I started attending the Arizona International Film Festival eight years ago. I took a week off work to see the films, and came back to tell people how enjoyable it was to just sit and watch thirty movies. "Dirty movies?" they would ask. "No, not dirty, thirty!" To avoid further confusion, I quickly switched to saying "I spent the week watching 25 to 35 independent films."

A few weeks ago, the Arizona International Film Festival notified me that my 2007 System Storage video has been recognized for a technical award under the category of "Innovative use of Technology for Animated Short Film." I will receive the award in person this evening, April 1, at the opening ceremony, which starts at 6:00pm, at the [Fox Theater] in downtown Tucson, Arizona.

As is the case with the Oscars and Grammies, technical awards are handed out in smaller ceremonies in advance of the primary award ceremony that recognizes the best actors, directors and films, which will be held April 9.

The backstory of my entry is pretty amusing. Back in 2007, I was asked to run a [Product Launch in Second Life], a virtual world environment. If you are not familiar with [Second Life], think [World of Warcraft] for business executives.

In this virtual world, avatars representing IBM executives and marketing managers would present our latest products to avatars of the IBM Business Partners, Industry Analysts and the Press. A short "highlights" video that stitched together bits and pieces of the 90-minute event was used by executives at conferences and road shows. I submitted this shortened version to the Airzona International Film Festival back in 2008, so I am glad the judges had finally gotten around to review it. Here it is uploaded as a [YouTube video]:

During the event, I captured the real-time video from my laptop screen using a tool called [FRAPS]. I also had some of my colleagues capture video from different angles in case we needed these in post-production. The technique of capturing computer-generated 3D video from a computer screen is known as Machinima.

I was in Bogota Columbia that week teaching a Top Gun class. I got to the IBM building only to discover the firewall would not let me get through to the Second Life website, so I took a taxi back to the hotel and ran the event from their business center. Then the unthinkable happened, and I got to experience [Columbia's worst power outage in 22 years], in which 98 percent of the country lost power. Luckily, I had enough battery charge on my laptop and was still connected to the Internet to continue with the rest of the event.