Five to the cinema.

During the beta testing of the Search for Gold in the Desert game, Five was approached by Dire Lobo, the owner of InWorld Cinema.

He asked Five to be his guest in his cinema! As already hinted at in a former blog, it was impossible for Five to enter his sim, because the boots made by Joe Stravinsky and the hair and without doubt the name “five” in 3D letters were far to heavy for this poor 3 class sim. So eventually Five had to strip before being able to enter the sim. Nice boots can have disadvantages!

Ok Dire Lobo was watching how Five bought a ticket, passed to the first floor with chairs and screens fitted in round spheres. A hud had to be fitted and the video could be started. Well if you have video streaming enabled. When not you have to go to your preferences and enable it. Five was doubtful, because this connection is not the fastest. Ok but it worked and the video started playing.

The experience of watching a movie in Sl is a very strange one. The human eye behind the screen is so used to see the poor shapes and forms of Second Life! It considers them to be “normal”. But confronted with the smooth pictures of movie quality the contrast between the two worlds becomes very, very big! It is almost too much. What do I do here behind my screen, when the real world is so beautiful, rich with textures, shades of colors and sounds? Ok Five is this character of Second Life, but who is actually watching the movie? Call my Shrink! The better the movie the larger the shock! And actually the movie shown, “Loverboy” is of very good quality. When compared to watching video’s on websites the first thing you think is: what’s the difference? The difference is subtle. But thinking about it, being in SL, watching this movie is still preferable above watching a movie on a website. Even alone somewhere in Second Life, you sense the presence of other “people”. On a website it is cold and quiet compared to Second Life. Indeed I called, IM’d a friend to visit me here and she joined Five in this cinema. Cinema? It might be called that. But Dire Lobo is already developing the idea of the cinema. Because Five can watch the movie in a semi private chair, it is not the experience of looking to a movie screen with lot’s of other people at the same time. But this kind of being together is even impossible in Second Life, at least at the moment. The sims are not capable of receiving real crowds!

The ticket you buy can be used for 48 hours. So you can see a chapter of the movie, do other things and resume looking at it. This is a great solution, because the sitting still in SL for too long is rather difficult. Another difference compared to a website. SL is a world to move around.

Five liked the experience of a viewing a movie very much, especially the contrast, the miles of difference to be covered for worlds like Second Life, before becoming as convincing as movies. It raises just the questions Five is looking for. Will SL become like the movies? Or will Second Life just to stay the stylized but primitive world it is now? But really this last idea is impossible. Five is watching a volatile world in rapid change. Just as the possibilities of some software on old computers will never be recovered, so this Second Life as Five knows it is an experience which will be lost in a year, in a few months may be.

Thx Dire Lobo for giving Five the possibility to visit InWorld Cinema!