I arrived today afternoon in Biarritz. A decent wheather 13°C and a warm brise from the Atlantic ocean welcomed me here. It’s a pity that my producer colleagues from Eidolon Entertainment can’t join me here (thinking of you and sending you also some pics). For me it’s a strange feeling to return to Biarritz because the past three times when I was here the intention was surfing. Or better to say: Learning how to surf(Never managed to catch a damn wave in 7 weeks paddling .-)

So it is very odd to come here for presenting L2L. And it’s a great opportunity for us to start because I have to admit that the festival is bigger than I thought it is. They celebrate this year their 25th anniversary and you can see that they try to raise the flag high. Before I even managed to set a step on the ground in Biarritz I already met a filmaker from Israel (Naomi from Black Sheep) while waiting for the transfer flight in Paris who is also presenting a film here at the festival. After we were picked up gently at the Biarritz airport we directly received our ‘badge professionnel’ from wonderful organization team member Florence Girot in the picturesque festival headquarter at the Biarritz Casino (see pic in older post, wonderful view onto the beach, I can tell you). Then the eve came and I joined the opening ceremony in the Gare du Midi ( a cinema with more than 1500 seats). It was pretty stuffed with audience. They presented the key players of the festival and the jury of the competition program. I made a picture of the stage and of the face who is head of the ‘creative documentary’ competition section named Inês de Medeiros. So now I know where I have to send my prayers to.-) After this formal opening ceremony they really opened the festival with the interesting pilot (first episode of the suspenseful french series named ‘Homes de l’ombre’, content: after the assassination of the french president, the new elections are dependant on two rivals communication agents …)

After this full impact day I saved myself from extiction and I enjoyed a wonderful french dinner in the ‘Bar du Jardin’, which ended with my favourite dessert ‘creme brulle’ which is directly responseble for the fact that I’m sitting here after midnight and writing this nonesense. I hope I’ll be able to write more posts during my stay here. At least when we receive an award I’ll do this for sure:-)

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Menschen mit Behinderung können im Second Life all das tun, was ihnen im wirklichen Leben verwehrt bleibt. Alice Krueger hilft ihnen, sich in der virtuellen Realität zurechtzufinden.

Eingeloggt ins Leben

Menschen mit Behinderung können im Second Life all das tun, was ihnen im wirklichen Leben verwehrt bleibt. Alice Krueger hilft ihnen, sich in der virtuellen Realität zurechtzufinden.

VON MARLENE HALSEMenschen mit Behinderung können im Second Life all das tun, was ihnen im wirklichen Leben verwehrt bleibt. Alice Krueger hilft ihnen, sich in der virtuellen Realität zurechtzufinden

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Guess what?

Last March we were very happy to welcome Alice Krueger to the HKW in Berlin. She was invited to give a speech about “People with Disabilities in Virtual Worlds”. In the same time she spoke (in the framework of the ZDF ‘Bodybits’ project call) for our documentary Login2Life in which she is taking part as the main character (out of seven). You can download the mp3 of her presentation here. A short summary taken from the HKW website:

ALICE B. KRUEGER (HEAD OF THE VIRTUAL ABILITY SUPPORT COMMUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES INSIDE SECOND LIFE)

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

(in English language)

TUE 29.03.2011 | 19:00 h | Admission: Day ticket 5 €/3 €

Virtual worlds are becoming increasingly popular. Many features of virtual worlds mirror what is called the “real world”. Which features of virtual worlds are virtual?

People with real-world disabilities are able to access virtual worlds, sometimes using assistive technology to do so. Second Life is a virtual world where people with many different kinds of disabilities find real benefits, including medical, learning and social benefits. The Virtual Ability community in Second Life helps people using assistive technology become successful in that virtual world.
Daniel Moshel’s film highlights some of the benefits to people with disabilities of being in a virtual world. The film contrasts the lives of people when they are inside and outside the virtual world.

Alice B. Krueger is presently fully disabled due to Multiple Sclerosis. She is President of Virtual Ability, Inc., which is a small nonprofit charitable corporation. The purpose of Virtual Ability, Inc. is to support the work of the Virtual Ability community in virtual worlds such as Second Life. Prior to becoming disabled, Alice Krueger was an education researcher. She is a published author and editor in the field of science education.

People with real-world disabilities are able to access virtual worlds, sometimes using assistive technology to do so. Second Life is a virtual world where people with many different kinds of disabilities find real benefits, including medical, learning and social benefits. The Virtual Ability community in Second Life helps people using assistive technology become successful in that virtual world.
Daniel Moshel’s film highlights some of the benefits to people with disabilities of being in a virtual world. The film contrasts the lives of people when they are inside and outside the virtual world.

