Avatar Life in the 26 letters of the Alphabet
First 26 days of April 2014
K is for “Kids!” (being one again)
Soundtrack: California Winter
by Snowflake
Hair by Sunday Lemon
Makeup / Wardrobe by Horo Kral
Venue: Filmed entirely at Easter Town at Elizabeth Town
City Managers: Laura Liberty & Tanyja
I want to say thank you for this great series. You show a wide range of the spirit of Second Life. Funny videos, good music selection and cool animations.
Hi Maddy! Thanks so much. The project has wound up being both a lot more work, and a lot more satisfying than originally expected. It started just thinking about all the inventory items we all have and what you could do with them. At first I thought it’d be just to troll thru one’s own inventory, find an “A” item and “do” it: so go to a landmark or wear clothing or rez object or play animation, and so on. And then to take a photo of that.
I do think that would have been a pretty interesting project also. But as you see the “Avatar Alphabet” quickly found its own way in the world. I let go of the idea of specific inventory items in favor of “experiences” or ideas or something like that. And for someone who hasn’t done very much video, it unexpectedly became little videos.
I’m a big Free Culture advocate, and I also love the individuality and identity we can express in cyberspace. YouTube has SO much great, useful content. But it’s so littered with the moronic ads that I associate with the television I no longer watch that it pains me to go there. So I wound up finally paying a few euros to Vimeo for a “Plus” subscription. Vimeo is so much more elegant and in the spirit I appreciate that it was nice to “vote” for them with a little money.
As for music, so many of my students love to use their favorite bands for any videos they make. So they wind up in the spectre of YouTube takedowns or Sony ads, etc. So many of us still have a relationship to old media in that we’re either “pirates” or “slaves” (or both) and I love that Creative Commons gives us a middle way: neither a pirate, nor a slave, but a citizen. So all the music on these little videos comes from the awesome CCMixter website where so many wonderful musicians share music and collaborate on tracks. Unfortunately, CCMixter does not have the friendliest user interface, but if you spend a few minutes figuring out how to use it, there’s lots of great music that you can not only use legally, but can also be part of building a community by using.
And yes, as you say, virtual worlds, and SL, are remarkable places where you can be or do so many things. It’s fun and refreshing to think about that range. And it seems like even though things do get better, that we’re never totally free of tech difficulties. There’s still a bake fail or some other problem to be annoyed with. So it’s nice to take a moment to remember all the people, connections, and experiences that make us keep coming back even if a platform isn’t always as “bullet proof” as we’d like.
Thanks so much for your comment Maddy! Have a lovely day!
Wow, this is a detailed response.
I can imagine that your project is a lot of work. Creating videos is not as easy as many people think. And then produce one each day, can be a bit stressful. But you have now already reached the “K” – that is remarkable!
And your “K” video expresses well, why so many of us are in virtual worlds: we have preserved a bit of our childhood in us and in SL we can let out whenever we want. 🙂
Thanks again and have a nice day too!