Just some quick facts and links around the movie:
"My Avatar and Me" is a movie produced by Milton Media ApS & Fenris Film & Multimedia ApS. It had its premiere on ARTE march the 26th 2010, 22.25 or 22.45 PM in the french and german dubbed version. And it can be viewed from Germany and France (and if you know how to use proxys, from anywhere in the world) on the arte7+ website until Wednesday or Thursday (thx to Prairie for this info). It was repeated on ARTE 12.04.2010 at 03:00 and 16.04.2010 at 10:55.
It was filmed inworld at among other places the 3 sims Scheherazade, Akasha and Skandha. Helena Kirkorian and Mikeproud Sicling are the inworld avatars with the lead roles. To get info, updates etc you can join the group 'Ficumentary Filming' in Second Life.
You can see clips from the My Avatar and Me here. The movies website is here, and you can join the fanpage on FaceBook. You can read this german forum thread to get comments etc. The thread can be translated to english, french etc.
7 had something to say:
Thanks Kean! I worked for over three years (not solid) on this movie and was responsible for shooting the in-world scenes. I don't know why the website is not up and running, but I am assured that the film will be distributed through the normal channels and so if you want to see it on air in your country, make noise, send emails etc. We will also be showing it at various film festivals this year.
The film changed a bit over the course of the making of it. Originally I was interested in making a documentary using the same techniques I use in RL in Second Life. But the world of SL is a strange blend of fiction and reality itself so in some ways a "straight" doc approach would be a little odd.
In a RL documentary, you hear what someone says and you look at them as weigh them up... of course that happens in SL too but has a slightly different set of ways we judge each other in there.
Bente Milton, the director, wanted to get across the magic of SL, especially for those who have never experienced it, which is very hard to do in a film - its almost like trying to write describe the magic of seeing a movie to an audience that has no idea such a thing can exist.
There are no actors in the film so each person is being themselves (pretty much). Mikkel and I really do make documentary films in RL (he is considerably more successful at it in RL :p) and we really did meet through SL.
"The making of" would be quite a story itself, but for what medium, I don't know : )
Well, nice movie. Funny for all SL-Users, confusing to all the newbies in SL, crazy to all people, who are not in SL.
Too much phantasy, so many things are not possible. But like shown on arte as a "documentation" it looks like many things are possible inside. For example the epoc-headset. This seems to me a real nonsense, science and VR still works with complicated technology, a headset like this will really a "break-thru" and will make all actual technology historial.
The "Lights" at Helen's house. Nothing than prims with a particle-effect. Looks nice for all SL-Users, but to sell it in public as "lights from outer world" which communicated to Mikkel, OMG... in the eyes of the public SL-Users are more crazy than ever. They are still not only child-abusers, now they are really crazy! See ghosts in some pixels.
This movie did no favour to any SL-user who is in SL just for fun. The only story, which might be true is the disregard of family and friends and the virtual love to another pixel-pixie. The rest - I must say that is imagination ran riot.
DeniseHoorn Slade
hope to see it some day.. was looking forward to it for a long time... tried the proxy thing.. but i'm to silly for that :/
Thanks for your criticism, Denisehoorn. As I mentioned, the idea of the story changed a bit from when I was asked if I would work on a "documentary" in SL. I am trying to arrange for the director to come in-world to do a Q&A. Ironically, she was very much aiming at a non-SL using audience and wanted to somehow make them realise how magical it can be. When we log in to SL we can create objects instantly that others thousands of miles away can see but it is the effects we have on each other that make virtual worlds a revolutionary technology in my opinion. We tried to convey this in a not so serious way.
I agree that the epoch helmet is more a technical curiosity and that most of us can be immersed directly without strapping things to ourselves.
Congratulations Rob iam very happy to see that the movie you worked for such a long time, had a succssesful premier! the sl scenes were very great shooted it inspirit the avatars and let me almost foget about the inwolrd issues with which i fight so many times in secondlife :D
The romance was fictitious. Maybe also what ppl like to see and hear about a virtual love. Out of my expirience sl didnt destroyed my real life, it does had influence but not more then any other way would have, when you communicate with ppl. Sl is just another medium, with many diffrend and creative possibilities to express your personality. The magic of sl is, and i do agree its very hard to show, much more in the poetic of the contact, the interactions of words, then the technic of a 3d world, at least for me.
I liked the true backround story, i think there is much potential to make another movie (waves at rob).
Ty kean for let me write my opinion
Bisous Roxanne Dubienski
Hi all
Thanks for your comments and critisism, and to Rob for clearing some things - and to Kean for putting this post.
As the main character and a co-director of the film, I will be the first to admit that the film is a mixed experience, but ofc I cannot judge properly anymore... hehe. But I can say that making a film is like making your own virtual reality - whether you make a documentary or a fiction film. We deliberately wanted to play with the genres since that mixing of metaverses that we all do daily really called for it, and therefore it is unfortunate that the film some places was televised as "dokumentation". Our German commissioning editor came up with the word a "documentary-fantasy", which is clearly a much better word for it, but it didn't make it to the written TV-schedules apparently.
But yes, some of the film is true and some of the film is not - but I will challenge anyone who can say which is which in every scene. I forget myself :). For instance, the love story is fictitious, Bisous says, but is that completely true? I seem to remember, that I was very keen to spend time with Helena, even before we knew she was to be in the film. But then again, things changed, the production schedule changed, the scriptwriter had a bad acid trip (or something... haha, just kidding), the financing caused alterations and so on.
Luckily, we've gotten many, many positive reactions from SL-users who really seem to relate to at least parts of the film, but ofc negative reactions are often not put forward. But I have read your German review, DeniseHoorn (with my limited German skills), and I strongly defend your right to express your criticism (and some of your points I agree with), but I don't think you should worry about how we portray SL-users. Helle (my RL gf) and my mother - who ended up on the editing room floor - are more concerned with the fact that I look like a complete and unsuccessful clown (which is only partly true :) ), since I do have to make a living out of people trusting me to make films, whether for clients or commissioned by TV. But that was the risk I was willing to take, because like the song says:
"Now you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite
And you can charm the critics and have nothin' to eat
Just slip on a banana peel
The world's at your feet
Make 'em laugh
Make 'em laugh
Make 'em laugh"
But please keep commenting, lamenting or whichever need you have... and then we can meet in SL and settle it with bazookas :)))
Mike/Mikkel
woooooot I did see my avatar and me on the big screen in amsterdam :)
they will show it three times more, more info here: http://idfa.nl/nl/tags/project.aspx?id=04AEAB0F-6307-4F34-9FC3-6CED1FDB316D
Melvin
Post a Comment