Daily Marauder

MOLOTOV ALVA: FROM SECOND LIFE TO THE TV SCREEN

Definition

Machinima:

Filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies

Before hearing about this documentary, the word machinima never crossed my radar. Perhaps, that’s because I have never found real value in the experience of Second Life. Perhaps, that’s because my brain couldn’t wrap itself around the process of filming in a virtual world. Whatever the reason I didn’t have cause to think on it before, I have cause now. Molotov Alva, created by filmmaker Douglas Gayeton, takes the viewer on an experience through Second Life as Gayeton himself lived within the avatar, Molotov Alva. In watching the first 6 ‘dispatches,’ I must say that I was not overly intrigued by the production values or the particular story captured on film. What did amaze me though was hearing Gayeton speak to the process by which he came to make this documentary.

The Beginning

For 8 months, Gayeton locked himself away in a room in his Sonoma CA-based home, blackening the windows and consuming himself in experiencing Second Life. Before doing this, Gayeton was by no means an active Second Life user. Instead, he was granted a budget for creating an interactive documentary and Second Life is where he thought to devote his time. Entering Second Life originally as Gayeton Ringo in June ‘06, he set about experiencing new worlds and meeting new people. One of the first things that he noticed; people in Second Life have little to no care for who Gayeton was in the real world. Based on this, Gayeton re-named himself Molotov Alva for his experience in this virtual world.

The Story

The story focuses on Molotov Alva’s search for the creator of this virtual world with his new-found friend, Orhalla Zander, who Gayeton met in Second Life. Gayeton met Orhalla Zander in a world where avatars devoted themselves to looking beautiful. Gayeton was drawn to Zander who was living on the side of the road as a hobo in a box in this land of the beautiful people. Gayeton has never met Zander in the real world nor has he seen his picture. Up until recently, he hadn’t even spoken to him on a phone. To set up scenes, Gayeton would text or Skype his Second Life friends scenes and then film them from there. Almost seems like Curb Your Enthusiasm tactics for filmmaking … but not a comedy and in machinima.

The Affair

Above is a woman Molotov meets and has a relationship with in Second Life. Being that Gayeton is married with a 2-year old baby at home, I was immediately fascinated by this idea of ‘loving’ someone in a virtual world while maintaining another relationship in the real world. When asked about this, Gayeton simply shrugs and responds that all women ask him about this. I doubt that I would be as liberal in my understanding of my husband’s virtual relationship but then again, it seems better than real world cheating.

The Promotion

• Premieres tomorrow (5/15) on Cinemax (dispatches 1 – 6) – The first time a machinima film will air on television.
• Dispatches 1 – 10 can be found on Cinemax on Demand
• All 10 dispatches will be available here Thursday (5/16) for 5 additional days
• Dispatches 1 – 2 will premiere in Second Life at the Cinemax Island simultaneous to the on-air debut. In addition, users are invited to take the Molotov Alva journey reliving places and people from the film. At the end of the journey, users will receive a graphic novel gift that can only be read online.
• Dispatches 1 – 2 are on YouTube now. Click the image below.

BROADCAST/CABLE

A U.S. district judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit filed by an artist who claimed that he created the original cartoon character that eventually became the gold mine that is Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants. The artist, Troy Walker, drew a cartoon strip in 1991 that starred a “Mr. Bob Spongee,” but the judge found that Stephen Hillenburg, the creator and executive producer of the Nick show, first drew the now-famous SpongeBob in 1989. (CBS 5 (San Francisco)/Associated Press 5/14)

FOX will be-bop again when So You Think You Can Dance returns for season four with a two-night season premiere on May 22 at 8p and May 28 at 8p. (Cynopsis 5/14)

Comcast-owned sports network Versus scored a major victory this week with its coverage of the NHL’s Eastern Conference playoff series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers. According to Nielsen Media Research, a game played on May 11 earned a 1.7 household rating — the channel’s highest-rated telecast ever. Multichannel News (5/13)

Disney’s ABC will introduce only two new series in the fall, in a schedule the network admits was severely affected by the 100-day Hollywood writers strike. “We certainly saw the affect,” says ABC Entertainment boss Stephen McPherson. “People found other things to do.” (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080513/tv_new_season_abc.html 5/13)

