Futuristic Cinema: Mash-Ups and Machinima!

The next meeting of the Philadelphia Future Salon will be on July 17th,
2008; we’re not meeting on the first Thursday of the month due to the
holiday.

The topic will be “Futuristic Cinema: Mash-Ups and Machinima!” Modern media
has caused us to rethink everything from business to entertainment. Youtube
has made it possible for anyone to be a star and share their dreams and
visions. Fans now have the technology in their power to find out who would
win in a fight between Star Wars and Star Trek. Major television franchises
such as CSI: New York and The Office are blending episodes with the virtual
world of Second Life. The most famous brands in the world, such as
Coca-Cola, are making short films in virtual worlds and video games (called
machinima) to enhance their advertising campaigns. Traditional businesses
are finding new ways to use these new technologies.

We will have two panelists from the area lead the discussion, with Timothy
Allen moderating.

The first panelist is Peter Decherney, a Assistant Professor of Cinema
Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus
on the history of media regulation and on internet policy, specifically the
interaction between Hollywood and Washington. He is the author of Hollywood
and the Culture Elite: How the Movies Became American (Columbia UP, 2005)
and many articles on the Hollywood film industry, on the history of media
regulation, and on fair use and academia, among other topics. In 2006, along
with two colleagues, Decherney successfully petitioned for an exemption to
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for media professors using clips for
teaching. In addition to Penn, he has taught at Yale University, Johns
Hopkins University, and Tsinghua University (Beijing). He is currently
working on a new book on the history and future of Hollywood and copyright
law. He frequently assigns mashups as coursework.

Our other panelist is Ariella Furman, the first person in her Ukrainian
family to be born in America. She acquired her interest in filmmaking when
she was practically in diapers. She took her skillset with her to Temple
University and became a 2008 graduate with a Film Media Arts degree. Her
story began with her love for music videos. Her videos for east-coast bands
have premiered on outlets such as LCN-TV, Adrenaline Nation TV, MTV Italy,
and more recently the channel Logo, a subsidiary of MTV. She then found her
next passion, machinima, by accident, through an experimental documentary
she made for class. Since then, she has worked with Electric Sheep, Popcha,
SLAgency, and created machinima for Nestle, World Bank, IBM, and others.

Timothy Allen is a virtual worlds enthusiast, Philadelphia area tech
fanatic, and co-moderator of the Philadelphia Future Salon.

Refreshments are provided, and free cocktails will be served after the
session. We look forward to seeing you there!

Location: 1835 Market Street, 15th Floor, at the office of Buchanan,
Ingersoll & Rooney.

Please RSVP to francis.ta…@bipc.com – please email him directly, do not
reply to the entire list, as we try to keep this a very low-volume group.
Thank you!

As it should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me, I am still on a long term hiatus from Second Life. I’ve logged in a couple times over the past month or so. I usually get frustrated by the poor performance issues and promptly log back out without a second thought. It makes me sad to feel such apathy and contempt for something I once loved so much. I thought at first that I was just sick of the drama that stormed through our virtual lives year after year, but I think it runs deeper than that now. I had always been a big supporter of Linden Lab and Second Life. It just got to the point where I could no longer make excuses for a product that barely works on a good day. I just hope that I haven’t become disenfranchised to the point of not ever coming back and/or completely removing my business interests from Second Life.

While on the subject of Second Life, I’d like to extend a belated congratulations to Daniel Terdiman on the pending release of The Entepreneur’s Guide to Second Life. Upon speaking at the Virtuals Worlds Conference in NYC back in March, he asked me to contribute some knowledge and insight on fashion design and content creation in Second Life. On a side note, whilst Google searching my avatar, I see that while I am wholly un-present in Second Life and most Second Life related forums and blogs, that a certain bag lady blogger still has me in her cross hairs questioning how I could possibly contribute anything on content creation since I’ve like never rezzed a prim. For anyone interested, I became a content creator around May 2004 and regularly released new items up until this past year. My main store is in Indigo and I have owned and managed several other malls and boutique locations around Second Life since August 2004.

I am still playing World of Warcraft because tried and true it works and critical functions don’t break after updates. The “lag” when noticeable in capitol cities is almost laughable compared to the walking through molasses lag at any given time in Second Life. It has been a fun experience since I have never been into online games like this before. I am always amazed by the intuitiveness of the User Interface and just how smooth and beautiful the world is at any given time. Sure, it does not have streamed content like Second Life, but I’d sacrifice streamed content in order to never see Missing Image again.

And in other news, I began managing a friends band last month, Trouble Everyday, whom as you may remember performed a show in Second Life back in June hosted by Phreak Radio. I have been enjoying it immensely and life again. I think after nearly four years of being involved in virtual world stuff I just needed to do something real and tangible again,  eventhough we are focusing on interaction with various new media outlets. I’ll be writing more about my adventures on this blog soon enough. I just need to transition it from being 100% Second Life related to being a mix of new media, music and personal stuff.