IllBixby Cerveau on Nonprofits and Professional Machinima Production

On Friday April 1, we at the Nonprofit Commons had a great conversation with master machinimist IllBixby Cerveau / aka Frank Dellario in the real world, head of Pixel Valley Studios , formerly of Ill Clan Studios. He is an award-winner machinima producer, responsible for major digital video productions for CBS, MTV, and Intel among many others. IllBixby came by the Nonprofit Commons to talk with us about how nonprofits can benefit from professionally produced machinima , and how to think about this new medium.

Among some of IllBixby’s key points:

Why machinima is important for audiences outside of Second Life:

Rik Riel and Illbixby Cerveau at NPC meeting 040111 bSecond Life is an experience. Being here in this meeting for example, is a dynamic experience for us. But for someone outside of SL, we’re just standing around and I’m waving my hands on an imagionary keyboard. Machinimsts, we think of the final product, a flat, 2D video that we need to shoot, and edit so that it conveys to some degree this experience.

What machinima does for nonprofits:

The point [of machinima] is to convey, as best we can, the sense of “being” here to someone watching a video of what is an experience. [W]e think of what it will be like in the viewer’s chair sitting in front of a computer, watching your video on YouTube. The result is what we convey, and keeping them interested, intrigued, so they watch the whole video, and get your message.

Why he likes working with nonprofits:

Though the “big boys” may have lots of money, nonprofits are, for some reason, by nature, awesome clients . We know you have constraints. What we love about nonprofits, is they are always willing to talk, “Hey this is my budget, or we’re trying to to X, what do you suggest?” Maybe you just have existing footage, or one shot that we can shoot, that will help out your video project. So please, don’t feel limited in talking to us, machinimists in general, just because of your money constraints.

For more info see their website, contact Frank Dellario at frank@pixelvalleystudio.com, and follow them on twitter @pixelvalley.

Written by: rikomatic