Last month I mentioned how Einstein's official Second Life avatar was used to promote a virtual fundraiser for real medical research -- now, here's the visually powerful results of that marathon-themed fundraiser for the Institute of Medical Research Israel-Canada (or IMRIC), illustrated with an SL machinima which shows all the specific causes "competing" to win the donation:
The results of the fundraiser were not known beforehand to the machinima's creator, BobE Schism, when he started. "There was a scripted outline (written by Dusan Writer) which I shot to," he explains, "and then filmed multiple different endings, as I had no idea who had won until end of the working day last Friday 9th. I had about 95% finished, edited, music written, footage prettified; but left a gap for the final Finish Line section until I had official notification of the winner's name."
So his goal was to dramatize the fundraiser's outcome in a visually compelling way:
"The avatars represent real life people who were raising money for medical research in real life." BoBe explains to me. "[T]he one who raised the most money and received the most donations won the race." Each avatar represents a real fundraiser who was raising donations for IMRIC onine, and each of the avatars was depicted in the machinima, running for their most treasured cause. Mr. Schism attempted to make each avatar roughly similar to each donor:
"Originally I was just meant to make 10 'representations' of the RL people," BoBe tells me, "but on review of the test shots, I was asked to make them as close as possible to the real thing. Which ultimately made them much more endearing and believable than the 10 young, superfit aves I had originally created."
The results are above, with a somewhat overly complicated (for new users) video that links real need to real causes. As for all the avatars in a single region where this machinima was shot? Let BoBe explain:
"At most there were four of us logged in, controlling 10-11 avies, sometimes scripted, sometimes manually. (I had massive assistance and eternal patience from Metaverse Engineers Elizabeth Calderwood and Katje Jewell). Many days were lost due to avatars jumping off the sim, not playing ball, sim lag, and SL weirdness like invisible necks and running through the ground." However, adds BoBe Schism, "No avatars were harmed in the making of this film. Though some might have shed a few pounds."
Speaking of donations, IMRIC is still taking them until the end of the year, here.
Einstien?
Posted by: jo yardley | Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 09:12 AM
Ooof, fixing.
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 12:02 PM
I love this machinima! Really great work on this.
Posted by: rikomatic | Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 12:55 PM
A somewhat overly complicated for new users video? What?
I see a beautifully made, technically excellent machinima that shows SL off to its absolute best.
Congratulations to all involved.
Posted by: Karla Shepherd | Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 04:37 AM