Screen Saviour

He's mad for movies. Madmaninc Zapatero came into SL to sell computers, fell in with the Steampunk crowd, and ended up living his dream, owning his own movie palace, the Phantasmagoria Theater.  He started out with P.T. Barnum's American Museum, but he quickly moved from a 'phantasmagoria' or magic lantern show to showing full length films through blip.tv.
As GoldenWillow Resident, Maddie Mhia, Trilby Minotaur, and the rest of the crowd milled around the grand lobby, getting their popcorn, I asked Mad what is up with film in SL.

 MadManinc Zapatero: I love movies. I love talking and watching and showing movies to people. Movies are a social experience, and if your friends are across the globe, now you can sit down watch a movie together. Plus, it beats pretending to dance to music I don't like.

Shortlist, hard workers

In praise of hard workers.

With the festive season behind you, the new year beckons full of promise and surpises, and what better time to stop and remember all the hard-working individuals who provide so much delight. Below are just some of the people and places that have caught my eye, I bet you can think of many more. Why not drop me a note inworld about your favourite place or group, so we can give them a shout-out here on SLArtsParks? Prefer to leave a comment? You can do so at the bottom of this post, or go over to our ning site and join us there!

First call, the incredibly hard-working Madmaninc Zapatero, seen here in his green lenses.

Do not miss the Festival of Short Film at Phantasmagoria Theater  GOING ON RIGHT NOW! Madmaninc has put together an extraordinary display of talent. Dozens of new short films, from mystery to docu-steampunk, to animation, to abstract art, the choice is yours, 24/7. What a treat! It's a brilliant way to see new talent and expression in bite-size form. You might also want to check out Phantasmagoria's presence on myspace  and at blip.tv(where you can see a video of their New Year's Eve party - these people know how to have a good time!) or subscribe to the podcast at itunes. (Make sure you have the latest Quicktime download, other wise you won't see anything.)

 On the musical front,  Nasus Dumart and the team over at Molaskey's Pub have put on some wonderful music, including the great Frets Nirvana and the past few months have seen a return to the music scene of my personal music-god, Von Johin.

May his tunes last forever!! Thanks to Votslav Hax, BobbiJo and the rest of the Symbiotic team for their unceasing efforts to bring us great talent. There are dozens of gallery owners who deserve praise, I'll just mention PiRats' super-duo Newbab Zsigmond and Merlina Rokocoko, supercool Zachh Cale over at project Z and the truly tireless Lion Igaly whose Diadem gallery just found a new home at sim imparafacile.

In the literary world, the variety of venues, genres and types of activity open to readers and writers is really breathatking, and the amazing work of people like Kghia Gherardi, Harriet Gausman, Jilly Kidd, JJ Drinkwater and the beautiful people over at West of Ireland deserves a standing ovation (though they might prefer a nice sit down and a cup of tea). Much praise goes to the hard work of the team behind the Antica stamperia Il Faro, which produces virtual books in Italian, and the fascinating series Scienza on the road, presented by Giovanna Delphin who, together with Marjorie Fargis brings many an Italian event alive with professionalism and good humour. Not always easy to do with the vagaries of SL performance!

Such a short list, for every name here mentioned there are dozens more, I'm aware... who springs to your mind? Let me know! Links, landmarks, hints and ideas all gratefully received! and with your contributions, what an exciting new year of discovery it's going to be!

Phantasmagoria Theater

All ready to curl up in front of a really good film, and after much surfing you find there's nothing worth watching? Fret no more, and tp over to the Phantasmagoria Theater where you can see early films like Metropolis, Faust, the Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton, to name but a few. How to watch at the theater: take a seat and touch the camera, a series of instructions and options follows, its all quite simple... except, at first I couldn't get it to work, until I realized I'd turned off my streaming media.. /me blushes ...by which time I had called a friend to see if 'it was just me'... thus spreading the word of my ineptitude just a little further. Sigh. I really didn't want to watch THoND I was much more keen on seeing Sherlock Holmes... I'm all Holmes all the time this yuletide... mmm RDJr... mmm Basil Rathbone... As soon as my friend had gone, I decamped to the Drama screenroom, where Conan Doyle's Dressed to Kill was showing, stopping only briefly in the lobby for some of the world's cheapest cinema popcorn, and cool items on offer, both freebies and paybies including the steampunkacious Wax Cylinder 'Gramaphone' which "comes with a selection of real recordings from 1880-1910!". If you own a parcel, you can even pick up gratis and for free a camera and screen that will generate all these greats on your own land, how's that for extraordinary. The man behind all this is Madmaninc Zapatero. He came into SL two years ago with the idea of using it as a storefront for his refurbished Apple laptop business, Madmaninc. When the economy crashed, along with his company, he found himself at a loose end. He'd always been interested in Steampunk, and so gravitated to New Babbage, where the first person he met gave him a mad scientist outfit, sort of sealing his fate...

