New World Notes

Watch: New Video from Yasushi Watanabe, Top J-Pop Composer Who Created a Spinoff Project Based Around Second Life

Dropping on YouTube just an hour or so ago, here's the latest music video of BYNORAL, aka Yasushi Watanabe, a major figure in the J-Pop world (he's composed songs for top girl groups AKB48 and Nogizaka46) who earlier this year spun off a side project creating music videos in Second Life. Video summary:

This track is a sentimental song that incorporates various elements of electro, chill, and pop with the theme of light and darkness of modern society.

Not quite seeing the dark side of this beautifully shot, candy-colored video, but maybe the lyrics are where the shadows reside.  He was actually active in SL ten years ago, so this side gig represents a return to the virtual world.  (His new brand "BYNORAL”, by the way, is a play on "binaural stereo system."

Watch: Someone Made a Rap Song About Second Life and it Fricking SLAPS

For a user-created virtual world that's nearly 20 years old, it's difficult for anyone to create the first something in its category, but Zatch Ixchel has probably done just that: "MESHONME" is the first rap song inspired by Second Life that I'm aware of. And it's actually damn good, with a solid trap beat matched to Zatch's staccato rapping of uniquely clever rap lyrics that only SLers will understand:

I come thru with a lil sum suttin

You come thru with a Ruth to the function

Boy, you better poof, better move it or somethin

I'm bout to blow thru the damn roof with the dumb shit

Got a new suit with the HUD shit too

Only shed blood with a new tattoo  

They're so on point, I thought he must also rap in real life, but he tells me no.

"I choose to do it in relative privacy/anonymity, even in real life," as he puts it. "I suppose this is because I see it as a character I am playing. To put my face on something like that would feel inauthentic. In Second Life, I don't have that issue."

"MESHONME" is very much about SL culture: "I guess I was inspired by the inherent materialism of Second Life," Zach tells me, "which complements the Hip Hop genre rather well. I also thought it would be funny to watch someone try and flex that sort of bravado and wealth in the context of a virtual world."

Nailed it. As does the video, which stars his RL wife Lucie. Full lyrics below courtesy Mr. Ixchel, who's originally from New York -- in case anyone wants to get an East Coast/West Coast avatar rivalry going.

Watch Here: STÖMOL, The First Feature-Length Cyberpunk Thriller Shot Entirely in Second Life!

Update: Bumped up for weekend viewing!

As promised, New World Notes is very proud to debut the feature-length machinima by Huckleberry Hax. Put your headphones on, dim the lights, and press play. And join me below for director's comments (with potential spoilers) and running comments from the audience in the aisle!

STÖMOL, Feature-Length Cyberpunk Machinima Shot Entirely in Second Life, Has Its World Premiere on New World Notes This Thursday!

STÖMOL! You've seen the trailer, you've read interviews with its lead creator Huckleberry Hax and co-star Caitlin Tobias. (Or if not, watch below.) You've also noticed Chris Nolan's Tenet has now been indefinitely postponed and are looking for a substitute brainy science fiction thriller to watch.

Starting this Thursday at 3:10pm SLT/Pacific, bring your popcorn and watch STÖMOL as it makes it world premiere here on New World Notes. Click play right then and join us in the watch party in Comments or in YouTube live!

After which, STÖMOL is going wide, premiering in SL at Town Hall Island, a four region amphitheater that can fit up to 200. Get all the details from Huckleberry Hax's blog.

Special Stömol Offer for NWN: 2 Free Tickets to the Premiere of the Feature Length Cyberpunk Thriller Shot Entirely in SL

You've heard about Stömol, the much-anticipated, upcoming feature-length machinima shot entirely in Second Life starring a cast of avatar all-stars fronted by Huckleberry Hax, the writer, director, producer, and leading man. (Making Hax, I guess, the Orson Welles of Second Life?) Now special to New World Notes readers, Mr. Max is giving away two free tickets for the premiere on July 23 at 3PM SLT.

Here's how to enter for a chance to win them, instructions straight from Hax's keyboard:

Watch: STÖMOL Sneak Peak, Epic Full-Length SL Machinima With Brilliant Premise Premiering in July

Turns out Christopher Nolan's Tenet won't be playing in theaters in July after all, so your best bet for a cerebral sci-fi action thriller could be STÖMOL, the feature-length SL machinima from Huckleberry Hax and crew.  Mr. Hax just shared with me this teaser scene, redolent of cyberpunk noir.