The CW will roll out its fall schedule early starting September 1, about three weeks ahead of the other networks. (Cynopsis 5/14)

For MTV’s 21st season of The Real World, production and action will head to Brooklyn, New York. MTV ordered 12 one-hour episodes of The Real World: Brooklyn which will debut in first quarter 2009. (Cynopsis 5/14)

CBS announced renewals for four series: How I Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Rules of Engagement and The Unit. (Cynopsis 5/14)

Actor Donnie Wahlberg will co-produce and is expected to star in a crime drama for TNT that is tentatively titled “Morse Code.” The story is about a war hero who becomes an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Boston. (The Hollywood Reporter 5/14)

NBC Universal’s Bravo, with shows such as “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “Working Out,” was recognized as the country’s most gay-friendly company in a survey by Prime Access and PlanetOut. Apple was the runner-up, followed by two other cable nets: Showtime and HBO. (The Hollywood Reporter 5/13)

Starz Entertainment will launch its fifth high-definition channel in July. Early theatrical offerings on the subscription service, to be called Encore HD, will include “Cars,” “The Guardian” and “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby.” (TVWeek.com 5/13)

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is said to be mulling a proxy campaign to elect new board members at Yahoo after the company failed to forge a deal to merge with Microsoft. Late last week, Icahn began building a significant position in Yahoo that may be as much as 50 million shares. (Iwantmedia 5/14, http://www.cnbc.com/id/24599711/site/14081545 5/13)

Paris Hilton, her sister Nicky and her mom Kathy are making the jump to the PC screen starring in 6-part miniseries sponsored by Kathy’s My Secret perfume and produced by New York-based For Your Imagination. A Day With the Hiltons follows a mother-daughter duo who won a trip to LA to shop and dine with the Hiltons. TV Guide Broadband will syndicate the series through existing relationships with YouTube, Hulu, Veoh and other affiliates. (Cynopsis 5/14)

YouTube introduced a new ad product called “buzz targeting,” helping producers benefit when their videos go viral. The site created an algorithm analyzing acceleration of views, favorites and ratings activity to determine which videos are about to take off, allowing advertisers to contour their ads to fit with these up and coming videos. Lionsgate was the first sponsor to test the system, running ads for The Forbidden Kingdom against more than 500 partner videos. (Cynopsis 5/14, http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629485 5/14)

The world had real-time news about China’s massive earthquake as local victims dashed out “twitter” text messages while it took place, spreading the news before it was reported by mainstream news outlets. The event “has the potential to bring mainstream media into the Twitter world.” (Iwantmedia 5/14, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080514/tc_afp/uschinaitinternetmediaearthdisastertwitter 5/14)

A notorious “Spam King” and his partner owe MySpace about $230 million in damages after a federal judge awarded the popular online hangout what is believed to be the largest anti-spam judgment ever. Parent company News Corp. hopes the judgment will serve to deter other spammers. (Iwantmedia 5/14, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_hi_te/myspace_spam_award 5/14)

John Malone’s Liberty Media on Tuesday dropped its opposition to a plan by Barry Diller to split his IAC/InterActiveCorp into five separate companies, one of which is the HSN cable shopping network. Liberty Media is a major shareholder in IAC, and Malone had been against the move because it will dilute his voting strength. (The New York Times 5/14, The Wall Street Journal 5/14)

Craigslist.com filed a counter lawsuit against its minority shareholder eBay in a Bay area court yesterday, accusing eBay of unfair business practices, copyright infringement and a list of other no-no’s. Ebay started it with a suit filed last month alleging Craigslist unfairly diluted its interest in the company by more than 10%. (Cynopsis 5/14, http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1333683520080513 5/13)

Online advertising is starting to feel the effects of a tepid economy, according to industry analysis firm PubMatic. Based on data from “billions of ad impressions” and several thousand online publishers, PubMatic asserts that clicks per thousand monetization rates are dropping. (Iwantmedia 5/14, http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9943380-36.html 5/13)

eMarketer is revising its U.S. social network ad spending forecast, projecting that advertisers will spend $1.4 billion to place ads on online social networks this year, down from a previous projection of $1.6 billion. The change is due in part to a lack of successful ad models. (Iwantmedia 5/14, http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/FREE/144876094/1087 5/13)

