Announcing the TRANSFORMERS Competition Finalists!

We've checked out all the entries to our Create-A-Transformer competition and selected the following five finalists:

OSCAR
By Sarria Yaffle




HELIOS
By Jennyfer Ultsch




BOXIMUS PRIM
By Serp Dharma




MIRAGE
By Tiarnalalon Sismondi




TINYBOT
By Nobunaga Ogee



Each finalist is now invited to visit Sector 7 at 10.00am PDT on Thursday 13th September to demonstrate their transforming avatar in action in front of the following panel of judges:

• DANNYBOY LIGHTFOOT - Silverscreen General Manager

• LIAM KANNO - V3 Group CEO, www.thev3group.com
  

• SACHI VIXEN - Adam n Eve Co-founder, www.adam-n-eve.co.uk

• CC CHAPMAN - New Media Maven, www.cc-chapman.com

• CYBERGRRL OH - Reporter, www.slnn.com

Thanks to everybody who took the time to submit an avatar design, the standard of which was very high across the board. We'll be announcing the eventual winner of the L$250,000 prize as soon as it is awarded on Thursday.

Create your own Transformer and win L$250,000!

Paramount Pictures International (PPI) is inviting residents of Second Life to design and build your own Transformer, for the chance to win L$250,000.

The competition was inspired by the Paramount movie TRANSFORMERS, which was released worldwide from June 28 and is currently breaking box office records.



Aspiring engineers have just four weeks to develop your own 'robot in disguise' using the 3D modelling, design and programming tools built into the Second Life viewer. Entrants are required to send a video clip of your Transformer in action to silverscreen@theppc.com by 7:00 PM SLT on Friday 7th September.

On Thursday 13th September a shortlist of entrants will be invited to visit Sector 7 - the official home of TRANSFORMERS in Second Life - to demonstrate their Transformers in front of a panel of judges.

The creator of the winning avatar will receive the cash prize of L$250,000 (approx. US$1,000), plus the opportunity to see their Transformer showcased alongside the official Bumblebee and Barricade avatars currently available from Sector 7.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE COMPETITION

Now Available - BARRICADE!

The official BARRICADE avatar was made available in Sector 7 a few moments ago. Within seconds of a notice going out to the 950-strong group the sim was flooded with fans and fanatics desperate for the Decepticon.



The identity of the new avatar has been the subject of intense scrutiny since we revealed late last week that we would be releasing a Decepticon. The Official BUMBLEBEE avatar has now been grabbed a total of 5,600 times.

You can collect both avatars for yourself NOW by visiting the Megatron Hangar in Sector 7.

More than meets the eye

HUGELY exciting to be able to publish the first snapshot of one of our largest and most challenging builds to date - Sector 7.

A sim-wide build, Sector 7 opens to the public at 6pm on June 22nd following a Q&A with the film-makers and cast behind what promises to be one of the biggest movies of 2007 - TRANSFORMERS.



To find out more about the launch, and for access to a selection of high-quality movie stills and video clips, check out the official press release and digital EPK.



For my part I was a massive fan of the toys when I was a kid - I owned a couple, watched the cartoons, even wrote a couple of extra episodes of my own - so this is a chance to be involved in meta-marketing yet another movie that's really close to my heart, this time for Paramount. Even as I type the sim is teeming with some of the rarest talents in the metaverse, working around the clock to bring Michael Bay's phenomenal creation to Second Life.

In the unlikely event that you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, just watch this...



...then watch this.

Looming larger than the Nakatomi Plaza

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:



Yippie kay ay!

Coming soon to Silverscreen...

To find out more check out www.livefreeordiehard.com/secondlife

THIS IS SPARTA!

(Sorry to post a press release wholesale, but I have to rush off to Brussels for the day. So much more to write about, but all in good time I guess.)

Warner Bros. Pictures Goes Virtual with the "300" Movie Expo

Q&A With Director Zack Snyder, Graphic Novelist Frank Miller, Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and Rodrigo Santoro Launch Month-Long "300" Movie Expo Within the Online World of Second Life

Los Angeles, CA, March XX, 2007 - In anticipation of the worldwide release of the epic action adventure "300," Warner Bros. Pictures launched an immersive 3-D exposition within the fast-growing online community known as Second Life. A live Q&A with the film's director, Zack Snyder, award-winning graphic novelist Frank Miller, and the film's stars Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and Rodrigo Santoro kicked off the month-long 3-D exposition on Friday, March 16, 2007. Following the press event, the "300" Movie Expo is now open and available to any of the free service's 4.6 million users.

Warner Bros. Pictures International worked with the creative marketing agency Picture Production Company (PPC) to create the "300" Movie Expo within Second Life. The "300" Movie Expo is set on a virtual island on which four "expodomes" have been created especially to showcase the unique look and feel of the film.

• This is Sparta. An interactive exhibit inspired by the Spartan aesthetic, this environment will offer users "in-world" collectibles and a specially created 10 minute featurette from the film.

• Cinema. The "300" Movie Expo also contains an outdoor theater in which users can view audiovisual materials from the film.

• Gallery. An art gallery featuring production images, as well as frames from Frank Miller's award-winning graphic novel and concept art from the film.
  

• Reading Room. An open-air lounge that allows users to flip through select pages from 300: THE ART OF THE FILM and listen to music from the soundtrack.

Another view from above

This is a great shot of the sim, not least because of the backdrop - god knows how the Lindens create those stunning sunsets!

From this angle you can start to see inside the hub, our central screening area, and can glimpse inside the business centre as well, open at the front and with a beautifully turfed lawn on the roof. You can also see inside one of the exhibition orbs, linked to the hub by the tramway.

A View to a Sim

A bird's eye view of Silverscreen...


...and a view from a jauntier angle.

In the foreground a rare glimpse inside the penthouse office of reclusive sim owner Davidian Wilber. Note the private helicopter, transporting him around Second Life far over the heads of you, me and the hoi polloi. This is the film industry we're talking about after all.

These are just two of several beautiful shots Liam has taken for use in an award submission. They take an age to upload, so I'll post them piecemeal over the course of the next few days, and try to include some further insight into the constituent parts of the sim.

LOCATIONS, LOCATIONS, LOCATIONS!

Silverscreen is inviting builders and designers from all over Second Life to join us in paying tribute to some of the greatest movies of all time.

We're inviting you to recreate your favourite movie locations inside Silverscreen, on land provided and paid for by us.

We'll help promote your build, and let you run it as a working businesses if you want. Hell, if we like your idea enough we may even subsidise it.

So whether it's Rick's Cafe Americain in CASABLANCA, STAR WARS' Mos Eisley Cantina or the disco from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, let us know what you want to build and we'll see if we can help make it happen.

Post your idea as a comment below, email it to silverscreen@theppc.com or IM me, Dannyboy Lightfoot, with details.

Silverscreen v1.1

We had these pictures taken to accompany a press release announcing the island acquisition. The model was developed from our initial concept by Second Life architecural consultants TheV3 Group. On the strength of this early in December '06 we appointed them to build Silverscreen.


The central hub is a meeting point and screening area, as well as being somewhere we can showcase the film-related skins, clothes, animations and accessories we'll be giving away. The four coloured orbs are conceived to function as additional venues and exhibition space, to be developed according to our ongoing requirements (alothough we've since decided to tone down the colour scheme). The tower incoporates penthouse office space and a helipad, with a studio, business centre and rooftop garden at its base. The sim also features a small marina and some wind turbines.

When I questioned the need for helipads, marinas and wind trubines V3 CEO and project lead Liam Kanno was quick to point out that there's very little anyone actually needs in Second Life, that he saw V3's role as being to create an interesting and dynamic space, albeit one fit for purpose. V3 have certainly succeeded in this regard, and working to a realistic entry-level budget. The challenge for 2007 is to fill the sim with equally intersting and dynamic content.

Welcome to Silverscreen

It's the last day of 2006, and this is the first post on the Silverscreen blog, the focal point for our plans to turn Silverscreen, PPC's island in Second Life, into a home away from home for film and its fans.

Just to make a quick introduction, Picture Production Company (PPC) is the largest specialist film marketing agency outside of North America, having been at the forefront of the industry for over 20 years.

With offices in London and Los Angeles, we produce marketing materials and campaigns for clients including Universal, Paramount, Dreamworks, Buena Vista International, Warners Bros and 20th Century Fox. Bottom line is, if you saw it at the cinema, PPC probably worked on putting it there, in one capacity or another.

We bought the island in late November, with a view to creating a venue for events including film premieres, preview screenings and Q&As. By bringing these exclusive opportunities to SL we hope to build a community around film and the film industry, creating a virtual space where film-lovers the world over can meet and talk movies.

Of course, we intend to use this to add value to our marketing campaigns, reaching new audiences and engaging them in new ways. We also sincerely belief that we can improve the quality of Second Life in the process, finding new and more inventive ways to let people share and enjoy the things they love.

Silverscreen will be officially opening its doors February 2007 but anyone wanting to have a look around can IM me - Dannyboy Lightfoot - and I'll be happy to show you around at the first opportunity.

Just to finish up, here's the comp we modelled when we first started talking about the design of the PPC sim. It's changed a lot since then, but this is where it started, so I figure it belongs here: