by Pollywog Gardenvale

Pollywog:  Tell me Silvae, what exactly do you do at Sky News?

Silvae:  I’m a video editor.

Pollywog:   So, how did you come to be involved with this project?

Silvae:  I came up with this crazy idea to try to set up a presence in Second life. Nicola Jude, a colleague who is also a video editor, and I started pitching it to Sky at the beginning of the year. It took many attempts and pitching at various levels within the organization for them to start taking us seriously. And eventually we got a budget through the PR department, and that’s how we set up this island. The logic is obvious—that by using publicity money, it would be sort of a publicity stunt, to a greater or lesser degree. We were quite aware of that, but we were also aware that we didn’t want it ever to just be just a publicity stunt. For us this is a long-term project and something that we want to develop. We work project-by-project, and the projects revolve around the events that we put on here at the center.

Pollywog:  So you are the person who initiated this project! That’s hard to do in a big
company, to come up with a creative idea that’s something new—companies generally don’t like to go out on a limb with anything new. I can tell that this studio was intended for more than just a one-time event. It’s very sophisticated and I’d say seems like a very generous project because you have created something that is a real educational resource.

Watching the arrest
of Boy George

Silvae:  Even before this particular idea came up, I was aware that Sky News is quite good at embracing, let’s say slightly more risky, crazy ideas that come from anywhere in the field. And they’re very willing to try out new things. They’re very keen to be at the forefront. I guess that’s their main motto—to be first at everything, whether it’s at delivering the news or with using new technology—that’s their motto and that’s what they try to do. They enjoy taking risks. But having said that, it was quite a lengthy process until we got somebody to take us seriously and for us to find the money—>it was quite a job.

Pollywog:  I understand you worked with the agency, Rivers Run Red, to build this? How were they involved?

Silvae:  We actually looked at them as well as IBM. We had spoken to some metaverse evangelists from IBM who were great and had a lot of cool ideas, and were very enthusiastic about it. But when we actually got down to the nitty gritty, we found it was much more corporate and rigid than we had anticipated. It was much more difficult to present crazy ideas to them, or for them to, for that matter, come up with crazy ideas for us. We were also starting to talk to Rivers Run Red. They are, you know, a young company, they’re a design company.

Pollywog:  Yes, they’re a creative firm and it sounds like that’s what you needed.

Silvae:  Exactly. So we have a really great relationship with them, and they’ve done a fantastic job for us here. They helped us with the launch of this island, as well, where we had this big event. We simulcast a real world live interview on TV into Second Life and recorded that, and put it back out onto live TV. It was a show that cut in between the real life guests and interviewer, and the Second Life guests and interviewer, and audience—in fact, there was only a Second Life audience. This was quite cool. So if you were watching TV, one moment you were watching the people conducting the interview with the guests, and the next thing the interviewer is taking questions from the audience—and the audience is made up of avatars.

Pollywog:  And what was the response from the audience?

Silvae:  The Second Life audience was very enthusiastic and responded very well. They liked the idea of us trying something new and different.

Pollywog:  Can you tell me more about the satellite truck and your broadcast from the Hay Festival?

Silvae:  Well, it wasn’t happening near or at a studio—it was in the middle of a field outside a little village called Hay on Wye. I say little field, but of course it had been rigged up with lots of tents and generators and all kinds of stuff. One of these tents was for Sky One, which is another channel from the Sky stable. And our political correspondent, Adam Boulton, was hosting his Sunday Live show from this location.

Pollywog:  Oh, so that’s the connection! I was wondering what you were doing out in a field with bales of hay on a rainy day.

Silvae:  It was the Guardian Book Festival—The Hay on Wye Book Festival. Their webpage is: www.hayfestival.com. So, this is where we were going to have to do our thing, as well. While the interviews were going on in the tent, the guys from Rivers Run Red were working the avatars (sitting in that tent also to watch and mimic their actions). I was in the satellite truck, where the computer was set up that would have its output recorded. This output being my camera view of the event inside SL. The director of the show got to cut between the live cameras that were in the tent filming the event, and my virtual camera.

That is how SL ended up being part of a live international TV broadcast! :-)

Pollywog:   So how many people did it take to do this?

Silvae:  Hmmmm...the live broadcast had nothing to do directly with us. We were simply piggy-backing on that. So, purely to get SL integrated it was five of us (two from the RRR camp), and not just any old two either—it was Justin Bovington (owner of RRR) and his wife Louise who were helping us out! You could say that we were all very excited and in the spirit of the thing and the adverse conditions (the weather, computers crashing, etc, etc) just made the experience that much more intense. :-D You can also see clips from our launch event on YouTube.

