Interview - Skribe Forti

Skribe Forti is an Australian Second Life resident who’s got an established track record in machinima that we’ve covered previously. Last week we finally caught up with Skribe to talk a little more about the power of machinima.

Lowell: Can you give a potted history of your involvement with Second Life and more broadly your historical online life?

Skribe: I’ve been in SL since Jun 2006 and technically I’ve had a net presence since 93, but I’ve been mucking around on MU*s and BBS since 82-83.

Lowell: Can you also give a brief overview of your involvement with film production?

Skribe: I’ve been making films since I was 8yo. Before that I used to star. Dad was a home-movie buff =). I then worked as kid on some of the local tv productions both in front and behind the camera. That was when we used to make stuff in Perth. I went to uni, did film and writing there, and soon after graduating started my own business.

Lowell: What led to your passion for machinima?

Skribe: The fact that it is the best of both worlds: live-action and animation. You can inspire the performances from your actors like in live-action, as well as tell the range of stories you can in animation. And it is comparatively cheap compared to both.

Lowell: Can you give a basic run through of your creative process when creating a piece?

Skribe: For live action I storyboard like crazy because it’s an easy way to demonstrate to cast and crew what you need. With machinima I rarely storyboard. I find it too limiting. I know what I need from a scene and I like to be able to experiment to find the best way to achieve that. It’s very easy to experiment in machinima. Much harder with live-action or even animation because of the numbers of people – and budgets – involved.

Lowell: Do you work in any other virtual worlds beside Second Life and if you do, which ones?

Skribe: I have, but unfortunately I’m unable to reveal which ones.

Lowell: How do you perceive the role virtual worlds play in your overall life - are they a dominant aspect, a ‘work role’ aspect or just a minor part?

Skribe: Almost purely work, but I occasionally socialise too. I have a great group of virtual friends and enjoy chatting when I’m able.

Lowell: Do you find you come into conflict with other people in-world? And if so, why and how do you deal with it?

Skribe: Not generally. We had a griefer on set once who started hassling the lead actress. I hear he’s still in orbit =).

Lowell: One of our regular questions: three locations in Second Life that you keep coming back to?

Skribe: Conference Island, Alt7 and Greenies.

Lowell: You’ve done quite a bit of work with business - have you met much resistance to the idea of business in virtual worlds from those you approach?

Skribe: Definitely, but there was resistance to the internet initially too. I remember being told back in 94 that nobody would make a cent off the internet. Business is always conservative. It is after all their money. The owners aren’t in it for charity. They want to see hard results ending in fat wads of cash – preferably in their own pockets. What we do in virtual worlds is new and more than a little weird to most so there is bound to be some reticence. But as more genuine success stories emerge, as hard data showing the real benefits are revealed, business will start to embrace VWs. It’s only a matter of time. It’s too valuable a tool.

Lowell: How much of the work you do is coming from Second Life?

Skribe: Most of it. We still do occasional work in other worlds, and we still have clients coming to us for real-world projects, but most of our focus is on Second Life because that is where our client base is.

Lowell: What current projects do you have underway?

Skribe: I have just finished a video tour for a development and media company based in NYC and we’re working on 2 sets of viral videos.

Lowell: What are your plans for the next 12 months?

Skribe: Get monumentally rich. Not die.

Lowell: Any chance of a feature-length machinima?

Skribe: Find someone that is willing to make that sort of investment and a feature-length piece is always a possibility. We have enough stories we want to tell. Finding the funding is always the hard part.

Lowell: Who inspires you in Second Life?

Skribe: My wife. She always finds the best and weirdest stuff.

Lowell: What frustrates you the most about Second Life?

Skribe: The instability. Both with the platform and the management. I can usually deal with the platform problems – it’s new and that is to be expected. It is also better than when I started. The management is a much more difficult problem. There are too many kneejerk reactions to be entirely secure that you aren’t going to wake up in the morning and discover that your business is now banned. While I agree with the Linden Lab decision on gambling, for instance, I found the process unsettling. It came out of nowhere and there’s a small part of my brain that says, ‘it could happen to you’.