Comcast Media Center is launching a centralized platform at the National Cable Show to support advanced interactive application developers and facilitate the launch of their interactive services on cable systems serving small to mid-size markets. (Cynopsis 5/14)

Total worldwide revenue generated from User Generated Video (UGV) is expected to exceed $1.19 billion by 2012, according to a new report from In-Stat. More than 160 billion videos are expected to be served that year - putting even greater demands on ISPs - thanks to the proliferation of cheap HD cameras. Mobile UGV uploads are also expected to make up a significant share of the market. (Cynopsis 5/14)

Top U.S. Online Video Properties by Unique Viewers - March 2008
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Property                  Unique Viewers (000)  Average Videos per Viewer
Google Sites                  85,670                   50.9
Fox Interactive Media     54,294                    8.8
Yahoo! Sites                  37,536                    8.7
Viacom Digital               26,642                    9.4
Microsoft Sites               25,194                    9.7
Time Warner - Excl. AOL 22,366                    7.1
AOL LLC                        21,860                    4.6
Disney Online                12,249                    8.8
ESPN                            10,053                    8.9
CBS Corporation              9,486                    6.6
Total Internet             138,576                   82.8
Source: comScore Video Metrix

WIRELESS

Korean firms Samsung and LG Electronics have announced that they will participate with the U.S.-based Advanced Television Systems Committee’s effort to develop a standard for mobile-DTV broadcasting. Jong Woo Park, president of Samsung digital-media business, said: “Our collaboration on North American mobile-DTV standardization will help to accelerate the ATSC standardization of mobile-TV technology, which will benefit both consumers and broadcasters.” (Broadcasting & Cable 5/14)

(Below) [cough] no way [cough cough] iPhone [cough]

Microsoft is aiming to capture 40 percent of the smartphone market with Windows Mobile by the year 2012, an executive said Tuesday. (http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/13/Microsoft-eyes-40-percent-of-smartphone-market_1.html?source=NLC-MOBILEHARDWARE&cgd=2008-05-14 5/13)

A year after revealing a major upgrade of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server was underway, Research in Motion this week finally fleshed out what the new version will do, and put a delivery date on it.   (http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/14/RIM-details-features-in-BlackBerry-Enterprise-Server-5_1.html?source=NLC-MOBILEHARDWARE&cgd=2008-05-14 5/14)

Hearst, the publisher of such magazines as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, is announcing a deal with mobile technology provider ShopText to enable readers to make purchases, sign up for samples and enter sweepstakes through mobile phone text messages. (Iwantmedia 5/14, http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=26376 5/13)

GAMING

Sony is forecasting its operating income will rise 20% this year, beating estimates, as the games division that makes PlayStation 3 consoles turns profitable. The company says operating profit will climb to $4.3 billion in year ending March 2009, some 13% higher than estimated. (Iwantmedia 5/14, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601205&sid=ak.7aKZP9R14 5/14)

PlayStation 3 video-game consoles are demonstrated in the Sony Corp. booth at the Tokyo Game Show 2007 in Chiba, Sept. 20, 2007. Photographer: Toshiyuki Aizawa/Bloomberg News

Electronic Arts reported an 84% increase in revenue from its video games, but still posted an overall loss in its fourth quarter. Analysts suggest the loss is due in part to high development costs, one-time charges and an as-yet-unfinished makeover of the company. Some though still expect the year could be a good one for EA because the company’s adjusted earnings beat street expectations. (ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg 5/14, The New York Times/Associated Press 5/14, The Wall Street Journal 5/14)

TECHNOLOGY

Windows users can buy the new Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000 in the U.S., touted as the easiest to use add-on webcam yet for the PC. (It kind of looks like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey doesn’t it?) It’s optimized for Windows Live Messenger and goes together with the new LifeChat LX-3000 headset. (Cynopsis 5/14)

Eh, my Flip Video is way cuter than this. . .

Sling Media plans next week to introduce its SlingModem, which is built on DOCSIS 2.0 specs and enables the user to move TV content to other platforms, such as PCs and mobile devices. (Broadcasting & Cable 5/14)