Here's Hax to explain the scene:

"The scene features the film's protagonist, Epi Stömol (Huckleberry Hax), picking up a case from wealthy socialite Verity Certain (Ylva). Certain hires Stömol to track down her adopted son, a gifted coder able to retrieve and decode old media files rendered unreadable by the ruling government's 'digital hygiene' policy."

(Yes Hax is both the writer, director, and star of STÖMOL, which seems a bit much, but then again that's what they told Orson Welles. So, you know.)

The premise of feature, as Huckleberry puts it, is pretty Nolan-worthy:

Watch "Hand", Bryn Oh's Latest, Bitterly Beautiful Machinima Shot in Both Second Life & Sansar

Here's the latest machinima from beloved metaverse artist Bryn Oh, who now has a Patreon page which you should definitely consider supporting if you're among the hundreds of thousands who've loved her artworks over the years. This new piece, called "Hand", was shot in both Second Life and Sansar, and as with some of her other works, was sponsored in part by an Ontario Arts Council grant. (Yes, the Canadian government will pay you to make virtual world art.)

"I decided to use footage from both Sansar and Second life because each has their strengths for machinima," Bryn tells me.  "Sansar can actually have really wonderful graphics.  Unfortunately their filming tools were quite limited.  Second Life on the other hand is great for filming in.  Also my machinima are a catalogue of my artwork so I wanted to capture a bit of both."

The locations for "Hand" are both still virtually explorable in Sansar here and in Second Life here.

Her inspirations for "Hand", as she tells me, include smartphone addiction, and the culturally corrosive power of advertising:

How YouTube Star Mr. Moon Made His Hilarious Second Life Video

"Ticket to Hell" from popular gaming YouTuber Mr. Moon. like I said last week, is the best and raunchily funniest Second Life "outsider" video in a long while. What’s also amazing, as Moon told me recently, is how he made it. While Mr. Moon has produced epic videos in other online games/MMO like Dayz Z and Ark, this was his first foray into the 17 year old virtual world.

“I always thought [Second Life] would be the perfect place to create some content,” he says. “I had no idea going in what I was going to create, it really all came together in an interesting way.”

I was surprised myself how he created it. Here’s some behind the scenes secrets from Mr. Moon -- spoilers if you haven’t yet seen “Ticket to Hell” (and you should already, it's right up there):

Watch: YouTube Star Mr. Moon Visits Second Life, Makes Hilariously Crude, Occasionally Perceptive Feature Epic

Update, 4/16: Bumped up for weekend viewing!

Got 70 minutes to spare? What am I saying, of course we all do. Fire up some popcorn and your favorite adult beverage and watch "Ticket to Hell" from popular YouTube gaming star Mr. Moon. Content warning: Occasionally veers from hilariously crude to just crude, and is definitely not worksafe viewing if you're actually working in an office, but then again who is. And it is hilarious as hell.

Unlike Second Life trolling videos which were in vogue for awhile (and more lazy than funny), Mr. Moon and VERTiiGO, his collaborator/partner in crime, go all out, creating a feature-length stoner comedy that combines staged sequences with what looks to be actual gameplay footage with random SLers spontaneously reacting to their a-hole roleplay hi-jinx.

Their goal: Earn enough Linden Dollars to afford mesh avatars, so they can then hook up with SL's hottest hotties in the world's best clubs. It does not go as planned.

And notwithstanding Moom's foul-mouthed, cynical film noir narration, he even finds times for some perceptive scenes:

Watch "Pretty", Bryn Oh's SL Machinima Ode to Humanism & Obsolescence

Bryn Oh is among the few artists in the world with a government grant to create art in virtual worlds, and this new project, an eerie and beautifully ugly machinima shot in Second Life, called Pretty, is a powerful watch.

"Pretty is about technology, humanism and obsolescence," Bryn tells me. "The poem is a symbolic imaginary encounter between two versions of a manufactured woman."

Their strange proportions are like for a reason: " They are both 'designed' and in some cases the new upgrades are not based on reality such as the 1/9 body ratio," she explains.  "That refers to ratio of a persons head to their full body.  The average person has a 1/5 to 1/7 ratio depending the location in the world they come from but, much like a photoshopped model on a magazine cover, these realities can be warped."

While Bryn's most recent previous work was featured in Sansar, Bryn shot Pretty in Second Life. Because ironically, the older platform has the features she needed to pull it off: