I've been..........

I think i'm getting used to being on SL...

and unlike before where I would point out little details about the game, I think somewhere I'm not even seeing them anymore...

I must say though I do feel strange time and again...
Over the last week I have befriended two three people that I have really connected with.
And lying by a pool, or amidst trees near the sea, I really do feel like I'm closer to them... even though I have no idea what they must really look like or sound like etc.

Recently I have acquired a ton of clothes, costumes, underwear and skin! (nipples too... heh heh)

And I'm starting to enjoy dressing myself up... wearing black lace underwear is cool (on SL!)
But for the most part, its about making my appearance look the way I want others to see me as. And yesterday I was told I looked sexy. (yay!)

The other day I saw a couple making out in a car, and this was the first time in SL that I had seen any public display of affection (I think it has to do with the places I was visiting too...) Anyhow I decided to film this, I took a few shots, feeling a little voyeuristic and wrong but did it all the same... then I decided I'll put myself in the frame and laugh or smile or something while they make out because they looked really funny...
So I sat myself down next to the car and looked up at them at started to laugh... suddenly I get a message from the guy in the car (funnily enough it had to be the guy) saying, "yes... can I help you." I was jolted out of my little fun game of laughing and filming and suddenly felt very wrong to be sitting there... but then I told him what I was doing, and that I was student... Both him and the woman began to laugh and said "yea yea go ahead you can film this."
There were a few shots though that I couldn't take on my own... so I phoned Arun, both faculty and friend to join me there and shoot it from his laptop at home...
When Arun showed up his avatar had the same glitch that Trisham's had earlier, where he's dancing everywhere and can't stop!!!
So the girl in the car sees this and says are you guys making a Bollywood film here! HaHaHa!
It ended up being quite fun and strange too, to direct online and get the shots I wanted. And in the end, the two perfect strangers (two perfectly strange avatars even) in the car, have now become real people to me, and I might even be able to call them friends.

THEN!!!....yesterday I had sex on SL! That was a truly outrageous and funny situation... There are people everywhere, doing it with the next person that comes along... the prescripted animations are so mechanical and the face has no expression unless you give it one...
and there is actually no control... you do whatever the script has in store for you. Bodies don't even meet, people kiss without their lips even connecting and it is really really funny to look at!
There was something that got to me though.... in that room full of 'good looking people,' there was this one guy, who was big and fat and hairy (he had nipple piercings too) anyhow... the thing was that nobody wanted to do him! And in SL a space where you can look like anything you want to, he chose to look like that... and he was just walking around the room, looking at people and every once in a while he had this strange smile on his face...
I think now I should have spoken to him... but at the same time it's nice not knowing...

All these things I've been talking about I filmed and will use for the final film... I don't know if I want to put up the footage as of right now so I don't ruin the effect of the finished film...

But I've been wonderin... what kind of rights issues will I face? Filming people without their consent... I wonder if they'll get angry and have a problem with it...! If anyone knows about the legalities of non-fiction filming in Second Life... please let me know!

Ok well... back to work for now...

Anyhow... I will be putting up some more video tests perhaps, to get some feedback with technique from my invisible crew that's out there somewhere!