Oz festival flick fails to make mockery of Second Life
by Tateru Nino 
Jun 17th 2009 at 7:00PM
Filed under: Culture, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds
We know, we're shocked that the opportunity was passed over. With one movie in the works based on a newspaper article based on a divorce, and – of course – the CSI:NY story that humorously featured Second Life like we'd never seen it before, well ... hopes of a decent cinematic treatment of Linden Lab's virtual environment were starting to look pretty low.
Enter Rachel Ward's Beautiful Kate, which aired in the Sydney Film Festival late last week and is due to air in Australia on 7 August. It's an emotional and confronting work, in which Second Life makes an interesting cameo.
While brief, the virtual environment's appearance (lag and all) in the film is as matter-of-fact as a telephone call might be in any film of the last several decades. In a film about people and their relationships, Second Life helps people keep in touch in a more immersive way than any other available communications medium.
Featuring some fine actors, a strong story, and some rather contentious elements, the film also incorporates the virtual environment briefly in a very natural way. Top marks for a thoughtful portrayal.
 |
Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop. |
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
OrganiClockwork said on 8:21PM 6-17-2009
You know there's a problem when people are congratulating a film for portraying video games not positively, but -realistically-
Not going against your post by the way, simply going against the fact that the film industry seems to have such an epic problem with portraying things as simple as video games, computers, and so forth in a pseudo-realistic manner.
Reply
Russell Clarke said on 8:28PM 6-17-2009
Hooray for Hollywood.
TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 9:30PM 6-17-2009
why the fail talk?
Reply
Russell Clarke said on 9:51PM 6-17-2009
What's 'fail talk'? If you mean why bag the film, I'm not. If you mean something else, meh.
TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 12:21AM 6-18-2009
that was directed at Tateru, I can't understand the why of the title if the article is about how the movie did it right. If at least the article talked more about how the expectations of how SL would be treated by the movie were, focusing on it and such, then perhaps the title would make more sense, but the article seems to focus on the positive aspect and on less related things than the movie trying represent SL in a ridiculous manner.
ps:this is a reply to Russel, the system only allows replying to the person at the top of a thread :/
Doubledown Tandino said on 11:56PM 6-17-2009
That's very cool this is the first time there was no (over)glorification of Second Life. I like that SL appeared as a matter-of-fact, as Tateru put it.
This really hasn't been done til now.
I remember watching movies from, lets say 5-8 years ago, and they had a scene where someone used the internet... and they needed to dramatically enhance the use of the web ("hackers", "the net", "johnny nmemonic") usually suddenly you'd see an orange or green glow light up the actor and the room, followed by a visual on the computer screen of laser beams and particle bits. ... just finally in movies we now see characters using google... like normal people do....
so anyway.... glad this is the first movie (a strong solid movie) to use SL as a common every day item. This is going to happen a lot more over time.
Reply
IronGut McCallister said on 1:02AM 6-18-2009
Agreed. Although, laughing at how Hollywood creates these non-existent systems is quite humorous sometimes. Kudos for an accurate portrayal.
Paisley Beebe said on 7:49AM 6-18-2009
ummm not all films in the world are made in Hollywood I know we are small time over here....but it was made in Australia, by Australians, credit where credit is due folks!
Reply
Russell Clarke said on 3:01PM 6-18-2009
I know that. Being from NZ myself, where we have a small industry, I wish this film well. My comment was made with irony...but being Aussie you wouldn't get that ;)
Mr. Digital said on 8:40PM 6-18-2009
No one really needs to make a mockery of Second Life. Second Life does a good enough job making a mockery of itself on its own.
Reply
Wolfie Rankin said on 12:10AM 6-25-2009
Paisley, The movie industry was an Australian invention. We may not produce as many movies as India does, but we do have the oldest movie industry on the planet, not arguing, just adding to your comment. ;)
Wolfie! [who's in the movie if you squint really really hard]
Reply
Kat Claxton said on 1:23PM 7-14-2009
I saw you there Wolfie - dancing next to Zak and me. You were magnificent. You rode that poseball like nobody I had ever seen. ;-D
I am really looking forward to seeing this film as soon as it gets to the states. I hope the set came out on the big screen as beautiful as I tried to make it.
Wolfie Rankin said on 9:33PM 7-14-2009
Yes Kat, those poseballs come in really handy. and I bet directors wish they could get real ones for some of their stars in real life. :)
I saw photos from the movie, about all you see is a monitor on a desk, no closeups at all, so we're blurry and would be about an inch high even on a cinema screen. Abi saw the film and didn't realise it was us.
Contact me in world and I'll send you the photos.
Wolfie!
Reply
Simondo Nebestanka said on 9:21AM 8-18-2009
hmm. Having just seen the film today (excellent btw.) I'd have to say the SL bit is actually a bit sad, from a resident perspective. It kind of depicts what Philip Rosedale hinted at in 2008 somewhere, that SL is for shut-ins who for some reason aren't able to connect with people in RL.
That's probably a bit subjective, but that's the immediate sense I felt when watching that segment in this fine flick.
Reply