Duran Duran Incorporates Second Life Machinima In Their Live Concerts - Smart Mass Market Use of SL

In case you missed it, Duran Duran is incorporating Second Life machinima into their latest live concert tour, playing it as visuals behind the stage. Here's a screen grab from their 9/27 show in Los Angeles, making this the most prominent use of Second Life machinima in a major live music performance:

Full video after the break. Looks like the machinima was shot in Duran Duran's official island in SL, which finally opened last Summer after a delay of several years. This is a really smart and effective use of Second Life -- instead of just creating a site in SL, which will only attract a few thousand fans at most, extract the coolest visuals and integrate them with your live show, your music videos, and so on. Then you have hundreds of thousands or even millions of fans interacting with content created in SL. It's likely most people in the crowd at these concerts don't even know it came from SL, and will just remember it as "the cool 3D animation in the background", and that's fine too.

Now watch Duran Duran playing "The Reflex" accompanied by dozens of random dancing and exploding avatars:

Side note: Pretty impressed the Durans can still deliver the goods two three decades past their heyday.

Hat tip: Corcosman via Mal Burns.

Comments

[Jjccc]

http://cull.tv/#!/180697/3265080

This link is to the videos Duran Duran used for there live stage show Yayyyyyy. My videos are famous although i still havent recieved my groupees yet or my bowl of green m&m's LoL

[Hitomi Tiponi]

"It's likely most people in the crowd at these concerts don't even know it came from SL, and will just remember it as "the cool 3D animation in the background", and that's fine too."

Agreed - and from what I could see it was given quite a nice anime feel to the visuals - nice work.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Hey now, woo!

I just have to say that whenever Hamlet--or anyone else--mentions Duran Duran.

Jjccc, Simon Le Bon will send you fake SL groupies, k?

[bongo]

Im sure moneys made by all putting on the concert... how about all those whos works are in the video clips?

[Rio]

"the most"

How quickly you revert to the fanboi-ism of 2006 and 2007 that sunk the virtual worlds industry. STOP USING SUPERLATIVES LIKE THIS! This is exactly the kind of hyped crap talk... ah... why do I even bother. YOU WERE A PART OF THE OVERHYPE THAT HELPED SET UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS, THAT WHEN NOT MET CRASHED VIRTUAL WORLDS.

Who really gives a crap about Duran Duran? They haven't been relevant for 20 years outside of their shrinking fan base. When it's pre-made machinima, we're just talking CGI, basically. While it's interesting that it's Second Life, it's not novel or innovative.

You want to write about something really crazy and innovative, look at Hatsune Miku. Unsurprisingly, back in January, you completely dismissed it:
"Read more about it here on the Singularity Hub, which unsurprisingly, makes this broad, over-the-top prediction that virtual stars like this will become commonplace:"
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/06/page/2/

*yawn*

[Hamlet Au]

Rio, in 2006, this blog reported that Second Life had 90% less users than was typically assumed. What hyperbole are you referring to?

Far as this, yes, I'm not familiar with any use of SL machinima in a venue as large as the Nokia theater in LA, which has a 7000 seat capacity. And presumably, Duran Duran used the same footage at other shows in their tour.

[Jjccc]

Hey just to let you no when i made the videos use by Duran Duran in there live stage set, i used fraps no cgi and just filmed there sim at certain times when events were being held at there sim, i made the videos because i am a fan of the band and i really like them alot, and i did it for free to, although it would be nice to get some groupees out of it lol. Personally i think its really cool that the band likes my videos ennough to use them on stage infront of thousands of people wooooohoooo

[Hamlet Au]

Jjccc, that's cool -- do you have the link to your original video handy?

[Jjccc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK3qS-sUOPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gnm8myKrrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5yz92u4XnU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcMPz-GuUTQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-Y10zhbz0

these are the videos duran duran using in there stage set

[Hamlet Au]

What's the best one that is also featured in their live show most?

[JoJa Dhara]

Great compliments!!

Indeed a good thing that DD reckonize the value of Machinima. Bit different from what happend during a contest they had a while ago.

Now the hope that the people in the audiance understand that they are looking at fellow fans around the world ..

[Jjccc]

which one of your children is the best, there all good lol