Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A team of expert machinimators were tapped for this Canadian convention and told they’d have a budget for their machinima expo. As the deadline nears to less than two months away, with the machinimators having planned everything, they’re suddenly told that the event is cancelled. They’re left with no funding, and no real world venue. Their solution was to hold it in the virtual world of Second Life.

On November 9th, you can log into Second Life to check out machinima and tune into some panels, including one with yours truly on women in machinima. Shortly after they overcame the obstacle of the venue, they selected a panel of judges for their submissions for the contest. The lineup includes Armand Constantine, Matt Kelland, Isabelle Arvers, Joey O’Bryan, and Ben Grussi. Since then, the judges have selected their finalists!

Only one World of Warcraft film ended up in the list of finalists. Dopefish’s Among Fables and Men struck a note with them. However, that shouldn’t stop you from checking out the other nominees!

• Dopefish - Among Fables and Men
• Leo Lucien-Bay - Beast
• Ian Chisholm - Clear Skies
• Trace Sanderson - The Dumb Man
• Claus-Dieter Schulz - Liberty City
• Michelle Pettit-Mee - The Snow Witch
• Chris Burke - This Spartan Life, Episode 6
• Kerria Seabrooke - Tiny Nation
• Thuyen Nguyen - An Unfair War
• Tom Jantol - The Wizard of OS: The Fish Incident
• J. Rojas - Turbulence (Canadian Nomination)
• Aaron Jeans - Boomerang
• Bill Klimke - A Touch Too Much