...and Ed Douglas at ComingSoon.net brings us a comprehensive write-up of the Die Hard Q&A, focusing on the questions and answers likely to be of greatest interest to the broad audience of film-goers and movie fans the site attracts.
It's immensely gratifying to see that Ed has managed to take such a substantial and engaging feature away from this event - it reinforces our belief that Second Life's value lies in its viability as a medium for communication and commerce, not as a headline-grabbing end in itself.
Almost ten days on and it's time to post a second DIE HARD buzz report:
Mezamashi TV In terms of raw media value, this is the pick of the coverage we've received so far - an 8-minute feature for Mezamashi TV, one of Japan's leading entertainment shows. Notwithstanding the language barrier, you can see from the few minutes posted here that they really got into the gonzo spirit of covering a virtual movie junket:
MTV Another keen proponent of the gonzo approach is MTV's LarryCarroll Carnell, rapidly becoming a Silverscreen regular - he attended the 300 Q&A, and came along again for this event. As well as giving it a great write-up on MTV News (syndicated to VH1), Larry also entertained the crowd with his distinctive blend of humorous banter and human pyrotechnics (which is to say, he talked a lot, then wandered to the front of the stage and exploded).
The Silverscreen auditorium moments after LarryCarroll Carnell explodes
The Avastar Second Life's self-proclaimed tabloid offering, The Avastar is a colourful and well organised weekly PDF chock full of news and views. With a circulation of 100,000 regular readers across the English and German language versions, front page coverage is a great result:
That S'Life I also had the opportunity to appear on a special edition of That S'Life, a bi-weekly 30-minute show, using a magazine-format to showcase the biggest attractions in Second Life, produced and broadcast live by the Second Life Cable Network (SLCN). Liam and I walked That S'Life presenter Starr Sonic through the Die Hard expo, and talked through some of the logistical challenges associated with the Q&A:
As I prepare to travel back to the UK following last friday's Die Hard launch in Second Life, I though I'd post a round-up of some coverage the event has already received, along with a couple of observations of my own.
I have to start with a news item which ran on Danish national television on Saturday evening, if only because it sees Bruce giving all of Denmark its very own 'Yippie Kay Ay' (Scroll down to the link reading Bruce Willis giver pressekonference i cyberspace to launch the archived clip).
This is very much a Second Life novelty piece, the kind of high-value free media coverage a lot of brands and corporations are targeting by moving into the virtual space. Even though this kind of exposure is getting harder to come by, I do think that the 3D web is a vibrant and versatile enough medium to go on making headlines in the way that Web v1 and Web 2.0 have, and I expect there to be a continuing, mainstream interest in new developments and high-profile events in each of these realms.
Likewise, 20 Minutes, France's free daily newspaper, has run a fairly light-hearted story both in its printed version and here, on the website.
The piece is positive overall, although they seem to suggest that Willis's avatar was a poor likeness, and too inanimate. The (virtual) reality is that this one of the best likenesses I've seen created in Second Life (put together by our resident avatar designers Sachi Vixen and Damen Gorilla) and that it featured five custom-created looping avatar animations. That said, to the uninitiated I can imagine that it looks quite rudimentary, especially when you consider how somebody like Bruce would be rendered for something like the Xbox, or PS3.
What you have to keep in mind when assessing anything created in SL is that almost everything you find there is user-generated, and that the design tools built into the SL viewer tend to sacrifice visual sophistication in exchange for accessibility and performance. I've found myself suggesting more than once over the last few days that the current aesthetics of Second Life will one day come to be regarded in much the same way that we look back at something like Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. This feels like a promising analogy, since however dated and rudimentary it appears, Thunderbirds is also the irrefutable foundation-stone of so much of what you find in cinemas today, albeit that deluxe CGI has replaced tottering marionettes.
I can't tell you what the article on Mexico's Supermorelia!com says - my Spanish isn't good enough, nor, as regards the printed version, is my eyesight.
Another great piece of coverage I want to pick up on, with a very different emphasis, is Mitch Wagner's write-up on the Information Week blog. With more of tech focus, Mitch examines the rationale for the Die Hard activity; that of reaching an influential few rather than the cinema-going many.
Personally I'm amazed how often I find people decrying SL as a marketing medium on account if the fact that it only has about 500,000 genuinely active residents. If Web 2.0 has taught us anything it surely is that all 'hits' are not equal, and that marketing is no longer a straight numbers game, but a challenge to communicate with the right audience in the right way, be it five people or five million.
