Where the hell is Socks?

The making of... Exclusive to SurfWatch.

Senior Furry Correspondent Socks Clawtooth walks us through the making of his new video documentary on Second Life surfing ''Where the Hell is Socks?' For the record, Socks did all of his own stunts in this video, none of the stunts in the video were faked and, you'll be pleased to hear, no furries were harmed in its filming.

27 sims, less than 5 minutes. Well, 28 if you count the sim hop I did at Rasta (the white line you see me cross is a border). Having watched surf movies like 'Step into Liquid'' and Endless Summer', not to mention being a fanatical Warren Miller fan, I took things to a logical extension when I filmed this. Also add 'Where the Hell is Matt?' Matt is a guy who's traveled the globe, stood in front of the sights, and danced. Matt's YouTube video is incredible to see where he's been. So, being a Second Life citizen, I did it my way. The opening music is what he used in his video, if you've never seen it.

Filming 'machinma' like this is pretty easy: if you have the right equipment. If you've got a decent computer, FRAPPS is a good option. Unfortunately, my computer is behind held together with spit, bailing wire and faith, so I used what I had. S-video output to a camcorder, and you've got Second Life on a tiny screen!

Next was the camera. Second Life camera follow modes, well, are bad for film making. If you're doing an 'I've been there' video, it's fine. But if you're moving, the camera wants to snap to the back of your head, or thereabouts. So enter my buddy. He's the fox you see at Neart drinking the beer. We set up that account as a camera account, and run two computers on the same router on Second Life. Wireless. Yeah, it amazed us too.

I took the slow one to surf on, he took the fast one to film on, and started sim-hopping. For a week before hand I put together the travel plan, how the video could be done the most efficiently. We did a test shoot on Manjini Island and it worked out well. So we went full tour-de-force. It took a couple of nights, a couple dozen crashes, and wading through awful lag to get 'the shot', but in the end, I'm happy with the result.

The other thing about the documentary is that it's also a time capsule. Sunset Strip is gone now, the sim owner kicked 'em out from what I understand. The JSA beach may go back to Epics sooner or later. And who knows when beaches will change the layouts, the speed, or even the existence of the waves? My 'privateer' rides may not exist next month, let alone tomorrow! Second Life is always in motion, always changing. So this is a snapshot of 28 Second Life beaches from May 2008.

However, one of the main reasons I wanted to do this video was to encourage people to sim hop. See what the scene is like all over the grid. I've already heard from a few people who said "Wow, I didn't know there was that many places to go!" In all reality, we left a lot out, and some of the bigger sims too. Plus in the last few weeks, a lot of new beaches have opened up. So yes, part two is being planned.

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