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:
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.
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
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.
A little bit later than usual (on account of my fleeing London and some serious summer movie madness for seven days of sunshine) here's a round-up of our latest Second Life promotion, for Paramount Pictures' TRANSFORMERS.
Just for anybody who's coming to it cold, the activity consisted of a live, hour-long Q&A with Michael Bay (Director), Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Producer and members of the cast including Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson, launching a dedicated 'Sector 7' sim:
Sector 7 has so far received over 12,000 visitors, with an average dwell time of 11 minutes, and the associated Sector 7 group has 700 members and climbing. The success of the sim is no doubt partly due to the fact that it is absolutely chock full of themed freebies, the coolest of which is undoubtedly this wearable replica avatar of Bumblebee (already grabbed over 3,000 times):
Each time we take a movie into Second Life we also try to break new ground - for TRANSFORMERS this was to webcast a live video stream of the Q&A to a global audience of web users, via major online partners in each of twelve key markets. This was achieved working in partnership with Second Life Cable Network (SLCN), who produced the hour-long show and relayed it via Akamai to partner destinations like this one on France's Allocine:
Other partners involved in the streaming event include IGN (Global), The Sun Online (UK), Yahoo! Italy, Omelete (Brazil) and, using a branded version of our generic event microsite, Prodigy MSN (Mexico).
The webcast was drew 37,000 viewers from 85 different countries during the event itself, with a total of 120 GB of data downloaded - we're pretty confident that this is the largest audience ever generated for a live broadcast from within a virtual world.
The archived version has subsequently generated a further 100,000 views, and we've seen loads of excerpts turning up on Youtube, including this little item, captured and posted by Q&A attendee Blunty 3000 - and already viewed no fewer than 13,000 times - in which Megan Fox offers a verdict on her avatar:
The Q&A itself was well subscribed, with 35 journalists from all over the world in attendance, as well as the usual selection of 'local' press. Paramount's Mexican office generated the pick of the coverage, securing features in two major newspapers with a combined circulation 360,000:
All in all the activity has left a substantial digital footprint, and given a home to a fanatical community of TRANSFORMERS fans within Second Life, many of whom are now baying for the release of a second official avatar. Some have even taken to creating their own, including this outstanding version of Optimus Prime created by one of many visitors to the facility:
To which end, I'm happy to be able to conclude this post by announcing that we will be releasing a second free official avatar within the next seven days. After all, what's an Autobot supposed to get up to all day without a Decepticon to do battle with?
As to the identity of the Decepticon in question? Watch this space :)
And don't forget to check out Sector 7 in Second Life, if only to collect your OFFICIAL Bumblebee avatar.
So much to report about everything that went down in Sector 7 today, but not right now. The bar is calling. I'll settle for posting some pics of the build hours before it opened, and will be back as soon as the video podcast is available.
One exciting aspect of the TRANSFORMERS launch event is that SLCN are going to be filming it and streaming it live, in conjunction with some major promotional partners in some of Paramount's key markets.
I've embedded the test stream here:
Check back at 5.00pm PDT on Friday to watch it go live.
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.
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...
