A Vision of the Future of VWTV

A few years ago when I was presenting at SLCC in Boston, I found myself quoting someone named CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, because I was just so impressed with her observations and insight. A while later we met, and she was on The 1st Questio, (and won!). In getting to know each other mutually, we began collaborating on a book, the subject of great importance to us both, that of Virtual World Television. We interviewed over 30 producers of almost 60 shows, and all of them from Second Life for a multitude of reasons: Building Tools / Networks / IP Rights / Accessibility. The co-opting of TV into virtual worlds makes "What are you doing on TV tonight, honey?" possible.

http://virtualworldtelevision.com/

This interview is about the future of TV as it relates to being part of the show in unique ways which are afforded by immersion in a 3D environment. For those of you who have been part of the crew, panel and/or audience of The 1st Question and/or The Dating Casino you know firsthand what it's like. I also thank you very much for being a part of it through this project. The book will analyze, discuss and reveal a phenomenon that the producers of virtual entertainment have made through their many wonderful shows and skills.

2013 - Predictions for the upcoming year!

Here we have them - a few predictions and inventions that have been on the back burner and thought its time to trot them out. With the new year also comes the forward look we tend to take, where will be at this time next year and where were we in the past?  Given some thought to this over the past few weeks, but didn't want to to post it till we all safely made it into the New Year! And yes, we are all in this together!

Happy New Year and please feel free to add any predictions and / or comments you like - Its going to be a good one.


2013 New Year Predictions

1)       AR is cool but very small and with a possibility of overcrowding the screen – There will be developed Giant AR screens that are part of every city. For example tourists can stand behind them and choose to see  - highlights from the past from a variety of decades. Sponsorship will be subtly embedded

2)       Google video recording glasses will continue to grow in popularity – with a new twist – you will be able to use video of yourself and insert yourself into any action that occurs. For example – You &   Felix Baumgartner can show you the long way down – or your nephew and you skateboarding. You can have  a standard portrait signature a la Docusign OR upload  a fresh video of Yourself so you can photo bomb all world events sort of live and in color. Forget having to wait to win a “walk-On” in a movie with YouVideoGoog you just insert yourself anywhere- Appropriate costuming comes next year

3)       VR suits – more than just headwear this will allow the entire body to feel an impact within a virtual environment. The suit will have multiple pressure points and allow the user to walk into the VR experience which will be set up as a projection on a large screen that can be installed between rooms

4)       Theater of the Virtual – There will be the conversion of movie theaters to game centers with each  seat having a PC and keyboard / console so people can come out for a nigh of entertainment with the other people in the theater. For example one night its World of Warcraft – so local folks can go to the theater log in from their seats and watch on the giant screen in front of them the action play out as they play / fight / build with the other people in the theater.  The next thing in the anonymous yet personal space of social games

5)       The ability for Unity3D to be combined with entertainment systems such as Samsung will mean that people will be able to play at home avatar based game shows on the TV> What are you DOING on TV tonight becomes the new meme as people take on animated characters  to play right along on the TV game shows which test knowledge skill & fear factors.

6)       Someone will create the worlds first car made entirely of LEGO that actually drives

7)       Cars will go beyond self driving to self programmable – you will only have to put your Google map into its system of your point A to B and away it goes.

8)       People will increase their use of personal generators  and be able to power their electronic equipment through pedalling a stationary bicycle

9)       Virtual goods will grow – Virtual gifting for those who want to send something immediately will be broadly accepted facebook and other networks – You will be able to send Guy Kawasaki a Virtual Motorcycle for example on his birthday. People will collect various models and there will be a growth of virtual good asset trading with V-Bay. Also when people have accumulated a certain number of virtual assets – they will be redeemable for physical goods. Look for Virtual Shoes of the Month Club to start

10)   Video Networking will grow – with individuals creating their own Home Video Shopping Channels where they can hawk their craft products or even sell/auction those items with a story. Think QVC for the YouTube generation.

11)   Someone will make an inflatable car, that is self – driving and I will use it.

