Douglas Gayeton (aka Molotov Alva) shines in both lives, publishes sumptuous book

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Allow me to correct a common misperception about the quality of people who inhabit virtual worlds. While mindless jerks, drones and memes (not unique to virtual environments) certainly have a presence, scores of the most interesting folks I've met in any life first became known to me in avatar form. Take Douglas Gayeton, for example.

His acclaimed 2007 ten-episode film and documentary "Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator," was shot entirely in Second Life®, acquired by HBO and screened on Cinemax. He has created content for many social network and virtual world platforms including Gaia, Habbo Hotel and Sony’s Playstation Home. He lives in Northern California on a goat farm that produces Laloos Goat’s Milk Ice Cream. In 2003, commissioned by PBS and POV to document Italy's Slow Food movement, he trained his camera and his questions on the lives of people from the town of Pistoia, Italy.

Now a gorgeous hardcover book, Slow Life in a Tuscan Town, featuring recipes alongside his charmingly scribbled notes a top sepia photographs captured during his numerous visits to rural Italy, will be on the shelves next month, prefaced by Carlo Petrinim with an introduction by my culinary hero, Alice Waters.



I'm proud to call Douglas a friend and a member of our virtual worlds working group Not Possible IRL, and I've never met him in person. My hope is that someday we will cook for each other. I bet he'd like my risotto.

Watch all ten episodes of Molotov Alva's "My Second Life" on your 'puter - Will there be a sequel?

A little over a year ago, HBO acquired the ten-episode series My Second Life: The video diaries of Molotov Alva, which had been shot entirely in Second Life®, and written, directed and produced by NPIRLer Molotov Alva (aka Douglas Gayeton). It later aired on Cinemax, after the first episode became a smash hit on YouTube practically overnight.

The possibility of a sequel was never far-fetched, and Douglas - a filmmaker, television producer, and multimedia artist in Real Life - gave it the working title "Futuretopia: The further adventures of Molotov Alva," or alternatively, "Brave New World," a line he states repeatedly in My Second Life.

Douglas has since parted ways with Submarine, the Dutch company he partnered with to produce My Second Life, so he was more than surprised - he tells me - to learn today that they have been approaching folks about appearing in their sequel.

When I asked Douglas about this, he replied, "Imitation is a sincere form of flattery. It also gets you sued."

You can watch all ten episodes of the series in the USA here.
If you are in Europe, you can watch them here.

Go Deeper into the World of Molotov Alva

Today, the work of two of our own, Molotov Alva (aka Douglas Gayeton) and the King of the Hobos, Orhalla Zander, will premiere exclusively on Cinemax at 8:00pm (ET/PT): the first three episodes of a ten-part Machinima called Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey .

Hamlet Au just did a beautiful profile piece about Orhalla on his New World Notes , and Eric Reuters published an interesting interview with Molotov, too. You can also read an interview with Molotov conducted by HBO here.

In addition to the broadcast on Cinemax, the in-world premiere of the first two episodes will be shown at the new Cinemax sim at 5pm SLT today (teleport directly from here).

Given the importance of this effort to virtual worlds, I was honored when Molotov and Oz invited me to prepare a tour within Second Life® to be offered alongside a tour of their own design via kiosks at locations where the filming took place. Knowing my fixation on things NPIRL (Not Possible in Real Life), Molotov was quick to point out that I had to design a journey to closely parallel each episode in the film, so not everything you will see on it is NPIRL. Most of it is, though!

HBO acquires machinima "My Second Life" - Molotov Alva's video diaries

HBO announced today that it has aquired a documentary that was filmed entirely in-world.

Our very own Orhalla Zander, founder and King of the SecondLife Hobos group (more of a tribe if you ask me, and I'm happy to say I'm one of them!), has been working for some time now as art director and assistant director on the 7-episode Machinima "My Second Life."

Here is a somewhat blurry version with Portuguese subtitles, so please do realize that it is best to view it directly from their website.


The virtual biopic narrates the story of Molotov Alva - played by Douglas Gayeton, director of the pixelated documentary - after he disappears from his home in Petaluma, California. You will all recognize many SL locations that have been used for the shoot.

Hamlet Au of New World Notes was the first to break the news, and subsequently Reuters has carried the story worldwide.

HBO is owned by Time Warner, Inc. and the piece is slated to air sometime in 2008.

We asked Orhalla today how he thinks the mainstream world will react to My Second Life, and he replied: "I'm certain the documentary is going to be very educational to people who know NOTHING about Second Life. It's not tutorial at all. It reminds me of a documentary about the culture of SL. And for the people who are already residents of SL, they will certainly love the film."

He added, "I think it is becoming fairly natural to have crossovers from the virtual to the mainstream media realm; they have already happened. You have Frogg Marlow and Jaycatt bringing their music inside SL. Then you have Anshee Chung who founded virtual real estate. They were the first of the firsts... and I think that while our crossover may not be the first, all sorts of people will find something tantalizing about the documentary. It just captures so much of Second Life's culture."

We're immensely proud of you, Oz.