Lowell: What are your thoughts on whether there’s an ‘Australian community’ in Second Life?

Skribe: There seems to be but I’m not overly knowledgeable about it.

Lowell: The Telstra presence in Second Life has had a lot of success - why do you think that is?

Skribe: They grok what SL is about. It’s a marketing tool and whoever is the brains behind their project really knows how to make the most of it. The only problem I have with it is the build itself. There’s too much crud and the overall look is hokey. It also has too many breast domes – but maybe that is just me.

Lowell: And ABC Island - what would your critique of it be?

Skribe: No plan. No action. No chance. For a more in-depth critique check out my comments here on The Metaverse Journal or my blog.

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Linden Lab put the call out again for Aussie job hunters

A few weeks back Linden Lab asked for Australians interested in production operations positions they have vacant at present. Today they’ve asked again, so if you’re in the hunt for a job it may be worth having a closer look…

Popularity: 3% [?]

SBS: enter the machinima

The island touted for SBS may have been shelved, but they are still steaming ahead with their work within Second Life.

A blog has launched on the SBS site with the focus being on helping people to make their own machinima. Documentary-maker Shelley Matulick (SL: Mixin Pixel) is behind the blog and will provide weekly tips.

It’s certainly a hands-on approach for SBS and if the blog delivers on what it’s promising, it’ll be a useful Australian resource on machinima.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Australians in Second Life Update - up we go a little more

Linden Lab are being quicker off the mark with their metrics, already releasing the Second Life population statistics for April. They show the Aussie active user populations at 12,788, up from last month’s 12,245, with Australia cemented in 11th place worldwide. We spent 571,042 hours in Second Life, making up 1.97% of the overall hours spent.

As Tateru Nino says on Massively:

“Short version: The third month of decline in premium accounts, reduction in Lindex activity, reduction in user hours, sharp rise in land ownership, and the user population continues to trend towards older users.”

There’s certainly now radical change in the statistical trends in Second Life although the steady decline in premium accounts must be of concern to Linden Lab. It places further emphasis on the need for 2008 to truly be the year of improved usability.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The ABC in Second Life: are the monkeys running the zoo?

ABC Island has had an eventful time in Second Life over the past year or more. From an Australian viewpoint, it’s been a real role model for a community-driven Second Life presence. Core to that are the ABC Admins, who’ve put in countless hours developing the island, organising activities and dealing with the inevitable griefers or other troublemakers.

That core group appears to be now in conflict, if the below statement from former ABC Admin Sakkano Imako is anything to go by. An important note: a name has been removed plus one inflammatory sentence - the removal of both doesn’t detract from the overall story and protects particular individuals from unverifiable claims that would impact on their reputations.

We’ve contacted the ABC for comment on this story and will publish their response when we receive it.

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“Dear ABC Admin,

It has come to my attention that ABC is essentially in the midst of a coup d’état. How have I come to this conclusion? Simply put, I cannot fully accept that all changes that have happened by the hand of [name removed] have been done with the approval of either ABC or the owners of the Laneways parcel. How is it that for previous months, suggestions on how to change these areas were answered with a “I can’t do that because I don’t have permission?” Yet, the galleries have sprung up in very little time without any real consultation to the admin as a whole. Nor have we, as admin, seen approval from the company for these changes.

I also suspect this because of the sudden incursion of Big Pond members. It is my belief that this coup d’état has occurred because people from Big Pond have thought that if they can use ABC as a venue, they may gain prestige.

Now, I have some questions:

Can someone tell me why the signs that discouraged weapons, commerce, and sex have been removed? Second Life is not exclusive to only people who speak English. How can we be expected to enforce rules on people who do not understand English?

