The Virtual World
Click below to explore the start of our virtual world of Kiribati: (Your browser may require you to install the free plugin that will allow the player to load.)
THE POINT OF NO RETURN will utilize modern and emerging web and video technologies in an educational outreach program to youth and adults across the globe. The film will look to immersive environments to create a unique educational experience for visitors within online spaces such as Second Life and Google Earth. We will also create an ongoing photography, video and editing workshop for students and adults in Kiribati so that they can be part of a living oral history archiving project and so that they can share their experiences on a day to day basis with visitors to the film’s website (including micro sites on twitter, vimeo, facebook, myspace, youtube, etc).
Some ideas we’ll incorporate early on:
* Build a “1:1 scale” version of Kiribati in Second Life and UNITY (building for building), tracking the water’s rising tide (Evan Leek, a digital artist, second life guru and consultant at MIT and adjunct Faculty at Emerson College, has eagerly agreed to spearhead the development of Kiribati in Second life and UNITY).
* Institute a photo/video/editing training program to give Kiribati high school students the opportunity to engage in social media (posting videos and blogs to the film’s site, second life, and to facebook and twitter and vimeo etc) which will be staffed year round.
* Build the islands and their current dwellings to scale in Google Earth – tree for tree
* Build an interactive website to connect people on the issues we’ll be covering.
* Partner with multiple schools in the US and Canada, Australia, NZ, UK to give them access to the content we and the youth and adults in Kiribati will be documenting.
THE POINT OF NO RETURN reaches beyond the film, and is an ongoing education laboratory that will deal with issues covered in the documentary: global warming, mass migration, segregation, diaspora, prejudice in foreign lands, wildlife and marine life endangerment.
This demo represents the very beginning of our mapping of Kiribati in a game environment, and the educational and tourism opportunities are limitless.