Friday, September 25, 2009

In and about


"Merciful heavens! I should be terrified at the very idea of living here."
"You would have thought so, wouldn't you?" said Dr Emilius Browne. "I am, by nature, a little bit of a coward, but then I pondered, as I often do; in the perverse nature of things, this diabolical object is probably the best friend I ever had. It's enabled me for the first time in my life to live like a king. Shall we go in?"
Mary Norton: Bedknobs and Broomsticks
More of that later.
TechSoup Digital Storytelling Event is for non-profits who want to get their message out there via Second Life, and digital media in general. It's an initiative with support from many household names like YouTube, Flickr, Adobe and Youth Radio, so this is serious stuff...here's their blurb:
Every organization has a story to tell. But yours doesn’t have to be a bland, corporate-sounding video or canned sound bite. Even with limited resources, time, or skills, your nonprofit can tell a compelling story that captures the importance and impact of your cause — and we’ve got an event that will show you how!
OK I realize I should have mentioned all this before not after the main event, but TechSoup isn't over yet! At Nonprofit Commons I met up with In Kenzo, an inworld consultant to TechSoup, and asked what it was all about.
In Kenzo: TechSoup started hosting nonprofit meetings back when I first started building here back in 2006. This community has been the most stable I have been a part of in my years here. They empower hundreds of nonprofits in SL and thousands more through discounted software and technology tools. So I help them with mixed reality events including the Digital Storytelling Challenge and webinars starting next week. We'll be here 9/30 with an introduction to digital storytelling as it is used well by our partners and leaders in both business and nonprofit sectors. Then on 10/1 at 9AM we come back to do a one hour how-to-guide for nonprofits looking to create their stories for video or photo essay on the web. The challenge begins and groups will have nearly 3 weeks to produce a short piece, to be screened at the TechSoup Global Headquarters in San Francisco on 10/21 at 7PM. We'll have a mixed reality party that night to show the winners and share our stories together.
If you're curious to know more about In Kenzo there's a machinima blog well worth a look: this Green Fairy has creativity to spare!
And if you want to rub virtual shoulders with all kinds of silicon socialites, and make your mark in the world of Good Causes, put the 21st in your diary - better still, get creative, make the most of the extraordinary help on offer, and put your non-profit on the map!
OOO spooky... over at the haunted reading room at Milk Wood Library, on Fridays, you can hear Emz Mazie (in RL Emerian Rich) read a chapter from her new book about vampires, Night's Knights. There is a picture of her looking appropriately vampirish in the Italian bit, which may or may not be finished when you toodle down there to check. I am semi on strike, waiting for someone to pass me filthy lucre via the 'happy readers' section on your left, you see. If you missed the first instalments of Emz's book, you can catch up at www.vamp.mevio.com.
Emz Mazie: My group Quills has a little hangout on Book Island. They record their podcast there every other week,and recently had a Wicked Women Writers challenge. Emz and 4 other RL women writers were on live to chat about books, the writing process, and being an author in SL, and you can listen to what Quills has to offer at. It's been a while since I TP'd over to West of Ireland, and so I took the opportunity to drop in on their reading room to hear Caledonia Hightower reading Mary Norton's classic The Magic Bedknob (you may know it better as the film starring Angela Lansbury Bedknobs and Broomsticks). I love WOI because the the sim is designed to be both pleasing and low lag, and it is a great place to hear live books, other readers include WOI luminaries such as Derry McMahon and Elder Priestman who often do two-hand narrations. The sim supports a very good RL cause, providing activities to help Irish communities integrate in a spirit of tolerance and friendship, so show your Linden love if you stop by.
Wow was it really almost a week ago? On Sunday last Merlino Mayo kindly reminded me that they were re-showing Metropolis over at sim Benvolio. By Metropolis, I don't mean simply an inworld cinematic showing of the 1927 Fritz Lang film, but a fantastic 3D re-enactment of the film using avatar actors including Debbie Trilling, MillaMilla Noel, Efrantirse Morane, Josina Burgess and Velazquez Bonetto. It was all very cleverly done. You sit down and then, along with the camera closeups visible from each seat, the whole audience is moved around the sim so they become part of the action. There are all kinds of flames, and people looking pretty angry, and a huge robot. No, I have no idea what the film is about, I am a total ignoramus, but I bet you know it, and it was great to look at. Even more impressive when you stop to think about all the TPs, animations and poses the actors had to manipulate in what appears a seamless performance. It was amazing! I could see why Merlino had been to see the show five times, I definitely would like to go again myself. Check the group notices and the blog to learn when they'll next be doing their thing.
Metropolis is the second project of its kind by the CARP team (they did Pink Floyd's The Wall My photos are, well, you're better off going to the diabolus/CARP collection at Flickr. The one-hour event is the result of months of rehearsal, building, and scriptmaking, a true labour of love for the first full length Science Fiction film. I spoke to Velazquez Bonetto about the project after the show.
Velazquez Bonetto: The whole idea to bring Metropolis into SL was Debbie Trilling's, but we have all contributed. My group provides the space on our sim. It's called The Art Space Diabolus and was founded in SL on the 24th june 2007 by Caravaggio Bonetto, Josina Burgess and myself for Experimental Cybernetic Art. Windy Lane made the scenery, Sca Shilova built the robot and the animations for it. Also, Nnoiz Papp composed the music, Josina Burgess created all the characters, making botht the avatars and their costumes. I'm an industry designer and a computer scientist in RL, so SL is a nice game for me, and I contributed by rebuilding the whole Metropolis, and writing programs and scripts, and setting the stages. To see more about the group and their avant-garde aspirations for avatar art, go to the diabolus website and wallow in world wild webbery, and there are loads of machinima on Youtube too...
∻∼∾⊰⊱∾∼∻
TechSoup! Un minestrone di tecnologia, in questo caso attrezzi, consigli, consulenze gratuite per chiunque abbia un ente non a scopo di lucro e lo vuole pubblicizzare. Con la partecipazione di ditte.com RL quale YouTube, Flickr, Adobe, TechSoup ha lanciato un concorso e una serie di webinar (seminari via web) partendo dal ragionamento che ogni causa per trovare nuovi sostenitori deve sapersi 'raccontare'... catturare l'immaginazione di possibili nuovi aderenti. Questa iniziativa accavalla il reale e il virtuale, posita SL come organo potentissimo di informazione e di attivismo. A Nonprofit Commons troverai molte informazioni su questa iniziativa che si conclude il 21 ottobre. Qui nella foto vedi In Kenzo, in SL dal 2006, una consulente per il gruppo, TechSoup che lei definisce uno dei più seri e validi in SL.
In Kenzo: Io do una mano con questi eventi mixed reality. Sono qui per la Digital Storytelling Challenge, in cui è stato lanciato la sfida di inventare il modo più efficace e avvincente di raccontare la passione e l'importanza del proprio gruppo. Oggigiorno il pubblico viene bombardato da messaggi, pubblicità, notizie e novità, e non è facile trasmettere in poche istanti un messaggio importante. Vogliamo aiutare la gente a commmunicare in modo vivace e memorabile, e alla fine di questo corso, ci sarà una grande festa sia in SL, qui al Non Profits, sia a San francisco, alla sede centrale di TechSoup, per premiare il filmato, la 'storia' più avvincente.... se vuoi migliorare il tuo inglese in un ambiente accogliente e tranquillo dove spesso appaiono fate e folletti, questo può essere il sim per te, il West of Ireland, sim ad opera di beneficenza che aiuta ragazzi nordirlandesi cattolici e protestanti a convivere e conoscersi meglio. Se ci fai un salto, sarai accolto con entusiasmo e buon umore da Derry Macmahon e Elder Priestman owners e builders della biblioteca. Legge ogni settimana la brava Caledonia Hightower una puntata del libro Il Magico Pomo d’Ottone di Mary Norton poi divenuto un film Disney.
Degna di SL, questa scena dal film Pomi d'ottone e manici di scopa in cui la buon vecchia Miss Price con un tocco di magia brittanica respinge le forze nazistiche.

Non solo folletti simpatici in Second Life... ci sono anche degli spiriti assai più malvagi. Come le forze del male nel nuovissimo libro di Emz Mazie, I cavallieri della notte, o in inglese il più linguisticamente contorto Night's Knights. L'autrice ci ha letto il primo capitolo nella stanza incantata di Milk Wood Library. un appuntamento ogni venerdi sera, per l'orario, puoi consultare le notice di Virtual Writers o Bookstacks. Se hai perso qualche puntata. puoi anche ascoltare l'archivio a www.vamp.mevio.com.
Emz ha un gruppo chiamato Quills (Calami). Hanno uno spazio su Book Island, e questa settimana ci saranno 5 scrittrici che parleranno sull'argomento: Autrici Peccaminose... informati sul gruppo Quills inworld.Una settimana fa, mi ha segnalato Merlino Mayo una performance del gruppo CARP a sim Benvolio hanno fatto un performance del film Metropolis uno dei primi film fantscienza, una produzione incredibile, per le prestazioni degli attori Debbie Trilling, MillaMilla Noel, Efrantirse Morane, Josina Burgess e Velazquez Bonetto, per le scene, le animations, il robot.....ecco le mie foto, ma meglio andare a Flickr oppure direttamente al loro sito diabolus ... io devo uscire in real... a dopo...

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