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

Exit Nice Airport and MIDEM, Cannes

Finally leaving MIDEM, France – what an awesome ride.
Thank you Jeremy, Simon, Alexander, Carolina, Naja, Scott, Neil, Lisa, Lars, Lina, Oliver, Jon, Medina, Ditte, the Danish indie gang and those I might have forgot – you’ve all been wonderful!!!

We kick off Giana Factory musicvideo contest very soon and Pixelated Truth will be available at Soundcloud.
Stay tuned for all the details how to enter!

The lab will be back on track with new albums added Wednesday

Top Danish Indie band crowdsource next Video via PAL

News Release
(Download and share official press release as Google doc)

DANISH MUSIC GOES VIRTUAL

Move over My Space, twitter-your time is up; truly cutting edge musicians are now turning to more immersive forms of online social media to engage with new and established fans alike and the Scandinavians are proving to be the pioneers. 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 and they are about to see their unique music represented in a fresh way.
The band have recently consented to let ‘POP ART LAB’ a media/music production company that operates in the virtual world of ‘Second Life’ to use their song ‘Pixelated Truth’ as part of a virtual film making event that will see film makers from across the globe make a music video using only Second Life to shoot all scenes and action. ‘Known as machinima’ this genre of film making is emerging from its underground roots to become a recognised, credible and innovative way of producing videos with established movie directors such as Peter Greenaway, Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas all extoling the virtues of this art form.
POP ART LAB have been producing music TV shows, mixed reality events and collaborating with musicians since 2008 in Second Life plus they stream twenty, brand new CD releases –all virtually- to thousands of Second Life users and all in real time. This new collaboration with the ‘Giana Factory’ will allow for even more cross over between real and virtual life and even more music lovers become familiar with the Giana Factory signature sounds.
CEO of POP ART LAB, Claus Frisenberg Povlsen says of this new venture “POP ART LAB is proving that music can be promoted online in many different ways. The production of a music video for Giana Factory using nothing but Second Life for its creation, will show how online games can be used for more than just social interaction, but how they are also the platform of choice for different artistic genres. The low cost of production, great visuals and ease of use of such platforms also means that they are the perfect promotional vehicle during these economically hard times and I predict we will see many other record companies produce music videos in the same way this coming year-Giana Factory are ahead of their time!”

No Embargoes
Giana Factory www.myspace.com/gianafactory are signed to ‘Music for Dreams’
http://www.musicfordreams.net/
www.myspace.com/gianafactory

“Though fronted by the sister of Sharin Foo, Giana Factory shares little else with the stylized neo-garage of the Raveonettes. Instead, this Danish troupe specializes in frozen cold, electronic minimalism, heightening drama through an eerie starkness”
Jonathan Garrett, Pitchfork

“In 2009 – before having any releases to their credit – Giana Factory toured Scandinavia, Germany and all around Denmark, playing shows at SPOT Festival and Roskilde Festival, as well as supporting Glasvegas on tour. They have received stellar reviews in the Danish press and have been noticed as one of the most promising new Danish acts of 2009″
Last.FM

Pop Art Lab: More than just Music

Pop Art Lab: More than just Music by Sensuous Soulstar
Page 180-188
Avenue Magazine, January Issue 2011

As a little bonus to above interview here’s non-edited script of sim design process probably left out due to lack of space in final published version

Claus Uriza:
“We are long time friends who all share a passion for architecture and
designs. And designers had experience from building and running other
full sims. We already had internal conflicts in this architectural
real/unreal paradigme in previous PAL designs (There have been 3
diffrent designs over the years). The power of 3D graphics are vastly
underestimated. Try have a meeting in various locations and you
quickly find out the output and overall experience differ much more
than having a meeting with physical contact. Ofcourse these aspects
differ at real life meetings too but if you are able to balance these
angles and increase visuals you are not able to put into a physical
space it simply adds much more impact. To be honest I think alot of
the creativity you see in Second Life wouldn’t have happened if it was
a fully augmented reality mirror world. Think about it … it makes a
lot sense replicating an historic environment or simulation of medical
surgery but our visions is far away from such purposes.

