Ready, Set, ACTION: Machinima Contest Starts This Tuesday

Calling all Machinima artists!

Pop Art Lab (PAL) has secured an opportunity for Second Life’s video artists to work with one of Scandinavia’s most promising real world bands, Giana Factory, to create a full music video shot entirely within Second Life.

We want to show the real world the creativity and talents of machinima artists working within virtual worlds. Finally the time is up to show the real world music industry the powers of making videos inside virtual worlds.

Launching February 1st., PAL is conducting a machinima contest aimed at partnering a talented Second Life video artist with real world musical group, Giana Factory. Submissions are due March 5th. The winner of the judged context will not only see their work in real world use; they will also receive an incentive prize of $50,000 Lindens.

About Giana Factory:
Danish band ‘Giana Factory’ are a musical trio who have already gained critical and public acclaim for their distinctive sound which fuses edgy pop with ethereal electronica. The band recently consented to let ‘POP ART LAB’ use their song ‘Pixelated Truth’ for this contest. The tune can be heard and downloaded via Soundcloud

03 Pixelated Truth 1 by GianaFactory

For more information on Giana Factory, visit their website

Contest Rules:
The theme and story of your music video is entirely open with avatar likenesses to Giana Factory musicians both allowed and encouraged.
More than 75% of the footage must be recorded inside Second Life.
Please keep in mind you have to ask sim owners in Second Life for accept to film on their land. Feel free to record in the Pop Art Lab sim.

Run of Show:

Filming
The PAL sim will be open 4 weeks prior to submission deadline so everyone have the time to come record.
We kindly ask all of you to act appropriately and show respect and understanding so everyone will be able to record in peace and ensure a fair play.
Each participant who wants to rezz must join the Pop Art Lab group and leave a notecard to Claus Uriza with names to be added. Please remove objects after filming. Scripts will be enabled.

Submission
Submit via Youtube
To submit one or more films you need to upload them to YouTube and then send the appropriate link to clausuriza(at)gmail(dot)com along with your film title, name and contact info.
Please add “Pop Art Lab Music Video Entry” to your film title on YouTube.
We will collect entries as favorites on our contest channel and embed finalist films on blogs as well (Films with highly inappropriate content will be excluded).

Judging
Giana Factory will have the final decision in selecting the winning video. However several movie experts from both real world and Second Life will be part of the jury. Names will be posted during February.

Important Dates:
Submission deadline – 12 AM PDT/SLT March 5, 2011
Recording period – Feb. 1, 2011 through March 5, 2011
Winner will be announced at a huge event ‐ March TBA, 2011

Format Guidelines:
Widescreen: Minimum 480p up to 1080p
Frame rate: Minimum 24 fps (frames per second)
Size: < 1 Gb

IMPORTANT: Titles and Credits
All titles or credits must be sent to clausuriza@gmail.com when you submit the video.
Please do NOT include title and credits before or during but make it appear at least 5 seconds AFTER in a complete cut to black/white.
Note: These rules are made to make it easier for media outlets who might want to play the winning video afterwards. Of course, you are welcome to put titles, credits etc. in text field on YouTube.

TERMS OF USE – WHO OWNS THE VIDEO AFTER I SUBMIT IT?
You retain all of your ownership rights to your film submission. However, by submitting you also grant us Giana Factory and Pop Art Lab a license to use, reproduce and distribute your film. When you upload the video to YouTube you’re granting us an exclusive license for the duration of the competition. After the competition finishes it automatically reverts to a non-exclusive license for all videos except the winning video. We retain the exclusive license so the band can use it as their official music video if they want to do so.

Additional Information About Giana Factory:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWjZ624WmIg
Pictures: http://www.musicfordreams.net/gianafactory/
Tune: http://soundcloud.com/gianafactory or http://bit.ly/hK7zIp

About Pop Art Lab:
Pop Art Lab was founded start of 2008 in the virtual world of Second Life. It provides a dynamic immersive environment within which avatars can gather together to share their interest in music, movies & machinima, and attend live concerts and events occurring both entirely within the virtual environment and in mixed realities that merge reality with the metaverse. For more information, visit http://popartlab.com

Any questions please IM Claus Uriza inworld or send an email to clausuriza(at)gmail(dot)com
Press enquiries please email Persia Bravin at persia.bravin(at)yahoo(dot)com
Real Life press release available as Google Doc

Pop Art Lab 2 years Annivesary – What a Ride

September 4th we’ll celebrate our anniversary with quite a bash. Please see our Art Breaker sections for details. So lets travel back in time and tune in “PAL Opening Friday Nite Report” dated Sept. 6th 2008. No pictures but few poor ones in our flickr archive (pg. 8 bridge). Then we jumped into SLCN.TVs weekly RealBiz programme. Then we started making Pop Vox music TV. And time went on and history occurs if it makes sense. Go browse our archives plenty of ducumentary there.

