Amateur film-makers produce a chapter from Paulo Coelho’s book
»The Witch of Portobello« in SL ©

The Brazilian bestselling author Paulo Coelho has invited his readers, via the internet, to film portions of his most recent novel. Many of his readers took this invitation as an opportunity to grab a camera. A group of internet-filmmakers chose a different way – they want to meet this challenge in Second Life ©.

SlipStream is an international group of filmmakers, working in the artform called »machinima«. In machinima (a new word combining machine and animation), all the action and film-making are done in a virtual world. However, most of the post-production work occurs on computers outside the virtual world. The group has chosen the Second Life © virtual world for creating and filming their productions.

In a virtual world, the people (called avatars) move around in a 3D world and interact with objects and other avatars. The difference from regular animation is that there are real people behind these avatars, not just animation, and the world is truly three dimensional.

»There are lots of advantages, as well as a few disadvantages, in filming in a virtual world,« said Jim Gustafson, the group’s director, cameraman, and editor. »We are able to build sets much cheaper here because they are built entirely inside a computer.« In addition, sets can be built in a virtual world that would be not be possible in the real world. »If you want to defy gravity, you can in a virtual world without having to use special effects.«

Nevertheless some skills are needed to make the sets look realistic. Raven Skosh, a graphic designer in real life, who coordinates the international team of builders says »A realistic looking movie set for machinima is a combination of 3-D objects with detailed textures put on the surfaces of these objects to create just the right look.«

The action in Second Life © machinima comes either through the actors moving their own avatars or from computer programs that move the avatars in response to the Director. »It’s great to have that level of direct control over the actors’ positions when filming in machinima,« said Jim Gustafson.

Another important aspect of machinima is getting the proper body shape, facial detail, and clothing for the characters in the story. This is analogous to casting and wardrobe in real-life film-making. »Appearance and clothing are very important in SL machinima to convey the characters to the audience, since there are only limited possibilities for facial expressions in this virtual world,« said Delia Ferraris, the team member responsible for avatar appearance, who also serves as the producer for the Slipstream group.

The Slipstream group not only uses Second Life as the setting for its films, but conducts their team meetings inside the virtual world. The group meetings are held in English, using both written and voice communications when they are together.

»Since February 2008, our team has produced a mini-science-fiction-series that consists of short episodes that currently are all shot inside Second Life ©. The whole team didn’t want to miss the opportunity to participate in a project like the one from Paulo Coelho, so we took a break from our regular series to film part of The Witch of Portobello,« Jim Gustafson explained. »We had a great time making the film and hope that our audience enjoys it as much.«

You can see the machinima to »The Witch of Portobello« here:
http://blip.tv/file/1111706

The official scene pictures can be found on Picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Jim.Gustafson.SL/SzenenfotosHexenprojekt?authkey=4uDKMH8Pmjg

The team consists of Delia Ferraris, Jim Gustafson, Arabella Nemeth, Lucie Wiefel, Lusi Source, Paula Dix, Jayden Munro, Bionic4U Baxter and Raven Skosh.