Pollywog:   Oh, I’d like to see that!

Silvae:  I like the idea of the overlap between the real and virtual. As far as the augmentists vs. the immersionists debate goes, I’m on the augmentist side. I would like to see things like these virtual worlds used as tools—but not completely—I’m not saying to the exclusion of the immersionistic experience, but my personal interest is to see this used as a tool. How can it enhance what we do in everyday life?

Pollywog:  That’s one thing that is clear about your place here... it’s outward reaching—you’re bringing real world news in here.

Silvae:  That was the intent.

Pollywog:  I would contrast this with what CNN is doing. They launched their in-world presence last week and are looking for Second Life news to send out to the real world. I’m a bit of a news junkie, but am more interested in what’s happening in the real world and how this technology can dove-tail with projects of value.

Silvae:  Exactly. That’s how I feel as well.

Pollywog:  Have you had any success working with educational institutions?

Silvae:  Well, we actually have been talking to a university here in the UK that has a department dedicated to new media. The idea is to spread the experience, and also to see what university students who are thinking about this cutting-edge media all the time—how they would like to see it used and implemented, and what functions they can think up for it.

Pollywog:  That sounds like a natural fit. But also beyond that, this could even be a destination stop for younger students who are considering a career in journalism. Because you can come in here and play... you can role play and sit down and the desk and see the facility. This would make an ideal experience for a group of high
school students.

Silvae:  Quite right. And in fact, one of the features that we initially set out to create in the newsroom are spots where you can learn about who sits where, and what their job function is, and what they do, and how it all fits into putting news on TV. So far it’s gotten as far as videos that are available at various desks that you can watch. These are videos of people who work at Sky talking about what they do. We want to extend that into a narrative that has little posts—if that’s the right word—where you can follow the story as it is first received, how the story is sourced, and how it is produced, researched, and eventually broadcast. And so that’s the next step.

You can find this map of the studio on the wall in the lobby.

Silvae:  You can sit in the presenter’s chair and as soon as you sit down, your avatar is directed toward the teleprompters. If you click your video play button, the teleprompter starts scrolling text. It’s basically text that tells you about the teleprompter and how presenters read it, and how they have to be able to focus on it and not get distracted by the noises in the studio—it’s actually a very noisy place. It gives you a chance to read along.

So it’s a little exercise to see how well you would cope trying to read the teleprompter.

Pollywog:  Can we go in there now and see that?

Silvae:  Sure. Let’s have a go at that! So here we have the teleprompters and you can either sit down in the chairs over there, but you have to zoom in a bit. As you press play on your video tab, that little thing should start playing.

Pollywog:  Oh thanks! I notice that you have a different backdrop here. I see now that this is scrollable and can be changed. I didn’t notice that the other day. There were women in burkas up there.

Silvae:  That’s right. We initially set out to create many generic backdrops, so that people can use it for their story. There are crime, and university hospital-related stories, and whatever else. The idea is that people can use it to actually watch videos, but also to play around and sit in the presenter’s chair. It can be used as a backdrop for telling stories and for recording themselves on video.

Pollywog:  Being able to produce a machinima in this studio would be of such value to a class.

Silvae:  Yeah, it could, and we thought it would also spark the imagination.

One of the first events we put on that worked rather well was to have an actual reporter—a Sky News reporter—make an appearance here and talk about, for example, what it means to be a crime reporter and take people on a little tour around the studio. He told the audience where people sit and explained how the studio works and took them into the gallery as well, behind you. I don’t know if you’ve been in there yet.

Pollywog:  Yes, I did get a chance to see that.

Visiting the Sky News gallery

Silvae:  It’s a pretty accurate representation of what our gallery looks like. And yeah, so that’s pretty cool. We’re going to do more of those tours around the studio to explain what goes on. Because that is the fun thing, I guess, walking around. You get a real sense of how this place works.

Pollywog:  Yes, and you really would need a guided tour to appreciate everything that’s going on here.

Silvae:  Yeah, it’s true. But hopefully those “explainers” that we’re planning to have, sort of “The Story of News,” hopefully will add a little more content to the space to explain how things work.

Watching one of my favorites—the weather report!

Pollywog:  Well, you certainly have a lot of good information here with the videos and notecards. People can tour around and learn quite a lot.

Silvae:  But you said earlier that you said maybe students or younger people would be able to benefit from a space like this. But am I not understanding correctly that Second Life, this Main Grid is off limits to under eighteen?

Pollywog:  That’s true! So they would have to be eighteen or over. Too bad, because this would be a wonderful experience for younger people to have.