Alice B. Krueger is presently fully disabled due to Multiple Sclerosis. She is President of Virtual Ability, Inc., which is a small nonprofit charitable corporation. The purpose of Virtual Ability, Inc. is to support the work of the Virtual Ability community in virtual worlds such as Second Life. Prior to becoming disabled, Alice Krueger was an education researcher. She is a published author and editor in the field of science education.

The whole presentation took place in the same time at  the auditorium of Virtual Abuility Island in Second Life. Thus an international audience was able to follow her presentation and  got the chance later to participate  in the Q&A. The live audience in Berlin was pretty amazed when Alice zoomed out  from the big projected powerpoint screen in Second Life revealing all the other digital participants. That is why we decided to publish her really interesting speech here. I hope you enjoy it. Please seed .-)

In SL I can proudly present the German Californian Draxtor Despres (Bernhard Drax) and his talented colleague Gianna Borgnine from the East Coast. So we try all our best to accerlate the storytelling in L2L. With this team we manover towards the end of production of our documentary. Less than two month to go. GOGOGOGOGOGO…..

Olibith is kicking his own ass

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Draxtor’s ‘what am I doing right now’ video

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The bad volcanic cloud was almost responsible for the cancellation of the camera test in Cologne. Not only me but also Thomas Bengtsson an Mark Laursen from Ensidia couldn’t catch their flight. But I was the lucky one to get the last seat in a train to Cologne, so after a hot 8 hours 35° train ride I was able to join Liq and Protec from Ensidia at the RPC 2010. I was very happy to drink a cold beer with Hans after the odyssey. My Intention was to shoot Ensidia while  showraiding at the Buffed booth and test my new 5D Mark II camera setup. After few attempts Ensidia managed to kill the Lich King. Thus satisfying hundreds of spectators arround the buffed booth. It was a pity that Nessay and Kungen couldn’t join me but nevertheless it was a very nice experience to see the colorful community of roleplay @ the RPC (digital and analogue representatives) . Especially the LARP fans are very photogenic like you can see in the posted media.

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After two days of shooting elves, orcs, jaggers, stromtroopers, raiders and interviews with Liq, Protec, Bernd Holtmann, Tyrania and many more I left the spot again in a crowded train to Vienna. The next trip was scheduled to Copenhagen and Gothenburg where I should shoot the private side of Thomas Bengtsson the most famous WoW player of all time. BTW: If you want to check out the German ZDF Blog entry in which I already write about the experience with our Swedish celebrity then go here. In few days you’ll find a short impressions clip and more pics of the RPC here. Be sure to revisit.

Post edit: Here our cameratest.

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It was cold and snowy when we arrived in Berlin on Friday last week. I was very lucky to leave work behind and go for a short vacation. That is why Berlin seemed warm and lovely to me, but for sure I was excited about the upcoming ‘ceremony’. Like the other 24 finalists of the ZDF online proposal I was invited to Berlin last Saturday. It was a pleasant atmosphere in the ‘Haus der Kulturen der Welt’ (HKW) between the Brandenburger Tor and the famous Tiergarten (I mean that there was no biting and scratching between the filmakers .-). All the attendants eagerly wanted  to know if their projects were selected by the “Das kleine Fernsehspiel’ commission and who will be among the last rewarded FIVE .

After winning the vote (which you guys made possible) I had a confident feeling for our project but we couldn’t be sure because our film was a special case concerning the bylaws of the whole online proposal. After a long get-together in which it was possible to catch a glimpse of the other very interesting projects while drinking coffee and eating delicious sweeties (by the way my favourites became ‘Egal was ich tue sie lieben es’ from Romy Steyer @Romy: I am sure you will produce an awesome movie – you have great ingredients. Thumbs up! And also ‘Pixelschatten’ from Anil Kunnel. This film will be extraordinary !). Although everyone had the opportunity to talk to the other filmmakers I had the slight impression that almost no one took the chance (if this isn’t true, then at least I didn’t take the chance.-) . It seemed that everybody was slightly nervous before the great ‘ceremony’. After a group foto and a little more waiting, we got seated in the big presentation hall of the HKW. And then a horrible thing happened: While the director of the HKW was welcoming the audience (I estimate the audience to 300), I realized that my phone was gone. My beloved iphone helping me challenging the contest was gone. I ran out of the hall and started hectically looking for my phone. After 5 minutes a HKW reception employee gave me my phone and told me that it was found at the restroom for women. I thought this was a joke. I was sure not attending the toilette of the opposite sex. And my wife accompanying me didn’t use my phone at all. So this maintains a small mystery. I returned after this mind shocking intermission to my seat and lucky as I was I didn’t miss anyone of the award winners. The hosting was excellent, the DJ even programmed for each winning project an individual ’stage entering’ sound. You could feel the energy in the hall. Das kleine Fernsehspiel presented a kind of ‘and the winner is…”  academy award for kids athomosphere which was very cool, loose and pleasant. One circmstance was very entertaining: They were introducing the third winner and like I mentioned they artificially raised the excitement of the audience in not telling the winning names for a long period of time. But the playback operator of the several winning trailers lost control over his player and the audience was confronted with the next winning entry. So Patrick Doberenz and Philipp Enders of ‘Alice 5.0′ were pretty much relieved I guess .-)