I would much rather ramble bit about process of the making before Pop Art Lab was officially open. Late 2007 I migrated from the 777 sims. I had a beautiful apartment there and went out buying whatever soundrelated stuff I could grab. Suddenly streaming throughout the sim and realizing I had to get my own parcels. I went to Moon Park run by Lapiscean Liberty and got 4 parcels. Rezzed my 1000 prim high-end arty house and said “now some music”. Why not have seperate music (streams) in each room I so love that in the physical space so…yay chill in bedroom, lounge area and rock it. Within short Pop Art Lab was born! Or well we met in the sand talked about names and stuff. Needed to make a group. It all gets hazy but I ended up with a long group name that soon became known as Pop Art Lab. Then the build phase began and thinking back now we really have to bring back some of the thoughts from back then. We have been through three sound conceptual designs and to make it short. How people react and explore in immersive spaces is a subject of science. Ok from house to the lab. The early PAL was set up, tested and I guess we actually had a minor opening April 2008. An early MadPea formation came, tweaked their game and it was all fun but somehow just a few communities knew. And oh yes stability. I wanted 99% stability in this streamy jukebox so I spent next Q testing and that was it!
We opened in September. Two years ago. Nummerious events, tv shows and crazy stuff happened since then. The outcome will pretty much be available Saturday September the 4th.
Our lab just rolled and we’ll continue to tweak as our common experience grow. We’ll be around timely to say!
PAL is about music in nice designs. It’s a sci-fi fantasy environment that some day becomes real.
Coming week we’ll get set for our birthday. We’ll showcase Art Breaker where designs interact with music. Each artist/creator will be presented here as well as all info related to our anniversary.
Join the ride and you’ll see glimpse of what to come.

Art Breaker Launch + Pop Art Lab Anniversary!

We are pleased to announce our new partners in Art Breaker The Nordic Virtual Worlds Network (NVWN).
Currently we enhanch the 12 hour event programme for our Art Breaker launch. Also this happens to be exact same date as we had our official Pop Art Lab opening back in September 2008. Not only will this event open our 2 months and 4.000 prims exhibit of some of the very best inter-/reactive art and sound installations seen in SL but also we’ll celebrate our 2 years birthday. Therefore, expect a big bang! The event programme listed below is not final changes might occur.

Info on Art Breaker.
After merely 1 month of recieving proposals the following artists been selected due to some highly impressive showcases.

Bryn Oh
Abstract Baroque
Misprint Thursday
Miso Susanowa
Sunn Thunders
Binary Quandry (install project cordinator)
Sabrinaa Nightfire
Sledge Roffo

FULL PROGRAMME!

Credits of Pop Art Lab

The original 4 parcel PAL designed by RL/SL architect Xray Haller as it looked March 2008. Later on we entitled it “The Walk Through Sounds” concept as we even back then had 4 streams/albums running in each dome.

History, horizons and countdown pt. 2

The Pop Art Lab Machinima contest is rolling! Thanks to all who already showed interest and done recordings. We hope to announce the 3rd person/judge coming week. Also please post whatever you like in comments at the [Machinima Contest] header or email, IM your questions.

To those who are new to PAL and to try recover our common memory each week here will feature a new blogpost with news and reports from this ongoing process about the relaunch, contest etc.

Back in September 2008 Pop Art Lab had its official opening. It seems like ages ago but we had like 500 visitors during the weekend.  Linden Lab put us upfront in showcase section one hour before opening (back then music section had like 15 venues included today number is 81!). And ofcourse we also had a cool programme of live music and the now almost legendary “Murder on the Dancefloor” game provided by the über cool Mad Pea crew. Few days later I called in regular PAL goers and asked for help. Most are still frequently supporting PAL at events and I want to thank each tons. For those who want to dig further into our history visit old posts in archives here.

OK shifting gears now as we are currently filling up the programme for our “second” launch April 16. We have decided to schedule one part for the European timezone as well as one for the US.

We would like best artists and creativity to be included so feel free to drop us a line. By now 3-5 artists confirmed and will be aired during next week.

Programme so far:

April 16 European Opening
12:00 PM PST/SLT: Opening Ceremony w. guest speakers + visuals
1:00 PM: Highlights, screening of contest machinimas
1:30 PM: Announcement of the winner of machinima contest plus DJ
2:00 PM: Live music DJs and party
5:00 PM: End

April 16 US Opening
7:00 PM/SLT: Opening Ceremony w. guest speakers + visuals
8:00 PM: Highlights, screening of contest machinimas
8:30 PM: Announcement of the winner of machinima contest plus DJ
9:00 PM: Live music, DJs and party
12:00 AM: End

Inspirational verse this time goes to Chris Dreja who made amazing photographer work in the late sixties and to me known for his fabulous work with The Yardbirds. Check his site!

