WATCH: My Top Five Favorite Second Life Machinimas from 2017

From surreal comedy to moody sci-fi to eerie art installations, here's my favorite Second Life-based machinimas from 2017 -- starting with this one from January, reflecting this year's trend of YouTubers recording SL broadcasts "live", a departure from traditional narratives of past machinima. But as real life opera singer Cassie Middles demonstrates, there's something fresh and exciting about recording SL experiences as they happen, without editing:

More about Cassie's video here.

"Library": Beautiful SL Machinima Tribute To Classic Literature (from April) -- created by Pepa Cometa, a master at creating evocative montages showing off the metaverse at its best.

Three more after breaking, starting with longtime SL artist Bryn Oh (also in April), shooting in an in-world art installation she created this year:

"The One That I Want": Bryn Oh's Utterly Eerie Machinima Shot In Her Latest Metaverse Art Installation.

Then there's possibly my ow n favorite of the year, from September: "The Force", Like Second Life From The 80s But Stranger Still, by Splinter Smirnov and Chris Mumblewood:

Unsurprisingly, Splinter tell me Lynch's Twin Peaks is an inspiration for their machinima, along with other odd-creepy gems like Tales of the Unexpected and a UK show called Jubilee Terrace. The bug-eyed avatars, however, are inspired by themselves: "The pop-eyed look comes from our Second Life avatars really," Splinter says, "it just worked for the videos and gives them their own unique stamp. We find realistic looking mesh and bento heads a little boring so we like to play around making freaky looking funny ones.

Mpre on their creative process here.

Finally, there's this perfectly shot and edited short by Huckleberry Hax, inspired by Elon Musk's announcements about Mars colonization and the visuals of Blade Runner 2049. More like this, please! 

I'm sure there's many machinimas I missed this year which I'd admire just as much as these, so if you know of any, please share in Comments!

Comments

[Huckleberry Hax]

An honour to be included on this list - thank you!

[Pepa Cometa]

Thank you very much for including my video on your list, so happy you enjoyed it. I feel really flattered :)

[Cybele Moon]

great videos all!