12)   Someone will create an insanely popular social network that allows people to tweet both drunk & anonymously. I would have registered Dwitter.com but its already taken!

The Future of Mainstream Machinima Films

Mainstream Machinima is a great pair of words, and one that has legs.

The Machinima-Expo 2012 has ended and the interest in this medium continues to grow. Bringing people together from their fields of games, media and journalism on the topic, reveals greater depth not only of coverage but true understand the nature of what we can offer with our game engine films.  The great takaway of a true "Indie movement" is not lost on this audience, and Dean Takahashi wrote a great review of his panel which appeared in VentureBeat.

The future of mainstream machinima films: A panel discussion inside Second Life

You should have a read of his article, and (a look at his avatar of course!) as this expert panel analyzes machinima and offers great words on topics of the future of what we are doing.  He also includes links back to the films and the programming.  Enjoy!

Its a virtual and very animated group here!

KeyNote Speech at SLACTIONS 2012

This year was the first for SLACTIONS devoting a full program to Machinima. This great cultural organization is one that promotes education and understanding of virtual platforms. Pooky was asked to deliver the Keynote address and below is the text from this event.

 Keynote


This week I clicked on a link, something I do quite often and for a large variety of reasons. To see a film I need to judge for a festival such as this, to read an article or look at a blog, to see how many views something I have produced has gotten, to laugh, to be moved. We click, we look, and we lean into the screen to see what is appearing, unfolding and delighting us. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the emotion what we are watching does to us, because we are in an intimate relationship now with Video.  We share the good stuff, and keep some videos much closer. Sometimes we don’t even feel alone anymore because of the wealth of work that is in front of us, and of course the deadlines, which are in back of us.  Sometimes gently breezing through the airscape, sometimes pounding us for attention.

We in Machinima can sometimes chose how to work within these deadlines, whether we work with a 24/7 team from all around the globe. Filling in for one another when time zones mean someone has to finally go to sleep, or sitting solo flying like a captain, off into many blue & green screen yonders.
We are at our helm and at our passion, riding our ship of vision and visual clues through a myriad of buttons, animations, frame rate juggling acts as well as beauty, memory, terror and outrage. And let’s not even mention Power outages, or what we sacrifice to get a bit of extra bandwidth at times.  We are creators in a universe we understand.  It has been said that man did not create the Universe so it can never be fully understand it, but man has created  this metaverse, and within our chosen worlds we see that this edge of tomorrow might appear flat to others, but to us it is endless, unfolding like our imaginations. And where other people see gray prims, we see possibilities, for that which hasn’t rezzed for others, we actually dream about in a new state of lucid dreaming which incorporates our daily visual journals into much more.

 And when we wake, we can give life to these dreams and concepts, which come to us in our subconscious and not only because we are over tired and most likely hallucinating. No, it is because we are living through that veil in between dreams and waking state.  We have come to respect that place for our field of visions. We are listening and paying attention to those images and that visual truth that speaks to us – we are awake in our dreams and then, we are authoring them daily, making notes, making edits and the spill over effect of this, is that we share. And we show and we can illuminate Your thinking with Our images, our dreams.  That is a pretty powerful tool indeed, those of us in the machinima community watch a lot of each others content and it informs us, inspires and pushes us. In it’s way we are living a collective dream with one another – again quite powerful.

We all have found ourselves clicking links for so many reasons. A lot of clicks are admittedly for Video – On YouTube, 72 hours of video are uploaded every minute, 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US and In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or around 140 views for every person on Earth. These are powerful metrics. you are part of it and it is Global

 Will we ever get tired of watching moving pictures?  I think visual pictures are in our DNA – from the old hearth - We now have a virtual campfire to fascinate us.  Video is, as we all know such a powerful way of communicating, and of finding meaning.

Recently meaning took on a new dimension for me as I saw a video that showed me something so much greater because it was in concept, actually a way to live within art. I am talking about the installation of Vincent Van Gogh's Virtual world of paintings - recreated as the little bedroom in Arles, or the fields of flowers he became so well known for.  When you can live in a painting, and study it from the inside out, then you your reality becomes their dream, and isn’t that in some ways what we also try to do with our work? To involve the person watching it so fully they are living through it with us. Our being able to connect through film means the audience understands intuitively because we were successful at communicating. Perhaps they can see more than we knew.  Because we only have one par of eyes – but with your eyes and your eyes and your eyes there is so much more sight.

