At the end of September there was a world premiere for the Tiny Nation machinima. This has since been gathering a lot of praise and laughter from the many Second Life blogs and web sites. It is a machinima, and it was shot entirely inside Second Life using avatars from Loco Pocos.

According to the official Second Life site, machinama is “the art of making real movies in virtual worlds.

Movies made in Second Life use the world’s building, scripting, and avatar customization tools, working in real-time collaboration with people around the globe. You can use Second Life as your own virtual back lot, soundstage, choreography studio, costume and prop repository, and special effects house.

Eric Linden has been encouraging this kind of creativity for a long time, and indeed he has set up a Second Life wiki for existing machinima creators, and for those wanting to find out more. He has also produced a downloadable set of “tips on making Machinima in Second Life as well as his thoughts on producing and directing the proof of concept demo for his film Silver Bells and Golden Spurs.”

These are not the only machinima ver made in Second Life. There have been a lot.  For a look at the bigger picture, check out Machinima.com, which has a gallery of Second Life creations, as well as galleries of machinima made in other environments.

You can also check on YouTube for Arcada’s own creations, including the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest entry from the ignored and reviled island of Rosario.