Pop Art Lab Machinima Contest 2010 : Contest rules

Pop Art Lab will launch brand new sim design mid April and therefore decided to set up a machinima contest at our “old” sim design as it looks now. By doing this we capture the memories more than 25.000 visitors have seen and quite a few praised since our opening back in 2008.  Pop Art Lab is a music sim streaming each weeks best new albums in pop, rock, electronica and r&b/hiphop.  At the grand opening of our new sim the old one will be completely removed and we will host a huge weekend party where we announce the winner of the machinima contest, screen the best films and have lots of live artists, DJs etc.

CONTEST RULES
The maximum film length is 5 minutes. The theme of your film is entirely open. The only requirements are 90-100% of scenes take place in the Pop Art Lab sim

Each participant who wants to rezz must join the Pop Art Lab group and leave a notecard to Claus Uriza with names. Please remove objects after filming. Scripts will be enabled.
The sim will be open 4 weeks prior to submission deadline so everyone have the time to come record. We kindly ask all of you to act appropriately and show respect and understanding so everyone will be able to record in peace and ensure a fair play.

Send us your machinima by April 9th 2010 and enter the contest for the award of 100.000 Linden dollars.

SUBMIT VIA YOUTUBE
To submit one or more films you need to upload them to YouTube and then send the appropriate link to clausuriza@gmail.com along with your film title, name and contact info. Please add “(Pop Art Lab Contest Entry)” to your film title on YouTube. We will collect entries as favorites on our contest channel and embed finalist films on our blog ‐ http://popartlab.com (Films with highly inappropriate content will be excluded).

PRIZE
$100.000 Lindens. Pop Art Lab Machinima will award cash prize according to the jurys best choice. There is only one winner.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Submission deadline – 12 AM PDT/SLT April 9 , 2010
• Recording period – March 9, 2010 through April 9, 2010
• Winner will be announced ‐ April 16, 2010 at our new Pop Art Lab sim launch.

TERMS OF USE

• You retain all of your ownership rights to your film submission. However, by submitting you also grant us (Pop Art Lab) a license to use, reproduce and distribute your film for promotional and documentary use only.

SUGGESTED FORMAT GUIDELINES

• Resolution: Minimum of 320×240, maximum of 800×600.
• Widescreen: 720p (fine too).
• Frame rate: Minimum 20 frames per second.
• Audio: Minimum 22khz 16‐bit audio.
• Size: 100 Mb

JURY

• Chantal Harvey, Lisbeth Frølunde, Jeska Linden, Claus Uriza

ORGANIZERS

• Pop Art Lab was founded start of 2008 in the virtual world of Second Life. It provides a dynamic immersive environment within which avatars can gather together to share their interest in music, movies & machinima, and attend live concerts and events occurring both entirely within the virtual environment and in mixed realities that merge reality with the metaverse.

Information about Pop Art Lab

PARTNERSHIP

• The contest is co-sponsored by the Virtual Worlds Research Project. This large collaborative project, running from 2008‐2011, joins university researchers at two Danish universities (Roskilde University and Copenhagen Business School) and a range of different partners. The project is funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council, KINO and explores sense‐making and user‐driven innovation in virtual worlds.

Information about the research project: Virtual Worlds Research Project

LANDMARKS:

• Pop Art Lab has lots of exciting “hidden” locations. Here is a list of some charming spots.
• Pop Art Lab Landing Point
  • Red grammophone
  • Microphone
  • Green Radio
  • InterG Spaceship
  • Spaceage Funpark
  • SSY Spaceship
  • Sky Stage
  • Sky Home

Any questions please IM Claus Uriza or Emily Hifeng inworld or send us an email at clausuriza@gmail.com
Print or read above info as Google doc

Film and Music collide at the Lab!

‘MMIF 2010′ is the second edition of an annual film festival in 3D cyberspace with a screening in physical space (‘RL’). A seven hour movie marathon with a two hour afterparty. MMIF 2010 can also be followed on the web via live stream broadcasts.

A month ago, while I was multitasking at a real life Sirikata workshop at Roskilde University, I happened to meet Chantal Harvey at the lab. Actually I had met and become friends with Chantal ages ago-well, that’s what it feels like!

Back in 2008 she was a frequent visitor at the very beginning of Pop Art Lab. Then we both became busy with our separate projects, the years passed, but we managed to stay friends. Ok back to real life or whatever! We met in 3D and talked over this new project she was about to launch- the second global Machinima Festival MMIF which she had scheduled February 20th 2010.

The early days of the lab must have made some impact, because Chantal wanted to recreate the PAL vibe in the designs for the festival and also knew PAL had handled several quadsim events (where designs are centered in 4 sims to increase attendees up at 200+).