Please, someone tell me why ABC is not advertising itself or it’s programming, and yet it’s being made to house art? It is my thought that our new admin friends have landed to make ABC nothing more than an extention of Big Pond. And they are only using ABC to advance their own desires, rather than helping ABC’s presence be felt in the virtual world, and potentially internationally.

Please someone explain to me the unbecoming behavior of some Admins taking a “hands off” approach. Why are admins turning their back as people walk in with weapons, sexual objects, LL contraband, and commerce items? I would have almost half expected some of our current admin members to have posed sultry against the Hippie Pay kiosk I returned. A kiosk in which someone makes money off residents who don’t understand how those objects actually work. How can this behavior potentially benefit ABC? It does not and it will not.

When people write out incident reports, when other admin refuse to accept these cards, does this not demonstrate a lack of concern for the ABC Island? And what does it say to new admin who are actually trying to do their jobs proper? This it totally unacceptable behavior on so many levels.

In short, monkeys have started to run the zoo. I only hope the company will take a look at these horrific events and decided to scrap the island and start over with a new batch of people who are less likely to become slaves to greed and over inflated egos.

And because I believe that such monkeys smell to high heaven, I am excusing myself. I want nothing to do with such unprofessional and unbecoming behavior. I only stayed as long as I did because it was bad form to just up and leave after coming back from a vacation. But if no one else seems interested in doing the dirty work, I refuse to become the muckraker to such people who don’t want to do all the work expected of admins.

I wish to suggest that some of the admin start working, or else nothing will be accomplished. Wandering around and looking pretty is hardly helping things. Admin are given their privileges because they are to help out in every way. There are no art directors, curators, or assistants. There are only admin. Admin must work to keep the sim going. If admin don’t work for the sim, then the sim fails. Residents can operate as those things mentioned, but being admin is first and foremost.

In conclusion, the sim is no longer what it was supposed to be and the system that was in place to help it run properly has been broken by individuals who apparently do not understand the responsibilities and duties granted to them as being admin. If it is not remedied soon, we can expect more problems.

The easiest solution at this time, that would best benefit the ABC company, would be to scrap the island as it is and start over. It needs new people who are interested in seeing ABC become a sim that promotes the COMPANY rather than the INDIVIDUAL. It needs people who will conduct official business and duties in a more professional and friendly manner.

–Sakkano Imako
Graduate of Indiana Business College
Associate of Applied Science in Business Management
American based Second Life resident
Former ABC Admin”
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It’s hard to gauge the level of conflict within the admin group (Disclosure: I am a member of the ABC Admin group, albeit a quite inactive one aside from taking an interest in covering Australian events in Second Life). My take is that any group of people working together for an extended period of time is likely to run into conflict, particularly as that group grows.

It’s also further reinforcement that virtual worlds contain a lot of the same interpersonal challenges that the real world does. It illustrates the difficulties posed for any business who worries about their brand being muddied by the inherent uncertainties or user-created worlds like Second Life. Those same difficulties however, are some of the most fascinating aspects of a virtual world existence.

Update: Fellow Aussie Second Life resident has some detailed thoughts on ABC Island as well.

Popularity: 6% [?]

SBS Island in Second Life shelved

For the past six months there’s been fairly regular rumours around SBS and a potential presence in Second Life. It appears there’s nothing imminent if the following message from Australian Second Life resident Wolfie Rankin is any indication.

“For the last month or so, Mixin Pixel and I have been trying to get SBS into Second Life… Unfortunately it didn’t work out and the Island has been put on hold.

But this has happened a few times and I’m not really worried. I get the feeling they are at least a little interested in the idea, so perhaps if everyone wrote to SBS and told them that they’d be welcome in Second Life, well… you never know.

Maybe we should get Inspector Rex involved, he always gets his man. :)”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Episode 4 of TMJ Podcast - Education in Second Life

Episode 4 has a news roundup, some discussion on why there’s been a decline in active Australian users of Second Life and an interview with Graham Sabre, The Metaverse Journal’s education writer.

For details on how to automatically receive these podcasts, check our podcast page.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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