Studios and SL Filmmaking

As a RL filmmaker, this is something I've been wanting to do in SL for some time now. I have a question for others who try to do professional films in SL. How are studios/sets normally setup in SL? I've been looking for a real production studio in SL, but have yet to find any with both interior sets and exterior sets.

I often come across half room or full room decked out in all bright green, like a green screen. Can anyone tell me why this is? I would assume you can use animated back grounds and use the green to key it out.

Is there a good place in-world that is a good example of a working production studio in SL?

LJR Zhao

The best way to do this is to have your own sim and treat it like a film set. most of our work is done on a private island where we do just what you are describing with sets to match the needs of our films, just like RL.

Some sims are also machinima-friendly and will let you make small mods to their island for your films, as long as you are responsible and clean up after yourself.

I'd be curious if there is an open studio anywhere in SL where people can shoot.

LJR - if you are filming on someone else's island and/or builds, remember to get permission first (if you intend to use the film commercially), as you might be using someone else's content (or someone's partly developed content). Most people don't mind though.

Hi LJR,

We have been making professional machimina for over 2 1/2 years in Second Life. For a large proportion of our projects, SL itself is our studio, as it is SL itself that is the subject.

For other projects, we create our own sets, some quite small, others that cover a whole Sim (or more). If we do not have enough space, we hire a Sim(s) for the duration of the project.

Using a 'skypod' for some scenes, can take you away from some of the lag, and give you control over the shoot.

Using 'Green' rooms/backdrops, you are correct, those are for Chroma Keying. We can use those for simple overlays, or in 3rd party software such as CrazyTalk, iClone etc, for overlays into direct scenes or layered backdrops, in the editing timeline layers.

Unlike RL movie creations, if your role is camera man, then you will also take the role of lighting and possibly sound.

Our resources extend to animators, actors, storyboard writers, set builders, scriptors, graphics, wardrobe, stylists, voice actors and much more. Other groups/companies in SL also have similar resources.

Once you understand the limitations and strengths of the platform, you can produce some excellent results. Either way, there are things in SL, you cannot do in RL without huge budgets and resources.

You will find some exellent resources for knowledge, here on the forums, and from individuals willing to share.

Depending on your audience, you may have to consider methods and settings of your media, to get it successfuly streaming into SL. Data Bitrate must be balanced with the graphic overheads applied to the Client software.

Somthing I did when I did some filming was (well I did have my own sim) but remeber that when you build sets they dont have to be complete like the ones you build in sl.. only the camera angles.. Same as you would for a movie.

Example is this

http://www.machinima.com/bourne/view&id=388#

its a short Trailer for the movie Bourne Ultimatium.. the only sets I had to build that required a TON of space was the NY scene and the Subway (the one where hes walking twards the camera.

The other scenes (like at the end where the car crashes into the camera) I actually built straight up an down on its side so I could use the car as a physcial property and just dropped it.. so it looked like it was out of control

the jump scene from the window was equally a small set but looked large due to some camera tricks.

Other things I did was like in the staircase scene.. to get all of the angles in it.. I would use clear textures on the reverse side so the camera could film striaght thru the wall but when i swapped angles the textures were still perfect


If you need any advice on set building send me a whisper or a notecard.. I kinda specilize in building especially for things like machinima..

Thanks for the advice and sounds like a great group of Machinima makers here in SL. The plan is to eventually get a SIM or 2 to build my studio and builders workshop. But till then I'll plan to package everything into a self-contained Skybox, that I can whip out in a low lag friend sandbox and do some filming that way. Maybe I should market that? Set-in-a-Box?

Cheers!
LJR

I use Horizons holodeck for things like that. You can package a whole set, including movable (unlinked) objects. -- TM

I had orginally tried to produce a product like that.. While it worked amazingly there was no market for it.. (an entire sim would rez in 1 minute )

The commerical I produced for it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcrgOj43wQI&feature=channel_page

The commercial looks great. Sim-in-a-box sounds like a good idea. But the holodeck offers more flexability for things like video sets. Here is a video I did to promote the idea:
http://blip.tv/file/988430/

The scenes I used were from Novatech, which has a large number of scenes on offer. The Holodeck also lets you store sets/scenes you have built, then rez them on command.
TM