Madmanic Zapatero: That's when I really got interested in SL, I thought 'hey these people are pretty cool.' I visited Caledon and bought some land there with no idea what I was going to do with it. I had noticed a lot of art museums in SL, so I googled 1800-1900 museums. This brought up P.T Barum's American Museum. I collected pictures of sideshow performers and built the Museum of Curiosities and Oddities. Then I found out that you could show video in SL, and put a small theater in the basement of the museum - the first movie I showed was FREAKS. Eventually I bought a larger parcel and the Phantasmagoria Theater was born. This was the name of the first "movie" theater ever in RL. It was a place to show magic lantern shows - they are images painted on glass and shown like slides.

Madmaninc has a web design background, and picked up building from youtube tutorials.

Madmaninc Zapatero: Building came very easy to me, but it is still being updated and changed. I am still learning and adding more, mostly making it more detailed. I love film, and took what I love into SL and share it with as many people as possible. We have five screens and over 300 films that can be seen 24/7. All these films are in the public domain as to stay legal. My top ten films? 3' oclock high, Man Bites Dog, Kiss Me Deadly, Seconds, Brick, Klute, Zardoz, Chungking Express, Cemetary Man, and Sunset Blvd.

There's no shortage of events at the Phantasmagoria. They premiered a reanimated version of the Night of the Living Dead - a triumph of virtual irony - and last October's Horror Film Fest showcased Italian Horror Directors. But more projects are in the pipeline. Madmaninc Zapatero: I am now getting involved in filming movies to show there. Also, I'm seeking actors to re-enact 1930's radio dramas in SL. We invite Indie film makers looking for a place to show their work to come here - the Phantasmagoria is a huge opportunity for them to get their film in front of a movie-going audience! We're also working on translating our films into all languages. And we have a festival of shorts starting shortly - come and join us!

BENVENUTI AL Phantasmagoria Theater il più grande teatro in Second Life! Con oltre trecento film nell'archivio e cinque sale, il Phantasmagoria offre la possibilità di rivisitare alcuni dei più importanti film di tutti i tempi, quale Metropolis, Faust e Il Gobbo di Notre Dame di Charles Laughton. Il teatro è opera di Madmaninc Zapatero un specialista in IT arrivato in SL circa due anni fa. Appassionato di steampunk, ha voluto creare un museo di curiosità, tipo quello di  P T Barnum : approfondendo la sua ricerca in Google, Google,  Madmaninc ha saputo che il primo 'cinema' - un locale con lanterna magica - si chiamava Phantasmagoria Theater, in suo onore. All'inizio il teatro era nello scantinato del suo museo, ma presto Madmaninc ha voluto creare un teatro più addatto ad ospitare il suo pubblico. Gli eventi al Phantasmagoria sono molto belli, e vari. Hanno fatto una versione 'rianimata' del Night of the Living Dead e a ottobre, il teatro è stato vetrina per il Horror Fest con molti film italiani del genere.

Qui vedi il classico Lobby, dove si compra il pop corn, ma anche oggetti come un gramofono con cilindri in cera, la musica 'genuina' degli anni '20. C'è anche una maglietta e... la macchina da presa! Un gratuito per tutti, molto bello, e se sei owner di una land, puoi proiettare tutti i film del Phantasmagoria a casa tua. Io sono entrata nella sala 'Drama' un bel film di Sherlock Holmes, Dressed to Kill... Invece ho chiesto a Madmaninc quali sono i dieci film più importanti di tutti i tempi. Ecco le sue scelte... sei d'accordo?

3' oclock high, Man Bites Dog, Kiss Me Deadly, Seconds, Brick, Klute, Zardoz, Chungking Express, Cemetary Man, and Sunset Blvd...

Madmaninc Zapatero: Abbiamo molte iniziative che possono interessare i tuoi lettori. Stiamo cercando attori per una versione metaversal e di vari drammi radiografici degli anni '30. Offriamo uno spazio a registi nuovi indipendenti, per far conoscere le loro opere attraverso il teatro e il nostro gruppo. Un progetto che ho molto a cuore è quello di tradurre i  film in tutte le lingue. Abbiamo un Festival di cortometraggi durante il mese di gennaio... l'anno nuovo sarà molto importante per noi, speriamo di vedervi numerosi nelle nostre sale!