Just a quick entry to say Hua Mulan is my favourite film from 2009.

I loved Zhao Wei’s acting in The Red Cliff and she gives a memorable performance as Hua Mulan, the woman who dressed as a man and went to war in place of her father, raising in the military to become a brilliant and respected general.

Also a great performance from Hu Jun as the ruthless Mendu. I loved Hu Jun in The Red Cliff as the patriotic and righteous General Zilong so it was a real treat to see him as the antagonist in this film.

Super camera and editing work, spot-on period costumes, engaging character development and excellent production values all round plus some of my favourite Chinese battle scenes, classic and realistic formation style combat.

There are certainly some other good films in 2009, from all around the world, but this was a real stand-out for me. Besides, it was directed by Jingle Ma, easily one of the best director names ever.

A quick video journal of the wildlife on HatHead I & II islands before development begins. The ground level of the HatHead islands are open, peaceful natural spaces populated with virtual marine and terrestrial wildlife.

As in real life, animal habitats are about to be destroyed by encroaching virtual land developments. I had already interfered with the sea turtle’s migration route during the installation of the anandra Gallery island entrance.

This was also an interesting experiment from an educational perspective for, after creating and populating a natural world, I know firsthand what development will do to the ecosystem.

This concept would make a cool educational project, where the students create a detailed virtual world for endangered species and then examine the impact of development and other threats to the ecosystem.

Filming this virtually was kind of like what I imagine filming nature in real life to be like: mostly waiting around. Some of the creatures’ behaviours could not be so easily modified on the spot, so I had to track down and follow animals to try and get a good shot, often missing the best ones.

Lastly, I got a Mac a week ago and this is my first all Mac machinima; more of a test with no fancy camera moves or nothing yet but still putting some Mac into Machinima.

Here is the video I mention in the previous post where Fire Centaur shot me with a video block head on top of my Second Life avatar body. As I mentioned earlier, the shoot was quite traditional in its process except that it all took place virtually with Fire Centaur directing me via Skype on the set using a script on a notecard.

A bit rudimentary as more work has been done on tighter fitting face masks and the film was shot with a free camera (as opposed to a machinima SL camera system) but an excellent proof of concept, especially since the whole idea was less then a day or so old.

In addition to better video face masks, I have also made a most excellent spacesuit so I can be a kind of ‘realitynaught’, directly inside SL, with my real life face peering from behind the safety of the virtual glass helmet. (not in this video)

This video is also an excellent example of language learning in virtual worlds as I learn to say “hello” in Korean. I am scheduled to be participate in a shoot for SBS TV in Korea inside SL wearing my mixed reality avatar to talk about Fire’s SL english language school tomorrow.