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To continue : Although I got a sort of confident, I’ve became nervous not hearing the name of ‘Login 2 Life ‘upon the winning entries. After all five winners were set, we felt like the mood in the hall tilted to – let’s say – a ‘little’ disappointment. But then the moderator announced another price, a so called special price for the user’s favourite one. Claudia Tronnier (chief commissioning editor ‘Das kleine Fernsehspiel’) said the name of our project. I just thought ‘Wow, we get an audience award, before the film is even produced’. I am very glad that this happened. It’s a milestone for the project and I am super happy that from now on the prospects for the production of our film are very good. ‘Das kleine Fernsehspiel’ pushes us towards the realisation like nothing before. Not that we just got one very important funding for our project, no we also got Lucas Schmid. This guy is a very nice comission member who has been working for ‘Das kleine Fernsehspiel’ for more than 11 years. After meeting him for some hours I have the impression he is a great benefit for the further progress of our film.

So this was the climax of the evening. After that we were invited to a tasty dinner.  We prolonged the party in a smoky bar. I can’t remeber what the name was, but I’ll edit it when someone whispers it to me (Romy whispered .-) it was the ‘monarch’ bar). Here I got the oppertunity to chat with some of the other contesters. Maybe alcohol and music loosened our tongues. At 3am I couldn’t fight against my tiredness. Stephanie and me logged off.

We stayed two more wonderful days in Berlin. Thereby I had the chance to meet Juliane (Jaynine Scarborough, who is one of the protagonists of L2L)  for a great ‘Kartoffel Puffer’ lunch at her neighbour’s place (Please tell her that her ‘Puffers’ were superb) and we also met my editor George Cragg who is looking forward to work on ‘Login 2 Life’.  I hope  we can do so in the near future.-)

Finally I come to the end of the blog entry. We wish you guys a happy new year. Be safe and happy in the next days which are supposed to be calm ones but as we know they often turn out differently.

Daniel

Here the link to the ZDF announcement.

Additional two new pics (I got them from Lucas on the new years eve.-) It shows the winners of the online proposal. The first one shows the winners and the commission editors  (Lucas is standing right next to me on the viewers right. I’m the tall guy with the yellow pullover.-) and so called mentors of the projects. The second one shows just the winners. From left to right: Patrick Doberenz and Philipp Enders, Kaspar von Treeck and Steffen Alberding, Romy Steyer, ‘the lucky yellow me’ Daniel Moshel, Silvia Casalino and last but not least Anil Jacob Kunnel!

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After doing doc research in US, I returned home and produced over a long weekend this answering clip for the online proposal of the German broadcaster ZDF.  It was shot in the nice coffee house (a train cabin named ‘Empire’ Coffee) in Chico, CA. Thx to the great staff there allowing me to disturb (in public hours) their guests.  We are among the 25 finalists of this Bodybits online proposal. On December, 12th this year we will know if the ‘das kleine Fernsehspiel’ decision makers like our project. For me it is an exciting time. Your previously given votes should convince them (because we finished as #1 in the voting) . Thank you. Meanwhile I hope you can enjoy our new developed phone interface.-) Please send us good vibes and thoughts.

FINAL SPURT: We have to mobilize all efforts to win the ZDF voting. Though we are rank one or two, it won’t last without your HELP (because the others try to bring us down).  Not much time left till the voting ends.

Of course I don’t beg you guys without offering you at least something. Here you find our small motivation clip. (@Ensidia: It was great to hang out with you guys on Gamescom 2009. I hope we’ll get another oppertunity.)

It shows some impression of the Gamescom 2009. Ensidia (including Grand Master”Kungen”) was invited to perform some show raids there. If you want to get more insights of Thomas “Kungen” Bengtsson and all other chars featured in the documentary ‘Login 2 Life’ then go and support us in getting all the finances we need to produce this documentary.

Cast your VOTE for ‘Login 2 Life’ till 15th October 09 @ZDF (German Broadcaster. You can look up an English manual on how to vote on Ensidias blog or on our blog here.

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UPDATE

It seems that we are still number one. The final hours of the voting are passing by. The message is still: When you haven’t voted yet then move your a’s and vote! Here I want to link to the communities pushing us at the moment. Thank you so much!

The links are:

• Ensidia News
• Buffed News
• Allvatar News

Of course there are lot more people to thank but this will fill a whole blogentry. For now go and vote till tomorrow(Thursday) midday (CET). THX!