Interviews with Producers, Tiffany Richter and Ryan Navaroli

Produced by Emanuel Gonzalez, Josh White, Lonnie Greenberg and Julia Marino

Interview with Executive Producer Zach Wise

Produced by Emanuel Gonzalez, Josh White, Lonnie Greenberg and Julia Marino

Impressions

Produced by Emanuel Gonzalez, Josh White, Lonnie Greenberg and Julia Marino

Interviews with the Code Team

Produced by Emanuel Gonzalez, Josh White, Lonnie Greenberg and Julia Marino

Interviews with Content Producers, Chad Stevens and Bob Sacha.

Produced by Emanuel Gonzalez, Josh White, Lonnie Greenberg and Julia Marino

As demonstrated in my earlier post, Second Life can never be properly explained in text. Even attempting to come up with a montage of scenes to capture the essence and possibilities of Second Life is difficult.

Andy (Marcellus Cantteneo), who believes that Second Life in its current state is only good for perverts and deviants, suggested he could smoke a bong. There was talk of following him to buy products that would make his avatar a fully equipped male. Yes, a penis.

“Yeah, drugs and sex are okay. Except when I mention alcohol I get a slap on the hand,” said Zach in exasperation.

I can only imagine what the others sitting around us in the Academic Advancement Center, thought about that conversation.

Ryan (Blargo Swindlehurst) was finally able to bring us back to the dialogue we were supposed to be writing, and the rough storyboarding of our actions. Zach seemed tired, but smiled, rubbed his forehead and commented on how glad he was we were doing this piece. According to him, it was a stress reliever. Soon after that he gathered his gear and left us to our own devices, probably wondering if that was such a good idea.

Even though we began our adventure around 3 p.m., filming didn’t begin until almost two hours later, however, as we spent way too much time exploring the capabilities of Second Life and teaching KidCharlie Congrejo how to fall off the roof on cue.

In the five hours we spent in the AAC we learned how to dance, how to push people out of our way, how to give each other clothing, tattoos and other items like hats and blunts. At one point I had to tell Marcellus to shut off his weapons (helpful hint: don’t have or use weapons on OU’s island, you will get kicked off).

KidCharlie, with his cape, straw hat, blunt and glass of water kept experimenting with the “drunk” gesture, trying to perfect his impending fall from the roof of the Arts & Music Center. Marcellus, having had to give up his weapons, would not stop dancing, using the most effeminate dance animation I had seen yet. Blargo kept changing his appearance every five minutes, so I kept losing track of where he was. At one point I overheard two women talking about how they came across what sounded like a nudist island.

It was a chaotic five hours in which we spent maybe half that time actually filming, and even after recording the audio I still have no idea how Blargo’s video will come out or how it will look. But if our experience was any indication, it will probably be just as chaotic and shocking, as it should be.

Check out some behind the scene photos. There is more where that came from so check back often.

Just less than two weeks before the in house deadline for the group, the producers sit out in the grass as the sun goes down to discuss where everyone is at. The projects have been chosen and most of the footage has been shot but the editing process has hardly begun. Finding time in each person’s schedule is difficult as time runs down on this quarter’s school schedule.

“We’re coming really close to the deadline; I really don’t want to add anything to anyone’s plate,” Zach reminds all the producers of the pending internal deadline. Just before this meeting we had a Dawn 2 Dusk meeting where Terry Eiler showed soulofathens.com, where the countdown clock for the whole project was at 18 days.

Ryan the lead animator is sitting next to me and sketching out ideas for the Second Life piece, which is nothing but drawing for right now. Tomorrow a group of us will be sitting in front of the virtual world and ‘filming’ on the ‘Ohio University island.’

The rough video cuts that I have seen so far have been superb, but still rough and the group is quick to critique the work of each of its members. Tonight’s meeting went deep into the night and the group was still looking at videos at 10:30 p.m.

Slowly you can feel the momentum building. Seeing the rough cuts really motivates the gang to go back to the editing room and get moving. After all there is less than two weeks before the project is due.

The Soul of Athens has given a subtle nod to the notorious wave of reality shows and “makings of,” by bringing you a provocative behind the scenes video blog all our own. Ready or not, the team is gearing up to search their souls and reveal the stories behind each successful venture, obstacle and disfigured nose.

For the production of the video blog, I teamed up with three multimedia students: the logical Lonnie, the bearded Manny and Josh, whom recently decided to sport a rat tail. The trio come from the somewhat eccentric lifestyles of cartoon-inspired tattoos and intergalactic skate-park traveling. I knew I was in for a fun adventure.

They set up their cameras in the humid, padded sound booth of the Scripps Multimedia Lab, as I got my journalist’s notepad ready. The room was the antithesis of Pandora’s Box — a confession room where thoughts pertaining to the project would pour into the room (and the camera), rather than out.

We started by bringing in the “Code Team” — the group of clean-cut techies working with ActionScript to make the content a reality. Stay tuned for the first installment of the Soul of Athens video blog and find out what these guys truly believe is the soul of Athens.

Eric Mayville, a senior in the School of Visual Communication and member of the Code Team, gets ready to spill his soul in the sound booth.

I never realized that the Happy Cat was such an anomaly. At least not until last Monday when the producers of Soul of Athens, our guru Brian Storm and I gathered at the multimedia conference room to discuss Soul of Athens. Producers from each section: Creativity, Spirituality, Environment, Characters and Youth updated the team on the status of their most promising stories.

Here was the initial dialogue:

Brian: “How’s it going?”
Producer: “Well it’s practically done (laughs). No…We’re a big step ahead from when you were in Athens last time.”
Brian: “What’s the process now?”
Producer: “I think the key now is that we actually have a plan, which I find very comforting (more laughs).”

Aside from going over the plan in-depth, some light was randomly shed on the miraculous creation called the “drive-through.” Unbeknownst to me, the drive-through is a rare convenience only found in Ohio. New York city-slicker Brian referred to the local drive-throughs as “epically cool,” as we all imagined taxis picking up a six-pack at the drive- through on 5th Avenue.

Most importantly, the topic of the drive-through led us into a thought-provoking discussion on drinking in Athens.

It is no secret that Ohio University has a renowned reputation as one of the greatest party schools in America. And “quite frankly, drinking is a really big thing here,” one producer said. However, the attention that Ohio University has received on the issue is not always desired, specifically by the school’s administration.

The discussion stirred in the group many reactions about why the Soul of Athens cannot cover drinking in Athens, “which seems to be a big story here,” added Brian.

Enter Zach Wise: “Drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll? Fine. Drinking? Not so fine.”

I was relieved to know that, PBR aside, footage taken at the Union, as well as my juicy blog entries, would be acceptable by those concerned at Ohio University. In many respects, it’s difficult to deny the presence of such provocative elements when encompassing soul in Athens. To close a blind eye to important issues may lack as much sense as a cement mixer.

But with that said, despite the school’s reputation, many sober people actually do exist. Some are straight edge, some are recovering alcoholics, some have healthier things to do with their time. And their stories juxtaposed to the surroundings, we agreed could make for enlightening visual journalism. Thus, more brainstorming with Brian Storm ensued:

Producer: “If we show a personal story and not speak for the whole of students at Ohio University…people might tolerate it. Plus, the story could give a perspective that would be interesting to hear…”

Whether a new story would come of the debate, we have yet to know, but our minds were brewing like Jackie O’s.