As critical as the exterior atmosphere we’ve created that is so pivotal in the film, the interior had to exude the perfect look and feel, since it play an equally important role. In so many films I’ve watched over the years, the best directors have not just used their sets as default background for their characters, but instead used their sets to amplify the characters and action being played out by the performers. I approached this that same intended result. The ambiance of our old farmhouse hits an immediate nerve when you walk in. It feels aged and while at first it may appear warm and inviting as, perhaps, you remember your grandparents house being during your childhood, you soon find that this house feels lived in. You expect the walls to creak, the knick-knacks to harbor dust in their crooks, the photos to have have stories behind them, and someone to know the whos and whens.

There is a deliberate darkness to our house, and everything from the contracts on the wallpapers to the highlights in the floor were created to lend themselves to the environment. The colors were decidedly neutral, but muted. I wanted more shadows than light.

The interiors have taken much longer than the construction of the actual house itself, because we had to know about the people living there to give it a signature feel. She might have picked up a vase at an antique store in 1970, and the picture of her grandchildren in the heart frame was probably given to her already framed, because she would have never bought a frame like that.  With careful precision we considered every aspect of Benny and Mildred, including their lifestyles and aesthetic preferences.

As of this writing, we’re still making a few minor adjustments, adding specifications that the audience will not likely notice but it’s important in the overall picture to have them present. Things like magnets on the antique refrigerator. The appliances I imagined they would have had for many years, already, and it was imperative that no part of their home acknowledge the various styles of today, so I decided to keep metals and clear glass structures entirely from their little abode. Old woods and faded fabrics were key in creating their world from within.