Van Gogh, whose single painting of Dr. Gachet sold for S$138.4 million, did not sell one painting in his lifetime outside of to his brother Theo.  To have such a gift as Van Gogh is priceless, to own a painting of Van Gogh is to be rich in other ways.  So I ask you to consider this – would you rather BE a van Gogh or OWN a Van Gogh?  The thought of having that much of a creative gift might be a burden – and surely it is easier to have the cash and do as one wants.  Yet I think of this as I stand in front of the machinima community and know that we would chose craft over money. In our new medium and in this moment we do all we can to inhabit our art as well as portray it, so that others may truly see and experience it more fully.



Machinexpo/SLactions 2012 from The Movies FR on Vimeo.

The 5th Annual Machinima-Expo Awards 2012

This year we took a theme for the Expo that would reflect what is important as we move forward. In this decade of  increased awareness on all levels of the Entertainment industry on the value and validity of games, "Let's Get Real" is what we chose.  Let's Get Real means, in game engine film making, a celebration of the craft of machinima film making (which is something the Expo has been doing since 2008 by the way) and the exploration of where, how, what and why we are getting better and bigger all the time.

I was certainly delighted to be asked to be Programming Chair this year, and wanted very much to expand awareness of our chosen medium against a backdrop of great interest in the gaming community and game engine platforms. There has been such a tremendous growth in our field over the past decade and Machinima is, in the words of Burnie Burns "In need of narrative" Well we couldn't agree more and Narrative takes craft and skill, which is at our very heart and what Machinima-Expo is about. Please join us from the comfort of your computer or favorite device as we will be Livestreamed for Your Comfort.  There are films galore of note and panelists who have real experience and depth of knowledge in this genre and in the game industry area as well. There are really some stunning things to see, and if you can get inworld to Second Life, where this Festival will be broadcast from, a lot of very interesting and exciting things to do including a walk around Virtual Central Park! And of course people to meet....

We are a growing field and the demand for excellence is a call we hear and honor in the work we do. Please, join us!

The Machinima Expo 2012 Programming Schedule

Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District (GLACVCD) & PookyMedia

There is increasing concern over the infiltration of the airborne pestilence which mosquitoes are in the United States. It is very effective to educate the public about what can be done to help eradicate and stem the growth of this problem.  Having great success with "Vector Inspectors" we were next tapped to do an educational film for 4th Graders in the ever sunny and warm Greater Los Angeles area.  This is a film which is to be shown as part of a greater mobile science lab on wheels: as Pesky the Mosquito says, "Hello, Junior Vector Scientists!"

This is a wonderful way to educate using visuals which resound with an audience that is  increasingly familiar and accepting of a game engine's graphical content. We will keep you posted on updates from this space, and hope you enjoy this short film that has just been released.

The 5th Annual Machinima - Expo Film Festival

"The Finest in Machinima Filmmaking" is a distinction that Machinima - Expo embodies.  This is game engine video which utilizes our newer tools and technologies to craft films which are recorded from the screens we are in front of and which we create within.  They can be within virtual worlds, or programs; with others inhabiting avatars, or not.  This is a genre of choice for increasingly talented people who are responding to the challenges that great filmmaking presents, no matter what the medium.

Recently Ginette Pizzaro of AViewTV, which does a remarkable job of promoting machinima, contacted me for information about the upcoming EXPO 2012.  Please have a read of what Ricky Grove & Kate Fosk have to say on it's history and future, and I chime in too.

http://aview.tv/?p=2176

This is going to be an incredible year and our programming, sponsorships and prizes will reflect this, please stay tuned to this space for more information on all. Machinima - Expo is all about the depth and breadth of the medium, showing clearly the artistic and narrative accomplishments we can achieve with our animation engines of choice.