Second Life

During the screening of "Four Eyed Monsters," some interesting questions were raised about different forms of theater 'venues' and how they can impact the experience of watching a film. Everyone has been in a movie theater with that 'one person' who refuses to shut up. When watching a film in a Second Life, it's easy to type a text message to everyone in the theater because that communication creates no sound. Some people are bothered by this on-screen text chatter; many people who did chat during the film screening were told to: "STOP TALKING" and to "pLEASE shhhhhhh".

The following excerpt from the chat transcript reveals a great example of where text chat occurred during a film screening. People have just witnessed a scene in the film where one of the main characters (played by Susan Buice, AKA Animal Foxley), is doing a strip tease with a subway pole.

[17:46] Animal Foxley: it's cool with me if you talk (susan here)
[17:46] Animal Foxley: /interesting for me
[17:52] Animal Foxley: i cleaned the pole first
[17:53] Zimadori Willis: /haha i was gonna say susan, man
[17:53] Montgomery Wexler: haha good
[17:53] Neshek Seelowe: i hope so
[17:53] Animal Foxley: didn 't clean it after though
[17:53] Animal Foxley: we got kicked off
[17:53] Neshek Seelowe: yeah i try not to touch poles in the subway
[17:53] Casey Oherlihy: how often do you get asked that susan?
[17:53] Animal Foxley: everytimne we screen
[17:53] Neshek Seelowe: what line was that on?
[17:54] Animal Foxley: jmz
[17:54] Neshek Seelowe: just road it to brooklyn late or something?
[17:54] Animal Foxley: super late night
[17:54] Neshek Seelowe: cool
[17:54] Neshek Seelowe: figured
[17:54] Animal Foxley: back and forth
[17:54] Decklin Tilling: / STFU

You can see right away that this situation could never happen in a regular movie screening. People would not be able to follow the movie and the conversation the way they can in Second Life.

So how does text chatting change the film-going experience? We would love to hear your thoughts, so please take the time to create or join in on one of our discussions. There is a link at the bottom of each blog post that will help you join the discussions area.