Emily Hifeng designed PAL as it looks now, Laggy Homewood and Xray
Haller collaborated. It was a process running 6 months via Google
share docs and I was just firing my wicked, screwed and quite out of
order wishes! Designers never listen to me anyway *laughing* and are
like any other artists. They need peace and freedom and that is all
about what I love as well. They know I am honest in feedback and came
up with a masterpiece that we’ll expand and facillitate further in
2011. Based on previous design collaborations trying to merge too many
mindsets of ideas I decided to let Emily Hifeng take over. She handle
all topics related to designs and is my one hand not only in designs
but also helps me out when I loose control in busy mode”

Thanks alot to Sensuous Soulstar and the Avenue team Avenue Magazine

Art Breaker II – Call for Proposals

Call for Artists – Music Album Cover Art Installation

Pop Art Lab is proud to launch a new and exciting collaboration aimed to reinforce creativity and push the limits of what can be achieved across the music, sound and art communities in Second Life. Please go to Art Breaker to see what a thrill our last exhibition was!
This time we’ll try to showcase the importance of visuals in music.

All creative artists in Second Life are invited to participate in a large music, albumcover art installation at Pop Art Lap (PAL) as an individual artist or a group. Therefore, you can be one artist or a group collaborating, but we need one name per entry. We will only accept max 8 artists or artists groups to participate and we kindly ask all artists or artist groups that would like to participate to provide a link or landmark to galleries in order to preview previous works. Thus, if we get more than 8 submissions, only max 8 will be selected.

The Concept:
Each installation must be based on an Album/CD cover. Each artist choose a cover they like or that inspires them, and they build something, like the cover in 3D, or an interpretation of it, or a tribute to it, etc. We display the cover at the entrance of each area, so the audience know the starting point.

The building environment:
The installation will take place within a large area of the PAL sim. Each artist or artist group will be assigned a 40×40 area. The lots will not touch each other (i.e. the visitor will walk on a pathway that goes from a lot to another). The rules for the installation are:
1. The maximum number of prims allowed for each artist/artist group is 300.
2. Building can take place from 2011-02-01 till end date 2011-03-01.
3. After a 2 months showcase all installations will be removed.
4. Scripts should be made low lag.
5. PAL keeps the right to refuse an idea or a build if it’s against its interest. Therefore, if you would like to participate, please write a few lines about your idea.
Important dates:
January 1 – January 31: Call for proposals (send/show us your ideas and CV)
February 1 – February 14: Evaluation (committee selects the 8 participating entries)
February 14: Rezz (build starts)
March 5, Saturday: Event (showcase incl. happenings)
May 5: End (removal of builds)

Notes: Emily Hifeng will call for a pre build meeting. Please attend in order to get rules and questions cleared. Please note that the event is meant as collaboration, not a competition. Installations will be up for a two months showcase period and opened with a huge event with speakers, live music, DJs etc.

Please send your Proposal to clausuriza(at)gmail(dot)com or by inworld notecard including Art Breaker II and your name as title to Emily Hifeng or Claus Uriza.

Crossfading Audio

Torley Linden stepped by our lab recently and came up with this interesting Jira. Imagine if audio crossfades each time you enter a new parcel or sim. As he say Pop Art Lab could be cool if crossfading was used. I have no idea how hard it is to implement though.
Please go vote at Jira and this feature might be added in the future.

Updates from the lab + Skylight views

Linden Labs Skylight test have been running few weeks now and we’ll recommend everyone to try it out via this link (a lightweight Second Life accessed via webbased cloud rendereing). By now only highspeed connections gets an enter email option bottom of site while running the streaming video.
I tested this several times and must say it’s awesome, fast and an easy way of showing newbies a teaser of what SL have to offer. My good friend Chantal Harvey made a nice post after testing it in our lab and Cyberloom have a good write-up as well. And mentioning Cyberloom please make sure to check out her blog which also featured Bryn Ohs Art Breaker installation lately.

As Skylight test is currently in Beta we’ll have to wait and see how and if Linden Lab wants to develop and expand this service in the future. Judgeing on first few weeks of visitors accessing PAL this way we certainly have to make changes in the way these newbies “meets” our sim. We have seen quite a few stumbling in our cubes which tells us many aren’t familiar navigating using the fly/jump option. Also a noteworthy amount seems to leave as they don’t see an ongoing live event or meet a lot of socializing people. As our lab is pretty much based on auto greeting giving out notecards and chatlines telling what to do we are currently not set to give this type of visitors an optimal arrival. If and as soon as Linden Lab gives us more info on the future plans of Skylight we’ll take steps to improve all this. This can be done by putting up visual signs telling how to access our content. By now testers can’t recieve info through inventory given objects, can’t access our fully lined up 9-12 destinations via teleport centrals (eg. able to see our Art Breaker installations) and can’t see where or when events are happening.
Still though I’ve met very satisfied testers as well and with just a little tweaking we believe PAL can be an awesome landing point for newbies. Let me put in a quote that left me quite optimistic made by Elitär und Spaß dabei (draxtor.despres): “if i show folks the [SL] web version i will either go to Insilico or PAL”.

