SL Merger: Dropzone & Virtual Holland

There has been a continental drift in the Holland sector of Second Life as ING's "Our Virtual Holland" and Talpa's "Drop Zone" have merged to form what may be the beginning of a new continent... but are a fair mass at 17 sims right now.

Paul Verhoeven exclusive

Triggered by the audition series I blogged about yesterday, I went in and had a quick look. Various virtual actors and actresses came by to perform a scene from the movie. After the first night of the auditions I had an exclusive interview with Paul Verhoeven, one of Hollywoods great directors.

VeeJay: Very kind of you to drop in at our island and take the time to answer some questions
Paul Verhoeven: : No problem, that’s the great thing about this environment. You can take time for a conversation and it doesn’t cost you too much trouble
VeeJay: This SL gig is about promoting your movie Blackbook?
Paul Verhoeven: : yes, it is
VeeJay: Don't you think using the Drop Zone will make it an exclusively Dutch event? How about promoting the movie in other countries?
Paul Verhoeven: : We wanted to do something creative to draw attention to the DVD release
VeeJay: only for the Netherlands?
Paul Verhoeven: : this is only for the dutch DVD release
Paul Verhoeven: : we didn't want it to get too big, because we didn't know if it would work yet
VeeJay: Did you enjoy your first virtual auditions?
Paul Verhoeven: : yes, I think it went quite well
Paul Verhoeven: : more people showed up for the first evening than I had imagined
VeeJay: and how about the quality of acting? considering of course, we are limited still in our movements in SL
Paul Verhoeven: : some people take it very serious. It surprised me a bit
VeeJay: more seriously than you yourself?
Paul Verhoeven: : When you visit a SL party, you get the idea everyone is more or less making a fool of themselves
VeeJay: sounds you're experienced
Paul Verhoeven: : I walked around for a while before we tried this
Paul Verhoeven: : With another avatar of course
VeeJay: I can imagine
VeeJay: With movies Like Total Recall and Robocop, you’ve probably got a long record with computer animation. What makes Second Life different?
Paul Verhoeven: : Well, I don't see any Hollywood films appearing from SL anytime soon
Paul Verhoeven: : It's the easy acces and streaming technology that's interesting
Paul Verhoeven: : consider doing auditions like this in a real-world promotion
Paul Verhoeven: : it would be very expensive and timeconsuming
VeeJay: I can imagine, perhaps the same will count for making first draft versions of movie sets?
Paul Verhoeven: : yes, that might be useful too
VeeJay: have you got any plans to use Second Life more often for promotions and auditions like this?
Paul Verhoeven: : that hasn't been decided yet
Paul Verhoeven: : this is sort of a pilot
Paul Verhoeven: : if it's succesful, perhaps we'll do more
VeeJay: okay, one last for the sake of the community, did you like working with the guys from Lost in the Magic Forest? I know Dobre has got some movie experience. Did it show in their professionalism?
Paul Verhoeven: : yes, they worked very hard to get this event finished in time
Paul Verhoeven: : And I'm very pleased with the results
VeeJay: Thank you for your time, and I wish you good luck for the remainder of the auditions and the release of Zwartbook
Paul Verhoeven: : thank you
Paul Verhoeven: : I hope the next few days will be as interesting as today
Paul Verhoeven: : Ad I think the auditions will only get better
VeeJay: we'll see. I'll keep an eye at the DropZone traffic rates ;)

Virtual Auditions at Talpa Drop Zone

Despite a major buzz about being taken over by RTL media, Talpa, or TV 10 or whatever, is setting up its next SL event.

"We are very proud to announce that starting from monday we will host Blackbook on our DropZone platform. More info coming soon. Please take a sneak preview of the commercial which we will air next week! Check our own info page on Tien.tv, see you at the DropZone!" [Talpa Drop Zone]

On april 26 the DVD Blackbook (Zwartboek), a new Paul Verhoeven movie will be released. Starting monday april 23rd a series of unique auditions will take place at the Drop zone. Director Paul Verhoeven will organise a virtual audition in which visitors can play a scene from the movie. The winners will be anounced in SL at Liberation day (May 5th)

The ultrashort IMDB description of the movie: "Set during the end of WWII, Black Book is the story of a Dutch Jewish girl who narrowly survives the war in Holland. She joins the resistance to find out who betrayed her family after all of them were killed in an attempt to reach the liberated south."

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Drop%20Zone%204/114/140/38

Oh, and by the way, it's another build by [lost in the] Magic Forest

Rivers Run Red

Rivers Run Red was the world's first agency to establish a working presence within a virtual world. RRR has been active in Second Life since 2003. In meatspace the company has offices in London and San Fran.

Projects include Vodafone, Philips, ING, Reebok, Adidas, Calvin Klein (CKin2U), Heineken, BBC, Channel 4, Penguin, Duran Duran and Radio 538. It's surprising to see how many Dutch client the company has. Since 2007 the RRR faces serious competition with new native Dutch virtual builders such as [lost in the] Magic Forest, Damanicorp and SLionhead.

Aside from their corporate website RRR runs the Space Think Dream thingy as an extra outlet of their works.

Time to Drop In

Well, the Talpa launch (on February 9th) was an event! For the grand opening of the Talpa Dropzone sims a stage was set up where the band 16-down performed in SL -or not?

16-Down actually performed live on stage in Paradiso (Amsterdam) and the concert was live-streamed to SL and vice-versa. Visitors of the actual concert could watch the virtual crowd dance to the beat as well. The Talpa website names it a cross-reality concert.

The Dropzone, aptly named of course, since one really does drop in after a teleport, is created with the help of [Lost in the] Magic Forest.