Silvae:  You’re not the first person who has said that, and we do agree that ideally we would like to make it available to everyone. But I guess we started out using Second Life as a platform. We didn’t start out by saying, OK, we’re going to create an educational tool, what is the best platform to use? So now we’re here and just trying to push this platform as far as we can take it. If we were to focus more specifically on education, we might have to rethink it.

Pollywog:  I think this would be of real interest to schools here in the United States...I would love to see that happen.

Silvae:  We will definitely be heading in that direction.

Pollywog:  But as it is right now, is it open for anyone to come in and explore?

Silvae:  Yes, indeed.

A few days later I asked Silvae to stop by my office so I could take his picture for the first page of this article, and I happened to mention that I had been introduced to Sky News by a young guy I met at CNN. So when I noticed that Keno was online, I invited him over for a chat. Here's what happened:

Pollywog:  Hi Keno, this is Silvae.

Keno:  Hello! Nice to meet you.

Silvae:  I hear you want to work for CNN.

Keno:  Yes, I absolutely do.

Silvae:   Cool, have you made any progress with the SL CNN effort?

Keno:  Yes, I have had several reports published by CNN, and at some of the meetings the staff was telling me that they were great and that I was a superb iReporter. I was surprised they thought they were good.

Silvae:   Wow—that sounds great! Where can I go to see them?

Keno:   Oh, well, they were posted on cnn.com/secondlife, but it only shows like the latest ten or so, and all mine are older.

Silvae:  So, are you planning to start doing a runner job or internship at a news station?

Keno:  Yes I want to. I am currently a senior in high school and am going half day to a career center. I am in the media class there, but they don’t do much video editing related stuff, but I helped out with the video mixer and camera setup at a skate park dedication party that was sponsored by my career center. And the second year of the program they try to set you up with internships, so I hope that I get to do one. But in a lot of my free time I like to make news videos and then add some animations, banners, tickers, and I even made a 3D studio for intros outros in Garrysmod—its a mod for a game called Half-Life 2 which basically lets you spawn things and place them to make things.

Silvae:  Sounds like you are doing a lot of very cool things!

Keno:   To be honest, I don’t really like being a reporter/journalist. I enjoy working with video equipment and video editing.

Silvae:  Right, so why the focus on news—or is that just incidental?

Keno:   I like journalism, I’m just not good at it. Although my journalism teacher thought I was, I’m not as good as most other people in the class.

Silvae:  Well, if you are keen on journalism, you will end up doing much more than video editing. At least that is my experience. I bet you will get to do camera work as well. But what is it specifically you are after? Do you want to be a journo ultimately or work behind the scenes?

Keno:  I definitely want to work behind the scenes. It’s the style and atmosphere of news that I would like to be a part of.

Silvae:  Yeah, that is quite a unique and exciting vibe—one I only discovered when I started working for Sky News. Before that my focus was on post production.

I started at Sky News when the tsunami hit South-East Asia and that was trial by fire—or water, as it were! I was working at the Sky News centre in London. But from one day to the next it just took off. And you see and experience everyone doing their thing. It is a very tightly knit environment. And very exciting under those circumstances—especially because Sky News focuses on live breaking news. That is different from most other news broadcasters. It is more hectic and crazy and thrilling!

Keno:  See, that’s why I want to work in the news environment, because its mostly live and always new, and it’s like you have an eye on the world, and you never know what’s coming next.

Silvae:  Very true Keno! I enjoy going in every day and not knowing what lies ahead! But most of the time is more relaxed actually...

Keno:  What exactly do you do at Sky News?

Silvae:  I’m a video editor.

Keno:  So, you like edit clips and put them together and add overlays and stuff like that?

Silvae:  Reporter arrives with camera tapes, although these days they get digitised by the library—the whole environment is networked. We usually edit with the reporter / sometimes producer. We record his voice track, add any graphics, do the animations, if there is time, a treated sequence (something more eye-catching) and like that. If things are very hectic we have about an hour for the story. It is not unusual to complete the edit with only a minute to spare...

Pollywog:  That must be very exciting and hair raising—look what it’s done to your hair!

Silvae:  Exactly! Ha ha.

Keno:  See, there are several different things I would enjoy doing—setting up live shots/operating cameras, working in the control room, (or control rooms for individual sets), doing video editing.

Silvae:  Well, since my only experience of a news environment is Sky News, I will tell you about that. People move around a lot. If somebody wants to, they can choose to do different jobs. They are very accommodating. I bet that lies in the nature of the industry and you may find the same at CNN or wherever. Keno, would you like to join our Sky News friends group? That way I can keep you informed about events at Sky News.

Keno:  Thanks!

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