Here's some cool Second Life news: "Deep Down (The Virtual Mine)", a TV documentary with a major component developed in SL, just received an Emmy nomination, in the category "New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming". Produced by PBS' Independent Lens, the documentary by Jen Gilomen and Sally Rubin is about the hard life of Appalachian coal miners in Eastern Kentucky. As part of the production, Gilomen and Rubin created a virtual experience in Second Life to simulate coal mining in a kind of role playing game framework. A lot of well-known SL developers were involved in the project, including Qarl Fizz (aka Karl Stiefvater), who tipped me to this excellent news for SL as a real world work platform. (Qarl did its coding.) When the project was first announced, I was skeptical that SL was really ready to convey what the documentarians intended, but I totally agree with the Emmy judges that it represents a promising new approach to conveying news stories. (And this is the second Emmy nomination for an SL-based project. In 2007, the SL site for The L Word got a nomination in an interactive marketing category and won the award.)
See more about the documentary here, and see more about the virtual mine experience here. I've included a video of Jen Gilomen and Sally Rubin talking about the virtual mine experience after the break too -- click to view!
Watch the full episode. See more Independent Lens.
May I also recommend the film which you can rent/buy here http://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/deep-down/id398688250, at least in the US. Also, big thanks has to go to Wendy Levy from BAVC [http://www.bavc.org] who believed in this project from the start! Jen, Sally, get those fancy gowns ready!!!! AND: not to forget Rik Panganiban, who mentored this and other teams during Producer's Institute '08!!!!
Posted by: draxtor | Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 12:34 PM
Thank you for sharing this! Our whole team at Sand Castle Studios (lead developers myself, William Reed Seal Foss/ Reed Steamrollers in SL, and Qarl) are thrilled and excited! As Draxtor said, a lot of people helped make this possible and put a lot of hard work into this project!
Posted by: Kimberly Winnington (Gianna Borgnine inSL) | Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 02:45 PM
i've been associated with various award winning projects before... usually involving at least a thousand people...
but this one was mainly just three people - Kim, Reed, and me.
fuck YEAH! i'm a happy camper. :)
Posted by: qarl | Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 04:53 PM
Karl, get that tux ironed NOW!
Posted by: draxtor | Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:53 PM
CONGRATS from Hamburg :)) You guys rock.
Posted by: Hanno Tietgens | Xon Emoto | Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 04:41 AM
Yes, Congratulations! What a great way for the (real) world to see what Second Life has to offer.
I think machinima is going to be the best method to show that SL is good place to be.
Keep promoting it, Hamlet!
Posted by: Elsbeth Writer | Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 08:24 AM