In terms of the SL press, first out is a write-up on Second Life News Network, who are always quick to turn copy around. Contrary to what they report in the opening paragraph Bruce had seen his avatar, and had declared himself very happy with the likeness. I can go on the record that he didn't operate it himself, and that the interview was conducted over the phone. This was not how the event was initially planned, but it's what needed to happen for it to go ahead, and our own position is that if we can engender real-time interaction between film-makers or talent and a Second Life audience, we can be said to have brought them 'into' the medium in a meaningful sense of the word.
Just to add my own 'tuppence worth', for me one of the most interesting aspects of Friday's event was the presence of fans in our invite-only audience, winners of a hugely-subscribed competition which itself increased the traction and 'digital footprint' of this strand of activity. It was great fun to witness the extent to which their questions - and their unrelenting enthusiasm for Bruce and the Die Hard movies - unlocked a side of 'Bee Dub' we wouldn't necessarily see at a normal press conference.
I also found it significant that we were able to broadcast the event live on the web and within SL itself (with the help of the Second Life Cable Network), in terms of how this can be used to increase the accessibility of this kind of event, as well as the value. We've posted a video podcast of this on the Silverscreen blog, which will aso be playing in-world around the Die Hard expo for its six-week duration.
Also, check out a VIDEO PODCAST of the whole session, as a 100MB MOV. This was broadcast live by Second Life Cable Network (SLCN) both in-world and on the web, and was enjoyed by additional members of the press along with a number of Fox execs who wanted to know what the fuss was about.
We have lots of pictures of the event, and will be posting plenty of them, but here's a personal favourite - Karube Nikolaidis, representing...
(Gotta love the mic. Just in case you don't spot the placard :)
These are some of the snaps taken shortly before the launch of the Die Hard virtual movie expo, now open in Silverscreen.
The stage was set for our launch event - a 30-minute Q&A with star of Die Hard and Hollywood legend Bruce Willis and an invited audience of digital press, bloggers and competition-winning fans.
This is one of the builds we've created allowing visitors to step inside a key moment from the movie. We called this 'Joint Strike', after the name of the F35 Joint Strike Fighter you can see bearing down on a Freightliner Classic XL Big Rig being driven by McClane.
And this is 'Airborne'. Here you can see Liam Kanno, head of Silverscreen's resident build team the V3 Group, leaping to safety clad in one of the free outfits we're giving away around the expo.
Finally, if you visit the expo be sure to drop into ace hacker Warlock's 'Command Centre'. Plenty more freebies to be had in here, and some beautiful texturing and lighting for visiting SL design connoisseurs.
Silverscreen's much anticipated Die Hard 4 movie expo goes live this coming friday, immediately following a launch event and live Q&A with the simply LEGENDARY Bruce Willis.
I think it's safe to say we're all nervously excited about escorting 'Bee Dub' into the metaverse, but he's already shown that he's prepared to get his hands dirty bringing this movie to the masses, so we're hoping for an event every bit as lively and irreverent as the last.
The Q&A itself will be attended by a global audience of 40 digital press and contest-winning die-hard Die Hard fans, who will have the opportunity to put their questions to Bruce (represented in-world by a custom-designed avatar) and to listen to his answers live through Silverscreen's music channel.
Following the Q&A the audience will have the opportunity to take a first glimpse at the Die Hard 4 expo we've created before it opens its doors to the general public.
After the success of "300" it's been a real challenge to take the expo format and adapt it to a new release, at the ever-present risk of repeating ourselves. Fortuitously the fact that this expo goes live almost a month before the movie opens means that we haven't had anything like the same range of audio-visual media to work with, forcing us to take a very different approach for what is, without doubt, a very different movie. Without wanting to ruin the surprise, we're hoping that visitors to the expo will be blown away by some of the sights that greet them, and will once again come in droves to collect the themed freebies and avatar accessories we'll be giving away all over the sim.
If you interested in swinging by think about joining the Die Hard Fans group we've created in-world, and we'll notify you as soon as the expo opens. We'll also be using the group to let you know when we add new content to the expo over the course of its 6-week run, and to announce the winners of contests to win your very own Freightliner Classic big rig, American Eurocopter and F35 Joint Strike Fighter.
For anybody who hasn't seen it yet, I've embedded the international trailer below:
And for anybody who's forgotten what we're talking here:
