Episode 18 of The Drax Files: World Makers is out and has thrown a bit of a curve ball by coming out on a Wednesday instead of Friday! Then another curve ball is tossed in by having two people whom live in London speaking with North American accents! I’ll post the video at the end, which is my traditional style with these videos.
This week’s episode features Canary Beck and Harvey Crabsticks who are engaging in immersive theatre within Second Life. The video follows Drax’s tried and tested formula of mixing inworld footage and real life footage, with a youthful looking Canary and Harvey walking the streets of London. Canary Beck is seen wearing a striped dress, which she manages to just about pull off …. wait wait wait, come back, I don’t mean she pulls her dress off! I mean stripes on film isn’t always a good mix.
The video features a behind the scenes look at their forthcoming inworld production of Paradise Lost, in which we do see Canary with her dress off, but tactfully done. The production features 43 roles, played by 8 avatar actors.
Harvey talks of how the actors in the production are real people, something sometimes missed when it comes to virtual world productions, he also mentions that the audience are real people too, again something oft forgotten.
However this episode also shows the advantages of virtual world productions, whereby they can quickly pull 12 sets together and also encourage the audience to view the show via certain camera settings, giving the production team more opportunity to have the show viewed in the settings they feel best befit the production.
However that isn’t to say an inworld production is easy, there are rehearsals and a few hundred hours worth of script development in their production of Paradise Lost. However one of the beauties of virtual world collaboration is again highlighted when it comes to working together, they don’t need to be in the same building to work together and although they are both in the same city, they find it easier at times to meet up inworld to avoid the trials and tribulations of travelling across London to meet.
However what’s interesting about this episode is how the two featured artists also take something from the virtual world in terms of building and creation and find they appreciate the scenery and nature in real life more than they previously did, noticing details about buildings and textures and finding a greater appreciation of them.
Canary believes that modern society has forgotten how to play, I’m not sure I agree with that but the way we play is certainly changing. Harvey makes a rather important point about the point of life full stop, which is a question he asks people who ask him what the point of Second Life is.
This may seem a little odd, but I’ve argued before that Second Life is a part of real life, the people behind the avatars are real, they’re choosing to engage in a virtual world instead of watching a box set at that time, we’re not all getting immersed in a Matrix although of course, hey, we could all be part of a virtual world anyway and not know it, but that’s a pub discussion.
There’s much more in the video, even though it’s only five minutes long it packs a lot in to those five minutes and this is a skill Drax has down to a tee, these videos work and they work well, they challenge stereotypes of virtual worlds and their users and tear up the rule book, highlighting use case after use case that the mainstream media fail to highlight.
Paradise Lost opens in Second Life on April 5th, with a second premiere on April 6th … I’m not sure how that works, but both shows are sold out! However there will be further shows, tickets cost L$1,000 each and are available from the Second Life Marketplace.
For more details go here : http://thebasilique.wordpress.com/
Now for that video!
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