Well, of course I was interested in hosting a Machinima event this size plus PAL has actually had screenings and a movie center since back in 2008. We also produce the Pop Vox music shows at Treet.tv of which I have never thought of as machinima-but it is!

So our common interests have both grown since our first meeting and Chantal and I somehow realized we have come a long way since 2008! (ain’t virtual collaboration wonderful! I’m really excited about meeting her RL too at the Metameets conference in Dublin May 2010).

Back to MMIF festival! The lovely Linden Lab soon supported Chantal’s non-profit project with 4 sims and within a short time, we mingled up Chantal’s team with ours and decided to combine prefab designs from the lab and add new as well. By then setup was getting 4 sims 3 days before the event so timeline in design process had to be short. Days passed and Pop Art Labs chief commander/engineer Emily Hifeng quickly showed her building magic! Then magic collided when Linden Lab soon added 4 sims with full perms and freedom for the crew.

Ok so now the designs and set are close to finished and we are tweaking all kinds of details and also the set lists for the 2 hours after party Pop Art Lab has been asked to host there.

Many details and awesome weird rumors will be aired during next week. Let’s start.. Will Torley Linden open the festival? Will M Linden step by late and do a dubstep dance? Will Linden Lab bring news on their new Amsterdam office? (The festival is screened real life there). Will some of the 52 short machinimas screened at festival be broadcasted at secondlife.com? Will event show up as message of the day at login screen?

What we do know by now is

It will be action packed… no shit!

Pop Art Lab loves projects like this. This shows Chantal Harvey’s love and passion for the art of machinima and will expose the talents of many of SL’s finest film makers. And we at the lab just add some sugar!

MMIF 2010 press release, info, promo video, full program, live streams, contact and latest updates and changes at http://MMIF.org

Launching the Virtual Jukebox!

We are glad to announce we have taken next sweep into a fully functional digital jukebox shop at Pop Art Lab.

This is exactly what Pop Art Lab have spent 1-2 years researching. And now we are finally ready for the next step. To enable easy direct legal download of all music streamed at the lab.

All you have to do is visit the lab check out the 4 albums streamed in each listening booth and by 1 click at album cover you’ll be directed to our Amazon site. There you’ll be able to either buy 1 single mp3 or entire album and within few seconds you have obtained a fully legal file supporting the both the artists as well as Pop Art Lab.
The service and selection of albums in-world will be based on our usual criteria – to present each weeks very best releases streamed 24/7 in a 2-3 days sequence. The selection is based upon more than 10 years of experience real life reading and tracking down more than 50 resources of music reviews as well as listening to more than 2000 albums a year as music editor. By maintaining this service our visitors will be able to hear pre-listens and full lenghts recordings of approximately 15 new albums a week. Visitors can sit in one of our 4 booths while they socialize with friends in chat or voice, while they browse the web or whatever they are up to.
As an additional service we make each weeks selections viewable and available for direct download here at our blog via the Amazon plugin player right side. The player only include 30 secs snippets of each mp3. This service allows visitors who are either offline in-world or simply wants to get a fast an easy buy option and/or overview of each weeks picks in the NOW sounds of today’s music scene.

You can try it out or visit the lab hitting HERE

We will soon set up a huge in-world event featuring lots of live music to celebrate and make the Second Life community aware of our new services.

Please welcome it and help us support the artists as well as us pushing the platform to new heights!
Thank you!

Maximillion Kleene in next Pop Vox

SLCC 09, New Sim & Updates

Second Life Community Convention (SLCC)

“The easy to navigate” model,

September 2008

The build design in itself is a mega project, and we expect the new design to be ready in September or October and celebrate the opening along with PAL’s official 1st year birthday.
There are several reasons why we have moved to our own sim. First of all, we needed full control and powers to protect the build and the good name we already have. Secondly, we now feel totally secure in liaising with sponsors. Whatever happens, no-one will be able to spoil the fun! Lag issues and prim limits with the old 6 parcel PAL will be greatly improved.

Pop Art Lab Update
We have been busy with the new sim, holidays and a video shoot lately. The video shoot in particular has been quite a job. It involves an RL band from Hollywood, LA and is PAL’s first step into such an enterprise. That means we’ve made custom-designed stage/builds and RL replicas of artists’ avatars, and we have utilised animators, a lighting manager and others. A hell of a lot of work has gone into this venture, but we are very close to the end of all this and it’s been a very exciting process to say the least.

Which leads me to our new Pop Vox TV shows in the making. Hopefully, two new Pop Vox shows will be broadcast in August at Treet.TV.

Lastly, this blog has a new editor! Welcome to Serendipity, long-time PAL supporter, who has agreed to help with fresh new ideas and to edit my English typos.