Beginnings

= The Story Behind My SecondLife = Follow a team of arts educators who participated in the 2008 Governors Institute for Arts Educators CAP's Leadership Group, and their adventures in creating an imagined historical persona: AbrahamLincoln Magic, scripts for two scenes, and filming of the character in the 3D virtual world of SecondLife. Below you can see artifacts of their process.

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**RealLife Team**
Camille Dempsey l, research, character creation, costuming, set design Jody Guy, research, script writing, editing Linda Johnson, research, script writing Cheryl Soltis, research, production manager Mara Linaberger, filming, research, technology consulting James Hausman III, the voice of Lincoln, linguist Danielle Crowe, technical consultant Ginger Smith, diversity consultant [|Jodi Hopper-Staniunas], gallery exhibit design Tyler Stauffer, blog development, project documentation

**SecondLife Team**
AbrahamLincoln Magic, find me on Facebook Popolohua Heron (Mara) Jiminy Jishnu (Camille) Sol Jayaram (Cheryl)

=The Finished Product= Below are two short Machinima, created with AbrahamLincoln Second life. They were edited in iMovie and then uploaded to YouTube for ease of sharing. Enjoy!

Scene 1: Dear Ann
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Scene 2: Panegyric
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=Brainstorming= The group gathered to talk about machinma, technical aspects, concepts related to Abraham Lincoln. Each contributor shared their expertise, and how they could add to the project. The character, "AbrahamLincoln Magic", was purposefully constructed as an African American, to promote aesthetic response to the work. Ginger Smith counseled the group on sensitivity to racial issues relative to the project.

=Script Research= Jody, Linda and Cheryl began to research Lincoln. They discovered the story of Ann Rutledge, and her possible connection to Lincoln. They also discovered many resources which pointed to the impact of new and emerging technology on Lincoln, his life, and his subsequent actions. The team decided to take these two ideas, and to craft vignettes to feature the two stories, connected through the concept of Lincoln's SecondLife.

=SecondLife Research= Camille created an account for the character, AbrahamLincoln Magic. She began working on his facial features, crafting an avatar which looked similar to the historical figure. Mara began to search for costuming, and site locations for machinima filming. She accomplished this by utilizing her own avatar, Popolohua Heron. Once the island of "Land of Lincoln" was located in SecondLife, Camille and Mara began to explore various spots as potential scene locations. They settled on the graveyard as the location for scene 1, and outside the graveyard, moving towards the White House as the setting for scene 2. = = =Technical Components= Camille and Mara consulted with Danielle Crowe to locate a software package called ISeeU, which was purchased, downloaded, and installed. The software enabled real-time action in SecondLife to be recorded as video. A recording studio was set up with 2 computers, and a simple headset microphone. Several weeks after the Governors Institute had concluded, Mara imported both machinima pieces into iMovie, cropped them to remove the desktop icons, and uploaded the finished projects to YouTube and TeacherTube.

=Production= Once scripting was complete, staging and blocking of the SecondLife characters was done. James Hausman III was recruited to serve as the "voice of Lincoln". The procedure to record in SecondLife included the following steps:
 * 1) Set up the avatars and camera angles
 * 2) Consider aesthetic nature of the screen capture, and adjust avatars to create a pleasing image
 * 3) Open and engage the recording software, then minimize the software to allow the SecondLife screen to be recorded
 * 4) Narrator begins to read the text, and avatars are either allowed to remain still, or they are moved through the use of a mouse
 * 5) Once narration ends, the software interface is maximized, and the recording is stopped
 * 6) ISeeU automatically saves the file to the desktop

=Self-Assessments= This project has had elements of self-reflection woven throughout it. Audio of planning and recording has been collected, and conversations have been documented. Photos have been taken. Each team member has completed a self-evaluation and has had their work evaluated by others in a viewing. = =

http://artseducator20.wikispaces.com/Lincoln%27s+SecondLife