05 June 2013

Standby, World Makers

I have rarely written about machinima on this blog, but it's a powerful medium for sharing inworld experiences and narratives. Recently, Bryn Oh posted a new work that's essential watching—Standby (above), the creation of which was supported in part by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council/Le Conseil des arts de l’Ontario. The work is, in her words, "a trilogy of poetic narratives hosted by IBM in a virtual environment. The trilogy began with The Daughter of Gears, followed by The Rabbicorn story and ending with Standby. Here I have combined all three into one story." At more than 38 minutes long, this remarkable video isn't really about Second Life—rather, it uses SL as a film studio, resulting in a standalone piece of art and masterful storytelling. Standby features music composed by Travis Amaterasu, with additional music by Tasuku Ghost.

By contrast, Draxtor Despres's most recent offering, The Drax Files: World Makers [Episode 7: Rod Humble] (below), is very much about SL, and has been much hyped because of the appearance of Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble, both in real life and via his SL avatar, Rodvik Linden. We even get a few peeks inside the Lab. Inworld, Rodvik visits a number of locations, including one with which I've had the pleasure of being involved, A Rusted Development (which is coming down this weekend!) from about 1:00 to 1:23 or so. Plenty more awaits on Drax's YouTube channel.

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