Ok on to coming actions. We have planned weekly 6 hours events featuring DJs to be hosted down in our club. First of these starts coming Friday November 26 running 12pm-6pm. There’ll be a strong focus on electro, drum’n'bass, dubstep but also touches of indie and underground hiphop.
Have a look below to see location and how last event looked like just before closing.

On coming Pop Vox TV we are currently close getting set up for a December show. More on this as soon artists have confirmed.

As previous mentioned here 2011 will see an increased focus on promotion of Danish artists and music. Few real life meetings with major music orgs have already taken place and two more are confirmed start of December.
When this puzzle is solved expect some serious rockets to hit the grid first Q 2011!

*Update*
Forgot to post full lenghts videos of my speak recently given in Lahti, Finland on “Music and Culture in Second Life”

Also there’s a great panel from there feat. Kenny Hubble, Karl K. Kapp, Bill May, Ian Hughes/Epredator, me and more. Go check it out here!

Both files are Windows so you might have to convert for MAC!

Meanwhile go explore Pop Art Labs 4 streams of constantly changing cool new albums, attend our events or simply have a chill during busy real life of next weeks Thanksgiving and the coming Xmas craze.

Dubstep DnB Blackout!

FRIDAY November 5
11:30am-6pm SLT/PDT

ACCESS:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/173/78/21

Dub/D&B Blackout

POP ART LAB has joined forces with the cream of Dubstep and Drum’n'Bass DJ’s in Second Life for a truly remarkable event-six hours of high octane tracks mixed by masters in this genre of electronic dance music.

Dubstep was born from the UK garage scene, but quickly distinguished itself by the signature use of bass heavy rhythms, hard drum patterns and dirty reverb that grabs you in its sonic embrace and shakes you to the core.

It’s already infiltrated the mainstream music scene where its unique sound is used to give depth in remixes of standard pop tracks and Dubstep DJ’s and Producers are reshaping music as we know it.

Programme

11:30 Arrival
12:00 Danxx Cluny
01:00 Dan Galdonaldo
02:00 cyte Chrome
03:00 bonkerxxx Rexie
04:00 dani Maesar
05:00 Dysfunctional Aurotharius
06:00 Departure

Brief update from the Lab!

We have two cool events coming up coming weeks. The first one is our Pop Vox TV show November 1st featuring the newly formed Soleil. Originally this showdate should’ve featured Canadian Peace Partner project and artist Kevin Thompson. Due to sudden real life implications among our Canadian crew this show will be rescheduled. We are very pleased to announce Soleil will fill out the slot with short time notice. Soleil is one of the most interesting bands right now and an obvious choice for Pop Vox. More on this show coming week.
Nextly we have a 6 hour dubz electro house event Friday November 5th. This event have been on our “in the making” section for long and we are glad we finally ready to announce and showcase some of the most skilled dubstep artists/DJs on the grid. We are tweaking this programme and will update here as well soon.

As other companies (no names need to be mentioned) we have been through tough restructuring to make the PAL team more forcefull and focused. These changes are an ongoing process and we hope you all will see more events and magic entertainment provided by PAL during the coming virtual worlds peak season (the coming months usually brings way more people into virtuality due to the cold winter).

Our Art Breaker exhibition have been very succssfull and will be removed Sunday November the 7th. We are sad to see these amazing installatons disappear but we will guarantee you soon will see other eyeballs of highest quality! We are planning a new area that’ll showcase temporary art exhibitions which will add an extra immersive quality to our visitors.

Good news. Our PAL group have reached the magic 600 members and see a slow but constant growth. Thanks to all who have joined and who have stayed as loyal members for long!

On the radar we can air increased forcus on the Danish contemporary music scene. We are currently in touch with major music organizations and we hope these initiatives will help make them aware of the opportunities Pop Art Lab have to offer and help labels and artists to reach a global audience by using our PR services.

Lastly we passed a fantastic tour in Finland where I presented PAL. I met so many nice people there and hope these new networks will give birth to further new collaborations inside virtuality.

Oh I forgot to mention I was interviewed by Nazz Lane author of Lane’s List and you can read the full post here

The Finland Interview

The following interview was given right after my presentation October 7th at OEM2010 Confrence, Lahti, Finland.